RUSH: I’ve been racking my brain. I’m trying to figure out how Bob Dole’s luggage got on my airplane. At any rate, ladies and gentlemen — I told the doctor, I said, ‘Look, I’m worried about the next
After the program on Thursday I flew up to Washington, where I cohosted a dinner in the justices dining room at the United States Supreme Court with Justice Clarence Thomas and his wife, Ginny. There were 22 guests at the dinner, including all of my friends from ’24’ who were in town for the seminar that we did at the Heritage Foundation on Friday. Mary Matalin 
was there. I’m going to have trouble remembering all the guests. Mary Matalin was there, Laura Ingraham showed up, she used to clerk for Justice Thomas, big ’24’ fan. The Secretary of Homeland Security Michael Chertoff and his wife were there, had a fascinating conversation with him prior to dinner. We got a tour of the court after dinner. Justice Thomas showed us the great hall and showed us America’s courtroom. By the way, welcome to those of you watching on the Dittocam. It’s a thrill and a delight to have you with us at RushLimbaugh.com.
I’ve never been in the Supreme Court building, never been there at all. I’ve never been in the courtroom, obviously, and it was just fascinating. An enchanted evening. I mean, once in a lifetime dinner, cohosting dinner at the justices dining room at the United States Supreme Court. Noted terrorism expert Steve Emerson was there. I’m trying to think of — go around the table. Did I say Mary Matalin? Mary Matalin was there. Well, Howard Gordon, Joel Surnow, oh, and Howard brought his 13-year-old son, Micah, with him, and the 13-year-old young man got to see the inside of the Supreme Court. He’s just at that age where you can start to appreciate these things. I’ll think of other people that were there, but when this was all discovered that we were going to be there, I got an e-mail from Karl Rove who invited us all to the White House for lunch in the White House mess after the ’24’ forum at the Heritage Foundation on Friday morning, and that was a hoot, too, by the way, and let me say something about that, folks. I warned you before this happened that we were not in control of the video feed.
I tried to tell you that we thought we had our bases covered, but every time we do this with a third party they assure us, ‘We can handle your load. We do this all the time.’ We say, ‘Yeah, but you haven’t done this.’ I know there were some video dropouts, some audio dropouts. We got the transcript done now, and it’s posted at RushLimbaugh.com, and I think we’re going to get a clean video version of this, one way or the other, and we will eventually have it up there, if not yet, on the website. It was two hours, Secretary Chertoff led off the seminar, 650 people in the Reagan building on Friday morning, and I have to be honest with you, the sound system in there was such that even during the forum or the panel itself, I was able to hear maybe 40% of what the participants were saying.
The sound effects in there were very echoey. There was a lot of reverberation in there, and I kept leaning closer to the people who were speaking, but that just meant I would get in the way of the audience seeing them. I know that Greg Itzin, who played President Logan, zinged me a couple times and I had no clue what he said so I just had to do a Jack Benny expression to the audience. Mary Lynn Rajskub, Chloe, she zinged me too. I don’t know if they zinged me, but they came out with one liners, everybody was laughing themselves silly, I didn’t hear what they said, so I had to play along. And even at that, even only being able to hear 30 or 40% of what they were saying, there was no better moderator in Washington that day of a panel or a — (laughing) — forum. (interruption) I did not get your autograph from President Logan because I forgot, but I can get it any time.
I’ll tell you what I’ll do for you, Mr. Snerdley. When this season’s DVDs come out, which will be in November, I’ll get one then, okay? I’ll get his autograph on a DVD series. If you want one sooner than that, it’s just a hop, skip, and quick phone call. But I have to tell you, we went to the White House after the panel discussion. Karl Rove invited us over. He was going to host lunch in the mess, the White House mess, there’s a ward room, seats about 14 people, and we all went over there. Now, we were scheduled to arrive at one o’clock. This is last Friday. We were scheduled to arrive at one o’clock, but we had scheduled a media gaggle for the participants in the panel after the seminar. So at about 12:15 my security guy who looks like Josef Stalin came up to me and said, ‘The White House has just called and if you can get over there by 12:25, the president would like to say hi.’ So, the president or the media, what do I choose here?
So I looked at the assembled media and cameras and said, ‘Let’s go to the White House.’ Went over to the White House and I chatted with the president in the Oval Office, was just the two of us for about 15 minutes, and he said to me, ‘Where are the ’24’ people?’ I said, ‘They’re still over at the media gaggle, they’re right behind me.’ He had a tee ball, there was a tee ball game going on in the White House grounds for some kids, and he had to be down there at one o’clock. So he had to leave at five ’til and he didn’t get a chance to meet the ’24’ people. I am not going to divulge the contents of the discussion. These things are off the record. It was pleasant and highly informative, by the way, on a couple of things. At about five ’til one, Karl Rove walked in. That signaled the end of the meeting, and we went to his office and waited for the ’24’ people to show up. Then they all did, and it was time to go to the White House mess for lunch. And I just have to tell you this about Karl Rove.
