RUSH: Let’s go to the audio sound bites as Bill Clinton attempts to put it back together after his meltdown on the Today Show Monday. Last night he went to The Late Show with Stephen Colbert, who interviewed, or I should say sucked up to, former President Clinton.

And Colbert, in true suck-up fashion, asked the president, “Would you like a do-over on that? Do you think Donald Trump or any Republican would get a do-over?” In fact, let me tell you this. When John Kerry was running for president, some CBS reporter did a sit-down interview, and it was a disaster. Apparently, Kerry was not cogent or coherent. And so the reporter was pained and said, “You know what, let’s do this over. Let’s do this again. We don’t want to air this.”

And Kerry, so arrogant, he doesn’t know when he does badly or poorly, was offended and shocked but still took advantage of the opportunity to do it again. I remember way back in 1980, Senator Kennedy was running for the Democrat nomination against Jimmy Carter, remember this, Snerdley? Roger Mudd, CBS News, had an interview with Senator Kennedy. “Why do you want to be president?”

And for the next minute and a half there was nothing but a bunch of incoherent mumbling. And this could not be done over because it was live, as much of television was — I mean, not all of it, but, I mean, literally (muttering). He had no answer. Because the real answer, “Well, I’m a Kennedy, it’s what I do next. And this Carter guy’s embarrassing us. And we can’t have Reagan win, so –” He couldn’t say that. So here’s Clinton with Colbert. “My question is, would you like a do-over on that answer?”

CLINTON: You know, when I saw the interview, I thought that, ’cause they had to, you know, distill it. And it looked like I was saying I didn’t apologize and I had no intention to, and I was mad at me. (laughter)

RUSH: Oh, man, don’t you just. So here’s Clinton, he goes on NBC on Monday and bombs out. (Clinton impression) “I apologized. I apologized to everybody.”

“Did you apologize to her?”

“I did. I apologized to everybody.”

“Did you call?”

“Well, I can’t get hold of her. I haven’t talked to her, but I apologized to everybody. I said I’m sorry. What more do you people want? This wouldn’t even be happening if Hillary could have won that damn election. But here I am stuck now. Why don’t you ask Patterson something?” And it went downhill from there.

So in the do-over, here’s Clinton, “I watched me the other day, I could not believe it. I thought, you know, they had to, you know, distill it.” That’s Arkansas language for edit it. He was not talking about moonshine. Had to edit it. And, “Yeah, it looked like I was saying I didn’t apologize and I had no intention to. And, you know, I got mad at me. I really did.”

Okay. So let’s go back to 1995. What Clinton did last night is classic Clinton technique that he has used all through his presidency and which we have documented. When he finds himself on the wrong side of something, he joins the criticism of himself and steps outside of himself. “Yeah, I watched me the other night, yeah, I gotta tell you, I could have been better.” So this is from Houston in 1995, campaign fundraiser, there’s a group of wealthy donors down there. “Wealthy” is the key. And this is what Clinton said.

CLINTON: Probably people in this room still mad at me at that budget ’cause you think I raised your taxes too much. It might surprise you to know that I think I raised ’em too much too.

RUSH: Now, this was not intended to get outside that room. This was not a public appearance. This was with donors. And those are always behind closed doors. You remember Romney said during his campaign that he knew 47% of the country’s a bunch of welfare bums who are never gonna vote for him. Slate or somebody snuck a reporter in there and videotaped it. These things that reporters — they’re not allowed.

This was not intended for public consumption. And it got out, and there was hell to pay. Because here was Clinton telling the truth to wealthy donors that nobody else could hear. So now let’s go back. Now that we’ve demonstrated that Clinton has an age-old technique of joining the criticism of himself, we go back now to The Late Show with Colbert, and Clinton continues his answer.

