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Attack on Palin Shifts from Experience to Trailer Trash

by Rush Limbaugh - Sep 3,2008

RUSH: One more, ladies and gentlemen, Katie Couric talking to the governor of Minnesota, Tim Pawlenty last night on CBS special Democrat National Convention coverage. She said, ‘She’s against abortion, even in the case of rape or incest. She wants creationism taught in the schools,’ and then she said this.

COURIC: Do you worry that her selection might be a turnoff to some wavering Democrats and independents who might consider supporting John McCain?

PAWLENTY: Women, in terms of who are worried about breaking through that glass ceiling, are going to look at her life story and relate to her life story in ways that go beyond just the abortion issue.

COURIC: And do you think her story will trump experience?

PAWLENTY: I think her story is, in part, experience. She’s got more experience, as you know, than Barack Obama, so I don’t think that’s going to be a strong argument.

COURIC: Well, that’s according to Republican talking points. I think the Democrats would disagree with that.

PAWLENTY: Well, Katie, I think those are also facts.

RUSH: Way to go, Katie. Way to stick up for the Democrats’ talking points. Way to fulfill everybody’s expectations of your incompetent partisanship disguised as journalism. Let’s talk about experience on the part of Sarah Palin, shall we? I have a piece here today from the AmericanSpectator.org website. It is written by James P. Lucier, former Staff Director of the US Senate Foreign Relations Committee. Former Staff Director of the US Senate Foreign Relations Committee, is Mr. Lucier, which is where Joe Biden comes from. Let me just give you the highlights in excerpt form of Mr. Lucier’s piece: ‘Palin came into the governor’s office and found a mess on her desk. The oil deal struck by defeated Republican governor Frank Murkowski wasn’t working. Through creative accounting by big oil and ambiguous reporting standards, the Murkowski plan just wasn’t giving the State of Alaska the pay-off that was expected. So the former mayor of Wasilla (population 9,000, as the MSM always points out) demanded that the agreement be renegotiated and the terms be nailed down. They laughed when she sat down to negotiate, but in the end she had a new deal that delivered 50 percent of the oil revenues to the Alaska Permanent Fund, and enabled Palin to send a check for $1,200 to every qualified Alaskan citizen.

‘Then to follow up that act, she got the Alaskan Legislature to approve development of the TransCanada gas pipeline, a $40 billion deal that will go 1,715 miles from the treatment plant at Prudhoe Bay, Alaska, to the Alberta hub in Canada, from which it will be transferred to the United States. This project had been sitting around for 30 years on hold because the big energy companies didn’t think it would be profitable, and their corrupt cronies in the legislature obediently kept it on the shelf. Crusading against corruption and negotiating across the aisle, Palin not only got it passed in record time, but opened up the bidding when the US companies were reluctant to jump in. So she went ahead and awarded the contract to low-bidder TransCanada Alaska, a firm that has already built 36,000 miles of pipelines in North America. As a final fillip, the Governor signed the bill at the Alaska AFL-CIO biennial convention. While Barack Obama’s solution to the energy problem is to urge us to check the air in our tires, Palin’s solution is to start building a $40 billion gas pipeline, without Federal government assistance. So just how does the experience of Sarah Palin stack up against the experience of Joe Biden? There are some people who confuse seniority in the Senate with experience.’ James Lucier, former Staff Director of the US Senate Foreign Relations Committee, where Biden works, on Sarah Palin.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: Katie, Seattle, Washington. You’re next. Welcome to the EIB Network. Hello.

CALLER: Dittos, Rush.

RUSH: Hi.

CALLER: Hi! Oh, gosh, I am so angry today. Listen, I’m a mother of three, and I’m disgusted on what I am seeing on the media. This question out there that Sarah Palin, she’s abstinence only? How do we know that 17-year-old daughter of hers was not practicing ‘safe sex’? I mean, the media has just tried and convicted her. The last time I checked, (I’m a mother of three) birth control can fail.

RUSH: Yeah, a lot of men can attest to that, too.

CALLER: Yeah. It’s just I’m so frustrated by it just because she has values and she sticks with them —

RUSH: You gotta understand. Because Sarah Palin apparently believes in abstinence, although one thing. Katie Couric’s question to whoever she was talking to, Tim Pawlenty, about teaching creationism? She doesn’t want to make teaching creationism mandatory. She just wants something to counter evolution. Intelligent design? I mean, common sense. At any rate, what they’re trying to go after her on is she believes in abstinence and whether or not she was taking birth control or not, she wasn’t abstaining. So they’re trying to say that Sarah Palin is a hypocrite and doesn’t raise her family right and her daughter is a renegade and the woman can’t control her family. There’s no love whatsoever. I don’t think these people have any love in their own lives.

CALLER: Well, I’m surrounded by them. (laughs)

RUSH: I don’t think they do anything but sit around and strategize about how to destroy their enemies. I think that is their life. I think that’s what they think about when they go to sleep. They dream about it. They never turn off their brains in terms of how to destroy their enemies. Enjoying life to them is finding ways to regain their power, exercise it and never lose it.

CALLER: I know. And I think I see what the press is doing in the sense they are just making her out to be a total hillbilly. She’s just a hillbilly —

RUSH: You are right.

CALLER: — teaching her kids —

RUSH: You are exactly right.

