The King of Talk Radio admits he’s a water carrier

Rush Limbaugh confessed today what every sentient conservative knows, that he’s been pulling his punches for years, to protect the Republicans. David B. writes:

Here is the transcript of Rush’s confession. He says, “I feel liberated, ladies and gentlemen, because I don’t have to carry the water for people that I think don’t deserve to have their water carried.” Note that El Rushbo never says the word, “Bush.”

LA replies:

Limbaugh said:

I feel liberated, and I’m going to tell you as plainly as I can why. I no longer am going to have to carry the water for people who I don’t think deserve having their water carried. Now, you might say, “Well, why have you been doing it?” Because the stakes are high. Even though the Republican Party let us down, to me they represent a far better future for my beliefs and therefore the country’s than the Democrat Party and liberalism does.

So Rush has a rationale that makes his confession seem somewhat less blameworthy than I initially thought. Yes, he was carrying water for people who didn’t deserve it, but it wasn’t for their sake, it was for a larger cause.

But it still comes down to the fact that he was not speaking the truth as he saw it. Instead of holding the GOP’s and Bush’s feet to the fire, he was pulling his punches, or, to make the metaphor consistent, he was pulling their feet out of the fire. Many conservatives today make a religion of “going along” and “collegiality.” But when one’s side is as wrong as Bush and the GOP have been on many issues, that approach is not justified. Truth is the most important thing. And now Limbaugh is admitting he has been consciously withholding the truth for years.

VFR readers are familiar with David B’s occasional reports on El Rushbo, concerning Limbaugh’s laughable pattern of stating a criticism of Bush or Republicans and then backing away from it. Can a man who has been systematically cushioning and concealing the truth for year after year suddenly become intellectually honest? As David points out, even now that Limbaugh is supposedly coming clean about carrying water for people that don’t deserve it, he won’t refer to Bush by name. The habit of protecting Bush is a part of his being. Limbaugh needs to go through a de-Bushification process, as does the entire mainstream conservative movement.

As I have said before, the times in recent years when conservatives have been the most solid and real and based in principle was when they were firmly and uncompromisingly opposing Bush, as with the Harriet Miers situation.

Posted by Lawrence Auster at November 08, 2006 08:10 PM | Send