RUSH: I know. I know. It was total chaos, utter chaos at last night’s debate, ladies and gentlemen, in Philadelphia — or somewhere, Pennsylvania — moderated by ABC. This is amazing to watch the fallout, not just the debate, but to watch the Drive-By Media pile all over itself for the way ABC’s moderators asked questions. The left-wing blogs today are beside themselves. Operation Chaos, ladies and gentlemen. Never in my wildest dreams did I imagine this, but it’s gotten to a point that I never contemplated, and it may be, it may be time to implement the Doomsday Option of Operation Chaos. Greetings, my friends, and welcome, Rush Limbaugh in the Excellence in Broadcasting Network, fun, frolic, frivolity for all as well as serious discussion of issues. If you want to be on the program today, telephone number is 800-282-2882, and the e-mail address ElRushbo@eibnet.com.
All right, so we had the debate last night, and George Stephanopoulos and Charlie Gibson actually asked some tough questions of these people rather than questions made and designed to make them look good. The kinds of questions Republicans get from these moderators at their debates. This has set the left wing in this country afire. This is not how it’s supposed to happen. Democrat debates are supposed to be moderated by sycophants, and the sycophants in the Drive-Bys are supposed to make these people look good. They’re supposed to help them show themselves off. Last night, it’s become clear as a bell to everybody, the most upset group in America today is the Democrat Party superdelegates. They are beside themselves, trust me. This was an absolute disaster last night for both of these candidates. Now, everybody’s out there saying that Obama lost, and lost big. Two things about this, folks. You can’t judge it that way. You have to judge Obama’s loss against how well Hillary did, and she didn’t do anything to win it. What happened is they both lost last night.
There was no winner, unless you want to say the guy who wasn’t there, and that would be Senator McCain. Neither of these two candidates delivered what was necessary to get rid of the other. And that was by design in Operation Chaos. So the liberals today are beside themselves, and they’re out there saying they want to discuss real issues, not these trashy little gossip things. Tom Shales today has actually twisted himself into a pretzel over how horrible the questioning was last night. We enjoyed watching this. The libs are now saying, ‘We need to get back to the real issues,’ like global warming and how to lose the war in Iraq, and how to raise taxes. What we learned last night, what Americans who watched last night learned, because you and I have known this from the get-go, Barack Obama is a fully manufactured candidate. The Drive-By Media invented him. They helped invent him. Therefore, any efforts to reveal who he really is — including his associations, past and current — are quickly attacked, and that’s the scope of the criticism today. Who cares who he knew when he was eight? Who cares about his preacher? Who cares about Bittergate. It’s been rehashed.
The American people care about this. By the way, beyond the associations he has, I mean, let’s face it: His associations are with true, genuine radicals in any number of ways. In addition to his associations that were exposed last night, his ideology was open and bare and anybody could see it. That was attacked as well. Any effort to expose his liberalism is being attacked today, too. Now, here’s the conclusion. A moderate, as Obama claims he is; a centrist, as Obama claims he is; a uniter, as Obama claims he is; would not be in the same room with the Reverend Jeremiah Wright, would not be in the same room with a former terrorist who blew up the Pentagon, Bill Ayers. A moderate centrist uniter like Barack Obama has promised that he would not have a wife on the stump making repeatedly offensive statements about the United States of America. A moderate centrist uniter would not have been a Saul Alinsky activist. Obama calls himself a ‘community activist,’ but it’s much more dire than that. Both of these candidates are acolytes. They’re both students, if you will, of the radical Saul Alinsky. Obama has become, to a lot of people, an idea of what they want him to be. So they project their perceptions onto him, and that’s exactly what he wants.
Last night all of that was stripped away. All of it melted away, and if people hadn’t realized who the real Obama was. After his recent comments in San Francisco, more and more people did. His friends and associates include a crook, Tony Rezko; a terrorist, Bill Ayers; and Jeremiah Wright, an anti-American racist. Spin it however they will, all this tells us something about the man and his politics. It is an amazing thing for me to see as the commanding general of Operation Chaos. Obama is now damaged goods. We have succeeded. Operation Chaos has succeeded. But despite how damaging to Obama is, it shows just how unliked and how disfavored Hillary is that she can’t capitalize on his demise. She has not been able to capitalize on this guy’s rookie status or any of his other failings. When the press talks about these damning revelations not hurting Obama relative only to Hillary because he’s not going down in the polls, what they’re not factoring here is that it’s relative only to Hillary, who’s universally hated. You put Obama up against another candidate, and these numbers would certainly decline, as they are in some of the national polls that pitch Obama versus McCain.
