RUSH: I actually think as everybody’s trying to figure out what happened in Boston, who did it, and why, let me just say something here at the top on this.
I have stated countless times — there’s nothing new today — I have stated countless times, the left politicizes everything. You recall me saying this. You recall me offering evidence of this. And they already are. I mean, yesterday, within moments of this happening, the left began to politicize it and began drooling, in some cases, and I’ve got the examples, drooling over the possibility that a right-wing extremist in the same vein as Timothy McVeigh did this. You see, it would be very bad, bad, bad for the regime if it turned out that that Saudi national was responsible. It would be very, very bad for Obama and the regime, believe me.
Folks, some of this might seem unsettling, but I don’t know any other way to do this. I mean, I can’t come in here and fake it. I react to what I hear, and when I hear the people, the institutions, the principles I believe in under assault, I’m gonna stand up and defend ’em. I can’t come in here and fake it even for a day, and I’m telling you that the effort is on to politicize this. You may have heard many of the efforts that some in the Drive-By Media, what is called the mainstream media, have already begun speculating. Already; they began immediately speculating and hoping. I kid you not. And I’ll give you examples of this as the program unfolds.
I don’t think you can rule out that we’re in an economic disaster in this country. There are people who are at their wits’ end over what to do economically. They can’t find work, can’t find a job, no apparent hope of it. This leads to all kinds of anger and chaos. So I wouldn’t rule out the fact that the sociology of a depressed and in-ruins economy is leading to all kinds of frustration in all kinds of people all over this country. Now, nobody knows what happened.
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RUSH: Now, no one knows at this time who’s responsible for the bombs in Boston. Yesterday the president made a point of not calling it terror. Today he did. His former campaign aide, now commentator at MSNBC, says it’s probably related to tax day. Another bunch of people, a whole bunch of people from the left are saying, “Well, you know, it was Patriots Day.” One guy actually said, somebody at Slate or Salon or some such place, might have been somebody at CNN. Let me separate the papers here. Some guy named Paul Fisher (paraphrasing), “Today’s Patriots Day, important day to militia movements in our country, the same day Tim McVeigh chose to bomb Oklahoma City.”
These tweets and these items of speculation are all over Twitter and Facebook and the mainstream media. And nobody knows at this time who’s responsible. At least if they do know, they haven’t said so. In a vacuum like this, you’re gonna have all kinds of people try to fill it. So if they say they don’t know who it is you’re gonna have people say, “Oh, yes, they do. They know exactly who it is, and because of the political nature of these people, they’re gonna hold the information ’til they can make it as useful to them as possible.” Now, whether that’s right or wrong, the fact that a large enough number of people think that is a testament to how politicized virtually everything in this country has become.
Nobody knows at this time who’s responsible for the bombs in Boston. Who planned, who executed the act of terror? Where did the terrorists come from? Are they Americans? Did they come from somewhere else? How’d they get here? Student visa is an avenue being discussed. What are we gonna do if we find out that one or more terrorists crossed our border undetected? What are we gonna do? What are we gonna do if we find out that it is Al-Qaeda? What are we gonna do if we find out it’s homegrown domestic terror?
By the way, the Oklahoma City was April 19th, not the 15th. So this whole Patriots Day comparison to Timothy McVeigh is all wet anyway. But I’ve got a whole list, I’ve got sound bites here of people speculating on the fact that it’s a right-wing Tea Party group that did this, just like every other act of terror. The mainstream media doesn’t wait, they start launching. I’m making a point of this because I don’t want anybody accusing me of politicizing this. What do I do here? I simply get up every day, I look at and I absorb, I see the people, the traditions, the institutions I believe in under assault, and I stand up and defend ’em.
“How do you do that, Mr. Limbaugh?”
Okay, I’ll give you an example. Has anybody blamed a video for this? What, is that too impolitic to say? The president didn’t blame a video for this? Really? Like he did in Benghazi? There’s not a video that worked somebody up into a frenzy that caused this?
“Mr. Limbaugh, why are you saying that?”
Hey, I’m just joining the circus here. I didn’t lead off with this stuff. How about this: You know this is how Bill Ayers got his start? Bill Ayers is now responsible for educating American kids. He got his start blowing up the Pentagon. Ditto his wife, Bernardine Dohrn. We just learned that Kathy Boudin, who murdered a cop, is now a professor at Columbia. So could we say that whoever did this has just helped their effort to get hired by a major university?
Could we?
