RUSH: Let’s go to the audio sound bites. If you thought that racism was over, think again. Joe Scarborough’s show today, Tavis Smiley of PBS.
SMILEY: I would take exception to that postracial argument. One of the things that’s concerned me is the media — the mainstream media, quite frankly — their embrace of this terminology, race transcendence and race neutral and postracial —
WOMAN: Mmm-hmm?
SMILEY: — and those of us who talk about racial disparities are somehow talking about the politics of grievance.
WOMAN: Mmm-hmm?
SMILEY: I don’t get that. Just because one African-American ascends to the White House, let’s celebrate it. I’ll revel in the moment, but we do not yet live in a postracial America.
RUSH: Of course not! Whoever thought that was going to be the case anyway? It was I and I alone, ladies and gentlemen, who told you the race business is only going to get bigger after Obama wins. The race business is only going to intensify. Pshew! You think racism is over just because Obama wins? Think again. The race business is not about race. Here’s Tom Brokaw, and this is this morning on — by the way, we’re working on the audio sound bites of this. We got a caller coming up. In fact, let’s take the caller before we go to audio sound bite number two because we’re working on the audio that the caller heard. This is Lonnie in Winston-Salem, North Carolina. Hi, Lonnie. It’s great to have you here.
CALLER: Mega anti-assisted suicide dittos, Rush.
RUSH: Thank you very much, sir.
CALLER: I was watching MSNBC earlier and Brokaw was talking to Andrea Mitchell and he said that he received every break in his life, even though he didn’t deserve it. She said, oh, that’s not true. And he said if he’d been one shade darker he wouldn’t have gotten those breaks. I’ve never seen self-loathing so nakedly in the media. You were right.
RUSH: Wait a minute. Wait just a minute now. To the elites in Washington, you’re in North Carolina, and you’re not supposed to know what the term ‘self-loathing’ means.
CALLER: I heard you say it.
RUSH: (laughing)
CALLER: Even a dummy can pick up and parrot a few things, Rush.
RUSH: (laughing) You’re exactly right, though. Phil Donahue had self-loathing. Let me give you an example of it, folks. Liberals are the only ones that hate themselves. Snerdley told me the funniest thing on the break. He said last night he got a phone call from Diana Schneider, the editrix of the Limbaugh Letter said, ‘James! James! Look outside your window! Republicans are rioting! Republicans…’ (laughing)
CALLER: (laughing)
RUSH: I’ll tell you, at my house, when the guests left… The guests left in waves. The guests left about, I don’t know. The first wave left around midnight, and they came running back in. ‘You gotta come out here. You can hear the shouts and the cheers, and whatever else is going on over in Riviera Beach.’ So I didn’t walk out there, but some people walked out there, and I said, ‘It was really…?’ ‘No, was just a bunch of fireworks.’ I wish I’d have thought, ‘No, it’s Republicans rioting.’ (laughing) Phil Donahue, self-loathing. I remember him saying one time that if he had been born — I think he was born in San Diego. He said if he’d have just been born ten miles south that he would have an entirely different life. It would have been a horrible life and so forth; and he was feeling guilty about where he was born, self-loathing is basically guilt. He was feeling horrible about where he was born, and I remember saying, ‘Phil, you’re looking at this the wrong way. You need to be able to take the opportunities that were part of your life because of where you were born, and start sharing them with people in Mexico and showing them how they are there.’ Here, we’ve got sound bites 28 and 29 that Lonnie here is talking about. Lonnie, hang on. Let me grab the cue sheet off the printer. Here is number 28. Andrea Mitchell, NBC News, Washington, said to Tom Brokaw, ‘As someone who got your start in Atlanta and in the South, covering the civil rights movement, just on a personal note, the author of Boom now out in paperwork who see many generations some great some not so great what does this election of Obama mean, Tom?’
BROKAW: Well, it’s very emotional for me in a lot of ways because, uh, race has been a big part of my journalistic careers; and I grew up in South Dakota in working class communities, a, uh, uh, white kid who had all kinds of breaks along the way — even when they didn’t deserve them, by the way —
MITCHELL: I don’t believe that.
BROKAW: Noooo, even when I stumbled, you know, as I did in college, people were willing to give me a second shot. And I often said, ‘If my skin had been one pigment darker, none of that would have happened for me,’ and that has always made me very conscious of where race fits in in America. So this is a very big deal.
RUSH: My God! (laughing) Jeez. I knew I was going to love this day.
CALLER: This whole administration is going to be a big ‘I told you so,’ Rush.
RUSH: It’s just like I said. I hope you people in Ohio, I hope you Democrats, I hope you lose your coal business. I hope he does bankrupt the coal business. I do. I hope you learn what you’ve done here.
CALLER: Well, they’re going to get to see socialism. If he’s unfiltered, they’ll get to see what socialism really is, and I hope we can come back from it.
RUSH: Oh, we’ll come back from it. Don’t worry about that. I got a prescription and recipe for how we’re going to come back from it. We got one more Brokaw bite here. But Andrea says, ‘I don’t believe that,’ that you didn’t deserve the breaks you got. ‘No, even when I stumbled as I did in college, people were willing to give me a second shot. If my skin had been one pigment darker, none of that would have happened.’ He would not have gotten a second chance if his skin was one pigment darker? This self-loathing is just… (laughing) You’re right. It’s breathtaking to behold. If Tom Brokaw had been one pigment darker, he’d have just been Ed Bradley!
