It's Rush Limbaugh behind the golden EIB microphone.
And as always, we are having more fun than a human being should be allowed to have.
Our telephone number is 800-282-2882.
Email address, LRushbo at eibnet.com.
Just watching MSNBC.
They played almost the full monologue, at least two or three minutes of it, from the first hour of this program, and now they are discussing Chris Matthews.
Why are we listening to Limbaugh?
And the network is playing these soundbites of meal.
It's surreal.
It is surreal.
By the way, Bill Press, no intellectual giant.
You might remember him from his Crossfire days.
This is a guy that can make Michael Kinsley look like a real man.
Bill Press has posted a reaction to this McCain business.
I don't know what the date of this is.
And I don't think it has anything to do the New York Times story.
I didn't find this myself.
Somebody sent this to me.
To all my friends, Democrats and Independents who have told me they're going to consider voting for John McCain in November have only two words.
Please don't.
For the sake of God country Mother Teresa, wise up.
Now that it's clear he's going to be the Republican nominee, it's time to end our love affair with John McCain.
Remember to all my friends, Democrat and Independents, that's who this letter is addressed at.
Bars, Bars, Bars, I'm sorry I got the bars.
The bars are back up.
Don't feel bad if you were once a McCainiac.
So was I.
We all fell in love with the Maverick McCain back in 2000 when he beat the pants off George Bush in New Hampshire.
But the McCain of 2000 is not the same McCain we see today.
That McCain doesn't exist anymore.
Yes, McCain's a likable guy, still an American hero.
No one can ever take that away from him.
He still has a refreshing, self-deprecating sense of humor, and he was once willing to tell leaders of his own party to go pound sand.
Right.
But they never loved him.
This little Bill Press piece proving my point.
Unfortunately, in order to secure his party's nomination, McCain tossed his independence out the window.
He's no longer a Maverick.
Before our very eyes, the once moderate McCain has morphed into an extreme right-winger.
McCain's changed his 2007 issues.
He should change the name of his bus from the Straight Talk Express to the Double Talk Express.
There's not one major issue the new McCain has not been on both sides of.
Even on his signature issues, McCain's all over the place.
And he talks about immigration reform and so forth and so on.
Well, I mean, Bill Press is Bill Press, but Bill Press is into drive-bys.
He's a liberal, and he's one of these guys that used to have one of these love affairs with McCain.
All of this is just so utterly, utterly, utterly predictable, ladies and gentlemen.
Just tell you, these unrequited love affairs, when they go bad, they just, it's so sad.
You know the title of tune here?
Lou Rawls?
You'll never find another love like mine.
Absolutely right.
All right, let's move on to the Democrats.
The Reverend Jacks, a civil rights leader, two-time presidential candidate, warned Wednesday that Democrats could hurt themselves substantially, perhaps irreparably, in November.
That would be irreparably for those of you in Rio Linda.
In November, if fallout from the clash between Obama and Hillary is not addressed quickly.
The Reverend Jackson, who has endorsed Obama, but who maintains good relations with both Hillary and Bill Clinton, listed three rifts among Democrats that could allow Republicans to win in the general election.
Said the Reverend Dax, first, we must not allow people to exacerbate black-Hispanic tensions.
I think the differences are exaggerated.
You just can't characterize things as Hispanics for Hillary and blacks for Obama.
Jackson's second warning came over the use of superdelegates.
He said if the superdelegates are substantially out of line with the popular vote, it could be very damaging.
There must be some reasonable relationship.
The two sides must be able to embrace fervently in Denver and heal campaign wounds.
So the Reverend Dax, very much concerned over what lies in store for the Democrat Party.
You know what he's really talking about here when he talks about the black Hispanic riff and when he talks about the superdelegates.
You know, he's speaking in code here because he's got to be very, very careful with the Clintons because it's the Clintons who maintained the Reverend Dax's seat at the Democrat power table.
What he's really saying is here, Clintons, you got to stop the race war.
You have to stop this uncivil war and you got to stop threatening to blow up the convention with the superdelegates.
He didn't put it in those terms, obviously, but that's exactly what he's trying to say.
