RUSH: National Journal on the air, the host Tammy Haddad, used to be the original producer of Larry King Live, then she went over to PMSNBC, got out of there in the nick of time before it went totally off board, took up residence in a combination of Pyongyang, Beijing, and Moscow. She has Bill Burton, the spokes-hack for Barack Obama, on. And she said, ‘You have an ad out there, includes Rush Limbaugh, going after Rush Limbaugh, known as poking the bear.’
BURTON: If John McCain and Rush Limbaugh want to get their lot together and take us on, that’s fine. He’s made no secret of who he supports in this race. His radio show every day is an effort to go out and defeat Barack Obama.
RUSH: That’s right. That’s the purpose, Bill. I’ve been working 35 years. I saw this moment 35 years ago. I’ve been working 35 years, my entire life, preparing to defeat Obama. No, Bill, we call this free speech here, buddy, we call it politics, we call it participatory democracy. This guy’s a paid hack, he has to go out here and say this stuff. In fact, that’s very true. If that’s all I did was go out there and try to destroy Obama, I would not have an audience. But if my exposing Obama for who he is, if I can clear out all the lies and images that Burton and others have created around him, then I’ve done my job. Some days I feel — and this is one of them — some days I feel like I need a vacation. I just asked the staff, ‘Is this still Friday?’ You wouldn’t believe the –well, I’m not complaining about it. Just you would not believe the pace that’s gone on, there’s so much out there. Oh, here’s the second Burton bite. Haddad said, ‘Well, Rush calls Obama The Messiah.’
BURTON: I don’t think we’re going to do anything that either gets him to stop or gets him to amp up even more. Anything that we say about Rush Limbaugh, while it may be interesting for folks to chew on in political circles it helps to make a point about where John McCain is and where his politics are and what sort of president that he would be.
RUSH: You guys don’t get it. You guys are the only ones out there that apparently don’t understand that McCain and I are not that close, issue to issue to issue. So you think you can attack me and doing so, you’re also at the same time going to identify McCain? They’re running against me! Can I interpret it that way? They’re running against me. ‘Anything we say about Rush Limbaugh, while it may be interesting for folks to chew on in political circles, it helps to make a point about where McCain is.’ They think it’s going to be easier to attack me. (interruption) That’s right, Howard Dean, ‘We’re taking the country back from Rush Limbaugh. This flag is not just Rush Limbaugh’s.’ God bless ’em. Hey Chuck, stand up, let ’em see you out there. Oh, my God, jeez, oh, God love you, you know, stand up for Chuck.
BREAK TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: I find this fascinating here that the Obama campaign, according to Bill Burton, thinks that they can run ads on me and thereby position McCain with me. They mention me and they somehow tar McCain by mentioning me. Now, I’m not that close to McCain on the issues, and everybody knows it. But, Mr. Burton, Mr. Spokes-hack, if you want to see close, take a look at Obama and Ayers. Take a look at Obama and Jeremiah Wright or Obama and Marx. Not Groucho. Karl. I think Karl is inspiring Obama’s speechwriters. I’m not close to Obama on many issues. The public should tie McCain and me together, but Obama is close to Ayers and Wright and the public should not tie them together? Is that how we’re going to play this? So I should be tarred and feathered with McCain and that somehow is going to make both of us guilty of something, but we can’t talk about Obama being close to Ayers and Wright? Yes, we can, for as long as we have control of things, ’cause we are not going to screw up the First Amendment.