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WASHINGTON -- President Obama warned Republicans on Capitol Hill today that they need to quit listening to radio king Rush Limbaugh if they want to get along with Democrats and the new administration.

"You can't just listen to Rush Limbaugh and get things done," he told top GOP leaders, whom he had invited to the White House to discuss his nearly $1 trillion stimulus package.

One White House official confirmed the comment but said he was simply trying to make a larger point about bipartisan efforts.

"There are big things that unify Republicans and Democrats," the official said. "We shouldn't let partisan politics derail what are very important things that need to get done."

That wasn't Obama's only jab at Republicans today.

While discussing the stimulus package with top lawmakers in the White House's Roosevelt Room, President Obama shot down a critic with a simple message.

"I won," he said, according to aides who were briefed on the meeting. "I will trump you on that."

The response was to the objection by Rep. Eric Cantor (R-Va.) to the president's proposal to increase benefits for low-income workers who don't owe federal income taxes.

Since it's Fox News, it doesn't elaborate on the response to objection. Specifically, that Obama noted that that had been an issue on the campaign trail.. And yet, he won the election.

It's like I want to object and say that this is no way to make friends with the Republicans... and yet...

It's like I want to object and say that this is no way to make friends with the Republicans... and yet...

Fuck that, it's exactly what the right must do. Limbaugh, Palin and their ilk must GO!

Limbaugh is all the worst things about Republicans, taken to a mouth-frothing extreme, so that might be why you feel ambivalent, Havoc. I know enough about you to know you don't follow or espouse Limbaugh's beliefs.

Oh I've no ambivalence about Limbaugh. He's a frothing lunatic who needs to have a heart attack or Oxycontin overdose for the betterment of humanity in general and the Republican Party in specific. You know you're a wack-job when Bill O'Reilly has to tell you that you're being too crazy and right-wing.

I just worry that this won't work. The best way to help the Republican party now (that I can see) is for the moderate wing of the Republicans to work with the Democrats in hashing out what the new direction of the country is going to look like. I know he's not speaking to those elements when he rejects Limbaugh, but I'm wary of galvanizing the extreme elements. The centrist wing of the Republican party is very weak right now, compared to the extreme wing. I don't want the extremists to be able to (as they're going to try to) try some kind of reactionary crusade against the "false" republicans who abandoned the "core values" of the party. Not that I care what they call me, but I'd hate to see four or eight years go by, and find the Republicans still in the hands of the Palinites.

General Havoc wrote:I don't want the extremists to be able to (as they're going to try to) try some kind of reactionary crusade against the "false" republicans who abandoned the "core values" of the party. Not that I care what they call me, but I'd hate to see four or eight years go by, and find the Republicans still in the hands of the Palinites.

...Aren't they already doing this?

Well yes, but I should have said I don't want them to succeed at this.

Aren't they already doing this?

Pretty much yes. A big belief forming is that they lost because they weren't extreme enough. So instead of realizing what needs to go, they're clinging all that much tighter to it. I doubt we'll see Palin in 2012, but it'll be someone close to her positions. Which will go badly for them.

Rewatch the VP debate where she claims "I'm from a part of America that believes that the most patroitic thing is to tell the Government well, gosh darn it government you gotta get out of my way you know?"

That's pretty much a mix of libertarianism and objectivism right there.

What struck me about that line was how out of touch it seemed in a time when people weren't complaining about the government getting their way to success but worried that the government wasn't going to help them avoid a crash to failure. People don't want Government to get out of the way when it's between them and an impact on rock bottom.

I say this as a right winger, the Republican party has grown out of touch and it's only a relentless propaganda campaign of Soviet dimensions that keeps alot of their base loyal. And from what I'm seeing it'll only get worse before it gets better.

General Havoc wrote:Well yes, but I should have said I don't want them to succeed at this.

I'm not so sure. Having them publicly paint themselves into a corner could be interesting.

I agree Frigid. They're almost certain to run a right-wing Palinite in 2012. My hope though is that the defeat they will suffer then (baring some kind of cataclysmic disaster) will be enough, along with this defeat, to galvanize the moderate wing of the party into action. That's how it worked for the Democrats between 1980 and 1992. Hopefully it will work that way for the Republicans in the next decade.