Maverick St. McCain

For those of us who can remember back 7 years, the fact that McCain doesn't like Rusty all that much shouldn't be much of a surprise. Eric Boehlert back in 2000:

Ever since McCain scored his 19-point New Hampshire victory over Texas Gov. George W. Bush, the conservative talker, heard by nearly 15 million listeners on more than 500 radio stations nationwide, has been shredding McCain hour after hour, day after day. Longtime listeners say for Limbaugh to conduct this kind of sustained scorched-earth policy against a fellow Republican is unprecedented.

And the sharp blows have left more than a few Limbaugh loyalists, who happen to be McCain supporters, scratching their heads in disbelief as the self-proclaimed "Truth Detector" gives McCain the full Clinton treatment; questioning his honesty, his integrity and running parodies that make the senator sound like a stammering, incoherent twit. (By contrast, Limbaugh, a Lincoln Bedroom guest during George Bush's presidency, has found no fault at all with W.)


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What Limbaugh has been saying on-air is that McCain is a shameless manipulator who's borrowing "the deceitful politics of Bill Clinton." That there's "intellectual dishonesty" flowing from the McCain camp. That "you can't rely on what McCain says," because he lifts policies "right out of the Bill Clinton/George McGovern play book." And that "McCain is the unsuspecting tool of the Rockefeller Republicans who want to reclaim the party from Christian conservatives."

Limbaugh welcomes callers to his show who denounce McCain as "an intellectual bigot" who "lies, lies, lies" and is a man who "has no set core values." Online, at Limbaugh newsgroups, fans are now posting questions about McCain's Vietnam military service ("Has there been any corroborating evidence by McCain's fellow prisoners that he was 'brutally tortured'?") right next to "Is Clinton a murderer?" rants.