I haven’t gotten a whole lot of e-mails about this, maybe four or five, and they could be just from malcontents. They’ve been saying, ‘You know, Rush, I don’t listen to your show and hear what the people are talking about and saying about you. I listen to your show to hear what you’re saying about other people. For you to keep playing these, your ego is just getting out of control, Rush, I mean it’s obvious your ego is out of control. You probably can’t even wear a cap out on the golf course anymore because your head’s gotten so big because all you care about is what other people are saying about you.’ I don’t care, that’s the point, but I find it fascinating how I am continually misunderstood. You know what most of these sound bites are about? I didn’t even know this was a controversy, because when I left here on Wednesday I had a pretty social weekend. It was my local country club’s member guest golf tournament, so I played the practice round Thursday, then the tournament was Friday and Saturday, with social things every night, all night, and I just didn’t mess with watching any television.
It was last week when it came out that Hillary was maneuvering to put herself on the ticket whether she wins these primaries or not, wins the nomination or not, and then wants to be on top — I said a position she’s used to being in. I said that ticket has no prayer. The reaction is that I made a racial statement, that I made a racist and sexist statement. That’s what the sound bites are all about. Snerdley says, how do you get that out of what I said? That’s what these sound bites are all about. I don’t know how many of you heard this stuff, but I can tell you this, while I was gone, H.R., did I get any requests to appear on any of these networks that were running this controversy while I was gone? Yeah, I thought so. No, he said he didn’t get any requests. He would have told me if I did. Well, I know it’s relevant because Hillary still wants to be on top and now the Democrats are redefining how you win the nomination, that is you win the blue states, the big states. The Democrat small states, that doesn’t count. And these are the states Obama is winning, like Mississippi tomorrow night, Wyoming on Saturday, chump change, doesn’t show anything. So the Clintons are out there maneuvering for Hillary to be on top of the ticket.
By the way, folks, I have to tell you something else, I did finally buckle down yesterday afternoon and start doing some show prep here getting ready for today, and tell me if my strategery hasn’t worked. It has worked flawlessly, brilliantly conceived, flawlessly executed strategery. The Democrat Party is in utter chaos. Al Sharpton is heading to Florida today, threatening lawsuits over what happens to the Florida delegates. Michigan’s going to have the same kind of controversy. There’s just all kinds of chaos reigning throughout this party now, and the attacks between Clinton and Obama are not just on issues, or very seldom, very little about issues, it’s personal. You know, it’s personal. It isn’t ideological. It’s fabulous. She’s a ‘monster’ and Howard Wolfson came out and called Obama ‘Ken Starr.’ I mean, how much better can this get? And it was all started by me. Then there were newspaper stories, the Houston Chronicle, ‘The Limbaugh Effect, did it really work?’ They had quotes, people walking into the polling places in Texas on Tuesday, ‘I’m a Rush Limbaugh Republican, but I’m here to vote for Hillary.’ People were quoted as saying this, and then there were some sound bites here about how un-American that was.
I am un-American because I am trying to sabotage the Democrat primaries, by urging people to cross over and vote in primaries for people they have no intention of voting for president, that’s un-American. My patriotism is being challenged. It is being challenged by Dan Abrams at DNCTV. It is being challenged by Donna Brazile. They’re challenging my patriotism out there, just like Dingy Harry challenged my patriotism out there. I thought we’re not allowed to challenge each other’s patriotism? (laughing) Meanwhile, Nancy Pelosi last week promised to bring up the FISA bill that has telecom immunity, and she hasn’t done it. You want to talk about patriotism, the Democrat Party is doing everything it can to weaken our intel capabilities to continue to fight this enemy, and their attitude is like we don’t even have one, other than Bush and other than McCain.
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I probably am going to play these sound bites, and I don’t know if you heard them or not, these comments, these discussions about me and the Democrat ticket, but it’s clear, ladies and gentlemen — and I don’t say this out of ego; I don’t say this out of anything other than an objective analysis — the Drive-Bys are talking more about me in this campaign than they are Senator McCain.
