RNC chair Michael Steele on Rush Limbaugh:
He's not [the de facto leader of the Republican party]. I'm the de facto leader of the Republican party.... Rush Limbaugh is an entertainer. His whole thing is entertainment. Yes, it's incendiary, yes, it's ugly.
Limbaugh on Steele:
Michael Steele, you are head of the RNC. You are not head of the Republican Party. Tens of millions of conservatives and Republicans have nothing to do with the RNC and right now they want nothing to do with it, and when you call them, asking them for money, they hang up on you....
Why are you running the Republican Party? Why do you claim you lead the Republican Party when you seem obsessed with seeing to it that President Obama succeeds? I frankly am stunned that the chairman of the Republican National Committee endorses such an agenda….
I would be embarrassed to say that I’m in charge of the Republican Party in a sad-sack state that it’s in. If I were chairman of the Republican Party, given the state that it’s in, I would quit. I might get out the hari-kari knife.
A conservative friend also informs me that Limbaugh's already famous "better policies are for losers" line was widely perceived as a dig at Newt Gingrich.
--Christopher Orr