Sergei Rachmaninov

Tomorrow is the 136th anniversary of Russian composer Sergei Rachmaninov’s day of birth. Radio WRTI is celebrating with a 12-hour marathon of the Rusky ex-pat’s crystal-clear texture and elegant yet strong phrasing.

Rachmaninov is best known for his Prelude in C-sharp minor, which he composed at age 19. He lost his land during the Bolshevik revolution and subsequently fled Russia for the United States, though he was consoled by an estate he managed to buy in Switzerland. He died in 1943, and his wish to be buried at his Swiss estate could never be fulfilled because of the ravages of the Second World War.

Rachmaninov on Rachmaninov, Prelude in C-sharp Minor.

Rachmaninov on Chopin, Nocturne in E-flat.

Mr. Rachmaninov's Neighborhood

A Limbavian Flap

Hibernation is over and this Dino is back! Now, it is time for more exhilarating commentary.

Monsieur Remi asks if anyone still listens to Rush Limbaugh. Seems like they sure do these days.

I will admit right here and right now that I am opposed to talking any more about Rush Limbaugh. He is a distraction, and everyone has said as much. Right now children are wandering about uneducated, the world’s economy is imploding, and Americans and other humans are getting killed in various wars.  But media talking heads, politicians, and average Americans love bright shiny distractions. So in the spirit of talking about affairs that have no demonstrable importance, I will indulge in the ultimate purpose of Dino: to tell you the things that I am thinking.

Barack Obama and his political machinery have made it very clear their intentions: no one likes Rush Limbaugh, so if you equate him with the average Republican then no one will like any Republican, average or no. Rush Limbaugh, whose income is derived from the number of people that listen to him, always profits from controversy. And he has hardly failed to take advantage of Rahm Emanuel’s generous offer to make him “the voice and the intellectual force and energy behind the Republican party.” 

The advantages may be financial for Mr. Limbaugh. Or maybe he genuinely wants to be the ‘intellectual’ force of conservatism. He certainly enjoys people paying attention to him. So on one or more of these levels, Mr. Limbaugh has profited. Mr. Obama and Mr. Limbaugh are in collusion – although certainly not as amicable partners.

Amy Holmes has conveniently inverted Mr. Emanuel’s comments and the situation they have created in a way that highlights what is really going on:

Imagine, for a moment, if George Bush and his chief of staff had made coordinated and concerted attacks on Michael Moore, and suggested that the colorful left-wing fulminator — not Nancy Pelosi or Harry Reid — was the “true intellectual force” behind the Democratic party. Imagine the howls of protest. And, undoubtedly, the media would have focused on the propriety of a commander-in-chief and his advisers wasting time and political breath on an entertainer. And yet we have President Obama and his hammer, Rahm Emanuel, doing just that in a time of war and economic crisis, and the story is about … Republicans!

Conservative commentator David Frum recently rebutted this Limbavian flap in a Newsweek article entitled “Why Rush is Wrong.” He argues for changes that he believes will bring the GOP back to power, and Mr. Limbaugh’s place in that equation.

Rush knows what he is doing. The worse conservatives do, the more important Rush becomes as leader of the ardent remnant. The better conservatives succeed, the more we become a broad national governing coalition, the more Rush will be sidelined.

Partly, Mr. Frum is motivated by the fact that Mr. Limbaugh and others have criticized him for his advocacy of a flexible conservatism. Mr. Limbaugh’s speech at the Conservative Political Action Conference on 28 February included commentary on such allegedly fractious elements of the GOP, in favor of an unchanging set of conservative idealogies:

Conservatism is a universal set of core principles. You don’t check principles at the door. This is a battle that we’re going to have. And there are egos involved here, too. When the situation like ours exists, there are people who want to lead it. They want to redefine it. Their egos are such that they want to be the next X, whoever it is. So there will be different factions lining up to try to define what conservatism is. And beware of those different factions who seek as part of their attempt to redefine conservativism, as making sure the liberals like us, making sure that the media likes us. They never will, as long as we remain conservatives. They can’t possibly like us; they’re our enemy. In a political arena of ideas, they’re our enemy. They think we need to be defeated.

First of all, we can notice two tendencies here. One is the overt reactionary nature of these comments (and if you read the rest of the speech you will notice a tendency to ramble off-topic, and the speaker’s need to congratulate himself on what is, at various points, his first national and international address). Second, and related, is the ultra-montane attitude that goes out of its way to be disliked by ‘the media.’ I cannot imagine that Mr. Limbaugh does not realize that he is part of the media. He is using a simple but very effective rhetorical trick: set up a straw man, then burn it down. The straw man here is the liberal media bias, about which he would be happy to tell you. But the bottom line is that he does not want to be liked by the mainstream media, because he can simultaneously cast himself as a rebel and self-righteous advocate for conservatism.

Then, Michael Steele, RNC chairman, called Mr. Limbaugh an entertainer, and his show incendiary and ugly. After lambasting Mr. Steele, Mr. Limbaugh received an apology from Mr. Steele. There are fewer more public ways to broadcast the internal chaos the GOP must be experiencing than through a radio host who has 13+ million listeners per week and is always on the lookout for more outrageous ways to attract more.

This incident is not only a lens to highlight the problems that the Right is having, but it also brings out very disturbing, yet normal, behaviors in the Left. It is precisely at the juncture of the conflict between Messrs. Steele and Limbaugh that Mr. Emanuel framed Mr. Limbaugh as the intellectual force of the Republican Party. The timing smacks of opportunism and the White House has much to gain from a Republican Party handcuffed to Rush Limbaugh.

So where is the Change that the nation voted for in November? The change in dialectic, the change in Washington politics that Mr. Obama purported to bring? The bi-partisanship – that word that we love to say but scarce know how to implement – where is it?

In the end, this issue demonstrates the nature of power and justice. Bi-partisanship is not reaching across the aisle with an open hand and a smile, and cooperatively solving problems. It is winning elections, having a sufficient majority in the Congress, holding the White House, and then telling the other side what the agenda is because the opposition does not have the practical bargaining chips to do anything else. This Limbavian flap is a realpolitik method, employed by Mr. Obama, of accomplishing ‘bi-partisan’ relations.