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This is Jane in Fairview Park, Ohio. Jane, welcome to the Rush Limbaugh program. It’s nice to have you here.
CALLER: Thank you very much for taking my call, Rush. It’s my first time, and I’m delighted.
RUSH: Well, you sound like a veteran. You sound like a seasoned veteran.
CALLER: Thank you so much. It’s my years of teaching school. It never goes away, does it?
RUSH: No, it never goes, especially dealing with malcontent little crumb crunchers.
CALLER: That’s exactly right. I can’t teach school anymore, I’d be in court in a week, so (laughs).
RUSH: (laughter)
CALLER: I wanted to share with you an article from, I’m sure you’re aware, the Plain Dealer, our main and only newspaper in this state of Ohio anymore, at least in this area, northeastern Ohio, and on Sunday, actually it was a front-page article down on the bottom right-hand corner: ‘16,000 Republicans Switched Parties Tuesday in Cuyahoga County,’ and it goes on to say in about the third paragraph that ‘some of those who changed — it’s difficult to say how many,’ quote, ‘– could be in trouble with the law. At least one member of the Cuyahoga County Board of Elections wants to investigate some Republicans –‘
RUSH: Really? (applauds)
CALLER: ‘– who may have crossed party lines only to influence which Democrat would face presumed Republican nominee John McCain in November. Those who crossed lines were supposed to sign a pledge card vowing allegiance to their new party.’ (chuckles)
RUSH: Come on. Give me a break!
CALLER: I’m sitting right here looking at it! It’s my issue of the Cleveland Plain Dealer.
RUSH: This is getting absurd. If it weren’t for independents and Democrats crossing over, Senator McCain would not be our nominee!
CALLER: Bingo.
RUSH: And, of course, that was wonderful! That was bipartisanship. ‘This was people, Mr. Limbaugh, voting for the candidate.’ Of course we all know that these independents and moderates have no intention of voting for McCain in November.
CALLER: Right. It says, ‘Sandy McNair, a Democratic member of the Cuyahoga County Board of Elections, said Friday that the manipulation of the system was troublesome.’
RUSH: Really?
CALLER: ”It’s something that concerns me, that I think needs to be looked at further.”
RUSH: I’m sure it does. I’m sure they think it does. You know, Democrats can tamper with elections all they want, if you even want to call this tampering, but Republicans are supposed to sit there and not mess around with what they do whatsoever. When they want to mess around, when they want to choose our nominee, that’s fine. That’s bipartisanship. That’s okay. When we want to get involved in choosing theirs, somehow a crime has been committed.
CALLER: Exactly. Later on, of course, it says, ‘It started a few weeks ago when conservative radio…’ You know what’s coming, ‘conservative radio powerhouse Rush Limbaugh suggested that his Republican following cross over during the primary to vote for Clinton.’
RUSH: You know what? You ought to send a letter to the editor.
CALLER: I may do so.
RUSH: Here’s what I want you to say in your letter to the editor, something like this. Use your own words, of course, but in your letter to the editor, say, ‘I don’t understand. The story says it was only a month ago that Limbaugh was proclaimed irrelevant, tired, worn-out, and of no consequence.’
CALLER: (giggling)
RUSH: Well, that’s true, Jane.
CALLER: Well, now, all of a sudden, you’re all-powerful again.
RUSH: Yeah.
CALLER: One lady says her niece crossed over after hearing Limbaugh, and it says that they did interview several of these people who crossed over. They said they were not asked to sign a pledge card. Some of them were given pledge cards and they wrote on the bottom of it, ‘for one day only.’
RUSH: (laughing)
CALLER: (laughs) I really wish you could see it. Well, I’m sure you have people who can shake this down, but yesterday, Sunday’s edition, main edition of the Plain Dealer. It’s really quite a hoot. I couldn’t believe it.
