Lemon Meringue Pie for Harry Reid

Rush Limbaugh's decision to put the Senate Democrats' letter attacking him up for auction as a fund-raiser for the Marine Corp - Law Enforcement Foundation has brought in a winning bid of $2,100,100.00 by philanthropist Betty Casey.

With Rush’s matching donation, Limbaugh will have raised and contributed over four million dollars to the foundation that helps children of Marines and federal law enforcement personnel who were killed on duty or died while serving the United States at home or abroad.

Rush Limbaugh is excited, and justifiably so.  Here's the transcript from his show today before the auction ended, and here's an excerpt from the transcript announcing the winner:

RUSH: Well, we have a winner. The auction is over. The final bid remained at $2,100,100. The winning bidder, the high bidder: Betty Casey. More about Betty Casey in due course. (Open Line Friday intro jingle) Betty Casey: $2,100,100. She now is the proud owner of the Smear Letter written by Dingy Harry Reid, read by him on the Senate floor, mailed to the CEO of Clear Channel Communications, my syndication partner. This, ladies and gentlemen -- for those of you watching on the Dittocam, this is -- the Zero Halliburton metal attaché case, and inside (I'm going to be very, very careful with this) is the letter. I am holding it up now so that you can see it, watching on the Dittocam. Here is the first signature page that contains Hillary Rodham Clinton. It also contains Senator Reid, the Senate leadership and so forth. The attaché case, the letter, and a very, very well-written and nice thank-you note from me will be included, as well as a picture of me displaying it publicly for the first time last week in Philadelphia. Now, folks, while I'm waiting on the information here to fill you in on Betty Casey, who is a noted philanthropist, I want to share with you just a couple thoughts here about this. Everything about this, the letter -- and, by the way, I have to tell you... Harry Reid in a speech on the Senate floor at 12 noon today, a little over an hour ago, attempted to horn in on all this and take some credit for it, claiming that he and I had buried the hatchet, or implying that that had been the case, and then kept using the pronoun "WE" in discussing how good this was, the money going to the Marine Corps-Law Enforcement Foundation. So the Marine Corps-Law Enforcement Foundation, it's now official, is going to get in excess of $4.2 million because I am matching Betty Casey's bid on eBay -- $4.2 million. I asked Senator Reid to match and all the other senators who can afford to do so. I haven't heard from them on that. I asked Senator Reid to go on the program and discuss his discussion of me as "unpatriotic." He did not accept my offer to do that, and now has the audacity to climb aboard this, praising the effort, saying that "he" never knew that it would get this kind of money. It got this kind of money because it represents one of the most outrageous abuses of federal power in modern American history, and that is what makes it a collector's item. This letter that Senator Reid wrote will forever memorialize him as a demagogue, and the same for the other 40 who signed it. Senator Reid will be remembered forever, here, as a disgrace. But let's put this in perspective. I think it's fascinating to see what happened here. Look at what happened. The Senate leader, the Senate majority leader, smeared a private citizen -- a private citizen, I, me, who has donated time and money to the Marine Corps-Law Enforcement Foundation. The government tried to take away my living, by sending this letter to Mark Mays at Clear Channel and asking him to confer with me about my remarks. So that was an attempt from him to take away from me my living, and, in the process, my ability to support charities like this: the Marine Corps-Law Enforcement Foundation. This is the government, by the way, that our Founding Fathers warned us about and tried to protect us from, with a Bill of Rights. As a result (and I have tingles going up my spine here, and I have had all week long), fellow private citizens took up the cause. They bid their own hard-earned, after-tax dollars -- and many of you are sending your money in small amounts and large amounts to the Marine Corps-Law Enforcement Foundation, the charity that Senator Reid indirectly attempted to damage when he smeared the charity's board member and very active donor and fundraiser. The government was used as a blunt instrument here on me, and you could almost say as a blunt instrument on people in need.

