He’s caught on camera snorting coke or doing something, and they walk in and they got a camera in the hotel room where this is happening, and they walk in, law enforcement walks in, and when he sees them, Marion Barry realizes it’s over, and says on tape, “The bitch set me up.” So Karl Rove set ’em up here. That’s their story, and they’re sticking to it. (Laughing.) Anyway, what was I talking about? Oh, yes, the Washington Post story where probable voters, likely voters, say they plan to vote for Bush, a majority. “Among those most likely to vote in November, Bush has a 52-43% edge over Kerry.” For those of you in Rio Linda, that’s nine points. Ralph Nader gets two points of this hypothetical vote. “Among all registered voters, Bush is up by six, 50 to 44. The survey highlights the damage to Kerry in August and during the Republican National Convention.” This is Kerry’s self-inflicted campaign wound, by the way. Let’s be honest, this is another self-inflicted wound and you don’t get Purple Hearts for these. Well, you don’t.
This whole convention of his, I mean, they want to talk about how he spoke of other things besides Vietnam at the convention. Okay, maybe he did. Who remembers it? But look at the pictures. It is the imagery and the pictures that count, and the imagery is of all of his “band of brothers” out there on the stage. And let’s not forget that Kerry reenacted swift boat missions by getting in one of those little cruisers that cruises Boston Harbor and he retook the FleetCenter with his swift boat vet “band of brothers” there as they sailed across. I don’t know whether it was reenacting George Washington and the Delaware or taking the Mekong Delta. Regardless, it was a self-inflicted campaign wound. “What will not be known for weeks,” says the Washington Post, “is whether Bush’s gains are transitory as Kerry’s were in the immediate aftermath of his convention.” What? What “Kerry gains” were there after his convention? My memory is that Bush got the bounce there. Is that the way you remember it, David? Absolutely.
Yeah, there’s a one-point bounce in one night, but when the convention was over, everybody was, you know, wringing their hands over the fact that Bush got the bounce. Anyway, “In the five weeks since the Democrat convention, Kerry’s favorable rating has plunged. Besides a relentless pounding from the GOP, Kerry has experienced attacks on his Vietnam War service from a group of Vietnam veterans and the Democrats’ comments about Iraq have been a source of controversy.” What they’re not saying here is the reason they are a source of controversy. They’re a source of controversy within his own party because he said he would do the same thing Bush did. He would vote for the authorization to go to Iraq even if he had known there were no weapons of mass destruction. That was after he had said he’s going to get us out of there in six months and the French and Germans are going to go in and take over for us, and then he changed that. No, get us out of there in a year, then a plan to get us out of there in four years.
Now the plan, which he’s going to be releasing this week, is going to be announced sometime this week or next, the five-year plan to get us out. Same newspaper, two different writers, headline: “Polls Suggest War Isn’t Hurting Bush,” damn it! “Mounting deaths in Iraq have not resulted in major backlash in public opinion,” damn it! The press is at their wits’ end. Forged documents don’t work. Celebrating a thousand soldier deaths hasn’t worked. Ripping the war in Iraq as “unnecessary” hasn’t worked. Kerry can’t do anything, he Democrats can’t do anything, and the media can’t do anything to harm Bush, it appears. “This spring, when mounting casualties and a prison scandal…” The New York Times is back to that, by the way. Today, their front page, Abu Ghraib — favorite story, can’t let go! “…causing public support for President Bush’s Iraq policies to plunge, his campaign strateg[er]ists were confidently predicting that Iraq problems would present no major threat to his reelection once U.S. forces turned over authority to an interim government in Baghdad. In a month since, the evidence so far has proven that prediction more right than wrong,” damn it!
“A steady procession of U.S. military deaths, which this week resulted in the passage of the grim milestone of 1,000…” This is so ghoulish. This is just ghoulish the way these people keep harping on this. “…the latest ABC/Washington Post poll showed Bush with a 53-37% advantage over Kerry when voters were asked who they think would do a better job handling the situation in Iraq, 53-37. These results challenge what some public opinion analysts had for years assumed was a reliable link which some scholars argued operated with an almost mathematical precision between combat deaths and erosion of support for military operations.” You people in the press ever hear of 9/11? It’s tomorrow! You realize that we’re going to remember this tomorrow? Have you people forgotten this? I think unwittingly John Harris and Thomas Ricks of the Washington Post here give away what their strategy was. “Public opinion analysts had for years assumed was a reliable link. Rising deaths equals plummeting numbers for the president in office.” So now we know why they tried it. Some reliable public opinion analysts had told them it would work. But it didn’t. “Casualties have continued but Bush quickly regained the clear advantage on the issue during most polls since he began pursuing his confrontation with Iraq in 2002.”
