Rush Limbaugh points out that some Republicans become weak kneed when confronted with the media scandal:
We just heard from the office of Florida Senator Mel Martinez. The American Spectator is reporting today in their Prowler column the following story. "With federal costs related to Hurricane Katrina now estimated to be topping out at more than 100 billion, Republicans in both the House and Senate appear to be moving against the White House as fast as the rats in New Orleans in the lower Garden District. Last Friday, everybody from senators Mel Martinez and Tom Coburn to GOP members in the House Ways and Means Committee were criticizing the Bush administration for not offsetting Katrina spending with broader spending cuts across the government. Martinez went so far as to say that perhaps the White House should pull plans to press for making permanent tax cuts that were in the offing for this legislative session. The refusal by Capitol Hill Republicans to fall in line behind the White House trying to gain some traction politically on just about any topic is indicative of a troubled majority looking at going home in the coming months to tip off reelection campaigns that now look vastly different from what they appeared to be even two months ago." Okay, two things about this. First, we heard from Senator Martinez's office, and they are denying this story. They say that "Senator Martinez is a strong proponent of making tax cuts permanent, and is in fact cosponsor of legislation to permanently repeal the death tax which has been placed on hold." Not the idea, but the vote has been placed on hold on this, and hopefully it will come back. So we regret reporting to you what the American Spectator said, Mel Martinez says they've got this wrong. That's that.
But the other part of this that just frosts me. "The refusal by Capitol Hill Republicans to fall in line behind a White House trying to gain some traction politically on just about any topic is indicative of a troubled majority looking at going home in the coming months to tip off reelection campaigns that now look vastly different from what they appeared to be even two months ago." They aren't different at all! This is precisely what happens when you have a bunch of weak-kneed Republicans who realize or can't realize that they are winners. They have won the last series of elections but damned if they won't act like it, and so they fall prey to this media scandal, and it is a media scandal, folks. The reporting, the predictions of the level of disaster in this hurricane are near scandalous. 10,000 deaths, 25,000 body bags. They've already got sewage working in some parts of the city, they've got water treatment working, they've got electricity in some parts of the city. Some people are going back to their homes. Yeah, there's damage, but the death toll in Louisiana total has not hit 200 yet. And it's not going to get anywhere near the 10,000 that they were projecting. And that's the news that drove the poll numbers down that these weak-kneed Republicans are all concerned about. The guys just realize what it is that wins for you. It's conservatism that wins for you.
Rush is right. Its time for conservatives to stand up and fight. Call a spade a spade. Call the left liars. Hold the MSM accountable for misstating reality. That is how we defeated Tom Daschle. IT was Tom Daschle who wanted to be a conservative, but his record did not support that lie. Don’t let the left get away with their lies. And never be afraid to call their MSM supporters out on the carpet.
And Rush Limbaugh certainly knows how stand up to the lying left:
The reality is that liberal Democrat policies fail and make people poor, and do not do anything about it once that happens. The reality that we're seeing on the media is 180 degrees different from the reality in the country. In the media and liberal Democrat world, Wal-Mart is evil. Wal-Mart, in the real world, has donated something like $15 million (story | story). In media real world, the pharmaceutical companies are evil and killing people. In the real world, the pharmaceutical companies work very hard to make drugs and medicines that save lives and have extended the life expectancy. They have donated more than $25 million in cash and pharmaceutical supplies. And what about the oil companies? In the media reality, the oil companies are the reason for all evil, it's why we're in Iraq, it's why Bush is in the White House, it's why Cheney is the vice president, it's why Halliburton is there. But in the real world, ExxonMobil has pledged $7 million, ConocoPhillips and Shell, $3 million apiece, Marathon Oil, one and a half million, the BP Foundation, one and a half million dollars, and guess where that money came from? It came from profits from gasoline (story). The government already runs the oil business. The government tells oil companies where they can't drill and where they can, where they can't ship and where they can, on what kind of ships they can ship their goods and on what kinds of ships they can't. They tell them what kind of gasoline to formulate for 40 different regions of this country. It's the government that already runs the oil companies. If I were the oil companies, I would convene hearings and I would bring every member of Congress up and I would start asking them questions, "Why are you trying to destroy this industry?" There are two realities. Unfortunately, the Republicans in Washington buy into the media reality, and they think that's what the rest of the country thinks.
The fact is, media reality is getting smaller and smaller and smaller. They still have a lot of influence, but not nearly the dominant influence they once had. The media reality does not automatically become the perception of most people in this country anymore. Those days are over, and it's about time these Republicans realized it and understand just what it is that gets them elected to things.
