If Spy Magazine had survived the Clinton era, its satire would have had a hard time competing with the news. What would the political pranksters have made of two rotund figures in the headlines this week?
White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel says with a straight face that Rush Limbaugh is the “voice and the intellectual force and energy behind the Republican Party.”
Then Limbaugh lookalike Karl Rove complains on Fox News that Emanuel is practicing "old-style politics" in the White House:
"How does this serve the country for us at this point when we’re discussing these big, vital things like the budget and health care and the stimulus bill and the omnibus spending bill--how does it well serve the country for this little sideshow concocted in the chief of staff’s office in the West Wing?"
Rove, now a paid bloviator for Fox News, the Wall Street Journal and Newsweek, is not in the same paycheck league as Limbaugh, who has a talk radio contract worth $400 million, but as the biggest gasbags in the conservative alternate reality, there are striking similarities.
Limbaugh is thriving on the negative notice from the White House and the backtracking Republican Chairman Michael Steele, and Rove is putting a brave face on the upcoming Congressional grilling about his role in firing US Attorneys for not being political enough, calling it a "show trial."
All that's missing is Spy showing them side by side and asking, "Separated at Birth?"
Karl Rove and Harriet Miers will testify under oath and their depositions will be transcribed.
ReplyDeleteTheir testimony, however, will not be in public, at this time.