RUSH: Okay, to briefly restate, it is my humble observation — and I, by the way, stand to be corrected on this if I’ve got this wrong. But I’ve read enough of this report to draw the conclusion that the NFL purposely allowed a game to be played, no less an AFC championship game, with footballs that were underinflated, that were not inflated to required PSI.

And they did this, it appears, to catch whoever it was doing this, i.e., cheating. It was brought to the league’s attention long before the game by the Indianapolis Colts. It was brought to the league’s attention in weeks prior and on the day of the game. And simply on the basis of the Colts registering complaint, the league decided to find out what was going on.

Now, I don’t think you can look at this in a vacuum. I don’t think you could look at this event without keeping something else present in your mind and that is Spygate. There are still a lot of really ruffled feathers and angry feelings about Spygate. That Belichick was not suspended, for example. I’ve read in the voluminous reading that I’ve done last night and today that some people think that the commissioner of The NFL, to this day, regrets not suspending Belichick.

But I keep coming back to why in the world would you as a league, as an enterprise, as a company, however you want to look at it, why would you put yourself in the situation that you’re at today? You have your biggest star player now under a cloud. You have the media and fans clamoring for your star player to be suspended and fined and severely punished.

You have other coaches and players throughout the league eagerly watching to see what happens here because, as I mentioned, Sean Payton, the coach of the New Orleans Saints, was suspended a whole season precisely because he did not know what was going on in his locker room. And this report says that Belichick did not know what was going on with these footballs.

So Sean Payton’s gonna be looking at this. I don’t think he’d say anything. But he’s gonna be looking at it. You’ve got a bunch of players who’ve been suspended for things that did not have anything to do with the integrity of the game, other than it doesn’t help the game to have a criminal element play in it. But I mean being suspended for wife beating or marijuana is not a direct attack on the integrity of the game like this was, or is.

The Patriots, as the Super Bowl champions, open the season Thursday night, first game of the season, in September, and they’ll host the Pittsburgh Steelers. The league is now faced with the likelihood, apparently, that the star quarterback of the league is gonna be suspended and not available for that game. And if he isn’t suspended and only fined, you’re gonna have all other kinds of hell break loose here.

So it makes me wonder, why even run the risk of getting to this point when this could have maybe been shut down on game day. If you get a report, an allegation that some footballs are illegally inflated, well, find out. And if you find some that are illegally inflated, either throw ’em out or properly inflate them and play the game and then try to figure out what happened, instead of allowing a game to be played with footballs that do not meet the rule book regulations.

So, with Spygate over here silently, it makes me wonder if there isn’t a lot more going on with this. Meaning if there isn’t a real — I don’t know how to put this, ’cause I’m just wildly speculating here. But it would not be difficult to believe, given everything that’s happened here, it wouldn’t be hard to understand if somebody somewhere with authority in the league really has it out for the Patriots and thinks that they got away with too little punishment over Spygate and may think that there’s a culture of this stuff going on with the Patriots. And they want to get to the bottom of it, and they want it exposed once and for all because ultimately that would be more damaging to the league than just one little incident here.

But this is all idle speculation because I can’t think of one reason other than that why you would allow circumstances to develop in such a way that we are where we are today. And where are we today? Let’s go to the audio sound bites. Here’s a montage of Drive-By Media people just gushing with excitement over the fact that Brady’s been caught cheating.

GEORGE STEPHANOPOULOS: Super cheat. Calls this morning for the NFL to suspend Super Bowl hero Tom Brady.

CHRISTINE ROMANS: Did Tom Brady cheat his way into the Super Bowl?

JOHN BERMAN: Did the most handsome man on earth cheat his way into the Super Bowl?

T.J. HOLMES: Did the MVP cheat?

MIKE GOLIC: If you knowingly try to cheat.

DARA BROWN: Don’t cheat. Their superstar quarterback may have done just that.

COY WIRE: Tom Brady doesn’t have to cheat. He’s so good.

DON LEMON: Did he cheat?

MEL ROBBINS: Hell, yes, he cheated.

