Just to play devils advocate (almost literally in this case), there has been some claim made that he was being quoted out of context and that earlier in the show he was specifically talking about Jesse Macbeth. Of course, the person from whom I heard this wasn't strictly speaking defending the man, he was just saying that Rush has said plenty of equivalent things about which there is no ambiguity. Of course the reply to that was, "if he's referring to Macbeth, why did he keep using the plural..."

Anyway, my personal opinion of him has not been changed by this incident. He is still a jackass who doesn't know jack.