Rush, pick on someone your own size! 97-year-old Roberta McCain had a few choice words to say about Rush Limbaugh a few days ago: “I don’t know what he is, but he does not represent the Republican Party that I belong to.” Roberta is absolutely right. Rush Limbaugh has repeatedly violated Reagan’s 11th Commandment: “Thou shalt not speak ill of any fellow Republican.”

I know that Rush is not always at fault, for example, Michael “in da heezy” Steele had no business calling Rush irrelevant, but the truth is that Rush has been very vocal in attacking fellow Republicans, particularly Roberta McCain’s son. We must be realistic for a moment… do we want the Republican party to be a clique where only the most loyal conservatives can join or run for office? Do we be so exclusive that we save ammo for Republicans who stray even an inch from the official party line? Of course not.

I am no supporter of moderation in the defense of freedom, but I am neither an imbecile when it comes to backing people who are more conservative versus more liberal. Any day, I would rather have a McCain than an Obama. More generally, on any day I would choose a liberal Republican over a liberal Democrat, or even a conservative Democrat, because the truth is that Democrats DO NOT agree with the fact that “bigger government means less freedom” and conservatism holds that to be true (within reason of course: limited gov’t is the goal, not zero gov’t). The Republican Party cannot turn into the political version of the middle kingdom… we must be willing to accept some dissent.

This does not mean that we must moderate, it means that we should have lively debate within the party, and we must not become stagnant like the Democrats who decided decades ago that more taxes, more spending, and more government was the answer to society’s woes. For that reason, Rush is starting to stretch my patience to its limits. Reagan created the 11th Commandment for a reason… and we started winning election after election because of it… because we did not allow our inner policy debates to become weapons for the Democrats to use against us. Jeb said forget about Reagan… Rush seems to be following suit… now is not the time to betray his memory by destroying the Republican Party through civil war.

-AG