Rush Limbaugh On The Media, McCain And Talk Radio

Rush Limbaugh did something very rare for him - aninterview with the dinosaur media.

Here, in a piece in TIME Magazine, he lays out his thoughts on the media, the impending campaign between John McCain and Hillary Clinton or Barack Obama, and conservatism and its direction...a worthy read by a man who. regardless of whether you agree with him or not is a major thinker on politics and political philosophy. An dsomeone whom I've found to be almost uncanny in his ability to forecast the political future. Here are a few nuggets:

TIME: So I understand from listening to your show yesterday
that your attacks against John McCain were all part of a secret plan. You are making yourself John McCain's biggest helper by attacking him.

LIMBAUGH: Well, it's not a secret plan. Look it, I've
been fascinated, honestly Jay, with the attention paid to me by people who really have not undertaken to understand how I succeed, how I define my success.

I don't define my success by who wins elections, because politicians are going to come and go, and I'm going to be around as long as I choose to be. It just amazes me. So I thought I'd have some fun with this since there seems to be a narrative and a template in a lot of the media about talk radio and me in particular. I thought I'd throw a curve ball out there yesterday. And there is some truth to it, by the way. I do think if I really came out fervently, and passionately endorsed McCain, some of the independents and Democrats who were thinking about voting for him might be dissuaded by it simply because they have such a virulent dislike for me. But I threw it out just to have fun with all this, which is my primary objective every day.

TIME:Is there anything John McCain can do to persuade you he's acceptable?

LIMBAUGH:I don't think he should even try. He's got to
be who he is. I don't think he needs to reach out. His job is not to be
acceptable to a single person. I'm not sitting here demanding that. I don't have that kind of sense of power or existence.{..}

You know, when it comes down to a general election — looks like it's going to be Obama versus McCain — any number of ways of playing this, and one of them, I don't necessarily have to tout McCain, but I certainly will be critical of Obama. Once we get down to the general, you start examining what this guy's policies are. Right now [Obama is] saying nothing better than anybody has ever said it. At least in my lifetime. It's going have to get specific at some point.

I said this on the radio yesterday. I really do take all this seriously in terms of the future of the country and where we're headed. And liberalism to me, based on its history, portends disastrous things for the future of the country. I think liberals in a political sense need to be defeated, not accommodated, not reached across the aisle and hugged, not walked across the aisle and accommodate them and bring them in. And I certainly don't want the Republican Party to be redefined by becoming victorious on the basis of a bunch of liberal Democrats being attracted to the party as liberal Democrats. I'd love to have them if they are converted to our side. But we're missing genuine conservative leadership, so that's not going to happen.

TIME:You'll be critical of the Democratic nominee. Will you continue to hold McCain's feet to the fire as this goes forward?

LIMBAUGH:Well, probably. But it's not personal. I firmly believe that conservatism — genuinely articulated, passionately articulated — wins in national elections most every time it's tried. I tell people, 'Go back to the eighties.' Ronald Reagan did not have talk radio or an alternative media supporting him. What was he down — in the House of Representatives — the Democrat margin then was what, 130 seats or something? And they [the Republicans] were led by a guy named Bob Michel whose objective every day was to make sure he was invited to play golf with Democrat leaders. And [Reagan] didn't have the Senate for most of his eight [years]. Look what he did. He got his tax cuts through — a number of things. It can be done. We're dealing, I think, with Pelosi and Reid, two of the most incompetent, ineffective Democrat leaders in my lifetime. Now the idea that we conservatives cannot go beat these people without having some of them join us as who they are — it offends the hell out of me. Conservatism, if you look at Reagan, that kind of leadership, it can happen. And so, yeah, I would love to try to be a force, of seeing to it that that's part of a national Republican campaign — absolutely.

Read the whole thing at the link above.