The Drive-By Media Should Hate Me

RUSH: All right, I want to get some audio sound bites out of the way. Cookie gave me some where my name comes up and, of course, this is happening — (Laughing) when is it not happening? More and more frequently. This is from C-SPAN’s Washington Journal today. Brian Lamb was talking to Boston Globe columnist Joan Vennochi. You know, I’ve never heard her name pronounced, so I don’t know how it’s pronounced, Vennochi or Vennochi. I’m not trying to mispronounce it. I’m trying to give myself every possibility of pronouncing it correctly. The question Brian Lamb asked — I’ll call her Joan — “Have you been opposed to this war?”
VENNOCHI: I was one of those people from the very moment I saw those troops storming over the desert, I just felt that it was the unraveling of the Bush administration.
RUSH: Yeah.
VENNOCHI: The rationale was to search for weapons of mass destruction.
RUSH: Yeah.
VENNOCHI: But the idea that we would just invade a country the way we did and then just expect to be able to impose a democracy or —
RUSH: Yeah.
VENNOCHI: — get them to accept democracy.
RUSH: Yeah.
VENNOCHI: — seems a little bit farfetched.
RUSH: Yeah?
VENNOCHI: I want a happy ending. I — unlike if you listen to Rush Limbaugh, which I do occasionally, they say the liberal left just wants everything to go badly so that, you know, our premise will be proven right. But that’s not true. You certainly can’t root for the other side to win. You want the happy ending to evolve. It just seems less and less likely.

RUSH: It’s more and more likely. This is stunning. We’re losing the war, if anywhere, in this country on the pages of the Drive-By Media and on the airwaves of the Drive-By Media, but we’re not losing in Iraq — everything is actually on schedule there, everything is — the timetable is happening, and everything that was planned from way back is in the works, including the drawdowns of troop levels. Not a date certain pullout, but what’s happening with General Casey and his drawdown suggestions is what was originally in the cards. We’re not losing this over there. The American military has performed professionally and amazingly in spite of the odds stacked against them with the anti-war crowd in this country doing everything they can to gin up anti-war support and fervor in this country.
I mean, for crying out loud, we’ve made cause c?l?bres out of people like Michael Moore and Cindy Sheehan? For crying out loud. The Drive-By Media has built these people up all for the purposes of advancing their own desires. Now, I don’t know about Joan Vennochi here, I’ll take her at her word here, but I’ve heard many journalists say, “We can’t choose sides in this war, can’t choose sides in any war, it would compromise my objectivity as a journalist. I can’t help the United States win the war. I can only report what I see.” We’ve all heard this before. Brian Lamb says, “What do you think about Rush Limbaugh?”
VENNOCHI: I listen to Rush Limbaugh when driving around Boston for, you know, as long as I can take it, and I think he’s sometimes funny, usually entertaining.
RUSH: Yeah?
VENNOCHI: It’s clear the buttons that he’s pushing. He doesn’t hold himself out as a journalist. I think, you know, the definition of who a journalist is right now is a little bit blurry anyway. He’s preaching basically to the choir and to, you know, people who want to be entertained briefly before they switch off to NPR or country music, whatever their preference is.
RUSH: This is a columnist at a major American newspaper, the Boston Globe. This program, it will be 18 years on August 1st, and they still have the same stereotypes and clich?s and conventional wisdom that they associate with those of you who listen in this audience. Ms. Vennochi, go talk to Tom Daschle and ask him about preaching to the choir. Ask Tom Daschle if that’s what Democratic Party research found about who listens to this program. Daschle went out there and said, “We have experts who tell us it’s not just Republicans listening — we were shocked.” Why do you think so many people are becoming conservatives out there? They gotta be persuaded by somebody someplace somehow, and this is where it’s happening, ladies and gentlemen. Show prep for the rest of the media. All right, one more of these. Last night on CNN, David Ensor reporting on the weapons of mass destruction found in Iraq.
ENSOR: Former CIA Iraq weapons hunter David Kay told the committee he always expected old shells to be found. He said they did not prove Saddam Hussein had an active weapons program. The hearing is unlikely to satisfy some, like talk show host Rush Limbaugh, who is angry that the 500 shells are being played down and not just by the media and Democrats.
RUSH ARCHIVE: It’s very frustrating. Why in the world is there such a reluctance, even on the part of some Republicans and some Republican conservative media members, to downplay this?

