{"id":255956,"date":"2017-11-27T09:35:00","date_gmt":"2017-11-27T14:35:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/admin.rushlimbaugh.com\/?p=255956"},"modified":"2017-11-28T16:04:32","modified_gmt":"2017-11-28T21:04:32","slug":"stuart-smalley-holds-a-press-conference","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/admin.rushlimbaugh.com\/daily\/2017\/11\/27\/stuart-smalley-holds-a-press-conference\/","title":{"rendered":"Stuart Smalley Holds a Pure Caca Presser"},"content":{"rendered":"

RUSH: Well, looky here. Al Franken has a live press conference starting here in mere moments. Thankfully, we will be in a commercial break. Huffing and Puffington Post says that Leeann Tweeden, the woman Franken harassed in the USA tour, she was asking for it. He\u2019s not to blame.<\/p>\n

BREAK TRANSCRIPT<\/p>\n

RUSH: I can\u2019t believe I\u2019m saying this. We\u2019re still waiting on Al Franken. I\u2019ve done an informal survey of the audience, folks, and it seems that many of you are curious to hear what Stuart Smalley might have to say here. Supposed to start a press conference about six minutes ago, obviously running late in the Obama-Clinton style.<\/p>\n

BREAK TRANSCRIPT<\/p>\n

RUSH: Now, why would Franken be doing this? Up \u2019til now it has become clear that Franken\u2019s gonna try to weather the storm. He has not admitted or — he\u2019s not copped to it. He said he\u2019s sorry, that he\u2019s learned — you know, I get so worn out. These people insult our intelligence. “You know, I have learned that when hugging a woman, it\u2019s not really correct to grab her breast. I\u2019m glad to know this now at age 84, whatever I am, and I appreciate this very, very learnable opportunity.”<\/p>\n

\"\"Well, who\u2019s kidding who here? As though Franken\u2019s unaware that copping a feel here or there is somehow okay and only now at this stage in his life is he learning that it may be inappropriate. Speaking of all this, by the way, in the Stack<\/a> today I have a piece by Christina Hoff Sommers. She\u2019s written against the extremes of militant feminism, and she\u2019s extremely correct in her extreme criticisms of extreme feminism.<\/p>\n

She has a piece today, however, that she\u2019s worried there\u2019s an overreaction to all of this and that certain interactions between men and women which are perfectly harmless and innocent and consensual are gonna be now considered harassed or abuse because our culture has a tendency to overreact to everything because of fear of the media, fear of political correctness and a lack of courage to stand up and proclaim common sense.<\/p>\n

And she worries that all of this is gonna the end up having an adverse effect on the overall interaction and relationships, normal relationships and normal interactions between men and women, which are all part of the mating, courting, socialization status or apparatus of people getting to know each other. And that it\u2019s going to lead to a lack of interaction, people afraid to speak with one another in any way, shape, manner, or form. That it\u2019s going to potentially lead to people segregating themselves from members of the opposite sex as the only safe way to go. And the more that happens, the more segregation there is, the more people going it alone, then whenever there is interaction between a man and a woman and somebody gets unhappy about it, then it\u2019s gonna be even worse than the allegations today.<\/p>\n

And I understand the point. I understand it to a T, in fact. We do have this tendency to overreact, if you look at it as a perpetual motion ball that reacts and keeps going in opposite directions after it hits something and goes back. The rebound time here is way past what\u2019s considered normal. And it can have an adverse effect. And of course this is desired by some who are basically unhappy anyway with their lot in life and want to spread their misery around by politicizing as much as they can.<\/p>\n

Now, if Franken\u2019s doing this because he thinks there aren\u2019t going to be any more women coming forward, then he\u2019ll come out here and say it\u2019s over and he\u2019s sorry and whatever he says to try to put it behind him, so to speak, so that he can continue. If that\u2019s not the reason he\u2019s doing — what other reason could there be? Could there be other women on the verge of coming forward and he needs to head \u2019em off at the pass? Or perhaps what he knows is coming is so bad that it can\u2019t be survivable that he\u2019s going to resign? (interrtupion) No. You don\u2019t think that. You don\u2019t care what it is, he\u2019s not resigning?<\/p>\n

\"\"The thing about the Democrats on this, when this first happened, I thought this was pretty much gonna be automatic, that Franken has to go, because it\u2019s the governor of Minnesota that would replace him, so they don\u2019t lose anything if Franken goes. With Franken staying, it does give them a bit of a problem. If they want to keep going after people like Roy Moore or Trump while they are supporting Conyers and Franken and whoever else in elective politics is revealed to be one of these kind of guys, it\u2019s gonna be an ongoing problem for them.<\/p>\n

They must not fear the hypocrisy. The Democrats I don\u2019t think worry about the hypocrisy at all because with the media on their side, it never sticks to them. But then there\u2019s another factor that I saw over the weekend. I was in stunned silence. There are apparently a significant number of Democrats who really think this guy has a legitimate chance at getting the Democrat presidential nomination, and that\u2019s why they want to save him. Al Franken!<\/p>\n

These people said, “Donald Trump? You kidding me, Donald Trump?” Just like we\u2019re saying “Al Franken? You kidding me? Al Franken?” But there are some people who think that he could win it.<\/p>\n

