I realize this will not be a terrible shock to anyone who pays attention to Sunday talking heads shows, but lean in for the secret anyway. Yes, it's true. With only a couple of exceptions, the Sunday shows are full of old conservative white men who outnumber progressive/liberal voices by a substantial margin. If one were to split the "neutral" classification down the middle on the graph at the top, it would still leave conservatives as the dominant voice on Sunday television.

MediaMatters studied all of the guests on the Sunday shows from the beginning of January through April 5th. They concluded that Sunday shows need a major facelift in terms of ethnic and diversity and much more balance in terms of the ideological points of view represented.

In the first three months of 2013, the broadcast networks' Sunday morning talk shows once again skewed strongly to the right and featured a startling lack of diversity among guests. For better or worse, these shows -- ABC's This Week, CBS' Face the Nation, NBC's Meet the Press, and Fox Broadcasting Co.'s Fox News Sunday -- occupy an elevated space in the national political discussion. This is where influential people -- like senators, representatives, presidential administration officials, Fortune 500 chief executives, and leaders of prominent non-profit organizations, for example -- get to set the terms of debate and frame the issues of the week. The shows enjoy considerably high ratings as well -- approximately 10 million weekly viewers collectively, according to recent numbers from TV Newser.

With that in mind, who the broadcast Sunday shows invite on as guests has significant implications for how discussions on major issues are framed. And once again, Republicans and conservatives have an edge over Democrats and progressives on these programs.While our report found that elected and administration officials hosted on these shows were much more likely to be Republican than Democratic, between the lines is an even more salient point: The findings run in stark contrast to previous trends and statements from the networks themselves.

The numbers on how women and minorities are represented on these shows are striking, and that runs across all of the networks with one exception: Up with Chris Hayes and Melissa Harris-Perry both defied the norms on MSNBC. It would be good for other networks to pay heed and consider shaking up their bookers' contact list a bit.

The entire report is fascinating. You can read the full report here.

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WILL: If the workforce participation rate were as high today as it was just 12 months ago, the unemployment rate would be 8.3 percent. If the workforce participation rate were as high today as it was when Mr. Obama was inaugurated, the unemployment rate would be over 10 percent.

Think about that statement for a moment. Will is actually arguing that job growth under Obama... growing at a rate of more than twice what is needed just to keep up with population growth, and actually produced a 0.2% decline in the Unemployment Rate last month... isn't growing fast enough to make up for the economic catastrophe created prior to President Obama taking office, and therefore is a failure. According to the Fox "business" Channel, jobless claims are actually on the decline.

And sooooo... what? We should return to the GOP economic policies that created the disaster in the first place?

For reference, by this point in Bush's presidency, the unemployment rate had gone from 4.2% the month he took office to 5.4% in March of 2005 following the longest post-war economic expansion of the 20th century and two consecutive balanced budgets under President Clinton (by contrast, unemployment has fallen under President Obama from 7.8% to 7.7% following the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression and a $1.4 TRILLION dollar Deficit).

Ahhh...the glory of never having to admit that you're clueless. In the face of tonight's Academy Awards program and the surprisingly high percentage of political films nominated, host George Stephanopoulos asks his panel to give their predictions of who will take home the Oscar.

Whodathunk that the partisan hacks--who are equally as clueless about their domestic policy predictions--use the opportunity to thump Democrats:

Of the three politically charged films up for Best Picture, ABC News contributor George Will thinks “Zero Dark Thirty” should take home Oscar gold.

“It’s a genuine contribution to public education,” he said. “Sufficient reason for voting for it is a rebuke to Sens. Levin, Feinstein and McCain, who have enough to do without being movie critics and falsely accusing that movie of taking a stand on torture it does not take.”

TIME Magazine contributor Steven Brill agreed.

Because, you know, those Academy voters are always looking for an opportunity to teach a lesson to Democratic senators.

And even then, Will doesn't get the criticism correct. Levin and Feinstein did not object to 'Zero Dark Thirty' for taking a supposed stand on torture. They objected to the way the film elides over the years and false information given via torture before they finally did get actionable intelligence, something an FBI agent involved confirmed.