RUSH: Remember, now, these are Drive-By journalists. These are people who just six weeks ago said that I may as well quit, hang it up, retire, hang the headphones over there on the wall, and head to the golf course. I appreciate that, Jane. Thank you very much. All right. Let’s start with the audio sound bites here. We’ll start with Dan Abrams Live on DNCTV on Wednesday night.
ABRAMS: Limbaugh was upset that I said he was ‘perverting the process’ by encouraging Republicans to vote for Hillary Clinton in open primaries in an effort to, quote, ‘bloody up’ Obama. When you encourage someone to vote for a candidate that they don’t want as president, I believe it’s actually un-American. They are willing to increase the chances of what they consider to be a ‘bad’ candidate winning, in the hope they may slightly increase their candidate’s chances? It’s shameful.
RUSH: The naivete and… This has to be ignorance, because this is not a stupid man. It just has to be ignorance. The naivete and the ignorance of how the political process works, is stunning. That very thing that he accused me of being un-American for, has been going on in the Democrat Party. We can trace it back to 2000 when McCain was urging — as a candidate was urging — Democrats and independents to cross over and vote for him. You had a bunch of Democrats that hated Bush all the way back then, who wanted no part of Bush, and so they voted for McCain, trying to screw up the Republican primaries. It happened then. Look, you u people out there in the Democrat Party and the Drive-By Media, you’re just going to have to understand here that while maybe the Republican Party is going to sit around and grab the ankles, and bend over forward for you, we are not here. We are warriors on this program, and if you are going to mess up our selection process — if you’re going to choose our nominee — we’re going to help choose yours. The aggressor sets the rules in these kinds of things, and you people on the left are the aggressor in this kind of thing.
If our party is going to sit around and lose seats, if the party is going to sit around and get along and appease you people, that’s fine. But I’m not the party, and neither are the people that listen to this program. You people have to be stopped. Of course in a political sense. And don’t forget I said Obama needed to be bloodied up politically by Mrs. Clinton — you guys are leaving so much out of this — because our side is not going to do it. Every candidate has negatives but our side doesn’t seem interested in exposing any of them on Obama’s side. Mrs. Clinton is clearly willing to do it, because she’s in the process of doing it. Well, her surrogates are. Obama is ‘Ken Starr’? (laughing) You know what’s really irritating these people, too, folks, is that the strategery has worked. There are stories all over the Drive-Bys about the disarray and the chaos and the problems in the Democrat Party. Here’s Donna Brazile. This was last Wednesday night on CNN. Wolf Blitzer’s Situation Room. Blitzer said, ‘Is Limbaugh right, a woman and a black serving on a Democrat ticket wouldn’t have a prayer in getting elected in the general election?
BRAZILE: You know, Wolf, I’m an American, and I’m proud to be an American, but I think that comment is — as far as I can tell — a very un-American conversation. Because African-Americans and women fight for this country, we die for this country, and to suggest somehow or another that we are not capable of serving this country in the capacity of commander-in-chief is just, in my mind, mind-bogglin’. So, with all due respect to Mr. Limbaugh, just wait. Let the people decide, and I guarantee you the people will make a better decision than Rush Limbaugh.
RUSH: Wow! How defensive are these people? See, this proves the point. I made no comment about race or sexism whatsoever. I just pointed out that you have here a black, woman — Hillary on the top, Obama on top, doesn’t matter — this ticket has no prayer. And look at the defensiveness! Why, all of a sudden, I was sexist. All of a sudden, I am a racist. I have somehow suggested this. By the way, it wasn’t me, Ms. Brazile. A week ago Obama wasn’t qualified to answer the phone at three o’clock. Now he’s qualified to be VP?
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RUSH: Now, the sound bite that we just played from Donna Brazile — play it again here, Mike, audio sound bite number four.