RUSH: Hell, yes. You’ve got Bill Rhoden at the New York Times, sports columnist, demanding that something be done here ’cause he’s a big cheater, and this is unacceptable. I mean, it’s everywhere you look. once again, the best player in the National Football League, and maybe I should qualify that as the best quarterback, clearly the biggest star in the league, has now been tarnished and damaged, integrity up for grabs, being questioned.

The Drive-By Media is salivating and excited over the fact that he might be suspended, thrown out of the game for a while, fined extensively. It’s a strange place to want to be. Not that anybody wanted to be here. Now, they’re circling the wagons at the Patriots. Brady’s agent is attacking the report and Ted Wells’ lawyer who put it together, and the owner of the Patriots the same. And I must say, folks, let me read something to you. This is page 228.

Let me just read this, page 228. “In sum, the data did not provide a basis for us to determine with absolute certainty whether there was or was not tampering, as the analysis of such data ultimately is dependent upon assumptions and information –” That’s like an asterisk saying, “We don’t know whether anything we’ve said here is true, because the data doesn’t provide a basis for us to determine with absolute certainty.” Well, then what’s the rest of this report? This, folks, to me, as is the case with most things, there’s way more going on here.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: See, one of the problems is that Tom Brady would not turn over his telephone so that they could look at the text messages and e-mails that might have been back and forth between him and the equipment guys. Now, he did sit for a one-hour interview with his agent. The agent recorded everything that happened. They said he was cooperative and forthcoming, but they wanted his phone. He would not give them the phone.

Ted Wells said, “Look, your lawyer can pull off only texts and e-mails related to this thing. We don’t care if there are pictures of your wife on your phone. We don’t care about any of that. We’ll let your lawyer harvest the data relevant to our investigation,” and Brady said, “No.” Well, in a circumstantial case, which is what this is, that has given rise to suspicion ’cause the question is, “Okay, what is he hiding?”

And let’s not forget this. Do not… (chuckles) Folks, when it comes to the media and everybody, there is something that didn’t get a whole lot of notice. It was remarked upon, but it didn’t get a whole lot of notice. Recently the Super Bowl Champion Patriots went to the White House to be treated and hosted by President Obama, and Brady didn’t go. And it is known why he didn’t go. He didn’t go because Josh Earnest, in one of these White House press briefings, had made a joke about Deflategate.

Brady takes this allegation that he’s a cheater very seriously. So he said, “Screw it, I’m not going.” This is the report, anyway. That’s insulting enough. To the Drive-By Media, that was a direct insult to Obama. “Okay, the next opportunity we have to go get Brady, we’re gonna take it.” Well, here it is. And then it’s been reported that Brady… You know, he had a great day this past Saturday. He and his buddies chartered a plane.

They went to the Kentucky Derby, and after the Derby they went to Vegas to the fight. And it was learned that Steve Wynn, who isn’t a big fan of Obama’s, had a little confab with Brady where they bonded over the fact that neither of them like Obama. That’s the news anyway. Forget whether it’s true. Who knows? So the Drive-Bys see all of this, and they see Brady dissing Obama, not going to the White House, getting together with Steve Wynn, and Steve Wynn being open about his disgust for Obama.

You put it all together… But it still doesn’t explain why we’re here. It doesn’t explain why this situation is at this point. And you’re gonna have people with all kinds of reactions. Some are saying, “Come on. Brady can’t be the only one. All these quarterbacks have to do this.” Others are saying, “It’s gotta be a suspension. There’s gotta be some sort of penalty. It can’t just be a fine. They’ve gotta suspend him for a couple games!”

If you’re looking at this cavalierly like this is just another infraction that the NFL has to deal with, you need to change the way you’re thinking about it. This is much bigger. Despite what you may think, this is bigger than Ray Rice, in terms of its potential to the league. And they know it. And you can’t take Spygate out of this. By that I mean, you’ve got a lot of people who may think the Patriots still haven’t paid the right price for that. You’ve got people who think that the Patriots steal radio signals.

You’ve got people — I’m telling you, you have people — who think the Patriots stole the Seahawks play call radio signal on last play of the Super Bowl and knew what was coming. You’ve got people… I’m not saying in the league. You’ve got people who think the Patriots are routine cheaters and Spygate didn’t get anywhere near exposing it, and that the league knows it and they’re trying to take all kinds of steps to uncover it all and root it out and just be done with it because it’s a cloud.

