Powell served in vietnam. Great, so did a lot of other people who don't share his opinons or his gargantuan sense of entitlement. Don't forget, Powell attacked Rush, not the other way around. Powell made the idiotic comment that the republican party should stop getting direction from Rush. Rush pointed out, correctly, that the party has not been listening to him lately. He pointed out that McCain was not his choice, but he supported him anyway. McCain was Powell's long time friend and the very model of the kind of moderate, non-partisan candidate Powell is saying they should nominate. Yet who did Powell support? Obama. Why? Obviously because of the race issue. Powell also went out of his way to criticize Sarah Palin for daring to say she represented small town values. For some reason that infuriated the great Powell. I guess he prefers the values of Washington and chicago. Rush correctly pointed out that guys like Powell and McCain represent only Washington and care only about Washington. It's far more important for them to be accepted by the Washington media and regarded as team players by the Washington establishment than for them to act in the best interests of the country. It's worked out brilliantly for Powell. He's rich, commands huge speaker's fees and is the toast of the media. Unfortunately, he has little of interest to say and his ideas will prove disastrous for the republican party. In fact, they already have.
I'd love to pass Limbaugh in some hall, "how's that cyst ...patriot." Who better to espouse the right agenda than a fat man.
Rush and Hannity are the defacto voices of the conservative wing of the pubs, which is their "base". He effectively caused havoc in the democratic primaries. He thought he had enough pull to push McCain across the finish line. He was very wrong. Powell is dead on. The "base" of the pubs are seen as Nascar watching, tobacco chewing, rebel flag waiving, sister screwing rednecks from Appalachia. Look at the people McCain drew to his rallies, he ended up having to do a 180 on his rhetoric. "Obama's an arab", remember that? If the pubs have any shot at carrying anything other than the south and small towns, they had better get it together and in a hurry.
Only for those (like you) who ignore the extremely obvious fact that McCain didn't run as a moderate, he ran as a rightwinger because that was the only way to energize the evangelical red-meat base. He bragged during the primaries about agreeing with Bush over 90% of the time. He could have distanced himself from that in the general but not by nominating Palin, who is to the right of Bush. You guys made your bed, you don't like it, and now as usual you want to pretend it's somebody else's fault.
People who need to be told what and how to think cares about what Rush says. Listening to Rush and Hannity hours a day everyday = dumbass. This is from Snopes.com , funny if true. "There are similar stories [of avoiding service in Vietnam] about almost every other prominent rightwing Republican of recent vintage. Newt Gingrich, ex-Speaker of the House, went the Cheney route [of obtaining deferments]; Kenneth Starr, Clinton's legal nemesis, had psoriasis: Jack Kemp, Dole's running mate in 1996, was unfit because of a knee injury, though he heroically continued as a National Football League quarterback for another eight years; Pat Buchanan had arthritis in his knees, though he soon became an avid jogger. The best story concerns Rush Limbaugh, the ferociously bellicose radio personality, who allegedly had either "anal cysts" or an "ingrown hair follicle on his bottom". It is not my custom to mock others' ailments, but anyone who has listened to Limbaugh's programme can imagine the dripping scorn he would bring to the revelation that a prominent Democrat had skipped a war over something like that. Also, in his case, a pain in the arse is peculiarly appropriate." Chicken Hawk Republicans, couldn't fight their way out of a wet paper bag.
You are further off base than even Powell. McCain the candidate of the right? What a joke. They despised him and vice versa. Do you think Rush and conservatives in general were big fans of Bush and his push for amnesty for illegals, huge deficits, Kennedy big government spending bills, etc.? Rush posed the question and I will repeat it. Why is it conservatives fault that McCain lost? They didn't want him in the first place, he ran a terrible race and conservatives had been ignored by Bush for most of his administration. Even with all his shortcomings, if mcCain had followed his principles and opposed the bailout, he likely would have won. The only sensible consclusion is that when republicans are true to their principles, they at least have a chance. When they try to be all things to all people, they lose. Why vote for a fake democrat when you can get the real thing? The only hope for the republican party is to decide who they represent. If it's big business, the Chamber of Commerce and Business Roundtable, then they can count on reassuming their traditional role as a permanent minority, which no doubt is not a big problem for the Powells and McCains.
You aren't listening. I didn't say McCain was a right-winger and your first choice in the primaries, I said he RAN as a right-winger because the base demanded it. Regardless of feelings, the right voted for McCain. This is hilarious. Rush supported Bush in 2000 and 2004, and he supported McCain. Actions speak louder than words. He can try to revise history all he wants by claiming McCain wasn't his guy, but the fact remains that he urged his listeners to vote for McCain. That's the bottom line. By contrast, Clinton pissed me off from Day one and I can boast that I am one of the few people to vote against him four times: both Democratic Primaries and both General elections, 1992 and 1996. That's what you do when you have real principles: put your vote where your mouth is.