Monday talk radio update

Cunningham on Sunday night and then Hannity and Beck today were all beating up on Wanda Sykes for cracking wise about Rush Limbaugh and also at Barack Obama for apparently having laughed.

I won't defend her sense of humor. I don't think much of jokes about people dying either. But I would defend the serious point behind the joke. The open rooting of Limbaugh, Hannity and their ilk for the failure of the Obama administration is deeply disloyal and worthy of public scorn.

It's one thing to hope that Obama's proposals don't get through Congress. By all means, flail away against them. It's one thing to try to get bad policies changed. But it's a very different thing to hope that once the policies are in place they will fail in some dramatic, election-altering fashion.

If that happens, people lose their jobs. They lose their houses. They lose their medical care. Some will die -- perhaps of kidney failure. If Obama's policies fail, then Iraqis will die. Afghanis will die. Pakistan may fall. American soldiers will die, and their families will mourn.

Press them, and Hannbaugh will protest that they are rooting only against socialistic policies. But I have listened to them for at least a hundred hours since Obama was elected and have yet to hear either of them root for -- or try to bring about -- anything but utter, abject, complete failure of the Obama administration in every respect.

I thought Bush's decision to invade Iraq was the dumbest move I'd ever seen by a U.S. president (yes, worse than Vietnam, worse than the Bay of Pigs). But once the decision was made, I rooted every day for him to be right and me wrong. Let the neocon bloggers blast away at my stupidity and cowardice. Better to be proved a fool than to have a disaster in the Middle East.

Obama entered office under similar circumstances. The economy was cratering. Auto companies were failing. Banks were sinking. Afghanistan was deteriorating. It's too soon to know whether his decisions will prove right or wrong. But for all our sakes, we had better hope they are right.

And if your devotion to your ideology outweighs your devotion to the welfare and safety of your country, then you really aren't much different from Osama Bin Laden.

WEIRD SIDE NOTE: In nearly the same breath in which he attacked Sykes, Cunningham defended this joke, which insults not only Pelosi and Reid but also U.S. soldiers. So hoping that Limbaugh drops dead of a disease isn't funny. Rooting for the assassination of congressional leaders by soldiers sworn to protect them? Comedy gold.