Dueling petitions on Rush Limbaugh

Haven’t we gone through this before?  Democrats have tried to take on Rush Limbaugh, only to come up embarrassed and reeling.  The last time, Harry Reid wound up making $4 million for charity by writing an ill-advised threat to the talk-radio giant and wound up having to admit defeat.  Now the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee has a petition drive to do … well, no one knows exactly what:

Last week, Rush Limbaugh actually said that he “hopes” President Obama fails to meet America’s challenges.

Jobs, health care, our place in the world — the stakes for our nation are high and every American needs President Obama to succeed.

Stand strong against Rush Limbaugh’s Attacks — sign our petition, telling Rush what you think of his attacks on President Obama. We’ll send Limbaugh your comments.

And what exactly will the petition prove?  That Democrats don’t like Rush Limbaugh?  Well, that’s certainly breaking news.  I’m certain Rush will quake in his boots to see the list of Democratic saps who just got their names and e-mail addresses on the DCCC’s fundraising lists.

The DCCC has a pretty transparent motivation here, which is to build those lists for their 2010 election campaigns.  Note that the full name, e-mail address, and zip code are required fields.  They missed a step by not requiring a cell phone number; the Obama campaign used text messaging for GOTV efforts in November, and apparently had a lot of success with it.  Otherwise, they’ve covered all the bases in setting a trap for the foolish and easily led.

In other words, the DCCC doesn’t dislike Rush Limbaugh.  They need Rush as a fundraising gimmick.  If it wasn’t Rush, they’d screech about Hugh Hewitt, Michael Medved, Ann Coulter, or Laura Ingraham.  In fact, don’t be surprised to see something similar for Coulter on the off chance that she makes a controversial statement about Obama in the next few months.  I know, I know, it’s a longshot, but one never knows.

The Left seems to be in full screeching, hysterical meltdown mode over Rush Limbaugh these days, which seems pretty odd since they have won two successive national elections.  Barack Obama worries about him enough to explicitly reference him to Republicans.  Jack Cafferty at CNN, a recovering alcoholic himself, calls him an “Oxycontin aficionado,” which makes as much sense as dismissing Cafferty as a distillery enthusiast.  Whatever else the Left says about Rush, they’re obviously and almost obsessively worried about him — and they should be.

Rush has an answer today to the DCCC.  He has a headline banner linking back to the DCCC’s comment pages, asking readers to load them up with demands to stop lying about the stimulus bill and stop distorting Rush’s remarks.  He has already had an effect, as this blog post at the DCCC site shows.  It indicates that over 500 comments have been received, but only shows the first 300 — and I’d bet that the rest overwhelmingly support Rush.  Feel free to add your own in support of Rush and in support of independent political voices.

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