NEW YORK -- Amid the blanket plaudits and recognition that greeted Tuesday’s news that Jon Stewart was is to leave The Daily Show, there was of course a lone voice of decent from America’s Tea Party fringe.
Rush Limbaugh, a corpulent radio show host whose shtick meanders between bigotry, intolerance and prejudice, reflected on Stewart’s time at Comedy Central thusly: "Jon Stewart has helped polarise the country by poisoning the Republican brand."
Interestingly, this is exactly the charge that has been levied at Limbaugh and his cohorts, which has transformed the Republicans from a party of business and strong defense to a rabid, women hating mob of gun-swingingreligious propagandists who think the President is a Muslim fifth columnist bent on ending the Republic.
Limbaugh said on Wednesday: "For 16 years Jon Stewart has blamed everything gone wrong on the Republicans. Jon Stewart has helped polarize the country by poisoning the Republican brand."
Riffing on how Barack Obama "made health insurance unaffordable" and "took smiles off of people's faces," Limbaugh said, “Jon Stewart has lampooned and impugned and destroyed and taken out as many Republicans as he can even though they had nothing to do with this.”
He went on: "Stewart's a funny guy, but he lacks an appreciation of federalism and he lacks an understanding of the harm caused by Obama's cult of personality that also sucked him in. Jon Stewart helped grease the tracks for the most destructive presidency in many of our lifetimes."