Interesting post by Jeffrey Feldman:

For playground-soldier Rush Limbaugh, when a Republican gives a speech that questions the effectiveness of government, that forfeits said Republican’s status as ‘a man.’ What would have earned McCain his ‘I’m a man’ badge? Blaming the destruction of New Orleans on liberals, of course (as if you had to ask).

But after reading that New Orleans speech by McCain–the one that has been widely ridiculed in the media since he delivered it on Tue–I noticed that McCain was actually trying to so something astounding. He was trying to use that speech (1) to bring Reagan-esque themes into the election and (2) to reframe this election as a referendum on ‘government,’ noit a referendum on ‘Bush’ (e.g., to undercut the Obama’ campaign’s framing strategy).

…

In reality, the Reaganism that McCain is trying to reclaim is no longer the core idea th guides the voice of American conservatism. Steered by right-wing pundits and fueled by hateful, violent rhetoric, contemporary conservatives no longer say that government is wasteful and inefficient. Instead, they say that liberalism kills, liberalism supports terrorism, liberalism will lead to the destruction of America.

No wonder McCain gets called a sissy by Limbaugh when he tries to channel Reagan rather than bash Bush–because Limbaugh has long since left the Reagan legacy behind in favor of the new violent rhetoric of the right.

And the irony does not stop there, because in all likelihood, Limbaugh’s bashing of McCain will bully him into conformity–will goad him into retooling his campaign into some kind of ‘liberals will kill you’ message. The paradox, of course, is that this will mean that an actual war veteran–who survived torture and still bears the scars of that experience on his body–will likely allow his manhood to be questioned by a drug addict who cross-dresses as a general and equates salivating on cigars with public service.

Rush Limbaugh, the quintessential military-dodging conservative coward, in other words, will humiliate the war veteran in this election.

I haven’t read the crux of Limbaugh’s complaints, but I watched McCain’s speech (and didn’t think it was nearly as bad as everyone is making it out to be) and definitely noticed the attempt at Reaganism with that line about New Orleans. How on earth can Limbaugh criticize him for that?

Maybe Feldman is right. The legacy of Reagan & the Gingrich revolution of ‘94 are totally lost now. Not that McCain is really the best champion for that legacy, but at least he tried. Who knows if he’ll keep at it now…

But the stylistic criticisms about McCain’s speech won’t ever really be addressed. I don’t have any issues with McCain’s speeches and I’ve watched a few. But put along side Obama, one of the most dynamic, exciting speakers we’ve had in politics in years, maybe decades, there is no chance for McCain to look anything other than old and lost.

Either way this’ll be a damn interesting election.

This entry was posted on Friday, June 6th, 2008 at 1:43 pm and is filed under Politics. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.