The American Spectator

Rush Limbaugh — along with lots of readers — took exception to my column yesterday. Now that Rush’s DeLay monologue is featured on RushLimbaugh.com, I’m getting a new wave of hate-mail. A few points:

1. This isn’t about whether DeLay is a good guy or not, or the value of loyalty, or whatever. Politics is about winning and losing. I remain completely unpersuaded that sticking by DeLay is a winning move, either for the Republican Party or for sound policy. As John Hawkins of RightWingNews.com puts it, DeLay “is such a spendthrift that he makes Jimmy Carter look like Scrooge McDuck.”

2. Several readers insist that Ronnie Earle isn’t someone “no one has heard of,” at least in Texas. Fair enough, but my point, that Earle’s scalp is no big prize, still stands.

3. Rush says that “the Beltway conservatives” — of which he takes me to be emblematic — “do like to say and write things that occasionally they think will curry favor with the DC liberals.” Come on, Rush. I just tell the truth as I see it. Isn’t that what you do?