What a Rush!

Barack Obama wants Republicans to stop listening to Rush. I wonder how many will find that has the same effect as being told not to think of pink elephants.

As I am sure everyone who follows politics knows by now, Barack Obama in a private meeting with members of the Republican party told them that if they want to work with him to get things done then they need to stop listening to Rush Limbaugh. In calling out Rush, Barack Obama has told the country and the world that he considers Limbaugh a threat. Ed Morrissey highlights it perfectly:

One doesn't make points at all about bipartisanship by explicitly attacking another partisan voice, no matter how much one disagrees with it. By naming Rush and attempting to sideline him, Obama lifted Rush's profile and practically anointed him his opposition. It demonstrates that Obama still has no sense of his office, nor of "post-partisanship", regardless of his endlessly empty rhetoric on the subject...

Anytime a man in a position of great power attacks someone with significantly less power, it lessens the greater man and raises up his opponent. The American President is, thanks to the office, the most powerful man in the free world. If he's worried about any political pundit so much that he has to attack him personally, it shows weakness, which is exactly what Obama cannot afford.

Well, unless Rush actually is the more powerful man. But that can't possibly be true, can it?

You can't buy that kind of publicity.