Posted on 08/28/2009 5:05:57 PM PDT by Sub-Driver
Newsweek’s Jonathan Alter: Rush Limbaugh Is the ‘Great Blowhard of Our Time’ By Scott Whitlock Created 2009-08-28 18:10
Newsweek columnist and editor Jonathan Alter [1] appeared on Friday’s Hardball and slammed Rush Limbaugh as the "great blowhard of our time." Host Chris Matthews prompted the quote when he discussed how Limbaugh had criticized him on his radio show for calling Barack Obama the "last brother" of the Kennedy clan. Referring to Ted Kennedy's death, Matthews snarled, "What is the matter with these people? Can't they take a week off, Jonathan? Just take a week off. It's a funeral."
Responding to the Hardball anchor’s complaint, Alter attacked, "If Ted Kennedy is one of the great senators of our time, Rush Limbaugh takes the crown as the great blowhard of our time." The Newsweek editor derided, "There's nobody who would have criticized Rush Limbaugh if he had talked about a brother because there's so many other things to criticize him for, other outrageous things that he says almost every day on the radio."
On August 26, the MRC’s Tim Graham [1] blogged about the original Matthews quote, which occurred on Wednesday’s Today show:
MSNBC host Chris Matthews appeared three times on Wednesday’s Today show to lionize Sen. Ted Kennedy, and twice he promoted Barack Obama as the "last brother" of the Kennedy political tradition. He tried to clarify a little in his appearance in the 10 am hour: "I don’t mean that in an ethnic sense or a black sense. I mean a brother of the Kennedy tradition. And I think he’s the new brother, not that last brother."
Rush Limbaugh joked on Wednesday that he wouldn’t be allowed by the media to use the word "brother" to describe Obama. Matthews suggested Kennedy "took a while to grow up," but portrayed him as the great brother who ran for president not out of power lust, but to bring back the Jack-and-Bobby aura.
A transcript of the Hardball exchange, which aired at 5:35pm EDT on August 28, follows:
CHRIS MATTHEWS: The other day, Rush Limbaugh, in his inimitable fashion, said that I had done something he would have got in trouble for. Please explain. I need a Biblical exegesis for this. I said that last year Ted Kennedy passed the torch of the Kennedy brotherhood to Barack Obama, making him the next Kennedy, and it was so clear to everybody that's what was going on, in fact, we put it in the documentary. He said if he has said something like that he would have been accused of making an ethnic slur, because I used the word brother. Even though, in terms of brotherhood, I point out, I’m not using this- I said it at the time, not in an ethnic sense, not in any racial sense, brother in the sense of sibling brother, actual brother. And he jumped up and made himself into a victim again. What is the matter with these people? Can't they take a week off, Jonathan? Just take a week off. It's a funeral. Take a week off from politics.
JONATHAN ALTER: He’s one of the- If Ted Kennedy is one of the great senators of our time, Rush Limbaugh takes the crown as the great blowhard of our time. There's nobody who would have criticized Rush Limbaugh if he had talked about a brother because there's so many other things to criticize him for, other outrageous things that he says almost every day on the radio. So he's just blowing smoke.
MATTHEWS: I think it's an attempt at victimhood.
Newsweek’s Jonathan Alter Is the ‘Most Butch Looking Lesbian of Our Time’
Who is John Alter?
Jonathan: Thanks for letting us know how effective Rush is, and how much that fact irritates you.
I rather thought that honor belonged to the recently departed Ted Kennedy.
Who’s Jonathan Alter? If the “Great Blowhard of Our Time” took a notion, he could BUY Newsweak, including Alter. Unfortunately for little Jonathan, Rush knows a loser when he sees one so that won’t be happening any time soon.
Newsweek, how’s that circulation going?
I know, I know, Jonathan Alter would do anything, just anything, to get Rush Limbaugh to notice him.
These others will not.
And Jonathan Alter, the most inconsequential liberal news gopher of our time...
...and how much do YOU make a year, Mr. Alter? Rush Limbaugh can think, talk, and write circles around you. You’re just jealous.
He's a diminutive troll like character with little journalistic talent and an unabashed extreme liberal bias.
Matthews brain is on a weeks vacation, that is if he had one.
Bwhahahahaha!
JONATHAN ALTER:
Pay no attention to that man behind the hairpiece!
I think MSNBC and the NYC media are just upset that they are not able to rehab Kennedy’s weak image.
I remember when he did a run against Carter in the primaries.
The MSM just wants to use Kennedy’s coffin as a podium, nothing more.
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