CALLER: — about God and guns. Give me a break. I mean, maybe the gal wanted to start a family. How do we know that? It’s just ridiculous. It’s just so condescending, and I am just livid; and I can tell you. Every one of the gals I’m talking to, my girlfriends and my mom and her friends, they are so jazzed about her. She’s going to win this thing, and she’s going to win it big, and I can’t wait —

RUSH: That’s right.

CALLER: — to be one of those women.

RUSH: They better have those rafters secured on the roof tonight in Minnesota, because she’s going to blow the roof off the joint. But you are more right than you may even know. That Us Weekly magazine cover. Letterman told a joke last night. I think you’re going to see a shift, ladies and gentlemen, from the perception of Sarah Palin as inexperienced. Because, you know, really they fell into a trap on that. I knew that was a rope-a-dope. I think in fact, ladies and gentlemen, one of the reasons for picking Sarah Palin was to emphasize Obama’s lack of experience. Here came Obama and the Democrats running right into the door, nose-first on that. They’re going to have to get off it, because they can’t win. She’s got a rich American life that hundreds of people can attest to, with no holes in it, as she tells the story.

Obama’s life has all kinds of holes, and the only people can vouch for him are people he doesn’t want speaking about him. They’ve gotta get off this experience thing. You know it’s lame when Obama says that he’s more qualified, has more experience than she does ’cause he’s run his campaign for 18 months. So they’ve gotta get off of that. What they’re going to steer this towards is she’s trailer trash. Mark my words. It’s already started. And you, Katie, are very wise to see that.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: Monica in Iron Mountain, Michigan, great to have you on the EIB Network. Hello.

CALLER: Hi, Rush. Thanks. I want to speak on the issue brought up yesterday, the comment made by Andrea Mitchell that only uneducated women are supporting Sarah Palin.

RUSH: That’s right.

CALLER: Okay, well, as a graduate of the University of Michigan, which I think counts in their book because it is a pretty liberal bastion, as a mother of six, including a five-year-old daughter with autism, it’s nice to have somebody else knowing about special needs, actually technically, Rush, as a mother of seven, my oldest daughter died at birth because she had Down syndrome, I am beyond thrilled to support this ticket of Sarah Palin and John McCain. From what I’ve learned about her over the last, well, really only the last week, but from what I learned, she’s a great role model, and as far as her experience goes, I think what really attracted John McCain was not necessarily the breadth of her experience, but the kind of experience she had, which was rooting out that corruption and going against her own party. I just think it is a great ticket, and I can’t wait to vote in November.

RUSH: Good. One of the things that they’re going to promote in her speech tonight is her being a reformer.

CALLER: Right.

RUSH: As McCain considers himself to be a reformer, and this to attack the so-called change and hope campaign from Barry Obama and Joe Chia Pet Biden. Now, let me ask you, you gave your family history, you’ve had seven kids, one with Down syndrome, one died?

CALLER: Well, I had seven children. My oldest had died at birth. She had Down syndrome.

RUSH: Okay.

CALLER: I went on to have six more.

RUSH: Okay.

CALLER: And my five-year-old has autism, yes.

RUSH: All right, now, have you put yourself in Sarah Palin’s place and wondered what it would be like if the entire Drive-By Media was going after you and your children this way? How does it make you feel having similar family circumstances to watch this happen to her?

CALLER: You know, it’s just crazy. I feel for her. And the thing that bothers me about this teenaged daughter, you know, the reason that the McCain camp, as far as I can understand, came out to say that she was expecting a baby was because the other side were making these allegations that she was really the mother of this Down syndrome baby, and they’re blaming Sarah for not protecting her children, and it was their side that came out with this rumor.

RUSH: Do you know where that charge came from?

CALLER: I’m not sure.

RUSH: It came from an obviously developmentally troubled liberal kid at a blog website on the fringe left. And the Drive-By Media simply accepted it as fact —

CALLER: Yep.

RUSH: — and ran with it.

CALLER: Yep.

RUSH: You sound irritated but you don’t sound mad. There are a lot of people mad about what’s happening to her. Not that I want you to be mad, don’t misunderstand, I’m just trying to get a gauge here of how people like you out in the heartland are reacting to this.

CALLER: I think she can stand up for herself, and I’m sure she knew some of this was going to be coming, being in politics already, but it’s just really too bad. It’s really too bad. I just hope she makes — I’m sure she’ll make a great speech tonight. And let’s get back to the issues. You know, it’s just crazy.

RUSH: Well, that’s exactly what the Drive-By Media does not want this about. They lose on the issues. They lose big time on the issues. They want this about caricatures, lying, stinking, false caricatures of people. That’s the only way they can win, is to destroy the character and lives of their opponents.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: Very simple. If Sarah Palin nails her speech tonight, the Democrats are in trouble. It’s just that her speech is as highly anticipated as Obama’s. This is becoming almost Obama vs. Palin. I think you ladies, take note, please, you’re being sexualized, ridiculed, minimized. It’s an attack on your gender. It’s an attack on your cultural and moral views and beliefs. I’m not trying to be funny here, not even trying to be offensive. I don’t even think Obama is half the man Sarah Palin is, in terms of achievement, toughness, grit, and down in the trenches. She can give a speech that will demonstrate that without ever mentioning his name. I hope the roof is firmly attached at the convention hall.