Mo Thacker, the United Screeners of America union leader on my case for suspending call screener Bo Snerdley calls me right as the hour is beginning.
Anyway, greetings and welcome back, folks.
Rush Limbaugh here, the Excellence in Broadcasting Network, kicking off a brand new week of broadcast excellence.
We are high atop.
The EIB building here in Midtown Manhattan.
Telephone number 800-282-2882.
And the email address is rush at EIBnet.com.
I want to go to the audio soundbites.
Over the weekend, I saw the screaming red headline on the Drudge Report that General Sanchez had dropped this huge bomb.
And the bomb was that the war in Iraq was hopeless.
We have no chance.
It's been horribly run.
And the drive-by seized on it.
And a Democrat seized on it.
It was a big deal.
The only problem with this is that if you read everything that General Sanchez said or listened to everything he said, he really criticized the drive-by media.
And they conveniently forgot to report that.
But we, ladies and gentlemen, have the sound bites of the drive-bys of Sanchez and what the drive-bys totally ignored in his scathing attack.
This is last Friday in Washington, D.C. General Ricardo, Lieutenant General Ricardo Sanchez, now retired, addressed military reporters and editors.
We have three soundbites.
Here's the first one.
For some, it seems that as long as you get a front-page story, there is little or no regard for the collateral damage that will be caused.
Personal reputations sometimes have no value.
They report with total impunity and are rarely held accountable for unethical conduct.
Given the near-instantaneous ability to report actions on the ground, the responsibility to accurately and truthfully report takes on an unprecedented importance.
The speculative and often uninformed initial reporting that characterizes our media appears to be rapidly becoming the standard of the industry.
Yeah.
You hear that?
The speculative and often uninformed initial reporting that characterizes our media appears to be rapidly becoming the standard of the industry.
General Ricardo Sanchez ripping into the drive-bys for what they have contributed.
And no, of course it wasn't in the newspaper today.
It wasn't in any of the reports over the weekend.
All it was over the weekend was Sanchez drops a big bomb and totally rips the Iraq effort.
Here's the second of our three soundbites.
Once reported, your assessments become conventional wisdom and nearly impossible to change.
Your unwillingness to accurately and prominently correct your mistakes and your agenda-driven biases sometimes contribute to this corrosive environment.
All of these challenges combine create a media environment that does a tremendous disservice to America in some instances.
Over the course of this war, tactically insignificant events have become strategic defeats for our country because of the tremendous power and impact of the media.
And by extension, you individually, the journalist.
Talking to military reporters and editors on Friday.
And everybody had all weekend to get this part of the story.
It was half the speech.
It was half of what he said.
None of this was reported.
Only the bomb that he dropped.
On our efforts in Iraq and how horrible we're doing and we don't have a chance and all this.
Here's the third soundbite.
Clear to me is that you're perpetuating the corrosive partisan politics that is destroying our country and killing our service members who are at war in some cases.
My assessment is that your profession to some extent has strayed from these worthy ethical standards and have allowed external agendas to manipulate what the American public sees on TV, what they read in our newspapers, and what they see and read on the web.
For some of you, just like some of our politicians, the truth is of little to no value if it does not fit your own preconceived notions, biases, or agendas.
What an indictment, folks.
What an absolute hammer of an indictment from retired Lieutenant General Ricardo Sanchez on Friday, addressing military reporters and editors.
What is clear to me, he said, is that you're perpetuating the corrosive partisan politics that's destroying our country and killing our service members who are at war in some cases.
That is one hell of an indictment, a charge, and he is dead on with it.
And he's not going to say this, but you got to throw the willing accomplices of these reporters in that whole mix, too.
And who would that be?
Certain members of the Democrat Party, Ms. Pelosi, Senator Reed, certainly Senator Kerry, Senator Durbin, Senator Kennedy.
The list goes Senator Obama, Senator Clinton.
The list goes on and on and on.
It was a combined effort, and it's still underway.
