All Episodes
Previous Next
June 16, 2008 - Rush Limbaugh Program
37:16
June 16, 2008, Monday, Hour #2
| Copy link to current segment

Time Text
And greetings to you, music lovers, thrill seekers, conversationalists all across the fruited plain.
Rush Limboa, the most listened to radio talk show in America, meeting and surpassing all audience expectations every day.
It's great to have you with us, and we are going to get to your phone calls in this hour, relatively soon, I promise.
Great to have you here.
Telephone number is 800 282-2882.
And the email address is Ilrushbo at EIBNet.com.
Saudi Arabia will raise oil production to record levels within weeks in an attempt to avert an escalation of social and political unrest around the world.
King Abdullah signaled the commitment to the UN Secretary General Ben Kymoon at the weekend after the impact of skyrocketing oil prices on food sparked protests and riots from Spain to South Korea.
Next month, the Saudis will be pumping an extra half a million barrels of oil a day compared to last month, bringing total Saudi production to 9.7 million barrels a day, their highest ever level.
But the the world's biggest oil exporters are coupling the increase with an appeal to Western Europe to cut fuel taxes to lower the price of petrol to consumers.
Saudi Arabia, which has called an emergency meeting of oil producers and consumers in the port city Jeddah for next Sunday, says that the uh energy crisis has not been caused purely by market pressures, but by a speculative bubble.
Saudi Arabia and OPEC believe there are no shortages to justify the sudden surge in prices.
So they want taxes to be cut, fuel taxes specifically to be cut, uh says here in Western Europe, but uh then King Abdullah goes on and say, hey, you know, you consumers of the world.
He addresses us consumers of the world.
You uh you have a role in this.
You have a responsibility here to cut back on how much you use.
But what here's what worries the king.
This is this is what worries the king of Saudi Arabia.
I mean, these are petrodollars.
And if this price is exactly what I told you, this price cannot be sustained for very long because what they have to sell the oil.
They want to sell it.
If people consume too much, then it will result in uh in not as much being sold and pumped and so forth.
That's his fear anyway.
Uh so they're gonna pump more oil.
Now here's the thing.
The president went over there and asked them to pump more oil.
And after the president went over there and said to pump more oil, they said, well, okay, well, we'll we'll bump it up 300,000 barrels a day.
So now King Abdullah says, well, we're gonna bump it up another half million barrels a day.
So the Saudis, since May, are gonna bump their production 800,000 million or 800,000 barrels a day.
And of course, the world's going, oh, good, it's good.
We have more oil, more supply prices might come down, but everybody's going nuts.
Everybody loves this, right?
If we had been drilling in Anwar since Bill Clinton vetoed it in 1994-95.
Since 2005 or 2003, had we begun drilling back in the mid-90s, one million barrels of oil would have been on the market for use by us.
And of course, the Democrats chuck Schumer in the board.
A million barrels.
I mean, that's not nothing.
That's not gonna add much to the supply.
It's not gonna bring the price down.
And yet here the Saudis are gonna add 800,000, less than we would be getting from Anwar.
And everybody's going, yeah, baby, yeah, cool, all right.
Really magnifical.
What we have here, uh, ladies and gentlemen, is a made-to-order issue.
For the Republican Party.
Everybody is just concerned as hell over the uh the November elections.
Forget the presidential race for a moment.
Everybody's concerned about how many seats we're gonna lose in the House and how many Senate seats we might lose.
Here's an issue.
Drill here, drill now.
Pay less.
The Republicans in Congress need to.
They need to grow some.
Let me put this in perspective for you.
There's a fear.
There is a fear among Republicans that says, gosh, if we come out for drilling, why the American people, they don't want it.
The American people are worried about global warming and pollution.
It could hurt us politically, why if we come out for this?
Read the polls, Republicans.
A um an ever-enlarging majority of Americans wants to drill.
And the numbers being added to each and every day.
But look at it this way.
The Republicans in Congress had no fear of risking their leadership and their control of the house by spending like drunken sailors, did they?
I mean, when the opportunity came up to spend money on a new Medicare entitlement or came up to spend money on whatever, oh sure, sign off on it.