BRAZILE: You know, Wolf, I’m an American, and I’m proud to be an American, but I think that comment is — as far as I can tell — a very un-American conversation. Because African-Americans and women fight for this country, we die for this country, and to suggest somehow or another that we are not capable of serving this country in the capacity of commander-in-chief is just, in my mind, mind-bogglin’. So, with all due respect to Mr. Limbaugh, just wait. Let the people decide, and I guarantee you the people will make a better decision than Rush Limbaugh.
RUSH: Ms. Brazile, I didn’t say one thing that you have attributed to me. I didn’t say one thing about a black not being qualified to be commander-in-chief. I’ve been one of the early defenders of Barack Obama, by the way, Ms. Brazile, when your side was out there trashing him, as a ‘Magic Negro,’ as not black enough, as not down for the struggle. You people have short memories. I was one of the first to defend this guy against your party’s assaults on him, from Mrs. Clinton’s associates attacking his drug use and drug selling and so forth, to all these other insinuations that have been made, it was I, El Rushbo, who came to his defense. However, Ms. Brazile, one thing here. Remember the Donovan McNabb incident on ESPN? You know what Donna Brazile said back then? ‘What Rush said about McNabb was horrible.’ My comment was not about McNabb, nor was it a slight of his abilities. I was speaking about the media. She says here that I am saying Obama’s unqualified or any black is unqualified to be commander-in-chief. My comment wasn’t about the abilities or qualifications of Obama or Hillary one way or the other. I’m talking about voters.
Do I have to explain everything? I can understand having to explain this to people who don’t follow politics every day, but for people who are political professionals to have to explain this? Well, I know what they’re doing. They’re purposely taking this wrong so that they can attack me. But the insinuation here, ladies and gentlemen, is that I have injected racism and sexism into this purported new dream ticket. All right, Drive-Bys, Democrats, you want a little race talk? Let me give you some. If you want to call this race, you want to know what I was talking about? I was talking about the voters. You people can sit there and dream all day long about the black vote and its impact or the women’s vote and its impact, but you know as well as I know that it is white men who determine the president of the country every four years. Whoever gets the majority of white men, you put two liberal Senators on the ticket, both of them minorities, that ticket, especially when one of them has literally no experience whatsoever, and Mrs. Clinton has 49% negatives, the people who elect the president in this country do so on the basis of issues. They don’t do it on marketing and packaging; they don’t do it on novelties and this sort of thing.
The people who elect the president of the United States when November comes around, are not going to be caught up in the novelty of this ticket or the historical nature of the ticket. They’re going to be caught up in assessing competence. You have a guy who has no experience, who’s goofing up on NAFTA, goofing up on — have you heard, the Boston Globe on, a couple days ago, this is by Farah Stockman, Globe staff writer: ‘In July of 2004, the day after his speech–‘ now, get this, look at me. ‘In July of 2004, the day after his speech at the Democratic convention catapulted him into the national spotlight, Barack Obama told a group of reporters in Boston that the United States had an ‘absolute obligation’ to remain in Iraq long enough to make it a success.’ That’s just four years ago. Senator Obama is running around acting like he never said a word about supporting Iraq, that he always knew it was a mistake. This guy, his only saving grace is Republicans are not going to attack him on this kind of stuff because they’re going to be afraid. I, of course, am not. Now, the Boston Globe headline is this: ‘Obama Stance on Iraq Shows Evolving View.’ ‘Evolving’ my rear end! Evolving? It’s devolving!
If in 2004 the guy says, ‘We have an obligation, absolute obligation, to remain there in Iraq long enough to make it a success,’ and now wants to yank us out of there on the threshold of victory, how do you call that ‘evolving’? That is devolving. It’s a lie. It’s the same thing about NAFTA. These little things that are going to show his inexperience are going to crop up. By the time we get to November, people elect the president of this country seriously. It’s a serious thing to people. It’s not a horse race; it’s not a Las Vegas review show. People are not making history when they vote. They’re concerned about the future of the country. So all of these things that the Democrats think that people ought to notice: gender, skin color, whatever else they use to describe people and categorize them and segregate them into groups is not going to matter. You put two ardent liberals, one of whom, Mrs. Clinton, by the way, you talk about her, it’s apparent, got the stories here in the stack of stuff, her campaign organization is a disaster. It is a mess. It’s an absolute mess. She won’t release her tax returns and so forth. She obviously has something to hide.
