RUSH: Marsha in Edwardsville, Illinois, right outside St. Louis. It’s nice to have you on the EIB Network. Hello.
CALLER: Mega dittos, Rush. I’ve been listening to you for too many years, since college.
RUSH: Thank you.
CALLER: Saluki dittos from Edwardsville. Basically I have a couple of issues. I have one observation about Obama, being a revolutionary candidate. He is. He is the first black candidate for president. He is also the personal embodiment of Mike Dukakis, as evidenced in his fish little thing the other day, about the rotten fish. I’m waiting for the head, rotting from the head down.
RUSH: Right, Dukakis, ‘The fish rots from the head down,’ yeah.
CALLER: Yeah, and then that — yeah, he’s actually a Chicago guy who actually is trying to make good, although that has a violent connotation to it for McCain, I’m guessing, if he thinks he has it locked. However I heard on another place that —
RUSH: You know what? Can you hold your thought there?
CALLER: Okay.
RUSH: Because I misread the clock. I thought I had two minutes here, and I didn’t. I have one. Don’t go away.
CALLER: Okay.
RUSH: But I gotta take — we call it, inside broadcasting — a hard break. It doesn’t float.
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RUSH: I want to go back and finish a conversation with Marsha from Edwardsville, Illinois, because I took her call with not enough time left, and I misjudged, misread the clock. So Marsha, thanks for holding on. You were saying?
CALLER: Oh. Well, first I was saying that it just seemed — it was an observation that Barack Obama seems to have personified change, personified the old Mike Dukakis with the fish story again —
RUSH: Right, there’s nothing new about Obama.
CALLER: Yeah.
RUSH: He’s nothing but the same old Democrat Party hack.
CALLER: But basically I had heard that he was traveling to New York City to meet with Bill Clinton, in Bill Clinton’s offices, and thought it was kind of amusing, considering the explosions that’s going on with basically foot-and-mouth disease in his campaign, and the poll numbers plummeting and that Joe Biden is missing in action, or at least keeping a real low profile —
RUSH: Joe Biden’s not missing in action. Joe Biden was in Columbia yesterday, just a couple hours down the road from you. Grab audio sound bite 15, Mike. This is what Biden said yesterday in Columbia, Missouri, at a campaign event.
BIDEN: Uh, uh, Chuck Graham, state senator, is here. Stand up, Chuck. Let ’em see you. Oh, God love you. What am I talking about? I tell you what, you’re making everybody else stand up, though, pal. I tell you what, stand up for Chuck.
RUSH: And he went over and said, ‘Chuck, can you tell I’m new at this?’
CALLER: What’s amusing about all that is Obama doesn’t want to be seen in the same room with the guy, and he’s his vice president and —
RUSH: Well, how do you know that?
CALLER: Well, because they’re not in the same room. They’re not campaigning together, they’re not speaking together, I mean, good grief, you can’t see McCain without seeing Palin, which is a good thing, because I was a lifetime Republican that was really having trouble with McCain until he selected Palin. I’m going to be quite honest with you.
RUSH: I think you reflect the sentiments of quite a few Republicans.
CALLER: I mean, Sarah Palin is a revelation both for the Republican Party in specific and, you know, for the entire electoral process, and I think it’s about time that the Republicans realize that women have been the foot soldiers of the Republican Party. I mean, yeah, they cook for the bake sales and they do this, but they keep things together for their men that have been in public office, so I think it’s about time that we were recognized, and I’m glad that we were and glad that they picked someone who is so obviously qualified.
RUSH: Oh, let me tell you something, Marsha, she is so qualified, Joe Biden is wetting his pants every time he thinks about having to debate her.
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RUSH: Biden’s off the rails again today. I just got a note here from Jonah Goldberg at National Review Online. I hope there’s audio of this. Where was Biden? I don’t know where he is today, but he said, ‘What I care about is, what in God’s name is she going to do along with John McCain about the thousands of people who don’t have health care? He’ll ask her about the superhighway of terror between Pakistan and Afghanistan where my helicopter was forced down.’ I guess he’s previewing what he’s going to ask her about in the debate, health care. The superhighway of terror between Pakistan and Afghanistan where my helicopter was forced down. Joe Biden forced down on the superhighway of terror. That is scary, Batman. (laughing) Superhighway of terror.
