Politico reports:
Republican National Committee Chairman Michael Steele says he has reached out to Rush Limbaugh to tell him he meant no offense when he referred to the popular conservative radio host as an “entertainer” whose show can be “incendiary.”
“My intent was not to go after Rush – I have enormous respect for Rush Limbaugh,” Steele said in a telephone interview. “I was maybe a little bit inarticulate. … There was no attempt on my part to diminish his voice or his leadership.”
The dust-up comes at a time when top Democrats are trying to make Limbaugh the face of the Republican Party, in part by using ads funded by labor. Americans United for Change sent a fund-raising e-mail Monday that begins: “The Republican Party has turned into the Rush Limbaugh Party.”
Steele told CNN host D.L. Hughley in an interview aired Saturday night: “Rush Limbaugh is an entertainer. Rush Limbaugh – his whole thing is entertainment. He has this incendiary – yes, it’s ugly.”
“I went back at that tape and I realized words that I said weren’t what I was thinking,” Steele said…
A poll follows.
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One, Jesus tap-dancing Christ…this is pathetic.
Two, this really should have been a multiple-choice poll. 🙂
I was stoked when Steele took Rush on. This apology was pathetic.
I’m joining the Green Party. Anybody have their number?
Green Party of the United States
1711 18th Street NW
Washington, DC 20009
202-319-7191
202-319-7192
fax 202-319-7193
866-41GREEN (toll-free)
Mailing address:
Green Party of the United States
PO Box 57065
Washington, DC 20037
Timeline:
1. A Republican showed that they may actually have a spine
2. Rush bashed said Republican on air
3. Republican kisses Rush’s ass
Repeat as needed
Can someone photoshop Rush’s head onto Jabba the Hut and Steele onto the critter at the end of the chain?
with Steele as Salacious Crumb and bonus Sarah Palin as Oola.
Rush’s head already sits on Jabba’s body.
No Photoshop needed.
I keep waiting for him to grab a live snack out of a bowl and munch away on air.
and I dare someone to put Ann Coulter in the Princess Leia outfit…of course, that would require her to gain 40 pounds and lose the adam’s apple.
If Steel thinks conservatives will choose him over Rush he is really miscalculating. Rush gave an AMAZING rebuttal to Steele this afternoon. This is a disaster.
Like the Detroit Lions this year were amazing.
Somehow I can’t see Rush Limbaugh as the symbol for the revival of the Republican Party.
of the fact that no dissent is allowed in the Republican Party. You must adhere to the most absurd ideology or be thrown out of the party. Chairman Steele just found this out.
Second, the Democrats have been saying for a couple of weeks that Rush Limbaugh is the spokesman for the Republican Party and apparently, based on Mr. Steele’s apology, he is. Mr. Limbaugh is beyond criticism for Republicans.
None dare denigrate Caldera (never run for office) or Andrews (no longer in office).
About a month ago I saw Caldera’s SUV (the plates are a dead giveaway). My Republican friend has an issue with him, so he went around and cut him off (kinda) just to prove a point. I still don’t know what it was exactly, but take that Caldera!!!!! My friend was doing the maniacal laugh for the rest of the night and there was no repercussion.
…his goal was to harm RTD and he did a good job with that goal.
The definition of victory for Rush is that 1) He continues to make lots of money, 2) He continues to have lots of rabid followers to feed his ego, and 3) He gets to be King of the Republican party (that ego thing again).
Nowhere in what really matters to Rush is political victory for the GOP. Nor is recovery of the economy.
“Republican Congressman John Barrasso of Wyoming repeatedly refused to even come close to criticizing Rush Limbaugh even though the lawmaker disagrees with the conservative commentator’s statement that he’d like to see President Obama fail.”
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/…
I don’t even know why the poor guy agreed to show up. He looked like he was going to pee his pants. It was like watching some poor North Korean being asked to say the Dear Leader may have been a teensy bit wrong on one little thing. They created this monster and now their stuck with him.
His quote of excuse is the icing on the cake:
I was thinking “Rush is a god,” but what I said was “Rush is a clown”.
Can anyone imagine Howard Dean (or Tim Kaine now) apologizing to Michael Moore because they said he’s an entertainer, and that he says incendiary things?
The most ironic thing about it all is that nothing Michael Steele said was wrong. Rush is an entertainer, his comments are oftentimes divisive and controversial, and he is quite ugly.
The Republican party is not poor mr. steel or poor mr. mccain. the Republican party is exactly who Rush says it is…..right now the Republican party is Rush Limbaugh…..BECAUSE Limbaugh controls 15 hours of public airwaves a week on a national network. No one else comes close.
In Colorado the republican party, with more traditional leaders including currently serving elected officials, controls KOA…about 24/7-minus the national repub shows.
I believe that one party control of the public airwaves, regardless of the party, is a disaster for the country.