Let's spend, with no regard for the implications that it might cause harm, which it did in the 2006 elections.
But they have some fear of stepping up to our energy needs, drilling and refining.
They had no fear risking their power and their control by spending out the Wazoo, which they should have known was going to get them in big trouble.
Our founding fathers had more courage in one disc than this Congress has in its whole spine.
Now for those of you in Rio Linda, let me put that a different way.
There's more courage in a single finger than this Congress has in its 5,350 fingers.
So Will a single no-drilling Democrat be thrown out of office?
Will the voters who want change actually vote for a change?
Do you realize here that the Democrats have made it clear they are going to stand firm on no drilling, no new supply, no lower prices?
The Democrats are the ones that advanced an energy bill in the Senate that would have increased taxes like crazy when gasoline's already at four dollars a gallon.
We have a built-in issue with which to define the Republican Party and the conservative movement against the socialist left.
And our presidential nominee just this morning in a press conference talked about how we need to get our arms around global warming, reduce our carbon footprint, find alternative sources of energy.
If somebody could get to Senator McCain, somebody that that he trusts, somebody that has his ear.
If Senator, do you want to win this?
Do you want to become president?
What's the objective here?
Win the election.
You want to become president?
There is an issue made to order for you, sir.
Yes, it would require a flip-flop, but it's a flip-flop your base and your side would celebrate and support you on.
But the odds of that don't look too good.
Found a fascinating story.
Let's see, once the uh what's what's what's the website?
The Times Online, UK Times Online.
Scientists find bugs that eat waste and excrete oil.
Let me give you the details here.
Ten years ago, I could never have imagined I'd be doing this, says Greg Powell, 33, a former software executive, as he squints into the late afternoon California sun.
I mean, this is essentially agriculture, right?
But the people I talk to, especially the ones coming out of business school, this is the one hot area everybody wants to get into.
And he means bugs and energy.
To be more precise, the genetic alteration of bugs, very small ones, so that when they feed on agricultural waste such as wood chips or wheat straw, they do something extraordinary.
They excrete crude oil.
Unbelievably, this is not science fiction.
Mr. Powell holds up a small beaker of bug excretion that could theoretically be poured into the tank of the giant Lexus SUV sitting next to him.
Not that Mr. Powell is willing to risk it just yet.
He gives it a month before the first vehicle is filled up on what he calls renewable petroleum.
After that he grins, it's a brave new world.
Now, this guy, Greg Powell, is a senior director of LS9, one of several companies in or near Silicon Valley that have spurned traditional high-tech activities like software and networking, and have embarked instead on an extraordinary race to make $140 a barrel oil from Saudi Arabia obsolete.
So what's happening?
The point of this, aside from this being hilarious, they have found a way to feed certain bugs certain food and they excrete petroleum.
They excrete crude oil.
Now, bugs are in plentiful supply.
We all know this.
There are far more of them than we want to mess with.
They're all over the place.
Everybody's talking about alternative sources of energy.
Everybody's talking, we got to do something.
We have to raise taxes.
We have to take the oil company's windfall profits.
We have to take their money and plow it into alternative energy.
And the government sponsored garbage that won't around to anything wind and windmills and solar power.
Here are some guys in the private sector who somehow decided to focus on bug crap.
Because they somehow figured that bug crap could be would be oil.
Crude oil.
So while the government and all the people who love the government are out there, please do something.
Don't drill, don't you, but do something.
We need alternative forms of energy.
This is not a rumor.
I have a picture of the stuff.
I have a I have a well, I printed out a second.
I have a picture of the guy holding a jar of the petroleum, the the crude oil from the bug excretions.
I mean, bugs don't have bowels, but for the sake of discussion, the bug bowl movement creates oil.
They've got a big jar of it this guy's holding.
This is not a rumor.
One of several companies near Silicon Valley have spurned a traditional high-tech activities software networking, and they've been funded by 20 million dollars of startup capital from investors.
Now, my friends, this is not supposed to happen.
All the very earnest, furrowed brows in Congress, the drive-by media have automatically denied that market incentives work with respect to energy.
