RUSH: From our old buddy Harvey Levin at TMZ.  “NBC Planned to Use the Trump Audio to Influence the Debate and the Election.” This was posted about ten o’clock this morning.  “NBC exec[utive]s,” NBC EXECUTIVES who used to work with Trump on his TV show The Apprentice, former Trump broadcast partners, executives at NBC “had a plan to time the release of the Donald Trump audio to have maximum impact on both the [second] presidential debate and the general election … sources connected with the network tell TMZ.

“Multiple sources connected with NBC tell [TMZ] top network execs knew about the video long before they publicly said they did, but wanted to hold it because it was too early in the election. The sources say many NBC exec[utive]s have open disdain for Trump and their plan was to roll out the tape 48 hours before the debate so it would dominate the news cycle leading up to the face-off.” TMZ says, “As we reported, Billy Bush was bragging about the tape — in front of NBC execs at the Rio Olympics — in early August. NBC says it’s only known about the tape for a little more than a week.”

They’re lying! So far we haven’t heard a word about the Clinton campaign here, folks.  We have heard only NBC execs.  NBC execs who used to work with Trump on his show. NBC executives who, obviously, are also Clinton campaign staff! NBC executives have known for months about this tape and plan to release it before the second debate.  The only thing that stopped them was Hurricane Matthew.

TMZ says that the plan was to edit the tape and take Billy Bush out of it.  Billy Bush, an NBC employee, Access Hollywood, whatever, the show, they were gonna edit it so that it was only Trump.  The only voice people were gonna hear was Donald Trump.  They were “not going to air the portion where Trump and Billy got off the bus and Billy goaded Trump and the soap star to hug.”  They weren’t going to air Billy Bush encouraging Trump to hug the woman who was also on the tape. 

TMZ’s “sources say the tape was going to be ‘sanitized’ to protect Billy as much as possible.” So what happened?  Well, what happened was an NBC executive got ticked off that they were gonna release the tape after the hurricane.  Somebody at NBC wanted this out regardless of hurricane coverage and leaked it to the Washington Post.  Somebody at NBC gave the tape to the Washington Post, and that’s how it entered the public domain. 

“[A]fter The Washington Post ran the story, Access [Hollywood] aired their footage and cut out the parts where Billy looked worse…” Now, we’ve told you the plan got derailed. Yeah.  TMZ’s still writing.  We’re told “[t]he plan got derailed by Hurricane Matthew. Execs decided the wall-to-wall coverage of the storm would mess up the plan to dominate the news with the Trump tape, so they were going to hold it until Monday. It didn’t sit well with some staffers who wanted it out pre-debate, so it was leaked to the Washington Post.

“As one source put it, ‘NBC really screwed Billy. They had no problem with him on the tape ’till it got leaked.'” Here’s what… The point about that is they were trying to protect Billy Bush.  They were gonna edit this tape so that nobody knew it was Billy Bush on this tape at all — protect him as their star on Access Hollywood, I guess — and then somebody leaked it to the Washington Post with Billy Bush in it. 

NBC decided to throw Billy Bush overboard as well as Trump, since their original plan to edit him out had fallen prey to a leaker giving it to the Washington Post and the tape there featured Billy Bush.  So now Billy Bush has been fired in another act of hypocrisy.  NBC was doing everything they could to protect the guy. But since the leak included it, now NBC’s acting all righteously indignant and outraged that one of their employees could possibly do this — after they had planned to protect him. 

So now Billy Bush has been suspended for who knows how long from appearing on any NBC shows just to make it look like somebody at NBC has some honor and some dignity.  And, by the way, for those of you who work at TMZ, and you might be upset that I refer to Harvey Levin as “our old buddy”? Don’t take it out on Harvey.  Harvey’s just been fair to me.  That’s why I call him “our old buddy.” 

I can understand some TMZ employees might want to revolt and retire hearing me refer to Harvey as “our old buddy.”  Harvey’s been fair to me.  That’s the reason I call him “old buddy.”  I’ve never met Harvey, so you people that work there don’t have to resign in a fit of pique.  He’s just… Unless you think it’s unfair that I would be treated fairly.  I mean, on one particular story, Harvey had it exactly right and nobody else did, and he went with it, so…

Okay.  Now to this story on hypocrisy — and I know, I know. We’re gonna get to people on the phones. You’re chomping at the bit to get at this — I know you are — and we’re gonna come to you right after the upcoming break. But you know that you and I talk here about hypocrisy all the time and we wring our hands and we express our frustration: How come hypocrisy never attaches itself to the Democrats, yet when it comes to Republicans, it’s become a crime?  Hypocrisy is a crime when Republicans are caught in it and yet it never even attaches to Democrats. 

So there’s a piece here called, “The Ugly Stench of Hypocrisy,” by Michael J. Hurd, PhD.  He’s a PhD of psychology, Living Resources Center.  “The most insightful thing I’ve yet read about the Donald Trump sex talk scandal is this…” Let me give you some pull quotes, here, before… Well, no. I’ll read the opening of the story; then get to the pull quotes. This is actually from three days ago. It just took a while for our sources to come up with it, but we’ve got it. “The most insightful thing I’ve yet read about the Donald Trump sex talk scandal is this: How ironic, then, that a culture which rejects moral standards…” And make no bones about it, folks: We do.