I mean, it’s how Bill Ayers got his start. It’s how Kathy Boudin got her start. There are a bunch of celebrated Americans today — former terrorists, Bill Ayers, Kathy Boudin, any number of them — who began just this way, and they are now heralded. They are exalted. The left politicizes everything, but is it untrue to say that this how Bill Ayers got his start? No. Is it untrue to point out that a professor at Columbia did something similar to this?
It was a resume enhancement, apparently, for the American university system. So don’t be surprised. So if the left politicizes everything — which they do and which we’ve documented and which I have further documentation for in this incident now — is it reasonable to ask, “How might the left be calculating this incident to be of the greatest use to them?” ‘Cause everything to them is politics, and the evidence of that is how quickly they launched into trying to blame people like us, folks.
People who I’m simply showing up here and defending. A bunch of people are being maligned, impugned, character assassinated, or assaulted today who had nothing to do with this. We don’t know who did it, just like back in the Sandy Hook first days. Remember all of the news that was wrong? I mean, it was legendary how wrong it was. I mean, inaccurate wrong, and it was all rooted in speculation — and it was rooted in the speculation of hope that there would be a way to advance the left’s political agenda.
So why would this be any different, as far as they are concerned? So all I, El Rushbo, am saying is that my antennae are raised and I’m keeping a sharp eye for this. Let’s see. Peter Bergen, CNN, in a tweet said, “Right-Wing Groups Might Have Something to do with This.” A blogger at the Huffing and Puffington Post, “We don’t know anything yet, of course, but it is Tax Day, and my first thought was all these anti-government groups. But who knows.” Well, yeah, it’s Monday, too, when this happened.
So what happens on Monday that we can blame on right-wingers?
Paul Fisher: “Worth noting today’s Patriots Day, an important day to militia movements in our country, same day (sic) Tim McVeigh chose to bomb Oklahoma City,” except the Oklahoma City bombing was on April the 19th. Nicholas Kristof. Nicholas Kristof at the New York Times: “Explosion is a reminder that ATF needs a director. Shame on Senate Republicans for blocking appointment.”
So what happened in Boston is the Republicans’ fault. Barney Frank is out saying, “No tax cut would have prevented this from happening.” I kid you not, folks. I haven’t said a word. “No tax cut would have prevented this from happening.” So is it appropriate to say, “Is it true this is how Bill Ayers got his start? This is how Bernardine Dohrn got her start. This is how Kathy Boudin got her start. This is how Kathy Boudin got hired as an adjunct professor at Columbia.”
I also am holding here my formerly nicotine-stained fingers (shuffling paper) a piece in the National Journal by Ron Fournier. (He might pronounce it Fourn-i-er. I’m not certain, and I don’t mispronounce it on purpose.) Headline: “Why Boston Bombings Might Be Scarier Than 9/11.” Now, you want to hear this from Ron Fournier, the former White House AP reporter? He might have been the DC bureau chief for AP, I’m not sure, but he was a ranking AP guy.
His theory in this two-page piece is, it’s scarier to kill people “pursuing happiness” such as running a marathon than killing Wall Street employees. It’s all evil! Don’t misunderstand, folks, it’s all evil. But one group is Wall Street or the Pentagon, and the other was people, the marathon. “[T]he Boston attack is notable not for the number of deaths, but for its social significance. It’s one thing –a dastardly, evil thing — to strike symbols of economic and military power,” Wall Street and the Pentagon.
“ItÂ’s another to hit the heart of America. Death at the finish line in Boston makes every place (and everybody) less secure. … They targeted life. They targeted liberty. Now somebody has attacked pursuit of happiness.” I guess the 9/11 attackers were not attacking the pursuit of happiness — and the people that blew up the Pentagon, they were not attacking the pursuit of happiness. He actually says this. “It’s one thing — a dastardly, evil thing — to strike symbols of economic and military power.”
That’s 9/11, and the “symbols” are Wall Street and the Pentagon. Well… (interruption) No, no. No, they’re not people. See, corporations are not people. The left tells us this. Corporations are not people. Wall Street’s not people. The Pentagon’s not people. They are symbols. But the Boston Marathon, the finish line at the Boston Marathon is the heart of America. It’s scarier to kill people pursuing happiness in Boston than killing Wall Street employees or Pentagon employees. I’m just giving you examples, folks, of how this is already being politicized, and it all started yesterday.
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RUSH: Nicholas Kristof of the New York Times: “Explosion in Boston is a reminder that the ATF needs a director. Shame on Senate Republicans for blocking the appointment.” Well, how many of George W. Bush’s cabinet appointees were held up because of the Florida aftermath? How many of Bush’s cabinet appointees were held up? How many vacancies were there unfilled at the time 9/11 happened, at which point we could today blame the Democrats for 9/11, simply learning from the way Kristof is looking at what happened in Boston.
