Of Limbaugh and Steele and their pending doom: A morality tale of heavenly justice

Look at the bright side: The one thing that makes these Bad Times of Bush's Depression bearable is watching the End Times of his party. The experience is, to use a bit more of the hip eschatological lingo, rapturous.

I realize and even accept that the amusing Dark Side has life left in it yet -- the gods of our choice work in mysterious, downright befuddling ways -- but as John Weaver, a former apprentice to the frustrated sorcerer John McCain, put it yesterday: "We're working damn hard to see how fast we can hit rock bottom."

Exactly which circle of hell would that be, Mr. Weaver?

At any rate, you're just about there. You must be. I mean, when even Richard Viguerie, the überconservative direct-mail demon of yore, starts speaking in tongues that make sense, then something really weird has just got to be going down.

"The 'Rushification' of the GOP is the natural and inevitable result of the fact that those who are supposed to provide leadership -- Republican elected officials and party officers -- are doing little to bring the party back," said Viguerie this week in a shockingly cogent press release. "Nature abhors a vacuum," he went on, "and there is no vacuum in nature as empty as the leadership of the Republican Party today."

I guess Mr. Viguerie hasn't heard. The party does have a leader. No, not that one. The other one, the one with "Chairman" in his title, which is meant to convey something, well, "chairman"-like -- a word of 17th-century origin implying one man's imposition of order on atomistic human chaos.

Or some semblance thereof. The problem, of course, is that Chairman St. Michael of the Maryland Steeles is simply, absolutely, unspeakably bad at his leader-chairmanship job.

Reporteth the Politico, like some sort of Revelation: "A month after Michael Steele became the first African-American chairman of the Republican National Committee, key party leaders are worried that the GOP has made a costly mistake." Oops.

That's one thing. The other thing, however, is that Steele just keeps compounding his own mistakes, seemingly oblivious to their inner, unholy mistake-ness.

For instance he first had the foolish temerity -- on tape -- to label Rush Limbaugh's on-air ugliness as "ugly," and then turned around -- on tape -- and denied his glorious epiphany. By now, I'm sure, three times.

But that's mitigated to some extent. He's standing by his articulate estimation of Gov. Bobby Jindal as "friggin' awesome," although perhaps not quite as awesome as "one-armed midgets."

All this, as the Politico so artfully summarized Steele's miraculous debut, comes "in just 30 days on the job." He couldn't quite do it in six, but who among us could?

And then there is indeed that other GOP leader, its de facto leader, that rancid slab of fatheaded bombast, Mr. Limbaugh.

In a way, I'd love to witness the Armageddon for which he absurdly prayed:

"If these guys are so impressed with themselves, and if they are so sure of their correctness," Rush recently thundered in one of his three-hour maelstroms of entertaining evil, "why doesn't President Obama come on my show? We will do a one-on-one debate of ideas and policies."

Well, that would be one way for Rush to lose weight, because there wouldn't be anything left of him. Obama could outthink Limbaugh in a coma, and in person he'd just paw him for a while, then chew him up and spit him out and leave him as the Walking Dead.

(A remembrance occurs: Didn't Rush say at CPAC that Republicans should "stop assuming that the way to beat them is with better policy ideas"? In politics or even talk radio consistency isn't vital, but at least a little is always nice, even for an incurable demagogue.)

Please don't misinterpret my fantasy. I stand not at the demented precipice of taking Rush Limbaugh seriously. In fact, I suspect his myopic, cranked-up clownishness has even a few among his once-proud "base" taking him less seriously these days -- watercolor defenses of the buffoon are swiftly transmogrifying into an embarrassed, "That's-just-Rush-talking" grimace -- portending a biblical Fall in his Arbitron ecstasy.

What other speculation can be had? That the now disgraced, disgraceful Michael Steele will be shown the door before his 15 minutes are up.