The Big Messy Debate

I dug this analysis of the Limbaugh-Steele show down by Tony Campbell over at The Moderate Voice,

Michael, you should let Rush be Rush. Your job is to revive the Republican Party apparatus so that our party can win elections. It it is your best interest to allow Rush to go after Obama and say the things you are either to afraid of saying or that may be too politically incorrect for the official Republican Party to communicate to the American people. Case in point: do you really think that Newt Gingrich and Rush Limbaugh are best pals? Newt and Rush understood the necessity of the other man’s talent and they were able to move the party from political obscurity in 1993 to majority in both House of Congress in 1995.

At the same time, I can’t see it as but a good thing when different heads in that hydra start challenging one another. There has been far too much yes-sir-ism in the Republican party over the past eight years and there tends to be too much of it in politics in general. Just as I cheered when House Democrats took Obama on about his stimulus package, so too do I take to be a bit good thing that some lines are being drawn in the sand on the right. As Campbell notes, Limbaugh fired back to Steele with a host of helpful and insightful zingers,

Michael Steele, you are head of the RNC. You are not head of the Republican Party. Tens of millions of conservatives and Republicans have nothing to do with the RNC and right now they want nothing to do with it, and when you call them asking them for money, they hang up on you. I hope that changes. I hope the RNC will get its act together. I hope the RNC chairman will realize he’s not a talking head pundit, that he is supposed to be working on the grassroots and rebuilding it, and maybe doing something about our open primary system and fixing it so that Democrats do not nominate our candidates. It’s time, Mr. Steele, for you to go behind the scenes and start doing the work that you were elected to do instead of trying to be some talking head media star, which you’re having a tough time pulling off.

I just wish that Steele hadn’t backed off. Not because I revel in watching conservative figures “fracturing” their movement, but because our politics is at its best when it is a big, messy, but respectful debate. That goes generally and within particular ideologies/movements.

As mentioned yesterday, I don’t think that some of Limbaugh’s commentary is helpful in terms of growing a movement and I don’t happen to think that Limbaugh should be seen as the leader of the conservative movement (and I doubt Rush really sees himself that way, either). But a Rush Limbaugh is good for keeping your movement honest precisely by being loud, abrasive, and opinionated.

One fails in that exercise by assuming the character of a shrinking violet as soon as Rush “ruffles his papers”, only adding to the misperception that Limbaugh is the movement’s leader.

Tagged as: debate, groupthink, Michael Steele, rush limbaugh