So Biden was shot at in the green zone, except he wasn’t, and now he’s forced down in a helicopter on the superhighway of terror between Afghanistan and Pakistan. And he’s going to ask Sarah Palin about it. He’s going to demand what they’re going to do. He knows where the gates of hell is, Biden does. He knows where Osama is, and he knows it’s on the superhighway of terror. I hope we have the audio. (interruption) Well, no, that was Hillary that was under snipper fire. Hillary Clinton was under snipper fire when he was over there, except she wasn’t under snipper fire. Biden was not shot at, and now he says he’s been forced down in a helicopter on the superhighway of terror, and he’s going to demand answers about that from Sarah Palin. (laughing) I knew this was going to happen. Play 15 again. I’ve gotta hear this again.
BIDEN: Uh, uh, Chuck Graham, state senator, is here. Stand up, Chuck. Let ’em see you. (rimshot) Oh, God love you. What am I talking about? (rimshot) I tell you what, you’re making everybody else stand up, though, pal. (rimshot) I tell you what, stand up for Chuck. (rimshot)
I mean these guys sound like a comic duo. It’s Martin and Lewis. It’s Abbott and Costello, with all due apologies to Abbott and Costello. Play it again. He sounds like a comedian.
BIDEN: Uh, uh, Chuck Graham, state senator, is here. Stand up, Chuck. Let ’em see you. (rimshot) Oh, God love you. What am I talking about? (rimshot) I tell you what, you’re making everybody else stand up, though, pal. (rimshot) I tell you what, stand up for Chuck. (rimshot)
(laughing) Stand up for Chuck. Do it for Paul! Do it for Paul! Stand up for Chuck. Chuck’s in a wheelchair, folks, in case you don’t know. And you have to see this too, I’ve seen the video. By the way, sound bite number 11 here, this ad on YouTube has been pulled.
PALIN: You know, they say the difference between a hockey mom and a pit bull? Lipstick.
OBAMA: Well, you know, you can’t — you know, you, you can put, uh, lipstick on a pig, but it’s still a pig.
COURIC: One of the great lessons of that campaign is the continued and accepted role of sexism in American life.
RUSH: YouTube has pulled that ad after a complaint of copyright violation from CBS for using Katie Couric, the perky one, in the ad, video of Katie Couric. So they got the point across, it was out there, and they may pull it from YouTube but they haven’t asked to us cease and desist, so we can still play it, along with audio sound bite 15, Joe Biden.
BIDEN: Chuck Graham, state senator, is here. Stand up, Chuck. Let ’em see you. (rimshot) Oh, God love you. What am I talking about? (rimshot) I tell you what, you’re making everybody else stand up, though, pal. (rimshot) I tell you what, stand up for Chuck. (rimshot)
We’ve added the drum riff. (laughing)
A Los Angeles Times story is from yesterday. It is by Peter Wallsten and Janet Hook: ‘Palin Bounce Has Democrats Off Balance.’ This story is about the Wall Street Journal poll released yesterday showing that McCain is now winning among white women 52%-41% after having been statistically tied with Obama in that category just 30 days ago. Representative Elijah Cummings, Obama backer from Maryland said, ‘Whenever you see that kind of movement, you ought to be concerned; you ought to try to address it.’ David Bonior, the pit Yorkie, former Michigan congressman who managed John Edwards’ campaign, called the new poll findings a ‘real concern.’ He said, ‘We can’t lose white women and expect to do well in this race.’
‘One Democratic operative familiar with the campaign’s deliberations worried that the ‘freshness, newness and aura around Barack has been eclipsed. The campaign has been knocked off stride.” It hasn’t been eclipsed. It’s been pulverized. The aura around Obama has been obliterated. It doesn’t exist. The dirty little secret is it hasn’t existed for months and they’ve had plenty of time in this party to realize that and not nominate the guy, but his aura, that aura that was present the first three months of this year, starting in April, bye-bye aura, bye-bye all of these halo images, we’re the ones, he’s the one you’ve been waiting for, all gone.
