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.
I think Kennedy is the greatest blowhard... or rather, was.
bookmark
I remember Dan Rather the piece of crap told Larry King there was to much Reagan coverage
A democrat one.
It seems they have learned the welston lesson.
Chris Dodd today is trying to save himself feeding on the media coverage of the kennedy funeral.
AND
the media is covering human interest stories rather than playing the whoring around kennedy.
(including FNC)
I think it is ironic that FNC could only get third tier shep smith to cover Kenedy. (FNC mention don’t ask don’t tell repeal is DOA because of kennedy’s death)
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