The Wonk Room

Limbaugh: American Sadr (With Apologies To Sadr)»

Bloviating on this Wall Street Journal report that Muqtada al-Sadr plans to disband the Mahdi Army and “focus his group’s efforts on politics and social work,” Rush Limbaugh reiterates once again conservatism’s long-standing and movement-defining opposition to civil rights:

So now Mookie and his boys are going to become community organizers. And, of course, that’s what Obama did. And who better to advise Mookie than Obama? Seriously, that’s what he’s going to do. They’re going to — social services, education, social justice. I guess Mookie’s thrown his hands in with the left over there. He’s going to throw down the weapons and start disrupting the society much like the civil rights organizations here in this country have tried to do.

While it’s always nice when conservatives let the mask slip, and let fly with the racism — oops, I mean “principled opposition to civil rights” — that forms the irreducible core of their ideology, in point of fact Sadr’s movement has always been based upon a social services model. As was reported a few months ago, it is estimated to be the single biggest such organization in Iraq.

As for Limbaugh’s comparison of Sadr to Obama, consider: Muqtada al-Sadr is a chubby, ultra-conservative loudmouth who rose to power by stoking the resentments of his country’s majority against it’s various minorities. Who does this remind you of?