And none of this got reported on by the drive-bys, none of it whatsoever.
They're just proving that he's right.
Selective editing.
Speaking of the media, get this.
This is in the New York Times today.
As struggling newspapers across the country cut back on investigative reporting, a new kind of journalism venture is hoping to fill the gap.
Paul Steiger, who was a top editor of the Wall Street Journal for 16 years and a pair of wealthy Californians are assembling a group of investigative journalists who will give away their work to media outlets.
The nonprofit group called ProPublica will pitch each project to a newspaper or magazine and occasionally to other media where the group hopes the work will make the strongest impression.
The plan is to do long-term projects uncovering misdeeds in government, business, and organizations.
This, folks, is precise, it's a bunch of libs doing this, and this is precisely what journalists have as their creed anyway.
Destroy people in power, destroy powerful business and people, and get into these organizations that are too powerful and find corruption and expose that.
Now, all of this happens, of course, only when Republicans occupy the White House and other key positions.
It strangely doesn't happen when Democrats are in charge.
No, what happens then is when the Democrats engage in corruption, like the Clintons fundraising scandals in the 90s, the press sits around and marvels at how clever they are.
They marvel at how smooth and all that they are able to get away with this kind of stuff.
They just marvel at it.
But when others other than friends of Democrats are in office, why here come these reports?
Now, the interesting thing here is that this group's going out, they're going to act like an outsourcing group.
Drive-by media outlets who are supposedly canceling and cutting back investigative journalists because their profits are down, the circulation is down, the viewership is down.
So these guys are going to go pick up the slack and they're going to give away their work to whoever they think should best have it, project by project.
They went and asked Bill Keller at the New York Times about this.
And Bill Keller said, well, you know, we'd look at it.
We are not sure that we'd really, if we can verify what an outside group's doing, meaning if it fits our standards of the New York Times to trash whoever we want trashed, then we'll damn well run it.
But meanwhile, we think we'll focus on our in-house efforts here at destroying our enemies ourselves.
Now, if the interesting thing behind this thing is two, I guess there's two things to me.
One, this group, ProPublica, for some reason, obviously upset with all of its associates and colleagues and the rest of the drive-bys not doing enough destruction out there, not getting enough stories done that can't get us out of a rock, can't get Bush out of the White House, can't get Bush impeached or any of this.
So this group thinks they got to step in and do it.
The second thing is, if they think the reason people aren't reading newspapers as they used to, they think people aren't watching network news as often as they used to is because they've dropped investigative reporters.
They have no clue why it is they're losing circulation, ad revenue, and audience.
Zilch Zero Nada.
It is precisely due to their content.
They're predictable.
Everybody now knows, or a vast majority now knows, what you're going to get when you open a New York Times, the LA Times, the Washington Post, or what have you.
There are rare exceptions where we get surprised, like the Post editorial yesterday.
But other than that, it's predictable as it can be, and it's one-sided under the pretense of being non-biased or unbiased.
Content, content, content.
Content is king, and these guys are losing.
As the Sanchez story illustrates, half of what he said was not even reported on.
So it's left to us in a new media to clean up this mess, this drive-by mess that was left by the roadside over the weekend.
So now this outsource group is going to be producing these projects and putting these projects of investigative journalism together and offering them to other news outlets for free.
So who are the money bags behind this?
Now, the story, I don't know if I read the story through all the way through.
I know they're Democrats.
I just don't know their names.
Is Ron Burkle one of them?
Sandler, some guy named Sandler?
But they're Californians.
And so this is just another version of Media Matters for America.
Also, this is sort of an indictment about media, man.
There's an interesting paragraph in here about that.
Nothing quite like this has been attempted, says the New York Times.
And despite having a lot going for it, ProPublica will be something of an experiment, inventing its practices by trial and error.
It remains to be seen how well it can attract talent and win the cooperation of the mainstream media.
Come on, give me a break.
Media Matters has won the cooperation of mainstream media with lies and smears.
