It seems like it wasn’t long ago that we on the conservative side were told that questioning the patriotism of those who claimed America deserved the 9/11 attacks, who insulted the troops and urged them to kill their officers, who leaked and published classified material damaging to national security, sought more legal protection for terrorists than are granted American soldiers or who otherwise gave aid and comfort to the enemy during time of war was somehow unacceptable. Indeed, we were regularly told that dissent – even dissent that seditious, treasonous dissent like that mentioned above – was the highest form of patriotism and that we were somehow fascists if we dared to be critical of those who engaged in the most vile of insults against President Bush.

Apparently, though, those days ended at noon on January 20. Failure to support President Obama blindly and give oneÂ’s assent to his agenda is now defined as hatred of America by the mainstream media.

CHRIS MATTHEWS: Up next, does Rush Limbaugh hate this country? Wait till you hear what he said about the new president. He wants him to fail. What an amazing. I've never heard anybody say they wanted a new president to fail. Usually you want the new president to succeed and then later on you argue the politics of what he or she does. But to want them to fail at the outset? What's that about?

* * * MATTHEWS: But it turns out that not everyone has warm wishes for the new president. On Friday radio talk show host Rush Limbaugh said he was asked by a major print organization to offer 400 words on his hope for the Obama presidency. Here's what Rush had to say just days before the Inauguration.

RUSH LIMBAUGH: I disagree fervently with the people on our side of the aisle who have caved and who say, "Well I hope he succeeds. We've got to give him a chance." So I'm thinking of replying to the guy, okay I'll send you a response but I don't need 400 words. I need four. I hope he fails.

MATTHEWS: Well Rush must have a lot of acorns squirreled away not to share everyone else's hopes that the economy does come back.

Yeah, the partisan Mr. “Thrill-up-my-leg” has questioned Rush Limbaugh’s patriotism. Apparently he has become the arbiter of how and when and over what other Americans may dissent. Will the same leftist activists and media talking-heads (in reality, the same thing) call him to account for questioning the patriotism of this dissenter? Will they remain silent as Matthews labels a dissenting political commentator as un-American – or worse yet, will they pile on along with him? In short, do the standards set by the Left during the Bush administration still apply in the Age of Obama – or is the new “thou shalt not dissent” standard one of the changes wrought by the dawning of the Age of Obama?

For what it is worth, I disagree with how Limbaugh expressed his position. I hope Obama is a success as a President – but I believe that for him to succeed he must repudiate the positions he took during the campaign. To the degree that he does not, I also hope that he fails in his efforts to bring to fruition the most of the proposed policies of his administration, policies which I believe will harm this nation. That is, as I understand him, exactly what Limbaugh was saying in the quote above – and that, my dear readers, is precisely the sort of dissent that is truly the highest form of patriotism.

Posted by: Greg at 10:07 AM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
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1 Rush should know better than to diss Chrissy's crush! Not only was that mean and smacked of racism...it wasn't even very nice!

Posted by: Mia at Thu Jan 22 11:14:35 2009 (zGfPP)

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