In arguing with Susie Madrak against a 'Silver Linings Playbook' Best Picture win, I reminded her that Academy voters love sweeping epics and elevated films and tend to reward that. Kathryn Bigelow's 'Zero Dark Thirty' did not do that and even the nominations reflect that:

But I suspect that the real problem for academy voters with Kathryn Bigelow’s film is not the torture sequences, but how utterly devoid of larger context the movie is. Should that matter? No, unless you make the claim, as the filmmakers have done, that your version of “history’s greatest manhunt” carries the imprimatur of journalistic accuracy — durable enough to become the art of record.

The duty of a dramatist is to tell a story, with conflict, peril and resolution. The duty of a historian is much the same, with the added responsibility of assembling a factual narrative. In trying to have it both ways, “Zero Dark Thirty” lost a large segment of thinking movie lovers.

I first saw the film with two highly opinionated women, and we had the same instant reaction: best picture. Maya, the composite character of the C.I.A. band of sisters that tracked Osama bin Laden, was mesmerizing. It was emotionally satisfying to see a mass killer in a body bag. The stomach-turning visual style was similar to Bigelow’s best-picture winner, “The Hurt Locker,” which I loved.

That was six weeks ago. A second viewing with journalist friends who know the story well led to a more troubling take-away. It’s not just the torture and its inherent message that young, attractive Americans got the ultimate payoff in part by doing what German bad guys used to do in the movies.

It’s the omissions. In “Zero Dark Thirty,” several larger truths — the many intelligence mistakes, the loss of focus and diversion of resources, and the fallout from the folly of the Iraq war — are missing. This is a crucial point, because the film is likely to end up as the most popular version of the singular trauma in the first decade of the 21st century.

It’s obvious, now, why the C.I.A. was cooperative with the filmmakers: it couldn’t have asked for better product placement.

The Academy--unlike George Will--does not want to appear to be in bed with the CIA. That's why we can chalk up yet another incorrect statement out of the mouth of Will. Not that it will ever matter to ABC News.

The fiscal cliff once again dominated the Sunday morning talk shows (which isn't a surprise), and entitlement cuts were indeed a focal point by the lead bobblehead of each show. But what I found most offensive was that not one Villager or politician discussed cuts to defense spending as a solution for the Mayan Apocalypse of the federal deficit. In part, the reason the fiscal cliff is coming is because the sequester deal has massive cuts to defense spending, 2013 which is freaking out Republicans.

Defense Spending: This is an area where Republicans are likely to launch a major opposition campaign because defense programs would receive a 9.4 to 10 percent reduction from its 2013 budget of $580 billion, or about $55 billion. Although the president exempted military personnel pay and benefits, defense programs, including weapons and procurement programs, are subject to half of the automatic budget cuts, even though defense programs are about one-fifth of the federal budget. States that have a very large defense presence have been very vocal about opposing these cuts.

The fact that entitlement benefits aren't part of the sequester probably has Republicans really angry since they can't use that as leverage in this debate. But if pols and pinheads are so worried about the federal deficit, then why aren't defense cuts a top priority? What we hear instead is that severe cuts to federal spending, coupled with bad job growth and raised taxes, will result in a deep financial recession. While the president won on raising tax rates, that isn't the manna from heaven that will fix our economic problems if Obama includes benefit cuts to Medicare and Medicaid for a small raise in rates. Raising the retirement age doesn't do a thing to help lower federal deficits, so why exactly are Republicans asking for it -- and why does it appear that the president is willing to acquiesce to those demands? Since 'defense" makes up over almost 20% of the federal budget expenditures, why is it off limits in this discussion?

On Face The Nation, Bob Shieffer didn't bring up cuts in defense spending once and the only mention I see of it was by cranky ex-Sen. Simpson calling earned benefits/entitlements a 'destructive force" which would hurt defense spending

SCHIEFFER: So you think they've got to do that. But also, don't you think that the Democrats are going to have to agree to some entitlement reforms?

SIMPSON: ...But, yes, I mean, the bizarre thing, not touching the entitlements. The entitlements are the engine on the train driving us to the cliff. They were on automatic pilot. Health care, it doesn't matter what you call it, is on automatic pilot. And it's going to squeeze out all the discretionary budget -- defense, R&D research, all the things you love. Erskine and I always say, what do you love? And they'll name something and we say forget it because this is wiping everything. It's just a destructive force. And no cost containment till down the road..

What's destructive, Mr. Simpson, are austerity measures being forced upon the people during a recession and after an economic downturn.

