Just now, Rush Limbaugh responded to a couple of my email questions on air about why he's now urging listeners to call Congress over health care legislation. 
 
 It's an unusual move for Limbaugh, who as Erick Erickson tweeted, has only done so once before. Despite having the largest talk radio audience in the country, Limbaugh typically doesn't use his show to mobilize listeners for coordinated political action. 
 
 The last time Limbaugh gave out the Capitol's switchboard number on air, he said, was when Steve Roberts was writing a profile of him in the 1990's for U.S. News & World Report. Limbaugh said that Roberts "was of the belief -- like so many people believed back then -- that all I was doing was giving out phone numbers of members of Congress and switchboards in Washington." 
 
 
 
 "And he asked me why I did this," Limbaugh recalled. "I don't do it. I'm the one that doesn't do it. I don't use my show for activism. I said, 'If I did it, I would shut the place down. So I'll demonstrate it for you." 
 
 
 
 Limbaugh said he didn't remember what the issue was about, but to prove his point, he gave out the number and the switchboard was quickly tied up. 
 
 
 
 "The same thing happened today at the two toll-free numbers I gave," Limbaugh said. "Those numbers have now -- you don't even get a recording at them now. They're invalidated. Nothing happens. So we had to give out the toll-free and the toll-call numbers." 
 
 Given the fact that Limbaugh doesn't use his show in this way, I asked next why he was doing so now. He responded: 
 
 "This is ball game. This is ball game, and Michael, the only reason we're at this point is because the American people have stood up. The Republicans don't have the votes to stop this. And the Martians don't have the votes to stop this. Republicans may as well be Martians on this given their influence. All we can do is continue to have the American people let it be known they want no part of this -- the substance of the bill or the process. They don't like it. And that's why I am urging -- because this is a transformation of our country into something that no one has ever seen it be like. And we don't want that transformation to take place. We like America as it was founded. We don't want to turn it into a third world country." 
 
 Limbaugh acknowledged that by responding on air, I'd be losing my "exclusivity," but that's fine -- just as long as the answers get out there. 
 
 comments closed 
 
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 Frank Luntz, the media-friendly Republican consultant and word wiz, told a group of college students this week that Rush Limbaugh and right-wing talk radio are “problematic” for the GOP and partly responsible for the stark polarization within the nation’s political discourse. He only dared to speak so candidly about Limbaugh and other conservative hosts off the record. A secretly recorded video, though, captured Luntz’s remark. 
 
 On April 22, Luntz was holding a talk at his alma mater, the University of Pennsylvania, and providing his essential take on political communication: “It’s not what you say that matters. It’s what people hear.” At this event sponsored by College Republicans, Luntz (class of ’84) cracked a joke about Nancy Pelosi and face-lifts and acknowledged his party needs to interact more effectively with a wider swath of Americans: “We can’t talk to 51 percent of America. It just doesn’t work.” And, he emphasized, words matter. (In 2009, Luntz urged GOPers to decry President Barack Obama’s health care reform proposal as a “government takeover” in order to defeat it.) Voters, Luntz told the students, respond more positively when a politician refers to “hardworking taxpayers” than to “the middle class.” He warned that if his party did not resolve its internal divides, it could lose the House of Representatives next year. 
 
 At one point, Luntz was asked about political polarization. He replied that he had something important to say on this matter but was apprehensive about speaking openly; doing so, he explained, could land him in trouble. Members of the audience groaned; some called out for Luntz to continue off the record. Luntz asked if anyone was recording the event, and Eric Kaplan, a reporter from the college paper, the Daily Pennsylvanian, indicated that he was. Luntz requested that he turn off his recording device. Kaplan did so and agreed that this part of Luntz’s talk would remain off the record. But one of the students present, Aakash Abbi, a junior majoring in philosophy, politics, and economics, started to record Luntz on his iPhone (without letting Luntz know), and Abbi has provided that recording to Mother Jones. 
 
 Believing he was speaking privately to the dozens of students present, Luntz proceeded to gripe about conservative talk radio and its impact on political polarization: 
 
 And they get great ratings, and they drive the message, and it’s really problematic. And this is not on the Democratic side. It’s only on the Republican side…[inaudible]. [Democrats have] got every other source of news on their side. And so that is a lot of what’s driving it. If you take—Marco Rubio’s getting his ass kicked. Who’s my Rubio fan here? We talked about it. He’s getting destroyed! By Mark Levin, by Rush Limbaugh, and a few others. He’s trying to find a legitimate, long-term effective solution to immigration that isn’t the traditional Republican approach, and talk radio is killing him. That’s what’s causing this thing underneath. And too many politicians in Washington are playing coy. 
 
