RUSH: The Politico has a the story. “Hillary Clinton, who has aggravated reporters with her limited press avails, will not take questions after her speech at Texas Southern University on Thursday.” She may have given the speech already. I don’t know what time it’s scheduled. But the school informed reporters of this decision yesterday. The university said: “There will be NO opportunities to interview Hillary Clinton; her speech will be her interview.”
Folks, this is absolutely fantastic. It captures Hillary perfectly. I mean, it’s words that will live forever. It’s genius. “Her speech will be her interview.” It’s quintessential. It is iron fist. It’s Soviet wordsmithing. “Her speech will be her interview.”
Now, as I said in the first hour, I have pulled this stunt, but for entirely different reasons from Mrs. Clinton. When I first started this program in 1988 I was so naive, and I was naive for many years based on, I guess I’d have to call it hope, based on, you know, inflated and naive expectations. There were certain things I knew about the media. I mean, I knew about bias, and I don’t mean to say I was completely uninformed, but there were certain things that I understood to be true that weren’t.
For example, I’d find myself at home reading a story on somebody, either in the entertainment world, the political world, wherever, and I made the assumption, and I think probably a lot of people do, that, well, there’s a reason there’s a story here on person X, and the reason has to do with the person’s done something noteworthy. The person has achieved something, the person is an acknowledged, accomplished expert or something that would warrant a big profile like this or a story.
I thought it was all genuine, in other words. I thought it was all merit based. I thought that profiles and stories on people and things actually happened because, well, it was warranted, it was deserved. I didn’t have the slightest idea. It’s a tough thing even now to admit. I didn’t have the slightest idea that most of journalism is the result of PR flacks pitching ideas to reporters or PR flacks getting to know reporters, becoming good friends. Or the reporter, journalist, being an activist, wanting to promote something his or herself and goes and gets — In other words, I was dead wrong about why certain people have things written about them or profiles done on them in the media.
I thought it was all merit based, and the fact is that very little of it is. It happens for reasons other than that. Some of it is, but most of it I have learned is not. But everybody wants you to think that it’s merit based. Everybody wants you to believe that it’s totally genuine as to why some issue here or some person there is being heralded. I’m not talking about hit pieces. I’m talking about pieces that laud the subject, promote the subject, much like every sports page story lauds the athlete or a series of athletes in whatever day’s game just happened, you know, the players sacrosanct and so forth.
Well, anyway, so when I started my program I labored under so many misconceptions and one of them was, here I’m new, nobody’s ever heard of me because I worked in obscurity, I did not network. I didn’t get this job because, well, anything other than I worked hard, got noticed. It was not a conspiracy. It wasn’t a result of networking, who I knew per se. I didn’t have any inside anything. It just happened, like I’ve always believed it does happen, which is also naive. But I’ve always believed that most success — I still do believe this — is merit based. I do believe most success is genuine. I now know some of it’s trumped up and phony.
Anyway, so when the media came calling and wanted to interview me, I thought because they were genuinely curious. Here’s this new guy, he’s saying things on the radio that we don’t hear too many places, who is this guy? I thought they genuinely wanted to get to know me. It took me a long time to understand that’s not why they wanted to talk to me. I labored under a bunch of misconceptions that they were interested in what I had to say and that I did have a chance to change their mind about things.
I literally thought they were open-minded. I knew they were liberal. I know this sounds contradictory. But it got to the point that I found out very quickly that they were not interested in what I had to say, there was no chance of persuading them, and going into any interview with that objective was a total waste of time on my part. And I had no mentors in this area. I had nobody instructing me. I didn’t know anybody who had experience at this who could then guide me. I wish I had.
I wish there had been somebody that told me way, way early on, “Look, they don’t care what you think. If you want to do an interview, just take the occasion to say what you want to say. Don’t answer their questions. The questions are setups. The questions are designed to cast you in a light that isn’t you. Just take the occasion of every question and say what you want to say, no matter what the question is.” I didn’t learn to do that for the longest time, because I was laboring under these false impressions. So in the process of this, I began to get bitter — not bitter. I began to get wise. And I quickly understood that whenever somebody wanted to talk to me in the media, it was not to make me look good, and it was not to promote me, and it was not to do anything laudatory; it was quite the opposite.