Now, I’ve been in Karl’s presence not a lot, three or four times, but never for this length of time. I can’t tell you how brilliant and educated and informed the guy is. At lunch, he gave a veritable history lesson of the White House, of the White House mess, some of the characters that have worked there, some of the people that have been there 35 years in various jobs, and I notice this about people because I’m not able to do this and it’s something I’ve always strived to be able to do. Not one stutter. I mean, he would speak for 20 minutes uninterrupted and not lose anybody’s attention. Not one stutter, not one loss of his train of thought and at the same time totally captivating. Tony Snow came in, joined us for lunch. Pete Wehner, who works in Karl’s office. Pete used to work for Bill Bennett, that’s where I met Pete. And they came in. Of course a bunch of people heard the ’24’ people were there so they wanted to come in, get signed autographs and photos and stuff.
After lunch, there was a chance that there would be an opening in the president’s schedule for the ’24’ gang to go to the Oval Office and meet him, so we repaired to two places. The first place it was Tony Snow’s office and he took us in the White House pressroom, and we got Itzin up there, President Logan behind the podium with all the klieg lights on with all the ’24’ people in the White House pressroom in front of that White House logo with a bunch of pictures snapped. I’ve got some. I haven’t had a chance, I had such a tremendous time in the Dominican Republic, I haven’t had a chance to go through the photos and find out what we got. I just know what I took and what everybody else took. After that, after we finished in there, we went back to Rove’s office for another hour, maybe — (interruption) what are you laughing at? Oh, yeah, I had a great time at the Dominican Republic. Yeah, wish I could tell you about it. (Laughing.) Oh, it was a fabulous time in the Dominican Republic. Went over to Santiago where the Fuente cigar farm and factory are. I’ll tell you about that, too, because they’re doing some amazing charity things up there at the tobacco farm.
At any rate, we sat in Rove’s office for two hours while he continued to work. He’s got a conference table in there. You may know that he wrote a piece for TIME Magazine on the Teddy Roosevelt issue that they’re doing, and he was finishing that op-ed, that 800 words, he was finishing it, and after he finished it, he gave it to Itzin and said, ‘Here, read this.’ So Itzin started reading it aloud, about 800 words. President Logan starts reading it aloud. We’re in Karl Rove’s office and then Karl gives us another 30 minutes on Teddy Roosevelt and President McKinley ( bio | library | memorial ), who he has admiration for, thinks he is one of the most underrated presidents in the history — the president who modernized campaigns, modernized the presidency, and gets no credit for it because he served such a short period of time. But once again, it was just indescribable to listen to Karl Rove go on and on about the influences that these various presidents and campaigns have had on him and his explanation of history. Finally we got in the car, we’re headed to the airport to go to the Dominican Republic where we really had a great time, and everybody in the room said, ‘You know, this is just another indictment of the media. That is one of the smartest and nicest, most unassuming, gentle people I have ever met.’
A bunch of people were telling me this about Karl Rove. He is brilliant, and he has this brain that’s just oozing with knowledge, and he’s able to share his knowledge and his passions in a way that just keeps you spellbound without raising his voice, doesn’t pound the table, doesn’t get all that emotive. You’re just in awe of the facts, the detail that he knows and possesses and is able to impart, again with no stutter and with no loss of his train of thought at all. So I just want to take some time here to thank Ginni and Clarence Thomas for the use of the justices dining room at the US Supreme Court. The Heritage Foundation could not have been better. It was a thrill to meet Secretary Chertoff and everybody, we ran into all kinds of people at the White House, Josh Bolten, the chief of staff, Andrew Card was there.
It was just a great, great time. We were there for three hours, from one o’clock ’til four. I was there three and a half, given my time with the president, and the whole time we were in — after lunch we were in Karl’s office and he’s working, he’s doing his correspondence and Pete is in there, and we’re talking about issues, and as we talk about issues Karl will hear something and he would join the fray and explain something. It was just — I mean, the opportunity you never get, and it was unexpected. To give us this much time as they did on Friday was unbelievable given how busy they all are. So thanks to everybody who made this trip what it was. It’s one that none of us will ever forget.