BREAK TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: Obama has been exposed for the fraud that he is. When Obama does not have a prepared speech on hope, a prepared speech on change, when Obama is asked a question about the American flag and how the lapel pin ended up on his suit, (paraphrasing) ‘Well, you know, a veteran wanted me to do that.’ Almost apologizes for having put the thing on, cannot say, ‘Yes, I love America.’ Can’t say it. ‘I have reverence for America.’ He can’t say he loves the country. He disdains one of the prominent symbols of the country, refuses to wear it, because that’s how he thinks he has to relate to his voters.
He has been exposed as a 100 percent total radical. There is nothing unifying about him. There’s nothing even nice about the guy. There is nothing competent. He was stumbling in answers last night that should have been easy. They would have been easy if he would just be honest, but he can’t be honest. When he doesn’t have that teleprompter and doesn’t have the ability to say nothing, when he has to say nothing off the cuff, it comes across as nothing. When the speech of nothing is written as nothing, it sounds mellifluous and beautiful and flowing, like a sermon. But when he’s off the cuff, it isn’t there. And Mrs. Clinton, who we have set out here to prop up and revive, the reasons that she has such high negatives were on full display last night. She’s just not likable. Even when she scores points, you hate her. She just doesn’t come across as likable. You superdelegates, the arrogance of the Democrat Party has led you to this point, plus I’ll tell you what else has got you in trouble, and that is the Drive-By Media, which up until last night, has been totally puffball slavish. The Drive-By Media never challenges liberal Democrats, either in debates, standard everyday news coverage — and they haven’t for decades — and so the Drive-By Media puff ball coverage does not toughen up Democrat candidates, and when Democrat candidates get genuine questions like they got last night, you see that they wilt, they implode, and they get mad, they get upset. (doing impression) ‘How dare you ask me that? Don’t you understand the drill here, Charlie? You’re supposed to be helping me look good!’ And it didn’t happen last night.
So you Democrats have gone into this election season fresh off the ’06 elections thinking it’s yours, thinking you own it, just a matter of time, you have bought the notion that over half the country hates this country, that over half the country hates the president, that over half the country hates the Republican Party, because you never see evidence to the contrary. You turn on the Drive-By news be it a cable channel, be it the nightly news, and you see your worldview reflected. I mean, for crying out loud, you have even been joined now in your conspiracy theories with some of your kook believers in the Democrat Party, voters you’re going to depend on. Their sentiments are now being echoed by none other than Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. ‘Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has described the 9/11 attacks on the Twin Towers in New York as a ‘suspect event’ and queried the death toll. ‘A building collapsed and they said 3,000 people had been killed but never published their names,’ he said in a speech in the holy city of Qom. He did not mention the planes hijackers flew into the twin skyscrapers. On the fifth anniversary… the names of 2,749 people killed in New York were read out at a ceremony.’
So Ahmadinejad has gone to Kookville, got his passport, and they stamped it at customs at Kookville. Who does he sound like? When Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the president of Iran, starts questioning the legitimacy of 9/11, who does he sound like? That poet laureate of New Jersey, Amiri Baraka, who first put out that it was a Jewish conspiracy. It sounds like kook-fringe Democrats who run the Democrat blogosphere. It is Democrats in this country of one stripe or another, some, who believe 9/11 was a put-up job. You people in the Democrat Party do not know how you are seen because the Drive-By Media does not tell you how you are seen. The Drive-By Media puff balls you up, puff pieces you all day long and you think you’re loved and adored.
Then your candidates get in a debate last night and Charlie Gibson, God bless him, I don’t know what got into him, happened to point out the truth about tax cuts, the capital gains tax cut. Mr. Obama, Bill Clinton did lower it, and every time the capital gains rates have been lowered, more revenue’s come into the Treasury than ever before. Obama glazes over, has no clue what he’s just heard. So he gets interrupted by Gibson again, ‘The revenues keep going up.’ And finally Obama says, ‘It’s not about money, it’s about fairness.’ Bingo — what we’ve always known. It’s not about money, it’s about control. I have never heard a Democrat be posed by a Drive-By Media moderator, a question with the truth about what happens when taxes are cut. And when it happened, Obama had no clue. And neither did Mrs. Clinton. You can’t say Obama lost this thing. He was far worse than Hillary, but she didn’t win anything so you can’t say he lost.
