Limbaugh makes an interesting point, yesterday, along the same lines as the “Welcome to the Bigtime” [1] post, as regards the Webb campaign and bloggers, below…
RUSH: Here we go with Barack Obama. As you know, he was up in New Hampshire — do you know, by the way, TV ads [2] for Barack Obama are going to start airing this weekend? Presidential ads for Barack Obama in New Hampshire start airing this weekend. Hillary, I think, is starting to get panicked because she’s called up all of Bubba’s old buddies, Carville and Begala and Joe Lockhart, she had them over to dinner to discuss what to do about this. Her team wasn’t there. They’re all one team, of course, but publicly Carville and Begala have said, (paraphrasing) “Well, we’ll help, but we’re not officially on the team.” That allows them to have more movement and latitude under the radar. Anyway, Obama up in New Hampshire being treated like a god making a speech. Now, apparently before he made the speech, Maureen Dowd had written something about his big ears. Obama, after the speech, made a beeline for Maureen Dowd who was in the audience to tell her that he didn’t appreciate her writing about his big ears. Now, there’s a lot of noise here and it’s very muddy. I’ll translate it for you, but here’s how it sounded.OBAMA (off mic): You talked about my ears, and I just want to put you on notice: I’m very sensitive about — What I told them was, ”I was teased relentlessly when I was a kid about my big ears.'”DOWD (purring): We’re trying to toughen you up
RUSH: “We’re just trying to toughen you up.” Here is what Barack Obama said.”You talked about my ears, and I just want to put you on notice: I’m very sensitive about — What at I told them was, ‘I was teased relentlessly when I was a kid about my big ears.'” Now, there are many aspects of this, folks, that we need to delve into and explore. For one thing, I mean you know me, if the guy’s sensitive about his big ears, we need to give him a new name, like Dumbo. But that doesn’t quite get it. How about Barack Obama Hussein Odumbo. Well, if he’s sensitive — stop to think about this. This is a man being lauded as the savior of the country, a presidential candidate ready to be anointed, and he can’t handle being teased about his big ears? He goes out to Maureen Dowd and says, I am putting you on notice? Is that a threat? I want to put you on notice?
Can you imagine, like I said yesterday [3], let’s say something about me — I’m very sensitive about whatever it is, X, and the papers write about it and make fun of it. Can you imagine if I sought out Maureen Dowd or anybody and said, “You know, I’m going to put you on notice. I’ve been teased about that ever since I was a kid, and I don’t like it.” That would be the whole column the next day about how thin-skinned I am, how I can’t take it, this and that, and I am a complainer and a whiner and I was trying to influence objective journalists and so forth. But instead, Mo Do says, “We’re just trying to toughen you up.” But this is revealing at a lot of levels. It is an overt threat to go out and say, “I’m putting you on notice.” I wonder what would happen if McCain did that. McCain, “You don’t say that about me! I’m putting you on notice, you hear, sister, you hear?”
First let me stipulate that Dowd is a slimy dolt… right out of the box.
Beyond that, though… What he’s really suggesting, here is that people with that kind of thin skin are not going to last long in the public eye. Know what folks? He’s right.
Which brings me back to the point I made earlier this morning… this is all part and parcel of political life, like it or not.
Ya know what else? This applies to political Bloggers, and political beat news folks, every bit as much as pols.