RUSH: Journalism has reached such a sad state of — and I predicted this, unknowingly, unknowingly I predicted this.

Snerdley, did you see the story that NBC News offered Jon Stewart anything he wanted to host Meet the Press? Before they settled on F. Chuck Todd, they backed up the Brinks truck for Jon Stewart. Not because he’s a journalist, but because of his demos, because of demographic. All of his audience is apparently 25-54, all one million of ’em. NBC looked at that just like Les Moonves admitted, when praising Letterman, it isn’t about ratings, it’s about hip. It’s about bragging rights.

I’ve got a sound bite from me, previous program, I’ll play for you, and in this sound bite I predict that the new credible left-wing journalists of the day are today’s comedians. And, lo and behold, here comes NBC and the news. This is in New York Magazine. I don’t know why Stewart turned it down. I didn’t read that far, but it’s clear they offered him whatever he wanted. I guess he took some time off last summer to produce some movie. And they thought, “Well, maybe he’s getting tired of doing this Daily Show.” They thought that was an opening to approach him then.

Can you imagine if you’re F. Chuck Todd today, and in your own mind if you’re F. Chuck Todd, you are Edward R. Murrow. They all think they’re Edward R. Murrow, and they all think they’re Walter Cronkite. They all think that the world hangs in the balance on them doing their jobs every day. These people take themselves seriously like you can’t believe. Modern day, old day, future, you name it, journalists think they are the sun in our solar system. Everything revolves around them and if they weren’t doing what they’re doing, everything would crumble.

So you’re F. Chuck Todd and you get the gig. You go on a diet, start losing weight. You trim the goatee a little bit, try to have a little more of a professorial look. You work as hard as you ever have. Your first guest is the president. Then you wake up one day after a month of doing the show and you find out they wanted a comedian from Comedy Central to do the job they gave you. And then you find out that they offered him the bank. I don’t know what you as F. Chuck Todd are getting.

And how do you think every other serious journalist is viewing this news now that it has come out? (interruption) Well, how many serious journalists are there? That’s not the point. They all think they’re serious. They all think they’re serious journalists.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: Gabriel Sherman, New York Magazine, has the details. “This Sunday marks Chuck ToddÂ’s one-month anniversary in the anchor chair at Meet the Press. Despite an opening-week ratings spike from his exclusive sit-down interview with President Obama, the Todd-helmed show has settled back into third place behind ABC’s This Week and CBS’s Face the Nation. This has been frustrating to NBC News executives, who at one point had considered going in a radically different direction with the show.

“Before choosing Todd, NBC News president Deborah Turness,” a British import, “held negotiations with Jon Stewart about hosting Meet the Press, according to three senior television sources with knowledge of the talks. One source explained that NBC was prepared to offer Stewart virtually ‘anything’ to bring him over. ‘They were ready to back the Brink’s truck up,’ the source said. A spokesperson for NBC declined to comment. James Dixon, Stewart’s agent, did not respond to multiple requests for comment.”

And then this. This is in New York Magazine. “It makes sense that NBC would make a run at Stewart.” It does? It makes sense?
Yes. You see, because, “The comedian-cum-media-critic possesses something that broadcast executives covet: a loyal, young,” stupid — uh, uh — a young, loyal, malleable, low-information audience. “And it’s not the first time NBC tried recruiting him. According to sources, NBC Entertainment courted Stewart several years ago for a 10 p.m. variety show (the slot ultimately went to Jay Leno).

“Though not a traditional journalist, Stewart can be a devastatingly effective interrogator, and his Meet the Press might have made a worthy successor to Tim RussertÂ’s no-[BS] interviews.” I kid you not. Meet the Clowns, not Meet the Press. Meet the Jokers. Meet the Court Jesters. And so now we know, we have proof. We have, as Lanny Davis says, we have “poof,” ladies and gentlemen, what news has become. It isn’t journalism. It’s demographics, pure and simple. It’s bragging rights.

The same thing with Les Moonves hiring Stephen Colbert. He said, “We don’t even sell ratings on late-night TV anymore.” He later even acknowledged, when I had pointed that out, he acknowledged that was correct and further said, on a different occasion, the CBS CEO, Les Moonves said (paraphrasing), “You know, we need to get rid of overnight ratings. We need to get rid of this way of measuring ratings for TV shows. You know why? ‘Cause there’s so much delayed watching, DVR’s, TiVo, and people watch streaming.” He said we need a new rating system that tabulates weekly viewing, not day-of-broadcast viewing.

