RUSH: Your host was brought up again on television last night. You know, these people at MSNBC are just warts on the back end of a hog. They’re really trying, but it’s pathetic. Here, I’ll give you an example. They’re all upset here that because the MoveOn.org people got called on the ‘Betray Us’ ad, and they’re beside themselves over this, and they’re upset that, by the way, a Rasmussen poll out yesterday found 23% of Americans approved of the MoveOn.org ad in the New York Times; 58% disapproved of it. It failed. It bombed miserably. MoveOn.org has now offered or has paid the difference so that they were charged the full rate. The New York Times has come out and after two weeks and admitted that it was a political in-kind donation. Their excuses for this are just pathetic. They were just advancing their own agenda. Everybody knew it, and the ad didn’t work. It bombed miserably, and, of course, the left had high hopes for this ad. They had high hopes they were going to destroy Petraeus, destroy Bush — and the exact opposite happened. So now they’re out there trying to say, well, you know, it wasn’t MoveOn.org that first came up with the phrase ‘Betray Us.’
SHUSTER: Where was the outrage when Rush Limbaugh said this about Republican Senator Chuck Hagel over one of the senators’ stances on Iraq. Limbaugh said, ‘By the way, we had a caller call, couldn’t stay on the air, got a new name for Senator Hagel in Nebraska. We got General Petraeus, and we got Senator Betray Us, new name for Senator Hagel.’
RUSH: And now they’re trying to say that I invented the name, and MoveOn.org was just copying me. Well, of course, I get everything started in this country — ask Donovan McNabb — but they’re trying to say, ‘Hey! Hey! To hell with MoveOn.org! Limbaugh started it.’ They had a congressperson on last night, Marsha Blackburn, a Republican from Tennessee, and they ambushed her over the death of a soldier in Iraq, who they claim was from her district, that she didn’t know about. It turns out he was not. I haven’t had a chance to read this whole thing. I don’t think the dead soldier was from her district. They accused her of not knowing the name and circumstances of an 18-year-old soldier that died from her district. She didn’t know who it was and Shuster just really piled up. It was mean and cruel. It was everything liberals claim they’re not. I don’t know what’s happened to David Shuster. He used to be okay when he was at Fox, but he’s gotten over there, drinking the Kool-Aid at Mess-NBC. I guess trying to make a difference. They’re trying real hard over there. Okay, so now, I — your host, the Doctor of Democracy — am responsible for the whole name ‘Betray Us’ being in the public dialogue. So let’s move on. That was David Shuster, by the way, in that bite that you just heard. Let’s move on now. This is the same guy, Shuster, hosting the Chatsworth Osborne, Jr., show on PMSNBC, that would be Tucker Carlson, and Shuster says to Marsha Blackburn, Republican, Tennessee, ‘You want to take this opportunity to condemn what Rush Limbaugh said about Chuck Hagel?’
BLACKBURN: What I want to do is talk about the New York Times, and probably Rush Limbaugh could have gotten by without saying that.
SHUSTER: Could have gotten by? It was wrong, wasn’t it?
BLACKBURN: He was referencing what a caller said, and —
SHUSTER: Right, but it was wrong for a caller or from Rush Limbaugh to call Chuck Hagel Senator Betray Us, right?
BLACKBURN: But Rush Limbaugh did not go in and buy an ad and place it with the New York Times and get a special preferred rate.
SHUSTER: So there’s a difference between buying an ad in the New York Times and Rush Limbaugh hearing something that he likes to hear from one of his viewers and repeating it on the air? What’s the distinction? Why is there a distinction?
BLACKBURN: Rush Limbaugh should not have done that, but Rush Limbaugh did not go out and buy an ad and circumvent the New York Times.
RUSH: Anyway, don’t hold it against her. She’s a good congresswoman. She just got sandbagged. She thought she was being brought on to discuss other things, and they ambushed her on a bunch of other things. She has no business defending me. She doesn’t have to defend me. She could have said that easily. I don’t apologize for anything anyway. I’m not going to take it back. I was talking about Senator Hagel in the ‘betray us’ sense, not betraying the country, not betraying the mission. The whole MoveOn.org ad, the Betray Us thing, was that he’s lying to us — and the whole Democrat Party, in the House and the Senate, when they interrogated him, told him up front: We’re not going to believe a thing you say. We’re not going to believe one word that you say. He’s a decorated four-star general. He’s sitting there in full-dress uniform. He has come to give a report that they demanded! Congress demanded the report. He’s giving it, and they’re calling him a liar before he says a word. They are undermining his mission. They’re undermining the troops under his command. Chuck Hagel is a senator. Chuck Hagel is fair game.
I was talking about Chuck Hagel in terms of his loyalty to the Republican Party, not anything to do with whether or not he’s selling out the country and investing in defeat for the country. I was talking about him vis-à-vis his position in the Republican Party. It was a political comment. If he wants to respond politically, he can. The general can’t. The general’s mouth has to be shut. He can’t get into politics. The Democrats knew this. They can call him a liar all they want, and you can’t do anything about it — other than say, ‘Every word I’m speaking here I wrote myself and nobody has cleared it.’ But, you know, you can’t get into the political game while in command and in uniform. So, anyway, it’s funny. (laughing) These guys are just beside themselves making an issue out of nothing. I don’t have enough fingers nor hands, to count — over the 19-plus years — the number of times little row boats like David Shuster have attempted to sink me, a battleship, with a BB. Over 19 years, they have given me everything they have. They have blamed me for the Oklahoma City bombing. You know all know the drill.
They have tried everything to discredit me with you and with the American people. They’ve tried to destroy my reputation. The president of the United States made a racist joke at the White House Correspondents Dinner at my expense, and it hasn’t worked. None of it has worked. And these guys, instead of launching these silly little BBs that they think are going to hit home, better start asking themselves how come their efforts don’t work. Because there is an answer to it, and it’s an answer that could really help them in trying to get their little fledgling network some serious audience. But they’re not going to learn it. They’re liberals, and they applaud themselves at the end of such techniques. ‘Yeah, we really got ’em that time! Yeah!’ Again, never examining the results of what they do, just the intentions. Here, by the way, just as a reminder, is David Shuster obsessed with my attire the day I interviewed Karl Rove on this program. They played video from the Dittocam and audio of some of the interview, and this is what David Shuster had to say.
SHUSTER: There’s Rush Limbaugh smoking a nice cigar, wearing a golf shirt. There was another video where you could see his nice watch. Who’s the snob?
RUSH: Who’s the snob? (Laughing.) I had called these people a bunch of effete snobs, and Shuster was throwing it back at me. So there you have it: your host, once again, the focal point of a major controversy in this country. By the way, ‘A new Gallup Poll suggests that last week’s intense schedule of congressional testimony and media appearances by …Gen. David Petraeus, enhanced his image among Americans. Not only did Petraeus’ name identification increase significantly in a matter of just a week, but his image also became more favorable than it was just before the week’s activities. This occurred in a contentious environment that included the publication of a full-page ad in the New York Times’ calling him General Betray Us. ‘According to the Sept. 14-16, 2007 poll, 61% of Americans have a favorable opinion of Petraeus, while 22% have an unfavorable opinion and 18%,’ are too stupid to know who he is so they didn’t want to rate him. So we combine this with the Rasmussen: Only 23% approve of the MoveOn.org ad; 58% disapprove, and, in Gallup, 61% like Petraeus. I would say that the Democrats bombed big time, with both of these stunts, and, as usual, are now trying to take the heat off themselves by blaming your host.
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