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BIDEN: Uh, uh, Chuck Graham, state senator, is here. Stand up, Chuck. Let ’em see you. (rimshot) Oh, God love you. What am I talking about? (rimshot) I tell you what, you’re making everybody else stand up, though, pal. (rimshot) I tell you what, stand up for Chuck. (rimshot)
RUSH: Ah, yes. That’s Joe Biden yesterday in Columbia, Missouri, ladies and gentlemen, at a campaign event. ‘Senator Barack Obama…’ New York Times today, Senator Obama ‘learned how hard it can be to solve America’s public education problems when he headed a philanthropic drive in Chicago a decade ago that spent $150 million on Chicago’s troubled schools and barely made a dent. Drawing on that experience…’ (laughing) This is like a comic script. ‘Drawing on that experience, Mr. Obama, the Democrat nominee for president, is campaigning on an ambitious plan that promises $18 billion a year in new federal spending in early childhood classes, teacher recruitment, performance pay, and dozens of other initiatives.’ So they gave him $150 million to pour into the Chicago school system, he barely made a dent, and he decided that the lesson was we need to spend more. (laughing) Nothing happens with $150 million, so the answer is, obviously, ‘We didn’t have enough money. We need $18 billion now.’ Barack Obama. (laughter) Here’s Jenny in Denver, North Carolina. I didn’t know there was a Denver in North Carolina. How you doing, Jenny?
CALLER: Hi, Rush. It’s so great to talk to you. Yes, there is a Denver, North Carolina, right by Lake Norman.
RUSH: Oh. Okay.
CALLER: Anyway, here’s my point. If I could just go through a little few logical steps about Obama’s lipstick thing, did you ever hear him say ‘New Pennsylvania’ or the ‘Nittly Lions’ or ’57 states’? You’ve heard those, those statements?
RUSH: Oh, of course.
CALLER: You know, your gatekeeper reference was actually really interesting because I didn’t hear New Pennsylvania until I actually saw it on a website but the media certainly isn’t putting out those stories — 57 states, Nittly Lions, New Pennsylvania — and then all of a sudden here’s Barack Obama using this American colloquialism, ‘lipstick on a pig,’ and we’re supposed to believe that that’s just a natural thing. So either, A, he had terrible judgment when his speechwriters or handlers gave him that line, or, B, he’s just lying through his teeth about not slamming Sarah Palin.
RUSH: I think that, as I stated earlier, what you see in the lipstick on a pig comment is Obama trying to get tough. This is Obama trying to get tough and respond. He’s mad. He doesn’t like being criticized. He’s The Messiah; Messiahs don’t get criticized. McCain has the audacity to criticize Obama, and Obama doesn’t know what to do with it. He doesn’t know how to deal with it. You gotta remember, people have been lying down in front of Obama as he walks by. They’re celebrating, paying him homage and this sort of thing and McCain and Palin are just right in his face.
CALLER: Exactly.
RUSH: Hillary didn’t get in his face.
CALLER: No.
RUSH: Nobody got in his face on the Democrat side because everybody was afraid they were going to be called a racist on the Democrat side if they went out there and attacked Obama. So the Clintons had their surrogates out there saying things. They had Clinton out there talking about various aspects of Obama’s win, like in North Carolina, ‘Well, of course, Jesse Jackson won here, too.’ It was code language, but the point is they didn’t — the Clintons were shopping all this stuff that they had on Obama to other people in the media to use so that they wouldn’t and that’s what the whole point of Operation Chaos was: to make sure Obama got bloodied up, and he got bloody. And the moment people started bloodying him up politically is when the bloom came off the rose, is when the pig’s lipstick melted, is when the aura of Obama ceased. Because up until that time everybody was falling down and accepting this whole aura of the messiah thing, the anointed one and all that. That’s all gone, and now McCain and Palin are in his face, he doesn’t know what to do about it ’cause he cannot get tough about his issues. How do you get tough about raising taxes, for example? How do you get tough about the things he wants to do? So his getting tough, he’s responding as a petulant little man-child who thinks he’s being insulted. So with Sarah Palin telling this joke all over the place now about —
CALLER: Right.
RUSH: — the pit bull and the lipstick, there’s no question it’s in his mind. Whether he intended it as an insult and called her a pig, is not the point. It was just intemperate. It was undisciplined and it was childish.
CALLER: It was terrible judgment on his part. If nothing else it was terrible judgment on his part and he can’t even admit that.
RUSH: Well, of course.
CALLER: He won’t even admit that!
RUSH: Messiahs don’t admit fault. What do you expect?
