Obama Intimidates the Media

RUSH: We have a couple more bites. This is Obama. He’s trying to say that unless the Rev. controversy goes away, we won’t be making any progress.

OBAMA: We have a choice in this country. We can play Reverend Wright sermons on every channel, every day, and talk about them from now until the election and make the only question in this campaign whether or not the American people —

RUSH: Stop the tape.

OBAMA: — think that I somehow —

RUSH: Stop the tape! Yeah, we can do that. We could get rid of Reverend Wright. We can stop playing Reverend Wright. We’re still going to have to listen to Al Sharpton. Al Sharpton is still going to be able to tell networks who can say what. We’re still going to have to listen to the Reverend Jackson. We’re still going to have to listen to all the other dividers in this country on the left. Now, go back to the top of this. This might sound like an idle little thing. I’m not sure that we’re dealing with something here that’s just idle. I think there’s something a little bit more substantive going on with this bite. Listen again.

OBAMA: We have a choice in this country. We can play Reverend Wright’s sermons on every channel, every day, and talk about them from now until the election and make the only question in this campaign whether or not the American people think that I somehow believe or sympathize with his most offensive words. We can pounce on some gaffe by a Hillary supporter as evidence that she’s playing the race card.

RUSH: This is so slick.

OBAMA: Or we can speculate on whether white men will all flock to John McCain in the general election regardless of his policies.

RUSH: This is Clintonesque, here.

OBAMA: We can do that, but if we do, I can tell you that in the next election, we’ll be talking about some other distraction, and then another one, and then another one (applause) and nothing will change! That is one option. Or, at this moment, in this election, we can come together and say, ‘Not this time.’

RUSH: Okay. Blackmail? ‘You keep playing the Jeremy Wright stuff, we’ll see to it this country stays roiled and divided. You stop playing the Jeremiah Wright stuff, and maybe we can move on and be at one with one another.’ He’s just trying to get this Reverend Wright stuff off television, folks. That’s all that bite was — and he’s trying to guilt everybody in the networks into not doing it under the guise of, ‘By not playing Rev. Wright, we are coming together.’ He touches this with… Well, I haven’t got time to elaborate, but while all this is going on, we’re not supposed to mention his middle name, either. We don’t mention his middle name. We don’t call him a liberal. We don’t play any more Rev. Wright videos — or else!