Limbaugh Blasts Colin Powell, Suggests He Should Leave GOP
Updated below with audio.
Dems have sought to turn Rush Limbaugh into the personification of GOP intolerance, mean-spiritedness, and uncompromising conservatism, and Rush’s attack on Colin Powell — delivered moments ago on the air — probably won’t hinder this effort.
Rush hammered Powell as “just another liberal,” reiterated his claim that Powell’s endorsement of Obama was about “race,” and suggested Powell should leave the GOP and just “become another Democrat.”
Rush was responding to some sharp criticism Powell lodged against him Monday. In a speech to corporate executives, Powell claimed that “the Republican Party is in deep trouble” and directly blamed Rush, saying that the talk show host “diminishes the party” and corrupts our public life with “a kind of nastiness that we would be better to do without.”
“I don’t care what Colin Powell says,” Limbaugh responded on the air this afternoon. “This kind of stuff is said about me three times a day … and Colin Powell is just another liberal.”
Limbaugh brought up his earlier claim that Powell’s endorsement of Obama was about race. “He’s just mad at me because I’m the one person in the country who had the guts to explain [the endorsement],” Limbaugh said. “There can be no other explanation for it.”
Perhaps most tellingly, Limbaugh appeared to call on Powell to leave the Republican Party: “What Colin Powell needs to do is close the loop and become a Democrat.”
The optics of this one are not good: The de facto leader of the GOP (according to Dems and some in the media) is reiterating his claim that a high profile black Republican and decorated military man’s endorsement of the country’s first black president was only about race. And that he should leave the party.
Update: Here’s the audio:
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If Mad Rush and the GOP had a Colinectomy, they’d have nothing left.
Now if the DNC wants to make an ad they should remake that survivor ad and put Spector, John McCain and his daughter Meghan and Colin Powell with Rushbo’s picture and his words saying they should all leave the party. Either that or come up with a totally new video and have the same people plus clips of any Congressional Republican talking about a “big tent” party and or efforts to “rebuild the party” interspersed with Limbaugh’s invective. Didn’t he make some similiar statements about Snowe and Collins after Snowe’s op ed?
Greg
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BTW what did you think of the Senate taking away Specter’s seniority yesterday?
Rush is just soooo thin skinned.
Especially for a thrice divorced drug addicted *** tourist.
Aah, the mouth of the GOP! Keep up the great work Rush!
Perhaps everybody who disagrees with Rush about anything should be forced to leace the party so they can reclaim their natural place in the political spectrum- 21% of the population.
Ol Rushbo is counting the $$$ – don’t ever think it is about anything other than that. It’s not a public service, it’s about ratings. Ratings determine advertising revenue – and say what you want to about Rush, one thing is for sure, the man makes some serious coin – and he’s been doing it for a good while.
The fact that he leads the walmart shoppers & nascar fans of America is ok. They don’t vote.
@jzap: “If Mad Rush and the GOP had a Colinectomy, they’d have nothing left.”
Lol, pun unintended I bet. Still funny.
Greg
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Off topic but I thought Harry Reid said something on MSNBC that was very important
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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cyB2tz1fZOs
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At about 1:33 Reid says of Specter
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“On procedural votes he will be with us all the time”
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That sounds like cloture to me…
Ah, Rush Limbaugh: liberals’ 20 year, deep cover, top secret project to defeat Movement Conservatism. Kind of like that Vonnegut book “Mother Night.”
sg- That’s the way I’d play it too.
I’m not sure how Powell polls these days but I expect it is still quite high. He could push this one further but his past behavior suggests he’ll be reluctant to drop below what he apparently considers a certain level of dignity. On the other hand, if he wishes to give a boost to his party (and to the improvement of civic sanity and rhetoric) he might push it further. If you are reading this, Colin, your country needs you now.
Well, one thing is for sure. We won’t see Colin Powell apologizing to Limbaugh. The GOP leadership has to be cringing as they realize Rush Limbaugh may actually be their own Stanley Kurtz. Come to think of it, he even looks like Marlon Brando at his worst, all fat and sweaty.
Waiting for Powell to apologize in 5…4…3..2……
Hmmm, looks like it’s betting time.
Rush Limbaugh is a true gift for the Democrats. And the great thing is the Republicans are in such a catch 22 situation. They can’t go against Rush because a core group of the party faithful (the kind of people who come out to vote in the Republican primaries) are Rush fanatics but likewise by not going against him they are basically approving of someone that about 70% of the country finds intensely distasteful.
There’s an obvious contradiction here.
So Powell is “just another liberal”, but “there can be no other explanation” for his endorsement of Obama except for race.
Square that circle.
SG — that’s a very good catch, as usual. Thanks. I’ll dig into that first thing tomorrow.
Let’s see here, the drug-addicted Limbaugh chiding Powell about guts? What will the Brown Shirts do now?
Rush proves that Colin Powell is not liberal by saying race is the only reason for his supporting Obama. Which means Rush supports exiling conservatives who support black candidates, regardless of their positions, exposing the true racist nature of the GOP rump that is the ‘conservative’ right.
God, I wish that fat bag of pus would just explode.
You guys are a bunch of idiots!!!!!
I as an american do NOT want to pay higher taxes!!!!! Get out of the Republican Party!!!!!!!!!!!!!
What does Colin Powell know, anyway. He’s the “Republican” that endorsed Obama, then re-assured us all that Barack was “qualified to be Commander-in-Chief” the week before the Russians caught Obama completely asleep-at-the-wheel and nabbed the Krgyzstani air-base that we use to fly-in most of our supplies to Afghanistan.
I don’t trust Powell an inch, he apparently feels guilty about promoting the Iraq war (but shouldn’t) and is trying to make amends. He will be considered even more irrelevant (if that’s possible) when Obamamania collapses in a poof of dust.
And Powell’s motivations are plenty suspect, IMO- a guy from Bush’s own cabinet promotes Obama… so why has he never endorsed any liberal, inexperienced white candidates before?
Team Obama, the DNC, and their MSM sycophants have been employing despicable Alinsky-esque divide-and-conquer and character assassination techniques for months now… manufacturing synthetic “fights” like Limbaugh vs. Steele, plus ceaseless ridicule of Jindal, Palin, even shameful distortion of the legacy of Ronald Reagan. Clearly, the strategy is to eliminate GOP rallying points and philosophical framework for 2010/12 and create the image of a party in disarray.
And it’s not difficult to see why the Democrats might prefer to banter playfully about made-up GOP “scandals” and irrelevancies like Meghan McCain’s latest drivel than debate Obama’s ongoing destruction of the country.
When their pork-n-welfare spending orgy fails to create any real economic gains -but stokes vicious inflation and crashes the dollar instead- the Democrats face a bloodbath in 2010.
And by 2012? LOL, the GOP could take 40 states running Gilbert Gottfried.
Is anyone surprised Cheney chose Limbaugh over Powell? I’m not, they have way too much in common.
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