RUSH: All right, the South Florida emergency management system, Broward County, will not go away. This story will not go away. Last night it was big on Hannity & Colmes and also on the Scarborough Country show on PMSNBC. Scarborough’s guests last night were media analyst Steve Adubato and a liberal talk show host named Mike Pepantonio. Scarborough says, ‘You agree with Rush Limbaugh that these politicians are politicizing hurricane protection measures?’
ADUBATO: Joe, you know Florida well, but I know Rush Limbaugh [sic], and I have to tell you something. Rush doesn’t take the high road. I don’t necessarily agree with what they’re doing down there. Obviously, they’re going to go along with the contract but here’s the problem with Rush. Rush turns around, and what does he say? He talks about the woman, the — Stacy Ritter, the councilwoman down there, calls her ‘a liberal babe.’
SCARBOROUGH: (Chuckles.)
ADUBATO: He said, ‘Liberal babes are rare. That’s why they stand out.’ So this is the same guy who calls women who are liberal feminazis [sic].
SCARBOROUGH: Wait! Waaait!
ADUBATO: This is the same guy who did what he did to Michael J. Fox.
RUSH: I’ve never met Steve Adubato. That’s who’s speaking. I don’t know how Steve Adubato ‘knows’ me, because I don’t know him. But, Steve, let me tell you something. I was sitting here earlier this week minding my own business, and all of a sudden babe — and she is babe! Well, in the pictures I’ve seen she’s a babe. Anyway, she starts attacking me, starts attacking the radio station that carries my program. She doesn’t want people in her area to have to listen to that station because I’m on it. I’m sitting here minding my own business. I didn’t attack her. She is stupid or did a stupid thing here — and, by the way, I did comment on this seriously as well as crack a few jokes. You liberals can’t laugh at
PAPANTONIO: I think you’re narrowing the issue. This is about the free market system taking care of itself. It’s good news. I’m so glad because advertisers and political candidates pull their money, pull their advertisements from networks all the time because they don’t agree with political agenda. So you have Rush Limbaugh crying like a school baby out there about the fact — and, you know what? You live by the sword, you die by the sword. This is no different from the Dixie Chicks. Look what Rush Limbaugh did to the Dixie Chicks.
RUSH: I didn’t do a thing to the Dixie Chicks! I didn’t get involved in the Dixie Chicks thing. I made a couple of side comments. I couldn’t have cared less about the Dixie Chicks thing. That was radio stations that caused the problems that play music, country stations that caused problems for the Dixie Chicks. As far as ‘crying like a school baby’ out there? I had more fun with this than I can remember something that liberals have done in a long time. Now back to Adubato who wanted to add this in later.
ADUBATO: Rush, I gotta tell you, if you frame it on the safety issue, you win, Joe. Rush wins. That’s fine. Hopefully the people win. But Rush has a lot of nerve hiding behind the safety issue when he has attacked more people, tried to get more people taken off the air by calling them all sorts of names, and he doesn’t engage in just political ideology. He engages in name-calling and it’s dangerous and they have a right to express their opinion down there against him.
RUSH: They do. They do. But it was absolutely stupid what their opinion was like. They have a right. Michael J. Fox is entitled to go on television and lie about Republican candidates and embryonic stem cells, but he doesn’t get immunity from criticism when he enters the political arena,