Private citizens, of their own accord -- without a government mandate, without an Algore pledge -- responded with creativity, and charity, and a sense of fun. See, in the private sector, ideas matter, individuals care, and things get done. I guess conservatives are compassionate after all. The winning bidder is -- and this is subject to the receipt of funds, of course -- a wonderful woman named Betty Casey. She is a trustee of the Eugene B. Casey Foundation. She gives significant sums of money to hospitals, hospices, colleges, and private schools. These include the Eugene B. Casey Diabetes Education Center at Suburban Hospital, the Eugene B. Casey Swim Center, and the Eugene B. Casey Academic Center, and the Casey Home Hospice in Rockville. She has also donated tens of millions from the foundation and her personal funds to the Washington Opera. Betty Casey has been a listener to this program since its interception. She's a huge fan. We would expect nothing else -- and we cannot thank her enough for her support in this, and I am honored, and proud, and happy to be matching her $2,100,100.

Jim Lynch at bRight and Early reacts to Senate Democrat Harry Reid's last-minute attempt to jump on the bus that's running him over:

But I am just astounded at the brazen attempt by Sen. Harry Reid to try to inject himself into the event. Ed Morrissey has this quote (via The Corner)

This week, Rush Limbaugh put the original copy of that letter up for auction on e-bay. Mr. President, we didn’t have time, or we could have gotten every senator to sign that letter. But he put the letter up for auction on e-bay and I think very, very constructively, left the proceeds of that it go to the Marine Corps law enforcements foundation. That provides scholarship assistance to marines and federal law enforcement personnel whose parents fall in the line of duty. What could be a more worthwhile cause? I think it’s really good that this money on e-bay is going to be raised for this purpose. …
Never did we think that this letter would bring money of this nature.

Ed has the exactly right take on this outrageous grand standing play by Reid.

So now Harry wants everyone to think that he participated in the fund-raising effort deliberately. He wants to take credit for over $4 million in donations that came from two people — the bidder, and the man Reid intended to smear and intimidate. That’s not just laughable, it’s pathetic.

Totally, sickeningly pathetic.

I commented last Saturday that Rush Limbaugh was turning lemons into lemonade. 

But I think my husband summed it up even better today:   

Rush Limbaugh turned lemons into a lemon meringue pie -- and threw it in Harry Reid's face.

Update:  Scott Johnson comments:

The auction of the letter for the benefit of the Marine Corps-Law Enforcement Fund was of course Rush's ingenious response to the Democrats' impugning his support for the armed forces. It was his way of embarrassing the senators who, while absurdly attacking him for his lack of support for the armed forces, have not hesitated to undermine our efforts in Iraq, for example, by declaring defeat. The [New York] Times is nevertheless happy to let Harry Reid make the auction a sort of joint venture with Rush, quoting Reid on the floor of the Senate yesterday:

“I strongly believe that when we can put our differences aside, even Harry Reid and Rush Limbaugh, we should do that and try to accomplish good things for the American people,” he said.

The Times could have served a useful purpose if it had been able to disclose precisely how Reid put aside his differences with Rush and attempted to accomplish something good for the American people. Did it include seeking to have Rush muzzled? (Rush responded to Reid on his show yesterday: “It wasn’t your letter that raised this money. It was your abuse of power that is responsible for raising this money.”) Did Reid send the Democrats' letter to Clear Channel as a charitable act? Did the Senate Democrats pitch in with a contribution to the Marine Corps-Law Enforcement Fund?

Ed Morrissey sums it up well:

Sometimes a comment gets to the heart of a matter so clearly that I find it irresistable for its own post. Yesterday, in the Harry Reid/Rush Limbaugh thread, CapQ commenter PackerBronco observed that the entire story arc of the letter and its auction showed a clear difference between liberals and conservatives:

The conservative thinks of a free-market way of raising private funds to aid a worthwhile causes and backs his commitment with his own money.

The liberal asks other people to donate funds, doesn't donate any of his own money, and tries to take credit for the generosity of others.

Now granted, the Republicans in Congress in 2001-2006 managed to look a lot like the latter than the former, but we're hoping they learned their lesson after the last election. In terms of actual governing policy, as we have seen in this Congress, liberals don't ask for money -- they tax for money, and try to take credit for personal compassion while the bill gets paid by others. We've certainly seen that dynamic often enough, including on Thursday, when Democrats valiantly attempted to take money from the poor and working-class who mostly make up the ranks of cigarette smokers and give the money to middle-class families as health-insurance subsidies.

In the meantime, Senator Reid still hasn't announced any contribution of his own to the Marine Corps - Law Enforcement Fund, despite trying to take credit for Rush Limbaugh's fundraising efforts and Rush's own personal contribution.

_______________________

Linked at PointFive