Last February, Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal (R) broke with Rush Limbaugh — de facto leader of the Republican Party — and said that he wants President Obama to succeed. “We absolutely…want our president to succeed,” he said. However just last week, Jindal became the latest to join the Boss’s ranks. Discussing whether he personally wants Obama to fail, Jindal simply said, “it depends.”
Today on C-SPAN’s Washington Journal, conservative columnist David Brooks ridiculed those on the right who have said they want Obama to fail. During the segment, a caller — who claimed to be phoning in from “a club” in Georgia full of “all white folks, all millionaires and good Republicans” — begged Brooks to “come on board” with Limbaugh, Sean Hannity and Fox News to “get on Mr. Obama’s case.” “We got to bring that man down,” the caller said, adding, “We just cannot have eight years of this black man.”
To his credit, Brooks first dismissed the caller’s racist comment and then railed against the right wing’s desire to attack Obama at every step:
BROOKS: It’s tremendously important to put color and prejudice aside and see him for what he is, which is just an incredibly impressive smart man. […] And I just think it’s incredibly important to root for the guy, whether you agree with every policy. […] But the idea that we shouldn’t be rooting for our president strikes me as not only, I don’t know about unpatriotic, it’s just stupid. We should be rooting for our president because it’s rooting for ourselves.
Watch it:
Brooks — who has recently become a constant critic of the Republican Party — isn’t the only conservative to hit back at Limbaugh this week. Yesterday, when CNN’s Rick Sanchez asked GOP Rep. Zach Wamp (TN) if he sides with Limbaugh, Wamp said Limbaugh is more of an “entertainer,” adding, “We really need serious-minded policy people to help chart this ship of state out of these rocky waters right now.”
Given that most of the Republicans who first criticized Limbaugh but then came crawling back to apologize were elected officials, it is more likely that Wamp will be the one that has to fall back in line.