MSNBC's David Corn: Rush Limbaugh Is 'Calling For John Wilkes Booth'

The hyperventilating over gun restrictions by the liberal media is getting absurd.

On Friday, MSNBC's David Corn appearing on Hardball actually said that conservative talk radio host Rush Limbaugh is "calling for John Wilkes Booth" by discussing on his program the possibility that the government in the wake of the massacre in Newtown, Connecticut, might take away people's firearms (video follows with transcript and commentary):

CHRIS MATTHEWS, HOST: Yesterday, Rush Limbaugh said the president cannot be stopped when it comes to getting what he wants. You don't think this is going to the mainstream of the right? Here’s Rush. Let's listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

RUSH LIMBAUGH: You know, Obama will try anything and has and nobody stops him, by the way. He has trumped the Constitution's first amendment and religious liberty. He has trumped the Constitution on immigration. He essentially granted amnesty to a million kids without benefit of legislation. He'll do anything that nobody tries to stop him from doing. Of course an executive order legally doesn't trump the Constitution. But if he issues an executive order to try to confiscate guns or something along those lines and nobody stops him, does he not get away with it?

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MATTHEWS: Well here’s the point: Rush has a brain. He's a smart guy. He's a marketer, he knows what he's doing. He’s many ways, he's a showman. But how can he honestly believe that a president can issue an executive order confiscating guns?

DAVID CORN, MSNBC ANALYST: You know, to be extreme in reaction to this extremism, I can hear less smart people, I can imagine them listening to this and thinking there is only one way to stop this guy. You know, it's like, it's calling for John Wilkes Booth.

MATTHEWS: Well, be careful.

CORN: He’s a tyrant. He’s going to take over. And this is just feeding the worst paranoia, and there are mentally deranged people out there who will listen to this stuff and they're going to say, “Hey, I know how to stop this.”

MATTHEWS: It does have the incendiary quality of some of that stuff in Hollywood Rwanda, what’s it called, Hotel Rwanda when you have people actually out there instigating almost armed warfare.

Here we go again: any talk against the current president is either racist or so incendiary that it might result in his assassination.

Isn't it amazing how a so-called news network just can't tolerate political discussion they don't agree with?

Reached for comment via email, Limbaugh called Corn's remarks "slanderously absurd. Dangerously reckless and profoundly irresponsible. And stupid."
 

Indeed.