The silly logic of the right.

Unfortunately, living in an isolated rural area as I do, my radio pickings are somewhat limited (especially since I prefer a news/talk format). True, there is NPR radio from Flagstaff (and they have an English (?) lady on there with a wonderfully pleasant radio voice, of the type that even when she is telling you bad news it doesn't seem so bad). But mostly, the stations here carry conservative talk shows. So if you turn on the radio in the morning you can generally find Rush on at least three stations, and not much else in the way of talk. So sometimes I even listen to Rush, usually to amuse myself with picking apart his primitive one-dimensional logic.

So today, he was talking about the President's speech (not surprisingly, he disagrees with the President on this one-- on those rare occasions when I agree with George W. Bush, you can be sure that Rush is wrong.) Then his logic veered towards the ludicrous. He cited an overnight poll that said that 2 out of 3 Americans thought it was a good speech. So, he said, 'let's test that... let's see if the President's approval ratings shoot upwards.'

Hmmm... he is thinking that if people approve of the President's position on the issue de jour, they will approve of the President. For example, I approve of the President's immigration plan, so does that mean I now approve of the job that President Bush is doing? ABSOLUTELY NOT!!

This is the same President who frittered away the biggest surplus we've ever had and replaced it with record deficits, who plunged us into an ill-conceived and ruinous war by using carefully cherry picked intelligence reports, who has cut funding for everything from our national parks to flood levees in New Orleans (pre-Katrina), who failed during Katrina, who has spent more time on vacation and fundraising than any President within recent memory, who has repeatedly understated to the American people the extent to which the government is spying on them, and who hasn't even been able to fire a demonstrated incompetent like Donald Rumsfeld.

Do I now approve of his performance because he is right about immigration? No, I don't. You may as well ask me if I like having a cavity filled at the dentist if they give me a free toothbrush on the way out the door.

So no, the President's approval rating won't jump up at all because this is still a failed Presidency.

But according to the logic of Limbaugh, that means that the polls must be wrong.

What is scary is how many people listen to a guy with that kind of logic, and figure he is a deep enough thinker that what he says forms the basis for what they think and say about it.