This hour of the Limbaugh Wire brought to you by President Obama's hypnotic head movements
By Simon Maloy

We found ourselves amused the other day when Rush listed the people the media are “kneecapping” because they can “articulate conservatism,” and included on that list Joe the Plumber. We found this amusing because Mr. the Plumber's advocacy on behalf of conservatism has been, at various times, creepy, too absurd for Fox News, and admittedly uninformed. Well, you can imagine how entertained we are by the news that Mr. the Plumber is quitting the GOP because it spent too much. We're interested to hear Rush's thoughts on how the GOP will fare without this leading light of conservatism, but we'll have to wait until he gets back on Monday. Until then, we'll have to make do with our favorite guest host, National Review's Mark Steyn.

Steyn kicked things off with the favorite conservative chew toy of the moment: Obama's decision to scale back the National Day of Prayer celebration at the White House. Steyn noted that Obama is going to celebrate privately, which will entail Obama going to the press room and having the White House press corps bow before him. Then Steyn noted that Maine had approved gay marriage, saying that he had “misread” a New York Times headline as suggesting that Obama is gay and should get “engaged,” adding: “I was going to suggest we take a few suggestions as to who he might like to -- actually, politically, he seems pretty nicely hitched with Barney Frank at the moment, so we wouldn't want to break up that happy couple.”

Then Steyn said he bumped into Alan Colmes yesterday, who asked him if he was guest-hosting for Rush today because Rush is in hiding after Colin Powell's “devastating assault.” Steyn jokingly said yes, describing Powell's remarks as akin to being headbutted by a butterscotch pudding. Steyn said that Powell is a moderate, but it's never clear what his moderation entails. Steyn then mocked Powell for going on Meet the Press after September 11 and saying that he's interested in reaching out to moderate members of the Taliban in a “broad-based government.” Steyn added: “Of course, there's no such thing as a Taliban government based on broads. There's no broads at all in the Taliban government. There's no Hillary Clinton, no Janet Napolitano -- it's a broad-free zone. It's not going to happen.” Hilarious.

Anyway, Steyn went on to say that he's been hearing this sort of stuff from Powell for a decade, noting that Powell was a speaker at the 2000 Republican National Convention, which he said was all about feeling good with “wall-to-wall gays, wall-to-wall Hispanics, everything on stage except white men.” Steyn said that he was longing for some red-meat attacks at the convention, and he finally got some from Powell, who eviscerated Republicans in his speech. Powell voted for Obama, Steyn said, because he thought Obama was a centrist moderate. There is no such Obama, Steyn said -- if you voted for him because you thought he was a leftist, then you understood him. If you voted for him because you thought he was a centrist, then you got suckered.

After the break, Steyn said there's a basic lesson to be learned from Powell's remarks -- effective political leaders move the center toward them, just like Reagan and Thatcher did. Steyn asked to imagine where Obama thinks the “center” of American politics is, given that he lived in the “hothouse leftist” environment of Chicago universities with Jeremiah Wright. The problem with the developed world, said Steyn, is that they've gone down the Colin Powell route -- both parties in all systems have agreed to spend more money than they can afford. A two-party system needs two parties, not one-and-a-half, said Steyn, and that's the Colin Powell solution. What the American people want, according to Steyn, is what Rush is doing and what Mark Davis is writing about.

After the break, Steyn joked about the “anthropomorphized SUV,” reading a story with the headline: “SUV Runs into Apartment, Flees Scene.” According to Steyn, the tyranny of SUV home invasions will abate after Obama's plans for the car industry come to fruition because we'll all be driving the Subaru Cupholder.

Then Steyn moved on to his first caller of the program, a man who disagreed with the notion of “balance” as it applies to the Republican Party, saying it's akin to “Eastern mysticism,” like “Mr. Miyagi.” Steyn agreed, explaining that he was once on an NPR call-in show, and everyone who called in sounded like they were heavily sedated and they all had the soporific moderate voice. The whole idea of being “balanced” is a “child's” notion, said Steyn.

