RUSH: Okay. So I had this unstated New Year’s resolution. I didn’t tell anybody about it. I didn’t even tell Kathryn about it. Just very private, unstated New Year’s resolution, and it very simply was to become more low profile, to not get noticed. I had as an objective to not be discussed every day by the Drive-By Media. It was just a simple New Year’s resolution. All I wanted to do was keep a low profile. You know, just you and me three hours here every day and when it’s over, it’s over. We come back the next day, and we do it again.
I’m trying. I’m doing everything I can to do this low profile stuff, and it’s not working. CNN devoted most of their busy broadcast day to me yesterday. Well, Ali Velshi, the economist guy was a little ticked off that I called him a low-information reporter on the debt limit discussion. So he defended himself on that and told everybody why I was wrong and how I don’t understand anything.
And then this one I really don’t understand. Soledad O’Brien gathered a bunch of people to talk about my discussion on pedophilia. All I did was quote from a liberal newspaper in the UK, the Guardian. That’s all I did. Well, I did one other thing. I said, “Remember where you were when you heard –” think of some outrageous social custom that’s bitten the dust. “– when you first heard that something might happen, like gay marriage, when you first heard gay marriage, what did you think? ‘Ah, it’ll never happen,’ versus where are we now?” I said, “Here we go.” The SUV. The Sierra Club back in 1997 said they wanted to ban the SUV to save the planet, I warned you SUV owners you’re gonna become targeted. You pooh-poohed. What happened?
So a big UK liberal newspaper, mainstream — not some fringe supermarket thing, but a mainstream left-wing newspaper with a huge, long story on how pedophilia is normal and should be considered normal, and quoting academics. And all of a sudden CNN discusses it as though I’m making the assertion. We got the audio sound bites. But the point is I had this unstated New Year’s resolution, gonna be low profile. I think you’ll have to admit here, folks — well, you may not have to admit it, but I never try to get noticed anyway. It just happens. I never try. I’m not somebody that likes fame. I do not live and die by whether or not I see my name in the paper or hear myself discussed. In fact, just the exact opposite.
Now, most people would say, “Rush, if they stop talking about you, it means nobody’s interested anymore.” That’d be fine with me, because I know that you’re here no matter what and you all in this audience are what matters. So I got the audio sound bites on this stuff, and I might deign to play it. But you know me: I don’t like making this show about me, so I don’t know whether I’m gonna play those sound bites or not. But here. First time I mentioned what I’m gonna mention to you was probably in November of last year, and it might have been even further back than that, a little longer ago than that.
But during a discussion of where the country is going, where we are culturally, the expansion of the welfare state, I warned you, I said, “Next up to happen will be somebody on the left asking this question: ‘Why should there be profit in making people well? Why should there be profit in making people healthy? Why should doctors and nurses and hospitals make a profit?'” That seems, to the left, to be counterproductive and even counterintuitive. We all should be healthy. And we are not doctors, so we have to go to doctors and nurses and hospitals to make ourselves well. Why should they profit? I warned you that this was coming. And it was probably greeted with the usual pooh-pooh. “Ah, there you go, Rush, exaggerating, coming up with all this extreme stuff.”
I mention this to you, because here’s CNN on the warpath claiming — I don’t know what they’re claiming. I haven’t listened to the sound bites. I just read the transcripts of this pedophilia business. I can’t help it. It shows up in a left-wing newspaper, I tell you what’s in it. And by the way, the academics — oh, you know what really upset ’em at CNN was that I drew a connection to homosexuality in it. Well, so does the piece. That’s why I did it. The Guardian piece does that. Anyway, I’ll explain as we get to that segment.
BREAK TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: Now, I mentioned, ladies and gentlemen, at the top of the program that I had a New Year’s resolution that I didn’t tell anybody about, and it was to become less known, lower profile, not as high profile. I don’t think it’s working. I mean, it did for a while, but I was probably the number one subject discussed outside of normal, everyday news events on CNN yesterday.
One was Ali Velshi, their economics wizard firing back at me for calling him a “low-information reporter” on the debt limit deal. I also simply quoted from a story in the UK Guardian, which is a mainstream liberal newspaper in the UK. It’s not a fringe publication. It’s not a weekly, not a tabloid, not a supermarket thing. It is a daily, mainstream UK publication. They had a story about the normalization of pedophilia.
