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RUSH: State-run MSNBC at the top of the hour focused a lot on Newt Gingrich retracting the word ‘racist’ to describe Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor as too extreme. The Drive-Bys all happy that Mr. Newt is retracting. I’m not retracting. The truth doesn’t need to be retracted and we don’t retract the truth here, but they’re all excited about it, ‘It’s too extreme, it’s too extreme, ‘racist,’ it’s too extreme.’ It wasn’t to extreme when it was applied to Robert Bork. It wasn’t too extreme when it was applied to Miguel Estrada, Janice Rogers Brown. ‘Racist. That’s too extreme. We can’t have that kind of talk.’ But we can have, in a storied Senate hearing chamber, before the nation, we can have discussions of a pubic hair on a Coke can, but we can’t use the word ‘racist’ when it actually applies.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: Ed in Milford, Connecticut. Great to have you with us, sir. You’re up first today on the EIB Network. Hi.

CALLER: Hey, Rush. I’m calling you from my family business. Our family has been doing landscaping work for 30 years here in Fairfield County. If I had an employee or myself, even, got what we were doing wrong 60% of the time, I wouldn’t be here. The employee wouldn’t be here. Nobody would be in this office who got something wrong 60% of the time. So I ask you a question: What senator or congressman in their right mind would vote for Sonia Sotomayor if her record is that bad?

RUSH: Well, see, the ideology here is what matters when it comes to the liberal judges. Her record is not really relevant. The reason Obama has appointed her is that she is a mirror image of him. She is a radical. She will find ways to rewrite the Constitution and rewrite law using ’empathy.’ That’s what he wants. The Constitution is a constraint on Obama. Now, your question’s valid. You know, what senator or congressman in their right mind would elect or vote for Sonia Sotomayor if her record is that bad? It’s not about her record. It’s what they hope she will do.

CALLER: Well, by her —

RUSH: It’s what they’re very confident she will do as a justice to the Supreme Court.

CALLER: And I have another question.

RUSH: Well?

CALLER: I think it was Mr. Newt that said that he was more interested in what she said and not her record? Is that right?

RUSH: What she said, not… He was more interested in what… No. Well, the two are related. In his retraction, he wants to look at her words. He wants to look at her rulings and at her words. That’s why I say he really didn’t really retract this. He retracted the use of the word ‘racist,’ but he hasn’t changed his mind about her being one.

CALLER: Well, all I care about is actions. I don’t care what people necessarily say around my office. I care about what they do, and to tell you the truth, I just can’t believe anyone would vote for this woman. If it’s true that 60% of her submissions are overruled, then I think you gotta be insane to put this woman in.

RUSH: No, no, no. You don’t understand the left. I mean this is… See, the Supreme Court can’t be reversed. The Supreme Court, they can only reverse themselves. Later courts taking different case. So trust me with this. She’s been appointed for a reason. She shares the radical views of the US Constitution that Obama shares, and her own words illustrate this. I don’t have to make up or try to convince anybody who she is. We can use her own words. She says, ‘We make policy as judges.’ No, you don’t. You interpret the law, the constitutionality of law or laws. You don’t make policy. She makes policy. That’s what Obama wants. She thinks, she said, a Latina will come to a wiser decision than a white guy because of her ‘rich experience.’ Put those words in the mouth of a white guy, anybody. Say, ‘I’m much smarter than a Latina woman! Latina women, they haven’t lived my life. She can’t hold a candle to me,’ and see how long he lasts. This is what they want. There will be more like her appointed by Obama.

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RUSH: To the audio sound bites! Andrea Mitchell, NBC News, Washington, was on state-run MSNBC just a short while ago.

MITCHELL: This just in from Rush Limbaugh on his show today. He suggested that he might support Judge Sotomayor. Let me read this to you. ‘She would be the sixth Catholic on the Supreme Court,’ he said. ‘There are a lot of people worried about that. That does not bother me at all. I know a lot of Catholics. I love Catholics. But Sotomayor, she’s a Catholic. She doesn’t have a clear record on abortion. Overturning Roe v. Wade, whoa, it would be huge. I don’t know if it would ever happen, but the opportunity to get someone like her, I could see a possibility of supporting this nomination if I could be convinced she does have a sensibility toward life — in a legal sense, of course, in a real sense.’ So, eh, I think people are beginning to stand down a little bit. Maybe they thought that they went overboard.

