There have been a number of folks on the Left who have tried to peddle the story that Rick Santelli’s famous rant against the mortgage bailout was part of some prepackaged Vast Right-Wing Conspiracy media play. It wasn’t, and the commentary suggesting that it was has been risible and irresponsible. (My hometown newspaper managed to misidentify libertarian philanthropist Charles Koch as a member of the John Birch Society in a blog post on the subject.)

On the other hand, this is interesting from The Politico:

Top Democrats believe they have struck political gold by depicting Rush Limbaugh as the new face of the Republican Party, a full-scale effort first hatched by some of the most familiar names in politics and now being guided in part from inside the White House.
The strategy took shape after Democratic strategists Stanley Greenberg and James Carville included Limbaugh’s name in an October poll and learned their longtime tormentor was deeply unpopular with many Americans, especially younger voters. Then the conservative talk-radio host emerged as an unapologetic critic of Barack Obama shortly before his inauguration, when even many Republicans were showering him with praise.
Soon it clicked: Democrats realized they could roll out a new GOP bogeyman for the post-Bush era by turning to an old one in Limbaugh, a polarizing figure since he rose to prominence in the 1990s.

As Rush himself has noted from time to time: If you want to know what your opponents have in store for you, just look at what they’re falsely accusing you of doing, and that’s what they’re planning.