They had quotes from studies and a survey and people that did it, and they had quotes from academics, and they said that pedophilia is normal. It ought to be seen for what it is. It’s just a new and different sexual orientation, and it is not harmful. In fact — if the kids are treated openly, upfront and honestly in it — it can actually benefit them, because love is love and wherever you find it is good.
So I make mention of this, and I also talked about homosexuality as part of it.
I asked you, as I was telling you this, “You’re sitting out there saying, ‘Come on, this is never going to happen. This is ridiculous. What kind of perversion is this?'” And I asked you to remember exactly what your first thoughts were when you were first hit with the idea of gay marriage, and you probably thought, “That will never happen. Oh, that’s so out of the mainstream, that will never happen,” and now it’s commonplace, normal, and is now taking place — and — will in the National Cathedral.
They’re gonna perform gay marriage there, and it is going to be become something that happens in all 50 states. It will happen. So because of that, CNN saw fit to get righteously indignant and outraged. Soledad O’Brien convened a panel to discuss this and to pooh-pooh me and it. It happened today, actually, on CNN’s Starting Point. We have a portion here of Christine Romans, the business reporter, who got all of this started.
ROMANS: (bouncy music) Rush Limbaugh is speaking out against what he calls a — a liberal attempt to normalize pedophilia. (snorts) The conservative radio host says it could be the next step for those who support gay marriage. Limbaugh cited a column in the UK’s Guardian newspaper that quotes academic researchers who claim pedophilia is a distinct sexual orientation, and Limbaugh says the media went easy on Elmo puppeteer Kevin Clash who lost his job on Sesame Street after several men came forward saying they had sexual relationships with Clash when they were teenagers.
RUSH: Now, that’s the setup. They used their business reporterette to set it up, and I’m sure you heard the sigh in this sound bite. “Rush Limbaugh speaking out against what he calls a liberal attempt to normalize pedophilia… (sigh)” and then she went on. And then everything she said happened to be true. “The conservative radio host says it could be the next step for those who support gay marriage,” ’cause that’s what the story says. “Limbaugh cited a column in the UK Guardian newspaper –” Yep, I did. “– that quotes academic researchers –” it does “– who claim pedophilia is a distinct sexual orientation.” They do. I didn’t make any of this up. I didn’t make up a syllable of it. We linked to this story at RushLimbaugh.com if you want to read it yourself.
An then I pointed out that the media went easy on the Elmo puppeteer, Kevin Clash, who lost his job on Sesame Street after what, a minimum of three men came forward saying he had abused them on the show when they were teenagers. I pointed out that the story didn’t get much attention. In fact, as each new instance was reported, there was sadness. “Oh, it’s so sad that this had to happen on Sesame Street and not on some evangelist preacher’s show.” But there wasn’t any outrage about it. So that’s the setup. But everything they say happened. What got their goat is that I was the one who said it.
If this had been discussed by Anderson Cooper, then they would celebrate Anderson Cooper. And if Anderson Cooper had done exactly what I did and just quoted the Guardian, they would have talked about it as revolutionary news or what have you. But because I brought it up, and why are they upset that it is I who brought it up? Because they think and they worry that I’m effective in persuading people. So after Christine Romans, the business reporterette, does that set-up, then we had a discussion with Soledad O’Brien. She had the Obama campaign traveling press secretary Jen Psaki, a New Yorker magazine correspondent, Ryan Lizza, to talk about this.
PSAKI: Why is he talking about pedophilia? ItÂ’s not exactly like thereÂ’s a massive movement talking about pedophilia.
O’BRIEN: Or normalizing pedophilia.
PSAKI: Right. Exactly.
LIZZA: Yeah, it seems to me that the movement here is to equate pedophilia in some way…
O’BRIEN: With gay marriage.
LIZZA:…with gay marriage.
PSAKI: Right, or…
LIZZA: That’s what he’s up to here…
O’BRIEN: Right.
LIZZA: …which is absurd.
O’BRIEN: WeÂ’re trying to understand the mind of Rush Limbaugh this morning (laughs) which is a…
PSAKI: A hard thing to break into.
O’BRIEN: Scary proposition.
RUSH: Well, it’s not that hard to figure out, you guys. The Politico, by the way, also had a piece that ragged on me for comparing the increasing acceptance of pedophilia. Listen, it’s not my fault. The UK Guardian is one of these people’s favorite newspapers. It’s a left-wing publication in the UK. They’re the ones that did the story on the normalization of pedophilia. They’re the ones that went out found academics to say that it’s just another sexual orientation. They are the ones that did the story on how it can actually be helpful for children. I just told you about it.