BREAK TRANSCRIPT
This story from the Washington Times today, Bill Sammon<, who is part of the White House press corps: “White House Accuses Kerry of Coordinating the Guard Attacks — The White House yesterday accused John Kerry of ‘coordinating’ attacks on President Bush’s National Guard service in response to the president’s widening lead in the polls. ‘You absolutely are seeing a coordinated attack by John Kerry and his surrogates on the president,’ White House press secretary Scott McClellan told reporters aboard Air Force One. ‘The polls show Senator Kerry falling behind, and it’s the same old recycled attacks that we’ve seen every time the president has been up for election.’ Mr. Kerry refused to denounce Texans for Truth, a group known by its tax code classification as a 527, for running TV ads that criticize the president’s National Guard service. Last month, the Kerry campaign demanded that Mr. Bush denounce ads by another 527, Swift Boat Veterans for Truth, which questioned Mr. Kerry’s Vietnam service. Asked about the veracity of the anti-Bush ads yesterday, Mr. Kerry twice told an Associated Press reporter: ‘That’s for the White House to answer.'” 
What? The White House to answer? At any rate, it’s a double whammy here. The White House blames Kerry for coordinating the attack with the forged documents and now Terry McAuliffe is out there blaming Karl Rove for setting them up. Now, I told you yesterday at the beginning of the program, there was a story by Ron Fournier at the AP, and I said, “This is not going to make big news.” Well, it made some news but not big, but what the internal of the story, the behind-the-scenes message of the story, was the press had been misled by Kerry as to the extent of their ad buy. Remember in story yesterday? Only gonna buy ads in 14 states, conceding Missouri, conceding Arizona, conceding a lot of other states. Double digits are down in Missouri; down big in Ohio. They’re down in Pennsylvania, the Kerry campaign is, and this whole story had the flavor that the Kerry campaign had misled everybody and the press a little disappointed at being misled. Now you come up with this forged document story; CBS being misled. I really hope you heard the first hour of the program today. If you didn’t, you need, ladies and gentlemen, to see a review of it at RushLimbaugh.com today. It is important — as well, as always, it was good.
But this forged document business I think represents foundational building block being shattered between the Democratic Party and the mainstream press. I don’t care if Rove is behind it. I don’t care who is behind it. The fact is somebody gave these documents to CBS. The Kerry campaign probably is the one who did it according to the American Spectator, and CBS got stung. CBS was the network in the tank for Kerry. All those 60 Minutes episodes, promoting all those books, and now this 60 Minutes episode. Just been in the tank for Kerry, and here comes the Kerry campaign making CBS and Dan Rather look like shlubs, to be honest with it. When the mainstream press starts being lied to by their buddies, when the mainstream press starts getting set up by their buddies, it’s going to cause some trust problems. Now, we’ll never see this. This will be, you know, at subterranean levels of activity and behavior, like Nightline last night.
Everybody thought that Nightline was really going to go after CBS on this last night because of the guests they had lined up that could refute the authenticity of the documents, and Nightline did do a story but they actually did a hit piece on Cheney. Then they had Chris Leheinous on and Leheinous and Ted Koppel both did their best to protect the Kerry campaign from any involvement in this. (Doing impression) “Oh, Kerry campaign wouldn’t! This is too stupid. Why, would the Kerry campaign…? Too stupid. The risk of being caught is simply too great. Nobody in the Kerry campaign would be stupid enough to give away forged documents.” Well, using that logic, Richard Nixon wouldn’t have been stupid enough to be involved in Watergate, but don’t tell that to the mainstream press. So it’s clearly a double standard. But behind the scenes, I’ll guarantee you at CBS and these closed door meetings they’re having over what went on here, it’s going to be challenging for them now to believe whatever leaks or heads up or whatever they get from the Kerry campaign, and so you’ve got, I think, a potential shattering of this.
Now, here’s this Ron Fournier story today. Here’s a pickup. This is not the same thing as the fund-raising story yesterday, but get this: “Democrats Taking a Chance on ‘Fortunate Son’ Criticism of Bush Guard Records — Seizing on 30-year-old memos and memories, Senator Kerry’s operatives are painting an unflattering port read of President Bush as the fortunate son who used family connections to dodge the Vietnam War and then lied about it, but even some sympathetic Democrats say that voters are not going to be swayed by this and they fear the controversy will deflect attention from Bush’s biggest vulnerabilities, the Iraq war and the economy. The challenge for Kerry is to talk about issues that matter to voters today.” Come on, John, talk about health care, education, jobs and the war, while his allies at the DNC do the dirty work. “The DNC’s goal…” This is Ron Fournier. This is a mainstream… Well, it’s labeled as an analysis piece, so I take it back. Before I even said it, I take it back. My instincts were this has to be an analysis piece and it was, or it is.
But clearly, what they’re saying, even if the documents weren’t forged, it ain’t working! That’s the message from Ron Fournier. “Please don’t make us look bad in the press! Please don’t make us report this stuff. Can you guys shape up? Can you go after the war in Iraq like we want you to? Can you go after the economy like we want you to in the press? Can you go after these things that matter?” This stuff isn’t going to matter, even if the documents are authentic. Yeah, all that work they were going to do on the economy, where is it? You know, I’m telling you, I’m just telling you, if you know how to read this stuff –and I do as a highly trained broadcast specialist, and a seasoned veteran of these battles; I know how to read this stuff — there’s two stories in a row, consecutive days from Ron Fournier where he’s letting them know he’s not happy with the Kerry campaign and the way they’re running this and he can’t stand by and support this much longer. That’s the hidden message for the Kerry campaign.
END TRANSCRIPT
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