Back in March, the Washington Post referred to Rush Limbaugh as the new Minority Leader. After Limbaugh repeatedly expressed the hope that Obama would fail and Republican Party Chairman Michael Steele criticized him for it, Steele had to apologize to Limbaugh.

Are you kidding me?

Let me see if I've got this right. We're supposed to try to make things worse for the next few years so that the republicans can get back into power? Rush, are you aware that not everyone can afford for things to stay the way they are for a few years?

And even if they could, is there some reason why you think the republican party would do better with the economy next time than they did last time?

I'm not saying that I agree with everything the democrats want to do. For example, while I'm all for healthcare reform, I'm strongly opposed government-run insurance. First of all, our government doesn't have a very good track record with running healthcare programs. Second, if we create a government-run plan and later decide we'd be better off without it, we're pretty much stuck -- programs like that are virtually impossible to cancel.

But I digress.

My big question is, how the heck did someone as extremist and divisive as Rush Limbaugh get so much power? How is it possible that people listen to guys like Sean Hannity or Glen Beck without noticing that large portions of what they say are completely insane?

How is it that we so easily forgive politicians and pundits (not to mention political comedians) who are pathological liars, as long as they're pushing our party's agenda? (I wouldn't even call it "our agenda" -- these guys push extremist agendas that I can't imagine the average American coming up with on their own.)

Maybe "forgive" is the wrong word. People simply accept the lies, so there's nothing to forgive.

I think part of it is that when people are scared, they're willing to overlook a lot of B.S. and flawed ideas as long as they think the road is leading somewhere that's even a little better than where we are.

Reader Comment:
Did I Predict the Tea Party Movement? » Alpha Gecko said:
[...] year ago, at the end of one of my periodic political rants, I wrote: But I have a dream. I have a dream that one day, enough people in this nation will get [...]
(join the conversation below)

But we need to take a longer view. If we sabotage the opposition's efforts to try to get them out of favor so we can get more power, we'll all suffer. And do you really think you can sabotage them, get power, and not get sabotaged right back? Is it really that much more fun presiding over misery than playing a supporting role in progress that isn't happening the way you'd prefer?

But I'm wasting my breath. The Lords of the Loonies make their money and get their power by being controversial. They're hardly likely to stop. And the lemmings that follow them aren't likely to stop and check the roadmap anytime soon.

But I have a dream. I have a dream that one day, enough people in this nation will get sick of the two major parties to vote 'em out.

In fact, that's a sabotage strategy I might be willing to support -- for one election cycle, vote only for candidates who aren't and never have been tied to the republican or democrat party. Even if we end up with a bunch of inexperienced bumblers for 4 years, it can hardly be worse than 4 years of either of the two major parties. (Heck, if you're a republican, wouldn't you rather have independents in power than democrats? And if you're a democrat, wouldn't you rather have independents in power than republicans?)

Yeah, I'm wasting my breath. Time to get back to work trying to make things better.