Free Republic

I heard the news about Rush Limbaugh just a few minutes after I concluded Monday’s talk radio show. Lung Cancer. Felt like a sucker punch.Rush is one of my radio heroes – like Paul Harvey – a heartland legend.He’s one of the good guys in the radio business and a brilliant broadcaster and entertainer.I’ll never forget the first time I heard the Excellence in Broadcasting Network – finally there was a guy on the radio who said what I was thinking.He helped me find my voice as a young conservative and a broadcaster. He showed the nation that conservatives could...

Media Bias: Not long after pro football welcomed a convicted felon back on the playing field, Rush Limbaugh is dropped for his opinions from a group seeking to buy an NFL franchise. Won't someone throw a flag? When even Keith Olbermann says back off, you know the politically correct critics of the conservative icon and megaradio talk host's proposed part ownership of the St. Louis Rams are guilty of piling on. The prospect of the leading conservative voice in America participating in the purchase of a football team sent the liberal elites into cardiac arrest and into a frenzied campaign...

Excerpt: It was confirmed today that the White House is running a campaign against Rush Limbaugh. Is this a smart strategy? Rush Limbaugh was a leading force in the Republican Revolution two years after Bill Clinton first won election. The freshmen Republicans dubbed themselves the “Dittohead Caucus” after their sweeping victory in 1994. Obviously Rush played a critical role in 94' election. Is it smart for the media and the White House to target Limbaugh at a time when a repeat of that 1994 revolution is most likely to occur? The problem for Obama and the White House is that...

KNOXVILLE, Tenn. (AP) — An out-of-work truck driver smiled Monday as he pleaded guilty to killing two people and wounding six others at a Tennessee church last summer because he considered the liberal church "a den of un-American vipers." ">snip<"

Dittoheads, you've been dissed. Chris Matthews has dismissed you as a bunch of mind-numbed robots. CNBC's John Harwood seconded the insult. It happened on this evening's Hardball as Matthews mused about the potential impact of Operation Chaos on the upcoming primaries. CHRIS MATTHEWS: How much of a move do you hear, John Harwood, the so-called Operation Chaos is going to play next Tuesday in Indianapolis [sic], the effort by Rush Limbaugh, the lovable Rush Limbaugh, I must say, to encourage Republicans, registered Republicans, to go vote for Hillary just to cause chaos and perhaps get her the nomination? How big...

Does a John McCain Republican victory mean the demise of the "dittoheads?" It is just one of a number of a fascinating back stories to the resurrection of the Arizona senator, a campaign that has had to swim upstream not against the Mitt Romneys and Rudy Giulianis of the world, but the right-wing "talkocracy" of the United States, the family-values wing of the party and some Republican members of Congress. It has been bad news for the "dittoheads," the pejorative name given to the audience of Rush Limbaugh, the country's leading conservative radio voice, for their blind agreement with the...

Somebody in the Huckabee camp made the mistake of insulting the leader of the conservative movement in the U.S., Rush Limbaugh. Rush responded on Friday's show and basically ripped the Huckabee camp a well-deserved new one. Whoever made the original comments clearly has not been paying attention. Some are questioning whether the Huckabee campaign can survive the shellacking it got on Friday's program. Huckabee is trying to stop the bleeding: SIOUX CITY, Iowa — The best-talking Republican politician in America has a message for the best-talking conservative voice in the country: Let's talk to one another. Mike Huckabee, taking questions...

http://www.whitehouse.gov/infocus/iraq/part1.html 10 WAYS THE LIBERATION OF IRAQ SUPPORTS THE WAR ON TERROR With the fall of Saddam Hussein's regime, Iraq is no longer a state sponsor of terror. According to State Department reports on terrorism, before the removal of Saddam's regime, Iraq was one of seven state sponsors of terror. Saddam Hussein's regime posed a threat to the security of the United States and the world. With the removal of Saddam Hussein's regime, a leader who pursued, used, and possessed weapons of mass destruction is no longer in power. Saddam Hussein would not uphold his international commitments, and now that...

RUSH: I'm ecstatic. I heard about this list this morning. It's a list of the "meanest" cars for 2006, and I am on the list -- well, my car is. "High-performance sports cars, ultra-luxury sedans and powerful trucks all rely on high-powered engines to deliver performance and towing capacity — but that performance comes at a price — landing these vehicles at the bottom of the list in the annual Green Book from the American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy (ACEEE). Each year, ACEEE rates vehicles on their overall impact on the environment, with vehicles earning the best scores...

RUSH: A couple more delights from the White House press briefing today. David Gregory. Did you happen to see earlier this week the Washington Post ran a big puff piece on Gregory. He's the new Sam Donaldson. He is the Sam Donaldson to George Bush. You know, Donaldson, among many things that led to his fame, was a provocateur with Ronald Reagan throughout much of Reagan's administration. So they're having this White House press briefing today, and they're talking about this offensive that's going on in Iraq. GREGORY: Does the president think that an offensive like this high-profile is...