It’s gotta be Republicans’ fault because the ATF is vacant, doesn’t have a leader, doesn’t have a director. I tell you, it’s sickly, sickly absurd. Let’s go to the audio sound bites. CNN, The Lead yesterday afternoon. Jake Tapper spoke with the national security analyst Peter Bergen about the Boston Marathon bombings. Tapper said, “Peter, obviously we don’t want to speculate,” but we will. No, he didn’t say that. I just added that, because that’s what they’re doing. “Peter, obviously we don’t want to speculate.
“We don’t know what this was. But is there reason for people who deal in counter-terrorism to think that this is an act of terrorism? Or suspect it strongly, at least?” Of course it’s terrorism! You have two bombs in pressure cookers with shrapnel in there. They were in pressure cookers in black bags. Of course this is terrorism, regardless who did it. So, “Peter, obviously we don’t want to speculate. We don’t know what this was. But is there reason for people who deal in counter-terrorism to think that this is an act of terrorism? Or suspect it strongly, at least?”
BERGEN: If it was hydrogen peroxide, this is sort of a signature of Al-Qaeda. If it was more conventional explosives, which are much harder to get hold of now, that might be some other kind of, uh, right-wing extremist. We’ve also seen other extremist groups, right-wing groups attacking, for instance — trying to attack — the Martin Luther King parade in Oregon in 2010.
RUSH: Do you know who the most militant extremist groups in America are today, folks? Do you know who it is? Environmental wacko groups are the number one group. They are leftists, and the environmentalist wackos are the number one (or close to it, anyway) terror group. Now, you just heard Mr. Bergen here on CNN. It’s either Al-Qaeda — but we really don’t think so, and we really hope not — or “other” right-wing extremists. Just like the groups that tried to attack the Martin Luther King parade in Oregon in 2010.
The Martin Luther King parade in 2010?
It is just not possible that any left-wing, Occupy Wall Street radicals or environmental radicals or people unhappy with the economy did this. Not even possible, you see.
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RUSH: I was not making it up. Other e-mails say, “Come on, Rush! You’re exaggerating here to make it a point on this Ron Fournier.” I’m not.
Ron Fournier actually said it’s scarier to kill people pursuing happiness than killing the Pentagon or Wall Street. He says it’s all evil, but Wall Street and the Pentagon are just buildings. They’re just symbols. The marathon was people pursuing happiness. That’s worse; that’s scarier. Bombing the Boston Marathon is scarier than bombing Wall Street, scarier than bombing the Pentagon. The Politico just tweeted something. “Did you catch our most-read story? ‘Gun Control Bill in Peril.'”
(Gasp!) Oh, no! Because of this, the gun control bill is in peril. Why would that be? I’ll get into that in mere moments. I’ll tell you what else might be in peril right now is the immigration bill, or it could be the opposite and both could be being set up to be ramrodded through. Back to the audio sound bites. Peter King. Peter King, congressman from New York, was on CNN’s Starting Point this morning. The host John Berman interviewed him, and this is what Peter King said…
KING: One thing positive can come out from this horrible event should be to alert people, especially people in the Congress, that the war against terrorism is far from over. Whether it’s Islamic jihadists or whether it’s, eh, right-wing extremists, no matter it is, they will say use terror. That’s their weapon of choice.
RUSH: So a Republican congressman even holds out the possibility that it was, quote, “right-wing extremists.” Nowhere is anybody talking about the possibility of left-wing extremists — and let me ask you a question, again based on my observation in recent years. If you are a Muslim listening to this program, and it turns out that a Muslim did bomb the Boston Marathon, how do you feel? I dare say that if you are a Muslim, you can be pretty certain, you can rest assured that everybody in the media will circle the wagons and say, “This is not because of Islam. This is a lone bad actor, lone wolf.
“This in no way says anything about Islam. It in no way says anything about Muslims. It’s just a lone nut,” and they will remind us that the vast majority of people denounce this kind of terrorism, the vast majority of Muslims. So if you’re a Muslim and it turns out to be a Muslim bomber, you will be in no way associated with it. Which is fair. However, folks, if you are a conservative out there today, and it turns out that whoever did this has either a real or imagined connection to conservatives?
Everybody in the media will unite to denounce your whole group.
There will not be the same treatment. If this turns out to be some crazy extremist, domestic terrorist, everybody thought to be in that guy’s group is gonna be tarred and feathered as well. And, believe me, that’s what they’re all hoping for on the left. They are the ones saying so. They are the ones indicating that. Not me. Back to the audio sound bites. We have here a montage of media people going out of their way to clear the Saudi student.