Now, he may have a point. But generally people losing these ratings races come up with different ratings and alternatives on what needs to be done with ratings. But Tim Russert has got to be spinning in his grave. Or you would think so, anyway. Let’s take a little timeline progression, see if this seems like fair speculation. If the media had done its job, as it always has in the past, Barack Obama probably would not have been elected. Had he been vetted. He was here. He was in a lot of places. But nowhere in the mainstream media did anybody spend any time reporting on who Barack Obama is.

And I think for those of you who are relatively new to this program, or certainly haven’t been here longer than a year, there’s something you need to know. This is not bragging. Please don’t think that. This is pure fact here. None of what is happening in this country is a surprise to those of us who knew who Barack Obama was prior to the November 2008 election. None of us are surprised. We knew this. That is why I said that I hope he fails. I didn’t want any of this to happen.

I knew what his plans were on the economy. I knew what his view of foreign policy was. I knew what his view of the country was. This is not a surprise. That’s why I said yesterday he’s not a failure. He has succeeded. I think, if we could ever get him in an honest moment, I think that he probably thinks that he has succeeded beyond his wildest dreams. You know why? I think if you could get Obama to be honest about something, you know what it would be? That he would be stunned at how little opposition that he’s faced.

Now, he would never admit that. In fact, his whole point is to blame his opposition for obstructing him. His whole modus operandi is to get rid of any opposition, ’cause all they do is stop him. So he’s never gonna admit that. But the truth of the matter is, he’s gotta, in his private moments, he’s gotta be chuckling over how easy this has been. Any time anybody did criticize him, guess what? They were called racists and they shut up.

There hasn’t been any serious push-back against Obama from the Republican Party. The first two years he could have done anything. He had every vote he needed to accomplish anything. He could have done amnesty. He could have gotten Obamacare, because the Republicans didn’t have enough votes to stop him on anything, legislatively. I think that carried over. The Tea Party clearly was a major opposition. The Republicans winning the House in 2010, major opposition, but in terms of actual day-to-day push?

Look what the IRS got away with. Look what he got away with taking over one-sixth of the economy. Look at how he’s gotten away with missteps all over the world on foreign policy. I mean, he’s succeeded, in his world. In his view, his objective to transform this country succeeded I think beyond his wildest dreams, and he’s still got two years to go, and there still isn’t any push-back. I think that if he were honest he would tell everybody he’s shocked at how little opposition there’s been. I mean, serious political opposition from elected officials.

He’s had critics, don’t misunderstand. I’m one. There are countless critics in media. But not in the political class, where it matters, people who have votes. They’ve paid lip service to repealing Obamacare. But it’s heading on down the pike, is it not? Now, some journalist the other day said Obama hates the press. Doesn’t surprise me. I think all presidents probably hate the press because they’re prying eyes, but I think, again, if you could get him to be honest, give him some kind of serum to be honest, he would be laughing at what a bunch of sycophants he’s had to work with here in the media about how easy it’s been.

I think he and the Democrat Party have come to expect that anyway. I think they’ve come to expect slavish support from the media. And that’s why when there are those rare moments when mainstream media opposed him, they don’t know what to do. They freak out. They lose their tempers, ’cause they don’t have to deal with it very often. But I think Obama, if he was honest, would say, “Man, this has been much easier than Michelle and I and Valerie thought it was gonna be.” And they probably sit up there and mock the media as much as any president ever has. But in this case they probably mock ’em on how easy it’s been. (imitating Obama) “We’ve got these guys in the palm of our hands. You watch CNN last night? My wiz, it’s as though we’re paying ’em.”

They’re sitting around saying, “We couldn’t buy this. We couldn’t buy this kind of support,” as they watch MSNBC, as they watch CNN. As they watch some of the commentators on Fox, “We couldn’t buy this support.” They read the newspapers. I dare say, since the Kennedy family, there has not been a Democrat official with this kind of slavish, almost groupie-like support since Barack Obama. You see, and that leads to the myth of Barack Obama and journalism have done great damage to this country at the end of the day. Barack Obama is a myth. He could have, if he were properly vetted, could have been beaten. And journalism is not doing its job, has done great damage to this country.

Journalism is not doing its job vetting candidates, ferreting out details of stories such as Benghazi. They joke about it when you bring it up to ’em. Journalism clearly has laid down between widespread deceit and political cowardice. This country doesn’t know who to trust or what to believe anymore. Even on something as serious as Ebola, people don’t think they’re being told the truth. People now sense that everything’s been subordinated to politics, the politics of the Democrat Party. Whatever happens, it can’t hurt the Democrats, doesn’t matter who gets sick, doesn’t matter what happens to the country.

