Remember how people were talking about it being a bad idea for Obama to single out Rush Limbaugh by name? As it turns out, the President seems to be walking away from that one clean. The political right? Not so much.
Politico just reported that a full-on pissing match between the radio commentator and Congressional Republicans seems to be developing:
Responding to President Obamaâs recommendation to Republican congressional leaders last week that they not follow Limbaughâs lead, the conservative talkmeister said on his show that Obama is âobviously more frightened of me than he is Mitch McConnell. He's more frightened of me, than he is of, say, John Boehner, which doesn't say much about our party."
Rep. Phil Gingrey, R-Ga., did not take kindly to this assessment in an interview with Politico Tuesday.
âI think that our leadership, Mitch McConnell and John Boehner, are taking the right approach,â Gingrey said. âI mean, itâs easy if youâre Sean Hannity or Rush Limbaugh or even sometimes Newt Gingrich to stand back and throw bricks. You donât have to try to do whatâs best for your people and your party. You know youâre just on these talk shows and youâre living well and plus you stir up a bit of controversy and gin the base and that sort of that thing. But when it comes to true leadership, not that these people couldnât be or wouldnât be good leaders, theyâre not in that position of John Boehner or Mitch McConnell.
Being good journalists, Politico took these comments (which, at the time they were erroneously attributing to Rep. Tom Price) to Limbaugh and asked for a response. Rush being Rush, a response is just what they got.
Asked to respond to Gingrey, Limbaugh, in an email to Politico, wrote: âI'm sure he is doing his best but it does not appear to be good enough. He may not have noticed that the number of Republican colleagues he has in the House has dwindled. And they will dwindle more if he and his friends don't show more leadership and effectiveness in battling the most left-wing agenda in modern history. And they won't continue to lose because of me, but because of their relationship with the grassroots, which is hurting. Conservatives want leadership from those who claim to represent them. And we'll know it when we see it.â
I'm definitely staying tuned to see if this exchange continues.
UPDATE (16:55 CST):
I didn't have to stay tuned for very long. Almost immediately after the original article was posted, I received the following email from Rep. Price's Deputy Chief of Staff, Kris Skrzycki :
A story was published by Jonathan Martin in the Politico this afternoon that WRONGLY attributes a quote to Rep. Tom Price. Rep. Price never uttered the words that were WRONGLY attributed to him and we will be demanding a full retraction. Jonathan Martin never confirmed the quote with our office. If he had, we would have been able to correct his inaccurate reporting. If you have any questions, please contact me. Thank you.
Politico had already modified their piece by then to reflect that the quote came from Rep. Gingrey and not Rep. Price. I've made the same changes, and I regret any inconvenience the error might have caused Rep. Price or his staff.
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"...not that these people couldnât be or wouldnât be good leaders..."
Is it just me, or is Rep. Gingrey being extraordinarily generous here?
Rt
Newt successfully drove the rage-mongering about Bill Clinton's affair, while keeping his own affair his secretary hidden under his desk. Doesn't that establish that he's a good leader?
Why all this talk about the need for "good leadership"? Doesn't that implicitly (explicitly?) acknowledge "bad followership"? The Republicans have no interest in "leading" anybody anywhere. They simply seek to keep the ignorant ignorant so that the rich can get richer and the poor can blame the Democrats. It has worked remarkably well for a LOT of years. And yet, . . .history moves ever forward against slavery, mysogony, oligarchy, homophobia and even the god-myth and religion. No one ever said this was going to be easy but the rejection of Dubya and his policies and election of our first African-American president is a heckuva good start! "Despite" graduating from Harvard Law School he appears to be really smart too!
With the mounting job casualties, here's hoping SCOTUS either finds someone, somewhere, has standing to require BHO's birth certificate or fixes attention on a criminal indictment before he wins his War on Prosperity.
Excellent - I've always believe the hard right were a bunch of splitters at heart. With the right provocation, they'll happily form a circular firing squad.
Ted - why don't you think SCOTUS should be investigating the GOPs links with Al Qaeda?
I would have thought investigating terrorist links at the heart of the administration of the last 8 years would have been one of your prime concerns yet you make no mention of it at all. Why do you hate freedom so much?
On a smaller scale, Ted, have you stopped beating your wife yet?
So Tom Price hasn't spoken up to slam Limbaugh (even if in defense of his dastardly party leaders)?
Shame!