RUSH: Leslie in Miami, Florida, nice to have you with us, sir. Hello.
CALLER: Hello, sir. How are you?
RUSH: Good.
CALLER: I’m worried that Operation Chaos will backfire.
RUSH: Yes, people have suggested this to me a couple times today.
CALLER: You have to remember that you’re dealing with the Clintons.
RUSH: Operation Chaos is not about securing a nomination for either of these two candidates.
CALLER: But with the momentum that she might catch, if she does secure the nomination, she will put everything out there to destroy McCain. Right now she’s being very careful, even though they’re not trying to play the race game — you know they are — it’s not going all the way. With McCain, they can go full fledged.
RUSH: They’re going to anyway!
CALLER: So why would we want her to secure the nomination?
RUSH: It doesn’t matter. Look, if we hadn’t engaged in Operation Chaos, we would have to this day a Barack Obama who was thought to be the Second Coming of Christ, or whoever. He would be the messiah. We wouldn’t have learned much of anything that has brought him down to earth and exposed him as just a genuine hack, typical politician. There’s nothing new, revolutionary, nothing unique about him; contrary to what people think. Operation Chaos has done its job. Both these candidates are taking out after each other in ways here. They’re both in the gutter. This is not about securing the nomination of Mrs. Clinton. It was about keeping her in it. This, I will admit. It was about keeping her in it. We have no control over who wins this thing because we are not superdelegates. The superdelegates are going to determine who wins this thing, pure and simple. Operation Chaos was discussed last night on Larry King Alive on CNN, guests included some radio host, Bev Smith, GOP strategist Reed Dickens, and Ron Reagan. Larry King says, ‘Bev! Turnout in Pennsylvania was huge!’
SMITH: I hear, and see, and smell the hand of the Republicans behind this; because on [whispers] the Rush Limbaugh Show, they’re talking about the fact that they want people to support Hillary Clinton because she cannot win against John McCain. Well, that is saying, in my regard; that my candidate, Barack Obama, can win — and we need to put our eyes on exactly what is happening, because —
KING (groggily) Wai’aminute.
SMITH: — and — and there may be a war. If there’s a war, that’s a setup to me, for John McCain.
KING: Is the — the — Reed, are radio talk show hosts telling people to vote for Hillary?
DICKENS: You know what? I can’t speak for all radio talk show hosts.
KING: Sounds bizarre to me!
DICKENS: Yeah. What — what — what —
VOICE: Rush Limbaugh did!
DICKENS: Yeah, Rush Limbaugh may have. What I — What I would say is —
KING: He did?
VOICE: He did!
DICKENS: Yes. I’m saying he did.
KING: It sounds bizarre!
DICKENS: Well, (snicker) I can’t speak for Rush Limbaugh.
RUSH: (laughing) Larry King, I don’t know where he’s been. He knows it. He’s talked about it! He’s heard it. People have mentioned it! We played a sound bite of him some time ago. Somebody mentioned the Operation Chaos to him. He’s just acting like he never heard of it. He’s acting like he doesn’t know what goes on here, because he’s trying to make it sound like nothing goes on here is important. It’s Rush Limbaugh. ‘That’s bizarre!’ Or he’s forgotten, you know, that somebody told him. It’s one of the two. Laura Ingraham, Fox News Channel last night, On The Record with Greta Van Susteren.
INGRAHAM: For Barack Obama not to be able to bring together various parts of this state’s coalition, is not a good sign for him in a general election. So I think, for Hillary Clinton — outspent two to one in this state — that’s a big deal. And, by the way, Greta, Operation Chaos, Rush Limbaugh’s push to get Republicans to register for the day to be Democrats; might have had some effect here, and it might have been significant.
RUSH: Oh. Laura Ingraham, thanks much for that. Karl Rove today on Fox & Friends with Steve Doocy.
DOOCY: Rush Limbaugh all along has been encouraging listeners who are Republicans to go ahead and register as Democrats.
ROVE: Operation Chaos!
DOOCY: Exactly right. To add chaos to the Democratic situation in Pennsylvania. Do you think he had something to do with her ten-point victory?
