"If I really wanted to torpedo McCain, I would endorse him," Limbaugh said on his radio show. "Because that would send the independents and liberals who are going to vote for him running away faster than anything."... ..."Couldn't it be said, if somebody wanted to…that I am secretly supporting McCain, because I secretly do want him to win, but I know full well that if I come out and endorse him, he's cooked?" Limbaugh asked. "Who may be in this whole kit and caboodle, this who shebang, the most valuable asset McCain has?" "Me."

"Men cannot escape being governed. Either they must govern themselves or they must submit to being governed by others."
- Theodore Roosevelt

Originally Posted by galenrox In unsurprisingly the most self aggrandizing way possible Rush Limbaugh basically announced that he's secretly supporting McCain in the race but is ragging on him so as to motivate Dems and Inds who passionately hate him to vote for McCain. CNN Political Ticker: All politics, all the time Blog Archive - Limbaugh: I’m McCain’s ‘most valuable asset’ « - Blogs from CNN.com If you ask me what this is is this morning Rush woke up, looked at the numbers and saw that if Mike Huckabee didn't win big he'd be mathematically eliminated from winning the nomination in an non-brokered convention, and realized Republicans are gonna get behind McCain, but he can't flip flop, so what does he do? Claim it's all a ruse, a ruse that he must continue with a vehemence that can convince his regular McCain hating listeners that he's still serious (despite acknowledging on air that he's screwing around).

With each polling outcome hammering home the reality that the talk show hosts are every bit as impotent as they were loud when it came to trying to influence the Republican nomination, it is not surprising that some such as Mr. Limbaugh are in full retreat from the rigid lines they had drawn in the proverbial sand.

It was an audacious gamble by Mr. Limbaugh, Mr. Hannity, Ms. Coulter, Ms. Ingraham, et al., to try to anoint themselves as a "Guardian Council," if you will, who would define the conservative movement's principles and punish those who strayed from their orthodoxy. From the lonely isolation of the radio booth, they actually dared to believe that they could command the minds of millions of voters across the nation.

That hubris was shattered. Their carefully constructed myth of great influence sufficient to determine the Republican nomination, built rant by rant, disintegrated as the Republican primary season reached Super Tuesday and then moved beyond it. Now, the talk show hosts' have abandoned their earlier strategy. Now, they are hastily seeking to limit the damage to their credibility as spokesmen for the conservative movement before such damage begins to pull down their ratings.