It’s exactly what I was just saying. “Hey, hey, hey! No, no, no! It can’t be. Let’s not rush to conclusions here.”
JOE KERNEN: (outdoor noise) It just is weird. It sounds like it could be profiling! They see a Saudi guy…
TAHMAN BRADLEY: (outdoor noise) It’s not clear his connection on this. He’s not a suspect.
BRIAN ROSS: Authorities stressed he is not considered a suspect.
RICH EDSON: (outdoor noise) There’s really nothing yet leading them to believe that there are any serious concerns about him.
PETE WILLIAMS: (outdoor noise) He might turn out to be an innocent bystander.
FRAN TOWNSEND: (outdoor noise) I was told that the Saudi was, eh, completely cooperative.
MEGYN KELLY: A guy from Saudi Arabia, he doesn’t necessarily look like the other guys there. We’ve been trained to sort of do some racial profiling.
RUSH: That’s Megyn Kelly there at the end. She was on Fox this morning. So you see the point? Originally there was a Saudi man. He was caught by bystanders in Boston, he was taken and he was questioned, and the authorities say, “He’s clear. There’s nothing here. He was very cooperative.” The moment that happened, there was a race in the media to make sure that nobody jumped the gun and racially profiled; to make sure nobody thinks this has anything to do with Al-Qaeda, nothing to do with Saudi Arabia, nothing to do with Muslims.
“Let’s just make sure to get that out there right now, front and center,” while at the same time speculating that this has to be some right-wing group. Folks, I’m just reminding you what I do. I get up, I look, I listen, I read. I see the things, the people and institutions I believe in under assault again, and I come here and defend them. I am purely in a defensive posture today, as is the case every day. I’m not attacking anybody.
I’m simply defending what is being said irresponsibly by loads of others. Barney Frank was also on CNN today. The cohost John Berman said, “The response yesterday was so remarkable, congressman. They stopped the marathon midpoint; they calmly moved some 5,000 people from the racecourse. There were moments of chaos right there, but they were able to clear the scene fairly well. What are your impressions of the response here in Boston so far?”
FRANK: Let’s be very grateful that we had a well funded, functioning government. It is very fashionable in America, it has been for some time, to criticize government, to belittle public employees, talk about their pensions, talk about what people think is their excessive health care. Here we saw government in two ways perform very well. I never was, as a member of Congress, one of the cheerleaders for less government, lower taxes. No tax cut would have helped us deal with this or will help us recover. This is very expensive.
RUSH: You believe that? Do you believe what you just heard? “No tax cut would have helped us deal with this or will help us recover. This is very expensive.” What, a tax increase is what we need in response to the Boston Marathon attack? But besides that, forget that. Congressman, what are your impressions of the response so far? The response was amazing. Everybody in Boston forgot everything and simply did what was called for. It was great to see. It was amazing to watch. And so they go to Barney Frank and they ask him about that and it’s a great opportunity to praise everybody in Boston who was involved in keeping level heads, cool heads, getting to the injured as quickly as possible, getting them to the hospital. There was a lot that went right yesterday in the aftermath.
What does he first say? “Let’s be very grateful we had a well funded, functioning government”? This is obscene. “It’s very fashionable in America, it has been for some time, to criticize government, to belittle public employees and their pensions and their excessive health care.” This is the first thing that comes to his mind, Barney Frank, when asked for his impressions of the response in Boston? Don’t ever tell me that these people don’t politicize everything. From the get-go they politicize it. It’s important to me because, folks, as long as we’ve been around we’ve been trying to persuade people to our side of things. And I’ve often thought if we could just somehow convince people that all of this on the left is not big-hearted compassion, but it is pure, raw politics.
It is pure raw ideology. And that if we could make more people understand what liberalism is, what socialism is, how it functions, what its purpose is, then all of this or much of this would be much more easily understood. Let’s be very grateful we had a well funded, functioning government? You mean the doctors? You mean the first responders? You mean the average citizens on the street who did everything they could? It’s just mind-boggling to me here.
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RUSH: Barney Frank, after saying that we should all be grateful for a well funded government, that was his first statement. Asked for his impressions on the response in Boston, Barney Frank told everybody that we need to be grateful for a well-funded government and we need to stop criticizing government people and their pensions and their health care, he said this.
FRANK: We’re not asking people, “Well do you have private health insurance or not? Could you afford this or not?” Maybe the government’s going to have to pay for it. And this is an example of why we need, if we want to be a civilized people, to put some of our resources into a common pool so we are able to deal with this. So on the whole I would say this is a terrible day for our society, but a day when I hope people will understand the centrality of having a government in place with the resources. At a time like this no one thinks about saving pennies.
