RUSH: Now, as you know, the Clintons went out there, and they had this anonymous spokesman talk to somebody, Jake Tapper, ABC News, and he mentioned the possibility of the Tonya Harding strategy, the kneecap strategy. So Obama yesterday afternoon in Greensboro, North Carolina, at a campaign event, spoke about this.
OBAMA: I’ll take on anyone. If I’ve got the American people behind me, then I fear no man and I fear no woman.
RUSH: What was that? ‘If I have the American people behind me,’ can I hear that again? He doesn’t speak this way. Could I hear that again please?
OBAMA: I’ll take on anybody. If I’ve got the American people behind me, then I fear no man, and I fear no woman.
RUSH: So he’s not afraid of kneecapping. He’s not afraid of the testicle lockbox. He’s not afraid of anything the Clintons will bring at him. And then Barry said on his campaign plane last night that politics should not be all about winning.
OBAMA: President Clinton was the one who I think decried the politics of destruction. So obviously he recognizes that there’s a line that can be crossed, a line that can be crossed where you stop focusing on the American people’s business, and it becomes just sport, and it all becomes about winning as opposed to getting stuff done.
RUSH: What have you gotten done? You haven’t gotten anything done. These people are sitting ducks for a Republican Party that has no idea to pick up the weapon and start firing at the ducks, politically speaking of course. They’ve got a little carnival show, our side’s gone to the carnival, we got the carnie, the little ducks rolling by there, you know, grab the little fake pistol. And of course the carnie has all the things rigged, you can’t possibly win the big teddy bear. He hasn’t gotten anything done. He can’t unify his preacher. He’s never reached across the aisle as a senator in legislation. He’s a blank slate by his own admission. And, Barry, this politics of personal destruction business, President Clinton was not saying he realizes there is a line you can’t cross. He’s saying there are no lines when it comes to you. You can’t be on the other side of the line because there’s no line, Mr. Obama.
This whole politics of personal destruction business, when the Clintons came out with that, that was simply to intimidate Republicans to stop telling the truth about the Clintons. While the Clintons were out there personally destructing all of their opponents and enemies, (doing Clinton impression) ‘We gotta stop this politics of personal destruction. I remember, Limbaugh, you remember it, too, Gephardt and the whole Congress were putting a bunch of buses up there and we brought ’em to the Rose Garden after they impeached me, and I sat there, and we said we gotta stop this politics personal destruction ’cause what we had to do, and Limbaugh understands this and Obama never will get it because he’s a fool and that’s our biggest chance in this campaign, Limbaugh, you know it and I know it and everybody else knows it. What happened with the politics of personal destruction was that we had to find a way to get people off this impeachment business and the things I had done and I was guilty of and I had lied under oath and so forth. So we had to accuse Ken Starr of being a sex pervert, hell, he may be, who knows, I never investigated, and Carville knows, I don’t know, and I don’t care. I’m just telling you, the politics of personal destruction, Barack, you are stupid. How can you say that I recognize there’s a line that we won’t cross when I just had somebody go out and threaten your kneecaps? ‘Tonya Harding’ — you think I respect lines, Obama? You have no idea what’s in store for you. Limbaugh does and that’s why it’s fun to listen to him every day.’
BREAK TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: Four more audio sound bites, ladies and gentlemen, involving the kneecapping of Barack Obama by the Clinton campaign. As you know, Nancy Pelosi’s made the Clintons mad because she’s gone out there and she’s basically told the superdelegates, ‘If you don’t vote the way the popular vote went in this election, we’ve got big problems in this party,’ and she’s the Queen Bee. Right now she’s got more power in Washington than Mrs. Clinton does, and so this is not sitting well with the Clintons. Dingy Harry chimed in in much the same way. That’s why the Clintons are putting it out, ‘What do you mean, popular vote? That doesn’t mean anything; we need to look at electoral votes. Furthermore, what do you mean popular vote? None of these delegates are pledged anyway. They can vote for whoever they want.’ Howard Dean, much the same thing. All these Democrats, a lot of Democrats talk, ‘We gotta stop this; we gotta put this together.’