I will not accept it as okay. So I don’t get my jollies making fun of the fact that Rush Limbaugh is a power too big for any elected republican official to criticize.
Relax. If He’s so damn powerful outside of his shrinking echo chamber, why was McCain nominated and Obama elected?
Look, buddy, I am talking principle here. You tell me why one political party should control the public airwaves…..why colorado repubs can talk to their constituents, 24/7 on the public airwaves, cut off the dems, and never pay a dime for the air time??? Don’t duck the question. Answer it. the fact that you are not worried is not at all reassuring.
As for Limbaugh: he has 15 hours a week to broadcast his philosophy…nationwide…with no fear of contradiction.
One of Limbaugh’s main talking points, is that the repubs did NOT listen to him…..and they lost big time…that has made him more powerful..
from a strategic point of view, the obama administration and their supporters are already targeted to be the scapegoats if things continue to go really south in the economy….bad situation. for a democracy.
MSNBC has a very well rated progressive presence centering on Olbermann and Maddow. Shuster too. Ed Schultz radio presence is expanding, helped by his frequent TV appearances.
True, progressive radio has not caught up with rightie radio but it’s a much better situation than before 2004 and the demographics for righties are skewing more senior every day, especially for O’Reilly on FOX.
Like gun control, this is one of the right’s scare tactic issues and that’s probably why Dems aren’t in a hurry to play into the right’s hands as the party that wants to take away your guns and Rush Limbaugh. Not saying that’s what the fairness doctrine would do. That’s just how righties play it.
Right now the Obama team is doing a pretty good job controlling the message. Their crowning of Limbaugh as the party leader makes GOP pols, all of whom who are afraid to cross him and apologize like crazy if they slip up, look ridiculously wimpy. That’s making a huge dent in decades of GOP success in labeling Dems, including decorated war hero Dems, wimps.
I think this batch of Dem leaders is on to something and am not too worried about the fairness doctrine at this juncture. My feeling is they are doing a skillful PR job so let’s not get in their way. But then I’m a progressive pragmatist.
But my question remains: Why should one political party control the public airways?? The fact that the dems can get around it does not justify the repubs control..I believe that the dem’s success depended on the brilliant use of email and cphones…..media which is also available to the repubs or any other poltical party on the same basis. Not true the public airwaves. That is the difference. Cable is not part of the equation.
Let me be clear, I don’t want the democratic party to control the public airwaves either. I also am not concerned about “skillful PR job”….I am concerned about the need for this country and its citizens to be able to engage in meaninful and real public discussion on the medium belonging to them and most accessible to most people…and that is the public airwaves…to say nothing about being able to get accurate information.
The indisputable fact is that US citizens have suffered the largest loss of wealth in the history of this country in the last four months with the slow motion collapse of the stock market. Now this is something everyone should be able to talk about….we should all be able to hear from all sides and hear elected officials debate each other….that is absolutely lacking. And the real danger here, and pay attention, is that one party is going to control the debate …look forward to this country in crisis..(.not backward to Grant Park and a truly historic moment.) In crisis, we can not allow the public airwaves to be used by one political party to exploit to their advantage the economic crisis…with god knows what results.
I like Ed Schultz, too. But this is not a debate about personalities or political strategies. It is about what is the best use of the public airwaves for all citizens in a time of growing national crisis.
And, in Colorado, I don’t even know what the voices of most locally elected democratic politicans sound like. They have been cut off of the public airwaves…that is not neither good nor fair.
That’s the new conservative philosophy Limbaugh gives voice to. Conservatives really don’t want to govern right now. They’ve convinced themselves that ideological purity is paramount to the mundane policy compromises that must be made to keep people employed and in their houses.
Limbaugh says he fears we are becoming a nation of socialists with greatly diminished freedom, but that’s not the real concern. In reality conservatives have an underlying fear that their simplistic philosophy of less government, less taxes is fundamentally deficient to address the magnitude of the problems we now face.
You mean, as opposed to the last eight years when they wanted to govern? It’s El Paso County writ large — make government inept and incapable enough, either by starving the beast or installing Arabian Horse experts in key positions, that citizens give up expecting government to accomplish anything.
It’s breathtaking to contemplate, but can anyone seriously imagine how a President McCain and his top economic advisor, Treasury Secretary Phil Gramm, would be handling the Great Recession these days? Especially with Rush pulling the strings?
I’d be wheelbarrow shopping so I could have something big enough to carry enough money to pay to fill up my car with 100% Drill Baby Drill brand fuel so I could then drive to my non-union job building bombs for the Iran War. Then I’d head home in time to tune in to the Joe the Plumber Show on FOX.
But at least the fundamentals of the economy would still be strong.
I am going out on a limb, here, but I will. I predict that Romer’s bill to give instate tuition to illegals fails.
Let’s see what happens. Employers, the chamber of commerce, teachers, all for the measure…