On Meet The Press, defense spending was not mentioned once, but cuts to entitlements was at center stage, with the host of MTP seemingly negotiating with Republicans for 'big cuts" to entitlements

GREGORY: All right. Well, senator, let me just-- I want to pin you down on one point about Medicare. You say you want to basically put off this discussion until later. But bottom line, should the Medicare eligibility age go up? Should there be means testing to really get at the benefits side, if you’re going to shore this program up, because as you say, 12 years before it runs out of money?

The segment on the fiscal cliff went mostly like that and again, no mention if Republicans would accept big cuts in defense to fight off rate hikes.

On Fox News Sunday, neither Chris Wallace, Senators Corker or Schumer mentioned cutting defense spending when talking about a fiscal deal. They did, however, go large on entitlement cuts with Sen.Schumer actually agreeing that Corker's proposal was good for America.

Corker; So, and a lot of people are putting forth a theory and I actually think it has merit where you go ahead and give the president the 2 percent increase that he is talking about, the rate increase on the top 2 percent. And all of a sudden, the shift goes back to entitlements, and all of a sudden, once you give him the right on the top 2 percent, it's actually much lesser tax increase than what he has been talking about, the focus then shifts to entitlements and maybe it puts us in a place where we actually can do something that really saves the nation.

SCHUMER: Well, bottom line is, if Speaker Boehner ends up where Senator Corker has just said he is, we will get a large agreement. And -- but, Speaker Boehner has not said that. And so, we Democrats realize that there have to be two sides to this bargain.

Corker: The shift in focus and entitlements is where we need to go and, again, it is a shame that we're not just sitting down and solving this. But Republicans know that they have the debt ceiling that's coming up right around the corner, and, the leverage is going to shift, as soon as we get beyond this issue.

Wow. And finally ABC's THIS WEEK with George Stephanopoulos. And the guest stars were Senators Tom Coburn and Debbie Stabenow along with Congressman (D) Raul Grijalva and (R) Jeb Hensarling. How did they do with cuts to defense spending? Nada, nothing, zilch. Only three mentions of the word defense. Once when George set up what would happen if the sequester kicks in and twice more while talking about DOMA.

Coburn was in rare form by saying we don't really need Medicare or Social Security, anyway.

"The fact is we are spending money we don't have on things we don't absolutely need," he concluded. "And there's no grownups in Washington that will say, 'Time out, stop the politics, let's have a compromise rather than play the game through the press and hurt the country.' We're already going to get another debt downgrade just from what's happening now because nobody in positions of power are willing to do what's important and necessary for our country."

Why do people even vote for these Republicans who want to take so much away from them for a crisis caused by crimes the people who will suffer most didn't commit?

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Nothing says self-examination by media and pundits better than watching a Sunday show and seeing the host quickly cut off a discussion about poverty. Because shhhhhhh. We don't talk about poverty in public. We don't want anyone to think there's poverty in the United States. That's for other countries. Like the starving children in Africa your mother tells you about when you don't want to eat your peas. Shhhhh.

Yes, there are starving children in Africa. I am not trying to belittle that reality. But there is another reality right here at home: Poverty is a real problem.

Worse, the deepest poverty is in what I will call the "austerity states": Mississippi, South Carolina, Alabama, Georgia, West Virginia and Kentucky.

Poverty in those states is skyrocketing, with a very, very small state-provided social safety net. They've seen some of the hardest economic times in a terrible economy, and the people most deeply affected are those without enough education to get away from the industries which for so long have held them hostage: Coal mining in West Virginia and Kentucky; agriculture in Mississippi; agriculture and manufacturing in South Carolina. South Carolina is, of course, a right to work state, so even when the employment rate goes up, wages aren't necessarily sufficient for people to lift themselves out of their economic hole. Like Arkansas, home to Wal-Mart headquarters and one of the most wealthy families in the nation.

Yet. Watch George Stephanopoulis deflect all discussion of it away by cutting Katrina VandenHeuvel off and redirecting the discussion back to immigration reform and the Hispanic vote. I actually give Greta Van Susteren some props for bringing it up, even though she intended for it to be a slam on current policies, and bigger kudos to Katrina VandenHeuvel for starting to hammer on it a bit before GSteph interrupted her. Why did he?

Because talk of poverty is unseemly? Because if we don't talk about it, poverty will suddenly disappear into the broader-brush portrait of an invincible nation? Because, like magic, it will simply be disappeared by immigration reform and symbolic gestures by our Congress while states gut their safety nets while millions of people cling to the shreds by their fingernails?

