Sykes was right: Dump Rush

What Wanda Sykes has done for the GOP is to name the problem, and the problem is the party’s addiction to hambone performers who each day claim to be speaking for the so-called conservative base of the Republican Party. These men and women are not politicians or political thinkers. They are lounge-room showbiz. Is this a disturbing fact to those who admire or loathe them? Rush Limbaugh and the others (and you know their names better than I do) are paid a lot of money by advertisers of cars, soaps, foods, drugs, software, and Hollywood to complain, moan, whine, pontificate, and harangue in a darkly comical way in order to upset their audiences. It is not real, and it is not sophisticated, and it is not usually honest. I throw in that it is most definitely not based upon the history of the Republicans or the country. I have been on talk radio since before the attacks on New York and Washington, but especially since then, and I have seen the burlesque house from backstage for years from the three cities that dominate the business. The men and women on air right now, who daily hector the Obama administration and the celebrity Democrats in Congress and elsewhere, are not Republican policy thinkers. Moreover, they are not usually Republicans.

The Republican pols I know spend a deal of energy trying to be sober, cautious, dutiful, ambitious, respectful, restless citizens. That’s necessary because they have to run for re-election. The Limbaughettes you hear on radio and TV are stand-up comedians who sit in a studio doing exactly what Wanda Sykes does with exactly the same material. Perhaps you think Wanda Sykes went too far? That’s what you are supposed to do if you are earning money to imitate Limbaugh.