RUSH: Senator McCain yesterday in Des Moines, Iowa, was interviewed by the Des Moines Register editorial board. An unidentified member of the board asks Senator McCain about Governor Palin dragging down his campaign, and McCain answered it this way.
MCCAIN: I haven’t detected that. I haven’t detected that in the polls. I haven’t detected that amongst the base. We get 20,000 people that come to our rallies. So again, I fundamentally disagree. Now, if there’s a Georgetown cocktail party person who quote, quote, calls himself a conservative and doesn’t like her, good luck, good luck.
RUSH: Well, McCain gets testy there with Georgetown cocktail party conservatives. I don’t know who he means. All I know is I have seen stories all over the place today about it’s polling people and Drive-By Media analysts who are suggesting that the recent decline of support for Senator McCain in the polls is due to Palin. And if that’s true, and who knows if it’s true, it would be a direct result of the — I mean, they have set about destroying Sarah Palin since she was announced. It has been a drumbeat of personal attack after personal attack after personal attack, and in the midst of these personal attacks they hid her. She was nowhere to be found. And then when she was produced, she went out there and was mirroring what McCain was saying about reform this and reform that.
She was not the person she was when we were introduced to her at her acceptance at the convention and at her introduction speech in Ohio when McCain revealed that she was the choice. So that’s why so many people were saying let her be who she is. Don’t try to repackage her, you know, let McCain handle the reform stuff and let her go out and continue to do what she did, and that’s solidify the base and rev up enthusiasm and so forth. We have some audio sound bites. This is from Hugh Hewitt and his radio show. They’re sending her out to certain conservative talk radio shows, and Hugh Hewitt talked to her yesterday. He said, ‘Governor, your candidacy ignited extreme hostility and hatred on the left and parts of the media. Are you surprised, and what do you attribute this to?’
PALIN: Oh, I think they’re just not used to someone coming in from the outside saying, ‘You know what, it’s time that a normal Joe Six-Pack American is finally represented in the position of vice presidency.’ And I think that that’s kind of taking some people off guard and they’re out of sorts and they’re ticked off about it, but, you know, it’s motivation for John McCain and I to work that much harder to make sure that our ticket is victorious and we put government back on the side of the people of Joe Six-Pack, like me.
RUSH: That’s really one of the reasons she’s despised is she’s exactly right, she did not have to use the liberal prescriptions to get where she is, just as Clarence Thomas didn’t, and therefore she represents a huge, huge threat. I mean the hatred for this woman by people on the left is visceral, and it is palpable. Last night she’s back with Katie Couric. By the way, Couric’s numbers are lower than they’ve ever been. Even with Sarah Palin, her audience numbers are lower than they’ve ever been. I have never seen this degree of mediocrity in Big Media tolerated and promoted as something other than what it is, failure. (interruption) AP did what? Hm-hm. I know, I’ve got that here. AP did a big puff piece on Katie Couric today. The whole AP story roster today, I mean it just makes you want to start a fire with all the paper. Speaking of fires, just throw it away. The entire AP story roster today, for your mental health it’s better not even to read the garbage. Anyway, she was on Katie again last night, and a question from Katie: ‘If a 15-year-old is raped by her father –‘ now, by the way, you can imagine, you’re not going to hear these answers anywhere because they were good. You’re not going to hear her answers, but we have ’em. ‘If a 15-year-old is raped by her father, do you believe it should be illegal for her to get an abortion, and why?’
PALIN: I am pro-life and I’m unapologetic about my position there on pro-life, and I understand good people on both sides of the abortion debate. I would like to see a culture of life in this country, but I would also like to see taking it one step further, not just saying I am pro-life and I want fewer and fewer abortions in this country, but I want then those women who find themselves in circumstances that are absolutely less than ideal, for them to be supported, for adoptions to be made easier.
RUSH: There you have it, the adoption answer is always best in that situation. Here is Couric. ‘But ideally, you think it should be illegal for a girl who was raped or the victim of incest to go get an abortion?’
PALIN: I’m saying that personally I would counsel that person to choose life, despite horrific, horrific circumstances that this person would find themselves in. And if you’re asking, though, kind of foundationally here, should anybody end up in jail for having had an abortion, absolutely not. That’s nothing that I would ever support.
RUSH: And next, Katie goes after her on the morning-after pill. ‘Some people have credited the morning-after pill for decreasing the number of abortions. How do you feel about it?’
PALIN: I’m all for contraception, and I’m all for any preventive measures that are legal and safe and should be taken. But, Katie, again, I am one to believe that life starts at the moment of conception, and —
COURIC: Ergo you don’t believe in the morning-after pill?
PALIN: — I’d like to see fewer and fewer abortions in this world. And again, I haven’t spoken with anyone who disagrees with my position on that.
COURIC: I’m sorry. I just want to ask you again. Do you condone or condemn the morning-after pill?
PALIN: Personally, I would not choose to participate in that kind of contraception.
RUSH: You know, it’s just funny, frustrating. The templates that these people have had for 20, 30 years, they will not let go of. The techniques they use to try to discredit decent and good people. This is one of the reasons why Katie Couric’s numbers are in the toilet. Can’t bail out everything. Can’t bail out Katie. Can’t bail out CBS Evening News, even by giving her Sarah Palin. Again they try to paint her as some wacko outside the mainstream. Katie Couric, ‘Do you believe evolution should be taught?’ Evolution, abortion, RU-486. Evolution, abortion, morning-after pill, RU-486, evolution, abortion — they’re trying to paint her as some sort of Christian freak. ‘Do you believe evolution should be taught as an accepted scientific principle or as one of several theories?’
PALIN: Oh, I think it should be taught as an accepted principle, and, you know, I say that also as the daughter of a school teacher, a science teacher who has really instilled in me a respect for science. It should be taught in our schools, and I won’t ever deny that I see the hand of God in this beautiful creation that is earth, but that is not part of a policy or local curriculum in a school district. Science should be taught in science class.
RUSH: Okay, so here they’re trying to portray poor old Sarah Palin as a freak, conservative, wacko extremist and all that, stupid, shortsighted, idiotic. Let’s go back to September 13th, 2007. Yahoo hosted an online forum with the Democrat presidential candidates, and the moderator was a genuine nut, Bill Maher. ‘Senator Biden, forgetting about the upcoming Iowa caucus for just a moment, which will you honestly say is more likely to contribute to the death of your average American, a terrorist strike, high fructose corn syrup, or air that has too much coal in it?’
BIDEN: Air that has too much coal in it, corn syrup next, then a terrorist attack. But that is not in any way to diminish the fact that a terrorist attack is real, but hundreds of thousands of people die and their lives are shortened because of coal plants, coal-fired plants, and because of corn syrup.
RUSH: (laughing) Now, this is genuine foolishness! High fructose corn syrup — that’s what they sweeten your soft drink with — is more deadly and risky than a terror attack. Joe Biden, Obama’s Democrat presidential nominee. This is lunacy! And let’s not forget this. A 1988 debate, Biden’s closing statement, and this is what he said.
BIDEN: Why is it that Joe Biden is the first in his family ever to go to a university? Is it because I’m the first Biden in a thousand generations to get a college and a graduate degree?
RUSH: May of 1987 at the Welsh Labor Party conference, Labor Party member Neil Kinnock.
KINNOCK: Why am I the first Kinnock in a thousand generations to be able to get to university?
RUSH: There’s your plagiarism on display from Joe Biden, and yet he is hailed as brilliant and experienced. He’s a doofus. We love him. Hey, Chuck, stand up, let ’em see you out there. Oh, God. God love you. What did I do? Chuck, let’s stand up for Chuck.