RUSH: So Andrea Mitchell, MSNBC, is accusing me of ‘standing down’ here. I’m not standing down. I’m pointing out something I think I might have learned. I’m not yet certain.

Okay. How about this, folks. You tell me if this is an accident. ‘The federal government mistakenly made public a 266-page report, its pages marked ‘highly confidential,’ that gives detailed information about hundreds of the nation’s civilian nuclear sites and programs, including maps showing the precise locations of stockpiles of fuel for nuclear weapons.’ This is unbelievable. This is an accident? This is a mistake? And these are the people who are soon to be in charge of our health care, and they ‘mistakenly’ put nuclear information like this on the Internet? ‘The publication of the document was revealed Monday in an online newsletter devoted to issues of federal secrecy. … On Tuesday evening, after inquiries from [the state-run media], the document was withdrawn from a Government Printing Office Web site.’ A mistake? Wow.

(laughing) I’ll tell you… (interruption) What do you mean ‘talking about eating my words’? (interruption) You are kidding me. Let me clue you in, folks. We just played for you, Andrea Mitchell reading my comments on Sotomayor and my potential support if she’s documented to be pro-life. Now they just played the audio sound bite of my saying that (the video, the Dittocam video) and then she said, ‘Talk about eating your words,’ as though I have pulled a big 180 and retracted here. (laughing) Andrea… Sorry. Andrea, you’re not watching. Producers for Andrea Mitchell, you need to tell her.

I have not retracted my charge that she’s a racist and a bigot. I have not ‘eaten my words.’ You’re missing the fundamental part of the story. Gosh, this is a pro-life racist, and I’m saying, ‘If she’s a pro-life racist I may have to change my view.’ What is so hard to understand? You know, the state-run media is unbelievable! They hear what they want to hear. As though it matters that I might support Sotomayor. As though it matters. Well, maybe it does. Wait ’til you hear this next series of sound bites. Yeah, whoever is producing for Andrea Mitchell, MSNBC, you tell her what I just said. She might be a pro-life racist. She is a racist, and she would bring racism and bigotry to the court. I have not withdrawn anything.

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RUSH: This racial business, she has a fixation on being Latina, Hispanic. It’s been counted. Her speech on diversity at Berkeley that has this quote that everybody focused on, that was printed by La Raza, specifically she mentions ‘Latina’ 39 times in that speech, ‘Hispanic’ six times, and ‘Puerto Rican’ six times. Her Wikipedia entry mentions ‘Latino’ 30 times, ‘Hispanic’ 17 times, and ‘Puerto Rican’ 24 times. Now, I’ve been on the radio for 20-plus years. Quick, Brian, you’ve been here for about ten of them. How many times in ten years have I referred to myself as white? I don’t remember one time referring to myself as white. I have called Paul Shanklin a white comedian. Yeah, because the Drive-Bys did. I have called myself an American. I am guilty of that. My heritage, Dutch and German, but I’ve not said I’m Dutch and German. She’s fixated on it, folks. That’s how she’s been taught.

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RUSH: I just don’t want to you to repeat this. This is just between us, but rarely has something worked so well, so soon. This is amazing. We go to the audio sound bites, now. Shhhhh! Don’t tell anybody else, but this is working like a charm. We go to state-run MSNBC, two sound bites.

BREWER: First Newt Gingrich! Now Rush Limbaugh. Some conservatives starting to eat their words! They called Sonia Sotomayor a ‘racist,’ and now it looks like perhaps warming to her nomination.

RUSH ARCHIVE: I can see a possibility of supporting this nomination if I could be convinced that she does have a sensibility toward life in a legal sense, of course, in a real sense.

RUSH: State-run MSNBC mere moments ago. Also mere moments ago, the same infobabe, Contessa Brewer, had a guest, Barbara Boxer, California, senator. Question: ‘Rush Limbaugh says he’s not retracting his racist comment. That being said, is anything of a tangible substance that the Republicans can pin on Sonia Sotomayor to try to block this confirmation?’

