RUSH: Man, it’s unbelievable. Eight of them, eight, count ’em, eight sound bites. The total, we got 26, and one-third of the sound bite roster today is about me. Over the weekend a bunch of absolute blithering idiots beside themselves with rage over the fact that I have successfully co-opted the race card and its application from them, and they’re livid, they’re fit to be tied, and they make no sense. I’ve spent five minutes, ten minutes reading these eight sound bites. I don’t know what these people are saying. I’ve put ’em off to the side here. I’m not gonna lead the program with this. This is absolute pure bunk, junk garbage. We’ll get to it at some point.

Anyway, folks, how are you? Rush Limbaugh, depressed, wishing I wasn’t here today. I was in Pittsburgh last night and that’s all you need to know. (interruption) Eight seconds? Try the whole game. I was watching the game without benefit of a TV monitor and without benefit of sound, so a lot of that game was a mystery to me until I saw some postgame coverage. I’m almost ashamed to admit this. There were two replay reviews that I didn’t know were going on. I turned to Kathryn and said, “What the hell is this, another time-out? For crying out loud.” “Yeah, they’re reviewing a play.” Reviewing a play, what play? I never saw a flag, I never saw the red — Anyway, it’s like a whole different game when you’re there in person and don’t have any guidance. I couldn’t see the scoreboard. I had the best seat in the house and I know that doesn’t make sense, but don’t doubt me.

So, anyway, 92 yards, a little over two minutes, Steelers defense, four-point lead, figure it’s in the can, wasn’t in the can. But I’m here, folks. We had a great, fun weekend nevertheless aside from the outcome of the game. I’m sure the Patriots fans feel the same way about what happened to them with the Giants. Almost identical endings, two great games, no question about it. Then I show up here and I got these first eight stupid sound bites. Cookie, don’t misunderstand here, I’m not ripping you. It’s her duty, her responsibility to show me how I was once again the subject, the focal point, me and Herman, sexual harassment.

By the way, Gloria Allred, I don’t know if you know this or not, Gloria Allred fresh off her dismantling of Meg Whitman at 1:30 this afternoon about an hour and 20 minutes from now, a fourth woman will show up. They’re gonna do this at the Friars Club in New York. The source for this is Radar Online. Apparently there’s a fourth woman out there accusing Herman Cain of sexual harassment and has hired Gloria Allred which means all the other lawyers were busy or didn’t think there was much of a case.

“A new woman alleging sexual harassment by presidential hopeful Herman Cain will break her silence at a news conference with her powerhouse attorney Gloria Allred Monday afternoon,” 1:30 today. I think it’s pretty safe to conclude this is not one of the Politico women. We still don’t know what Herman Cain did according to Politico. Jonathan Martin was on with Howard Kurtz yesterday, Reliable Sources, and he still doesn’t know what Herman Cain did, he still can’t tell us what he did. And now people have started keeping score, running tallies of the number of stories that Politico has done on Herman Cain, say, versus the number of stories about Obama and Bill Ayers or Obama and Jeremiah Wright and it really is incredible the number of stories that Politico has done on this Cain thing.

Of course, you know, folks, the way this story is shaking out it is only a matter of time before Gloria Allred showed up to make this circus complete. Where’s the NAALCP on this? That’s why we call them the NAALCP, the National Association for the Advancement of Liberal Colored People, because if they were genuinely interested in the abuse of racism and so forth against black guys, they’d be right in there defending Herman Cain. But of course the Reverend Jackson has his own past in areas like this, provable, demonstrable, no questions about it. So we’ll just wait and see what happens here at 1:30 with Gloria Allred.

Get this. Some woman named Robin Givhan, Daily Beast. This is a story saying that Herman Cain’s double-breasted suits ooze abuse. I mean it’s hilarious on multiple levels, Herman Cain’s power suit. “The frontrunnerÂ’s double-breasted suits are sending the wrong message as he goes on the offensive against allegations of sexual harassment.
Republican presidential candidate Herman Cain has been trying to shut down the unsavory story line that he sexually harassed at least two female co-workers while heading the National Restaurant Association from 1993 to 1996, by proclaiming that he was ‘falsely accused’ and suggesting that heÂ’s the victim of a witch hunt, a liberal — or perhaps Republican — conspiracy, or some other kind of evil voodoo. What he has not done is make any evident attempt to consistently telegraph trustworthy, innocent, presidential or future-well-paid-pundit as cameras scrutinize his every glance and gesture.” What the hell is this?

