RUSH: This is gonna be close to my all-time favorite or this is close to my all-time favorite. I can’t say it is my all-time favorite ’cause I don’t remember them all, but this is clearly in the top five. On April 29th, Lesley Stahl, 60 Minutes, interviewed Jose Rodriguez who is the chief interrogator of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed at Club Gitmo. And I love this bite because, as I listen to it, I firmly believe that Jose Rodriguez knows exactly who he’s dealing with and is having fun with her and she doesn’t know it.
He knows he’s talking to somebody who thinks raising your voice at somebody is torture. He knows he’s dealing with somebody who thinks that he committed atrocities and crimes. So he describes the harmless activities he engaged in with Sheikh Mohammed as “dire techniques,” these “dire techniques.” That’s my favorite line in this bite: “Oh, yes, it was one of those dire techniques.” Here it is, her question. “So what happens? Did the Sheikh break down? Does he cry? Does he fall apart after your waterboarding?”
RODRIGUEZ: No. He gets a good night’s sleep. He gets his Ensure. By the way, he was very heavy when he came to us and he lost 50 pounds.
STAHL: What, his Ensure? You mean like people in the hospital who will drink that stuff?
RODRIGUEZ: Yes. Dietary manipulation was part of these dire techniques.
STAHL: So sleep deprivation, dietary manipulation, I mean, this is Orwellian stuff. The United States doesn’t do that.
RODRIGUEZ: Well, we do.
RUSH: “Well, we do.” (laughing)
“Dietary manipulation was part of these dire techniques.” Dietary manipulation! Ensure. A product that keeps cancer patients alive in the hospital considered “torture” by Lesley Stahl. And I think Jose Rodriguez knew it and when he calls “dietary manipulation … part of the dire techniques,” he was taunting her and she didn’t even know it! So I pointed this out. We played it two or three times, maybe more. We played it again just now. This past Thursday in New York City at the New-York Historical Society, they had a panel discussion there about the 2012 presidential race. The moderator… (interruption) Snerdley, stop screening for a minute. You gotta listen to this in case we get phone calls about it. New-York Historical Society on Thursday, Lesley Stahl moderating a panel discussion on the 2012 presidential race, said this about the campaign and the media…
STAHL: Here’s something that’s happened over the last couple of years that’s frustrating to me, and that is when you say “we, the press” and then the press is this big salad bowl, and who’s in the press? It’s Rush Limbaugh is in the press. Fox is in the press. MSNBC. I mean, all these people who are devoting themselves to little slices of the pie are in with the so-called “mainstream media.” We’re all the same thing now to the public. We’re not the same thing.
RUSH: Awww. See, they used to have a monopoly. And now the monopoly is gone. And I’m a now considered to be in the same business as Lesley Stahl. I can’t tell you how insulted I am. That’s right: A little slice of the pie. All these people have little slices of the pie. I would dare say that the EIB Network rivals CBS News, CBS Evening News. I’d say our audience is larger than the CBS Evening News is. I don’t think there’s any question about it if you want to start talking about slice of the pie.
But that’s not the point.
The point is, I am the turd in the salad bowl. That’s what the point is. I am the [Baby Ruth] in the swimming pool at Caddy Shack. And she just can’t stand it because the salad used to be pure and clean and now, ladies and gentlemen, their monopoly has been destroyed. And it’s no longer ABC, CBS, NBC, the New York Times and the Washington Post manipulating the minds of the American people. Now there’s too much freedom in the media. But I guarantee you I got mentioned first because I keep playing this sound bite with Jose Rodriguez that “dietary manipulation” is part of their “dire techniques.”
I love it.
I just love it.