ROVE: Well, he probably did. It’s a more difficult… In Texas you don’t, for example, have to fill out any paperwork.
DOOCY: Right.
ROVE: In Pennsylvania, to vote for the Democratic primary —
DOOCY: You gotta jump through some hoops.
ROVE: — you have to jump through some hoops. So I suspect it had a smaller impact, but it had an impact nonetheless.
RUSH: Operation Chaos! Karl Rove — and then last night on Charlie Rose: Liberal elites know that Operation Chaos is big trouble for them. This is Slate magazine’s Jacob Weisberg talking about Operation Chaos.
WEISBERG: I seem to remember the New York Times endorsing Hillary Clinton a couple of months ago.
ROSE: (chuckles)
WEISBERG: They seem to be having a little buyers remorse here.
ROSE: (chuckles)
WEISBERG: But obviously the concern they’re expressing I think interest is real, that the Democrats damage each other so much in the primary, and these ads that Hillary Clinton has run; it’s the only way she can run. But branding Obama as an elitist and emphasizing this question of whether he’s ready and prepared to be president and can deal with foreign policy issues, John McCain can just run those ads and it sets him up in a perfect way to say, ‘It’s not me saying it. It’s Democrats saying it.’ And I just — I don’t see how that can — I’m not saying it’s fatal, but it’s gotta be very, very damaging if Obama prevails and gets the nomination.
RUSH: See? This guy has just spelled out the purpose of Operation Chaos! One of the reasons, by the way, that Operation Chaos was implemented is the Republicans will not do this! I said this early on: The Republicans are not going to criticize Democrats this way like the Democrats are criticizing each other. This whole operation, folks… I’ll tell, you think my ego is out of control? Wait ’til you hear this. In due course, down the road — long after we’re all gone — Operation Chaos is going to be written about in history books. It will be. This guy Jacob Weisberg just got it. He nailed it in here in (let me get the exact time of that sound bite) forty-two seconds. He spelled out the expressed purpose and objectives of Operation Chaos: Get these two bloodying themselves up because McCain isn’t going to do it; the Republican National Committee isn’t going to do it, and somebody has the bloody ’em up politically. Remember one of the first days I announced Operation Chaos, I said, ‘Obama needs to be bloodied up politically,’ and everybody thought, ‘That’s horrible language! Why, that’s almost as bad as asking for riots in Denver!’
BREAK TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: We had a sound bite here from last night on PMSNBC, their live coverage of the Pennsylvania primary; and it is wonderful here, ladies and gentlemen, to see the Democrats and the Drive-Bys forced to admit what we’ve always known about the Clintons — and that is that truth does not matter to them. They will do anything, they will say anything, they will move the goalposts. They will do whatever it takes to win. The Drive-Bys loved this when the Clintons were doing it to Republicans, but now they don’t like it when the Clintons are doing it to their favored candidate, Barack Obama. Here is a conversation, Chris Matthews and Tim Russert.
MATTHEWS: It’s not just that the Clinton forces continue to change the score sheet and the scoreboard itself! They reserve the right to do it again and again and again! If Hillary can find any metric by which to justify continuing in the campaign, that will be the one we focus on that day!
RUSSERT: Yes. Bill Clinton, Hillary Clinton, and Terry McAuliffe have one thing they want: Hillary Clinton to be the Democratic nominee — and they’ll use any path that’s available to get there. Those are the rules, according to Bill Clinton, Hillary Clinton, and Terry McAuliffe.
MATTHEWS: Mulligan after Mulligan after Mulligan!
RUSH: Mulligan after Mulligan after Mulligan. Chris Matthews is embittered. He looked so out of it last night, so disappointed. At times he looked surly, but he was just sad. Everybody in the Drive-Bys wanted this over last night. So now the Clintons: Mulligan after Mulligan after Mulligan after Mulligan after Mulligan. For those of you in Rio Linda, that means do over after do over. It’s like the way Bill Clinton plays golf. He hits a shot, doesn’t like it, he hits it again; and doesn’t count the first one. Mulligan after Mulligan after Mulligan.