It's a cinch.
Media Matters has shown these guys how to do it.
It's just too bad they're not going to be making any money from it.
At least at the outset.
Quick timeout.
We'll continue after this.
Hi, welcome back, ladies and gentlemen, Rush Limbaugh, a man you could and would totally trust your wife or your girlfriend, your mistress.
Overnight, your wife, daughter, your pets in a hotel motel of your choice while you're out catting around, serving humanity simply by showing up.
We're up now to $45,600 at eBay on the original Harry Reid smear letter to Mark Mays, the CEO of Clear Channel, the syndication partner of this program, demanding that they spank me and make me apologize for something that I didn't say.
A lot of people have asked me, why did you go on television about this?
Folks, you understand, if I would have gone on television to explain my side, I'm immediately on the defensive.
There was nothing to explain here.
The people that need to be brought on television are the Democrats who bought the smear.
If the media were honest, because they know this was a smear, that's why most of them didn't run with this, they'd be calling other people and asking them to come on these TV shows.
What are you trying to do here?
Targeting a private citizen from the floor of the United States Senate or some media outlets that are getting it wrong.
Bring them on.
But I'm not going to go on TV and assume by automatically, just by appearing in defensive posture, have to give my side of things.
My side of things is what it was.
I am the record.
What I say, what I do is the record.
And nobody else gets to interpret it.
Nobody else gets to redefine it.
And nobody else certainly gets to tell other people what I was thinking when I was saying it.
So to go on television and be interviewed or asked questions about it makes me look like I got to defend myself on something I didn't even do.
So that's what it's pointless anyway.
It wouldn't have accomplished anything.
We're doing far more the way we're handling this.
We got the original.
We put it on eBay.
When we left Friday, it was up to $5,500.
The first bid we got was $100.
Now it's $45,600.
The auction goes to 1 o'clock on Friday.
And a lot of people can't bid this much.
They can't afford it.
They've been asking us to make it available to make copies available for a smaller donation to the Marine Corps Law Enforcement Foundation.
You've already paid for this letter, folks, because these senators used your tax money, their salary money, did it on their own time.
They did it on work time.
So we've put a PDF file of the letter, copy, at rushlimbaugh.com.
You can download it free.
It's yours.
Download it as many times you want.
I want copies of this letter in every house in America, magnetized to refrigerator doors.
Feel free to take it.
And we've got a link up there to the Marine Corps Law Enforcement Foundation website.
So if you want to donate to them, as some of you had said you'd like to, feel free to do it.
We're going to treat you as adults here.
You've already paid for this.
The purpose of this is not to soak everybody.
This is just to raise some money for this charity, which is, and hopefully, I doubt that it'll happen, but I have issued three times now a request and a quasi-challenge of Senator Reed and the other 40 Democrats who signed this letter.
Look, why don't you match the donation?
You can all afford it from your campaign funds.
Why don't you match whatever the winning bid is and do something for the troops or for their kids and send to the Marine Corps Law Enforcement Foundation.
I'm going to match it, whatever the end number is, so it'll be doubled.
And it'll be a great thing.
Now, one other quick thing here before we move on, a lot of people are inquiring what's the condition of the original.
The original, you can see it on the PDF.
These are full-color copies.
And there are two flaws, and they were on there when we got them.
And they're on page two, and they're not really flaws.
There's a ballpoint pen streak as though some senator, an aging senator, had trouble finding the line he was to sign his name on.
And then there's a yellow, looks like a yellow highlighter smudged.
We actually think Senator Kennedy eating a hot dog with mustard when he signed his.
But they were both on page two, the original when we got them.
They're protected.
They're sealed in that Halliburton attache case.
And you're going to get it just as it is.
It's never been folded.
Very few hands have touched this letter.
So it is what it is.
And I wanted to make sure that you understood.
Can see if you expand the image either in our PDF at rushlimbaugh.com or on the eBay website, if you expand and enlarge the image, you'll see these two smudges, flaws, whatever, on page two.
