RIGHT-WINGERS CAN'T DECIDE WHICH DEMOCRATIC SUPERVILLAIN OUTED BIDEN AS A GROPER

Joe Biden's habit of touching women without their consent has been an open secret for years, so it's logical that someone would want to raise the issue as he prepares a likely run for the presidency. But to right-wingers, things can't be that simple -- there must be a sinister plot afoot.

Rush Limbaugh can't pinpoint an individual culprit, but he thinks it might be a vast Democratic conspiracy:

... did I not prognosticate that the last thing the Democrats want to nominate is an old, aging white guy?

With all of this diversity, and all of the women who think they’re men and all the men who think they’re women and all of the people of color and different sexual genders and orientations or a mixture of all of that, the Democrat Party is trying to rebrand and identify itself to be demographically in touch with whatever they think the new America is or is going to become. And a dinosaur like Biden, it ain’t gonna happen. And Crazy Bernie had better keep a sharp eye out on what they’re doing to Biden, because he could be next....

It’s now obvious that somebody somewhere is doing one of two things. They’re either trying to get this out now so that Biden can get past it now, knowing that it was lurking and knowing that it was coming, and that would argue for somebody in Biden’s inner circle getting it out there.

Or somebody within the power structure of the Democrat Party has decreed that it ain’t gonna be Joe Biden. He’s too old. He doesn’t have a chance of defeating Trump, don’t care what our polls say now....

CALLER: I was wondering, do you think that they’re sacrificing Joe Biden in order to clear the way for Cory Booker or Kamala Harris?

RUSH: I don’t know that — and don’t leave out, look, Mayor Pete. Don’t forget Mayor Pete here. But it’s hard to say that they’ve already picked somebody they want to win the nomination. Now, we know they did that with Hillary in 2016. They rigged the Democrat primary.

... the Hillary Clinton camp essentially rigging via the delegate selection process the Democrat primary nomination process. It was rigged for Hillary Clinton. Bernie Sanders knows it. But he decided not to make a big deal about it because he wanted to give it another go.

So he had to stand mute and be quiet about it. If he had accused her of this and accused the party of rigging things against him, that would have been the end. He just had to eat it. He just had to swallow it.

... what the Democrats are doing on their side of things, I don’t think they’ve got somebody in mind they want to win this thing. They just know who they don’t want to win the nomination.

So the culprit, if there is one, is the entire Democratic Party establishment. They don't want a straight white guy to win the nomination. (Somebody better tell them about Beto O'Rourke.) They rigged 2016 for an old establishmentarian and now they're rigging 2020 against an old establishmentarian, just to be consistent. Or inconsistent. Or whatever the hell it is that Limbaugh believes.

Don Surber, an old-school right-wing blogger who used to be a lot better known than he is now, is a lot less vague than Limbaugh. Surber has a specific culprit in mind:

I am guessing this is the work of the Obamas. They saw Plugs up close for eight years. They know him. They know he is too impulsive to be president, which would stain Obama's legacy. That was why the Obamas supported their arch-enemies, the Clintons, last time.

Michelle has made it plain that she wants a Woman of Color as the nominee. And John Boehner made it clear that Barack does what she wants him to do. ("He's scared to death of his wife. Scared. To. Death.")

(Just to clarify: Boehner said that about Obama and cigarette smoking, not about political strategy.)

Flores was and is connected. Actress Eva Longoria, co-founder of the Latino Victory Project, backed her. The White House did her a favor. Now the Obamas may -- and I am just speculating -- have called their marker.

If I were Biden, I would bow out. This first story was only a warning shot....

He should do that because the next story will be rougher. There is a reason Barack is scared to death of Michelle.

So many right-wingers act like tough guys, then shriek in agony when they so much as think about a Democratic woman. They feel that all Democratic women are castrators and succubi. Right-wingers think they're all Lady Macbeths (in some cases literally).

Michelle Obama doesn't even like politics. Yes, I'm sure she has opinions about the announced and nearly announced candidates in the Democratic field. But this is insane.

I'm sure if I poke around long enough, I'll learn that some other wingnut thinks this is all a plot by the Clintons to take out the last establishment contender, so Hillary can ride to the rescue at a brokered convention after no one wins enough delegates for a first-ballot victory because the field is so huge.

If I were to write up that scenario under a pseudonym, tossing in as much sexism and fear of castration as I possibly could, I'm sure I could get it published at any of a dozen right-wing sites.

It might be good for a laugh, but why encourage these idiots?

Oddly, neither Limbaugh nor Surber points out what some on the left have noted -- that Flores was a Bernie Sanders supporter in 2016. But so what? What Biden did creeped her out. Now we're at the moment when he and all the other candidates are due for a deep vetting. So it's understandable that she'd come forward -- maybe it was at the urging of some campaign or other, but that's normal politics. There's no sinister conspiracy.