Rush Limbaugh called out Old Media for playing favorites in the GOP presidential race. He was, as usual, dead-on correct.

Audio is at Hot Air.

The transcript, which will remain available at Limbaugh's site until next Friday, is here.

Here is the first portion of what he had to say (bold is mine):

Let me just tell you what's happening. It is absurd and you're going to have to really gut it up here because the Drive-By Media is doing everything it can to disqualify the true conservatives on the Republican side. They're saying, "Romney, he can't win. If he loses Michigan, he's done." They said that about Romney in Iowa, they said that about Romney in New Hampshire. Now Fred Thompson apparently scored. Did you watch it last night, Mr. Snerdley? Fred Thompson was just fabulous, and people said, "Where has this been? All of this time, where's this been?" And I can't answer that, but now the Drive-Bys are saying, "Well, yeah, he was pretty good last night, but it's too late." We've had two states! It's too late for Fred Thompson? And, of course, "Rudy, why, he's lost all of his momentum, Rudy's out of it."

So if you listen to the Drive-Bys, and these people that got it all wrong in New Hampshire, what we're being told is that the only two candidates left that have any chance whatsoever are McCain and Huckabee, which is exactly what the Drive-Bys want. They want a liberal, moderate nominee, and even a liberal, moderate vice presidential nominee because they know, or they think, that whoever the Democrat nominee is can smoke -- they don't want a conservative nominee on the Republican side. Obviously. The Drive-Bys will always tell you, folks, who is a conservative and who isn't by virtue of who they try to destroy and by virtue of who they try to prop up. And right now they're trying to prop up McCain, trying to prop up Huckabee.

The write-up of Thompson's breakthrough performance in the South Carolina debate Thursday night at the New York Times is typical of what Limbaugh referred to. Here is the opening of the report by Michael Cooper and Michael Luo:

Fred D. Thompson tried to salvage his faltering presidential campaign at a debate Thursday night with a barrage of sharp attacks on the “liberal” policies of Mike Huckabee, the fellow Southerner whom he clearly sees as a rival in the South Carolina primary.

The clearly intended message: Oh he did fine, but it's going to take more than this to "salvage" his candidacy. So don't you GOP voters waste your time or your vote on him.

GOP voters need to pick their candidate based on merit. Old Media would prefer to do that for them, and it's up to GOP voters not to let them.

Cross-posted at BizzyBlog.com.

Disclosure: Yours truly has not endorsed a GOP candidate, but is on record opposing the candidacy of Mitt Romney.

—Tom Blumer is president of a training and development company in Mason, Ohio, and is a contributing editor to NewsBusters