RUSH: I sit here and I marvel. This guy is living in a real panic over the thought that his precious government might be reduced. Over 150 people are injured, some people died at the Boston Marathon, and Barney Frank, asked for his impressions, starts worrying about tax cuts and making sure that people realize we’re gonna have to put our resources into a common pool so we are able to deal with this and that people understand the centrality of having a government in place with resources.
Say, anybody want to talk about maybe stopping this kind of stuff from happening, as we used to be able to do? The Times Square bomber didn’t succeed. The shoe bomber didn’t succeed. There are a number of attempts that failed. This one didn’t. Barney Frank also said, get this: “I’m saying that if the sequester had gone through and we had not had enough money, we couldn’t be able to do this. I’m making an argument about reality, and that’s the only responsible response.”
Well, but the sequester did go through, and we still had a response. We still had minuscule budget cuts. That’s what he’s worried about. If the sequester had gone through and we had not had enough money, we couldn’t be able to do this. No amount of money or lack of it was gonna stop this response from taking place yesterday. So Barney Frank takes the occasion of this bombing to once again make his pitch for more government spending, more government growth, as they do indeed politicize everything on the left.
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RUSH: You know, folks, about Barney Frank and his unbelievable comment, big federal government redistributing wealth through class warfare has nothing to do with protecting people from terrorists and criminals. Zip, zero, nada. I would think most sane people would view this terror attack as a failure of the federal government, not a success. Barney Frank looks at this as a success, a successful example of the federal government. Really? That’s his takeaway, folks. Don’t doubt me.
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RUSH: Have you noticed that the Drive-Bys are going out of their way, and that the authorities are going out of their way to assure us that this is not Al-Qaeda? “There’s no way it’s Al-Qaeda! It’s not that Saudi guy. No, no, no. Don’t make any connection. That Saudi guy was 100% innocent. He came in and fully cooperated. No, no, it’s not Al-Qaeda.”
They don’t know who did it but they know it wasn’t Al-Qaeda? How do they know it wasn’t Al-Qaeda? “Why can’t it be Al-Qaeda?” is the question. Do you know why it can’t be Al-Qaeda? It’s because Al-Qaeda’s on the run, and the reason it can’t be Al-Qaeda is ’cause nobody said that there was a video that ticked them off enough to make them do this. I don’t think. At the beginning of the program, nobody had blamed a video for this, right, and there hasn’t been any yet? It still could happen.
Well, that filmmaker is still in jail but there could have another video filmmaker out there. There could be a video we don’t know about yet. Folks, if it happened once, it can happen again. If a video caused Benghazi, a video not yet discovered could have caused this. Well, I’m just throwing out ideas. (interruption) I’m not kidding. Again, what in do I do? I show up here every day, I take note of what I read, see, and hear. When I hear absurdity, I comment on it. When I hear the things that I hold dear attacked, I defend them.
Same thing with people that I hold dear.
What do I do here? I come here every day and defend things that I love that are under assault that are being attacked, which is happening today. The left is hell-bent on finding some right-winger or right-wing organization to blame this on, folks. They couldn’t wait! And just to remind you, right here in my formerly nicotine-stained fingers I have Ron Fournier, writing in the National Journal: It is scarier to kill people pursuing happiness, as in a marathon, than it is to kill people working on Wall Street.
I kid you not. Let me read from his piece. “But the Boston attack is notable not for the number of deaths, but for its social significance. It’s one thing — a dastardly, evil thing –to strike symbols of economic and military power.” I mean, it’s one thing to attack Wall Street on 9/11. It’s one thing to attack the Pentagon on 9/11. “It’s another to hit the heart of America. Death at the finish line in Boston” is the heart of America. Because that was people pursuing happiness. And that makes it worse than 9/11, and that’s what he is saying. Can you believe it?
You see, corporations aren’t people, and Wall Street is corporations.
So the 3,000 people that died in 9/11, many of them on Wall Street? Pfft! Symbols. Symbols of corporate greed! Symbols of economic and military power. But runners at the Boston Marathon? Those are people! I am not making this up. This man actually wants to make a comparison of which acts are more grievous and which acts are worse, and it turns out the Boston Marathon bombing is far worse than 9/11 because the attacks on 9/11 just attacked symbols: Wall Street, the World Trade Center (evil corporations work there) and the Pentagon.
But the Boston Marathon? That’s people pursuing happiness, the heart of America!
Frankly, running has never made me happy, but that’s another thing.
Running is the most arduous thing anybody’s ever made me do. But that’s just me.
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