So it's impossible that private firms and entrepreneurs could be investing in research on ways to find new sources of new or replacement sources for crude oil?
No, no, no, no, no, of course not.
See, the way it works is this.
I can't think of what the next energy innovation must be, so therefore no one else can either.
Meaning government has to do it.
That's what I get.
Government can do everything.
I have said long there are going to be people toiling away in their basements.
Mother is the necessity of invention.
Need is the necessity of invention.
Mother is need is mother of you know what they mean.
Bottom line is you've got these guys out in Silicon Valley.
Private sector.
Private capital.
Fed up with 130, 140 a barrel oil.
And they have found a bug.
Bunch of bugs that excrete crude.
And they're working on it.
And the government didn't know about it.
The only thing surprising to me here is that if somebody's going to know what crap produces, it would be the government, because they got so much of it, but they missed this.
All right, let's go back to the phone calls here on the EIB network, Rush Limbaugh.
And we start in Chester County, Pennsylvania with Alan.
Thank you, sir.
Glad you waited.
Thank you.
Uh right thinking bittles.
Thank you, sir.
I just wanted to make a quick follow-up to the rumor concerning the uh, as I call her the not so charming Michelle Obama.
Yes.
Well, it certainly seems possible that the whole thing was orchestrated by the left and Punch Conservatives.
What I haven't heard anyone say is that it's believable.
I mean, if you think about it, it would never work if it wasn't believable.
Uh someone tried to spread a rumor about Barbara Bush ranting about black people using the N-word, uh no one would buy it.
But uh, you know, in this case, uh no no one's no one's putting that out that it that it's preposperous.
Okay, now let me explain something to you.
What you have just done with your comment has put your host in great jeopardy.
Well, that's not the intention, of course.
Well, of course it wasn't.
Of course, you're you're you're you're you're just you're trying to share an honest opinion using your First Amendment right to do so.
Uh but if I agree with you, if I agree with you and say, you know what, Alan?
You're right, that's the reason it really had legs, is because it's totally believable.
Then the next story that Nedra Pickler and AP writes would be Limbaugh doesn't care if tape exists.
He knows she probably talks that way anyway.
And then that would be the next series of stories that to keep this thing alive.
If I disagree with you on this, then I do a disservice to my audience, because obviously you have a point here.
You do have a point.
Barbara Bush, you would not, you would not then I know Barbara Bush.
And you're absolutely right.
You know, she she would not, for one thing, take the the pulpit of the church.
Uh and number two, she wouldn't start running around using the N-word and all that.
But be the reason that you say it's believable.
Well, let me ask you, why do you think it's believable?
Rather than me.
Why do you think it's believable?
It's just the impression that she gives.
I mean uh What's the impression?
Be specific.
What's the impression that she gives?
I I won't use the word angry.
I'll use the word radical.
How's that?
Uh you know, just from her speeches and her writings.
I I didn't dive into her whole thesis.
It was too long, but I did download it and look it over, and uh just their background.
I mean, just when she gets up and and speaks, it it's just uh it seems to fit her her persona or personal.
You mean she comes off less than uh content?
Yeah, I mean, exactly.
Uh uh uh I mean you've heard her, everybody's anybody paying attention has heard uh the way she talks.
You work for the AP, by the way, Alan.
I just have to ask this.
No, this is not a setup.
Uh personally I wish it I wish it was true if it could derail Obama, but whether or not it is, uh no one can deny that it is that it's believable.
Limbaugh caller says he hopes rumor true.
Lindbaugh agrees.
All right.
Alan, thanks for the call.
I appreciate it.
Thanks much.
Love it.
Thank you.
You bet.
Here's Dave in uh Pinhole, California.
Nice to have you on the EIB network.
Rush, God bless you, my brother.
Thank you, my brother.
And I have you I have an observation on this uh Fox interview with Beckle.
Which one?
Well, the one regarding this supposed uh tape of Michelle.
Uh the one he was really worried about, the shoe dropping on her the next day, the one he was really, really worried about.
Exactly.