BREAK TRANSCRIPT<\/p>\n

RUSH: Here\u2019s Stuart now. Stuart\u2019s just shown up. We have time for a couple minutes here. That might tell us what this is about, so our cameras and microphones are there.<\/p>\n

FRANKEN: People of Minnesota, my colleagues.<\/p>\n

RUSH: This is so painful. I hate having to do this, but —<\/p>\n

FRANKEN: — my staff, my supporters, and everyone who has counted on me to be a champion for women.<\/p>\n

RUSH: Ha! Oh, my.<\/p>\n

FRANKEN: For all of you, I just want to again say, I am sorry.<\/p>\n

RUSH: Champion of women?<\/p>\n

FRANKEN: I know there are no magic words that I can say to —<\/p>\n

RUSH: Yes, there are.<\/p>\n

FRANKEN: — regain your trust. And I know that it will —<\/p>\n

RUSH: “I resign.”<\/p>\n

FRANKEN: — take time. I\u2019m ready to start that process, and starts with going back to work today, so now I\u2019m gonna take a few questions.<\/p>\n

RUSH: Are you —<\/p>\n

FRANKEN: Sam.<\/p>\n

REPORTER: Yeah. You said response to (unintelligible) that you remembered encounter differently —<\/p>\n

RUSH: Can you hear these questions?<\/p>\n

REPORTER: — does your recollection differ from the women that came forward and to what extent are you denying their accounts?<\/p>\n

\"\"FRANKEN: Well, there are different, you know, different allegations. The Leeann Tweeden. Leeann and I were on the USO tour together.<\/p>\n

RUSH: We know this.<\/p>\n

FRANKEN: And on the — the kiss at the —<\/p>\n

RUSH: Your hands were all over here on the tour.<\/p>\n

FRANKEN: — sketch. I said that I recalled that differently from Leeann, but I feel that you have to respect, you know, women\u2019s experience. And so I apologized to her, and I meant it, and I was, you know, very grateful that she accepted it. As far as, you know, I take a lot of pictures in Minnesota, thousands of pictures, tens of thousands of people. So those are instances that I do not remember. It has from these stories —<\/p>\n

RUSH: Like a pig with a stick exhibit at the state fair, right?<\/p>\n

FRANKEN: — some women and one is too many who feel that I have done something disrespectful and have hurt them, and for that I am — I am tremendously sorry.<\/p>\n

RUSH: Well.<\/p>\n

FRANKEN: And I know that I am —<\/p>\n

RUSH: It\u2019s obvious what the heck this has been.<\/p>\n

FRANKEN: — going to have be much more conscious —<\/p>\n

RUSH: You know, while you listen to this I\u2019m gonna see if Apple\u2019s released the new beta today so I will not be wasting my time.<\/p>\n

FRANKEN: — much more careful.<\/p>\n

RUSH: Damn it.<\/p>\n

FRANKEN: Much more sensitive.<\/p>\n

RUSH: No new beta.<\/p>\n

FRANKEN: And that this —<\/p>\n

\"\"RUSH: Heck.<\/p>\n

FRANKEN: That this will not happen again going forward.<\/p>\n

RUSH: BS, won\u2019t happen. Probably still is happening.<\/p>\n

FRANKEN: — long time for me to regain people\u2019s trust but I hope that starting work today that I can start to do that. Casey.<\/p>\n

REPORTER: You made it clear you\u2019re not gonna resign your Senate seat. There have been a lot of accusations against a lot of people that have been in conversation lately.<\/p>\n

RUSH: After this answer we\u2019re gonna get out of this. We\u2019ve been played here.<\/p>\n

FRANKEN: I am not — I\u2019m not going to get into that or speculate on that. I\u2019m certainly not gonna talk to anybody else. This is what I\u2019ve been trying to do. I\u2019ve been trying to take responsibility —<\/p>\n

RUSH: No, you haven\u2019t!<\/p>\n

FRANKEN: — by apologizing. And by apologizing to the people I\u2019ve let down. And I\u2019m going to work to regain their trust. I am going to be accountable. We are going to cooperate completely with the ethics investigation. And that\u2019s —<\/p>\n

REPORTER: Will you make the findings of the ethics investigation public?<\/p>\n

FRANKEN: I will be open to that. The — I — you know, that\u2019s going to be, of course, the — I\u2019ve not worked with the Ethics Committee before, and I don\u2019t quite know how that works. But I\u2019m certainly open to that. And I also — I\u2019m going to —<\/p>\n

RUSH: What?<\/p>\n

FRANKEN: — try to learn from my mistakes.<\/p>\n

RUSH: Here we go.<\/p>\n

FRANKEN: And —<\/p>\n

RUSH: I didn\u2019t know that you weren\u2019t supposed to grab a woman\u2019s butt during a photo-op.<\/p>\n

FRANKEN: — doing a lot of reflecting, and I — I want to be someone who adds something to this conversation. And I — I — I hope I — I can do that.<\/p>\n

RUSH: You can\u2019t.<\/p>\n

REPORTER: (Unintelligible).<\/p>\n

FRANKEN: M.J. Okay.<\/p>\n