Do you think people really want this soap opera for four more years? The woman’s got 49% negatives, Donna Brazile! Obama has no experience. You put that ticket up there, and I guarantee you, you are going to be shocked because, I hate to say it, but Senator McCain can run rings around both these people on issues that matter to the American people. It’s just a matter of whether or not he’ll choose to do so because he wants to run an honorable campaign, whatever that means. When Republicans say they want to run an honorable campaign, it usually gets translated to let the Democrats determine what we can say and when we can say it, so that they get to define what honorable is.
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RUSH: All right, well, I’m just going to stick with the audio sound bites, because they’ll help me respond to some of the comments made in the previous hour. The guy’s name was Terry, Sandy, Utah. We got a couple others in line who also think that I am, uhhhh, lacking in integrity and that I am advocating cheating and so forth. I’m just going to tell you something. You moderate Republicans, you haven’t the slightest idea how to win elections. You haven’t the slightest idea how to win this election. You don’t even understand how it is that our own nomination process was corrupted. (sigh) I’ll tell you, thank God for me. Really. I wouldn’t normally say that, but… Donna Brazile again, you gotta listen. I have two more comments, because this is on a different subject. When I said last week that if the Democrats nominate Hillary and Obama, or Obama and Hillary, on the same ticket, that that ticket doesn’t have a prayer — and all these liberal Democrats are trying to say it was a racist statement, here’s Brazile one more time.
BRAZILE: You know, Wolf, I’m an American, and I’m proud to be an American, but I think that comment is — as far as I can tell — a very un-American conversation. Because African-Americans and women fight for this country, we die for this country, and to suggest somehow or another that we are not capable of serving this country in the capacity of commander-in-chief is just, in my mind, mind-bogglin’. So, with all due respect to Mr. Limbaugh, just wait. Let the people decide, and I guarantee you the people will make a better decision than Rush Limbaugh.
RUSH: I totally let the people decide here, Ms. Brazile. Nobody talked about Obama’s race! I didn’t bring it up. You guys are the ones who have been talking about whether Obama is black enough or not. But I got a question for you, Ms. Brazile. When Clarence Thomas was nominated for the Supreme Court, did you support him? How about Michael Steele, when he ran for the Senate in Maryland, Ms. Brazile? Did you, uh… Did you support him? How about Ken Blackwell in Ohio? Did you support Lynn Swann when he ran for governor against ‘Fast Eddie’ Rendell in Pennsylvania? Did you attack their various critics when Swann had his critics and Blackwell had his — and of course these black Republicans, Donna Brazile, and you know full well when they’re attacked, they’re attacked as Uncle Toms. Did you defend them? Did you attack their critics? I know she came to Clarence Thomas’ defense at one point in this, but afterwards. That’s right.
Was she in favor of his confirmation? No, of course not! Of course not. Now, this whole business of the lack of integrity and so forth, like I say, I’m not interested in being a happy loser, folks. There’s too much at stake here for the future of the country. Let the liberals be happy losers. You moderate Republicans, you have the candidate that you want with the help of independents and Democrats: Senator McCain. Senator McCain has even now, in his acceptance speech back in Texas last week, talked about how happy he was to have Democrat votes. What if Mrs. Clinton were to say, ‘I’m happy to have Republican votes’? She probably is, as a matter of fact. She just didn’t say so, but the Democrats have chosen our nominee. Now, what are you going to do? You’ve got your nominee. You’ve got Senator McCain, you moderate Republicans. You got the candidate that you want. Now what are you going to do to get him elected? I guarantee you this.