Because everybody knows if the Clintons go to the mattresses on this, they will blow the place up down there in Denver in order to secure the nomination.
I have to tell you, folks, when you look at the Democrat side of this, I have so enjoyed these months of Hillary Clinton angst.
I have just, I cannot tell you, I didn't see it coming.
As you know, a year ago, actually, I think it was April last year when I, it's not quite a year ago, but it was April last year when I first came to you behind this golden EIB microphone and predicted and said to you that as we sit here today, there's an 80% chance that Hillary Clinton's the next president of the United States.
So all of this angst and the falling apart of Mrs. Clinton's campaign was unforeseen, but I have enjoyed it.
It looks to me like right now that Hillary is left with so little to fight with.
She's tried to cast Obama as this charismatic, sweet talking guy without any achievement.
All that does is highlight her own lack of charisma.
It highlights her own shrill speaking manner.
And it highlights that she hadn't had any achievement either.
She keeps talking about 35 years.
She's been working.
She's been fighting for 35 years.
Do you understand?
35 years ago is when she graduated from Yale.
So what she wants us to believe is that everything that she's done since she got out of college has been presidential in nature.
The problem with all this 35 years stuff is that she can't go back and say she did anything.
She'd been fighting, ostensibly, but she hadn't accomplished anything.
And she and her husband ran the country, were in the White House for eight years.
Now, I'm the one.
I asked this question over and over again.
What has she ever accomplished on her own?
What?
What is it that recommends her to even be qualified or seen as qualified to be presidential?
You could ask the same thing about Obama, and the answer to both people is zilch.
Every single thing that she has done on her own when she is responsible for it, health care, the travel office, her presidential campaign, Paula Jones, it's been a disaster.
The woman cannot do anything right.
She just can't do anything right.
She has embarrassingly ridden the coattails of her husband her entire life, serving as his alter ego, his hatchet man, his enforcer.
And it looks to me like Democrats are finally coming to the realization that we came to 20 years ago, and that is that she's empty.
She's vapid, vapid, as vapid as Barack Obama is, it's just less likable.
And it's, I just have to admit, it's fun to see.
And I'll go through all these drive-by media stories about her campaign.
And they focus on Mark Penn.
They focus on Howard Wolfson.
Everybody in a drive-by is focusing on everybody but her.
When talking to what is the problem?
What is the problem with the Hillary campaign?
Well, it's the message.
You know, they change their message every day.
They never ask or they never explore in the drive-bys whether the problem with the Hillary campaign might actually be the candidate.
Sort of like you talk about baseball players and owners.
How many of you go to a ball game to watch the owner sit in his owner's box?
How many of you support a candidate because of the masterminds you never see behind the scenes orchestrating the campaign?
You vote for the candidate or you don't vote for the candidate.
And yet the people analyzing what's wrong with her campaign can't seem to point the finger at her as a likely source of the problem.
Okay, opening monologue of the program today.
The monologue that MSNBC is running over and over.
They better be careful about that.
If MSNBC is going to run that much ditto cam, some of the anchors there might lose their jobs.
Who will want to watch them after so much of me on the ditto cam on MSNBC?
Anyway, our opening monologue and this whole McCain thing is now posted.
Transcript audio video at rushlimbaugh.com if you happen to miss it.
Roseanne, Greensboro, North Carolina, as we go back to the phones.
Nice to have you here.
Hi, Rush.
It's nice to talk to you.
I love you.
Hey, Rush, the media, the talking heads, they don't get it today, but there's an emerging population out there that they're never, ever going to understand.
And that's the Rush Limbaugh stepbabies.
Imagine this.
All of us who married during the Reagan administration when morality was brought back into fashion.
And liberals are social creatures, and they tend to conform to whatever they think the popular culture is.
So when morality was in vogue with Reagan, they pretended to have morality.
I know I married one of those.
I didn't know it at the time.
And then when Clinton came into office and selfishness and self-servingness became fashionable, all of a sudden we end up divorced.
And my children become a disposable item.
His children become a disposable item.
So when they go to the public schools, the great defender of the weak and the downtrodden, the public schools' attitude is, oh, well, these are children without a father influence.
Everybody knows what happens to children like these.
