RUSH: Now, the Rudy Giuliani thing. Rudy was on Fox last night. He went on with Megyn Kelly last night to get grilled. She demanded that Rudy clarify his position, his statement on the fact that he doesn’t believe that Obama loves the country. He walked it back a little bit. But I had to go to a cigar dinner last night. Marvin Shanken, a local cigar dinner down here in south Florida. I was away from the TV, and I’m getting texts. It’s during the Megyn Kelly show on Fox, and I’m getting texts praising Rudy to the rooftops.

“He’s hanging in there. He’s not backing down. He’s taking it to the mettle.”

Rudy was getting praised, accolades, texts all over the place about Rudy. When I got home I had to figure out what had happened. And, in fact, he stood his ground. The point that I think needs to be made here about this is that I’m the guy who said on January 16th of 2009, this is before Obama was inaugurated, I’m the guy who said, “I hope he fails.” I’m the guy who has been saying for six plus years now that it’s apparent to me Obama does not like this country. He’s got a chip on his shoulder about this country. I’ve detailed the reasons why.

So what Rudy said, to me, is not a surprise. It didn’t shock me that Rudy would think this. It kind of surprises me that it’s taken long for people to have this kind of reaction, actually. But you see Rudy is an elected Republican. He comes from the political class, per se. He’s not just a media guy. And so that, I guess, constitutes groundbreaking behavior on the part of an elected Republican. So they brought him in and put him under the microscope. And he held up. And he maintained exactly what he started out maintaining. He didn’t back off on any of it at all and gave details and was persuasive.

It’s obvious to me, and it has been since the campaign, but certainly after the election in 2008. I don’t want to have to relive all of this because those who were here and have been here a long time have heard me say this on numerous occasions. But it was obvious during the campaign, when the biggest — I mean, here you have Brokaw and Charlie Rose, it’s a week before the election and they’re on Charlie Rose’s show on PBS and they’re admitting they don’t know the guy. They don’t know anything about him.

They’re telling everybody they should vote for him, and he’s unlike anything we’ve ever had before. He’s brilliant, this, that, Brooks is out there talking about he’s really qualified because look at the crease in his slacks. We’ve never seen anybody this meticulous. This guy is just brilliant. He’s going to make mincemeat of every critic. They were all just falling all over themselves but here’s Brokaw and Charlie Rose unable to tell anybody why they should like Obama. They don’t know what he believes about this. They don’t know what his foreign policy is, who his influences are, what books he’s read. I’m pulling my hair out.

I do! I know who’s influenced him. I know he sat in Reverend Wright’s church for 20 years. It matters. I don’t care that he said he didn’t hear anything, it matters. I know he was introduced to politics by Bill Ayers and his wife. It matters. They tried to sweep this stuff under the rug, but it matters. Barack Obama has had as good friends terrorists and people who have tried to commit terrorist acts against this country. It’s not a mystery. It’s hard to accept. I’ve always thought that people, even today, are going to have a tough time acknowledging who they voted for. The presidency as an office is revered no matter who occupies it. There are certain characteristics about it that people just will not be made to believe, particularly if they had a hand in making it happen, such as in voting for Obama.

But the evidence has been overwhelming. This has been one of the most frustrating things, frankly, for me about doing this program for the past six, seven years, it’s all out there in droves. There’s a treasure trove of information that makes it clear exactly who Obama is, who his mentors were, how he was educated, what he believes, what are his motivations, what are the things that inform him, it’s all there. None of it is a secret. The challenge is do you want to believe it or not. And a lot of people didn’t want to go there. Didn’t want to believe it. Still don’t.