CALLER: (giggles)
RUSH: Your expectations are a little high.
CALLER: If I was — I’m not a psychiatrist at all, but if I were going to just classify that guy, I would say he is a pathological passive-aggressive person who reaches out and throws these nasty little verbal firebombs and then he steps back and whines that he’s the victim that somebody responded to it.
RUSH: Perhaps. You know, I’m not trained in that field either. All I know is this. He has something in common with William Jefferson Blythe Clinton: They were both abandoned by their daddies. They both have, as it is known in the therapy business, ‘abandonment issues.’ And people who have abandonment issues generally end up being people like Bill Clinton. They want to be loved by everybody, and if they’re in a room with a hundred people, they’ll find the one in that room that doesn’t like ’em and zero in on them and try to persuade them. Now, I don’t know, you know, what similarities Obama might have to that, but it’s clear that he’s pretty immature. Your judgment comment’s right, and he doesn’t understand getting smacked around like this. It’s just not… His modus operandi has been to clear the playing field of any opponent. Just get rid of them so there aren’t any opponents to say anything about, and his little statement today, ‘Enough’s enough! We gotta get back and talk about issues,’ people think it was pathetic. It was just pathetic. He’s one that brought up the pig and the lipstick comment! He’s the one that did, and he’s acting like someone else did. He’s running around blaming other people for talking about it. It’s absurd. Jerry in Panama City, Florida, got to welcome you to the program. Nice to have you with us, sir.
CALLER: Rush, how you doing today, Rush?
RUSH: Fine. Thank you.
CALLER: My observation in all this is I think that the Democrat campaign is not nearly as witty as they think they are. They’re responding to actual wittiness and down home-ness — if that’s a word — on the Republican Party with Sarah Palin, with lipstick on the pit bull and the mayor being like a community organizer except more responsibilities, and they’re responding badly. And now, you know, they’re not as witty as they think they are. They’re not as smart as they think they are and they’re coming across as mean and mean-spirited.
RUSH: And arrogant. You’re exactly right. You’re exactly right. You know, Sarah Palin is down-home America, small town American. She’s proving that we don’t have to coming from an eastern Ivy League university to lead the country or to lead a state. Obama doesn’t have a down-home history. He doesn’t have things that will allow him to make jokes about himself. That’s a key thing. Sarah Palin can laugh at herself, makes jokes that are self-deprecating. Obama wouldn’t deign to make fun of himself! Why, he wouldn’t do that. Why, nobody else can make fun of him, either. He takes himself way too seriously. All these East Coast Ivy League elites do. That’s why it’s called ‘flyover country,’ because it’s a foreign land to them. The coasts, media centers and so forth, is where they are most at home and most familiar. This is Arlene in Hagerstown, Maryland. You’re next on the Rush Limbaugh program. Hi.
CALLER: Hi, Rush. I was just calling to let you know that I turned on the WGAL newsroom in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, about 12:30.
RUSH: Mmm-hmm? Mmm-hmm?
CALLER: And they were showing on the screen Obama making that statement regarding the pig and the lipstick, but they also said and showed McCain making the very same statement in regards to Hillary’s health care plan.
RUSH: Right.
CALLER: So he said it first. Now they’re showing Obama saying the same thing. I also heard it on another news station over the radio.
RUSH: Right, I know. I’ve heard some of these liberal media types from cable whining, ‘How come nobody went after McCain when he said that about Hillary! How come?’ Well, because Hillary had not told a joke about herself in lipstick. Lipstick on a pig is actually it’s a worn-out political cliche.
CALLER: Mmm-hmm.
RUSH: Politicians have been using this for longer than and I have been alive. So McCain said it a year ago about Hillary and her health care plan. I don’t know how long ago he said it, but the reason that this has come down on Obama is because it is directly linked to something Sarah Palin said about herself — and his audience laughed. They knew. They thought they knew exactly what he meant, and the audience started chanting, ‘No more pit bulls! No more pit bulls!’ It’s clear they thought he was talking about her.
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BIDEN: Uh, uh, Chuck Graham, state senator, is here. Stand up, Chuck. Let ’em see you. (rimshot) Oh, God love you. What am I talking about? (rimshot) I tell you what, you’re making everybody else stand up, though, pal. (rimshot) I tell you what, stand up for Chuck. (rimshot)
RUSH: Joe Biden yesterday asking a man in a wheelchair to stand up in Columbia, Missouri.