We're just harboring them until they go to prison.
You know, the great defender of the downtrodden, that's the attitude, and they make it tougher.
So then they sit and they talk about how children need a father figure.
And then these children, and I know mine aren't the only ones, they have this fantasy of a stepfather who's going to help them heal.
Well, I turned mine to the Rush Limbaugh show, and I said, here is a stepfather for you that you can rely on.
He has every trait that a good father needs.
He's reliable.
He's honest.
He's dependable.
He's 24-7.
He'll never fail you.
He'll never forsake you.
He'll never sell out his principles.
He will be there.
He will be consistent.
If you don't agree with what he says, you have to admire the fact that he believes it today.
He'll believe it in 20 years from now.
He'll believe it in 40 years from now.
And he will fight for your right to have a country as established by the founding fathers.
And my children healed, and they defied the odds.
My children are, statistically speaking, part of the disposable culture that's a victim of divorce.
My son will be able to vote this year for the first time.
Now, Rush, what incentive program do you think Hillary would have to get out there in order for my son who looks at her and realizes that she is the type of person who legitimizes the selfish and the self-serving?
Wait a minute.
A question about that, Roseanne.
You mean your son doesn't understand the 35 years that Hillary Clinton has been fighting for him?
Well, it's probably because, you know, when you go to public school and you talk about God, they equate God with brainwashing.
So his conservative mother has been brainwashing him with the Bible and teaching him things like he's special because he's made in the image of God and that this country was founded on his right to do something.
I had to quit my job to help my children to overcome this.
And when I used to go in the public school systems to advocate for them and I made $70,000 a year, I was called missus and treated with respect.
When I quit my job, I was treated like a white trash single mother.
I hadn't changed.
It was just the level of what they could get away with had changed.
And when I went to specialists before I did this, and they told me, they said, look, they're not going to want to help your children.
Instead, they're going to emotionally kick the crap out of you to get you to back down.
You have to accept this.
You have to stand.
You have to cry.
You have to take it on the chin because when they're doing this to you, they're leaving your kids alone, and that's your kids' greatest hope.
Rush, the things I've had said to me, the things I've had said to me.
But my children healed, and they got better.
But they never would have gotten better.
See, this is what people like their father are counting on.
He's like every liberal to some extent is an evil master at what they do.
But they count on these things.
You see, my children can't be successful because if they're successful, then he has to come to terms with the fact of what he does.
Just like Hillary Clinton.
She doesn't want to come to terms with what she does.
She wants to live in denial.
She wants to hand out programs and encourage you and me to not do anything with ourselves because if we don't do anything with ourselves, she doesn't have to come to terms with what she is.
Well, maybe so, but if we don't do anything with our lives or if other people don't, that just leaves them ripe for Hillary to make dependent and turn them into eternal voters for Hillary and Democrats.
You are very perceptive out there, and you are tough.
You really are tough.
You hung in there.
You took on these obstacles and refused to let them get you.
I'm proud of you.
Have you since remarried?
No, no.
I don't need to remarry.
I have you.
I have you.
What do I need?
My daddy told me you've got to make the mistakes you're willing to stand before God for, Rush.
Doesn't that sound like a Rush Limbaugh comment?
Yeah, please.
Yeah, of course.
Yeah.
No.
Oh, I thought you asked me if you could make another Rush Limbaugh comment.
You could always make it.
Oh, no, doesn't it?
Limbaugh sounds like a Rush comment.
Yes, yes, yes.
You're exactly.
I apologize.
I apologize for my hearing.
Look at Roseanne, thank you very much.
I still get a little embarrassed hearing things like this, but I still appreciate it.
Thank you.
Thank you very much more than you know.
Tina, New Lennox, Illinois, you're next.
Hello.
It's an honor to talk to you, Rush.
I'm gonna go ahead.
Thank you.
I just had something when I heard this story break on the New York Times this morning.
It just bothered me so much because it reminds me almost of a replay of what happened here in Illinois four years ago with Barack Obama and the media.
And they just kind of swept him in after, you know, with breaking a scandal just two weeks before the election.
And he wasn't even fine.
Speaking of, let me ask you a question about the New York Times story.
