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Why We “Can’t Just Drop” The Fox Flap

by Rush Limbaugh - Oct 27,2006

RUSH: Here is Gene in San Diego. Welcome to the EIB Network. Hi.CALLER: Hello, Rush.

RUSH: Hey.

CALLER: How you doing?

RUSH: Fine, sir, thank you.

CALLER: Eighteen-year-listener. I’m watching you on the Dittocam smoking that stogie and this is a call I hate to make. Rush, I’m so concerned, so concerned. You’re a hundred percent right on this, but your reaction to Michael J. Fox commercial, I’m so concerned that it’s going to be a call to action to get more Democrats off their butts to go out and vote, and they’re going out to vote against Rush, they’re not going out to vote against the issues. They’re going to go out and vote against Rush, and I’m afraid it’s going to hurt our efforts. What is your response to that? 

RUSH: Well no. This is the thing, and this is why I can’t drop this. They’re not reacting to me. They’re reacting to the lies and distortions in the mainstream media about what I have said and what I am doing. They’re not reacting to me. They are reacting. They don’t even listen to this program. They’re not even listening. They watch whatever they watch, they read whatever they read, they get outraged, and they run to the computer and they fire off their e-mails or what have you, but they haven’t listened to the program; they don’t really know what is being said here. Of course, since I’m not the editor of the Drive-By Media, I can’t control what the Drive-By Media does. All I can do is come here and disavow it and claim that it is what it is. What would you have me do, Gene?

CALLER: Well, first of all, Rush you’re a pro. First, I think we should have anticipated this. It might have been a better choice to lay low on this.

RUSH: Can’t do it. Gene, we live forward, we live in reality. Can’t go back. This is not a TiVo world. We can’t pause and rewind it.

CALLER: Well, what do you think about keeping it going? Maybe you ought to let it die down. I mean, what can we do? I believe the second advertisement is —

RUSH: Gene, don’t worry. Gene, Gene, don’t worry.

CALLER: All right.

RUSH: Don’t worry. Next week, there’s going to be another October Surprise somewhere down the line, something is going to happen, and you have to have more faith in our side on this. You’re falling into the trap that everybody fell into for so many years: Oh, no, oh, no Democrats are motivated; we’re sunk, as though we have no role in this. You don’t think the same thing might be true of conservatives? You don’t think the same thing might be true of Republicans? You don’t think maybe they might be rallying over what they are seeing here, and especially when they are told the truth about the misrepresentations and lies in these ads and all these other Democrat ads, by the way, that are run? You don’t think that this all has a rallying effect?

You seem to think that only Democrats are going to be affected by this, and that’s a fear-based, negative reaction and attitude that you’re having. You’ve gotta have faith. You gotta look forward, you’ve gotta be positive about this. There’s still essentially a week and a half to go here, and something’s going to come along and supplant this. If it doesn’t, they are going to blow it because they got nothing new to say. They’re going to run the video that is a total lie about what happened on this program. They going to continue to say I made fun of Michael J. Fox. Every day they do it, I’m going to come here and I’m going to set ’em straight. This is all about informing and educating people. This is what the political process is all about. As I said in my brilliant monolog in the first hour of the program, Gene, they’re not going to get away with these lies and distortions. If I sit down and if I drop it now, out of fear that I’m just rallying the enemy, they’re going to get away with it, and they’re not going to get away with it with me here. They’re not going to get away with it with me. Others can do what they wish, but this stuff angers the hell out of me. As I say, it’s cruel as hell to promise what they’re promising. It’s not true. They’re lying to sick people.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

All right, I imagine many of you have the same thought that Gene had, “Rush, I wish you hadn’t done that, but since you did, just let it go, Rush. You’re stoking of fire of all these Democrats.” I thought these Democrats’ fire was stoked anyway. Bottom line is this, though. Let’s go back. Let’s do a TiVo moment. Let’s rewind to Monday, and then let’s move forward, and I don’t say a word about what I think about the ad. And the ad runs, and the ad runs in St. Louis, and it runs in Maryland, it runs in Wisconsin. By the way, I hear the ad has now been bought in Virginia. They’re going to take the ad, the Fox ad, and run it against George Allen in Virginia.
Well, let’s suppose that I had not said any of this. What would be going on in these states? Jim Talent, Michael Steele, George Allen, the others, they’d be on complete defense, taking hit after hit about being against fixing illnesses. Nobody would have challenged the substance of the ad, not loudly, not significantly, because they would have been afraid to because of Michael J. Fox’s appearance in the ad. Nobody would have challenged this. There would have been perfunctory responses, but there wouldn’t be any focus on television about dirty ads and this and that, there wouldn’t be any focus on this at all, and it would just be another late-inning Democrat hit piece that would have been successful. Those of you who agree with Gene, think I should just, you know, cut it out, drop it, enough, Rush, let it go, you’re revving up the enemy. That’s what the left and the Drive-By Media want all of us to do, which is essentially taking it on the chin, and I’m just not in the mood, ladies and gentlemen.

END TRANSCRIPT