To me, they just add to the authenticity of everything.
Who's next here?
This is Chip in Bartow, Florida.
Hi, Chip.
Welcome to the program.
Hi, Rush.
Longtime listener, first time caller.
Thank you.
It's a great honor to talk to you, sir.
Google Flex of dittos to you.
Appreciate that.
All right.
My question is this.
Now that Condi's over there with the peace conference in the Middle East, what advice would you give her vis-a-vis how to help our cause there using Turkey as essentially a sort of a template, if you will, prior to this congressional brouhaha that they are causing and such?
You're asking me what I would advise Condoleezza Rice to do in using the Turkey situation and talking to people in the Middle East about peace.
Well, I'm saying, given that Turkey has been our ally for 50 plus years or something like that, and they're a Muslim country, how would she use our relationship with them prior to this brouhaha?
Well, you can't compare Turkey to Hamas or the Fatah bunch or whoever, whatever the factions over there, the Hezbollah.
Turkey is a moderate Muslim regime.
They have been an ally.
This whole concept of Middle East peace, we've discussed this on this program countless times.
Peace only results from victory.
Peace is the aftermath of victory.
You do not negotiate peace until you've kicked somebody's rear end and you get terms of surrender from until that happens.
This whole notion of Middle East peace, you know, what I would do, and of course, I'm not a diplomat, but if I were Condoleezza Rice, I would remind him, did you remember not long ago that the Assyrians were building a little nuclear reactor and the Israelis found out about it and they flew in and out, destroyed the reactor, and the Syrians didn't even know what had happened until after the bombs exploded.
They think they had the best radar and detection equipment given, bought by the Russians, and it didn't detect Israeli warplanes.
If you people think that Israel is not committed to its own survival and peace, then you'd better think again.
Lebanon is hanging in the balance.
I just think this whole Middle East peace thing is just, how many years have we been doing this with no peace?
How many years of diplomacy?
How many years of negotiations?
But to compare Turkey with Hamas, Hezbollah, and so forth, don't think the comparison flies.
Besides that, Pelosi has gone out.
She's tried to make friends with the Syrians.
Pelosi has been trying to undercut the United States in that region for the last year.
I know.
Happy to be so.
Happy to be here on the EIB network, the Bulwark, fearlessly leading conservatives through the murk of modern America.
800-282-2882.
We had a caller not long ago in the program, I think it was in the second, first hour, about the Harry Reid letter that we have, the original that we have for sale at auction on eBay.
He called it an historical document, a significant historical document in the modern history of the country because of its blatant abuse of power against a private citizen.
Now, of course, you people know I am a rook, and I'm not sitting here going, I can't believe they would attack me.
We are having fun with it.
And we are ramming it down all sorts of other orifice.
In fact, I thought about sending Dingy Harry a tube of KY jelly before we posted this thing on eBay just to make the whole reverse process here a little less painful.
But I didn't do that.
We're having fun with it here.
But it is a historical document in modern American history because of its blatant abuse of power.
And if you haven't seen it, it's, well, we've got copies of the page on both the eBay and rushlimbaugh.com.
Here's who it is that's funding this Pro-Publica bunch.
It is Herb and Marion Sandler, legendary capitalist multi-billionaire builders of a financial empire, philanthropic allies of Peter Lewis and George Soros.
They're ponying up $10 million a year for a charitable venture to supply investigative reporting at no cost to newspapers, which are laying off editorial employees and others as their business model becomes obsolete.
Efforts are being made to wrap this propaganda venture in the cloak of pure public interests.
And Pro-Publica, does it, you know, it's a Latin name.
Does it not sound like something a bunch of socialists have come up with?
Pro-Publica.
The board comprises a distinguished multi-ethnic panel that even includes a white male former congressman Jim Leach of Iowa.
Former Wall Street Journal editor Paul Steiger is in charge for the time being.