So in my case, if I’m out making a speech somewhere, say in a local community, the Rush to Excellence Tour, and the local media called and wanted to do an interview, I’d say, “Nope, nope just have ’em come and watch the show, and that’s where they’ll learn what I think.” You’d be amazed at the number who refused to do that, by the way. Who still wrote about it or wrote about the five protesters outside and not the 5,000 people inside.
So I’ve done what Mrs. Clinton is doing here, but for wholly different reason. She’s doing it because she’s horrible one on one. Mrs. Clinton simply can’t do interviews that in any way are not puff piece. And she’s not in that place right now where the interviews are guaranteed to be puff piece. You know, she’s stiffing them. She’s got this foundation stuff going on. She does not want to answer questions about that, and she’s not talking about that. So that’s why she’s saying no interviews, her speech is her interview. She’s doing it to hide. She’s doing it to mask what I really think is incompetence, and I mean, that, too.
I am not in this camp that is dazzled and afraid and scared of Hillary Clinton, like so many people on the right and in the Republican Party appear to be. I’m not. Never have been. So I can understand telling the press, “I’m not talking to you.” By the same token, listen to my radio show. Why don’t you read my website if you don’t have a chance to listen. What I say is right there on the website. You don’t have to go to some third-party media watchdog that’s gonna distort what I say. Why don’t you just listen? I’ve done that a number of times.
In fact, even now, the requests are constant, network morning shows. I say, “You know, I don’t really need to come on your show. I say everything I believe on my radio show. All you gotta do is run a little tape on that and play that with and have your people commentate. I don’t need to be there. I’m not gonna say anything new on your network than I say on the radio show, and I reserve what I say on the radio show for my audience. Why should I go somewhere else and say it?” But in my case they’re not really interested in that. In Mrs. Clinton’s case, she’s trying to hide, so her speech will be her interview. But in Mrs. Clinton’s case, that is not presidential.
Isn’t this fascinating, in a way, the Republicans, on their side, get a little grief for going places like where George Stephanopoulos is, especially now since we know who and what Stephanopoulos is. He’s just a Clinton hack and an operative disguised as a journalist on ABC, and Rick Santorum still went there. So the reaction on our side, “Why are you wasting your time talking to Stephanopoulos? Why do you waste time with the Drive-By Media?”
So our side does. Mrs. Clinton doesn’t. Mrs. Clinton says, “I’m not speaking to ’em,” and it’s criticism for two different behaviors here. But on one side, Mrs. Clinton is absolutely hiding and not appearing presidential. Our side is told, “If you don’t go on with Stephanopoulos, if you don’t face the media, you’re showing the American people you don’t have the guts! You’re showing the American people you don’t have what it takes to take that path wherever it takes you to become president.”
So the Republicans dutifully say, “You know what? You’ve got a point. The media is what it is. It’s an obstacle. But I gotta face it and I gotta overcome it. Mrs. Clinton, on the other hand, is given pass, and the media are her friends, and she still doesn’t want to face them, and nobody says, “You had better face them! You had better go on those shows. You had better subject yourself to questions. It doesn’t look presidential.”
Now, they may start to say that about her. I’m tell you, there’s some nervousness out there among the Democrats. Slate.com has the story today about the polling data that CNN had yesterday. Her approval numbers are down. Obama’s approval numbers, too. Bush has a higher approval number than Obama does, Hillary is plunging, and the Democrats are concerned about it. Slate.com has a story to say don’t be concerned about Hillary. The headline is: “Democrats, Don’t Freak Out!”
It’s too late.
She’s the nominee.
There’s nobody on the Democrat side that’s gonna unseat her; therefore, don’t sweat it. But those people are saying, “What do you mean, don’t sweat it? She’s gonna eventually have to face the Republicans and the media, and that is gonna be a problem.” So there’s not universal love and acceptance. Then you add to that one of the reasons why she’s not speaking is this business we have learned now. The news about the Clinton Crime Family Foundation just keeps coming.
Now we find out that Clinton Crime Family Foundation was intimately involved with FIFA and Qatar and helping Qatar get the 2022 World Cup. It involves Erickson, the Swedish company, donating or paying Clinton 750 grand, I think it was, to give a speech. I mean, it’s just… It’s dirty what this stuff is. It’s pay for play. There’s no question what’s happening out here, and Hillary obviously does not want to answer these questions, and she’s going to try to structure this so that she won’t have to maybe ever. That’s their objective.
So I understand why she’s doing it.
I’ve done it myself but for entirely, wholly different reasons.