CLINTON: It wasn’t my finest hour, but the important thing is, that was a very painful thing that happened 20 years ago. And I apologized to my family, to Monica Lewinsky and her family, to the American people. I meant it then; I meant [sic] it now. I’ve had to live with the consequences every day since. And I still believe this #MeToo movement is long overdue, necessary, and should be supported, and we should all —

AUDIENCE: (applause and cheers)

RUSH: (interruption) Now, wait a minute. (laughing) He’s… Oh, they were clapping. Yeah, they were clapping. This is the point. He still supports the #MeToo, even though he’s one of the reasons for it! (impression) “I support the #MeToo movement.” He didn’t do any of this stuff! Despite the fact he’s apologizing, in his mind, he didn’t do any of this. (interruption) Bill Cosby should have tried it? Cosby doesn’t have the ability Clinton does, and Clinton is losing the ability to lie as effectively as he once did. But let me tell you why I like this.

I was watching Fox today, and they were talking about Clinton and this latest round of interviews in this new book of his, and you know the valley girl that was the State Department spokesman in the Obama administration, Marie Harf — the one who says “admini-shtration.” She was watching this and the disgust on her face! She’s not… She’s too young. She’s not a Clinton Democrat. That all happened when she was child — you know, when she was a young’un — and she’s got no romantic attachment to Clinton like journalists of a certain age do, like the Andrea Mitchell, Martha Raddatz…

Take your pick of female journalists who are in their fifties and sixties. They still look at Clinton with dreamy eyes and imagine, “What if! If only me.” They say, “What did Hillary have that I don’t?” Don’t… Folks, do not doubt me on this. Nina Burleigh of TIME magazine openly published wrote that she would willingly give Clinton Lewinskys every day as thanks for keeping abortion legal. Do not doubt those of us who were there when all this was happening.

And I’m telling you, the female press corps and the White House press corps back then had dreams of Bill. Lewinsky was not the only one. They were jealous of her, after a fashion. But I’m watching Marie Harf, and she’s disgusted, and she doesn’t want any part of this. She hates the fact that this is still in any way something that identifies the Democrat Party. And she was saying (summarized), “We’ve gotta stop looking back. The Clintons have poisoned this party. They have had too much control over this party for too long, and it’s time we broke away from.

“It’s time to move on from it.” And I admit, I admit, it’s rare to come across any Democrat with an attitude like that about the Clintons. I mean, they’re becoming… There’s more and more of them, and they’re young. They’re in the Millennial demographic. But this resentment that these people are still sucking up all the oxygen in the Democrat room? We should be applauding it. I mean, how great is it that the Democrats are trying to make all this hay on the #MeToo movement, and here’s their hero!

Here’s their No. 1 rock star running around doing interviews for his latest book (laughing) with Patterson claiming that he’s very proud (laughing) of the #MeToo movement while he’s apologizing to Lewinsky and everybody! This is great, folks. This is not something to be mad at. So we move on now. Let’s see. Colbert’s next question: “The New York Times reported that the Democrats are not reaching out to you in 2018 because of the taint of your past experience with Lewinsky in light of the #MeToo movement. Is that true? Are they not reaching out to you and are you frustrated by that?”

CLINTON: These midterm elections are important, and the only people that really matter are not me. It’s you.

CROWD: (smattering of applause)

CLINTON: And one of the main reasons this country is as polarized as it is, is that ever since the Gingrich revolution, we started having Republicans move hard to the right; then redistricting. Everybody worries more about the primary, President Obama, I think… I think he did a really good job. But I think he could have done even more if all of us who voted in 2008 and 2012 for him had also voted in 2010 and 2014.

CROWD: (applause)

CLINTON: And I think that —

COLBERT: And 2016.

CLINTON: Yeah! In 2016, they had Vladimir in there messing a little bit. So —

(lost audio)

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: I lost the microphone, folks, right as the Slick Willie bite was ending, talking about (impression), “He had Vladimir on his side 2016.” What a cheap shot. So, anyway, that’s Clinton, and he’s trying to sell a book. And I don’t think he ever believed that he would encounter this kind of thing from the Drive-By Media. And of course Colbert, that was just a total do-over. It was an opportunity to redo come the damage or limit it.