My point is, whether any of this is true is… Well, it’s not irrelevant. But it need are not have arrived. I still can’t quite understand — and I’m sorry for the redundancy. I’ve said this three times already. But I just can’t understand how the league allowed it to get to this point. It’s not good to have all this speculation out there. You might think, “Hey, man, anything, talking about the league, man, this is cool. All this intrigue, it just makes people more curious about it.”

Maybe. Maybe so. But I have to think that people that own teams and run the league really don’t want people speculating about whether there’s rampant cheating. You don’t want records and trophies and stuff to be questioned in terms of legitimacy, particularly this league, the NFL. It was the pinnacle of professional sports. It was at the top of the mountain, and still is. I mean, in terms of integrity and respect, image, it’s taken some hits in recent years.

Because of the culture, the players, some of the infractions off field that these guys have been caught getting into, and even some on-field stuff. So we’ll see. It’s just unfortunate. Now the Drive-Bys, I tell you, folks, they just… Let me play some more of these sound bites for you as they just dump on Brady. Here’s Bill Rhoden. This is… We’re up to sound bite three. CBS This Morning, sports columnist for the New York Times. Charlie Rose. “So what’s the worst thing about this, Bill?”

RHODEN: Well, the worst thing about it is — is that a guy who’s on top of the world, who seems to have everything — great family, a legacy, Super Bowl — still feels so much pressure and the need to cheat.

RUSH: See, it’s concluded now. He cheated. They’re not even considering that he didn’t cheat. And this is a circumstantial case. I mean, the report says they can’t prove anything. I just read to you… Look. Where did I put it? Let me find that. I want to read you from the report. I read this really hurriedly toward the end of the previous hour. You just heard Bill Rhoden there. He said, “Well, the worst thing about it is that a guy who’s on top of the world, who seems to have everything — great family, a legacy, Super Bowl — still feels so much pressure and the need to cheat.”

Here’s page 228 of this report. “In sum,” that means in toto; that means adding everything up, “the data did not provide a basis for us to determine with absolute certainty whether there was or was not tampering, as the analysis of such data ultimately is dependent upon assumptions and information that is not certain.” (interruption) What do you mean, “Come on Rush?” (interruption) Well… (laughing) You’re telling me this is lawyerese?

So they just put that in there as a CYA? Okay, keep the lawsuit off of ’em? (interruption) Okay. All right. So this doesn’t mean anything. See, here we… (interruption) Okay, this doesn’t mean…? (interruption) What they’re saying is, “We can’t prove anything. The data didn’t provide a basis for us to determine with absolute certainty…” Okay, so a guy is gonna get an suspended, be called a cheat, and have his reputation damaged forever, and this is just in there for the lawyers?

(interruption) Okay. Well, we’ll see. We shall see. Despite that on page 228, all the other stuff in there is quite clear circumstantially that there was a whoooooole lot of cheating going on out there. Right. And the media has already concluded. So after Rhoden said, “Man, he has a just great family, great legacy, Super Bowl, and still feels the need to cheat,” Charlie Rose said, “Well, what do you think the punishment’s gonna be?”

RHODEN: I’ll tell you what I think it should be. I think they should suspended him for at least half the season. At least half the season. Don’t fine him because he has more money than… You know, don’t fine him. Don’t make this a financial penalty.

ROSE: (grunts)

RHODEN: Suspend him, Charlie. Suspend him for half the season. What do you think about that?

RHODEN: I like Tom Brady, okay?

RUSH: (laughing) “What do you think about that?” I’ve never heard Bill Rhoden ask anybody what they think of what he thinks! Bill Rhoden doesn’t care what anybody else thinks, and all of a sudden now, “What do you think about that,” Charlie? “I like Tom Brady.” What’s that mean? “I think you’re full of it, Bill”? Half the season! Half the season. The Miami Herald guy says he’s heard it’s gonna be a whole season. Half the season. All right, here’s the owner, Robert Kraft, back in January in Phoenix at the site of the Super Bowl.