If you keep harassing me and other conservatives, you are not going to get Senator McCain elected. If you keep telling people like me to shut up and to stop talking this way, you are not going to get Senator McCain elected. I don’t think you moderate Republicans, to the extent that you’re in this audience, have the slightest idea how to win this election. I think I could open the phones for a couple hours, and say, ‘Only moderate Republicans are going to call in. We’re going to hear from them how we’re going to win this election.’ You’re starting to get worried about this election, I can tell you, despite insisting that McCain is the best Republican to win. Even Bill Kristol, in the New York Times, is running scared in his piece. He’s really running scared. He got the candidate he wanted, and now he’s running scared — and one of his ideas is to suggest a bunch of different names for vice president. Do you know who the first name on the list is? Bill Kristol thinks that John McCain should choose Joe Lieberman.
I’m not kidding. Well, the other conservative at the New York Times says this is the McCain-Lieberman party. He also said take Clarence Thomas off Supreme Court, maybe make him nominee, the vice-presidential nominee. I kid you not. So you moderate Republicans out there, you got the nominee you wanted, and you got the election you wanted, and now you don’t have the slightest idea how to win it. If you want to be one of these happy-go-lucky Republicans the Democrats like and so forth, you go right ahead. That’s not my objective. More audio sound bites. Ron Kirk, the former mayor of Dallas, was on Wolf Blitzer on Wednesday night. Also Lisa Caputo, the former Hillary press secretary, about me saying that a Clinton-Obama ticket wouldn’t have a prayer. Blitzer said, ‘Mr. Kirk, let me ask you first for a comment on what Rush Limbaugh had to say. You heard the entire chunk there. Give us your reaction.’
KIRK: Why are we talking about this guy? Why is he on TV? He is so irrelevant, and he only says stuff to be inflammatory and frankly the best thing that could happen to either Hillary Clinton or Barack Obama — should they be the nominee — would be for Rush Limbaugh to keep saying stupid stuff like this. Uh, as shameful as what Rush Limbaugh has said, it’s dis — it’s as disconcerting to many Democrats the tone that Senator Clinton has chosen to take in attacking Barack Obama. And if it’s irresponsible and if it’s not appropriate for Rush Limbaugh to say what he said; to many of us, it’s just as distasteful for the Clinton campaign to try to exploit race, exploit sex, exploit fear for political expedience.
RUSH: That’s a bigger indictment of the Clintons than there is an indictment of me out there, and I don’t hear him saying the Clintons are irrelevant, and, ‘Why are the Clintons on TV?’ He goes on and agrees with the premise that is totally wrong. I wasn’t even talking about race. Just to reiterate it for you, what I said was: If Democrats put Clinton and Obama on the ticket, I don’t care who’s on top, it doesn’t even have a prayer. White men are who elect presidents in this country and they do so on the issues, not marketing and packaging. They do on so competence. You got somebody that cannot even manage her own campaign, who’s got 49% negatives, either at the top or bottom of the ticket; you’ve got Obama who has literally no experience whatsoever, who has to be putting his foot in his mouth numerous times between now and November. If you think that ticket is a big, big winner, then you are setting yourself up for a huge shock. Here’s Lisa Caputo, who wanted to weigh in on the same thing.
CAPUTO: Uh, huh, huh. Well, all I would say, uh, Wolf, is I think that the voter turnout in these primaries and caucuses for the Democrats, uhhh, I think is an indicator, uh, of how Democrats feel about both candidates, and I think, uh, Rush Limbaugh is absolutely delusional if he thinks, uh, a ticket like that doesn’t even have a prayer.
