Why is this Man Throwing Up? (A Requium for Romney)

Mitt Romney dropped out of the race today. This actually stunned me - he has more money than Huckabee and the Republican machine supports Romney more than Huckabee.

Romney's most memorable quote:

"If I fight on in my campaign, all the way to the convention, I would forestall the launch of a national campaign and make it more likely that Senator Clinton or Obama would win. And in this time of war, I simply cannot let my campaign be a part of aiding a surrender to terror."

Wait...if that's the case, didn't you just surrender to the terrorists then? To me, a true patriot would keep fighting. Unless, that was a pure statement of political bullshit.

After his announcement, I'd be lying if I said I didn't feel more hope in the universe. With that announcement, I also felt a bit of a "whooshing" feeling. It was the implosion of the far Right media. Mitt Romey, despite Laura Ingram, Glenn Beck and Rush Limbaugh's nearly year-long span of free, glowing publicity, folded, leaving Huckabee and John McCain.

I thought: "Wow...for at least four years, I won't have to hear Rush Limbaugh's cock-sucking interviews with a Vice President. He was in with the Bush administration, now he's on his way out. In addition, another fellow douchebag is also getting beat up: Dr. James Dobson of Focus on the Family. Check out this exerpt from Glenn Beck's Web site:

DR. DOBSON: Well, I'm kind of disappointed this morning but that's the way it is.

GLENN: I'm thinking about putting my car in the garage and pulling the garage door down and letting the engine run. You're just slightly disappointed?

DR. DOBSON: That's an understatement obviously but the Republicans have spoken and so sobeit.

GLENN: So are you a Republican? You are a conservative. You are not a Republican. You are a conservative first, right?

DR. DOBSON: I am a decided conservative. The party doesn't mean a lot to me and I tend to vote my conscience and that's certainly going to be the case this time.

GLENN: Okay. So --

DR. DOBSON: I'm so disappointed in the outcome because John McCain is not a conservative. You know, he has gone out of his way to say that he can hardly stand us. You know, his major legislation has really represented the views of Kennedy and Lieberman and Feingold and others and so I just do not believe he will make a good President, and I just regret what happened last night.

So...making financial contributions transparent to Americans and putting reasonable restrictions on what you can donate to a candidate is a free speech violation. But these are the same assholes who wanted the Dixie Chicks off the air?

It would be naive to believe this is the death keel of the Glenn Beck's and Rush Limbaugh's of the world. Everyone will find their audience, especially when they are the voice of the opposition. But right now, I think I'm going to savor this for what it is: a total rejection of what these fucknuts stand for by the American voter.

Let's Take Rush Limbaugh Down a Few Notches

This is myth - but like all good myths, it has enough elements of truth in it: People who love Howard Stern listen to him for 15 minutes. People who hate Howard Stern listen to him for 45 minutes.

Right now, I think Rush Limbaugh has about 20 million listeners on an average week. That's huge. As an elected official, you can imagine how intimidating this would be: if you come out with anything that doesn't fit Limbaugh's ideal of conservatism (pay no mind to his ass-kissing of Wal-Mart, yet he is decidedly against giving illegal entrants citizenship - even though companies like Wal-Mart and McDonald's have directly or indirectly done more to encourage illegal immigration than any governmental action) - this elected official (especially presidential) will have to contend with at least 20 million politically active "Dittoheads."

But...how many listeners are like me, who treat Limbaugh like an early-morning episode of Saved By The Bell: a small hate fix to get the blood boiling? I'm not suggesting a boycott - he has every right to be on the air, but just as a curious experiment, I'm wondering what would happen if only the listeners who hated the bile he spews were to stop listening...for a month. That would distill his audience numbers down to the ones who swear by the gospel of Rush. I'm willing to bet that about a quarter to a third of his audience would disappear. It would be interesting to me and I'm sure a few others. It would be REALLY interesting to advertisers who have lost about five million listeners.

That is one thing that Rush has on Air America. That station may not be accessible to the majority of listeners, but even in markets airing Air America, none of the talent is incendiary enough to get a large amount of conservatives to listen to get their blood boiling. Al Franken is just too nice to elicit a "Ohhh...god, I'm so pissed off - did you hear what that a-hole said today?!" reaction. Most conservatives just shrug and turn it back to the "preaching to the choir" sermons of Dr. Laura and Sean Hannity.