RUSH: Lance Armstrong yesterday and the Oprah Winfrey interview. I wonder — we won’t know this because nobody’s talking about it. We won’t know this until — by the way, a two-parter now, Thursday and Friday. It went so long, 112 questions. That’s how many she prepped and she asked almost all of them. But I’m wondering if Oprah thought to ask Lance Armstrong about his position on gun control and whether or not he’s pro-choice. Because, you know, a few well-chosen answers by Lance Armstrong and he could be home free.
All he’s gotta do is come out and say, “Yep, I’m pro-choice all the way, Oprah! And get rid of guns? Well, yeah!” How can they…? I mean, they’d have to embrace him. What faster way to get back in the good graces of the dominant media culture in this country than to do that? Armstrong could also point out… I just found this out last night. Lance Armstrong won seven Tours de France, and he’s been stripped of all the titles. But do you know that the guys who finished second have not been awarded the titles because they, too, were doping?
The bicycling agencies, authorities are having to look really hard to find anybody who wasn’t doping. So it’s a fair race. It’s one of the things that Lance Armstrong could say. He could say that, and they could give back his titles. I mean, the DOJ (Department of Justice) today might join a whistleblower suit. There is a lawsuit going at Armstrong to claw back all the endorsement money he got, ’cause it is now under false pretense. He cheated. He didn’t really win those contests legitimately. One of his sponsors was the Postal Service and they paid Armstrong 30 mill.
So the Justice Department, they have to decide today or tomorrow. I’m not sure. They gotta decide quick whether they want to join that lawsuit and get their $30 million back. If they do decide that, it will tell us that Armstrong’s a Republican. Eric Holder is not gonna pursue a Democrat like this, but if Armstrong, if they find out… We don’t know. He was gonna run in Texas for governor against Rick Perry, but he’s never really said what he is. But we’ll know.
If the DOJ joins this whistleblower claw-back lawsuit we will have a pretty good idea that Armstrong is a Republican. Now, Oprah has announced that Lance Armstrong admitted to her that he cheated. This ended up being a 2-1/2 hour interview. It’s still not clear whether she cried. He did, but we don’t know whether Oprah did. We don’t know whether Oprah officially forgave him. For that we’re going to have to tune in to the broadcast. Well, it’s probably a safe bet that she cried and I’m told that Lance cried, too.
He better have cried if he expects to be forgiven by low-information voters. On her network, the OWN network that nobody watches… Well, I had to Google search it to find where it is on DirecTV. DirecTV is tough. Their website’s tough to search. It’s really odd, but I found it, and I have set it up. Kathryn wants it recorded so I’ve set it up to record, obviously. But I’m wondering. I watch all this and I’m wondering, “What the rules are here? Are there any crimes that are too big it to be forgiven by crying on Oprah? Is there any limit? Does it work even on homicide?”
If you kill somebody and then you go on Oprah and ask for forgiveness and cry…? Yeah, okay. If you don’t use a gun it could work for homicide. Is this really…? We joke that you go on Oprah for absolution. Every celebrity that gets in trouble, we joke, goes on Oprah. The joke is now real life. All you have to do is say, “Forgive me, Oprah, for I have sinned.” It’s a state religion: The OWN network. Now, according to TMZ (and they should know), “Oprah says she prepared 112 questions for the interview, and got through most of them. Oprah says ‘there were times’ Lance got emotional, but she didn’t drop details.
“Oprah says she was so tough with her questioning, that Lance asked her to lighten up. After the interview, Oprah says both she and Lance were exhausted and satisfied.” Well, I was gonna say, “Yikes!” to that. TMZ said that Oprah and Lance were both “exhausted and satisfied.” That’s like too much information. TMZ says, “Lance’s lawyers were NOT in the room during the interview,” and, “Oprah suggests Lance’s people leaked details about the interview to the AP.” I have a couple of sound bites here. This is Oprah. She was on CBS This Morning. She was on with Gayle King, her “best friend forever,” BFF. It’s an interview about the interview, and Gayle King said to Oprah, “Tell us, tell people, how did you get this interview?”
