Rush on McCain, cont.

Alex K. writes:

I can’t listen regularly enough to replace David B.’s dispatches from Rushland, but I do have something to say about Rush’s response to McCain this week.

Limbaugh literally said of McCain, “He sounds just like a liberal.” Now why would that be, Rush?

I copied the transcript from his site and bolded the part where, as I read it, he admits to finding it “tough” to attack McCain, as well as the part where he cluelessly says that McCain “sounds like” a liberal:

RUSH: McCain is attacking the North Carolina Republican Party. He is saying they’re “out of touch with reality,” as defined by him. They are not listening to him. He’s going to do what he can to get the ad canceled because it’s racist. Question, Senator McCain: “What if the North Carolina Republican Party or any other state Republican Party ran the same ad, but put Bill Ayers in it instead of Jeremiah Wright? Would you oppose that ad?” Because there’s no difference other than the color of the skin of one of the Obama associates. I think… This is very, very tough for me, folks, but I think Senator McCain has a responsibility now to explain exactly what is racist about this ad. This is precisely what the Drive-Bys want in the Democrat Party: they want any criticism of Obama to be disqualified and not permitted because it’s racist, and McCain’s falling right in line. And don’t tell me he’s got some grand strategy here to pick up a lot of black vote in the general election.

That’s not what this is. If you think there’s a grand strategy here, you’re missing the point. Keep listening. Senator McCain owes us an explanation Tell us what is racist about this North Carolina ad. He sounds just like a liberal, asking that we may take inferences about the North Carolina Republican Party and the people that run it. I take from this several things. Number one: it appears to me that Senator McCain is back to his usual tactics of using Republicans as foils. He’s attacking the president over Hurricane Katrina. Not the mayor of New Orleans, but the president. He’s trying to prove to the liberal media, the so-called independents and Democrats, that he’s the eventual nominee of the Republican Party but that this is all about him. It’s not about Republicans, not conservatives, so no need to worry about him being too much of either. He’s sending a message to Democrats and independents whose votes he wants: “Don’t worry about me. I’m not one of these wacko conservative right-wingers.” It’s about him, not about a grand strategy here.

Later, when Rush said it was all “mystifying,” a caller said something even more telling. First of all, notice that Limbaugh here attributes McCain’s problem to egotism, rather than liberalism. But second, see how the caller is ready to abandon McCain because he has been insulted:

CALLER: Rush, as a North Carolina Republican, I’m mad as hell about John McCain’s comments. Who does he think he is to tell us how to run our local elections? I mean, I was prepared, you know, to hold my nose and vote for John McCain even though he’s not a Jesse Helms-Ronald Reagan Republican. But why should we vote for somebody who insults us? If John McCain loses states like North Carolina, he’s finished. He can’t win the presidency without us. He says we need to listen to him? He’d better wake up and listen to us, if he wants us to like him

RUSH: It is mystifying. As I said earlier in the broadcast: I can’t relate to that kind of ego even though I have one of the most renowned egos in modern media.

CALLER: (laughing)

RUSH: I can’t relate to it.

The caller was going to hold his nose and vote McCain, until this particular insult changed his mind. Now, I think it’s better than likely that this Jesse-Helms-supporting caller would also fall under the category of people who were insulted on numerous occasions by McCain when the subject was immigration. What McCain has done here is mild compared to the insinuations of racism and bigotry that he made against opponents of his open borders treason. Why is this caller only now too insulted to hold his nose and vote? My guess is he just isn’t aware of how insulting McCain was to his enemies on immigration. And that would be because Limbaugh simply didn’t register the magnitude of McCain’s open borders liberalism and didn’t make a sufficient deal about it on his show to get through to his audience.

This caller, and Limbaugh himself, act like this is some new low for McCain. The caller probably doesn’t know any better. And actually Limbaugh, from his point of view, is probably right. When McCain was insulting on immigration he was merely standing in the way of good immigration reform. When McCain is being insulting now he is doing something far worse: standing in the way of defeating Democrats. For Limbaugh, that is a new low.

Posted by Lawrence Auster at April 28, 2008 02:08 AM | Send