Rush Limbaugh rebukes Glenn Beck — for attacking Republicans

Fox News host Glenn Beck has been a central target of liberals -- they've even pushed to have advertisers boycott his show for allegedly racist comments he made last year. But now he's getting it from the right. Specifically: Rush Limbaugh.

The Associated Press noted that in Beck's CPAC keynote address, "The conservative commentator [Beck] drew cheers from conservative activists Saturday night in a speech that implored Republicans to renounce profligate ways in Washington, let big banks fail and honor true conservative principles."

Beck said the GOP should confess to its spending problem the way Tiger Woods admitted to having a problem with women.

Limbaugh's response was gentler than he's shown himself to be in the past, but a rare and surefire pushback against the Fox host.

"I would not have said that the only people who can stop Obama should be excoriated for being just as bad," he said according to Mediaite. "It would never occur to me to say that. I don’t know what the objective would be

Limbaugh usually doesn't hold back on his criticisms of others, but chose his words carefully when pushing back against the conservative lightning rod and Fox host whose popularity has surged in the last year.

Unlike Beck, who has delivered scathing critiques of Republicans in the past, Limbaugh generally operates closer to party lines.

"I feel liberated," Limbaugh said after Democrats won control of Congress in 2006. "I no longer am going to have to carry the water for people who I don't think deserve having their water carried."

Mark Levin, also a popular conservative radio host, issued Beck a similar warning for criticizing the GOP. "Stop dividing us," he said. "Republicans deserve reinforcements."

While Beck has in recent months lambasted the Wall Street bailout as an example of the GOP's spendthrift ways, he repeatedly defended the policy immediately after the 2008 collapse when President Bush first implemented it.

"I think the bailout is the right thing to do," Beck said on his Fox show days after the meltdown. He echoed the same stance at a later day.

The following video is from Limbaugh's radio show, snipped by Mediaite.