Limbaugh: Liberals -- can't live with 'em, can't shoot 'em

The conservative talker gives his take on the lessons John McCain should learn about liberals.

Published February 21, 2008 9:25PM (EST)

As expected, with the publication of the New York Times' story on John McCain and his possible relationship with and special treatment for lobbyist Vicki Iseman, radio star Rush Limbaugh has found someone he likes attacking more than McCain. That's right, evil, evil liberals. Also reporters. (Although Limbaugh would probably say we just repeated ourselves.)

Whatever else you want to say about him, Limbaugh is at the very least smart enough to know there'd be quite a bit of attention paid to what he had to say about McCain and the Times today. So when it came to his opening monologue, Limbaugh was ready to put on a show.

The important question for John McCain today is, is he going to learn the right lesson from this, and what is the lesson? The lesson is liberals are to be defeated. You cannot walk across the aisle with them. You cannot reach across the aisle. You cannot welcome their media members on your bus and get all cozy with them and expect eternal love from them. You are a Republican. Whether you're a conservative Republican or not, you are a Republican. At some point, the people you cozy up to, either to do legislation or to get cozy media stories, are going to turn on you. They are snakes...

Now, here's an interesting aspect here. You talk about the details of the story and how thinly sourced and all that. Yeah, right, yada yada. It's the Drive-By Media, for crying out loud. It's the New York Times reporting about a Republican. You know damn well a story like this wouldn't run about Hillary or Obama, even Bill Clinton, a story like this wouldn't run. If it did, it would be fawning. "Oh, there's old randy Bill out there, still showing us he got some lead in the pencil here after the heart surgery. Oh, yeah!"

I don't understand why it's so hard for the people on the Republican Party side to understand who the enemy is and who they're dealing with.

Not that Limbaugh would actually care, but it's worth noting that, in fact, the Times ran an article on the Clintons' marriage that was in some ways similar to this latest story on McCain.


By Alex Koppelman

Alex Koppelman is a staff writer for Salon.

MORE FROM Alex Koppelman


Related Topics ------------------------------------------

2008 Elections John Mccain R-ariz. Rush Limbaugh