PEAK WINGNUT, AS VIEWED FROM SPACE.

Rush Limbaugh explains how the Republican Party "needs a civil rights movement."

If ever a civil rights movement was needed in America, it is for the Republican Party. If ever we needed to start marching for freedom and Constitutional rights, it's for the Republican Party. The Republican Party is today's oppressed minority. It knows how to behave as one. It shuts up. It doesn't cross bridges, it doesn't run into the Bull Connors of the Democrat Party. It is afraid of the firehouses and the dogs, it's compliant. The Republican Party today has become totally complacent. They are an oppressed minority, they know their position, they know their place. They go to the back of the bus, they don't use the right restroom and the right drinking fountain, and they shut up. I don't think this way, I don't think of myself as an oppressed minority. Or as a member of an oppressed minority. And I hope I never do think of myself as one.

Aside from the insanity of this argument, I'm amused by the notion that segregation was a figurative "mentality" possessed by black folks prior to 1965, rather than you know, a system of laws. Also, despite the fact that Republicans of today are the most oppressed minority ever, the only way Limbaugh can think of to describe their plight is through metaphorical comparisons to an earlier, more privileged group of people who were facing actual dogs and firehoses. In any case, what Limbaugh sees as oppression is known to normal people as "losing an election," something most people are able to cope with without ridiculous historical analogies. This one is right up there with comparing the estate tax to the Holocaust.

For an explanation of "peak wingnut" look here.

-- A. Serwer