KRAFT: If the Wells investigation is not able to definitively determine that our organization tampered with the air pressure in the footballs, I would expect and hope that the league would apologize to our entire team — and in particular, Coach Belichick and Tom Brady — for what they have had to endure this past week. I am disappointed in the way this entire matter has been handled and reported upon.

RUSH: Well, he’s not gonna get an apology. Nowhere near is he getting an apology. In fact, just the opposite. Mr. Kraft has reacted to the report by saying, “This is incomprehensible,” ’cause I’m sure he read the excerpt I just read to you on page 228 that Snerdley says is just in there for the lawyers to prevent the lawsuit and doesn’t really mean anything.

I’m sure he read that. And he said it’s incomprehensible. But he concluded by saying that whatever happens, we will support, whatever the league does, we will deal with it. After registering his profound shock and dismay that this report could have uncovered this. Peter King, Sports Illustrated, Monday Morning Quarterback on the Today show, Savannah Guthrie said, “When you look at the Patriots’ Super Bowl victory, they went on to win after all this. Do you think it has an asterisk by it now for a lot of fans?”

KING: For a lot of fans it will because the Patriots are like the Yankees, they’re like the old Cowboys; they’re a team that America loves to hate. And I think that is one of the things that people take great delight, in the kingpin getting toppled. And that’s why I think people take great delight this morning in looking at Tom Brady and saying that, “Hey, look, he should get what’s coming to him.”

RUSH: So that’s an acknowledgement that people are just jealous and feel better when somebody bigger than them gets taken down a peg. (interruption) Yes, they did. Snerdley said nobody hated the old Cowboys. They sure as hell did. In fact, people hated the Steelers. In the seventies the Steelers were a machine. My dad hated the Steelers. He hated them ’cause they were just a machine. They’re so damn good they’re superhuman. People hated the Cowboys.

The hatred of the Patriots, I’m telling you, it’s tied to Spygate and Belichick and the hoodie and all this. But this is the kind of stuff, normally this fuels fan passion in a game, which is cool. That’s all good. But this isn’t. I don’t know. If I owned the Patriots, if I ran the league, this is not the kind of stuff that I would want the league to be known for. (interruption) No, we’re not gonna get stories on how cheating is sometimes good and if you got small hands and still have a supermodel wife and still need an underinflated football, it’s okay.

No, we’re not gonna get stories like that, particularly because Obama’s been dissed in all of this. I think actually that the Patriots’ defense and the Hillary defense are somewhat similar here, and that’s another thing. Who wants to be associated with the way the Clintons do things? (interruption) Now that got your attention, huh? Oh, that made you sit up and perk up, huh?

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: There’s a guy out there today, an American, in the midst of all this hullabaloo and he’s shouting. He’s trying to be heard above all this noise, saying, “What about me? What about me?” and his name is Pete Rose. He didn’t take performance enhancing drugs. He didn’t beat up his wife, girlfriend, any of the sort. He’s not drawn a cartoon of the prophet, least I can tell. (interruption) What did I mean about the Clintons?

Well, okay, take a look at this. If Bill Clinton can get away with blaming their accountant at the Clinton Crime Family Foundation, if Bill and Hillary can get away with saying (imitating Clinton), “Yeah, I just work here man. I don’t know what’s going on. Hell, somebody’s gotta pay the bills here.” If the Clintons can get away with this scot-free, then why can’t Brady get away with blaming the ball boys?

Do you realize more people care about whether or not the footballs in the AFC championship game were underinflated than they care about Democrat vote fraud and care about flooding the country with illegal aliens who are just gonna add up to more Democrat Party voters? Sports is closer to people and they can relate to it more, I understand that. But still, no sense of proportion.

To the phones we go. People want to weigh in here. We’re gonna start in Indianapolis. Rose, you’re first. It’s great to have you. Hello.

CALLER: Rush, hello. I’ve got a mouthful. Does anyone think this is the first time that he’s involved this kid with deflating these balls? He thought he was beyond getting caught. That’s why he risked it. Why do you think they’re the winningest team? Duh. What do you think? Rush?

RUSH: My cough button was stuck. I’m sorry.

