THE BIZARRE BEHAVIOR OF CONSERVATIVE PUNDITS - By LEN MUNSIL

"Many of us have long viewed men like Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity and Hugh Hewitt as conservative heroes for articulating, explaining and defending conservative principles. I was a conservative -- even a conservative leader -- long before any of them became national radio hosts, but I was delighted to finally hear voices on the radio who shared my philosophy of government.

That's why I'm at a complete loss to understand the animosity being directed at Mike Huckabee and John McCain by these radio hosts. Their constant trashing of Huckabee and McCain is foolish, irrational, shortsighted and ultimately devastating to the conservative cause they are trying to advance.

I don't mind policy disagreements with Republican candidates -- I certainly do not agree with Huckabee and McCain on everything. But what Limbaugh, Hannity and Hewitt are doing is way beyond policy critiques. A few examples:

-- Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity have both continually referred to Huckabee and McCain as "liberals."-- On Friday I heard Limbaugh essentially embrace the New York Times critique of religious conservatives as "uninformed" and "easily led" when he claimed that most Huckabee voters in Iowa were women from rural communities who were "told" who to vote for by their church or by their husbands.-- I listened to Hannity cross-examine Huckabee in a hostile manner that he never employs when he interviews Romney and Guiliani. With Romney and Guiliani, he defends and helps them explain away their many deviations from conservatism.-- Hewitt long ago wrote a book touting Romney and at times seems to have turned his radio show and blog into a wholly-owned subsidiary of the Romney campaign. His attacks on Huckabee and McCain have been irrational and unfair.

John McCain has a 20-year history of being
essentially pro-life and pro-marriage, and was never a passionate defender of
abortion and gay rights, as Romney was recently and Guiliani still is. McCain is
anti-pork barrel spending and pro-military and for a strong national defense. He
promoted the surge in Iraq when it was unpopular. He has come around on
immigration to support the need for strong border security first. These are not
the positions of liberal Democrats, and it serves no purpose to accuse him of
being a liberal.

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About Len

Len Munsil, a third-generation Arizonan, has an accomplished record as a public policy expert, a conservative organizational entrepreneur, a lawyer, a journalist, and an author.
In 2006 he won the Republican primary for Governor of Arizona, entering the race late and coming from far behind to upset the most famous name in Arizona political history – Goldwater – while receiving more than 51 percent of the vote in a four-way primary. In the general election he received more than half a million votes but lost to incumbent Janet Napolitano

In 2007 he founded and serves as Chairman of a new Arizona political action committee – Principled Reaganesque Outcomes, known as PRO-PAC, to help elect Reagan Republicans to Arizona offices. He has been a principled conservative leader in Arizona for more than 20 years, going back to his days as editor in chief of the daily newspaper at Arizona State University.