McCain won't apologize for calling Tea Partiers "hobbits" — "Why should I if it was a fact?"

It's a fact that Tea Partiers are hobbits?

Constituent: "Are you saying you're not apologizing?"

McCain: "I don't know what to apologize for."

Heard in the back: "For calling tea partiers hobbits!"

McCain: "What I said was true."

It's true that Tea Partiers are hobbits? You know, that's a real taunt. Let's say I call you a prick, and you say I should apologize, and I say, "Why should I apologize? It's true! You are a prick!" That's doubling down — a deliberate attempt to piss you off. And if you think that sounds as though I'm insinuating that McCain is a prick, I will not apologize. You know why?

Now, some people like to say hobbits were the good guys, so it wasn't even an insult in the first place. (Which makes me think of another answer to anyone who complains about my "prick" insult, above.) Anyway, yesterday, some guy called in to Rush Limbaugh's show to make the hobbits-are-good argument:

... I think conservatives should embrace being called hobbits by the establishment because in the movie the Lord of the Rings the hobbits are the heroes who succeed where the elites have failed in defeating a tyranny.  The movie is about power.  There's a ring of power, and all these elites are unable to give up the power.  Whenever they get the ring, they're corrupted, but the hobbits are the only characters in the entire movie who resist the power and are willing to relinquish the power and defeat the tyranny.  So, I mean it's... I mean, that's not what McCain was intending. He was intending to insult us, but actually hobbits are the heroes.

Rush was not buying this own-the-insult gambit:

That's a long thought process to trying to feel positive.  The bottom line is, people don't want to be insulted by losers!  McCain is a loser!

Rush said "Look, if you want to be called a hobbit, I mean, I'll be glad to call you a hobbit."

Frankly, sir, as a giant in the industry and in humanity, I could never be a hobbit and I could not be happy being a hobbit, but if you want to be one, and if you draw strength from it, have at it!  I myself will remain a giant, happily so, and they know it.  Don't call me a hobbit.

Who had the better argument? Rush or the caller? Remember the attempt by Tea Partiers to get the upper hand by embracing the insult "tea bagger"?