Drew Friedman draws the new Godfather

Our pal Drew Friedman painted this fine illustration for The New Republic. Drew writes:

"Godfather" parodies have been done a million times but I thought this analogy would work well with GOP chairman Michael Steele groveling to his Don, Rush Limbaugh.

The New Godfather

David Pescovitz is Boing Boing's co-editor/managing partner. He's also a research director at Institute for the Future. On Instagram, he's @pesco.

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The Snowden Principle

dimmer

As soon as Obama begs Keith for forgiveness I’ll take your point Teller, but I think we may have to wait a while.
SamSam

Can we start a grassroots Rush/Palin ’12 campaign?

I’m serious. Bumper-stickers, signs, the lot. Create a lot of buzz that what “real” Republicans want is Rush/Palin. That if you don’t kow-tow to Rush, and support him for president, that you aren’t a “real” Republican.

Maybe Rush can lead the Republicans to being completely marginalized for the next 20 years?
Anonymous

@TROOFSEEKER

You’re probably right about Stern and Limbaugh, but the leaders of the Democratic party don’t kowtow to Stern. He’s not even a political commentary, except incidentally.
ill lich

Reading #29 DHUFF’s post made me realize:

Rush spends all this energy huffing and puffing about “real conservatives” and denigrating anyone who doesn’t meet his standards for a “real conservative”, but let’s say tomorrow a large percentage of moderates left the GOP and formed a new party, perhaps splitting the GOP into two roughly equal parts, would he say “good riddance” or beg them to come back?

(Remember: the GOP has about 55 million members, and Rush maybe 20 million listeners. . . so . . . )
Lauren O

So nauseatingly true.
W. James Au

I’m really offended by this comparison to Don Corleone. To equate this, this… *Limbaugh*, with a respected business and civic leader in the Italian-American community, proud family man and father of a solider who served proudly WWII’s Pacific theater. HAVE YOU NO SHAME FRIEDMAN?!
dhalgren

Instead of kissing Don Limbaugh’s ring Michael Steele should be kissing Rush’s ass.

I haven’t been a Republican since Ralph Reed made me vomit repeatedly when he campaigned for Bush in 2000, but Rush’s speech at CPAC for a brief moment reminded me my original love for the old Republican Party.

Too bad Rush’s speech went in one ear and out the other for most of the party. They smiled and clapped well enough, but they’ll put up Romney or some such wanker and get their ass kicked again in 2012 and scratch their heads,”Duh, I don’t get it, duh.”

At least watching Obama’s antics is highly entertaining. If you could call watching the final death throws of the country I love entertaining.
Avram / Moderator

Shouldn’t that be 2112, InsertFingerHere?
Mark Frauenfelder

@6: “The GOP hasn’t chosen Rush for anything. This is just a media spin Paul Begala has started and many on the left are taking up. Paul Begala himself has admitted to it.”

It is media spin, but it wouldn’t work if it weren’t true. The Republican congress is scared to death of offending Mr. Limbaugh.
bobkat

broken link?
zuzu

If Republicans could throw out the Limbaugh / Fox News / Sarah Palin part* of their coalition party, while they’re already throwing out G.W. Bush, they could actually stand a chance to survive politically.

(*Whom Bill Maher refers to as the “Know Nothings”).

Bury the meathead rhetoric already, and encourage more Barry Goldwaters and William Buckleys.
Teller

Rush has a mike and he’s pissed – which makes for good radio, if you like ranting and who doesn’t. Just recall Olbermann’s pissed-off ranting during the Bush reign. It made him seem essential to dissent and made the disaffected happy to hear him. Rush does that for other people. But in fact, the Olbermanns and Limbaughs are broadcast blowhards. Rush isn’t the Republican leadership. He’s just the loudest – but it does carry some vox populi.
Lauren O

Rush has a mike and he’s pissed – which makes for good radio, if you like ranting and who doesn’t.