If you think the purpose of the story was to sweep Obama to victory, and he's not a nomination yet, why not wait to run this McCain story until closer to the election?
I think they're running it now to put doubts in the minds of the voters so that these doubts will just play over and over and over again and wear on his ethics and wear on his morality because that's one of the things that Republicans stand for and they're just going to wear on people.
Well, but now wait.
The Times also endorsed Hillary, right?
Not Obama.
Okay.
So guess who's having trouble out there?
Hillary, could it be that one of the reasons behind the story running now is simply to take people's mind and attention off of the woes of Hillary Clinton?
I mean, that's a long shot because the next meaningful primary is still some weeks away.
But nobody knows.
Nobody can figure out why the Times ran the story now, so they're coming up with all these explanations.
Isn't it obvious why the Times ran the story now?
It doesn't matter when they run it.
Well-known radio raconur, general all-round, good guy, America's real anchorman, doctor of democracy, and truth detector, all combined as one harmless, lovable little fuzzball here on the Rush Limbaugh program of the EIB network.
And back to the phones.
This is Garrett, Medford Lakes, New Jersey.
Nice to have you with us.
Oh, it's a pleasure, Rush.
Truly an honor.
All right.
My comment was in regards to the timing of the New York Times releasing this report.
I feel that you're missing the obvious that McCain finally had a good argument against Obama, and that Mrs. Obama stated the stupidest, most unpatriotic thing you could possibly say, and that she's been ashamed of her country up until the point where she might be first lady.
And this is just their way of taking them off guard and getting them off the defense, off of the offensive.
Yeah, you know, I knew we were going to all kinds of theories on this today.
I'll give you another theory, because there are as many theories as there are people who want to concoct them.
But how about this?
How about the New York Times ran the story now because they have an eight-year history of sucking up to McCain and promoting McCain?
McCain's the greatest thing since sliced bread.
Why couldn't all Republicans be like McCain?
If they wait and run a story like this mere weeks before the election, they might have some credibility problems.
But if they run the story now, say, look what we just learned about the guy we were fooled by.
Now they've got time for the story to settle in, if there are any follow-ups, and for it to be more effective in derailing the McCain candidacy, if that's what the objective of the Times piece is.
I don't think it has anything to do with Michelle Obama, although it has taken all the other political news off the table.
Speaking of Michelle Obama, I think CNN has assigned a reporter to the Rush Limbaugh beat.
This infobabe they have over there, Carol Costello, does these reports on me?
What happens on this program?
And she filed another one on the Situation Room this in regards to the way we treated Michelle Obama's comments at rushlimbaugh.com.
This is a montage of her report about me and Michelle Obama.
The patriotism card was played against Democrats brilliantly after 9-11 and as Democrats called for our troops to leave Iraq.
And it seems, Wolf, it's about to be played out again.
For the first time, I'm really proud of my country.
It didn't take long for conservative talkers to pick up on that.
And after taking it on the chin for a few days, Michelle Obama clarified her comments just a few hours ago in Rhode Island.
Listen to what she had to say, Wolf.
You don't run for president of the United States and put yourself and your family through this if you don't feel some level of deep pride and possibility for your country.
That's right.
She said she is proud of America, Wolf.
It just didn't come out quite the way she wanted it to.
It just didn't come out the right way.
Of course, they can't prove anything at the New York Times about these allegations of McCain, but they still run with it anyway.
I have no clue.
Mr. Sternley wants to know what the hell was the setup about 9-11.
You're asking irrelevant questions.
We're talking about CNN.
If you want to waste time trying to explain why they do what they do, go ahead.
I'm entertained enough by airing this stuff.
Carol Costello, the Rush Limbaugh beat reporter at CNN.
I want to play a couple soundbites here of Uncle Bob, the criminal and scandal attorney in Washington, the brother of Bill Bennett, who been hired by Senator McCain to deal with this New York Times story last December.
It was on Hannity and Colm's last night, shortly after the Times story hit their website.
Alan Combs said to Uncle Bob, Uncle Bob, what can you explain about these allegations in the New York Times?