They’re even thinking about reaching out to George Mitchell to try to solve this. The Clintons are letting all these people know that it’s a waste of their time. (doing Bill Clinton impression) ‘That’s right, Limbaugh, because as you know, nobody intimidates us. We do the intimidating. They’re not going to intimidate us, because even if McCain — this is what you need to know. You do know it, Limbaugh, this is what America needs to know. Even if McCain wins, Hillary is going to be in the Oval Office. I don’t know where McCain’s going to be, but it doesn’t matter. We’ve had our sights set on it and we’re going to get it.’ This is Bill Clinton in Parkersburg, West Virginia, at a Hillary Clinton event, and this is Clinton responding to Obama saying he’s not afraid of the Tonya Harding strategy.
CLINTON: Heard it’s okay to say bad things about a girl. It’s okay. The only thing that matters is what happens to you? That’s all that matters. If a politician doesn’t want to get beat up, he shouldn’t run for office. If a football player doesn’t want to get tackled and want to risk an occasional clip, you shouldn’t put the pads on, right? All this — I don’t think any of these people ought to be asked to resign. All these guys that say bad things about her in the other campaign, they say, should they resign? My answer is, no, they’re repeating party line. They ought to stay right where they are. Let’s just saddle up and have an argument. What’s the matter with that? That’s what America’s about. Right?
RUSH: Do you understand this message that Clinton is sending to Obama? I mean, this is unmistakable. This is Don Clintonleone. Don Vito Clintonleone. He’s calling him a wuss, he’s calling him a girl, he’s calling him inexperienced, he’s calling him a baby. (doing Bill Clinton impression) ‘Let’s saddle up, let’s have an argument. That’s what America is all about, right? Ha-ha-ha-ha.’ Now here’s Clinton again, I guess also in Parkersburg, West Virginia, a portion of his remarks.
CLINTON: I’ve already had four people come up to me and say, ‘Tell her not to quit,’ and I want to tell you something, my family is not big on quitting. You probably noticed that.
RUSH: They’re not going anywhere. They’re not getting out of this. Nobody’s going to talk ’em into it, nobody is going to cajole them. It is a real test for Obama’s ability to unify, is it not? I mean, the whole quest of the Democrat Party is to be unified, is it not? And Obama is the guy who can do this with change and all these other things. See, the problem for Barry is that everything he staked his campaign on, he’s in the process of admitting and demonstrating he can’t do and that he’s never done. The Forehead even got in on this. CNN’s Election Center, the hostette, Campbell Brown, spoke with Paul Begala. And Brown said to The Forehead, ‘Is Clinton saying there’s basically no way that Hillary Clinton’s getting out of this race before the convention?’
BEGALA: Anybody who thinks Hillary is getting out of this race before the votes are — are all cast and counted doesn’t know Hillary. It’s about as likely, to quote those great philosophers from Wayne’s World, what do they say, if monkey’s fly out my butt? It ain’t gonna happen. I don’t know why there’s any conjecture that it might.
RUSH: Wayne’s World is, you know, Mike Myers and Dana Carvey, and apparently the guys in Wayne’s World said that, yeah, that will happen when monkeys fly out of my butt. I haven’t seen Wayne’s World, but apparently Begala has, and apparently he’s a big fan. So yeah, Hillary will quit when monkeys fly out of my butt. Now, what does that mean? Is there a racial connotation to that, ladies and gentlemen? Monkeys. I mean, if monkeys fly out of your butt, they have to be in there in the first place. How did that happen? Anyway, the point is you’re living in a dream world if you think Mrs. Clinton is leaving. Now let’s listen to her. She was on with Greta Van Susteren last night, who said, ‘If Obama says no, I will not support re-voting, where does it leave you and Florida and Michigan?’
HILLARY: Well, you know, you can always go to the convention. That’s what credential fights are for. You know, let’s have — let’s have the Democratic Party go on record against seating the Michigan and Florida delegations three months before the general election. I don’t think that will happen. I think they’ll be seated. So that’s where we’re headed if we don’t get this worked out.
SUSTEREN: What about the pledged delegates right now? Are they likely — do you have any position on them sort of moving over in one direction or the other?
HILLARY: Well, you know, delegates are free to exercise their judgment, all delegates.
