He says her defense of Big OIl shows she 'understands exactly what's going on'
Well, it finally happened. Rush Limbaugh, who once described Sen. Mary Landrieu as a prostitute who sold her vote for health-care overhaul for a few hundred million dollars in Medicaid money for Louisiana, heaped praise on the Louisiana Democrat last week for her vigorous defense of Big Oil.
View full sizeRush Limbaugh, left, and Sen. Mary Landrieu"C-SPAN is carrying the hearings of the Big Oil executives today, and, of course, the Democrats are not in unison on this," Limbaugh said on his Thursday show. "Mary Landrieu is ripping into this Democrat effort to end subsidies for Big Oil -- and, of course, there aren't subsidies for Big Oil. Big Oil is not subsidized the way standard subsidies work. All that happens is that they have a lower tax rate for certain aspects of their business, but there's no real subsidy that takes place.
"Mary Landrieu understands exactly what's going on. Mary Landrieu says to fellow Democrats and to Obama 'Look, if you do this, you're not gonna be hurting Big Oil; you're gonna be hurting employment in my state,' and then she lashes out at people who live in non-energy-producing states. Mary Landrieu said, 'You people in Michigan, yeah, go ahead. You complain all you want about the gasoline price. What are you doing to contribute to our energy in this country? Your state doesn't do anything for energy. But we here in Louisiana, we contribute. We have all kind of things.'"
Bruce Alpert can be reached at balpert@timespicayune.com or 202.857.5131. Jonathan Tilove can be reached at jtilove@timespicayune.com or 202.857.5125.