 Here’s the video: 
 
 As he continued, Luntz, according to Abbi and two other attendees (who wish to remain anonymous), asserted that it had been irresponsible (and bad for the GOP) for right-wing talkers to pontificate about women’s bodies and birth control—an obvious reference to Limbaugh’s attacks last year on Sandra Fluke, a law student invited to testify before Congress on health insurance coverage of contraception. (Abbi didn’t catch this part of Luntz’s reply on his recording.) 
 
 Luntz was blaming polarization and the GOP’s problems partly on conservative media, but he didn’t want his criticism of Limbaugh, Levin, and the others to reach beyond this classroom. He was clear on this basic point: Right-wing media is not serving the national debate and not helping the GOP widen the party’s appeal beyond its declining base. (Luntz declined to comment on his remarks at the event.) 
 
 Luntz hasn’t been shy about pointing out the Republican Party’s problems. In January, he wrote a Washington Post op-ed contending that Republicans have dug themselves deep into an image hole. (“Just saying ‘no’ to the president has its limits.”) Regarding immigration, he observed, “Hispanic voters don’t think Republicans like, welcome or respect them. So how can they vote Republican? Immigration reform that brings people out of the shadows is the last, best opportunity for the party to reset its broken relationship with Hispanics.” 
 
 Luntz did not include Limbaugh and right-wing media in this op-ed critique. And in years past, Luntz has showed respect—even deference—toward Limbaugh. In 2004, he appeared on Fox News and acknowledged that he had conducted a poll pitting John Kerry against Hillary Clinton because Limbaugh had suggested he do so: “In fact, he had talked to me about it a couple times on the air, and I wasn’t paying attention. And he even suggested that if I didn’t do the poll that there might be consequences…Nobody wants to have to respond to 20 million people that they’re listening to on the air.” That certainly didn’t prevent Limbaugh from fiercely attacking Luntz two years ago after the consultant, speaking at a meeting of the Republican Governors Association, said he was “frightened to death” of the the Occupy Wall Street movement and advised GOPers that they should not talk about “capitalism” but “economic freedom.” On the radio, Limbaugh assailed Luntz for trying to “dumb down” the conservative message. 
 
 Abbi, the student who recorded Luntz, says he switched on his iPhone video recorder because he was surprised that Luntz asked to go off the record: “His request rang with a sense of disingenuity.” Abbi, who says he came to the lecture because he had previously been impressed by Luntz, explains: 
 
 This question came up after almost 40 minutes of Luntz’s inane and obviously pandering presentation. He had already offended multiple audience members with his cavalier flippancy. At one point, he cut off a student who was saying that his family is one of immigrants and loudly asked, “From Chechnya?” Raucous laughter followed from the College Republicans in attendance, but uneasy looks were exchanged by most others. To me, a man whose career is built on being viewed as the “Master of Words” should be willing to always stand by what he says. If he can say it to a hundred-plus Penn students, the rest of America deserves to hear it. 
 
 At Penn, Luntz was egged on to disclose his view that Limbaugh and conservative talk radio are harming the GOP’s prospects and the national interest. Yet these are probably the sort of words he would counsel his Republican allies and clients not to use. ||||| "It's almost like you're going so far out of your way and almost doing back flips and cartwheels to defend Trump. It's just a turn-off at this point." [Caller to Rush Limbaugh, March 31] 
 
 Conservative media's "Trumpkins"-fueled civil war has spared few victims. Just ask Rush Limbaugh, who continues to take on fire as he stumbles his way through the right-wing media's divisive Primary Season from Hell. 
 
 Routinely condemned for not calling out what Republican critics see as Donald Trump's brand of faux conservatism, Limbaugh continues to fish around for a middle ground. The host seems anxious to defend Trump from attacks, but also wary of offending his legion of listeners, who see the front-runner as a fraud, and see Limbaugh as a hypocrite for playing nice with him. 
 
 Torn between the allure of what's popular (Trump) and abandoning everything Limbaugh's said about how he defines conservatism over the last 30 years, Limbaugh now often finds himself in no-man's land. 
 
 "Every day of Rush's show now feels like an exercise in strained, compulsory quasi-neutrality, which amounts in practice to him defending nearly everything Trump says and does but mixing in some praise for Cruz here and there just to make sure he's got his footing on the tightrope," wrote the Hot Air blogger known as Allahpundit. 
 