Steyn's next caller, however, disagreed, saying that the idea that anything that isn't explicitly conservative by Rush Limbaugh's standards is therefore “liberal” serves talk radio interests, but it doesn't serve the national interest. Steyn disagreed, saying that if you took Rush's audience out of the voting booths, you wouldn't have much of a conservative base left. Also, said Steyn, sometimes being out of power and extreme is a good thing because a strong, vocal minority can keep the majority on their toes. Imagine, Steyn said, if talk radio and Fox News were not a part of American history -- the moderates in the GOP would be even “squishier” without someone to tug them to the right. The caller responded by saying that the profitability of the conservative movement will remain intact no matter how marginal the Republicans become, but Americans aren't buying it when people like Rush and Steyn go on the air and scream about Barack Obama being a huge commie. Steyn was amused by this, and promised to continue the discussion after the break.

As promised, after the break, Steyn returned to the caller, saying that the caller's problem is that he has one sound point -- that people raging about Obama being the communist in chief doesn't really reach people -- but the fact is that Obama's policies don't resonate with the American people. The caller said that the idea that doesn't resonate with Americans is that Obama is a socialist because he opposes torture and wants to increase the top tax rate by 4 percent. At this point, the caller was mysteriously lost, so Steyn took the opportunity to say that Obama is a genius because he's very gauzy in his public statements, like putting Vaseline on the camera lens. Obama's trick, according to Steyn, is that he “hypnoti[zes]” the American people with his head.

No, seriously, he hypnotizes America with his head: “You know, he's got the left teleprompter and the right teleprompter, and he turns his head left, right, left, right, left, right. It's like when you're watching the U.S. Open or Wimbledon, and you see the person sitting just by the net turning their head watching the volleys left, right, left, right. 'You are feeling sleepy. You are feeling drowsy. He's very calm. He's very thoughtful. There's nothing to be scared about. Don't worry about it.' If you can pass yourself off as moderate, if you can appear moderate while doing radical things -- that is ingenious.”

As a colleague pointed out, after that caller, we're pretty sure the call screener was fired.

Highlights from Hour 1

Outrageous comments

STEYN: The New York Times has a story here, headlined, “With Gay Issues in View, Obama is Pressed to Engage.” I misread that, I confess, when I first saw it in The New York Times this morning. I thought it said, “With Gay Issues in View, Obama is Pressed to Get Engaged,” and I was going to suggest we take a few suggestions as to who he might like to -- actually, politically, he seems pretty nicely hitched with Barney Frank at the moment, so we wouldn't want to break up that happy couple.

[...]

STEYN: He was interested in reaching out to moderate Taliban -- moderate Taliban in a, quote, “broad-based government.” Of course, there's no such thing as a Taliban government based on broads. There's no broads at all in the Taliban government. There's no Hillary Clinton, no Janet Napolitano -- it's a broad-free zone. It's not going to happen.

[...]

STEYN: I think the first time I heard Colin Powell do this nonsense was at the Republican Convention in Philadelphia in 2000. He gave the keynote address. I don't know why, no idea why. I don't know whether you remember that convention. It's was all very positive, nothing mean-spirited at all. It was all celebrate diversity. They had -- it was like wall-to-wall gays, wall-to-wall Hispanics, everything on stage except white men.

I bumped into my senator from New Hampshire, Bob Smith, at an event downtown in Philadelphia during the convention. I said, “How are you enjoying the convention?” And he said, “Well, I haven't succeeded in getting in yet. I went there and they turned me away at the gate.” And obviously, he has -- he had this exotic name like Bob Smith, and he just couldn't get in there with all these gays, and Hispanics, and everyone they had on the stage. They had a blind mountaineer. Do you remember that? They had a blind mountaineer there.

[...]

STEYN: Apart from anything else, he -- he's -- there's something very hypnotic about watching him. He turns. You know, he's got the left teleprompter and the right teleprompter, and he turns his head left, right, left, right, left, right.

It's like when you're watching the U.S. Open or Wimbledon, and you see the person sitting just by the net turning their head watching the volleys left, right, left, right. “You are feeling sleepy. You are feeling drowsy. He's very calm. He's very thoughtful. There's nothing to be scared about. Don't worry about it.”

If you can pass yourself off as moderate, if you can appear moderate while doing radical things -- that is ingenious.