Standards, you stand up for moral standards, you’re gonna be mocked and laughed out of the room.  They’re gonna call you a prude.  They’re gonna call you a Victorian.  They’re gonna call you an old fuddy-duddy, an old fogy, and they’re gonna claim you want to deny people having a good time.  So a culture which rejects moral standards. In other words, anything goes.  You know what the magic word is? The only thing that matters in American sexual mores today is one thing.  You can do anything, the left will promote and understand and tolerate anything as long as there is one element.  Do you know what it is? 

Consent.

If there is consent on both or all three or all four, however many are involved in the sex act, it’s perfectly fine, whatever it is.  But if the left ever senses and smells that there’s no consent in part of the equation then here come the rape police.  But consent is the magic key to the left.  “How ironic, then, that a culture which rejects moral standards has suddenly become so pure and pristine, sitting in judgment of someone they deem too immoral to become president because of something he said in private. As a logical person, I have to ask these paragons of newly found virtue where this standard by which they’ve judged Trump is found.”

If morality is relative to each individual — and believe me, it is today.  You try to define morality, and they’re gonna come for you and mock you and make fun of you, and, worse than that, it’s like you don’t have any right to define morality.  One of the Undeniable Truths of Life that I wrote back in 1987 is that morality has become an individual choice.  And, of course, it isn’t. 

Morality is what it is.  Virtue is what it is.  And you either are or you aren’t.  And the left doesn’t like that so they’ve obscured the lines and the definitions.  And the definition now is moral is whatever you can get somebody to do with you, consent.  You can do anything.  If you could get the dog to consent with you, if you can get the horse to consent, we got no problem with it.  And they don’t!  So morality has been boiled down to consent, is my point, and it’s true. 

So it’s said here, “If morality is relative to each individual — a purely subjective experience — by what standard are they judging Trump? Obviously, in such a secular climate, there can’t even be a ‘standard.’ Why should anyone listen to people who out of one side of their mouths declare the death of objective moral standards yet out of the other condemn someone for violating objective moral standards?”

Because, you see, morality is not subjective.  “Human beings possess the capacity for rationality and objectivity. We’re able to distinguish what’s good and what’s bad,” and we know it.  We know right from wrong.  We know good from bad.  We know what we should do and what we shouldn’t do and the left wants to not feel guilt when they engage in what you shouldn’t do.  And the way to get there is to simply erase the concept of objective morality.  There isn’t any.  You don’t get to define it.  Nobody else does.  You get to define your own.  And therefore you can’t criticize. 

Well, in this atmosphere, how does anybody dare preach to Donald Trump?  When we have spent the last 25 or 30 years obliterating the moral code, when we have blown virtue to smithereens, who are you phony baloney, plastic banana, good-time rock ‘n’ rollers all of a sudden now sitting in judgment of Donald Trump? 

“Trump’s trashy comments do not uphold sex and romance as a beautiful and fulfilling, uplifting activity. But neither do Bill Clinton’s actions over the years, particularly with respect to his many, many dalliances with women. Bill Clinton is not running for president. His wife is. But his wife built her whole career off the springboard of his presidency. Without his presidency, she would not have become a U.S. Senator and later Secretary of State — a bad one,” but she wouldn’t have become either if it weren’t for her husband and her using that as her springboard.

“If Bill Clinton had gone down in flames during his impeachment trial and been removed from office, Hillary would not be running for president now. The whole argument back then was that his lying and perjury were ‘just about sex.'” None of your business. “Well, isn’t this tape with Donald Trump ‘just about sex’ too? If it’s OK for a president to have oral sex in the Oval Office –” and we don’t see any crying women shrieking on TV about it. “If it’s OK for a president to have oral sex in the Oval Office while doing official business, then why is it irredeemable and unforgivable for a presidential candidate to make lewd comments in private when he thought nobody was listening?

“But the questions are pointless.” And this gets to the nub of it, folks. “Hillary Clinton has come this far. She has proved that if you have the right political connections, you’re not even accountable to the Department of Justice and the FBI when it’s proven beyond a doubt that you violated the law. You’re a lawbreaker, but you won’t be charged if the president and those who serve him want you to win. Now there’s a scandal for you.”  And that is hypocrisy. 

“So far, Hillary Clinton has gotten away with everything she and her husband did. But she is still brazen enough to sit in judgment for something that isn’t even a crime.  Hypocrisy is a painful thing to watch. It’s beyond laughable to watch the biased media culture and all the Hillary-supporting politicians go Puritanical when it comes to sex. The morally righteous never had this problem with Bill Clinton, and they don’t have a problem with Hillary’s mind-numbing evasiveness when it comes to partnering with one of the highest profile sexual predators of all time.

“Hypocrisy is a symptom.  People are hypocrites only when they’re evading something big. What the Clintonistas try to hide is they care about only one thing: Power. They don’t care about respect for women, because to respect women you first have to respect individuality. Their entire lives have been based on the acquisition of political power and the millions of dollars,” they can acquire as a result.