CALLER: (laughing)
RUSH: He could have been president, for crying out loud, if he was just one pigment darker. He could have been Ed Bradley. He could have been Tom Bradley. He could have been Doug Wilder, could have been any number of people. One pigment darker? He’s making it out here, if he’d have been one pigment darker, he would have been a total miserable failure. Okay, here’s the second one. This is Brokaw adding to the previous bit of self-loathing.
BROKAW: The interesting part of it is, he didn’t run as somebody who said, ‘I deserve to be elected because I’m a black man. He didn’t lead with his race.’
RUSH: Oh, man!
BROKAW: He was chosen in the final analysis because he seemed to be the best answer for solving these problems that are before us of the choices that we had.
RUSH: Hold it a second! You just said Friday night you don’t know anything about him! (laughing) You just said… (coughing) This is better than I had hoped for. Gol-ly. Play this again. Cue it up from the top, number two. Go!
BROKAW: The interesting part of it is, he didn’t run as somebody who said, ‘I deserve to be elected because I’m a black man. He didn’t lead with his race.’ He was chosen in the final analysis because he seemed to be the best answer for solving these problems that are before us of the choices that we had. So I think it’s a real statement about a maturing America when it comes to race.
RUSH: His campaign was all about race. This is the dirty little secret: His campaign was all about race. That speech last night was all about race. I wasn’t going to say that. I wasn’t going to say that today, but now I have an entree, and I could go through that speech for you and I could show you. ‘Fundamental change,’ all of these things were oriented toward righting wrongs for a specific group of people of which he was a member. It was all about race. When I made that observation last night, everybody in my house agreed with me — and not because they have to in order to stay. They agreed with me because they agreed with me. (sigh) ‘Chosen in the final analysis ’cause he seemed to be the best answer for solving these problem.’ Cookie,you gotta get me the Charlie Rose bite, you gotta — after the break. We’re going to play these two back-to-back. Lonnie, thanks for the heads up on this; ’cause, frankly, we aren’t watching TV here today.
CALLER: God bless you, Rush.
RUSH: God bless you.
BREAK TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: If Tom Brokaw were one pigment darker, he would be Charlie Gibson. If Tom Brokaw were a couple pigments darker, he would be John Lewis, and I can’t understand what he says, either. Welcome back. Rush Limbaugh celebrating the unity today here on the Excellence in Broadcasting Network.
By the way, have you noticed how they love McCain again today? The Drive-Bys love McCain. I got a couple notes from Drive-By people this morning. ‘That concession speech of McCain, why, that was the best speech. If he’d had made his campaign that speech, why, who knows.’ It was his campaign. His whole campaign was a concession speech, but, see, ladies and gentlemen, for you intellectualoids on our side, and for you smart people on our side, you know who you are, all of you who urged that we go moderates and all of you who urged that we go out there and start looking at people as Wal-Mart voters and Joe the Plumber voters and so forth, you got what you wanted, the candidates going to go to the middle, get Democrats and independents, they love him again, they love McCain today. Have you ever noticed and thought why? Little pop quiz. I’ll give you five seconds to answer the question. Why do they love McCain again today? Five, four, three, two, one. Because he lost! They love McCain, the Democrats and the Drive-Bys love McCain because he lost. That’s how you do it. If you want the love of the Democrats and the liberals and the Drive-Bys, guarantee that your side loses. And they’ll think you’re brilliant, too.
All right, here’s Tom Brokaw again this afternoon with Andrea Mitchell, NBC News, Washington.
BROKAW: The interesting part of it is he didn’t run as somebody who said, ‘I deserve to be elected because I’m a black man.’ He didn’t lead with his race. And he was chosen in the final analysis because he seemed to be the best answer for solving these problems —
RUSH: Right.
BROKAW: — that are before us of the choices that we have.
RUSH: Exactly, yeah.
BROKAW: So I think it’s a real statement about a maturing America —
RUSH: Right.
BROKAW: — when it comes to race.
RUSH: Okay, so you heard for our purposes here, the money quote there is, ‘He was chosen in the final analysis because he was deemed the best answer for solving these problems that are before us.’ Seemed to be? Chosen because he seemed to be the best answer. Here’s Brokaw Friday night with Charlie Rose.
ROSE: I don’t know what Barack Obama’s worldview is.
BROKAW: No, I don’t either.
ROSE: I don’t know how he really sees where China is.
BROKAW: We don’t know a lot about Barack Obama and the universe of his thinking about foreign policy.
ROSE: I don’t really know. And do we know anything about the people who are advising him?
BROKAW: You know that’s an interesting question.
ROSE: He is principally known through his autobiography and through very aspirational (sic) speeches, two of them.
BROKAW: I don’t know what books he’s read.
ROSE: What do we know about the heroes of Barack Obama?
BROKAW: There’s a lot about him we don’t know.
RUSH: Yeah, but in the final analysis he’s chosen because he seemed to be the best answer for solving these problems. These people are neurotic. I refuse, I refuse to allow these people to make me think I’m the oddball. I refuse, my friends, to allow these people to make me think that I’m the one controversial, uneducated, and stupid. This is nonsensical. This is self-loathing. This is gobbledygook blather designed to sound like it’s the most deeply expressed compassion and depth of thought that’s ever been uttered on television.