Limbaugh: Obama's Dover visit a 'photo op'

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By Tom LoBianco

A top White House adviser and a senator fired back at conservative radio host Rush Limbaugh on Sunday for criticizing President Obama's trip to Dover, Del., to view the cases containing the bodies of18 U.S. troops last week.

Mr. Limbaugh criticized Mr. Obama's trip as part of a broader attack on the president's handling of Afghanistan and his credentials.

"It was a photo op precisely because he's having big-time trouble on this whole Afghanistan dithering situation," Mr. Limbaugh said on "Fox News Sunday." He called Mr. Obama's political rise "a five-minute career."

"I think he's got an out-of-this-world ego. He's very narcissistic. And he's able to focus all attention on him all the time," he said.

Senior White House adviser David Axelrod and Sen. Joe Lieberman defended Mr. Obama's visit, calling it genuine and questioning Mr. Limbaugh's credentials to make that statement.

"I think it's a surreal day when you're getting lectures on humility from Rush Limbaugh," Mr. Axelrod said on CBS' "Face the Nation." "The fact is that he is an entertainer. The president has to run the country."

The White House adviser said Mr. Obama went to Dover "to represent the American people and pay his respects to the families who had made so much of a sacrifice, to those brave service people who made the ultimate sacrifice."

"It was the appropriate thing to do, and I think most Americans appreciate that," he said.

Mr. Axelrod also tied Mr. Limbaugh's remarks to the upheaval in the special election to fill an upstate New York congressional seat, where Dede Scozzafava, a liberal Republican, dropped out over the weekend after seeing her support erode in favor of the Conservative Party candidate.

"Certainly, Mr. Limbaugh and others were behind that. And I think it sends a clear message to moderates within that party that there's no room at the inn for them. That's why you see Republican identification in polls at a historic low," Mr. Axelrod said of the intra-Republican fight.

Mr. Lieberman, a former Democrat who has been at odds recently with most other members of the Senate Democratic Caucus over the decision to support a public option in the health care reform legislation, said he was proud Mr. Obama viewed the caskets at Dover Air Force Base.

"I just totally disagree with" Mr. Limbaugh, Mr. Lieberman said on "Face the Nation." "On the question of President Obama going to Dover to be there to honor the American heroes whose bodies were returning, I think he was there as commander in chief for all Americans. And I don't fault him or question his motives at all."

The Limbaugh interview took up the first half-hour of "Fox News Sunday," which several liberal Web sites cited as vindication of White House criticism that Fox News is not a legitimate news organization

"Face the Nation" host Bob Schieffer noted that White House press secretary Robert Gibbs had "declared a truce in this war you've been having with them" and asked Mr. Axelrod whether the Limbaugh interview meant "the truce [was] broken."

Mr. Axelrod said the Obama administration is "not at war with anyone" and said Mr. Limbaugh was just an entertainer "marketing the outrageous."

"We've got bigger responsibilities," he said.

Mr. Limbaugh, in his broad-ranging interview, returned to his criticism of the health-care reform measures being debated in Congress now as part of a broader government takeover.

"This is not about insuring the uninsured. This is not about health care. This is about stealing one-sixth of the U.S. private sector and putting it under the control of federal government," Mr. Limbaugh said.