It's time to talk about poverty and to be straight about it. Poverty isn't sensitive to race. White, black and brown people live in poverty. Good, hardworking people. It's not shameful to be impoverished, but it is shameful to ignore them or give once a year to charity and feel like the duty has been filled.

Some very good people are pushing ahead to address poverty in the context of education, for example, like the AFT and their efforts in West Virginia and Ohio. Recognizing that education doesn't happen in a vacuum, the AFT has tackled these areas as projects for robust public-private partnerships in order to improve the economic status of the entire area. They see this as what must happen in order for children to succeed educationally, and build on that success to innovate and create new ways to improve their own communities.

I would like for all of the oligarchs who spent over a billion dollars of their own money trying to elect Mitt Romney to imagine what they could have done with that money to improve the lots of people who not only lack resources, but opportunities. I would like for them to visit McDowell County and Cincinnati to see what solution-driven investments in poverty and education look like and conversely, what toll poverty takes on the souls of people struggling for survival. Success isn't even in their vocabulary.

Last week George Lucas announced he was giving most of his $4 billion fortune to innovate and improve public education. I applaud Mr. Lucas, but guardedly, because I fear he will take the same tack the Gates Foundation is using with their "education reform" efforts. Educators are already calling upon him to take an entirely different approach, and there is reason for some cautious optimism, based on his statement:

Filmmaker George Lucas plans to use the $4 billion he will get for selling Lucasfilm to Walt Disney Co. to help education.

Lucas, of San Anselmo, observed that a good storyteller is ultimately a teacher — "using the arts as a means of making education emotionally meaningful" — but that the educational system often fails to make use of the tools at its disposal.

"When I was in high school, I felt like I was in a vacuum, biding time. I was curious, but bored. It was not an atmosphere conducive to learning," he recalled.

"It's scary to think of our education system as little better than an assembly line with producing diplomas as its only goal. Once I had the means to effect change in this arena, it became my passion to do so — to promote active, lifelong learning. I believe in the artisan school of learning, through apprenticeships and Aristotelian questions and discussion."

In this light, he created his educational charities, Edutopia and the George Lucas Educational Foundation, which boost educational innovations, cooperative and project learning, mentorship, parental involvement and technological advances.

All of these are great, but if there's no parallel effort to address the issue of poverty in learning environments I fear limited success no matter how creative or robust the learning tools might be.

Until the elephant in the room called poverty is named and tamed, I don't see how we can realistically talk about progress in other areas, and that goes for our Sunday pontificators and their enabling hosts, too.

Transcript follows below the fold.

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[H/t Heather]

This week's In Memoriam, from ABC's This Week, observes the passing of five members American armed services who lost their lives in Afghanistan:

• Spc. Kyle Rookey, 23, U.S. Army, Oswego, NY
• SSG Jeremie S. Border, 28, U.S. Army, Mesquite, Texas
• SSG Jonathan P. Schmidt, 28, U.S. Army, Petersburg, VA
• LCpl Alec R. Terwiske, 21, U.S. Marines, Dubois, IN
• PFC Shane W. Cantu, 20, U.S. Army, Corunna, MI

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[H/t Heather]

Just as Nicole pointed out, it's a GOP-heavy lineup for the Sunday talk shows today. Quelle surprise! Of course, that's who they'll have on after the Democratic Convention. Just like all those Republicans who were on after the Republican Convention. See how that works?

We can hardly wait for the softballs that are likely to be lobbed Paul Ryan's way on ABC -- though of course they'll have to bring up his multiple falsehoods at the GOP confab. Just expect (a) Ryan to prevaricate and deny or play the false-equivalency card (Clinton did it too!) or better yet both, and (b) the panel questioning him to go, 'Um, OK.'

Anyway, here's the lineup:

ABC’s “This Week” — Republican vice presidential nominee Paul Ryan. Panel: Newark Mayor Cory Booker, co-chair of the Democratic platform committee; Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., author of the new book "Government Bullies"; ABC News' George Will; ABC News' Cokie Roberts; and Nobel Prize-winning New York Times columnist Paul Krugman

NBC’s “Meet the Press” — Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney and wife, Ann. Panel: San Antonio Mayor Julian Castro; the Wall Street Journal’s Peggy Noonan; the Washington Post’s EJ Dionne; Fmr. Secretary of Education Bill Bennett; and NBC’s Political Director and Chief White House Correspondent, Chuck Todd.

