You reply: Because he had announced that he was not going to make a formal endorsement during the primaries, IIRC.
If he had already announced it, why did he feel compelled to say, "I stress again here: I am not endorsing anybody." Why did he say it? You're the lawyer. Are you presenting as an argument that Rush was only reiterating his "no formal endorsement" policy?" For what reason? To imply that he really didn't mean it, that indeed he was informally endorsing Romney by saying, "I stress again here: I am not endorsing anybody"?
Huh?????
WHY did Rush stress that his words about Romney were not to be taken as an endorsement?
As some kind of signal that indeed he meant the opposite???
Why do you think he said it? He had committed not to make a formal endorsement during the primaries. My impression is that he has never endorsed during a primary, but I couldn’t say that for certain because I don’t listen to him all the time.
He warmly praised Romney after his religion speech. He announces that Romney is the one of the three candidate remaining who embodied conservative ideals.
If you look at the substance of what Rush said, it is very positive for Romney, and singles out Romney as the one person who embodied Rush’s ideals. If you want to split hairs over whether that is an “endorsement” or not, and hysterically accuse people of lying if they think it does constitute an endorsement, have at it.
As for me, these are the last keystrokes I’m going to waste on this discussion.