Years after all of these scams occur, the country is getting a glimpse of the depth of corruption that liberalism brings with it. Liberalism is a political philosophy wholly dependent on lies, fraud, and deception. Totally. Now, I know those are fighting words to some of you. And I know some of you are probably, especially if you’re new, “Come on, you’re just saying this to get a rise.” No, I’m not. I gave up doing that long ago. I don’t say things to get a rise out of people. If I say something, I mean, outside of parody and satire, if I say something, I genuinely mean it.

And it isn’t something new. I think liberalism cannot be honest about what it is. Liberals cannot be honest about who they are. It’s like this babe in Kentucky running against McConnell. She’s running a campaign trying to tell everybody in the coal industry that they have nothing to fear from her, that she’s gonna do everything she can to protect the coal industry in Kentucky. And yet somebody had a hidden video camera at a big, big, wealthy donor fundraiser she held, and a bunch of her supporters were told, it was caught on video, “Don’t worry, she’s gonna see F the coal industry after she gets elected,” meaning she’s lying to people. She’s misrepresenting her position, because if she were to tell the voters of Kentucky what her real intentions are vis-a-vis the coal industry, she wouldn’t get elected.

Well, that’s liberalism across the board. Obama had to tell you that you get to keep your doctor. Obama had to tell you that you get to keep your plan. Obama had to tell you that your premiums gonna come down $2,500 in order to get the support of low-information people on his attempt to take over the health care industry. He had to lie about it. And they do it about virtually everything.

So in this context, folks, it makes perfect sense that Jon Stewart would be hired to moderate Meet the Press. A liberal philosophy, a political philosophy wholly dependent on lies, fraud, and deception. Here we have a partisan wise guy who specializes in giving incomplete facts to advance complete nonsense is seen as the optimal messenger for liberalism. And that is exactly right. Laughing our way all the way to the false promise of utopia is just what the scam artist ordered. If you’re gonna be fleeced, why not enjoy it right up until you realize you’ve been had? So it makes perfect sense that NBC would want a comedian to represent and host what is arguably the signature program of their journalistic identity.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: One more little sound bite on this and then we head into other directions. I want to take you back to May 1st on this program. Again, I admit this is self-serving. I want to demonstrate to you what “being on the cutting edge of societal evolution” means. Way back on May 1st, I had a little monologue in which I detailed in my opinion that leads to what happens with NBC wanting to hire a comedian to host Meet the Press.

In other words, ladies and gentlemen, if you were here with us back on May 1st, you heard this foretold…

BEGIN ARCHIVE CLIP

RUSH ARCHIVE: A comedian finds fault with the Regime. But the news is that the comedian normally is a slave to the Regime. The comedian normally promotes the Regime. But all of a sudden the comedian has found fault with the Regime, uh-oh, stop the presses, this is news now. And even though there are only one million people that watch, what’s the image of The Daily Show?

The image of The Daily Show is that every college kid gets his news on this show. Can’t possibly be true. There are over a million college students. The image is that every young person finds out what the news is by watching. It can’t possibly be true, but that’s the image The Daily Show lives off of and promotes. Of course, who wouldn’t? But it isn’t real.

A comedian finds fault with the Regime, Jon Stewart blasts government before State-Controlled Media, and what this does is now give permission to other Obama stenographers to go out and get mad at the Regime. Why else is this news? You ever heard of this? When’s the last time what Johnny Carson said was a news story or what Letterman said was a news story? It might be water cooler chitchat the next day, but a news story?

So comedians are now — and of course what are comedians? They’re jokes. They don’t deal in reality, either, by definition. There has to be a grain of it for comedy to be funny, but comedians are now the twenty-first century journalists for the far left. For the left, comedians are source authorities. Comedians are gradually replacing the New York Times, the Washington Post, CBS, NBC, PBS, ABC, CNN, as the arbiters of when Democrats can be held accountable and when they can’t be.

So if you want to know when the Drive-Bys are gonna harp on Obama, pay attention to the comedians. When they do it’s a signal to the Drive-Bys that it’s okay to. It’s very pathetic, and it’s how you end up with low-information voters who don’t know what the hell’s going on. It’s how you end up with Millennials down on the country, down on themselves, rather than on the people responsible for the mess that we live in and that’s the Democrat Party.

END ARCHIVE CLIP

RUSH: So what was going on at the time is Stewart had criticized Obama, and that became news. I said, “How does that happen? So a comedian finds fault with the Regime, and that gives permission to the rest of the media to then go after him?” Because the comedians are the trend-setters. The comedians are the new journalists at all these networks, and with the audience. The comedians are more trusted than the serious, hand-wringing students of classical journalism.

Pointed out way, way back in May.