CALLER: I’m sorry, honey. Would you like me to start over?

RUSH: No, no, I didn’t mean to scare you. Dead air never hurt anybody. It’s okay. My cough button was stuck. I was talking, I didn’t even hear myself. Only because I’m a super professional that I didn’t panic —

CALLER: This is true.

RUSH: — and start yelling at the engineer. I knew I had a button stuck here. Anyway.

CALLER: That’s true.

RUSH: You’re telling me that you think that Brady has cheated for a long time? Is that what you mean?

CALLER: Why do you think he’s winning all these games? Look at Payton —

RUSH: I’m asking you. You think the Patriots, Brady has been cheating on a lot of things for a long time. Is that what your point is?

CALLER: Well, there’s no way to prove it, but the way Brady’s been acting.

RUSH: What’s that? How’s he been acting?

CALLER: He won’t give up his phone. He’s getting up there and giving these speeches, all this stuff. I don’t believe that for a minute.

RUSH: All right. He did deny all this.

CALLER: Of course, would you?

RUSH: Would I what?

CALLER: Would you deny if you were caught? I know you wouldn’t. I wouldn’t.

RUSH: See, I wouldn’t do it. You know what? I would not allow it to be done in my name. If I knew about it, no, no, I cannot imagine coming to this microphone with the people of America on the other side and knowingly tell something that I know is gonna be proven a lie down the road. I can’t imagine doing that. Since you asked me, I can’t. But I’m not these guys. I’m not in that circumstance.

I don’t know what’s going through their minds. It could well be that they don’t think they’ve done anything wrong here or that the ball boys ran with instructions that they never got and were just acting on their own like the accountants at the Clinton Foundation apparently have been doing. Anyway, Rose, I appreciate the call. There you have it, folks. I mean, there’s no question here, not only this, they’ve been cheating forever, and they just now happen to be getting caught.

Bob in Chelsea, Michigan, you’re next on the Rush Limbaugh program. Hi.

CALLER: Greetings. Dittos from a fellow general aviation traveler.

RUSH: Thank you, sir. I appreciate that. Little inside baseball.

CALLER: My comment, the NFL has absolutely no evidence that Brady was involved. They have nothing. But we all know how the NFL has become really politically correct.

RUSH: Yeah.

CALLER: We know that Brady didn’t go to the White House. We all know how petulant Obama can be when he feels slighted. I would agree with your point that the word is out, Brady needs to be punished not because of deflategate, but because he insulted Obama.

RUSH: Now, wait, I didn’t say that that was the reason.

CALLER: I know you didn’t.

RUSH: I said the reason why the media partly, partial reason why the media is salivating over this is because they might think he dissed Obama. But I don’t think that’s it.

CALLER: I agree, you didn’t make that point, you didn’t say that he did that. But I’m saying, you know, I think that the media and everybody that — and that Obama’s not above putting out the word that, you know, Brady needs to be punished.

RUSH: Man. I hadn’t even considered that. You’re involving Obama in this. I did not.

CALLER: I agree.

RUSH: All I said was that the media has another reason to pile on because they think Brady dissed their guy.

CALLER: I agree.

RUSH: But I want to go back to what you said at first. Zero evidence, absolutely no evidence for anything that’s in this report?

CALLER: Yep. But it’s the seriousness of the charge.

RUSH: Yeah, it is that, but do you realize that this investigation has been going on five months?

CALLER: Yep. I do.

RUSH: Five months. And a lot of people said, “Why don’t they release the results before the draft?” If there gonna be any penalties, then mete the penalties, hand ’em out before this draft rather than next draft, next season and so forth. All right, well, I’m glad for your take on this. Absolutely no evidence in this report, other than circumstantial.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: Here’s Corky, driving a truck in western Pennsylvania. Great to have you on the program, sir.

CALLER: Hey, Rush. How are you doing? Super trucking, massive petrochemical-consuming dittos to you.

RUSH: (laughing) I love it. Thank you very much, sir.

CALLER: This thing with the Drive-By Media and Tom Brady, could some of it be…? Do you recall back at the beginning of the season when he had two real bad games and everybody started saying that was the end of Tom Brady and the end of Bill Belichick? And of course he gathered it back up, came steamrolling back; ended up winning the Super Bowl. You think that might be some of the angst they have toward him?

