RUSH: Obama has thrown down the gauntlet. Last night, CNN’s Situation Room, he was on with Wolf Blitzer. And Blitzer says, ‘McCain says this, for example. ‘I think it’s very clear who Hamas wants to be the next president of the United States. I think that people should understand that I will be Hamas’ worst nightmare. Senator Obama is favored by Hamas. I think people can make judgments accordingly.”
OBAMA: This is offensive, and I think it’s disappointing because John McCain always says, ‘Well, I’m not going to run that kind of politics,’ and then to engage in that kind of, you know, smear I think is — is unfortunate, particularly since my policy towards Hamas has been no different than his. For him to toss out comments like that I think is an example of him losing his bearings as he pursues this nomination.
RUSH: Oooh! You know how to translate that, ladies and gentlemen. Do you know what losing his bearings means? It means he’s an old codger who is nuts, maybe on the verge of senility. That’s how you translate that. But here’s the truth of this, because I, ladies and gentlemen, want to come to the defense of Senator McCain. (doing McCain impression) ‘Limbaugh no, no, don’t do it, don’t come to my defense! It will hurt me.’ I have to, Senator, I have to. Because the Hamas guys did say that they would love to see Obama be elected president; that Obama reminded them of JFK, and Obama accepted the compliment! This is what we were talking about in the previous hour. So Obama has accepted the praise from the Hamas leader, thanked him for it. McCain simply says, ‘Wow, that’s pretty good, I’ll comment on that. Very clear who Hamas wants to be the next president.’ Obama comes along and totally smears McCain for engaging in dirty politics.
Now, this is how messiahs operate. Messiahs can say and do whatever they want. If you call them on what they’ve said or if you remind people of what they’ve said — yesterday, the definition of an attack on a Democrat is to tell the truth about them. The Drive-Bys, the media, the Democrats have defined attacks on Democrats as telling the truth about them. That’s all McCain did here. He simply told the truth. So it’s okay, it’s okay for Obama — in fact, it’s okay for Hamas to say they love Obama, it’s okay for Obama to say thanks to Hamas. It’s not okay for McCain to point it out. When McCain points it out, he becomes an old guy losing his bearings and he said he wasn’t going to campaign like this, said he wasn’t going to engage in this kind of politics. ‘I am so sad to see Senator McCain losing his bearings like this.’ And of course McCain is sitting out there head spinning trying to figure out how to deal with this. Because in all of this, McCain thinks he’s running an honorable campaign. So he’s running an honorable campaign, here’s Obama calling him an old fogy that doesn’t know which way is which and saying he’s engaged in smear politics, which is the way the Democrats have defined him. I warned ’em, I told the McCain camp yesterday and I’ve told them a number of times, they have no clue what’s coming their way. They really don’t, and this is nothing. This is zilch compared to what’s going to be fired at McCain once we get to the general.
BREAK TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: You know, this business here that Obama says that McCain, (paraphrasing) ‘Hey, that’s gutter politics, that’s smear politics, I can’t believe he’s lost his bearings to the point that he would say that about me and Hamas,’ when in fact it was David Axelrod, his campaign guy, who thanked Hamas, supported Hamas for their endorsement of Obama and talked about how appreciative they were and perceptive Hamas was that Obama reminds them of JFK in 1960. Of course, there’s no comparison whatsoever. JFK had tons more experience than Obama has at this stage of his career. But the whole thing is no different than his middle name. Can’t say Hussein, can’t say Barack Hussein Obama. He doesn’t want that middle name mentioned so we’re not supposed to do that. And we can’t call him a liberal. No, no, no, no. Not supposed to call Obama liberal. That’s an attack. Using his middle name is an attack, and now reminding people of the Hamas endorsement, why, that’s an attack, that’s dirty politics. This is how messiahs operate. Everything’s off limits. The messiah can say whatever he wants, do whatever he wants, go wherever he wants, see whoever he wants. You comment on anything he’s done, said, been, or seen, and you are engaging in dirty politics. And the Drive-Bys are right there to support him on it because they’re in the tank for him.