This week, while iconic American enterprises like GE and Berkshire came under substantial market pressure, our "Leadership" in Washington became preoccupied with talk show host Rush Limbaugh.

Rahm Emmanuel (left), a brilliant partisan tactician, and Clinton retreads Paul Begala and James Carville formulated a plan to make Limbaugh the face of the GOP.

The Republicans, spineless and brainless after eight years of G.W. Bush's lobotomization of the party, naturally obliged Team Obama.

Rush Limbaugh, who knows an opportunity when he sees one, helped the White House (and probably his own ratings) by calling out the President for a debate.
               Rahm Emmanuel

The Obama Administration, which showed early promise of changing the DC culture to be if, not truly bi-partisan, at least civil, lapsed into Chicago attack politics mode. How painfully inevitable, but then again, we did elect Chicago pols, didn't we?

Naturally, the blogoshpere and cable news loved this.

I am sure relevant web sites had a big spike in their traffic, and more than a few people probably tuned in to see Matthews, Hannity and the rest of the talking heads battle this one out.

After all, its much more fun than wondering why the Credit Default Swap market is treating GE like Citibank or whether we can spend ourselves out of a recession that we got into by ... well ... spending too much. Rush is much more fun to listen to than Jeff Immelt anyway.

But beyond the craven fiddle while Rome is burning tactics of Team Obama lies a bigger problem: the Left and the Right are both completely out of ideas.

Rush Limbaugh (left) is indeed an embarrassment to the GOP, and the nation as a whole.

But he is just a symptom of how George Bush not only debased the party from a policy and competence perspective, but from an intellectual one as well.

A party that once counted Milton Friedman as part of its thought capital is now basically left with Sean Hannity and Michael Savage.

A House leadership that once had Newt Gingrich is now fronted by John Boehner, who appears to spend more time worrying about his strangely permanent tan than about the future of capitalism.

But the Left should be in no mood for rejoicing at this turn of events.

Al Franken, a failed talk show host and third rate ex-SNL comedian, whose greatest claim to fame is having written a book called "Rush Limbaugh is a Big Fat Idiot" may soon be joining the Senate. Michael Moore continues to be a left wing Limbaugh, both in overall appearance and overall intelligence.

Meanwhile, Pelosi is giving even Dennis Hastert a run for partisan incompetence as Speaker, though her edginess speaks more to her roots as daughter of a Baltimore political dynasty than wife of a multimillionaire San Francisco financier.

And the President has let his political team loose in the media playpen while channeling FDR with attacks on "unfettered markets" when it was disastrous Fed policy, fiscal indiscipline and a bipartisan desire to give everyone their own home that got us into this mess: Wall Street only abetted what everyone from Main St. to Capitol Hill wanted.

Blaming the Street, and the wealthy more generally, did not work for FDR and it won't work for President Obama either. And by the way, with the exception of Fed Policy, it seems that the administration is basically copying the Bush playbook by spending like a Rock Star while, yes, abetting a bipartisan desire to give everyone their own home, even if they've defaulted on it. Bush-Obama administration, anyone?

But here's is the real problem: the President's attack on capital and FDR-like rhetoric show the sad truth, that the Democrats haven't learned anything since 1933. Yes, the Right, post G.W.'s two terms of Stupid and Proud of It, is in a deep funk. But the Left has shown itself to have outdone even George Bush by showing itself to have been brain dead not for 8, but for 70 years.

Sure, this childish celebration of the GOP's cyclical problems amuses the blogosphere and the cable news shows, but it mask a less happy reality: a mentally challenged GOP and brain dead Democratic Party does not bode well for anyone.

About Chris Thomas

Chris Thomas is a Managing Director at Hyman Beck and Co, a global macro hedge fund based in northern New Jersey.

His views are entirely his own, and do not necessarily reflect the views of the principals of Hyman Beck or iHaveNet.com. He can be reached at cthomas @ hymanbeck.com

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