This is a mishmash. Throw this piece of garbage away. The point she makes, it’s 14,000 pages, she basically goes on to say that the fact that Herman Cain wears double-breasted suits does not bode well, that that itself exudes power and abuse, double-breasted suits. This is a quote. Cain’s double-breasted suits have an “in-your-face, sartorial swagger reads in damning ways,” especially in views of the accusations of sexual harassment. She says that double-breasted suits are even tied to religion. She claims, quote, “Through his wardrobe, he positioned himself as the flamboyant boss man and the irreproachable believer.” That is how absurd this has become. Herman Cain’s double-breasted suits exude an in-your-face swagger and convey abuse and the message that I or he has power over you. That is how ridiculous that it has gotten.

Let’s go to the audio sound bites. Jonathan Martin, one of the three original writers of the first 90 Herman Cain stories on Politico. There have been a total here now of, let’s see, a hundred and some odd after eight days. Anyway, Jonathan Martin, the first 90 stories had his name on there, and that’s the first week. He was on Reliable Sources yesterday with Howard Kurtz and during a panel discussion about allegations of sexual harassment — (interruption) no, no, I’m not gonna say harassment, I’m not gonna go politically correct, look it up, the original pronunciation is harassment, and that’s why it’s pronounced harassment. I’m gonna continue to pronounce it harassment, not harassment. Leave me alone.

During a panel discussion about allegations of sexual harassment against Republican presidential candidate Herman Cain after one guest says it’s ironic for me to be playing the race card, Kurtz said, “Of course, liberal commentators have fired back at people like Rush. I would suggest the media secretly love this. I mean, the story itself is probably more compelling to a lot of journalists than writing about Mitt Romney’s latest economic plan.” So here Kurtz is admitting the truth. This titillates them. Maybe they ought to go apply for a job as defensive coordinator at Penn State University. (interruption) Well, it does, Snerdley, it titillates ’em. There’s some openings at Penn State. Go for it, Kurtz, you guys titillated by this. Romney bores you, Cain excites you, double-breasted suits, hundred plus stories on sexual harassment, Gloria Allred. My God, I’ll bet your underwear barely fit now. Anyway, “I would suggest the media secretly love this. Now a full-blown racially charged culture war, and that fills a lot of airtime and columns,” Kurtz says to Jonathan Martin of Politico.

KURTZ: I think the older conservatives who were more oriented around provocation — Limbaugh, Coulter — I think focused on that angle. Some of the younger conservatives who have roots in reporting I think tend to say, “Let’s see where the facts lead us here before we jump to any conclusions.”

RUSH: Let me tell you what this means, because I happen to know what this is. Older conservatives mean the ones who have not caved. Older conservatives, and he mentions Coulter, me, the older conservatives. This is not an age thing. We are the conservatives who haven’t buckled. We’re the conservatives who don’t give a rat’s rear end what the leftist media thinks of us. The young conservatives, that’s who he says he likes, and when he says, “younger conservatives who have roots in reporting, I think tend to say, let’s see where the facts lead us here before we –” Rich Lowry at National Review ripped, in one of the first stories about this. It might have been Michael Walsh writing at National Review Online, The Corner, Walsh or some writer ripped into Martin for a horrible story, and Lowry ripped into Walsh, his own guy, said, “No, Martin’s a great guy. Martin’s a friend of mine, a good reporter.”

So younger conservative means the conservatives who are concerned with being accepted by the liberal media, the younger guys, that’s the code. The older conservatives, people like me are not cowed by it. Not to pick on Lowry, but we talk about this a lot. There are members of the conservative media in Washington who live there, and we know what happens when you live there. It’s a town run by the left socially, politically, you name it. The elected Republicans, they’re hell-bent on making sure they get their message out through the mainstream media. They’re hell-bent on making sure the Washington Post, the Times and all that, like them. We older dinosaurs — he-he-he — yeah, we cannot be bent and shaped and flaked and formed and moved and watered down. We can’t be diluted. That’s what he means by that.

The next question. Kurtz says to Jonathan Martin of Politico, “Why publish the story about Cain when you couldn’t answer the central question: What did he do? When you can’t answer the central question what precisely is Herman Cain alleged to have done with these women, why run it?”

MARTIN: I think any journalist would find, uh, the — a report of two women who got, uh, a five-figure, each, cash payout after alleged sexual harassment against the CEO of a trade group who is now a major contender for president newsworthy, and that’s the story we had and that’s what we published. As for the detail of it, we were dealing with sensitive, you know, s-s-sources, sensitive information here. Uhhh —

KURTZ: Yes.

MARTIN: — and so — so obviously we — we tread delicately when it came to that.

