Bozell Column: David Limbaugh's Devastating Book

It’s clear David Limbaugh isn’t writing books with the goal of being honored in the salons of the liberal media. He doesn’t mince words with the media. His devastating new book on Barack Obama is titled "The Great Destroyer: Barack Obama’s War on the Republic."

It’s a bracing antidote to the intoxicated oozing of the "mainstream" press. There is so much withering artillery fire against Obama’s damaging presidency in this book, you hardly know where to begin.

I probably enjoyed most the chapter on "The War on the Dignity of His Office." As I write, Obama’s preparing yet another gathering of New York and Hollywood celebrities lining up to donate to America’s Ultimate Celebrity. Reagan used to praise the worker in the checkout line. For this president, everyone is a resident of Beverly Hills.  Limbaugh piles on the proof that Obama has an enormous ego he needs stroked daily.

The "news" media that explicitly compared Obama before he took office to FDR and Lincoln clearly have gone to Obama’s head. Journalists didn’t blink last December when Obama told Steve Kroft on "60 Minutes" that he’s America’s fourth greatest president. "I would put our legislative and foreign policy achievements in our first two years against any president – with the possible exceptions of Johnson, FDR, and Lincoln – just in terms of what we’ve gotten done in modern history."

Note he said these were "possible" exceptions. He could be the greatest, ever.

Months later, Obama invoked other historical figures as similar forces for change: “Around the world, Gandhi, Nelson Mandela, what they did was hard. It takes time. It takes more than a single term.” I’m surprised any man’s neck could sustain a head as big as Obama’s. 

Limbaugh even quotes liberal New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd. "Despite what his rivals say, the president and the first lady do believe in American exceptionalism — their own, and they feel overassaulted and underappreciated." Dowd cited her Times colleague Jodi Kantor, who wrote in her book on the Obamas that the First Couple isolated themselves in a “bubble within the bubble,” with just “their small circle of Chicago friends, who reinforced the idea that "the American public just did not appreciate their exceptional leader.” But Bush is the one who is in the bubble on the cover of Newsweek. Barack gets a rainbow halo over his head.

The pro-Obama media don’t take exception to Obama’s overweening egotism. They have made him the Emperor With No Clothes, and they continue to compliment his invisible finery.

Limbaugh unloads the armory on Obama’s “frequent, extravagant vacations and golf outings,” which the press blindly accepts as well-deserved. Helluva 99 percenter this man is. The extreme clash this represents with the “Occupy Wall Street” movement is rarely highlighted by the Obama-loving media elite. There have been no “disastrous optics” for Obama in golfing after the tsunami in Japan, or skipping his commitment to attend the Polish president’s funeral for another round on the links. There have been no Occupiers protesting Obama’s lavish vacations in Hawaii and Martha’s Vineyard or Michelle Obama’s trips to Aspen or sunny Spain.

And President Obama, he writes, "still can’t resist placing himself in the cultural limelight, appearing on pop-culture television programs ranging from ‘The Daily Show’ to ‘Mythbusters.’" Obama loves appearing on shows like "Late Night with Jimmy Fallon," where he can make viral videos of Fallon’s latest edition of Extreme Fawn-Over.  When Obama came through the curtain, the crowd unleashed a screaming standing ovation reminiscent of the Beatles on the Ed Sullivan show. Then they "slow-jammed the news," which was really just Obama making a campaign speech to bedroom-eyes soul music in the background.

Fallon followed up Obama’s rhetoric for low-interest federal student loans with embarrassing lines like "Awww yeah. You should listen to the president. Or as I like to call him, the Preezy of the United Steezy." Move over, Bill Clinton. Obama is now the coolest person in the room.

After Obama attacked Republicans, Fallon added: Mmm, mmm, mmm. The Barack Ness monster ain't buying it....And the President knows his stuff, y'all. That's why they call him POTUS, which means person on top -- what is it?" Obama replied, "Jimmy, POTUS stands for President of the United States." Singer Tariq Trotter then sang in tribute: "He's the POTUS with the mostest!" Deep.

Fallon ended this spectacle later by saying, "We don't take sides politically on this show." This bald-faced campaign ad by the Obama donors at Comcast/NBC is exactly what David Limbaugh is trying to fight – a unanimous media that sees Obama just as he sees himself, as a historic figure, an icon, and someone who isn’t ruining America.