RUSH: See, I’m not supposed to say things like this. When you tell the truth about the Democrats, that’s when they come out of the caves with their fangs bared. You’re just not supposed to. You’re supposed to be a good little Republican and go along with the Democrat Party narrative, go along with the liberal narrative. You’re not supposed to speak ‘troof’ to power. Wolf Blitzer himself got in on the action, hammering my dream team comments. This is from yesterday, the Late Edition show. He had from the National Urban League, Marc Morial, who is the former mayor of New Orleans, the Reverend Jackson’s son and Gregory Meeks (Democrat-New York). Blitzer and Marc Morial have this exchange about me.
BLITZER: Mr. Morial, as you know, Rush Limbaugh has an enormous audience out there, but — but Rush Limbaugh said this. I’m going to play the clip for you.
RUSH ARCHIVE: Let’s say it is Obama and Hillary. Hillary-Obama. Let’s put Hillary at the top. Hillary on top. That’s a position she’s familiar with. Therefore you’ve got a woman and a black first time ever on the Democrat ticket. (laughs) It doesn’t even have a prayer.
BLITZER: Would they have a prayer if they were together on what some Democrats call the — the dream ticket or the dream team?
MORIAL: I mean there would be many people praying for them but, you know, the issue is Rush Limbaugh, a consistent pattern of division, a consistent pattern of trying to distract people from the real issues that are at play, uh, in this campaign and in the — in the — in the discussion about the future of America. It’s pretty consistent with what I’ve heard from Rush Limbaugh over the years.
RUSH: You know, I had a funny story about Marc Morial. He was mayor of New Orleans, and I was invited to go down there one Mardi Gras and ride one of the floats, with one of the big crews. After you go through town and you’re throwing beads to everybody, you then go to the mayoral reviewing stand at the end of the thing, and the mayor is out there shaking hands as everybody goes by — and he had no idea I was there, had no idea I was coming. When it got my turn to shake his hand, smile on his face just froze (laughs) as I was shaking his hand and the flashbulbs were popping. All right, here is the Reverend Jackson’s son and Blitzer said, ‘Congressman Jackson, what do you think about that?’
JACKSON: Republicans should distance themselves from what Rush Limbaugh said about Mrs. Clinton being on top. That was offensive, it was wrong, and I would imagine by tomorrow women’s groups won’t just be focusing on the black-white nature of that contest not having a prayer, but what Rush Limbaugh specifically said about Mrs. Clinton. I found it offensive, and I think those who sponsor his program, ought to find it offensive as well.
RUSH: Now, see, this is amazing, too, because it was the Clintons who introduced the phrase into the paradigm here. She said she should be ‘on top.’ She should be on top, because that’s where she’s used to being. I added that, but wow. You’re just not supposed to tamper with the sweet little narrative that the Democrats have come up with.
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RUSH: Ah, this is fabulous. Obama’s out there, Columbus, Mississippi, as we speak, he’s making a campaign appearance, and he is echoing sentiments that I expressed in the first hour of this program. He’s talking about the possibility of being on the ticket with Hillary at the top. And he said, (paraphrasing) ‘Wait a minute, just a week ago I wasn’t qualified to answer the phone at three o’clock in the morning. Now all of a sudden I’m qualified to be the vice president? That’s the kind of double-talk we don’t need. That’s the kind of double-talk that’s emanating from Washington.’ Of course, the place went nuts and so forth. So Obama doesn’t seem to be down for this, being on the low side of the vice presidential ticket.
All right, let’s see. Greg Meeks, Gregory Meeks, Democrat, New York. Wolf Blitzer’s Sunday show, Blitzer says, ‘Congressman Meeks, do you think this so-called dream team or dream ticket would be unstoppable as Bill Clinton says?’
MEEKS: What you gonna see is that Rush Limbaugh is going to be isolated because what this election has showed me, that America is moving to a different direction. America is moving where Rush Limbaugh and the Rush Limbaugh types will be by far in the minority, and people are going to be looking at individuals, not by their gender, not by their ethnicity, but by the content of their character and what they move forward.
