I’ve been running around all day, so I missed Rush Limbaugh’s comment until now. I agree with Ramesh, I don’t get Rush’s accusation, particularly given that he seems to want it both ways. He doesn’t want to talk about this and he says only a few brave souls like him have the courage to talk about it. For what it’s worth, I agree with him that a lot of liberals are relishing playing the race card, because it’s always their favorite card, even when it’s illegitimate. Regardless, since it seems relevant, I wrote this in the G-File today:
I’ve been through a great many of these moments over the last decade, and it’s worth keeping in mind that few of them do permanent damage to the Right, particularly when the opposition is working so hard to keep the Right unified, what with the industry-seizing, deficit-ballooning, and whatnot. The fault line this has (re)opened on the Right is not new, though some of its vocabulary is. People who think I’m mistaken (and those who think I’m a sausage-spined coward) think the Right must fight this Chicago-style administration Chicago style (they bring a knife, you bring a gun, they put one of yours in the hospital, etc.). Many of Breitbart’s biggest supporters insist that the Right needs to out-Alinsky the Alinskyites. As a matter of principle, I generally disagree with all of that. Chalk up my reluctance to whatever motivation you like; I can’t stop you. But, as a writer, being an Alinskyite is not what I signed up for. I think I stretch the boundaries of what pundits are supposed to do in print (don’t believe me? pull my finger). But the very definition of an Alinskyite is someone who will do anything for the cause and who counsels others to do likewise. That’s simply not what I signed up for. And when journalists — even opinion journalists like me — get seduced into that mindset, you get things like JournoList and much, much worse.
Now, there certainly will be times when I support going to the mattresses and will encourage conservative politicians and activists to fight Chicago style and never give an inch. But if you’re going to fight Chicago style, you need to be really, really right. Otherwise, you fall not just into an ends-justifies-the-means situation but into an even more perverse means-justify-the-ends situation. In other words, saying we need to fight like Alinskyites out of some principle almost certainly guarantees that we will lose sight of what we’re supposed to be fighting for.
I don’t think conservatives were right in this case, or at least right enough. But the next battle may be different.
Update: I came home from a nice dinner with the family to a slew of really dumb, too-macho-by-half, emails trying to explain to me why I really am a “coward” for taking my position — with a few thoughtful critical emails scattered about. I find the chest thumping taunts unworthy of a serious response and the thoughtful stuff unworthy of the sort of response I could come up with now. But, here’s something to noodle: Lots of folks took no position at all, and hence risked no plague of harsh emails. Just something to ponder.
Update II: Just for the record, several readers say that the CNN version of the Limbaugh quote cut out the context, including an allusion to Eric Holder’s “nation of cowards” speech. I for one cannot imagine that CNN would be anything other than fair and scrupulous in rendering Limbaugh’s words accurately. As for the correct meaning of my emailers’ I’m sure I got that context right.