Next For GOP — Pistols At Dawn?

Rush Limbaugh and John McCain's mom mix it up.

So, what's next for the Republican Party? Mama jokes?  Ya gotta think so, considering that an honorable military man like John McCain can't let his moms get dissed. 

But that's what happened this week.  Rush Limbaugh -- yep, him again -- has already suggested that the GOP would be better off if John McCain and his daughter Meghan would leave the party.  (Limbaugh also urged Colin Powell to switch parties too). Well, Roberta McCain, the 97-year old mother of the GOP's recent presidential candidate went on Jay Leno Wednesday to declare her view of the spat:

"I belong to the Republican Party," she said. "What he represents of the Republican Party has nothing to do with my side of it. I don't know what the man means, I don't know what he's talking about."  (And proving a certain amount of consistency, the elder McCain -- an odd phrase when you're talking about the mother of a 73-year old politician --  also had choice words for MSNBC's Keith Olbermann:  "I, myself, can't figure out that type of person who really more or less gets joy out of denigrating people. I'm just not that type of person, I don't have friends like that, and thank God I am not around people like him.")

In any event, Rush couldn't just let this slide -- allowing the near centenarian woman her own observations.  Instead, he responded: "Sending Sen. McCain's mother out to dump on me? I love it." He added: "She is absolutely right. The Republican Party she belongs to gets shellacked election after election after election."

Actually, McCain partly lost because of the mistakes of the "Republican Party" that Rush Limbaugh had no problem supporting in 2004 and into 2006. McCain, in fairness, tried to restrain much of the spending pushed forward by the George W. Bush/GOP Congress. 

But, that's just silly policy stuff.

The real story here is that Limbaugh has now gone after John McCain, his daughter AND his Mom! In the old days, this would have been settled in the most honorable way.  McCain would go over to Limbaugh, slap him in the face with a glove -- and insist on a manly duel to settle their differences!

Back to the future, I say! 

Pistols at dawn! Maybe in lovely Weehawken, New Jersey? They have a history of knowing how to put these things on!

Robert A. George is a New York writer. He blogs at Ragged Thots.

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