RUSH: No. I think it’s part of the mix. I don’t think there’s one thing. I’ll tell you what I really think is go on. Let me… I’ve kind of nibbled around the edges here, and I’ve left some of it for you all to understand so that I don’t have to say it. But I’m beginning to think maybe I’m gonna have to say it. Now, what you’re talking about first, Brady had a game against the Kansas City Chiefs that had everybody writing the following week that he was over.

He was finished. It was done. It was horrible. I’ll never forget it. All these writers and TV people said, “You hope to see a guy go out gracefully. Oh, my God, to see a player lose it in one day like this! Oh, my God, this is just horrible.” They started speculating about, “Is this it?” Now, I know some things about Tom Brady. One of the things I know about him is, he and George Brett are two of the most I’ve-never-seen-anything-like-it competitive people I have ever encountered.

I’m sure Michael Jordan is the same way, and Tiger. They all are. But that game and that aftermath was all the inspiration, motivation, whatever that Brady needed for the rest of the season to just shut everybody up. And because he came back from what they wrote as the grave, I don’t think that’s why they are so eager to bury him here. I really think it’s nothing more than human nature. When you get right down to it, sportswriters are people. They’re groupies.

Many of them are groupies. That’s why they go into the business. And don’t kid yourself about the number of guys that are jealous as they can be of Tom Brady. “Nobody’s that good! Nobody’s that lucky. Nobody in real life has it all like that. It only happens in books.” So when this guy takes a plunge, everybody feels better about themselves (clapping), and they salivate, and they eat it up and they applaud it, ’cause they feel better about themselves. Not just sportswriters. I mean everybody, the whole culture.

It’s an interesting aspect of our culture, that we love seeing people at the top taken down. We love it even more when they screw themselves or when they sabotage themselves, or when they get caught cheating. “Because we know in our hearts they’re not really that good.” That’s what we tell ourselves, because we feel too insignificant compare ourselves to Tom Brady. “Oh, jeez. Oh!” Then when anything that happens makes Brady look like he’s subject to the same rigors of life as everybody else?

Not everybody, but some people take great comfort in that. You know this as well as I do.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: Here’s Jack in Columbia, South Carolina, as we head back to the phones. Rush Limbaugh with half my brain tied behind my back just to make it fair. Jack, hi. Great to have you here.

CALLER: Hey, good afternoon, Rush. I’ll try to fulfill my obligations as a caller as you fulfill yours as a host. I’ve been thinking about this whole Patriots thing, and I’m perplexed with the media reaction. They’re up in arms with the cheating, the cheating, the cheating, yet I don’t hear a word about Iran cheating on their nuclear deal.

RUSH: Ahhhh.

CALLER: And one other thing. Your analysis or other people’s analysis that it could be because of his attitude toward Obama, just remember, the leaders of Iran have called President Obama a monkey, so where is the outrage?

RUSH: Now, this is a fascinating question. The first answer I’m gonna give you to cover both aspects of your question, ’cause your question basically is, when you boil things down, when a football team or player cheats, the impact on the country is negligible. But if Iran is cheating and is gonna get a nuclear weapon and could blow up Israel and maybe us or a city here or there, that’s really serious and we really need to be concerned about that, and we’re not. Instead we’re turning the country upside down because Tom Brady might have played with some balls that are underinflated.

Well, the answer is rooted in something that a Harvard socialist told me way back when I worked in sales and marketing for the Kansas City Royals. He said the one thing about sports that separates it from everything else that you do or observe or live in life, the one thing about sports is, it is the only thing, it is the one thing that you can invest total passion without consequence. You can give everything you’ve got to your team and your favorite players.

You can invest every hope, all the love in the world you have, and you don’t have to worry about that they’re gonna reject you. You don’t have to worry that they’re going to make fools of you. If you invest total passion, say, in another person, they’re gonna let you down. They’ll use you if they know that you’re investing, they think they’ve got you wrapped around their little finger. So in this case, sports is much more personal. Tom Brady is much more personal and relatable than the Ayatollah Khamenei.

