Michael Barone Got the Message

RUSH: Yesterday, as you know, I spent considerable portion of the first hour of yesterday’s excursion into broadcast excellence responding to Michael Barone, who observed in a Washington Examiner column that the instincts of Tea Party people and candidates were strikingly superb and that the liberal media was not aware of just how good the political instincts of the Tea Party people are. I said, ‘Well, why is this such a surprise?’ You remember, I’m sure. Well, this morning in Washington at AEI, the American Enterprise Institute, during a midterm election preview, one of the panelists was AEI Resident Fellow and Washington Examiner Senior Policy Analyst Michael Barone. The moderator, AEI senior fellow, Karlyn Bowman, says, ‘Michael, it’s your turn. Could you tell us a little bit about what Rush Limbaugh had to say about you yesterday?’

BARONE: I made the point that, uh, some of the so-called Tea Party candidates on the Republican side actually had skill and political instincts, even though they’re lampooned in much of the press as just a bunch of idiots ‘bereft of science and reason’ and the president’s phrase. Rush Limbaugh said, ‘Well, Michael Barone’s figured this out. It’s taken him some time. Why didn’t he figure this out before?’

AUDIENCE: (laughter)

BARONE: ‘I,’ Rush, ‘figured out it ahead.’ (sic) He also said some very kind things about me and as an interpreter of political events, so I’ll say some kind things about him. He is a great talent. It was an interesting thing. You know, your e-mail lights up and your columns get hits when Rush gets you, and I have to confess that when Rush was doing this, I was on the Acela going from New York to Washington in sort of the classic Metroliner, insider’s turf.

RUSH: He thinks the Acela is the elites’ mode of transportation (laughs), which I guess it is.