On his radio show Friday, Rush Limbaugh blamed moderators Fox News moderators Byron York and Chris Wallace for last night's contentious Republican presidential debate in Ames, which by our count included two heated exchanges over policy, the mysterious disappearance of a candidate, and Mitt Romney announcing that he didn't want to spend his retirement eating dog food. The Daily Caller transcribed the key portions of Limbaugh's diatribe, in which the radio host outlined his theory that Fox was trying to curry favorite with the mainstream media by forcing this year's crop of White House hopefuls to violate Ronald Reagan's Eleventh Commandment. Said Limbaugh:

"When I started watching I said, ‘My gosh — does nobody on this panel remember that we’re running against Obama? What is this business of these guys trying to tear each other up?...Then I figured out that’s what Fox wants. Fox wants these people to tear each other up....They want approval from the mainstream media because that’s what the mainstream media would do — is tear these people up, or try to get them to.”

He also said that "you never see Democrats pitted against each other" in such a heated way. Really? That seems to understate how much Democrats love to fight with each other. Remember this exchange between Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton in 2008?

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Ray Gustini