You Don't Mess Around With Slim

Some people learn the hard way. Kevin Stevenson got the boot from his job as spokesman for the Republican Party of Marathon County. His crime? Not genuflecting enough and daring to question the authority and infallibility of the head of the GOP, Rush Limbaugh:

Kevin Stevenson said he believes his March guest column in the Wausau Daily Herald criticizing Limbaugh turned local party members against him.

"They felt I was too moderate in what I was speaking and printing," he said.

Stevenson, who characterizes himself as a "John McCain-type of Republican," said the conflict was a microcosm of a national debate about what political message to put forward. A debate at a local Republican meeting on Thursday "got hostile and it got personal," he said.

When Stevenson criticized Limbaugh for saying he wanted President Barack Obama to fail, other local Republicans wrote to the newspaper, arguing that conservatives ought to want Obama's policies to fail.

"This is just part of what you're seeing nationwide," he said. "(Party members) know that I don't agree with Rush Limbaugh. Rush Limbaugh is hurting us more than helping us."

It only gets funnier:

Party Chairman Joe Wachtel said he disagreed with the decision to remove Stevenson as spokesman, but that he also disagreed with a moderate position."I don't think the Republican Party and the conservative movement is going to be served by being Democrat-lite," Wachtel said.

Apparently, they don't like ancient Greek or Roman artists either.