RUSH: She said that yesterday, too, which means that they’re not pledged, we can get to them, we can get to them as easy as we got to the people in the travel office. We can get to them just as easy as we miraculously found the billing records in the Map Room. We can get to anybody. We can get to anybody we want. Of course Florida and Michigan are gonna be seated, without re-votes. Now, let’s take a pause here and look at this, because you just heard the Clinton camp — this is Operation Chaos. Without Operation Chaos, this likely would not be happening, and certainly not with this intensity. Mrs. Clinton is emboldened and confident, and that’s a direct result of Operation Chaos. But the Clinton camp, some of the number crunchers in the media are giving a second look at Florida, since the numbers could give new hope to the fading Mrs. Clinton. But they are all losing sight of two realities — not that these realities will matter to the Democrats once they get to their convention — but the primary votes are not projectable. Florida and Michigan are not projectable. Why? Because Edwards got 14% of the votes, and he’s no longer in it. What if he directs his delegates to Obama? What if he directs his delegates to Clinton?
Do Democrat voters want the whole nomination to turn on a payoff to John Edwards? Do the superdelegates want to lose their control of the determination of who wins this? But there’s even something, to me, that’s even more curious than that. The Florida primary occurred on January 29th, right? January 29th, and in fairness — and liberals love that word, fairness — a re-vote would be fair only if all voters could go back to their mindset on January 29th. That would be before they knew about Obama’s reverend; before they knew about Hillary’s Bosnia misadventure and avoiding snipper fire; it would be before the subprime mess hit the fan. That’s big stuff. That has a big influence on votes. If the Clintons do demand a re-vote in Florida, with all this new information, shouldn’t all the states have a re-vote with all this new information? I mean seriously, folks, I know this sounds like I’m — well, I am engaging in a little mischief here, and I am sort of stirring the pot, but it still makes total sense. That vote was the 29th before anybody had really heard of Jeremiah Wright, before Hillary got caught lying big time about snipper fire in Tuzla, so how do you go back and have that re-vote with that same frame of mind? But if you listen to Hillary, re-vote? What re-vote? I won ’em, and we’re just going to seat ’em. Stuff it!
BREAK TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: I just got a flash e-mail from my friend Andy McCarthy, who used to be in the US Attorney’s Office, Southern District of New York, in Manhattan. He says, ‘You know, I’m trying to understand the lefty claim that you and the OpChaos voters ought to be indicted. If Hillary says that even the pledge of the pledged delegates is meaningless, if the votes that have happened so far don’t mean anything because delegates can vote for whoever they want to vote for, what the hell difference does it make who you tell people to vote for? What difference does it make who the voters vote for if Hillary is running around saying whoever they vote for doesn’t matter because the delegates can do whatever they want independent of the voters? So if they’re going to indict you, shouldn’t they indict the pledged delegates who conspire with Hillary to switch their votes? Shouldn’t they indict Hillary for suggesting the votes that have already been cast don’t mean anything? Why is your fraud the only indictable fraud in this thing?’ (laughing) It’s an excellent point. Mrs. Clinton, one more sound bite. Greta Van Susteren says, ‘Well, what do you see as the numbers there? Any thoughts in Pennsylvania on that?’
HILLARY: I don’t make predictions, I just want to do as well as I can. You see, what I think what’s important about this, Greta, is people don’t want this to be over. There was some poll today somebody told me about where, you know, 22% of the people said I should quit and 22% of the people said Obama should quit and 62% said let it go on. That’s what people are telling me. That is what we have to do. Let the voters have a chance to be heard. Nobody should be, you know, writing obituaries on this race, because it is a long way from being over.
RUSH: Well, back to Andy McCarthy’s point. She’s saying, ‘Let the voters be heard,’ but what does it matter what the voters say? What does it matter what the voters vote if the pledged delegates are not pledged and if they can vote for whatever they want? The message to take from this, ladies and gentlemen, is that none of this matters to the Clintons. All of this is a formality. What happens in Pennsylvania is a formality. What happens in North Carolina, what happens in Indiana, what happens in Puerto Rico, it’s a formality. What she’s telling you is that votes in the Democrat Party do not matter. They have another scheme. They have another plan. They want this to go to a credentials fight at the convention — and when that happens, folks, that is nirvana. A credentials fight at the Democrat convention could extend Operation Chaos all the way through the general election!