It's not every day you get a chance to go on television and call Rush Limbaugh a fool. But on Thursday night, I was asked on Hardball to comment on the big-mouth's claim that James von Brunn is a "leftist." So what choice did I have?

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Look at this illustration that accompanied USA Today's story on a new poll on the Republican Party:

Who's missing? Sarah Palin. When Americans were asked who speaks for the Republican Party, the winner was Rush Limbaugh (13 percent). The next four were Dick Cheney, John McCain, Newt Gingrich, and George W. Bush (who was picked by 3 percent). Palin didn't make this list. Responding to this poll, Republican strategist Ed Gillespie told reporter Susan Page, "We cannot be a party of balding white guys." Gillespie, who has a decent crown of hair, ought to check that illustration. Only one of the five is non-balding; only one of five is not white. None are non-male.

In politics, there's always time to fill a vacuum in leadership. Perhaps the more troubling indicator for the GOP is this particular finding in the poll: 33 percent of the GOP respondents said they have an unfavorable view of the Republican Party. When one-third of your own rank-and-file doesn't like you, you're in trouble. (On MSNBC, super-smart analyst Charlie Cook noted that only 4 percent of Democrats are not pleased with their party.)

But does the GOP's disaffected third want the party to go more to the right or to moderate? That's not clear. But two-thirds of the Republicans polled said they yearn for the party to hold the conservative line. (A majority of the wider pool of respondents said the GOP should seek to attract moderates.)

The bottom line: if the POed GOPers crave more conservative red meat, the party can only solidify its base by moving in a direction that will further alienate it from most voters. If those POed GOPers desire a more moderate party, they are at odds with most of their party comrades. Either scenario is bad news for the Republican Party. The party is in a spot where it may not be able to do much on its own to improve its fortunes--other than to wait for economic disaster and/or an overseas crisis that causes voters to become disenchanted with President Obama and Democrats. And that's not a strategy; that's a hope.

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Former Senator Chuck Hagel, a Republican from Nebraska, has weighed in on his party's Rush wars.

Rush Limbaugh is "the center of gravity" of the Republican Party, and "we need a new center of gravity," Hagel told me on Tuesday night.

That evening, Hagel was taping an interview with Rachel Maddow for her MSNBC show. Now cochairman of the Commission on United States Policy Toward Russia, he discussed Russian President Dmitri Medvedev's announcement that Russia would begin a "large-scale rearming" and the news that Russia might be putting long-range bombers in Cuba and Venezuela. On the segment, Hagel, who was a foreign policy leader in the Senate, talked about his recent trip to Moscow and called for moving the US-Russia relationship back to a "smart" track. He also criticized former Vice President Dick Cheney for claiming that the Obama administration has placed the nation in danger and noted that Cheney was partly responsible for the "mess" the Bush administration left behind.

On the show, Hagel took a shot at new Republican Party chairman Michael Steele. Asked about Steele's threat to support primary challengers against Republican Senators Arlen Specter, Susan Collins, and Olympia Snowe, who each defied GOP leaders and voted for Obama's stimulus package, Hagel called it "a very foolish, foolish move," commenting, "there's no room for that kind of silliness." He added, "People expect serious people to deal with serious issues and to govern seriously. And when you don't do that, you become irrelevant."

Maddow did not ask Hagel about Limbaugh. But prior to the taping, Hagel was not shy about bemoaning Limbaugh's drag on his party. He told me that Limbaugh was the opposite of what the Republican Party needs now. "We blew eight years of governing," Hagel said, excoriating GOPers for having "run up" the national debt. "You can only blame Ted Kennedy for so much," he remarked.

Hagel's comments about Limbaugh were not surprising. Before he left the Senate last year, after serving two terms, Hagel developed the reputation of an independent Republican. He flirted with a presidential run in 2008 and then backed off. Last summer, he practically endorsed Obama, traveling to Iraq with him, when John McCain's campaign was attacking Obama for being soft on defense and accusing him of wanting to lose the war there.

The Rush wars, though, have abated in the past week. Steele has moved on, after apologizing to Limbaugh for calling his broadcasts "ugly" and "incendiary." Pro-administration groups have throttled back on the anti-Limbaugh ads. The mini-uproar over Limbaugh's offensive reference to Ted Kennedy's possible death has subsided. (The new GOP cat-fight is a three-way dust-up involving Laura Ingraham, Meghan McCain, and Ann Coulter.)

But Limbaugh's not fading away, and Republicans will continue to have to figure out their party's relationship to the radio provocateur. And Hagel, for one, does not want his party--he still calls himself a Republican--to be fall prey to Limbaugh's gravitational pull.

Here's Hagel on The Rachel Maddow Show:

This was first posted at MotherJones.com....You can follow my postings and media appearances via Twitter by clicking here.

Has Rush Limbaugh finally turned into a liability for the Republican Party? That would be delicious for liberals

One progressive group is trying to use Limbaugh as a blunt object against Republican senators who might vote against President Barack Obama's stimulus package, which passed the House with absolutely no Republican votes on Wednesday. Americans United for Change--which has joined with MoveOn.org, SEIU and AFSCME to air television ads targeting five GOP senators in four states--has launched a 60-second radio spot against three other Senate GOPers, and the commercial's main ammo is Limbaugh. The three senators in this line of fire are John Ensign of Nevada, George Voinovich of Ohio, and Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania.

The commercial notes that Limbaugh has declared that he hopes Obama fails, and it asks whether these senators will side with the radio loudmouth or with Obama. You can hear it here. And the script: