RUSH: My heart was also warm today because a number of people have sent me notes saying how blown away impressed they were with Dr. Ben Carson. It warmed my heart because I have gotten to know Dr. Carson just really in the last six months. I knew who he was when he first came to fame politically when he was at the National Prayer Breakfast and offered his own critique of Obamacare and what he would do. I’ve known of him long before that with the work that he’s done in his career as a neurosurgeon, pediatric neurosurgeon.
You remember probably a month ago now I was watching CNN, and there was some conservative, some Republican analyst who was upset. I forget what it was. Somebody was upset, and she said, “This is gonna maybe make Ben Carson look presidential,” as though that was a bad thing, and I just lost it. There’s not… There’s not a person commenting on cable news today who could wear Dr. Benjamin Carson’s clothes, as a human being, as a neurosurgeon, as anything.
He is the epitome of character and quality. There is not… The idea that he should be insulted, which is what tends to happen to our people in politics, it’s just always grated on me. So I was gratified to get notes last night saying, “Man, this Ben Carson guy! Wow! Wow! This guy’s really solid.” I’m sitting there saying, “Yeah, why are you just figuring it out now?” But I have to rein in my own frustrations, ’cause I realize my job is to get to know these people and a lot about them, and many people don’t have the time I do to put into that.
BREAK TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: Ben Carson, opening part of the debate had some time, then there was a long interval where he wasn’t heard from. They finally went to him with a question, and he said, “Gee, I wondered if I was gonna get back in here.” Ben Carson, look, I don’t want to overdo — oh, you know something, folks, I just saw something on Fox, just a point that I’ve been meaning to make and I forgot to do it.
Have you all heard of subliminal advertising? Do you remember, it wasn’t long ago — oh, man, I wish I could remember this. It might have been a feature on a television news show or some kind of show that I watched. Oh, it was something related to Mad Men, and it was how in advertising subliminal — and how stores post things and create subliminal effects on customers over a long period of time to get them to go certain places in the store, to buy certain things.
And it’s even been used, subliminal — this is not like subliminal messages in music. It’s not a joke type thing. Even con artists have been known to successfully set up a mark by knowing what their favorite number is, and wherever they go, that number, they see it, but they don’t see it, but they do, it registers, it makes them feel comfortable or gives them a good vibe. It makes them drop their guard, their favorite number, they see it, they don’t see it, but it registers. It was something about this. And it made a lot of sense to me in how this is used in advertising, not just commercials on TV, but in stores and so forth.
And I have to tell you, I don’t know how long it took, it might have been an hour, but I think it was when Dr. Carson was speaking and I saw that Facebook logo, which I’d be seeing all night, that f, I saw that f every time I saw a candidate speaking, as in a subliminal grade of flunking. And I’m thinking, okay, Facebook, Zuckerberg, big-time illegal immigration advocate and so forth. And there are people who are very much into this type of thing.
No matter where you look last night, especially if it was a close-up shot, a zoom shot from a camera far away, in the background, that f Facebook logo would be on one side of the candidate, Fox logo on the other, and after an hour or some period of time passed, I finally noticed it and had a negative reaction to it. There’s only one thing when you see an f that’s constantly attached to something, or somebody. I know, it’s probably oddball and kooky, and I’m not leveling any accusations here. That’s not the point. It’s just something I observed. And knowing full well that there are people who attempt to meld minds, shape minds, bend minds using tactics like that.
“Are you saying that they’re grading?” No, no. What I’m saying, the way this would work is that you don’t even notice it. I mean, you saw it, and it’s a Facebook logo and you know it’s an f and you watch and watch and watch and it could create within the minds of some people that these guys are a bunch of screw ups.
Now, what I was gonna say here is about Ben Carson, ’cause it was when he was speaking that I noticed it, and it was offensive to me. One of the worst things about politics is how it can literally destroy somebody’s reputation. You look at Ben Carson, his reputation hasn’t been destroyed. Don’t misunderstand. He’s a genius. He’s the epitome of human quality, human character, pediatric neurosurgery. His life story is inspirational. He is the kind of man that everybody would love for their kids to meet and emulate, and politics can turn him into a buffoon. Politics can make somebody like that look like a buffoon.
He’s thoughtful, plodding, considerate. He doesn’t shoot from the hip type of person. And, as such, a format like that where you’ve got a maximum of a minute and then a maximum of 30 seconds doesn’t exactly fit his personality style. But, no matter, he threw his hat in the ring and he got the polling support to get on the stage. I’m not making excuses for him. I’m just making observations here. I just cringe when I think about what can happen to good people because of this particular business. He could be made to look like a boob when he’s not. Anyway, he did not get rave reviews last night until his closing statement. His closing statement is where he had most of the praise, and I want you to hear it in case you didn’t or if you did, just to remind you.
CARSON: Well, I haven’t said anything about me being the only one to do anything, so let me try that. I’m the only one to separate Siamese twins. I’m the only one to operate on babies while they were still in the mother’s womb. The only one to take out a half of a brain, although you would think if you go to Washington that someone had beat me to it. But — but I’m very hopeful that I’m not the only one who’s willing to pick up the baton of freedom, because freedom is not free and we must fight for it every day. Every one of us must fight for it because we’re fighting for our children and the next generation.
RUSH: Dr. Carson. And Ted Cruz, in terms of debate technique and sharpness of mind, incomparable. You know, Alan Dershowitz at Harvard said he’s the best student he ever had. He was on debate teams at Princeton and Harvard, and just cleaned everybody else’s clock, there’s no question. But he went 40 minutes with no questions. He went a long, long period of time. Bobby Jindal, I mean there was a lot of talent on that stage. Rick Perry in the early debate. Carly Fiorina. So any one of these people instantly preferable to either Hillary or Obama.