The obligatory “Rush rips Newt for calling him irrational” post

When even a guy famous for screaming says it’s time to calm down, it’s probably time to calm down. The boss assured me this morning, though, that people are still interested in the “I hope he fails” debate and the boss is (almost) always right, so here’s the obligatory link to Rush accusing Newt of criticizing him on yesterday’s “Meet the Press” (albeit not by name) because, and I quote, “I am at the top of the mountain of what I do. Everybody underneath it wants what I’ve got… I know that Newt would give his whatever to have what I’ve got.” A taste:

I’m surprised by nothing when I’m dealing with people in the media who think they’re in politics. No, as has always been the case, Anna Lee, the strength and the courage, the energy that I get is from my audience. I wrote a book once, and one of the chapters is “My Success is Not Determined by Who Wins Elections,” ’cause they come and go. They are fly-by-night operators, and most of them stand for nothing until they see a poll about what the American people want, and then they go out and try to say one way or another what the American people want while trying to falsely hold onto an ideology at the same time — and you can’t count on them. You can’t depend on them. They will sell you out; they will throw you overboard to save themselves, faster than anything. And they’ll use you on their way up as often as they can at the same time.

He took an oblique shot at Newt (also not by name) at CPAC too. Watch the clip of Gingrich on MTP insisting that it’s “irrational” to hope Obama fails but okay to hope he changes his mind on policy; opinions differ as to whether that’s what Rush meant all along. And with that, I’ll join Ace and Patterico in the “enough already” camp and let you have at it.

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