Jimmy Carter won that primary in ’76 and he won the election. So every year now, just like Reagan was the first to bring a hero in the State of the Union, put ’em up there with the first lady. They do that every year now, and the video preceding the nominee, that was started with Carter. Now there’s a video before every damn speaker, practically. (interruption) Panetta got booed last night? Well, let me tell you about that, though.
Now, who is Leon Panetta? You might think of Panetta as the former CIA director and all. Leon Panetta, back in the nineties, was Mr. Democrat. Leon Panetta was the epitome of what the Democrat Party — this is not a pro or con comment. I’m not saying he was an arch- anything. He’s a reasonable guy, on the surface. I mean, he’s as partisan as George Mitchell was. But on the surface like Daschle, he’s soft-spoken and a reasonable man, there’s certainly nothing radical or extreme about them. But he wasn’t what the average Democrat today is. The average Democrat today runs around carrying signs saying America was never great. That’s another thing about Obama’s speech last night. With protest signs outside the arena being carried that say, “America was never great,” here’s Obama sounding like Ronald Reagan?
Anyway, Panetta — this is important — Panetta was Mr. Democrat like Bob Strauss used to be Mr. Democrat. Mr. Democrat in the 1990s, I mean, responsible, adult, refined, sophisticated, got heckled and booed off the stage last night. That was an illustration of how far gone to the left this party is. Panetta was a chief of staff for Clinton and when he resigned he gave one of the biggest kiss assists speeches I have ever heard. It made me almost want to throw up. It was in the Lewinsky era and it was how great Clinton was, what he had done to remake and modernize the Democrat Party, just puke city. But it all stemmed from loyalty.
But he was Mr. Democrat. He was the Democrat you cross the aisle with to work with, folks, back in those days, and he’s heckled and booed off the stage practically last night. You know why? Because to those people he was at the CIA, and he was secretary of defense during Benghazi. He’s a warmonger. The Bernie Sanders crowd, they hate Hillary for the same reason. He’s a warmonger, kills people. So does Obama with drones, but somehow that didn’t get mentioned.
Anyway, just a sign. Panetta being heckled is almost the equivalent of Reagan being heckled at a Republican convention. It would have been unthinkable. And Panetta didn’t know how to deal with it. You could see he was stymied, he was totally confused by this. There are Democrats now elderly, who — well, I don’t know if they know or not what their party has become — they will never tell us — but they’ve gotta be tremendously worried about it, ’cause it’s nowhere near representing a majority of thought in this country. It’s kook city.
Anyway, I keep interrupting myself for valid reasons, by the way. But here’s the story on the ratings. “No Obama Bounce For DNC Day 3 Ratings — As the ratings for the Democrat National Committee fell behind the ratings of the Republican convention on the same night and other shows.”
Here’s what it says here. “With star turns from Vice President [Bite Me] and then primetime performances from VP hopeful Tim Kaine and then [Obama], the Wells Fargo Center in Philadelphia was rockin’ — even more so when nominee Hillary Clinton made an onstage appearance at the very end to hug it out with [Obama] — though it didn’t lead to ratings fireworks it seems in the early numbers.” Again, these are the overnights. “NBC and ABC tie[d] in that 10 PM slot where the Big 3 are showing the DNC live. Looking at the 10-11 PM ET hour…”
The numbers are horrible. This is flowery language here, but the numbers are down. See, here you have the numbers, if I can find these. NBC was tops, 3.6 million viewers. ABC had 2.7 million and CBS two million with Obama’s speech. That’s nothing, compared to usual convention viewership. So Snerdley is telling me how comforting that is ’cause when I came here today, he was bummed. He thought… Correct me if I’m wrong, you thought Obama’s speech was… (interruption)
Snerdley thought it was the best speech of his career and you almost got the impression — I got the impression listening to Snerdley — that the election was over last night if people saw it. (interruption) Okay, good. I’m glad you didn’t think that, ’cause he’s not on the ballot. The real thing tonight is, “Can she do tonight without a seizure? Can she do tonight without a coughing spasm? Can she do tonight…?”
Look at what she’s got to live up to, from Biden talking about all these great things she’s done with children, to her husband talking about all these great qualities. How in the world is she gonna live up to all this? How’s she gonna live up to the talent, the entertainment value, whatever you categorize it as, of all these other speakers? I mean, Obama’s good. Clinton was good. She’s not good at this. She has to speak almost monotone in order to keep from falling into that shrieking second wife persona. First wife, I should say. Or either one.
BREAK TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: And you want to know when Panetta got booed? Let me tell you what he was saying when the booing began. He looked like a deer caught in the headlights. He was totally shocked. Panetta was saying (paraphrased), “Hillary is determined to defeat those who threaten us today: ISIS, Al-Qaeda, Boko Haram, Procol Harum, Al-Shabaab, terrorists who pervert the teachings of Islam, to kill innocent people going about their daily lives: People traveling through airports in Brussels and Istanbul, families celebrating on a beachfront in France, men and…”
This is when it started, when Panetta starts indicting ISIS for all their atrocities. And when he got to “men and women shopping in a market in Baghdad and just this week an 85-year-old priest whose throat was slit by terrorists who stormed his church during Mass. These murderers must be stopped.” And that’s when it crescendo’d. “No!” They started shouting, “No more wars! Lies, lies, lies! No more wars.”
When he goes through his indictment of ISIS is when the delegates to the Democrat Party national convention started booing him off the stage, “No more wars! Lies, lies, lies.” It’s no wonder he was stunned. Panetta. No more drones, even! Panetta is the kind of guy who thinks that he’s in line for huzzahs and great cheers for helping vanquish Osama Bin Laden and other Al-Qaeda affiliates. His party is booing the notion of defeating ISIS? (phew!) I’da started looking snipers for that stadium.
I’d started scouring the upper levels of that place and I’da gotten out of there.
BREAK TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: We’ve got the audio of Leon Panetta being booed, resoundingly heckled as he’s listing all of our military achievements in dealing with ISIS and getting bin Laden and then listing the recent acts of terror and how this administration and this Regime is ready to deal with it.
He starts getting heckled and he doesn’t understand. He’s never been heckled at a Democrat convention. It’s like Ted Kennedy, he wouldn’t know what to do with being heckled. Chris Dodd, these guys, Biden, they would not know what to do if that happened to them. And it happened to Panetta. Here’s how.
PANETTA: He praises dictators from Saddam Hussein to Vladimir Putin. Today, only today, let me point out something that just happened today. Donald Trump today once again took Russia’s side. He asked the Russians to interfere in American politics. (booing)
RUSH: That should have created a standing ovation. That line on Trump should have created a standing ovation in that hall. All they’re doing is booing. By the way, I’m gonna add here, Panetta knows full well that Trump’s not doing anything of the sort. Trump is not asking the Russians to intercede in a presidential election. He’s just goosing these guys. He’s just jamming their pomposity and their arrogance right down their throats.
Don’t forget, we don’t think this Hillary server email episode’s over, and they do. They think they’ve won. They think they have stopped the investigation. She’s in the clear. She’s been exonerated. They’re moving forward. We haven’t accepted that. And that’s another aspect.