As an eyewitness to the final days of the Bush administration, speechwriter Matt Latimer can report with assurance that “the absolutely last people the powers that be listened to were conservative activists on radio and TV.” Latimer’s message to Democrats: “The Limbaughs and Becks don’t dictate what Republicans do in Washington.” Latimer says Dubya’s team ignored the talk titans—and that was a mistake.

“I really think it is important to help those who haven’t had much experience with conservatives try to understand some of their tribal rituals and enthusiasms,” Latimer said on The Daily Beast web site. “This time, the pressing issue among Those Who Want to Know,” he says, “is the mystifying appeal of Glenn Beck, Rush Limbaugh, and others like them who are now ‘running’ the Republican Party.”

To Latimer, the shock jocks’ hateful hold “on the GOP is greatly exaggerated.” Moreover, he believes “that’s not necessarily a good thing.”

No word yet from Latimer, however, on whether hate-spewing over the public airwaves is “a good thing” for the rest of us — or the country itself…