BOXER: Well, I would hope they don’t approach this nominee with the idea of blocking her. I would hope they would approach this nominee —

RUSH: Wait a minute! Stop, stop. Hold it. Recue that. This is just unbelievable. Their entire philosophy is to block conservative Republican nominees regardless. What is…? Let me find it here. Well, let me play the sound bite in its entirety. So the first bite, Rush Limbaugh ‘eating his words.’ Then they say, ‘No, not quite eating his words, and then they ask Barbara Boxer about me. I was a bulletin here.

BOXER: Well, I would hope they don’t approach this nominee with the idea of blocking her. I would hope they would approach this nominee in a way as a welcoming to the Senate. You know, let’s hear from her. Let’s hear what her story is. Let’s look at her record, and hopefully they can join us and support her. She has more qualification than anyone who’s been appointed to the bench in the last hundred years.

RUSH: Did you hear that?

BOXER: She has so many cases to go over. She’s a mainstream jurist, an incredible life story — and as I say, I think to approach her from the standpoint of, ‘How can we stop her?’ is a very sad way to approach a nominee.

RUSH: ‘She has more qualification than anyone who’s been appointed to the bench in the last 100 years’? Barbara Boxer said that? ‘She has so many cases to go over. She’s a mainstream jurist, incredible life story’? We all have an incredible life story. Thomas Sowell. Let me find this. Where’s my Sotomayor stack? Thomas Sowell today has an excellent point on this. He writes, ‘As the [state-run] media circles the wagons around Judge Soto…’ Well, he didn’t say ‘state-run.’ He said ‘mainstream,’ but I’m editorializing because I can. ‘As the [state-run] media circles the wagons around Judge Sonia Sotomayor to protect her from the consequences of her own words and deeds, its main arguments are distractions from the issue at hand. A CNN reporter, for example, got all worked up because Rush Limbaugh had used the word ‘racist’ to describe the judge’s words.

‘Since it has been repeated like a mantra that Judge Sotomayor’s words have been ‘taken out of context,’ let us look at Rush Limbaugh in context. The cold fact is that Rush Limbaugh has not been nominated to sit on the highest court in the land, with a lifetime appointment, to have the lives and liberties of 300 million Americans in his hands. Whatever you may think about his choice of words, those words and the ideas behind them do not change the law of the [United States]. The words and actions of Supreme Court justices do. Anyone who doesn’t like what Rush Limbaugh says can simply turn off the radio or change the station,’ even though nobody ever does. ‘But you cannot escape the consequences of Supreme Court decisions. Nor will your children or grandchildren.’ Thomas Sowell. That’s… I don’t need to add anything to it, other than to say it is typically brilliant.

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RUSH: Rick in Naperville, Illinois, great to have you with us, sir. Hello.

CALLER: Hey, Rush, hundred percent favorable ratings and dittos from socialist-occupied Chicago.

RUSH: Yeah, thank you, sir. Yes.

CALLER: I’m not among those, so don’t count me in that. But I just wanted to say, qualifications first, but I believe we should only select people for our highest court who identify themselves as Americans, much as you have, without an additional ethnic modifier as to who they are. Now, Sotomayor was born in Brooklyn. I was born in Chicago. My parents were Sicilian. They came here poor, and if I started walking around calling myself, as a male, a Sicilio, what kind of a qualification would that be for anything? It wouldn’t even get you a cup of coffee at Starbucks, I don’t think, or Caribou, let alone nominated to the Supreme Court.

RUSH: Well, no, no, no, don’t make me go there. You mean, if you walked into a place and said, ‘I’m a Sicilian-American,’ what would happen to you? No, I’m not going to answer that. Look, even though I think this show is a dream and it’s not really happening, I’m not going to answer that question.

CALLER: Well, your ethnicity as a qualification. Expecting a positive outcome as qualification of your ethnicity should automatically disqualify you. It’s just as bad as picking someone —

RUSH: She is obsessed with it, like I tell you in that speech in 2001 that she gave at Berkeley, her diversity speech which was printed by La Raza, she mentions ‘Latina’ 39 times, ‘Hispanic’ six times, ‘Puerto Rican’ six times. Her Wikipedia entry mentions ‘Latino’ 30 times, ‘Hispanic’ 17 times, ‘Puerto Rican’ 24 times. She’s fixated on being Latino or Hispanic, she’s fixated on it. I would not not support her just because she’s Latina, no. Look, if this woman, as we suspect, is hiding and trying to mask pro-life sentiments, you’ve got to consider her. That’s all I’m saying.

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