RUSH: From the American Spectator today, their column is entitled The Prowler. ‘The Democrat Party senior leadership is feeling a Rush. Rush Limbaugh, that is. Late last week, DNC Chair Howard Dean, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, his deputy, Sen. Dick Durbin and Senatorial Committee chair, Sen. Chuck Schumer, and Speaker Nancy Pelosi all signed off in some form or another direct mail fundraising plans that will feature Limbaugh for their national party. ”Don’t let Limbaugh smear true patriotism,’ that’s the theme,’ says a DNC staffer. ‘We’re not going to let Limbaugh determine what soldiers can talk and what soldiers can not.” So, this is my point. To their base, whatever they say about what I said, the smear is accepted. There is no thinking. There is no examination. They don’t want to hear anything other than what they think is the truth. There are mind-numbed robots, and they exist on the left, and so the Democrats think… What this does, what this says is this whole thing that went on for nine days last week and the week before was a farce from beginning to end. It had two specific objectives. One was, of course, to dent me as much as they could, but also to create a fundraising exercise for all of these different groups: VoteVets.org, MediaMatters.org, and the Democrat Party.
It’s like I said last week. They are running against me. Their fundraising letters are going out about me — not Rudy Giuliani, not Fred Thompson, not Mitt Romney. You know, if this keeps up, the Republican candidates are going to get as mad at me as the Democrats are for hogging the spotlight. Now, I must admit, folks, I’m not all that excited about raising money for them, but it is what it is. Here is the real meat of the story, though: ‘Others on the Democrat side are pushing ahead with other plans. Rep. Henry Waxman has asked his investigative staff to begin compiling reports on Limbaugh, and fellow radio hosts Sean Hannity and Mark Levin based on transcripts from their shows, and to call in Federal Communications Commission chairman Kevin Martin to discuss the so-called ‘Fairness Doctrine.’ ‘Limbaugh isn’t the only one who needs to be made uncomfortable about what he says on the radio,’ says a House leadership source. ‘We don’t have as big a megaphone as these guys, but this [is] all political, and we’ll do what we can to gain the advantage. If we can take them off their game for a while, it will help our folks out there on the campaign trail.” So what does this mean? It means that Henry Waxman, who runs the government oversight committee, has officially, or is going to, begin investigations of me and Hannity and Levin.
He is going to have his staff, paid for with your tax dollars, listen to these programs and review transcripts and report back to him. For what? Irregularities that they might hear on this program? What do we have here, folks? Henry Waxman believes that Congress, and his committee in particular, has, as its jurisdiction, the control of content of the airwaves in this country? He wants to use his position — he wants to use the Democrat Party and the power of government — to control speech content. Now, we’ve had people throwing the word ‘patriotism’ around here. Forget the word ‘patriotism.’ Have you ever heard of anything as un-American as this? These are the same people who are trying to destroy Bush’s spy program to catch terrorists in the act before they commit the act, as ‘spying on innocent Americans.’ It’s unfair; it’s violating civil rights. They want all these ex-White House officials to come up and talk about this. Yet the very same people, Waxman and his bunch, have instructed the ‘investigators on his staff’ to monitor this program. The Constitution prohibits this. It specifically prohibits this. You know, I honestly believe Henry Waxman would be just as comfortable as a hack member of the Venezuelan parliament working side by side with Hugo Chavez. It’s a puppet operation down there, the parliament is.
In fact, he would probably be more comfortable down there, folks. He could actually shut down radio stations he didn’t like right along with Hugo Chavez, and shut up hosts who disagree with him and his agenda. It made me wonder today: What would happen to me if I began my own investigation of Congressman Waxman? What if I asked anybody out there who knows anything about Congressman Waxman to send me e-mail details of what it is you know about Congressman Waxman, and what if I had one of my staff go up and attend every one of Waxman’s hearings, and tape-recorded it and got transcripts or monitor them on C-SPAN for ‘irregularities’ and things that Waxman says and the way he questions people? What would happen to me if I actually undertook this? They’re already starting to investigate me. They’re going to investigate Hannity. Investigate! The US Congress! A senior member of the Democrat leadership in the House has assigned his investigative staff to start monitoring this program! It’s called the radio, Congressman Waxman. It’s called the radio. You turn it on at 630 WMAL in Washington DC, or any number of other stations around the country. Just turn it on, or go to my website every day. I document what I say. I stand behind it. I’m proud to say what I say! Who knows where they’re going to actually get their ‘research.’
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RUSH: I know what the primary objection that some of you have is, that I am allowing myself to be diverted from other important issues. I would ask you, ladies and gentlemen, to reserve that judgment ’til you’ve heard the whole program today. But to me, this is pretty important stuff. It’s not just about me personally, because I’m one of these people. They may be targeting me first, but eventually everybody is going to come under this if it succeeds. This is blatantly unconstitutional. Henry Waxman has, I’ve been told, 50 staff members that just do investigations. When people are called to testify before him they’re all told, ‘Make sure you’ve got no skeletons in your closet before you go up there, because they’re going to find out everything there is to know about you.’ This is using the power of the government in his way and his fashion. But now he’s going to start monitoring radio broadcasts for irregularities and assign people to it? You ought to, I think, be concerned about this, because there’s a whole alignment on the left.
They can’t beat us. They have failed miserably with their own liberal talk shows. They’ve failed every which way they can, and they have got to do something about it before the November elections. They are worried that programs like mine will affect swing voters. The thing that you have to understand is the Democrats cannot stand for the truth to get out there. They can’t risk it! They can’t risk for the truth about who they are and what they want to do and what their plans are to get out there as settled policy in the minds of voters, and so the effort is ongoing here to discredit people who are trying to sound that warning — me among them. But it’s not going to stop with me if they succeed at this. I’ve always told you that you people are like a family to me, and through all of these controversies and challenges, it’s been all of you who sustain me. It’s the fact that you are there and you will not be turned away and you will not stop supporting the program and all of the relative aspects of it, that gives me the strength to continue on this way. I’m not working here in a vacuum. So looking at you as a family as I do, this is simply keeping you informed of what is going on.
I had hoped full well that nothing more was going to come of this, but I know that that’s only wishful thinking. This is only the first of it. This kind of stuff is going to be going on for the next 13 months, folks, but I vow, and I swear, and I promise: It will not divert me from doing what I’ve always done, because I can incorporate it all in one message. In exposing what they’re doing here, I can also continue to sound the clarion warning of what they are, who they are, and what they’re trying to do. It all works into one inimitable presentation.