no labels = no impact

On several occasions last week Rush Limbaugh spoke about the new No Labels non-party. As usual he made several good points, but my favorite had to be his statements of how ridiculous the name “no labels” is for a political affiliation.

This No Labels business, I’ve been thinking more and more about this.  I just saw a guy talking about them and the guy said exactly what I imagined them saying:  “For those of us in the middle who don’t really want to be held hostage to the far right or the far left but we have our solutions to issues, we want to be heard, too.”  Okay, fine.  Somebody explain to me in what walk of life there are no labels.  Religion?  No labels?  Business?  No labels?  Gender?  No labels?  What?  Somebody tell me where there aren’t any labels.  Go to the grocery store and get rid of the labels and then what would you have?  Well, you’d have a lot less government because you wouldn’t have those phony ingredient labels on there.

read the full transcript here

George Will blasted the party in his article Sunday in which he provides line after line of blows to the head of the non-party like a heavyweight champ fighting an over matched competitor.

No Labels, its earnestness subverting its grammar, says: “We do not ask any political leader to ever give up their label — merely put it aside.” But adopting a political label should be an act of civic candor. When people label themselves conservatives or liberals we can reasonably surmise where they stand concerning important matters, such as Judge Hudson’s ruling. The label “conservative” conveys much useful information about people who adopt it. So does the label “liberal,” which is why most liberals have abandoned it, preferring “progressive,” until they discredit it, too.

It’s almost unfair for someone of Will’s intelligence to debate the validity of a movement such as No Labels.

It’s not a good sing that proponents of No Labels are already trying to defend it.  Joe Scarborough attempts to do that, but the attempt is about as successful as the early perception of the non-party itself. I wonder if this non-partisan party will be significant enough to have ludicrous accusations thrown at them?