RUSH: Well, gee whiz! That’s exactly why the ticket is going to lose. You talk about character, the content of their character on the Clinton side, 49% negatives, and the competence? Obama just hasn’t demonstrated it yet. But here’s the thing about this. I never said that Hillary and Obama can’t win because of race or sex. But notice the libs are upset ’cause they think I said it. Here’s the irony. The irony is that they say America is sexist and racist. That’s their template. The fact that America is racist and sexist is precisely one of the cylinders of their V8 engine that propels them down the political highway. If they think that that’s what I said, they should be agreeing with me. Even though I didn’t say it, if they think that, they should be agreeing with me, because that’s how they look at America, is it not, as racist and sexist? They are insisting a woman and black can win the election, although their own template says it’s not possible. This is too much fun. Just too much fun. All right, now, let’s go to the other side of the coin, and we’ll get your phone calls here after the break at the bottom of the hour. There are some liberals out there who agree with what I said and who understand why. Sunday, George Stephanopoulos, talked to Cokie Roberts about a possible Clinton-Obama ticket. Stephanopoulos said, ‘Cokie, is the message from the Clinton campaign, then, vote for us and you can still get Obama?’
ROBERTS: The truth is is that putting two Senators, two liberals, two people from states that are going to go Democratic anyway, and no white guy, when all we’ve ever had is a white guy?
RUSH: White men determine the president. You can talk about the youth vote and talk about all the gender stuff, the racial, the black vote and so forth, but they’re going to do this without a white guy on the ticket? That’s what she’s saying. She goes on to explain.
ROBERTS: You were talking about the pluses of being a woman and African-American, and a lot of minuses. And we’re seeing that as well. John McCain is a very acceptable candidate. He’s either winning or tying in the polls in what should be an overwhelming Democratic year. You’ve got 75% of the people saying the country is on the wrong track, the economy is in the tank, the president’s approval ratings are terrible, and yet the Republican nominee is tied.
RUSH: This is in the context of a discussion about why a Hillary-Obama ticket would be a disaster. So you moderate Republicans and you angry members of the Drive-By Media want to take shots at me, gotta include Cokie Roberts. Now, last Thursday night on the O’Reilly Factor, he had Marc Lamont Hill from Temple University on about this statement that the Hillary-Obama ticket wouldn’t have a prayer. O’Reilly said, ‘Do you have any idea what Mr. Limbaugh was driving at there?’
HILL: Oh, absolutely. He’s trying to reflect an actual truth for once and that is that American people are likely not ready for a ticket that has an African-American man and a white woman at the same time.
RUSH: That’s not quite what I said. He’s making it race and gender-related, but nevertheless, let’s move on to CNN, Reliable Sources on Sunday, this is yesterday. Howard Kurtz talked to author Keli Goff about all this. Kurtz said, ‘Keli, on Rush’s statement, can you make a cold, calculating observation that trying to win an election with two groundbreaking candidates might be too risky without being accused of being racist and sexist?’
GOFF: Look, there’s a lot to criticize Rush Limbaugh for, I — I mean we — we don’t have enough time to go into how many things he’s said over the years that could be deemed offensive. In this instance, however, Howard, I think that, you know, he simply said out loud what a lot of people are thinking and simply spoke the truth. And, in fact, the ironic thing about his statement, is I think that the sexual innuendo in there is probably a lot more offensive than what he said about the realities of trying to elect the first female-African-American ticket in our nation’s history. You know, the reality is, we’re not sure that America is ready. How can we say we’re sure the country is ready for the first black-female ticket.
RUSH: How can we say it? We can’t. We don’t know yet. What did she say, the sexual innuendo? Well, the sexual innuendo was that I said Hillary should be at the top because it’s a position she’s familiar with. Well, hell’s bells, folks. It was Hillary Clinton who used the phrase. When they put out this whole notion of a joined ticket, it was Hillary who said she should be on top of the ticket. She’s used to be being on top in power circumstances. Look at the prejudices and the biases that these Democrats take. They’re the ones that determine whether or not there’s a racist comment or not based on their own prejudices.
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