The Limbaugh Pile-On

White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel told a Sunday morning talk show yesterday that Rush Limbaugh is the de facto leader of the Republican party, and characterized Limbaugh's hope that Obama's socialist agenda fails thus:
Today the White House took another jab at him. You might think this is just a bit of give and take, but you'd be wrong. Last week dem operatives James Carville & Paul Begala launched a nationwide campaign against the GOP as the party of "no," and they singled out Limbaugh as the head of the party. Here's one ad they're running.

Salon did a recent hit piece, too. This is a page out of the Saul Alinsky playbook.
it is not enough for the organizer to be in solidarity with the people. He must also, said Alinsky, cultivate unity against a clearly identifiable enemy; he must specifically name this foe, and "singl[e] out" precisely who is to blame for the "particular evil" that is the source of the people's angst. In other words, there must be a face associated with the people's discontent. That face, Alinsky taught, "must be a personification, not something general and abstract like a corporation or City Hall." Rather, it should be an individual such as a CEO, a mayor, or a president.

Alinsky summarized it this way: "Pick the target, freeze it, personalize it, and polarize it…. [T]here is no point to tactics unless one has a target upon which to center the attacks." He held that the organizer's task was to cultivate in people's hearts a negative, visceral emotional response to the face of the enemy. "The organizer who forgets the significance of personal identification," said Alinsky, "will attempt to answer all objections on the basis of logic and merit. With few exceptions this is a futile procedure."