Senator McCain did not want a repeat of what occurred years ago in South Carolina, namely a real smear campaign and asked me to assist him.
And I have been assisting him.
What the New York Times did here was shameless, just shameless.
It's almost entirely unsourced.
I investigated John McCain for a year and a half at least when I was special counsel to the Senate Ethics Committee in the Keating 5.
And if there is one thing I am absolutely confident of is John McCain is an honest man.
I recommended to the Senate Ethics Committee that he be cut out of the case, that there was no evidence against him.
And I think for the New York Times to dig this up just shows that Senator McCain's public statement about this is correct.
It's a smear job.
And Alan Colbs said, well, look, Uncle Bob, the Washington Post reported back in December that you sent prepared answers to written questions submitted by the New York Times concerning the breaking news we're discussing tonight.
Can you elaborate on that, Uncle Bob?
All of the matters that they allude to, I mean, they're not even very specific.
We answered fully to the New York Times.
We showed them that there was just nothing there.
And unfortunately, they have just obviously disregarded all of the hard evidence that we presented.
They certainly have allowed themselves to be a vehicle for a repeat of what happened in South Carolina.
And I suspect it's only because John McCain is winning so much that we are even reading this story.
They endorsed it.
And what I know is that the members of the staff who were there and dealt with this lobbyist and ran Senator McCain's office say no.
They say there's nothing to it.
And they provided that information to the New York Times, and it just apparently didn't have much of an impact on them.
How in the world can you say that they did this?
Because McCain is winning so much when they endorsed him.
The New York Times endorsed him.
Ladies and gentlemen, again, let me repeat some of the things I open the program with because it's been a while.
So many lessons here.
And the real question is, will Senator McCain learn the right lesson here?
If you want to defeat liberals, you don't join them.
You don't walk across the aisle.
You don't bring them on your bus.
I mean, bring them on your bus if you want.
But don't expect that when the rubber meets the road, they're going to support you.
Don't expect, you're a Republican for crying out loud.
And they are not even when their newspaper endorses you going to vote for you.
They're not going to support you in the general.
They're not going to re-endorse McCain for the general election.
It isn't going to happen.
The story in the New York Times is not the story.
The story is that the drive-by media has behaved exactly as predicted, exactly as most of us understand they will react.
They picked our candidate.
We, ladies and gentlemen, the Republican Party, allowed the drive-by media to pick our candidate.
Part and parcel of that process was their endorsement of McCain, and McCain was happy to get it, I'm sure.
And now we have the story today, which is whatever is baseless, who cares?
The whole point of the story is to try to destroy Senator McCain.
And he said he's disappointed in the New York Times.
Disappointed?
He ought to be outraged.
As a caller to the program said earlier, disappointment is something that people in love feel for one another when things go wrong.
It's a family term.
It's just so patently obvious here that this was going to happen.
Utterly predictable.
It's as predictable as Ted Kennedy finding a bar at Happy Hour that the drive-by media is going to turn on a Republican candidate, even one they have professed to love, respect, adore, cherish, all of these things.
It's as predictable as the sunrising every morning.
And so if you're mad at the New York Times, you're wasting your energy.
It's silly to get mad at something that you knew was going to happen.
It's silly to get mad at something that has happened time and time again before, and you know it's going to happen again.
So the real question in here is, will the lesson be learned by our party?
If we want to win, if we really have an agenda that we want to advance, we're going to have to defeat liberals to do it.
We're not going to advance our agenda by walking across the aisle, sitting down with them, putting our arms around them, and helping them write their legislation so that they will think we are good people.
They want to defeat us.
They have no desire for us to be anything more than a little chihuahua yapping at their heels.
They have no interest in walking across the aisle and joining us.
And if any of their guys do it, they'd rum them out of the party.
Ever heard of Zell Miller?
Ever heard of Joe Lieberman?
And yet, because we have this inferiority complex or this, I don't know what else you would call it.
This desire to be loved and liked.
We'll cross the aisle.
We'll reach across the aisle and we'll try to tell them, I'm different.
I'm not like those wackos in my party.
You can deal with me.
I want to get things done.
And you get on TV, the drive-bys love you.
They want to go on your bus.
And they get on your bus.