No doubt there'll be window dressing stories going after subjects who could be described as liberal in some sense, just to show that they're balanced and so forth, but that'll be just at the outset here.
Thomas Lifson at the American Thinker says, given the background of the holders of the Purse Springs, there's reason to suspect that the venture will be used to go after opponents of the left.
Even Jane Mayer of the New Yorker describes them and their circle as hardcore partisans.
The Sandlers are famous, celebrated, notorious for their policy of not spending a penny without getting their money's worth and more.
They're going to hire up to 24 journalists, pay salaries and benefits comparable to the biggest newspapers, which in essence, you know what this is?
A safety net for some of these journalists who've been canned or who have been let go.
So the same journalists who weren't doing their jobs in the first place are now going to get hired to not do their jobs as well as they have been.
The whole thing is a ruse and it's a tax dodge.
The whole thing is a tax since it's giving away its work.
It's a tax dodge for these donors.
So no longer tethered to the responsibility of earning their way in the marketplace, this talent pool of investigative journalists can be turned loose on potentially anyone.
If you look hard enough, you can find all sorts of difficult to explain matters that at a minimum can tie up and distract even the most innocent paragon of virtue.
For real people born as sinners, there's always something that investigative journalists can find.
I'll tell you, folks, the way to deal with this, I have always said it.
I don't know anybody who's doing it.
Maybe I should found Pro Destroya and get a bunch of people willing to do investigative journalism on these investigative journalists.
You know, anti-publica.
They get to sit there.
Who are these people that get to act as though they are sin-free?
That they are clean and pure as the wind-driven snow.
That they got no skeletons in their closet.
They can go out and dig up dirt on everybody's gut dirt.
They can go out and dig whatever up, and then they can slant it and taint it, smear it, lie about it, do whatever they want.
And nobody examines who these people are.
And if you try, they get mad.
Well, we're journalists.
We're immune.
You can't treat us the way we treat other people.
I've had journalists tell me this.
Well, we're journalists.
Well, you can't.
Why are you immune?
Why are you immune to the same kind of destructive reporting and behavior that you dish out?
You know, I've practiced it once.
I'm not going to tell you the story because I don't want to give it away.
And I would have to mention names, and I'm not going to mention names, but there was a cover story on me coming out of one of the big news magazines, and it was going to totally mischaracterize me and what I do and how I do it.
And we found out who was writing it and made a couple phone calls to the person writing it.
And we said, you know what?
We're going to find out where your kids go to school.
We're going to find out who you knocked up in high school.
We're going to find out what drugs you used.
We're going to find out where you go to drink and do.
We're going to find out how you paid for your house.
We're going to do what we're going to do exact.
And we're going to say that, you know what, you are no different than Al Goldstein.
You both masturbate.
You're no different than Al Goldstein, and you're both journalists and so forth.
And a guy started screaming on the phone.
Just went, you can't do that.
We said, watch us.
And it changed the tone of the story by about 60%, I would say, from what it was going to be.
But nobody does that to these people.
Nobody does it to them.
And that would be so much fun.
But I'd need to be wearing body armor every day.
Oh, no question.
These people are playing for Keeps now.
They've lost their monopoly.
That's why you got all these philanthropists bankrolling news ventures now.
George Sorrelson, Hillary, and Media Matters.
See, liberalism, folks, liberalism cannot flourish without a monopoly because any challenge to it, any valid challenge, any opposite point of view that forces liberalism on the defense makes it bad for them because they're lousy because the whole thing, all of liberalism is a lie.
It's a disease.
It's a phony baloney plastic.
We've had a good time rock and roller thing that is very, very dangerous.
In fact, give you an example.
This story that we had on Friday, that these house staffers going to Charlotte, North Carolina for the NASCAR race on Saturday night, they were supposed to get inoculated for hepatitis A, hepatitis B, diphtheria with the worms or whatever else and the flu.
And of course, somebody leaked this.
They were going down there to study this for Homeland Security.
And the NASCAR crowd said, what the hell?