Fox pretended like they didn't know about it, but the follow-up question to Beckle was is this bigger than the theses?
Now what theses were they talking about?
Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait.
Big bigger than the feces?
The theses, yes.
Oh, the thesis, the thesis.
Yes.
Close.
Very, very close.
Okay, this okay, you're right.
So the question was, uh, is it your understanding this is bigger than say a college thesis paper?
Correct.
And we and that was making reference, I'm sure, to Michelle's college thesis, because uh that was one that had been bannered around a couple months ago.
And of course, uh our old buddy Beckle said significantly so.
Exactly.
Okay, so your point is that Beckle is lying when he goes on Fox last night and says he had nothing to do with this, that he was talking about an Obama, a Barack Obama uh rumor that he was trying to shut down.
No, he knew about it, and so did Fox by their follow-up question to him.
That's well, everybody.
Yeah, yeah.
Okay, you're just illustrating the point, then.
Everybody knew this.
Everybody was talking about it.
Yes, yes.
And also I have a t-shirt for you.
What's that?
Uh that would be uh that would be uh geez.
The t-shirt.
Uh change change diapers, not America.
Yes.
Change.
I'm f well, they are nannies, aren't they?
Thanks.
Appreciate that, Dave.
Uh, let's go to the Bronx.
Vinny.
Great to have you with us here on the EIB network, sir.
Hello.
Vinny, are you there?
Doesn't appear that Vinny is now this has never happened.
Vinny sometimes calls from the Bronx snurly, but he never is too afraid to go on the air.
I will go to Nashville next.
Stephanie, hi, welcome to the EIB network.
Hey, Rosh Diddez from Nashville.
Thanks very much.
So me and my husband and son were driving back from Disney World, so we had a lot of time to listen to the radio.
And we were listening to um, you know, another good friend, Sean Hannity, and he was talking about confirming, not being able to confirm or deny that there was a tape.
So we thought, well, if we want to really find out the truth, we'll listen to Rush.
And we heard you the morning that you were saying that, you know, maybe there I don't know if there's a tape or not, but maybe there's one, and maybe she said why he.
Right.
So you know, we I started listening a few few extra days um in the morning.
I have to go to work, unfortunately, after the 11 o'clock hour.
So we just kind of were led to believe after listening to you for a few days that there probably really wasn't a tape.
And, or, you know, if there was one, maybe...
Now, see, this is interesting.
So, what you're saying, if I understand this, after listening to me, your ultimate maximum source, you concluded there wasn't a tape.
Oh Unfortunately, yes.
I mean, not unfortunate for listening to you, but I, you know, we were kind of hoping there was one too, just so we could knock this whole thing out of the ballpark.
Right, right, right, right.
I understand that.
Uh and I kept listening.
I kept telling my husband every morning that, you know, there it must not be true because I've been listening to Rush, and he just will not bring up the stage.
All right.
See, there you have it.
This is a great, that is fabulous of you, Stephanie.
Because here are regular listeners to the EIB network concluding there was not a tape after listening to me not mention this for all of these days prior to the day that I did, back in a sec.
We just had a caller from Tennessee from Nashville, Tennessee, which provides an interesting transition to this story from the Huffington Post.
And it's by Don Theo.
Tennessee Democrat Party leaders, quote, Obama may be terrorist connected, unquote.
Democrat leaders in Tennessee.
It's understandable that a few prominent members of each party will not endorse their party's nominee, but it takes a special kind of ignorance for state party leaders to repeat rumors about the presidential nominees' alleged ties to terrorists.
Fred Hobbs, a Tennessee Democrat Party executive committee member, told the city paper when asked about the reluctance of Congressman Lincoln Davis to endorse Obama, he said, I'm not sure we know enough about Obama.
He's got some bad connections.
He may be terrorist connected, for all I can tell.
It sounds kind of like he may be.
According to the article, Hobbes then added that he was skeptical of Obama himself and said that he does not approve of some of the things Obama stands for.
The city paper reporter, John Rogers, says that uh Davis, uh Lincoln Davis, was unavailable for comment.
When I called Davis's congressional office, his staff said that he had not yet spoken with them regarding the matter.
