Chris Matthews: Limbaugh an Objectivist

Former House Majority Leader Dick Armey is taking a beating in the blogosphere for his appearance on MSNBC's Hardball, during which he "thanked god" that he wasn't married to Salon.com editor Joan Walsh and, thus, wasn't forced to listen to her "prattle on" about social justice. The fun starts towards the end:

But the strangest moment comes when Matthews, who clearly doesn't understand politics beyond the traditional right/left Beltway paradigm, wonders why all those libertarians and Randians love Rush Limbaugh so much. From the transcript:

Why do libertarians—and I respect a lot of the libertarian philosophy. It's—at least in ideal terms. The Ayn Rand stuff, it's—I love the idea. It`s romantic. If everybody could live on themselves and take care of themselves, if that could work—it doesn't—fine.

But why do people who say they`re individualists, cowboys, out there all alone, refer to themselves as dittoheads? Why would you take pride in being a ditto of what Rush Limbaugh says, in other words, repeating after him every word he speaks as if it`s gospel? And it—it doesn't make any sense. How can you be both a dittohead and an individualist?

Watch Dick Armey at the 2007 Reason in DC conference here.