Assuming the Reuters conjecture is true (which I doubt)...So...Rush can attack the government but the government shouldn't defend itself?
Where in the hell did you get that idea that the 1st Amendment exists to ensure that people have a right to disagree with their government, or for any other 'official' reason, for that matter? Our rights are SELF EVIDENT...the government doesn't 'grant' them to us, nor require us to 'use them properly'. We can use them for whatever we damn well feel like; they exist with or without government. The majority of 1st Amendment supreme court rulings, for example, have nothing at all to do with disagreeing with the government. The central theme there, if there is one, is people simply trying to do their own thing and enjoy the freedoms that are core to our society.