RUSH: Let's go right to the audio sound bites. In fact, let's start with number two. No, let's go ahead and start with number one. This is PMSNBC, the Morning Joe show today, with Joe Scarborough. Mika Brzezinski, who is the daughter of Zbigniew Brzezinski, the former national security advisor during the disastrous Carter years, she is talking with the correspondent David Gregory about how an endorsement of McCain by me would sink McCain. BRZEZINSKI: I'm reading Richard Cohen this morning. He says that "nothing commends McCain more than his enemies. The fact that Rush Limbaugh hates him is a pretty good reason by itself to vote for McCain. It's not always possible to judge a man by his friends, but his enemies will always tell you something." So the question I guess for John McCain moving forward, is how does he sort of bridge that divide with the base, and does he really need to when it's these kind of blabbermouths who are leading the way. Give me some insight as to why this is so important. GREGORY: He needs the conservative base behind him, particularly because of the enthusiasm you see on the Democratic side. So come November, he's gotta get conservatives to come out and vote, and, yeah, the argument goes that as long -- you know, Rush Limbaugh, Ann Coulter, they're against McCain. It's only going to help him with his own base of those independent voters that will be so important in November. No question about that; that he's gotta maintain that core of independent voters for him. RUSH: One of the things that has amazed me throughout all of this, ladies and gentlemen, is the narrow mindedness, the narrow focus of people in the Drive-Bys. Mika Brzezinski was reading from Richard Cohen today in the Washington Post. Now, Cohen said, look, the worst thing that could happen to McCain is if Limbaugh endorsed him because then the independents would run for the hills and the Democrats who are going to vote for McCain would run for the hills. It's too late, Cohen. I said that myself yesterday. If I really wanted to torpedo McCain, I would endorse him, because that would send the independents and liberals that are going to vote for him running away faster than anything. What people don't realize is I'm doing McCain the biggest favor that could be done for him by staying out of this. If I endorsed him thoroughly, with passion, that would end the independents and moderates, because they so despise me, and they so hate me. Now, if I were a member of the Drive-By Media, I would dig deeper than the surface here. They're all obsessed -- and, by the way, they all want to talk to me -- TIME Magazine, New York Times, New York Times magazine, you would think I'm running for office. We've got a list of requests of people that want to talk to me, and they all want to talk about the same thing: Why do you not like McCain? What in the world is it with McCain? How come you don't like McCain? That's basically the theme. Now, if I were one of these guys, I would go a little bit further. Now, this may be where they have their problem. If I were a Drive-By looking at all this, the first thing I'd say is, "Limbaugh is not stupid." But they may not go there. They may think I am. But, do you think it might intrigue them -- look at what Cohen wrote. They think I'm against McCain. They think I'm trying to torpedo McCain. They think I'm trying to savage McCain. They think I have an animus toward McCain. And yet, am I not doing the best thing in the world for his candidacy based on the way he structured it? He wants independents; he wants Democrats; he wants people from across the aisle joining our party to give him his electoral majority, correct? Who is helping him accomplish that? Me. It is I, El Rushbo, the all-knowing, all-caring, all-feeling, all-sensing, all-concerned, all-everything El Rushbo. So couldn't it be said, if somebody wanted to in an enterprising way, go there, couldn't it be said that I am secretly supporting Senator McCain because I secretly do want him to win, but I know full well that if I come out and endorse him, he's cooked, because I'm going to tell you this, if I were to endorse McCain, the conservatives in this audience who are opposed to him are not going to join him because I say so. This is another area where the Drive-Bys totally don't get it. They think everybody out there is receiving marching orders. If I endorsed McCain today, next week, August, if I came out and actually endorsed McCain, that's when my audience would have trouble with me. So I'm sitting here, I'm covering two bases at the same time, both beneficial to me, and the Drive-Bys are stuck on this, and even after explaining this to them -- Kit, they're going to call you now, "Does Limbaugh say, does he really mean that this is how he's supporting McCain?" And your answer is going to be, "I don't know. You heard him say what I said. He put it out there as something for you guys to think about. You guys are enterprising journalists. He's encouraging you to get away from the one track mind that you're on and write something different from all of your other so-called colleagues." Look, we all know that McCain wants to win. He's very proud of this. Richard Cohen, independents, moderates, no wonder the left is excited for McCain. They want to vote for him. Some of them do, and McCain wants to win that way. And if McCain wins, who loses? Obama or Hillary. Is that not good for our side for those guys to lose? So who may be, in this whole kit and caboodle, in this whole shebang, who may be the most valuable asset McCain has? Me.

Zyphlin,

The sad thing is that, based on that transcript, I see Mr. Limbaugh trying not to clarify where he stands, but trying to be all things to all people. He has one foot on the ground occupied by his anti-McCain sentiments and the other planted in positioning himself as somehow being helpful to Senator McCain.

Rather than casting aspersions on the Media, one would think that as a prominent radio commentator, he would understand the importance of articulating his message in a clear and readily understood fashion. That transcript is anything but clear. Although it might well be true that CNN misunderstood Mr. Limbaugh's position, Mr. Limbaugh did himself no favors in presenting such a muddled message.

With respect to his political position, if Mr. Limbaugh opposes Senator McCain on principle, there's no reason he should not say so unequivocally. There is no shame in standing on principle. If he is shifting his position, he should be equally clear, and explain his reasoning. There is no shame in rallying behind the nominee of one's preferred political Party after one's own choice is no longer in the running for the nomination.

In the end, that transcript is an exercise in translucence, leaving people to see things that might well not represent Mr. Limbaugh's opinion on the issue. However, responsibility for that confusion lies strictly with the Mr. Limbaugh who communicated his message as recorded in the transcript.

Originally Posted by Zyphlin The problem with this Don is you're taking one transcript, of probably 5 minutes, of a 3 hour long show, that is on 5 days a week, and trying to extrapolate that as being his continued stance. I could likely go in to his site and pull off 5 transcripts that clearly show his opposition to McCain based on principle, and if I only showed you those you'd think it was 100%. On top of that, the written word transcripted from spoken word by someone who puts himself as an entertainer first and foremost does not translate well as you lose voice inflection, a means of communicating that Limbaugh uses frequently in his speech. Yes, for someone that happened to tune in, just that minute, to his show, having never heard it before, could easily be confused about his position. Those that listen, even those that don't agree with him but at least listen to him semi-regularly, are able to see that for what it is in the greater scope of the Limbaugh presentation and understand what was the intent and meaning behind it.