They were unable to make any statement or comment.
According to the Congressman's McMinnville office in Warren County, Davis is at present on the road doing county visits.
So the Huff Post, Huffington Post, has repeated a story from a local paper in Tennessee that two prominent Democrat Party activists in Tennessee, members of the executive committee, don't like Obama because they think he has terrorist connections.
Now, let us see what the Associated Press does with this.
Because this is in the Huff Poll, and this is this goes back to June thirteenth.
So this is Friday.
This ran on Friday.
There has been no mention of this outside of the Huff Poll that I can see.
Now on Monday the 16th, I have mentioned it.
I have picked up on it.
I have spread the word that these guys say that Obama is terrorist connected.
Democrats who don't want to endorse him.
Democrat Party officials in Tennessee.
Let's see what happens with this now.
Because obviously I'm amplifying this story beyond the meager reach of the Huffington Post.
That's right.
Limbaugh, Obama equals terrorist ties.
That'll be the headline of the AP story, but when you read the AP story, it will quote these two Democrats and say Limbaugh spread this news joyously and eagerly.
Happily wallowing in the news that Democrats think that their nominee is a terrorist or has terrorist connections.
That's how this stuff works.
Let's see.
Obama says we're talking about Obama.
He went out there and he did a Father's Day speech.
Where was this?
Where do you do this speech?
It was.
Yeah, it was the uh the Apostolic Church of God in Chicago.
Sunday morning.
Don't you love all these Democrat politicians that go deliver sermons in uh in churches?
They're making a big deal out of Obama's speech.
Uh as if nobody's ever said these things before.
We have a montage here of the drive-bys.
We have Jake Tapper, we got John Roberts, Kieran Chittry, and Robin Roberts, Jeff Glore, all going nuts here over Obama's speech.
We got soundbites of Obama's speech coming up.
It was a provocative speech.
The first major party, African American presidential candidate in history, took the opportunity of Father's Day to deliver some tough love to the African American community on the black family.
Barack Obama sending a message to MIA dads on Father's Day, blasting them.
Blasting them for abandoning their responsibilities.
Senator Obama took the opportunity on Sunday to do something a little different for Father's Day.
If anyone was expecting a light and fluffy Father's Day message from Barack Obama, they got a big Sunday surprise.
Now, what this is something somebody's never said before.
So Obama goes out there and tells black fathers, hey, stay home, bud.
Stay home, pal.
Raise your children, be a father.
This is universal.
Yes, it is, ladies and gentlemen, because Barack Obama is the Messiah.
Obama is the Messiah.
Now look at what happened to Bill Cosby when he tried this.
Bill Cosby was almost run out of the black race.
Bill Cosby had huge problems.
He was almost treated like Joe Lieberman was by the Democrats when he supported the war in Iraq.
But Obama comes out and says these things, and the drive-by's predictably go gaga, as though they've never heard anybody say these things.
And they may not have, by the way.
Here is Obama, and we have sound bites from this speech.
Too many fathers are MIA.
Too many fathers are AWOL.
They've abandoned their responsibilities.
They're acting like boys instead of men.
And the foundations of our family have suffered because of it.
You and I know this is true everywhere, but nowhere is it more true than in the African American community.
Now I know some of you are saying, Rush, right?
Cut in some slack.
This is a great message.
I mean, this is a Democrat presidential nominee.
This is a great message for the family.
Well, don't deny that.
But by no means is the Messiah the first to come along and suggest this.
You let my buddies at the Heritage Foundation suggest it, and they're tarred and feathered as racists.
You let me suggest it, and of course I am just wallowing in yet another attempt to criticize minorities.
Let Bill Cosby say it, and they accuse him of being a traitor.
Let Obama say it, and it's orgasmic.
Oh, wow.
How wonderful.
What a great message.
As though it's unique.
Here's the next bite.
We need fathers to recognize the responsibility doesn't just end at conception.
Any fool can have a child.
It's the courage to raise the child that makes you a father.
It's the courage to raise a child.
Any fool can have a child.
So he's building up here to the uh finale.
