RUSH: They’re still up in arms out in Denver on purpose. Senator Salazar, one of the original signers of the Harry Reid Smear Letter, has sent yet another letter to my syndication partners at Clear Channel asking that I be reprimanded for my comments about the Democrat National Convention in Denver. When are these people going to learn? I wonder, Senator Salazar, if you’re going to send a note to Doug Wilder, who said that Chicago would be nothing compared to what Denver is going to be if Obama doesn’t get the nomination? And it looks like he might not. And it won’t be because of me, and won’t be because of Hillary. It will be because if he doesn’t get the nomination it’s going to be because of Jeremiah Wright. Unless Obama comes out and totally denounces Wright in unequivocal terms, he’s going to have huge problems.
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RUSH: For those of you who are not quite up to speed on it… I know the Drive-Bys did not make a big deal about this over the weekend, for obvious reasons. Ken Salazar, Democrat Senator from Colorado (who is uncommitted as a superdelegate in the Democrat presidential primary race) sent a letter — another letter from another senator — to my syndication partners at Clear Channel Communications demanding that I be reprimanded for my comments which have been mistakenly portrayed as sending Operation Chaos operatives to Denver to start riots. That is not what Operation Chaos is. I have no intention of inciting riots anywhere. It’s not Republicans who riot. It’s Democrats who riot. There is a group in Denver called Recreate ’68. They have a website. We’ve linked to them at our website, RushLimbaugh.com: Recreate68.org. For those of you who are too young to know, 1968 was when the Democrat Party had their convention in Chicago, and they burned down part of the town for four days before the police were allowed to respond to it.
Jerry Rubin, Tom Hayden, Abbie Hoffman, this bunch; they were an anti-war crowd just as the Recreate ’68 bunch is today. They are actively promising unrest. Al Sharpton is doing the same thing. He’s threatening demonstrations if Obama is denied the nomination by the superdelegates. This is something that I have known. A historical context is, 1968, and so I simply say, ‘If they want to self-destruct, it’s sort of like, ‘Go ahead, make my day.’ You guys want to protest and start fires and so forth in Denver, fire away. That’s who you are. Show the country who you are.’ Somehow this has been interpreted by the Denver Drive-By Media as I, El Rushbo — who have never been in a protest in my life — I have never been in a protest march. I work; I don’t have time to waste. I’ve never been in one, I’ve never participated in one, I’ve never organized one, and yet I am being portrayed as the man inciting riots in Denver, and Ken Salazar knows better, and he sends this letter to Clear Channel demanding that I be reprimanded, the second such letter. The Harry Reid Smear Letter was the first.
Now, in addition to Recreate68.org (which is run by an associate of some sort of Ward Churchill’s; they’re headquartered in some bunker outside Boulder), in addition to Al Sharpton suggesting there would be demonstrations if Obama is denied the nomination; going back to the Atlantic Monthly’s blog by Mark Ambinder, February 19th of this year: ‘There’s a new talking point this week from Team Obama about the unpalatable prospects of a brokered convention: 2008 will be just like 1968, but worse;’ and these words that I’m going to read to you were spoken by Obama ally Doug Wilder, who ran for governor of Virginia, and for whom the Wilder Effect is named. The Wilder Effect is white voters lying to pollsters, and saying, ‘Yeah, I’ll vote for the black guy,’ because they don’t want the pollsters to think they’re racists. Then we get to the polling booth and the privacy of the polling booth, they don’t vote for the black guy. So all these preelection polls showing all this manifest support for black candidates turns out to be not so massive.
That’s known as the Wilder Effect. There’s the Bradley Effect because it happened to Tom Bradley running for governor in California. He was ahead of George Deukmejian in the final preelection poll for governor of California, and Deukmejian ended up winning by a sizeable margin, shocking and surprising everybody. So the pollsters started looking at the Bradley Effect and the Wilder Effect. There’s the Reverse Wilder Effect, the Double Reverse Wilder Effect, all these analyses. So here’s Doug Wilder: ‘I think it would be a mistake [to take away the nomination] because you pointed out the first convention you went to was 1968. You know what a mess that was. If the majority of the American people who are participating in these processes, either through caucuses or through primaries, have a majority of those votes going for either of the candidates, and if the superdelegates intervene and get in the way of it and say, ‘Oh, no, we’re going to determine what’s best,’ there will be chaos at the convention. It does nothing to help the Democrats. And if you think 1968 was bad, you watch; in 2008, it will be worse.’
