Schwarzenegger takes the bait- makes up with Rush Limbaugh

They were eyeball to eyeball, and Schwarzenegger blinked. Earlier this week Governor Schwarzenegger responded to right-wing radio personality Rush Limbaugh who had been taunting him by saying that he is “not a real Republican” and of being a “Democrat pretending to be a Republican”. Speaking during an interview on the today show the Governor said, “Rush Limbaugh is irrelevant. I am not his servant; I am the people’s servant of California. Whether they call me a Democrat or a Republican, or in the center, or I changed, or this or that, that’s not my bottom line”. This “irrelevant” comment was widely praised, and maybe the Governor should have left it at that. Rush Limbaugh is popular among some conservatives but he is despised by progressives and liberals. He was one of the biggest cheerleaders for the war in Iraq and helped the Bush administration make it’s case that Iraq was “linked” to Al Qaeda, along with other frequently misleading and highly partisan reporting.

Limbaugh continued taunting Schwarzenegger, on Tuesday saying, “if he had the leadership skills to articulate conservative principles and win over the public as Reagan did, then he would have stayed conservative” and also mocked the Governor on his Web site by putting up a fake poster with Schwarzenegger’s face titled ‘Total Sellout’ a play on the title of the film ‘Total Recall’. On Wednesday the Governor threw in the towel and called into the show, but the dressing down continued. Limbaugh pressed Schwarzenegger about his the $12 billion universal health care proposal that is opposed by many conservatives, and said that the compromises Schwarzenegger said were necessary were really a “capitulation to liberals”. Schwarzenegger still seemed eager to make up with the talk show host, however, and suggested they get together to smoke cigars, “You and I, we’re going to have a good time again in our next smoke out,” Schwarzenegger said. “We’ll smoke a stogie together, and we will talk about this from here to eternity. The key thing is that people should know that you and I, we don’t have a fight.”