BREAK TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: Oh, yeah, here’s some other guests at the Supreme Court dinner on Thursday night. My good friend Professor Hazlett and his just stunningly brilliant and gorgeous wife, Alex, was there. And of course Chloe was there, Mary Lynn Rajskub, and the “24” people, Greg Itzin, Carlos Bernard, Tony Almeida was there, and Bob Cochran who’s a cocreator of the program. In fact, would you like to hear what ABC did with this? Grab audio sound bite number 12. Grab audio sound bite number 12. This was from last Friday’s Nightline. And they did a piece, I guess — well, I know they did. A piece on the Heritage Foundation seminar that we — (interruption) yes, folks, would you sit tight? We’re going to get to Jack Murtha, going to get to the New York Times. We’ll get to all that. We got lots of time left in the program. Sit tight out there. We’ll get to it. We put together a montage. It seems now that the Drive-By Media is going to target “24” since they showed up at a conservative think tank to do a seminar. This is a seminar, montage, Jake Tapper, last Friday, Nightline.
TAPPER: It was a chance to see Rush gush.
RUSH ARCHIVE: I am literally in awe of the creativity of the brains behind the program.
TAPPER: The conservative Heritage Foundation hosted a forum on the hit Fox TV show “24” for the shows fans and the conservative power structure.
RUSH ARCHIVE: Vice president’s a huge fan. Secretary Rumsfeld’s a huge fan.
TAPPER: Front row center, Supreme Court justice Clarence Thomas. On stage, Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff. Amidst the fawning burned a vague question. Why has the show been so embraced, especially by conservatives? Greg Itzin, who plays the conniving President Logan says it might be because the show depicts the need for torture.
ITZIN: I can take it from my character’s point of view, he doesn’t want it to happen, but if you need that information to find out where the nuke is hidden, you get it, and morality be damned.
TAPPER: At a time when conservatives are struggling to spread the message that terrorists are out to get us, they finally found a show that beats their drum. Just wait for the movie.
RUSH: What the hell is that? “At a time when conservatives are struggling to spread the message that terrorists are out to get us?” We have to spread the message? The fact that we have to spread the message at all is stunning. Why do we have to spread the message? That could take me right to the New York Times. The New York Times, ladies and gentlemen, is doing everything — it may as well be published. I think 80% of their subscribers have to be jihadists. If you look at the New York Times, the kind of stories they’re leaking and running and the information they’re getting, it’s clear that they’re trying to help the terrorists. They’re trying to help the jihadists. So for Tapper to say, well, a time when conservatives are struggling to spread the message that terrorists are out to get us — what was 9/11 about? What in the world is going on in Israeli, say to people? Just amazing stuff. Here’s how I closed it out. Well, I didn’t close it out, but Itzin asked me a question. He said, “You asked a question about why –” number 13 here, Mike “– why we thought the show was as interesting to the country and the world. Do you have an opinion about why it’s as hot as it is and as fascinating?”
RUSH ARCHIVE: Yes, I do. I have opinions on everything. (Laughter)
ITZIN: Yeah, I know. It was an opening gambit, Rush. I was just curious.
RUSH ARCHIVE: I’m documented to be almost always right, too, 98.5% of the time. My opinions are audited. First and foremost, I think it’s just a good show. It’s just — (Applause.) The people who produce it and write it know what it is. They’re not trying to make it more or less than what it is. They know what the audience expects and they try to expand or exceed those expectations. I also think, in all candor, and having watched the first two seasons, bam, bam, bam, DVD-wise, as opposed to over the air, the number of plot twists — I am literally in awe of the creativity of the brains behind the program. The plot twists in one episode are more than you will have in most series in a whole season. Yet they don’t exhaust themselves.
This is a program you expend energy watching. This is not something that you veg and are doing passively while something else is going on in the house. You can’t do that and follow it. You have to keep up with it. Things happen so fast, there are little clues, microinserted in the program, and I’m in awe. The reason I’m a big fan of it is I am in total awe of the brilliance and the creativity and the lack of boundaries. You don’t seem to be hemmed in by much, and no matter what I think is going to happen next, I’m usually wrong, you surprise me. You can’t predict — there aren’t any patterns. Every show develops patterns. I know you have them, but we as the audience don’t figure them all out. The actors are — your character this season, people wonder that watch this show that really get into it, really think that there is some inside knowledge that the writers have with people in government.
Some people are wondering, “Have we really had a president like this? Do we really know that we haven’t?” Public didn’t know that you’re like you are. People ask these questions. It spawns thought. Your program creates mental energy. Just from an entertainment standpoint. All the other things about is it really real, is it going to give people ideas — those are just, I mean, added bonuses for all of you. But the fact is to me it’s one of the most intelligent programs on the air tackling the subject matter that it does. And that’s why I’m captivated. I’m not going to waste my time and most other people aren’t, either, with a vapid, boring show. And yours isn’t. (Applause.)
RUSH: And there you have it.
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