RUSH: CNN ran a report last night on the Situation Room — we have a montage of this report — claiming that I am the one who stopped the bailout and if the president wants this thing, he needs to call me. The correspondent here is Elaine Quijano, and she is speaking to their Republican consultant here in the piece, John Feehery:
RUSH ARCHIVE: Screw the market. Okay, I’ll take that back, not screw the market, but let me tell you something. When the government fails to pass a socialism bill and the market goes south, let it go south.
QUIJANO: On talk radio outside the Beltway, Rush Limbaugh voiced conservatives’ outrage over the $700 billion financial rescue plan, and with that anger channeled into ‘no’ votes on Capitol Hill, President Bush is facing an open rebellion by some in his own party.
FEEHERY: I would say that, you know, you need to make a phone call to Rush Limbaugh. In the inside game the president can win all he wants but if he doesn’t win the outside game and that’s talk radio, people kind of saying it’s a Wall Street bailout, it’s very difficult for the president in the inside game to overcome those objections.
RUSH: We’re not saying it’s a Wall Street bailout. Nobody here is saying it’s a Wall Street bailout. In fact, guess what? The political class in Washington — I got a couple stories about this in the Stack — they’re very concerned that the terminology here is what defeated it, that a bailout, that calling it a bailout is what has led to you not liking this. We’re supposed to call it a rescue plan, but bailout has a specific definition to people, and it means we’re going to make some people who screwed up whole and the bailout means that we who are suffering out here are going to help those who screwed up and screwed us up, we’re going to make them right but we’re going to pay for it. That’s what the chattering class think bailout means. There have been a lot of people trying to convince me not to use the word bailout and rather refer to it as a rescue plan. But nevertheless, the Drive-Bys — I didn’t know about this, I’m sitting at home yesterday afternoon, minding my own business, I’m doing show prep, it’s about 5:30 and I get an e-mail: ‘Rush, Rush, I’m at the gym and they’re talking about you on CNN. What did you do now?’ What I assumed it was is that they were reporting the erroneous Politico story yesterday saying that I had trashed the House Republicans. Turns out this is what it is. Last night on Larry King Alive, he was talking with Republican Michele Bachmann from Minnesota, who said the media is used to politicians who nuance their answers or Bill Clinton back in the day when he won’t give a straight answer, that’s what they’re used to. They aren’t used to anyone who speaks their mind and is straightforward. She’s saying that this is why the media doesn’t like Sarah Palin.
KING: When you refer to the media, which media?
BACHMANN: What we call the liberal eastern establishment.
KING: Rush Limbaugh is the media. So when you say the media —
BACHMANN: Sure.
KING: — you include Rush?
BACHMANN: What I’m talking about is the gotcha media. There’s gotcha media that are looking for a leftist candidate, the media that loves the leftist candidate and can’t stand a conservative candidate.
RUSH: Yeah, Larry apparently is unaware that somebody working at some major Drive-By newsroom has sent out a note saying that wherever this person works, and it’s a major outlet, that they’re openly cheering Obama every time they see him on TV, that they’re investigating Palin in Alaska, that they’re investigating McCain in Arizona. And of course, we’re going to get to this thing with Gwen Ifill, you talk about a conflict of interest, and nobody on the left thinks there is one. She’s moderating the debate tomorrow night. She’s got a book coming out on Inauguration Day about Obama and what his election means for the United States. She is openly in the tank for Obama. She was snarky about Sarah Palin’s acceptance speech at the Republican convention. I’ll tell you what they’re going to do. The debate commission would never think of pulling her out of the debate, oh, no, no, she’ll get a disclaimer at the beginning saying that she’s fair and balanced and she’s objective and all that, we should not worry about this, this is much ado about nothing. I have some suggestions for Ms. Palin for this debate tomorrow night, given Gwen Ifill and her obvious pro-Obama leanings.