The Ayatollah Khamenei remains this mysterious, removed, distant figure that we don’t really ever hear speak, we don’t really know this guy, but Tom Brady and the Patriots are in our living rooms every Sunday in the fall and the winter. People forget everything else going on in their lives for the three to four hours every Sunday or Monday night, whenever they watch the team. So there’s a much greater personal connection on the part of average, ordinary people than there is with any foreign policy issue. That would be one answer.

The other answer as to why the media is much more, in fact, applauding — your point is, the media practically applauds the Iranians for getting what they want. Never forget that the real objective in any news story or in any event is defeating conservatives and Republicans, and anybody that does that is going to be a hero. Now, you say, “Well, what’s that got to do with Iran?”

Well, I can tell you right now, the Republicans in the Senate have made it clear that they don’t think Obama has the right nor the power to unilaterally make a deal with Iran on nuclear weapons or anything else without them having a say-so in it. That alone will cause the media to hate the Republicans and automatically support Obama in anything he’s doing, because the objective is not to beat Iran.

The objective is to beat Mitch McConnell or Jeff Sessions, or take your pick. The objective is to beat the Republican Senate. The objective is to beat the Republican National Committee. The objective is to beat John Boehner. The objective is to beat conservative media. And to the extent that the Iranians are aligned with Obama and the Democrat Party means that the Iranians are not gonna be perceived as the enemy in this; the Republicans are.

The Republicans, the conservatives, whatever, the opponents of the left, wherever you find them, whoever they are, are the enemy. They are the threat. They are the constant enemy. It’s why Bill Clinton is so loved. I’m convinced Clinton is so loved by the media because he didn’t just beat the Republicans. He humiliated ’em. He enabled people to laugh at them. And Obama, same thing. Whatever Democrat can come along and make the Republicans look like the bigger fools, the biggest jokes, the bigger star, the bigger hero or heroine that Democrat, or foreign leader, is going to be.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: Scott, Columbus, Montana. Great to have you on the EIB Network. Hello, Scott.

CALLER: Hello, sir. Unending mega dittos —

RUSH: Thank you —

CALLER: — from Montana.

RUSH: Oh, I thought you said unenvied.

CALLER: No, unending.

RUSH: Unending, yes.

CALLER: Forever.

RUSH: Thank you very much. I appreciate that.

CALLER: You know, I find it funny because by about eight o’clock this morning I was ticked off, you know, after all the findings that came out about Tom Brady, the Patriots, et cetera. You know, I’ve kind of gotten over it since then. At the same time I wonder, okay, all the furor that’s going on in the press right now, what are they sneaking behind us? What’s back dooring? What’s going on that our attention does not need to be paid to?

RUSH: You mean in the NFL or in general?

CALLER: In general. ‘Cause it seems like whenever there’s some big social issue, they’ll sneak a few things in behind us, and then we find out later.

RUSH: I don’t think that’s the case. I think the Brady NFL story is in fact genuine and it’s real. I don’t think it’s contrived. It happened. I don’t think it’s there to mask anything else, ’cause it is —

CALLER: ‘Cause, you know, I have a really bad disease. I’m a Denver Broncos fan.

RUSH: Yeah. I had somebody send me an e-mail today, just to answer your question, I had one of the graphics designers at the Limbaugh Letter sent me a note today saying, “Don’t fall for this, Rush. This Brady story, this deflate gate is just to cover up Rapegate. It’s just to take everybody’s attention away from all the rape stuff in the NFL. That’s why they’re doing this. The NFL would much rather have people worried about underinflated footballs than all of the domestic abuse going on out there.”

No, it makes sense, except there isn’t a current Rapegate story going on. There’s a lot of off-field criminality stuff going on, but nothing prominent, not like Ray Rice. But just to answer your question, I’ve got CNN on here all day, and they’re covering everything. They’re covering their story about the police investigation undermining the state attorney in Baltimore, which I’ve been promising for two and a half years hours to get to today, and it’s coming next, after the break. They’re covering that. They’re covering everything. They’re not going to wall-to-wall Brady, and neither is Fox. So it’s not overwhelming any other story.