NBC’s “The Chris Matthews Show” – Panel: Michael Duffy, TIME Magazine; Trish Regan, Bloomberg News; Kasie Hunt, Associated Press, John Harris, Politico

CBS’ ”Face the Nation” — Ryan; President Barack Obama; White House adviser David Plouffe. "No Easy Day" author, former Navy SEAL "Mark Owen”. Panel: New York Times Chief Washington Correspondent David Sanger, CBS News Political Director John Dickerson, Washington Post Columnist Michael Gerson and Vanity Fair Contributing Editor Dee Dee Myers

MSNBC’s “Up with Chris Hayes” -- Sasha Issenberg, Author of “The Victory Lab: The Secret Sceince of Winning Campaigns”, slate.com columnist and Washington correspondent for Monocle. Jacob Hacker, Director of the Institution for Social and Policy Studies, Yale University. Chris Hughes, Chief Digital Organizer for the 2008 Obama Presidential Campaign, Co-founder of Facebook and Founder of Jumo.com, Michelle Goldberg, Senior Contributing Writer for Newsweek, Tulsi Gabbard, U.S. House candidate (D-Hawaii), Bob Shrum, Walter Shapiro, Peter Beinart, Senior Writer for Newsweek and The Daily Beast.

MSNBC’s “Melissa Harris-Perry” -- former Congressman Mickey Edwards, author of The Parties Versus The People, How to Turn Republicans and Democrats into Americans, Dorian Warren, Assistant professor of political science and international public affairs, SIPA, Columbia university, Valarie Kaur, Sikh American Filmmaker Director, Groundswell, Judith Browne Dianis, Co-Director, Advancement Project, Eboo Patel, Author, "Sacred Ground,” Amaney Jamal, Politics Professor, Princeton University, Kenji Yoshino, Chief Justice Earl Warren Professor of Consitutional Law, NYU School of Law

CNN’s “State of the Union” — Gov. Jerry Brown, D-Calif.; former House Speaker Newt Gingrich. Co-founder of CarMax, Austin Ligon, and former Bush Commerce Secretary Carlos Gutierrez. Panel: Peter Baker, The New York Times and A.B Stoddard, “The Hill”.

CNN’s “Fareed Zakaria GPS” – Anne-Marie Slaughter, Richard Haass, and Martin Indyk; investor Roger Altman and historian Niall Ferguson, statistician Nate Silver.

CNN’s “Reliable Sources with Howard Kurtz” -- Jackie Kucinich, USA Today; Jane Hall, American University; Bob Cusack, The Hill; Michelle Cottle, Newsweek/The Daily Beast; Matt Lewis, The Daily Caller; Erik Wemple, Washington Post; Lois Romano, Politico

“Fox News Sunday” — Glenn Hubbard, economic adviser to the Romney campaign; Austan Goolsbee, former chairman of the White House Council of Economic Advisers; Mayor Mia Love of Saratoga Springs, Utah. Panel: Brit Hume, Fox News Senior Political Analyst, Mara Liasson, National Public Radio / Fox News Contributor, Kimberley Strassel, The Wall Street Journal, Juan Williams, Fox News Political Analyst.

So we just got done with the Democratic National Convention. By any measure, the convention was a rousing success, especially in comparison to the Republican National Convention the week before. The Romney/Ryan ticket got no real measurable bounce from their convention and then made the rather inexplicable choice to dial down their campaigning. Meanwhile, the Obama campaign is ramping up their appearances and bringing on attack dog Rahm Emanuel to spearhead the strategy to close the fundraising gap.

So while still riding this convention high, with aggressive campaigning and pumped up proxies, who would you supposed is the most natural person to book this Sunday on ABC News' This Week with George Stephanopoulos? Republican vice presidential candidate and official campaign liar Paul Ryan.

Wait, what?

Typical Sunday morning bias. It's been documented over and over and it never gets any better:

Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting (FAIR), a New York-based liberal organization, says that NBC's "Meet the Press," CBS' "Face the Nation," ABC's "This Week" and "Fox News Sunday" are "failing miserably" at getting diverse guests.

"[F]rom June 2011 through February 2012, FAIR found a distinct conservative, white and male skew" on the shows. Eighty-six percent of the guests booked for one-on-one interviews were male and 92% were white, FAIR says. Of the guests who were identified as having a partisan affiliation, 70% were Republican.

"The Sunday morning shows are the showcase debate programs for the national news networks," FAIR's Peter Hart wrote in a statement. "It's a shame they aren't interested in having many actual debates."

