RUSH: Janet in Grosse Pointe, Michigan, it’s nice to have you with us. Hello.
CALLER: Good afternoon, Commander. How are you?
RUSH: I’m fine. Thank you.
CALLER: (giggles) I’m glad to hear that. First of all, you make politics so much fun. Thank you. And I have to say to your critics that you’re not giving yourself enough credit. (sigh) I’ve been a listener I think for about 15 years now, and you really did derail Hillary’s presidential hopes last fall. Tim Russert got that question from you, about the illegal aliens.
RUSH: That’s right. Illegal aliens driver’s licenses, New York. Eliot Spitzer!
CALLER: You got it. I’ve been observing it for far too long to know that that was just not a coincidence.
RUSH: Of course not.
CALLER: It has to be said that of all the people in the media, America’s Anchorman is the only one that looked at Hillary Clinton and did not see a woman. (giggling)
RUSH: (laughing)
CALLER: I’m sorry. That was so much fun to say! (laughing)
RUSH: I admire your guts.
CALLER: Thank you. You did to her what she has been demanding ever since she hit the national stage, to be treated as an equal, to be treated as a man. Ever since she demanded that in 1968 at Wellesley.
RUSH: Right. She puts her pants on one leg at a time like all the other guys, you got it.
CALLER: (giggles) You got it, and you did it, and you were the only one. I know because I listened to you all through the Clinton years. Russert was one of their biggest fans, from the name of that dog Luke — which he bought, remember that? Clinton goes to his Christmas parties. There’s no reason why he asked that question other than he heard you say it, and it was a good question!
RUSH: Now, wait, wait just a second here. Wait. I gotta stop you.
CALLER: (giggles)
RUSH: Russert’s son is named Luke, not his dog.
CALLER: Right, but do you remember he broke into the national news to say that he had it on good authority that they were naming Buddy the dog Luke? Do you remember that?
RUSH: Oh, no.
CALLER: Yeah!
RUSH: They named Buddy the dog Buddy.
CALLER: I know, but Russert had it, he was given the false tip, that it was Luke.
RUSH: Oh. Oh. Oh. I had forgotten that.
CALLER: (giggles) I know!
RUSH: You are one of the first people to claim I am not giving myself sufficient credit for something.
CALLER: Okay, now, I’m going to tell you how. You’re treating her like a man, which is what she always wanted and she fell flat on her face, okay?
RUSH: Okay.
CALLER: Then, to get her presidential campaign back on track, you treated her like everyone else does: like a woman. You gave her an uneven playing field with Operation Chaos! (laughs)
RUSH: Now that you put it in this way….
CALLER: (giggling)
RUSH: I often forget the past because I’m so focused on the now and the future. I’m one of the few people in America that stands up for right now, you know? I don’t get lost in the future because we don’t know what it is, and the past is what it was. But you have a good point. We have singularly been involved in many, many phases of Mrs. Clinton’s campaign here at the EIB Network. Let me give you another one. By the way, thanks very much, Janet, for the phone call. Let me give you another one. Some of you in there on the other side of the glass will remember this. It might have been last week or the week before. We had a call from a guy who said he was going to a Hillary Clinton town meeting in Pennsylvania and that he had a front row seat; and he thought he might be called on to ask her a question. He wanted a question from me. Do you remember this? In fact, Cookie, we need to go back and pull this, pull the entire call to be able to prove this, because the guy wanted me basically to give him a smart-aleck question.
I said, ‘No, no, no, no. If you’re called on, you ask her a question that will help.’ I said the question to ask her is: ‘Why can’t Obama close this?’ This was two weeks ago. ‘Why can’t Obama close this out?’ I said she will appreciate the question and so forth. Now, I don’t think this guy got to ask that question at the town meeting, but we know that all presidential campaigns have assigned staff members to monitor this program and the EIB Network. And the last couple of days I have been hearing Mrs. Clinton ask the question herself of her audiences and of the Drive-By Media: Why can’t Obama close this out? Why can’t he close me down? It’s a great question. He can’t finish this. That’s another thing the superdelegates have noticed. Lo and behold, Beth Fouhy in the Associated Press story datelined this morning, first line: ‘Why can’t Barack Obama close the deal?’