 In other words, Limbaugh's playing defense, a mode that most talk radio hosts despise. 
 
 Have there been previous primary squabbles, and has Limbaugh been at odds with his famously like-minded listeners in the past? Of course. But as a rule, the conservative media world over the years hasn't been known as the home of freewheeling and raucous partisan debate within the GOP, pitting Republicans against Republicans. Instead, it's been known to be an amazingly disciplined echo chamber that directs its fire outward toward Enemy No. 1: Democrats. 
 
 The current primary battle is the most bitter in recent memory. It's also threatening to implode the Republican Party -- and to a degree, the entire conservative movement as we know it -- as Trump angles to secure the party's nomination while breaking free from core beliefs that have been considered sacrosanct for generations by Limbaugh's listeners. 
 
 The host, meanwhile, has become a piñata, as conservatives line up to take whacks at him in a way we've never really seen before. 
 
 In a scathing critique of Limbaugh's support of Trump, The Wall Street Journal's Bret Stephens lamented that conservatives "used to have the good sense to dismiss" unserious candidates like Trump "as eccentrics, lowlifes or clowns." 
 
 Michael Gerson, former speechwriter for President George W. Bush, complained, "Through a long series of controversies, Limbaugh has excused Trump's narcissism and bluster as an endearing 'schtick.'" 
 
 Then he lowered the boom: "Populist anti-intellectualism, on the rise at least since Sarah Palin, has culminated in Trump. It is the passing of conservatism, even if Limbaugh baptizes the dead." 
 
 At The Daily Caller, Matt Lewis nicked Limbaugh for "abdicating" his "responsibility" and not having the "intellectual honesty and moral courage" of local Wisconsin talk show hosts who stood up to Trump. Lewis blamed Limbaugh and other nationally syndicated hosts for feeding the Trump beast last year to the point where he now may be unstoppable. 
 
 "Limbaugh is a mind-numbing, frustrating hypocrite," wrote longtime listener Travis Hale at The Hill. "His tacit endorsement of Trump, now occurring daily during his show, is almost impossible to understand." 
 
 You don't get the sense that these brushback pitches are coming from Ted Cruz diehards who are furious with Limbaugh's partisan refereeing. Some of the missives are coming from people who are puzzled that someone they looked up to for so many years "to be our voice of conservative reason" is revealing himself to be a weather vane this primary season, pointing whichever way the (Trump) wind blows. 
 
 That includes some of Limbaugh's Dittohead listeners, who are chewing him out, too. "I believe that most of the time you stimulate my intelligence, but today I feel like you're insulting my intelligence -- and that of many other people," a caller recently lamented to Limbaugh. 
 
 In response, Limbaugh is alternately defending himself and periodically bowing out of the Republican free-for-all. 
 
 Retaliating against conservative commentators who have branded the talker a "sellout," Limbaugh returned fire last month with his own accusations of hypocrisy: "They turn to me as a source of blame for the fact that Trump hasn't been taken out, despite the fact that they've tried. But I don't see where they've endorsed other people. I don't see where they have actually engaged in the behavior they demand that I engage in." 
 
 When controversy erupted after Trump's campaign manager was charged with simple battery after grabbing the arm of a reporter, and after Limbaugh was seen as defending the Trump campaign, the host announced that the topic was suddenly off-limits. "I have determined here that because tensions are so tight, everybody is wound up to such a feverish pitch here, that no matter what I say it is misunderstood and is not helpful," he announced. 
 
 Lamenting the state of the GOP primary season, Limbaugh conceded the arm-grabbing incident might not be the only one where he'd have to "muzzle" himself: "Because it's apparently impossible to be correctly, properly, understood." 
 
 For someone whose entire career has been based on lies and misinformation, there's something wonderfully fitting about Rush Limbaugh silencing himself because his fans and conservative media just aren't listening properly and he just can't be understood.
– Rush Limbaugh helped snarl the White House switchboard today when he gave listeners the toll-free numbers and urged them to call to chat about health care reform. “The system is being overwhelmed by calls,” one employee told Roll Call this afternoon. It's only the second time Limbaugh has pulled such as a stunt, and he explained it was necessary because "this is ballgame." Answering an email from Michael Calderone of Politico on the air, Limbaugh said: "The only reason we're at this point is because the American people have stood up. The Republicans don't have the votes to stop this. ... All we can do is continue to have the American people let it be known they want no part of this—the substance of the bill or the process."