If we don't spread these diseases around, we go to all these races.
Somebody in the NASCAR crowd came up with a brilliant reaction to this.
The NASCAR crowd said, well, what about us?
If HEP A and HEP B and the worms and diphtheria are running around down here, why don't you immunize us too?
You just content to let us get this and spread it while you come in here and save yourselves investigating us?
You know, this is the kind of stuff, you know, the Democrats have been making big plays for NASCAR for the last two elections.
You know, the NASCAR dad.
Believe me, these are the Reagan Democrats.
A lot of the NASCAR crowd is.
And when they're told, they already know they're made fun of as a bunch of hayseed hicks with gun racks in the back of their pickup trucks and all this sort of stuff.
You know, getting to church on Saturday night for the first parking space, whatever it is, these people are well aware that the Dems have this snobbish elitist attitude toward them, and this is not going to help it.
But this is a classic illustration of the elitism and the arrogance and the condescension that is liberals.
Democrats needed to get inoculated.
Nobody gets inoculated for these kind of things traveling in this country.
You only do this when you travel to foreign countries.
Get shots to go to NASCAR?
And as they say, what about the people who are already there?
What about them?
If these diseases are running around, shouldn't everybody be vaccinated?
Or are we just content to let the NASCAR crowd get sick?
If I were you, people in NASCAR, I would be so profoundly imitated by the snob or angry, infuriated by the snobbery of this that I would never forget it.
Actually, we got one better.
NASCAR people ought to get inoculated against these Senate Democrat staffers, these House staffers.
They come down because they've got this incurable disease called liberalism.
Well, it's not incurable, but it certainly is damn well destructive.
Listen to this.
The governor of North Carolina is a guy named Mike Easley.
He has asked communities and individuals today to step up water conservation by taking steps ranging from ceasing all outdoor watering to turning off the faucet when brushing your teeth.
He said he didn't want to invoke his emergency powers to require water rationing.
Instead, he said local public officials should respond to the problem themselves to avoid running out of water.
There is a solution to this problem, he said.
We can either create more water or we can use less.
I don't know about you, but I can't make it rain.
Among the edicts or the suggestions for now, don't wash your car.
A dirty car is a sign of civic responsibility nowadays.
The governor of North Carolina.
A dirty car.
Do you realize all the dirt, what it's going to do to gas mileage?
Oh, yeah.
You got all that dirt and grime.
You're going to glide through the air with more friction.
We're going to burn more fossil fuel.
Folks, we can't win.
Drive around with a dirty car.
You know, I got five of them, and they get watered every day.
They get washed every day because of the salt water.
My gosh, you know, I've got an air conditioning system.
I can't have outdoor compressors.
I have to have a water-cooled tower air conditioning because those things, they're destroyed by salt air.
I'm on the ocean.
It's salt air every five years.
Yeah, and the same thing would happen to cars, even if they're in the garage that salt air gets in there.
East wind pulling out, they get washed every day.
Damn right.
We don't waste water when doing it, but it's a matter of protecting investments, Governor Easley.
Crying out loud.
Abby in Kansas City, Missouri, welcome to the EIB network.
Hello.
Holy crunch, you're hard to talk to.
Mr. Lumbaugh, I am absolutely honored.
I want you to know 20 years ago I listened to you and thought you were the most arrogant human being I'd ever seen.
You were right.
I have since listened to you with an open mind, and you have made me a Republican.
Well, thank you.
Welcome home.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you for being there.
Thank you for not apologizing.
Thank you for not bowing down like so many people in your position do.
I was wondering if it would be possible for you, especially the way that you speak, if you could put it in writing to these people who signed this letter and let us out here, who are just as outraged as you are, sign on to that letter and send it to these guys.
Oh, you mean you want me to reprint what I have said in my reaction to this and then let you all sign it and send it like a sort of a petition and send it back to Senator Reed and the 40 co-conspirators signatories to his letter.
Yes, so that they understand how many people really are outraged.