Who has been asking this for weeks? Me. Who suggested that somebody going to a Hillary Clinton town meeting ask her that question: ‘Why can’t Obama close the deal?’ Me. So here’s the rest of the story. Why can’t Barack Obama close the deal? It’s a question Hillary Clinton, her surrogates, raised to the last days of the Pennsylvania primary. And unfortunately for Obama, it’s a question that bears repeating.’ So now the Drive-Bys are asking it. I ask you, ladies and gentlemen: do you realize how many seeds in the elite media and in these presidential campaigns are planted from the EIB Network, and they grow and they blossom and they become part of the narrative? The action line: Why can’t Obama close the deal? A question first asked on this program. Now it’s in the mix.
BREAK TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: Let’s go back now to this program April 17th in the third hour. The caller is Duncan from North Carolina.
(begin Rush archive clip)
CALLER: Mega dittos, Commander Limbaugh.
RUSH: Thank you, sir.
CALLER: I am heading up Operation Chaos here at my school, Wake Forest, and I won a front-row ticket tomorrow to a Hillary Clinton event with Maya Angelou. I need your advice. I don’t know what to do. This is beyond my knowing what to do with Operation Chaos. Do I ask a flattering question? Do I go after her?
RUSH: How do you know you’ll get a chance to ask her a question?
CALLER: That’s what I’ve been told. I entered a lottery to be one of the special people, and apparently I am. Apparently, they know nothing about me.
RUSH: And when is this?
CALLER: Tomorrow. Six o’clock.
RUSH: Six o’clock tomorrow. You want to know what question to ask Mrs. Clinton.
CALLER: The only thing I’ve thought about is saying to her that I recently changed my registration so that I could vote for her in the primary, trying to get her guard down, then ask her what she thinks of having your support.
RUSH: No, no, no. Do not bring my name up.
CALLER: Okay.
RUSH: Operation Chaos operatives are trained professionals. We’re not going to portray that we’re in there for sabotage.
CALLER: Okay.
RUSH: Cheap little theatrics like that are performed by much lesser radio hosts.
CALLER: That’s true. I’m sorry.
RUSH: You’re going to go in there and you’re going to ask a serious question. You can tell her that you switched registration to vote for her because you really want her to win the Democratic nomination, but as bad as Obama did in the debate on Wednesday night, what is the problem in putting him away? How come you just can’t seem to put him away? He’s making more and more mistakes; he has lost his image of messiah; his association with known radical figures has been documented. What is the problem you and your campaign are having? Don’t make it personal. What is the problem you and your campaign are having in gaining ground and closing this guy out?
(end Rush archive clip)
RUSH: The Clinton campaign, obviously listening to this program, took my suggested question and turned it around. Here is Mrs. Clinton yesterday in Conshohocken, Pennsylvania.
HILLARY: I think maybe the question ought to be: Why can’t he close the deal? With his extraordinary financial advantage, why can’t he win a state like this one?
RUSH: And a Drive-By Media montage, and here again we come up with this and this took off. It’s become part of the narrative. We have here Bill Kristol, Tim Russert, Campbell Brown, Joe Scarborough, Chuck Todd, Brian Wilson, Robin Roberts all talking about closing the deal.
KRISTOL: Barack Obama’s failure to close the deal. He isn’t closing the deal.
RUSSERT: He cannot close the deal.
BROWN: Why can’t he close the deal?
SCARBOROUGH: Obama cannot close the deal.
TODD: Why can’t he close the deal?
WILSON: Why hasn’t Barack Obama been able to close the deal?
ROBERTS: He can’t quite close, and Senator Clinton is a great closer.
RUSH: So, we put it out there last week, April the 17th, in the form of a question: ‘Mrs. Clinton, why can’t you close the guy out?’ They turn it around to why can’t he close it out, and the Drive-Bys — even though they hate Hillary and love Obama — have picked it up. Once again, the tentacles of the EIB Network are interwoven so covertly and deeply now in the Drive-By Media, the elites can’t stand it.