They come away dazzled.
You believe that they're dazzled.
You believe that they know you're different, that you're not one of those wacko conservatives.
And then all of a sudden, as predictable as anything is, they turn on the very people they have elevated in the Republican Party because at the end of the day, they want to destroy the Republican Party politically.
Which is fine.
That's what politics is, folks, except we're not playing the game.
We are actually helping them do it.
Cleaning up the messes made daily by the drive-by media.
Rush Limbaugh having more fun than a human being should be allowed to have.
And I mean that.
I can't wait.
There's one thing I hate about waking up.
I got to be honest, but I love getting up.
I love starting today because I never know what's going to happen.
But I wish from the moment I got out of bed, I can leave the house.
Having to go in and do the toiletry's routine in the morning, I hate that.
I despise it because it's a waste of time.
You have to do it.
But it's just one of those things.
I mean, some people love getting in the shower, love getting wet, love still getting, not me.
Hate it, got to do it.
I do.
Wish I didn't have to shave.
I'm thinking about getting, what is that?
Electrolysis on the face when I have to waste time shaving.
Hate that.
I despise it.
I know you can't do it.
Can't do it.
I mean, I just wish I could.
But, you know, it is what it is.
I know these complaints are nothing compared to those of you in the subprime crisis, but just to show you, I can relate.
Ben, in factoryville, Pennsylvania.
Nice to have you on the program.
Hello.
How are you doing, Rush?
What I thought of the first second I heard this New York Times story came out was I was thinking money on a couple of levels.
I was thinking that this keeps McCain having to spend money in the primaries against Huckabee because it's going to embolden Huckabee.
I'm thinking that's going to leave him with less of a war chest for the general.
And on a related level, I think it has to do with circulation because the Times is laying off people.
And nothing gets somebody to pick up a copy of the New York Times more than trashing a Republican.
Look at this is this is I just marvel at all the theories that people come up with here to explain why the Times did this.
I'm not going to refute your theory.
I mean, it's sell papers, they got to lay off 100 more staffers or what have you.
They've brilliantly inserted themselves into the campaign.
Whatever you want to say, what is one more way they can increase circulation at the Times, Mr. Snirdley?
What would that be?
Oh, you know, I got to tell you this.
Speaking of, Ben, thanks for the call.
I appreciate it.
I love hearing the way people think.
I don't know that that's what I don't think it affects McCain's general election spending.
That's a different set of fundraising rules and so forth.
But look at to me, folks, I mean, I don't think it's complicated.
You can debate the why did the story come out now, and you can even read the story and get all caught up in the minutiae of the story.
None of that's the story.
None of that matters.
The story is the drive-by media is taking out the big Maverick they used to love, the big Maverick that they endorsed with a story they sat on while they endorsed the Maverick.
I mean, that's it.
It's that in a nutshell, and it was predicted by me.
And I don't mean this to be self-aggrandizing.
I don't understand why anybody's even mad.
I don't even understand why anybody's surprised.
I'm hearing all these Republicans and these McCain supporters talking about, I can't believe what the New York Times would do.
This is simply beneath contempt in New York.
It's the New York Times and our guy is a Republican.
And there is evidence every day of how Republicans get treated and conservatives get treated in the New York Times or elsewhere in the drive-by media.
And yet people are shocked and people are stunned.
Now, Snerdley said if they really wanted to up their circulation, they could do a story on me.
I'm not so sure.
Jack Steinberg did that piece on me.
He's the media slash radio TV writer for the New York Times.
He replaced Rutenberg, by the way, who wrote this story on McCain.
And they put that story.
I guess that story came out Friday, Thursday or Friday, I forget what it was, but they put it on their website as well as in the paper.
And in less than two or three hours, they had like over 1,000 comments.
And Steinberg sent a notes, I've never, I've never had a story posted on the New York Times website get this kind of response.
I went and looked at some of the comments, and it was hateful, deranged, just, it was, folks, it was subhuman, these responses.
I think if the Times does a story, I mean, they might actually worry about cancellations.
Let's see, Janet Huckabee in Vegas for a middleweight prize fight, and she stayed at the Hooters Hotel and Casino.