Because, sir, if it can happen to you, it can happen to any of us.
You know, if we did that, Abby, we would need an over-the-road tractor trailer to deliver.
Well, you can do it on the Internet.
They have legal petitions that you can sign up and send to Congress on the Internet.
You could do that.
Well, yeah, but they don't they could just delete it when they get it.
Now, you'd have to get a if if we I have to think about this.
If you're going to do this, you'd have to you'd have to have an actual delivery of a document just like this was an actual paper document.
And we'd need a fleet.
We'd need a fleet of writer trucks.
And wouldn't it be awesome?
Oh.
Yeah, it would.
But they would look at this as just a show.
See, if I organize this, they're going to think that I forged the signatures.
Media Matters will tell them that I individually forged all these signatures.
They will not believe that you people would have done it on your own without my asking you to do it.
And so they'll disregard it as genuine and authentic.
Do you remember the day that they were voting on immigration and the phones went down because so many people were calling in?
Well, yes, very well.
It would be the same thing.
And it would show them once and for all we're not going to take it.
Well, you know, what I appreciate about this is you want in on this.
I want to be able to say, hey, you know, it was wrong what you did to him.
And he's a great man, a great man for not bound down to it.
Well, I appreciate that.
That means a lot to me.
And I thank you so much.
I'll ponder your idea.
I really will.
There may be something we can do with it.
Abby, thanks much.
What part of Kansas City do you live in?
I used to live there.
Independence.
You live in Independence?
Yes, I do.
Okay.
Not really Kansas City.
If I were you, I would admit independence first.
I'm just kidding.
No, I was thinking Kansas City, Kansas.
Sorry.
No, I won't admit that one.
Sorry.
Thank you for being there, really.
Thanks, Abby.
Ellen in Chattanooga, you're next.
Hello.
Hey, Rush.
Big Orange Dittos from the Volunteer State.
Thank you.
I was calling to see if by any chance you caught the Tim Russert program yesterday where he interviewed Bill Cosby on his new book, Come On People, from Victims to Victors.
Yeah, I've got a couple of sound bites here from Cosby on that show.
He's having a tough row.
You mean promoting the book?
Pardon me?
You mean promoting the book?
It's been a tough road?
No, well, no, not promoting the book.
I think he's going to find an audience for a book.
He's having a tough row to hoe in his message from the people to whom he's aiming the message.
Well, that's true.
And that's why I called.
I was wondering, do you think that there's a Democratic candidate who's kind of launching him forward, for instance, on Tim Russert's show and are orchestrating it to maybe use this fight for black America as part of their platform on the home front?
I have no idea about that.
You think Cosby's been saying this long before this year's campaign got going.
True.
It just seemed unusual.
There's not a Democrat candidate out there that would say this stuff, Ellen?
Well, you're probably right.
I was just curious.
It seems like an interesting interview for Tim to all of a sudden do.
So I just wondered if someone else was pushing him out there and we're going to try and fight the cause of it.
That's why you think this doesn't fit what Russert would normally do.
The way he introduced the program just seemed like it was an out-of-the-ordinary interview.
And so that's why I wondered if somebody was pushing it forward.
Well, no, I think I don't think there's any conspiracy going on here.
Russert has been talking about, or Cosby's been talking about this stuff for a long, long time.
There's a book out.
Russert probably looking for a change pace from the usual political stuff.
What Cosby's basically doing, and the two bites of it, I don't have time to play them right now, so hold them over for tomorrow.
But he basically describes 40 years of liberalism in a nutshell, trying to make abnormal behavior normal, trying to justify abnormal behavior by refusing to be judgmental against it.
No standards.
I just, I can't imagine that any Democrat presidential candidate would want to share a stage with Bill Cosby right now.
Out of time here, folks.
What if the time just zips by here?
I can't tell you how much I enjoy being with you each and every day.
And look forward 21 hours from now when we'll be revved up and ready and clean up whatever messes that have happened between now and then.