"In Defense of Rush"

That's the title of Mark Corallo's column over at NRO and if you were wondering what the Sage really thinks about the whole dust up, now that I've taken the time to reconstruct the entire episode, his words are as good as any I could manage.  Starting with the very first couple of paragraphs:

I heard Rush’s comments live: every word of it, the tone of voice, the inflections. Rush Limbaugh was using the time-honored method of satire to describe an absurd event on Capitol Hill — the whining of a 30-year-old law student whose life is apparently in shambles because she and her fellow law students are having so much recreational sex that affording birth control has become a financial burden. Seriously, that’s her very public complaint. With all of the copulating, I’d like to know when they have time to study con-law. 

Rush, in his entertainer’s way, went over the top to make a point. Since when should any human being, corporation, or government entity that is not engaging in the sex act be forced to pay for someone else’s birth control? Absurd.

I did listen to Rush's apology yesterday and (are you raedy?) I don't believe him.

First, I don't think he apologized because he's lost or is still in danger of losing sponsors.  If that were the way he operated, his show as it is would never have been as it is in the first place.

Nor do I think that he's genuinely sorry for the words he used to make his point.

I do think he regrets very much that for a day or two he lost his head, he lost his keen, typically unerring instincts and insights about the Left, the Democrats, and their Big Media allies, about how they operate, and about how they might use his words against him and, more importantly, against the conservative cause he so ably defends and unaplogetically champions.

It's not a level playing field, it never has been, and likely never will be.  He knows this and is, therefore, usually at least a step, if not two, ahead of most liberals in anticipating their reaction.  He wasn't this time.

So, two steps forward, one step back.  But with Rush on our side, at leasdt we're still moving forward.