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RUSH: This is Jeff in Cascade, Maryland. Jeff, nice to have you with us, sir. Hello.
CALLER: Rush. Camp David Neighborhood Watch dittos to you.
RUSH: Thank you, sir, very much.
CALLER: Yeah. I wanted to mention that the ‘lipstick on a pig’ became a liberal talking point last week when Bob Beckel uttered it while he was addressing a Fox News debate. I don’t remember exactly the debate. However, it was floated out there last week. So I truly believe Barack Obama had a grasp on what he was saying.
RUSH: Well, look, the bottom line is this: ‘Lipstick on a pig’ is a worn-out political cliche. I don’t think that any campaign has to put it in their manual. Well, maybe Obama has to because he hasn’t heard it before. He’s so young. But I don’t think Beckel saying it last week is any indication that it’s an official weapon or ammo in the Obama arsenal. The give-away here is that they’re now going, ‘Well, McCain said it about Hillary’s health care plan.’ Yeah, he said it about Hillary’s health care plan, but this was in direct response to Sarah Palin making a lipstick joke, pit bull, lipstick joke. And Obama did an exact response. They’re out there saying it’s a phony charge, the charge of sexism and so forth, the fact I called her a pig is phony, then why address it? If it’s phony, why address it? Well, some people will say, ‘You can’t let that go, he’s lost control of the media on this, this is going to be a 24-hour story, McCain’s got a little ad running on YouTube, he’s gotta go out there and say something about it.’ Not if it’s phony.
Now what about this. You know how things are in politics. If you really think that you’ve offended somebody, hurt their feelings or whatever, you apologize, right? This is a woman, this is a girl. Again, folks, let’s not get sidetracked by whether he was calling her a pig or not. To me, that is not the point. It’s not just about Palin. He’s got a the comment in here about McCain as well.
OBAMA: You can put, uh, lipstick on a pig. It’s still a pig. (cheers) You know, you can, uh, you know, you can, uh, you — you — you can wrap an old fish in a — in a piece of paper and call it change, it’s still going to stink after eight years. We’ve had enough of the same old thing. It’s time to bring about real change to Washington.
RUSH: He’s either talking about Bush or McCain here as a stinking eight-year-old fish. But aside from even that, play it again. I want you to listen to, does this sound like somebody who has presidential discipline, presidential speaking capability? And, uh, and, uh, and I, uh — before the fish comment. Mike, throw some rimshots in here, because I’m telling you, this is an attempt, a poor attempt at a stand-up comic routine.
OBAMA: You can put, uh, lipstick on a pig. It’s still a pig. (cheers) (rimshot) You know, you can, uh, you know, you can, uh, you — you — you can wrap an old fish in a — in a piece of paper and call it change, it’s still going to stink after eight years. (rimshot) We’ve had enough of the same old thing. (rimshot) It’s time to bring about real change to Washington.
RUSH: I think his timing is bad, his comedic timing is bad, he just doesn’t feel it. Listen to Biden. Biden’s got the timing down, gang. He’s got the timing down. It’s just the jokes don’t quite fly.
BIDEN: Uh, uh, Chuck Graham, state senator, is here. Stand up, Chuck. Let ’em see you. (rimshot) Oh, God love you. What am I talking about? (rimshot) I tell you what, you’re making everybody else stand up, though, pal. (rimshot) I tell you what, stand up for Chuck. (rimshot)
RUSH: Oh, God, oh, God, oh, God love you, pal. (laughing) Stand up, Chuck! (laughing) Obama’s got no rhythm. Well, you compare, go back. You just heard Biden, listen to Obama, he’s got no rhythm.
OBAMA: You can put, uh, lipstick on a pig. It’s still a pig. (cheers) (rimshot) You know, you can, uh, you know, you can, uh, you — you — you can wrap an old fish in a — in a piece of paper and call it change, it’s still going to stink (rimshot) after eight years. We’ve had enough of the same old thing. It’s time to bring about real change to Washington.
RUSH: No rhythm, no sense of comic timing, none whatsoever. He needs to go back and start smoking, take a cocktail out there with him when he’s gonna start these routines, or else maybe get some lessons from Biden.