WINFREY: I stayed over an extra two days in order to accommodate his schedule. And, uh, he came to visit me in Maui. He lives on another island.
KING: (laughing)
WINFREY: I had nobody in the house, including, you know, people who usually are there for help and, uh, you know, even the people who do the lawn. I removed all those people.
RUSH: So there is Oprah, ladies and gentlemen, describing the personal hardship that she went through to get this interview. She had to stay two extra days in Hawaii at her mansion in Maui because Lance lives on a different island over there. Then she had to get rid of the servants! It was a real, real hardship. Oprah wanted to make sure that everybody knew how hard she worked and how committed she was to getting this interview. Then Gayle King said, “Well, it’s being described, Oprah, as an emotional interview for Lance.”
WINFREY: Well, I would say there were a couple of times where he was emotional. But “emotional” doesn’t begin to describe the intensity or the difficulty that I think that he experienced in talking about some of these things. I would say, you know, all the people who are wondering if he actually goes there and answers? I think that you will come away to understanding that he brought it. He really did.
RUSH: Um, “He brought it?” He brought it? That means he opened up, right? It means he delivered. Brought his A game. Okay. It means he delivered. If you’re “wondering if he actually goes there and answers…” Well, we would hope so. I mean, you’re the freaking Oprah! It’s 2-1/2 hours. If he didn’t, what was the point?
BREAK TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: Dr. Keith Ablow, a well-known psychiatrist at Tufts University School of Medicine, was on Fox this morning. He was asked to diagnose Lance Armstrong’s lying.
ABLOW: “Who does that?” Well, the Lance Armstrongs and Bernie Madoffs of our world, right, who are willing to perpetrate Ponzi schemes or false athletic careers because the need is so great. Somewhere deep inside Lance Armstrong is a battered person. He must be loved by millions or he is unloved or unworthy and has no value at all. That kind of fuel will keep a man lying, because to turn around and face whatever happened in his life… We know some of the things: abandoned at age two by a father he has nothing to do with; a stepfather then coming into his life. He has nothing to do with him.
REPORTER: So, Dr. Ablow —
ABLOW: Bad things happened to this guy and he won’t look at it.
RUSH: Oh, wow. So Lance Armstrong is a “battered person” who must be loved by millions or he’s unloved and unworthy, no value to, that kind of fuel keeps a guy lying. Does that sound like anybody you know? Somebody that has to be adored, has to be the focus of attention in the room? Does that sound like anybody you know? (interruption) Clinton. I was thinking Clinton. Maybe Obama, but certainly Clinton. This is amazing. So then the question, “Well, look, is this a specific disorder, Doctor? Some people are throwing around terms like ‘narcissism.’ Does he fall into that category, Lance Armstrong?”
ABLOW: This is somebody who will lie to a camera, who will throw people under the bus who thought that they were his friends. Sure, there might be a diagnosis that can describe that, but it won’t tell us a story of this little boy who came to believe that the truth has no value and nobody will help you and you ought not help anyone else.
RUSH: That’s Keith Ablow on Fox today describing Lance Armstrong from afar. He’s not one of his patients.
BREAK TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: So back to Keith Ablow for a second and the analysis of Lance Armstrong. He is what he is ’cause his father abandoned him. He’s a liar. He is just totally dependent on being loved and adored by everybody, not just a couple or three people. He’s gotta be loved and adored by everybody, and if he’s not, then he’s got no self-worth at all. This is Keith Ablow’s analysis. Well, Obama’s father abandoned him as we all know and Clinton’s father abandoned him. As I say, Armstrong, we’ll have to watch this Oprah interview, but if he came out against guns and for gun control, and if he somehow snuck it in there that he’s pro-choice, he’s got a leg up in being forgiven here by the dominant media culture.
Related Links