RUSH: Brian in Wilmington, North Carolina, I know you're still out there, because I know you're here every day, Brian, and I know a lot of you libs are out there. Let me tell you: I think this is probably everything that you're looking for. The reason that it took so long to release details of the hunting accident -- Dick Cheney and Harry Whittington -- is that Whittington is actually dead, and it took them about eight hours to go find a double for Mr. Whittington, because he's actually brain dead. He's so injured that he's being held...

RUSH: I've got to take care of something first. These idiots over at Bill Schneider's office and CNN. You remember the bit that I did yesterday in which I describe what would be happening if a Democrat vice president had shot a buddy accidentally while hunting? We would be hearing about, "Oh, this is a terrible thing. We must give the vice president room while he grieves and assembles himself as he suffers along with his friend." We'd get all kinds of features on hunting safety and there would be a totally different approach. They took one sentence out...

RUSH: Here's a little story today in the New York Sun. Did you know that Judith Miller was back in court fighting with the special prosecutor, Patrick Fitzgerald, again? "Journalist Judith Miller and U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald squared off in court again yesterday, with a lot less public attention than last year, when the dogged special prosecutor in the Valerie Plame case had the then-New York Times reporter jailed for 85 days to force her to disclose the identity of an anonymous source. Yesterday appearance in Manhattan before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit was another...

BEGIN TRANSCRIPT RUSH: So let me ask you a question, folks: What would you rather do? "Would you rather go hunting with Dick Cheney or riding in a car over a bridge with Ted Kennedy?" You go riding in a car over a bridge with Ted Kennedy, he's going to run off if an accident happens and you won't see him again, and it's too late. You go hunting with Dick Cheney and an accident happens and he'll take you to the hospital. BREAK TRANSCRIPT RUSH: We have some audio from Good Morning America today on the Cheney situation....

ABC News, via their investigative reporter Brian Ross -- and I can attest personally that Brian Ross gets it wrong -- has got a story, "Is the CIA Leak Probe a 'Witch Hunt.'?" Now, because it's Brian Ross, I cannot attest to the accuracy of the report. This is a guy who just recently on Nightline did this whole distortion of Justice Scalia showing up to teach a course for a legal society, at which the respondents and the participants had paid months in advance to attend this thing. It was portrayed by ABC News as a "junket," and because...

RUSH: You people out there that have robbed banks, what do they call the red dye? What do they call the red dye that banks use? Somebody steals a bag of money and they escape and they open it, and (interruption). The dye pack, that's right. Maimone knows. He's a former bank robber. Kaboom! You've got red dye all over the perp and all over the money. It's a red dye bomb, is that what it's called? Pretty much? We'll just say it is, because it captures enough. Whatever you call it, the red dye bomb exposed John F....

RUSH: Bob in Corpus Christi, Texas, welcome to the program, sir. Nice to have you with us. CALLER: Yes. Hi, Rush. About Hillary. RUSH: Yeah. CALLER: You're wrong if you don't think she can win. Be afraid, be very afraid. RUSH: (sighing) CALLER: It's very simple. John Kerry almost won. He lost by three points, and he based his whole campaign on three and a half months in a swift boat. And his background, his voting record was buried. He made his name in VVAW, a bunch of bogus psychopathic radicals. He told a bunch of twisted lies about being...

BEGIN TRANSCRIPT RUSH: Of course we all know the circumstances surrounding Mrs. Alito leaving the hearing room in tears yesterday. You know what the laugher about this one is? The AP, the Associated Press, the first story crossing the wires tried to blame "Vice President" Lindsey Graham for this. They tried to blame the Republicans for making Ms. Alito cry. Anybody with a brain -- half a brain, a quarter of a brain -- watching these things understood what was going on with all this yesterday. We'll have the audiotape of that incident here. A very emotional time, by...

BEGIN TRANSCRIPT RUSH: Yesterday, the Dow Jones Industrial Average crossed the barrier 11,000. The media has a way of describing this. We have put together a montage: Fox News Channel, ABC News, CBS News, CBS This Morning, CBS, NBC. Note here, there's a single word that all of these anchors and info babes and reporters used to describe the Dow breaking 11,000. CHRIS WALLACE: We certainly understand it to be an important psychological mark. REBECCA GOMEZ: It's a psychological milestone. MELLODY HOBSON: There's nothing magical about 11,000. It's more psychological. BOB SCHIEFFER: Wall Street reached a psychological milestone today....

BEGIN TRANSCRIPT RUSH: Well, you know, folks, it's just real simple here. From a purely analytical point of view -- from a purely analytical point of view -- the media prove time and time again they cannot be trusted to report the truth or the facts. We can't count on them anymore. First there was Katrina. We got forged documents, lies about the law regarding the NSA program; now this terrible mine accident. Time and again they report false information and spin. They rely on rumored sources. Somebody shouts out a rumor, they run with it. They take it...