Damn straight. Maybe I'd feel a little better if George Stephanopoulos was better at his job and could offer up a tough interview on the massive amount of lies and the vague, fuzzy math of Ryan's economics plan. But we have post after post of Stephanopoulos' weak-kneed Villager speak to know that Ryan will repeat lies without consequence. Hell, I doubt Ryan would have even bothered to agree to the interview if he wasn't confident of that.

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On Sunday's "This Week," Carly Fiorina feebly trotted out an old GOP canard: that the "highest corporate tax rate in the world" is to blame for our stubbornly-high unemployment. In fact, the effective tax US corporations pay is much lower than most industrial nations. This is how a corporation like GE paid effectively no taxes in 2010.

Well, Paul Krugman would have none of it.

FIORINA: ...I said there were three structural issues in the economy. One is small business. There are two others.

The rest of the world has also changed. And the two other structural problems in our economy are we now have the single highest business tax rate in the world. Guess what?

With the highest tax rate in the world, we see the same thing around the world that we see in states -- states with lower tax rates have more jobs, more people. People leave states with higher tax rates. The data is crystal clear. [...]

KRUGMAN: Just..

FIORINA: -- a robust recovery.

(CROSSTALK)

KRUGMAN: Nothing you said about business taxes is actually true.

FIORINA: Everything I said...

(CROSSTALK)

FIORINA: -- about business taxes...

KRUGMAN: -- we can have that discussion (INAUDIBLE) place...

FIORINA: -- is true.

KRUGMAN: But -- but it's not true. If you look at the actual tax collections...

FIORINA: This isn't an academic discussion. It's clear it's true.

KRUGMAN: If you look at the actual tax collections in the United States on business, they're lower than -- than other advanced countries. And if you look at the alleged finding that high business taxes cause job losses in states, it -- it goes away -- on even the kick the tires, even slightly and the whole thing falls apart. It's just not true.

Beautiful.

I really don't know why Republicans think they can get away with spouting falsehoods when Krugman's on the show, but I hope they keep doing it.

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George Stepanopoulos of ABC News ran a piece Sunday after George Will appeared on This Week saying: George Will: Republican Leaders Are Afraid of Rush Limbaugh

Conservative radio host Rush Limbaugh has been inundated with criticism after calling Sandra Fluke, a Georgetown University student who testified before a House committee about contraception, a “slut” and a “prostitute.” But while Democrats have fiercely condemned the comments, Republicans’ ire has been significantly more muted. ABC’s George Will told me Sunday on “This Week” that GOP leaders have steered clear of harshly denouncing Limbaugh’s comments because “Republican leaders are afraid of Rush Limbaugh. ”“[House Speaker John] Boehner comes out and says Rush’s language was inappropriate. Using the salad fork for your entrée, that’s inappropriate. Not this stuff,” Will said. “And it was depressing because what it indicates is that the Republican leaders are afraid of Rush Limbaugh. They want to bomb Iran, but they’re afraid of Rush Limbaugh.”

ABC News political analyst Matthew Dowd said the Republicans’ apprehension to say anything negative about the conservative big hitter is based on the “myth” that Limbaugh influences a large number of Republican voters.“I think the problem is the Republican leaders, Mitt Romney and the other candidates, don’t have the courage to say what they say in quiet, which, they think Rush Limbaugh is a buffoon,” Dowd said. ”They think he is like a clown coming out of a small car at a circus. It’s great he is entertaining and all that. But nobody takes him seriously.”

It is an embarrassing fact for the GOP, but it's no surprise. I know this might seem like news to the MSM, but come, on. I actually don't believe they believe it's news, but since George Will said it, ABC ran with it. Let's just go back to March of 2009 when a couple of Republicans challenged Rush after he attacked their leadership.

Rush Limbaugh attacks Michael Steele and then Steele apologizes to RushBo.

Rush Limbaugh came out firing against the RNC's new leader Michael Steele after Steele criticised him on CNN. And as usual, the Republican bows down to the altar of Limbaugh and begs forgiveness. Limbaugh spanks Steele and tells him exactly what Steele's job is and what he should do and how he should do it.

STEELE: So let’s put it into context here. Let’s put it into context here. Rush Limbaugh is an entertainer. Rush Limbaugh, his whole thing is entertainment. Yes, it’s incendiary. Yes, it’s ugly.

Rush replies:

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