Here's the uh final portion.
It's a responsibility that extends to Washington.
We should be making it easier for fathers who make responsible choices and harder for those who avoid them.
What?
We should reward fathers who pay that child support with job training and job opportunities.
Good luck.
Good luck.
We should expand programs where registered nurses visit registered uh visit expectant and new mothers.
We should help new families care for their children by expanding maternity and paternity leave.
And we should guarantee that every worker gets more paid sick leave so they can stay home to take care of their child without losing their income.
See, I knew this was this this was all a bunch of smoke and mirrors.
This was just an excuse.
This is a bribe.
Hey, look, Dad, after fathering that kid, get a little courage and stay home.
We'll send you some money if you vote for me.
That's that's what that's how to translate what he just said.
Using the usual Democrat lib lingo, reward fathers who pay child support?
That's like rewarding kids who stay in school by paying them to stay in school or by giving them cars for staying in school, not doing well, just staying there.
Reward fathers who pay that child support with job training and job opportunities?
What are you saying, sir, that these fathers are deadbeats?
That these fathers don't know how to get a job?
That they're not educated?
Is that what he's saying?
Yes, it is what he's saying.
And he's saying it to this congregation, and they're going, Amen, bro.
They are.
We should expand programs where registered nurses visit expectant and new mothers.
We should help these new families care for their children by expanding maternity and paternity.
Barack, where you been?
Ever heard of the Family Medical Leave Act?
We should guarantee every worker more paid sick leave so they can stay home to take care of their child without losing their income.
Pure unadulterated, nothing new.
Nothing new from the top of this speech about responsible parenthood and fatherhood to the conclusion.
This is the same old, tired, worn-out liberalism that you and I have heard all of our lives.
By the way, I should tell you the way the New York Times covered the Obama speech, uh, they covered it as though it was Obama's sister soldier moment.
Um as you recall, Bill Clinton had his sister soldier moment.
Sister Soldier was a black rapperette.
She was out there, she was in some kind of controversial trouble because of lyrics or something.
Clinton went to a meeting of the NAA LCP or Jesse Jackson's monochrome coalition, I forget which, and just really laid into Sister Soldier.
We don't need people like we don't this is not productive, we don't need this.
Of course, the Reverend Jackson sitting there in the background with his mouth wide open, can't believe what he's hearing.
But the sister soldier moment was where Clinton reached across the aisle to white conservatives.
And that's what a sister soldier moment is when you bash your own side to reach across the aisle culturally to conservatives.
So the New York Times is trying to suggest that's what Obama was doing with his father's day speech at the church.
And in fact, the Obama campaign in the New York Times story says, Well, we were hoping for this speech was political.
We were hoping this speech was heard by white conservatives.
To try to bridge the cultural gap here.
Well, if that's the case, Obama campaign, you might, you might, I doubt it.
You might have gotten somewhere until that close, where you spelled out the biggest expansion of the federal government taking charge of families that I've ever heard.
So whatever outreach you might have gained by giving a speech at a black church about black fatherhood, you blew it when you promised the federal government was going to come into everybody's house with nurses and give them job training and this sort of stuff.
Is it an absolute disaster?
Now we got Vinny and the Bronx back.
Vinny, hello.
Hey, great one.
FDNY Ditto.
Thanks, sir, very much.
What's the odds of actually getting through to you twice in one day?
Incredible, I imagine.
It's very difficult to do, but we we have a little star on your line, Vinny.
We know it.
We know it's you.
Listen, um, you're more right than you know, as always.
Uh it's always about the media, whom I've always thought is much more the enemy than the Democratic Party themselves are.
I seem to remember their self-inflated importance, uh, really coming true during the early days of the Iraq war when some reporters unfortunately lost their lives.
It seemed wall to wall then as well about uh the media and its importance and what they do and how outstanding they are.
Right, Michael Kelly and David Bloom, uh with Michael Kelly a columnist Washington Post, David Bloom, NBC reporter.
Yeah, yes, sir, and that's not to minimize them at all.
It's just to echo uh what you've always told us about the uh media believing themselves as the moral barometer of the country.
