Franken called it: Limbaugh is GOP’s ‘national precinct chairman’

The morning after Rush Limbaugh repeated his “I hope Obama fails” during the keynote to the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC), White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel told TV’s “sabbath gasbags” (Calvin Trillin’s term) that Limbaugh “is the voice and the intellectual force and energy behind the Republican Party.” But Minnesota’s self-described senator-elect called that one back when the potty-mouthed Emanuel was still in potty-training (or nearly). From his 1996 book “Rush Limbaugh is a Big Fat Idiot and Other Observations,” here is how Al Franken put Limbaugh’s place in politics: “(H)e’s used his platform to become national precinct chairman for the Republican party.”

(That quote seems appropriate to recall in view of tonight’s DFL Party precinct caucuses, but no disrespect is intended toward precinct chairmen and chairwomen of any party.)

Despite Limbaugh’s GOP preeminence and his having provided Franken with an entree into writing political books, Franken professes not to care about him anymore. From an Air America interview last month:

FRANKEN: … The only downside was, you know, the Republican talking point that I was a communist or a socialist or something like that on Air America, that I was the same as Rush Limbaugh. I would answer: “No, I’m the opposite of Rush Limbaugh.” I’m not the mirror image, I’m the opposite.

AA: Given your famous spats with Limbaugh and O’Reilly, what have they been saying about your success, or do you now tune them out?

FRANKEN: Well, you know what? I’ve already been doing that. I don’t know what they’ve been saying. I really don’t. I haven’t been paying any attention. That is the great thing about doing this. You really stop paying attention to that. … The past couple of days I’ve been going around talking to mayors in Duluth and Two Harbors, Minn., the mayor of Champlain, the mayor of St. Paul, the mayor of Rochester, county commissioners, et cetera, trying to figure out how they can get access to the stimulus package and what they need. That seems much more productive than trying to listen to Rush Limbaugh or Bill O’Reilly and hear what they think about me. Actually, that was one of the nicest things that happened to me once I left the radio show — I stopped paying attention to them.

But if Franken doesn’t care about Limbaugh anymore, Republican National Committee Michael Steele has to. Steele beat a fast retreat, issuing a public apology after his post-CPAC comments that Limbaugh’s schtick is “incendiary” and “ugly.”