RUSH: Yeah, “we tread delicately,” but not with Herman Cain! We will destroy Herman Cain. We will stomp on Herman Cain, but we’re gonna tread delicately on these anonymous sources and these anonymous details, and we’re not gonna go after ’em. So after Martin said they “tread delicately” because of the sexual harassment allegations, then this exchange followed…

KURTZ: I think at a lot of news organizations —

MARTIN: Right.

KURTZ: — an editor would have said you have done some terrific reporting here

MARTIN: Right.

KURTZ: — you’ve got some great leads here, but you don’t have it, you don’t have the details of the sexually suggestive —

MARTIN: Right.

KURTZ: — behavior that made them angry or uncomfortable.

MARTIN: Right.

KURTZ: Go back and get more.

MARTIN: Right.

KURTZ: You could have waited. There was nothing forcing me to publish last Sunday.

MARTIN: Well, uh… We had the fact that one of these women was… brought upon by Cain in a hotel room and was made to feel very uncomfortable.

KURTZ: But you can’t tell me what the overture is?

MARTIN: With these kinds of, uh, stories obviously the first story might not have all the information that you want.

RUSH: That’s why we’re where we are! That is why we are where we are. The sources are sensitive? Why should these sources be sensitive unless it was the women who were under the confidentiality agreements? Who was sensitive here? What is this about? “Well, these kinds of stories, obviously the first story might not have all the information that you want. Well, we… (stammering) No, I can’t tell you what it is.” In fact, the first story said — I’ll never forget this — that the gestures were “not overtly sexual.” Sheez, folks!

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: You know, as a member of the older conservatives, more oriented toward provocation, I have a question — and I think this is fundamental. The sound bite that we just played with Jonathan Martin where he said as justification for doing the original Politico story on Herman Cain, “Well, we had the fact that one of these women was brought by Cain in a hotel room and was made to feel very uncomfortable.” Folks, I get uncomfortable when room service shows up, when I’m in a hotel! What is this? That’s not a “fact” of anything. It is an accusation — and more than that, it’s a touchy-feely accusation. How many people are made to feel uncomfortable every day by other people? What kind of wusses run the world now? What kind of pantywaists run the world? Who is it who says (impression), “Yes, I was made to feel very uncomfortable! I think it’s worth $50,000, Mr. Limbaugh.”

Every day we all are made to feel uncomfortable by something. I would be afraid to complain how many times I’m uncomfortable! For crying out loud, that’s the whole point: A nation of whiners and complainers who want to be paid for it — for being offended or being made to feel uncomfortable — but so what? By what, Mr. Martin? What the hell…? The problem here is that that is not a “fact.” Not yet! That’s an accusation. “Yes, I was made to feel very uncomfortable.” She “was brought upon by Cain in a hotel room”? What does that mean, “brought upon”? Brought to the hotel room? You know, we older, crusty conservatives, we name our victims: Kathleen Willey, Juanita Broaddrick, Monica Lewinsky, we name ’em — and they say we don’t do reporting? We find out the names, we find out where the semen-stained blue dress is, and then we tell everybody about it. We don’t deal in innuendo, we crusty old, hardened conservatives who only care about provocation and our younger brethren who are more interested in reporting are still in diapers. F. Chuck Todd is worried that Herman Cain’s strategery is working. This morning on MSNBC’s Daily Rundown…

TODD: (silly music) None of the women who have accused him have gone public. And without an aggrieved party disputing his version of events, Cain has avoided the “he said, she said” situation. So while wildly criticized by the media and some establishment Republicans, Cain’s response strategy seems to be working for now. Anybody else getting flashbacks to Bill Clinton? Remember all of those charges were supposed to take him down in ’91, ’92. It eventually made him stronger.

RUSH: Oh, really? So now this is gonna make Cain stronger? What made Clinton stronger was you guys! That’s made Clinton stronger. Clinton lied about it the first, he denied it. None of it ever happened ’til Gennifer Flowers had the tapes and Monica Lewinsky had the dress. They marveled at his lies. They marveled at how clever he was able to lie to ’em. They were impressed; they were dazzled. They begged him to lie even more to him, they were so impressed by it — and I thought Herman Cain didn’t have a strategy! I thought David Gregory told us on Friday that was a big thing that really shocked the media and ticked ’em off, that Cain didn’t have a strategy.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

(playing of Politico spoof)

RUSH: So F. Chuck Todd says, “Remember Bill Clinton? All those charges were supposed to take him down in ’91 and ’92 and they made him stronger.” What made Clinton stronger is the media lied for him. The media lied about it! The media lied, said that it never happened.