Palin calls Limbaugh critics hypocrites

Former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin said Tuesday it's hypocritical for people to criticise talk show host Rush Limbaugh but not others who say "horrible things." Limbaugh is under fire for calling contraception advocate Sandra Fluke a "slut" and "prostitute" during a series of three of his syndicated radio shows when he faulted her testimony before a panel of congressional Democrats on the issue of healthcare coverage of contraception. The furor has prompted many of his advertisers to pull their commercials from his program and at least two stations have dropped his show. When reached by CNN in Wasilla, Alaska, Palin, the 2008 GOP vice presidential nominee, said "radical leftists" are not held to the same standard as Limbaugh. "I think the definition of hypocrisy is for Rush Limbaugh to have been called out and forced to apologise and retract what it is he said in exercising his First Amendment rights, and never is ... the same applied to the leftist radicals who say such horrible things about the handicapped, about women, about the defenseless," she said. "So I think that's the definition of hypocrisy and that's my two cents worth." On another front, Palin was asked by the news network whether she would be open to being drafted as her party's presidential nominee at a brokered Republican National Convention, should none of the current hopefuls win the nomination outright during the primaries. "As I say, anything is possible," she said. "I don't close any doors ... . I wouldn't close that door. My plan is to be at that convention."