I love a good rant, but not when it’s about how I and half the world’s population are worthless because of our gender. I imagine people of color feel similarly about some of his other rants.

The GOP hasn’t chosen Rush for anything. This is just a media spin Paul Begala has started and many on the left are taking up. Paul Begala himself has admitted to it.

Paul Begala forced Michael Steele to apologize to Rush Limbaugh for saying he, not Limbaugh, is the head of the GOP?
Takuan

“The first and simplest stage in the discipline, which can be taught even to young children, is called, in Newspeak, crimestop. Crimestop means the faculty of stopping short, as though by instinct, at the threshold of any dangerous thought. It includes the power of not grasping analogies, of failing to perceive logical errors, of misunderstanding the simplest arguments if they are inimical to Ingsoc, and of being bored or repelled by any train of thought which is capable of leading in a heretical direction. Crimestop, in short, means protective stupidity”
Takuan

too dignified. Should have been Jabba the Rush and Princess Steele in harem pants.
Antinous / Moderator

Instead of kissing Don Limbaugh’s ring Michael Steele should be kissing Rush’s ass.

Rim shots are notoriously hard to draw what with all the folds and furrows and all.
Blaven

Man that picture makes me want to vomit. Very well done.
Brainspore

Indeed. Of all the conservatives out there it’s incredible that the GOP would choose a thrice divorced, college-flunking, drug addicted ignoramus as the mouthpiece of their party. What the hell are they thinking, that they got creamed in the last two elections because their rhetoric was too thoughtful and restrained?

I want some some strong minority parties to keep the Democrats in check, I really do. But sweet Jesus, we can do better than this.
Guesstimate Jones

Organized Crime is an appropriate metaphor for understanding the Republican Party…
Takuan

to me, the greatest wonder is that any of the many who have actually gone to war haven’t paid him a personal visit.
zuzu

…which would make Jimmy Hoffa an appropriate metaphor for the Democrats?
FrankieThePope

It’s called “satire,” you self-important bores. Stop your incessant whining about your dysfunctional party of choice and just enjoy the cleverness and the sheer artistry of the thing.

Jeez.
TroofSeeker

Yes, your Imminence.
arlopickens

…which would make Jimmy Hoffa an appropriate metaphor for the Democrats?

… organized labor is about as good a metaphor for the Democratic party as organized crime is for the Republicans…
dhuff

ill lich @10 has it nailed. The moderate & extremist Republicans have hardly anything in common anymore (which begs the question, how can the Rush/Palin sect of the party even call what they espouse “conservative” anymore – that is, if words still have any meaning ?)

I’d love to see a Centrist Party made up of “Eisenhower Republicans” + moderate Democrats.
Ernunnos

Of all the conservatives out there it’s incredible that the GOP would choose a thrice divorced, college-flunking, drug addicted ignoramus as the mouthpiece of their party.

Hey, they’re just celebrating diversity.
Modusoperandi

Code-speak like “compassionate conservative” was a good start, but Rush Limbaugh’s CPAC speech was a new high point in using words that no longer have any meaning.
InsertFingerHere

Rush in 2012 ! Coulter for VP !
ill lich

“Don’t ever go against the party, Michael.”

Face it– the problem is that the GOP is divided, the Limbaugh wing does not get along with the moderate wing (despite their insistence at the 2004 RNC that they were the “big tent” party where everyone was welcome). The Sarah Palins and Rush Limbaughs have every right to their views, and every right to a party that represents those views, but they shouldn’t be forcing the moderates to toe their line. Either they split into two parties that accurately represent their diverging ideas, or they continue the blood feud, resulting in another voting day massacre. Simply because the DEMs are exploiting it doesn’t mean it’s not a real issue.
TroofSeeker

This might now win me any friends here, but I always thought Rush Limbaugh and Howard Stern were at equal but opposite distances from
Reality
Normalcy
Troof and
Decency.

Me too, I suppose, but if they’re East and West, I suppose I’m South. I’d guess that most of you are halfway to Stern, being West (left).