RUSH: All right. To the kook blog convention. This is Hillary Clinton. We have several sound bites here.
HILLARY: We are certainly better prepared and more focused on, you know, taking our arguments and making them effective and disseminating them widely and really putting together a network in the blogosphere, in a lot of the new progressive infrastructure, institutions that I helped to start and support, like Media Matters and Center for American Progress. We’re beginning to match what I have said for years was the advantage of the other side. You know, when I made that comment, about the vast right-wing conspiracy, I wasn’t kidding.
RUSH: What did I hear there, she admits to starting Media Matters? Now, I’ve told you this, it’s a Clinton front organization. David Brock is slavish to Mrs. Clinton, and George Soros has got some funding in there, but she set it up. The Center for American Progress, John Podesta runs it, a think tank, he’s a former Clinton chief of staff. Now, The Center for American Progress just happens to be this independent organization that issued this report saying talk radio is unfairly balanced and we need the Fairness Doctrine. And of course we all know that Media Matters is. They’re just a bunch of bought and paid for Clinton hacks. Of course, the Drive-Bys don’t tell us that. The Drive-Bys report them as an independent watchdog agency. So she admits it.
Also, last Friday, I didn’t comment on this because I didn’t want to embarrass Mr. Dionne, Jr., any more than he’d already embarrassed himself. E. J. Dionne, Jr., of the Washington Post wrote a column in which he started by saying, you may have missed it, but Rush Limbaugh celebrated his 19th anniversary yesterday. He went on to talk about the achievements and so forth, and then proclaimed that this kook fringe blogger site is now the Rush Limbaugh of the left. Now, how many Rush Limbaughs on the left have they anointed? If you look at video of this convention, one thing you’ll see is a bunch of people sitting there disguised as empty seats. Even during the candidates forum. To compare what the bloggers do to what I do, they’re just grasping at straws. They are just so beside themselves that they have failed to make inroads against me and others in the conservative new media. But, of course, when E. J. Dionne, Jr., picks it up and says kook fringe bloggers are the new Rush Limbaugh, then of course the rest of the Drive-Bys echo it. Here’s Howard Kurtz, CNN Reliable Sources.
KURTZ: I would suggest that liberals here are doing what Rush Limbaugh did for talk radio 15 or so years ago, which is trying to seize control and make a connection with their supporters.
RUSH: I’m here to tell you, after 19 years, and these people still don’t get what I do and how it happened and what my purpose is here. My admitted purpose — I have countless times said this — they still don’t get it; they’re not even trying to get it. Seize control and make a connection with their supporters? We are running a business here! We didn’t seize control over anything. Well, we may have a lot of power, man running the country here, but we’re running a business here, for crying out loud. It’s all based on the insatiable thirst that they have to acquire the kind of power that they think I started this program seeking. One more sound bite here before the break. This is at the kook fringe blogger convention in Chicago. It’s the Breck Girl. Here’s one of the things he said.
EDWARDS: The Democratic Party, the party of the people, ought to say from this day forward, we will never take a dime from a Washington lobbyist; we do not do business with these insiders; we’re going to give the power in this government back to the people. Senator Obama and I have already done it.
RUSH: I have to run and take a break, but I just saw the other day the biggest single group of contributors to the Breck Girl’s campaign is trial lawyers. If that’s not a lobbying group, folks, I don’t know what is.
BREAK TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: Okay, we got one more sound bite here from the kook fringe blogger convention in Chicago over the weekend, and it’s from Hillary. One of the moderators of this panel was a New York Times reporter, Matt Bai, and after the Breck girl said, ‘I won’t take any lobbyist money. We ought to all refuse to take lobbyist money,’ even though he’s taking money from the trial lawyers and so forth, the New York Times writer said, ‘It’s actually the second time you’ve made this very definitive statement about lobbying. Senator Clinton, would you make a similar statement? Or why would you think it’s not a persuasive…’
CLINTON: I don’t think based on my 35 years of fighting for what I believe in, anybody seriously believes I’m going to be influenced by a lobbyist or a particular interest group. Now, you know —
BAI: All right, all right.
CLINTON: I’ve been waiting for this. This gives us a real sense of reality with my being here.
BAI: Senator Edwards has a very straightforward question here, which is will you continue to take money from lobbyists or will you take this position?
CLINTON: Yes, I will, I will.
BAI: Thank you.
CLINTON: Because, you know, a lot of those lobbyists, whether you like it or not, represent real Americans. They actually do.
RUSH: Yep, NRA is a lobbying group. She’s actually right about that. She got booed up there by the kook fringe bloggers. Look, there’s no way Edwards is going to stop taking money from lobbyists. This comes up, all these insiders trying to make themselves sound like outsiders; Edwards a reformer, blah, blah, blah. They couldn’t survive without lobby money. Even the new ethics bill, the House passed this brand new ethics bill, supposed to be ensured against having $200 lunches and dinners paid for by lobbyists. Oh, but you can still do it. You know how? You can still do it if it’s a fundraiser. Well, what the hell else is a lunch? If you call your lunch with a lobbyist a fundraiser, you can still take their money. Certain things in politics aren’t going to change. They just aren’t. She is not that dumb to take up this place. She knows — anybody in their right mind running for office cannot answer this question, ‘Yes, I’m going to eschew lobby money,’ because it won’t happen.