I didn’t write it. I didn’t conceive it. Pedophilia wasn’t even on my mind until I started doing the show prep for yesterday’s program and saw it. Now, the Guardian article itself makes a very similar comparison. The Guardian quoted the person in charge of one of the pedophilia studies. Her name is Sarah Goode, G-o-o-d-e. Here’s the quote: “The reclassification of pedophilia as a sexual orientation would, however, play into what Goode calls the sexual liberation discourse, which has existed since the seventies. There are a lot of people, she says, who say we outlawed homosexuality and we were wrong. Perhaps we’re wrong about pedophilia.” She made the connection to gays. The story makes the connection to gays.
I didn’t compare pedophilia to gay marriage. All I said was, to those of you who are hearing this — i.e., pedophilia is normal — realize that it’s in a liberal publication and it’s an advocacy story. They’re advocating for it here. Or the people they quote are. It’s the purpose of the study. I didn’t make any of this up. There are people advocating for classifying pedophilia as normal, they did a study. A lot of people. The results of the study. I simply asked you to think what was your first reaction when you heard first about gay marriage? And I said you’re probably having the same reaction here. And gay marriage is now standard, normal operating procedure. This could be, too. Once the left gloms onto something, once they have a cause, they don’t let go of it.
If you people at CNN can’t understand my mind, all it means is that I know yours better than you do. All it means is that I know the liberal mind better than you know it. I’m not that hard to understand. I say what I mean. I don’t speak in code. That’s why I am a star and ace communicator. Everybody knows what I mean when I say it. So there’s one more bite here. This is Ryan Lizza. They brought on a senator, Ron Johnson, from Wisconsin. And after O’Brien said that bit about trying to understand my mind and what a scary thing that is, they thought they would ask this senator about it.
O’BRIEN: Senator, Rush Limbaugh and pedophilia, a nice, easy topic for a senator. What do you got?
JOHNSON: Not gonna happen.
PSAKI: We have no comment on this, Soledad, next?
JOHNSON: Let’s talk about the budget.
RUSH: Let’s talk about the budget. Right. So we did that yesterday as well, too, which CNN also took issue with. But in my effort here to stay low profile and become less high profile, it doesn’t seem it works no matter what I do to try not to get noticed. All I did was tell you what was in a left-wing newspaper in the UK. I just read the story and they can’t figure out what’s in my mind.
BREAK TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: Let me read you one other thing from this Guardian piece here. Quote: “Social perceptions do change. Child brides were once the norm; in the late 16th century the age of consent in England was 10.” Which is exactly my point. Social perceptions do change. I just happened to use gay marriage as an example, and that’s what really bugged ’em at CNN, because gay marriage is sacrosanct to the Drive-Bys. Gay marriage is the new escape from slavery for the civil rights crowd. Well, not the civil rights crowd. For the hip left. Gay marriage is up from slavery in the same sense of punishment or discrimination or what have you.
I’ll tell you something else in this Guardian piece. There wasn’t one source that they went and spoke to that condemned it. There wasn’t one source in the piece that was critical of pedophilia. So my mind is not hard to understand. It’s probably one of the easiest in the world if you’re honest with yourself.
BREAK TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: Okay, so here’s Soledad O’Brien of CNN, who cannot do an interview without crib notes from bloggers — she cannot do an interview with somebody opposite her worldview without help — and she’s wondering about how my mind works. Now, what does it say about the so-called reporters, journalists, the best of the best? What does it say about these so-called reporters that they couldn’t figure out what I was saying when all I was doing was reading from a story from the UK Guardian?
If they couldn’t figure that out, they probably can’t figure out most things. Maybe what CNN needs to do is find some people who have comprehension skills. This was not hieroglyphics. I was simply reading from a newspaper article in Great Britain. As I say, obviously their problem is that I was the one talking about it. They just have a problem with me. Which is fine. It’s a badge of honor and all that stuff. But it still is amazing.
There probably is nobody better at communicating and more open about what I believe –and who’s explanatory about it and why I believe what I believe — than I am. Yeah, it’s like they got mad at the “Magic Negro”‘ thing. All I was doing was quoting from an LA Times story and they acted like I wrote it. Which is probably what they’re doing here, thinking I made all this up or made up half of it. Anyway, it’s funny; it’s hilarious.
CNN.
It’s a reason why they’ve got a hundred thousand viewers, because really they’ve got idiots in positions of prominence there.