RUSH: The controversy here over the Republicans not participating in the upcoming YouTube CNN debate has led to lots of discussion, as some people think the Republicans are going to have this backfire on them because you gotta go out there and you gotta face the people. If you’re afraid to face the people, meaning the average Americans who upload their questions via video on YouTube, then you’re acting cowardly and so forth. Note the Democrats, to this day are scared to death to go on Fox, you got Barack Obama and Hillary in a meaningless argument over which thug around the world they will talk to when, the fact is, neither of them has the guts to go on Fox News for a debate. But you don’t hear that portrayed in the Drive-By Media. Now the Republicans say, ‘You know what, the office of the presidency is a little bit higher, has a little bit more prejudice than subjecting ourselves to questions from idiots dressed up as snowmen and so forth.’ Now they’re saying it’s going to backfire on them, and this was a discussion on CNN’s Reliable Sources on Sunday with Howard Kurtz. He’s talking with Jeff Jarvis, media critic. Kurtz says, ‘They were supposed to, or at least was tentatively scheduled, a Republican presidential debate with CNN YouTube format for September. Now a lot of the Republicans are expressing reservations, have scheduling problems. Do you think the Republicans are being aware of being questioned by people who submit their queries through YouTube?’
JARVIS: I think they’re revealing themselves to be a bunch of fraidy cats. The Republicans for some reason have not done as much on the interpret and YouTube as the Democrats have, though in Europe it’s conservatives who are ahead on YouTube, so it’s not a bias thing as Rush Limbaugh tried to insist this week. I think the Republicans were trying to find some way to weasel out of this, and they used scheduling excuses, bias excuses, dignity excuses, but I think it’s going to come around. I’m going to bet it’s going to happen, and because they can’t avoid talking to us.
RUSH: They are not trying to avoid talking to you. By the way, they’re going to try to reschedule this thing for December, is what I’m hearing. I never said the Republicans shouldn’t do it because of bias. We all know there’s bias in the Drive-By Media. We all know that CNN’s going to choose questions based on their agenda, based on what they get submitted to them. We know there’s going to be bias. I suggested that it would be a rotten thing to do because it’s demeaning to the office. It lowers the office to the level of the lowest common denominator of pop culture. This is being presented as some revolutionary new thing, and it’s not. It’s no different than having an audience in there that you stand around, you run around with a microphone, let ’em ask questions and so forth, and you know how well that goes, and you know that they have never turned over, CNN nor any network has never turned over totally a debate to people in the audience. They occasionally go to people in the audience, like the ponytailed guy in Richmond, Virginia, back in 1992 who wanted all those candidates to explain to him how they were going to treat us like their children and so forth, it was gag me with a spoon time on that. If I were these professional journalists, I’d be a little upset that I’m being aced out of this. The Drive-By Media is in enough trouble as it is without their prestige being put on the line here by claiming that the debate will be better with these yahoos sitting out there with these cameras submitting their stuff via upload to YouTube.