ENSOR: But national security advisor Stephen Hadley said the shells are old material from before the Gulf War. Clearly the White House wants to move on.
RUSH: Yeah, they do, and that’s got everybody really puzzled. Hoekstra has written column after column questioning Negroponte and why there’s so much reluctance to declassify the entire report. As has been speculated, ladies and gentlemen, one of the reasons why they might want to move on is that these weapons are easily tagged. There aren’t that many people around the world that can build high class, high quality weapons of mass destruction. They’re usually identifiable when you find them, so if you find out that some of these weapons in Iraq came from France or Russia or China, three members of the Security Council, do you want to make a big deal out of that or do you want to deal with it privately behind closed doors or maybe use it as a bargaining chip? Just one of the possibilities.
BREAK TRANSCRIPT
I’ll tell you, Drive-By Media, they’re really mad at me folks, but they’re always mad at me. By the way, let me say something. A lot of you people send me e-mails expressing deep sympathy for the way the media is constantly attacking me or invading my privacy or whatever it is, and let me give you my attitude on it so that you will not get so worked up about it. It’s what I expect. I have been hammering these people and making fun of them for 18 years. Largely because of this program and the programs that this one spawned, the Drive-By Media no longer has its monopoly. They should, by all that makes sense, hate my guts. I mean, it doesn’t bother me. It’s exactly what I expect. I do not expect fairness from the Drive-By Media. I do not expect objectivity. I do not expect equal treatment or anything of the sort.
I mean, I’m walking around with a bull’s-eye on my front and back when it comes to the Drive-By Media. I know this. This is the territory I’ve carved out. I’m not going to tell you it sometimes doesn’t make me mad, but the minute I start getting mad, I say, wait a minute. I deserve this. I would fully expect them to respond the way they do. This is the big leagues, you people. And, you know, they’ve thought they’ve had me in the crosshairs three or four times. They thought they had me buried, and each time — this is why I love all you people so much, every time it happens, your support galvanizes, your loyalty deepens. Program gets bigger. Program becomes, in a sense, even more powerful because every salvo that is launched here fails. And so, it is what it is and it doesn’t upset me and I appreciate that you get all bugged by it, but you have to understand it’s human nature. They ought to despise me. They ought to hate my guts.
I’m the one that came along and has challenged their moral authority, gotten rid of their monopoly. Think of the power they used to have. Three networks, two newspapers, a couple magazines shaped and formed all of public opinion. And it’s gone. And in many cases, no — look at this. The New York Times is imploding. They’re making a fool of themselves. A lot of the Drive-By Media are. And, by the way, note what’s happening here. The Drive-By Media is circling the wagons around the New York Times. In fact, let me find a couple sound bites about this because it’s funny. We can always count on Chris Matthews — he illustrates this pretty well. I’ve got a point to raise. Yeah, it’s cut nine. Let’s do that. Here’s an exchange between Chris Matthews on Hardball last night and White House advisor Nicole Wallace.

MATTHEWS: Why is the president going after just the New York Times? It’s the old trick. Go after New York, go after big ethic New York, way up there in the northeast who never votes Republican, blame everything on them —
RUSH: Hold it a second, hold it, stop the tape, stop the tape. Can I translate this for you? Going after the Times because Bush is anti-Semitic. That’s what this old north — the trick here, the old trick, go after New York, big ethnic New York, way up there in the northeast, never votes Republican, blame the — he’s accusing the administration of having a little bit — recue this at the top of the bite, Mike — of being anti-Semitic. That’s the veiled criticism here. Is this ready to go from the top again? All right, here we go.
MATTHEWS: Isn’t that what the game here is being played?
WALLACE: We’re well beyond tricks and certainly —
MATTHEWS: Well, why not the LA Times, why not the Wall Street Journal, why aren’t you going after all three who ran the story within an hour of each other? It seems like the old Barry Goldwater trick of saying cut off of the eastern seaboard then we’ll have a better country. It seems like a cheap political move, that part of it.
RUSH: Why didn’t we go after the LA Times and Washington Post? Because it was the New York Times that got the leak. Now, the New York Times is saying, “Well, LA Times was getting close, competition was out there.” There may have been a paper more than the New York Times that got the leak, but let’s face it, the Drive-By Media, they set the agenda for the nightly newscasts on the three networks. But aside from all that, notice what’s happening. Poor Nicole Wallace. You know, she just got married a little over a year ago, used to be Nicole Devenish. I used to watch Nicole after the debates in the 2004 presidential campaign just make mincemeat of the media, even female members of the media, anchorettes, info babes, you could just see them (breathing hard) seething, cat fight, claws about to come out. Because here was a woman, an attractive woman siding with that dunce, Bush.
Anyway, she’s now Nicole Wallace because she went out there and got married. So she’s set upon here by Matthews, “Why are you doing this? Why are you doing that? A bunch of anti-Semites, the old Barry Goldwater trick, cut off the northeast with a saw.” They’re circling the wagons around the New York Times. I have a question. Wouldn’t it be great just once, just once to see the Drive-By Media circle the wagons around the country when the country is under assault, when the country is under attack, wouldn’t you just love to see the Drive-By Media circle the wagons around the country? Do you realize what goodwill they could gain for themselves were they to do this? But they can’t do it, can they? Why not? Because it would be showing favoritism and they can’t compromise their objectivity as sacred journalists. But boy, they circle the wagons around Dan Blather, gave him a Peabody prize, circle the wagons around all these dubious practitioners of the art.

END TRANSCRIPT

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