No, it's not that.
I mean, yes, it's that, but that's that's it's they look at how to express this.
They think that they are as important as the presidency.
They think they are as important.
We just lost him again.
Take the phone line.
They think that they're as important as any other constitutional institution.
And when one of them dies, it's why it's a shock to democracy.
It's a shock to the nation.
Can the nation survive without ex-reporter?
Can the nation go on?
Can we in the media go on?
Some of you might find this a little gruesome.
But I checked in on this coverage over the weekend, particularly on NBC.
And I understand they loved Russert.
We all did.
But this, as I say, ceased being about Russert by five o'clock Friday afternoon.
And it had transformed fully into an orgy of how important we are.
And how at risk we are, how our era may be over.
They're scared.
They were prov they were presiding at their own wake.
Whether they knew it or not.
Not Russart's.
I wouldn't have been surprised if they were looking around for a picture to find Luke Russard at age three playing around his father's desk.
Because I think they equated this with JFK, state funerals, big time wakes, and so forth and so on.
It just it it it was just unseemly.
It was so obviously about them and how important they are.
It was I've I've I actually felt sorry for for Tim Russert's family.
Disguise as tributes.
I mean, I I I heard some of the most inane things.
For example, somebody whose name I don't mention much in this program because he's clearly insane.
Is Keith Oberman, but he's become the face of NBC News.
And that alone should tell you where NBC's headed.
But he was the face of this coverage.
And he had broke all on a couple other reporters.
He honestly, I'm going to have to paraphrase this.
He honestly said, did Tim have what we're all striving for here?
Tom or whoever he was talking to, that precious commodity of objectivity.
Is it something we can ever attain ourselves?
Can we possibly get to that level as Tim Russert was?
Is that not something we should be asking ourselves?
Objectivity.
Just do it.
Don't sit there and ask yourselves if you can for crying out loud.
How stupid do you think the audience is?
This was not about the audience.
They were talking to each other.
They didn't care if there was an audience.
This was the most narcissistic self-introspective spectacle I have ever seen around the occasion of the death of somebody who was truly very good at what he did.
Can we ever?
I mean, that's no different than asking, you know, Tim.
He ate breakfast really well.
Do you think we can learn from his example?
Just do it.
If you're eating the wrong kind of food, switch and eat the right kind of food.
Did Tim have a luck on this notion of objectivity?
Isn't that what we're all striving for in this business?
What Tim?
No, you're not striving for this.
This was this was patently absurd.
Then they had Matthews come on.
Matthews is on vacation.
Do we have to we do?
Listen, listen to this.
This this was this, you talk about making it about I in fact I predicted some friends before long, before long, Friday afternoon.
I predicted a Levin and a couple others.
I said, this Russert death is going to be blamed on Bush for creating all kinds of stress among journalists over the Iraq War.
When we went to war with Iraq, he and I a little discussion about that.
And this is where he is every man.
This is where Tim is Mr. or Miss America or Mrs. America.
He is us as a country.
I say, how can you believe this war is justified?
And he said, the nuclear thing.
If they have a bomb that they can use, we got to deal with it.
We can't walk away from that.
And that to me was the essence of what was wrong with the whole case for the war.
That they knew the argument that would sell with Mr. America, with the regular guy, with the true American patriot.
They used the argument that would sell, that would get us into that war.
Tim was right on the nail.
He was us, the American people.
And that to me is just something that's been coming in my head the last couple hours when Tim and I had that conversation.
That that was the thing that sold America, and the guys who wanted the war used that one thing that would sell the Patriot in Tim Russert.
Do you hear what has just been said?
Russert has been dead less than six hours.
Matthews is on TV blaming Bush for fooling Russert, the great patriot, lying to the great patriot Russard, and that's what got us into the So he blamed Russert.
He blamed Russert essentially for the Iraq war when they're what?
Well, Bush and Russard.
Russert for being fooled by it, and Bush for lying to him about it.
We'll be back in just a minute, folks.
We'll let you hear a about nine or ten minutes worth of an interview I did in a whole hour with Tim Russard about his book.
▲
Export Selection