So here’s an Obama ally, Doug Wilder, back in February saying if Obama is denied this — if he wins it and is denied it by superdelegates — it’s going to be worse than ’68. So my question for Senator Salazar is this: Have you sent letters to the National Action Network, Senator, and Al Sharpton, who over the weekend promised and stirred up unrest, promised riots in New York City; promised to close down New York City? Have you, Senator Salazar, sent him a letter demanding that somebody reprimand him? Have you sent a letter to Doug Wilder, suggesting his comments are inappropriate and that the Obama campaign needs to reprimand Doug Wilder for intimating that Denver ’08 could be ‘worse’ than Chicago ’68? And Senator Salazar, have you sent a letter to the clowns that run Recreate68.org, and have you told them that somebody — either the city or the cops or the Democrat Party, somebody — needs to disavow and reprimand the people at Recreate ’68?
This is another failed and plainly transparent attempt once again, ladies and gentlemen, to do political harm to my reputation. Of course, the funny thing is that the Democrats have thrown everything they’ve got at me. Nothing has stuck. It won’t stick, and there are countless reasons why; most of which I have explained, and I’ll do so again. The media did not make me. I am not the success on radio that I am because the media told people that I was the best out there and thus created my audience. And the media did not have anything to do with sustaining this program’s position at number one by providing a lot of buzz, ‘Oh, man you gotta watch Limbaugh! You gotta listen to Limbaugh. It’s the hottest thing out there.’ There’s been none of that. The Democrat Party had nothing to do with the success of my program, other than they exist as a huge target every day; a justifiable target every day.
But Senator Salazar, Senator Reid, none of the others; have had a dime’s effect on my success. Who has? You. Those of you in my audience. You are the ones who have made this show what it is, of course along with me — and therefore, if these other elements — such as the Democrat Party, Senator Salazar, the Drive-By Media — don’t someday come to understand the familial relationship, the bond that all of us — me and you as the audience of this program — have for one another, they will never understand how it is that they will never be able to break that bond. Only I can. I could screw up on my own and maybe cause a problem, but they can’t do it. The philosophy works for anybody in any avenue of life. If you let somebody else make you, you let somebody else get you where you are, they can destroy you, too. That has not happened here. The Democrats and Senator Salazar still haven’t learned it, and they never will.
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RUSH: Scott in Denver, you’re next on the EIB Network, sir. Hello.
CALLER: Thank you for taking my call, Rush.
RUSH: Yes, sir.
CALLER: I was watching the news blurb where they advertised their news and at the bottom it said, ‘Rush calls for riots in Denver;’ news, you know, whenever. I had a feeling. I’ve been listening to you for 20-some-odd years, I guess, and I had a feeling that it was way out of context.
RUSH: Wait a second. Now, I know that there — Did it actually say Rush Limbaugh’s inciting?
CALLER: I think it said ‘called for riots’ or something like that.
RUSH: Called for riots.
CALLER: Yeah, on the —
RUSH: This was a television station out there?
CALLER: Yeah.
RUSH: I know that a variation of that was going around. ‘Rush Limbaugh called for riots,’ while there’s Recreate ’68 actually doing it; while Al Sharpton is out there actually promising it if Obama doesn’t get it, and while Doug Wilder of Obama’s campaign saying what happens in Denver could be worse than Chicago ’68 if they take this nomination away from Obama. All these people are talking about the hell that could descend on Denver, I know it. All I said was: Bring it on; let the Democrats act as Democrats; let the liberals show the country what they’re made of — and I am the one blamed. I’ve never been in a protest march, I’ve never led one, never organized one, wouldn’t; and yet somehow I get tarred and feathered with it. This is purposeful misrepresentation by the Drive-Bys and not understanding tongue-in-cheek humor and not understanding the context of this program. So it is what it is. But we had the chance to clarify it. We always will get the last word. Most people in dealing with the Drive-Bys have a problem. The age-old argument is you never get into arguments with people who buy ink by the barrel. Well, I can, because I will always have the last word on the radio programs. I’m fortunate in that way; I have a way of getting back at them and a lot of people don’t.
CALLER: Well, I just wanted to thank you for clearing it up, and I had a feeling they’re just trying to sell their station by lashing onto your coattails.
RUSH: Well, there’s no doubt.
CALLER: (laughs)
RUSH: You’re very shrewd. You are very shrewd. They’re trying to get ratings on my coattails and so forth, but the Drive-Bys — I don’t care local, national — have no reason to like me. They ought to and do resent the hell out of me. I destroyed their monopoly. I can take it. I’m glad they’re mad at me. That’s why I told Carla Marinucci at the Chronicle, ‘Thank you for finding the critics of me that you found. They’re great.’