BREAK TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: We have sound bites from the debate last night, and they are fascinating. In fact, I want to go through a couple of them here. In Philadelphia, the moderator, George Stephanopoulos, said to Obama, ‘A gentleman named William Ayers, part of the Weather Underground in the 1970s, they bombed the Pentagon, the Capitol, and other buildings. He’s never apologized for it, and in fact on 9/11 he was quoted in the New York Times saying, ‘I don’t regret setting bombs. I feel we didn’t do enough.’ An early organizing meeting for your state Senate campaign was held at his house, and your campaign has said you are friendly. Can you explain the relationship for the voters and explain to Democrats why it won’t be a problem to be so close to a terrorist like this.’
OBAMA: This is guy who lives in my neighborhood who was, uh, a professor of English in Chicago who I know and who I have not received some official endorsement from, he’s not somebody who I exchange ideas from on a regular basis, uh, and the notion that somehow, uh, as a consequence of me knowing somebody who engaged in detestable acts 40 years ago when I was eight years old, uh, somehow reflects on me and my values doesn’t make much sense, George. The fact is that I’m also friendly with Tom Coburn, one of the most conservative Republicans in the United States Senate, uh, who, during his campaign, once said that it, uh, might be appropriate to apply the death penalty to those who, uh, carried out abortions. Do I need to apologize for Mr. Coburn’s, uh, statements? Because I certainly don’t agree with those, either.
RUSH: This is what I mean about inept. To bring up Tom Coburn has no relation. Tom Coburn is not a terrorist. Tom Coburn never bombed anybody’s private property or public property. This is a clear example of the incompetence. But what Obama did not respond to in the question, Bill Ayers, who is unrepentant for what he did, hosted an event for Senator Obama when he was running for the state senate. This is not somebody that Senator Obama would just run into on the street, an English professor doing great works in school. This is somebody who hosted a political event for a like-minded individual in a political context. This is not Obama running into him at the bicycle store or some such thing while tooling around as a community organizer in Chicago. Bill Ayers is a radical. And we know from Obama’s own mouth, he is a radical. He is the most radical Democrat Party front-runner for president in our lifetimes, folks, and maybe beyond who’s had a genuine chance, a serious chance at securing the nomination.
This is why I tell you superdelegates, you have a disaster on your hands here. And the thing is they know it. They’re just asking themselves, ‘My gosh, what can we do now? We’ve only got ten primaries left, what do we do now?’ Neither one of these two are going to quit, and Hillary is certainly not going to. This is a disaster in the making. It is front and center for everybody to see, but the most damage here is to Obama because in the eyes of the American people, he’s messianic. He’s a messiah. He can say nothing and make it sound like it’s everything. He can make you inspired and so forth. But that’s when he’s got the prompter and that’s when the speech has been written by David Axelrod. When he’s on his own like this, he gets defensive. He will not condemn people who hate this country. He will not distance himself from people who hate this country, and he will not express the words, ‘I love this country.’ He will not say it. Now we move on to the next bite in this little trilogy. Senator Hillary Clinton said this about Bill Ayers following Obama’s answer.
HILLARY: Senator Obama served on a board with Mr. Ayers for a period of time, the Woods Foundation, which was a paid directorship position, and if I’m not mistaken, that relationship with Mr. Ayers on this board continued after 9/11 and after his reported comments, which were deeply hurtful to people in New York. And I would hope to every American, because they were published on 9/11, and he said that he was just sorry they hadn’t done more. And what they did was set bombs, and in some instances, people died. So it is — you know, I think it is, again, an issue that people, uh, will be, uh, asking about. I think that this is an issue that certainly the Republicans will be raising.
RUSH: Right, because Hillary can’t raise it because she’s got dirt on her hands. I mean, her husband pardoned a bunch of terrorists, the FALN gang, to facilitate the Puerto Rican vote for Hillary when she ran for the Senate in New York. Even when she goes after Obama, you don’t feel like jumping up, ‘Yeah, yeah, yeah, you tell ’em.’ You end up disliking both of these people. Then Obama said this.
OBAMA: By Senator Clinton’s own vetting standards, I don’t think she would make it, uh, since President Clinton pardoned or commuted the sentences of two members of the Weather Underground, which I think is a slightly more significant act than me, uh, serving on a board with somebody for actions that he did 40 years ago.
RUSH: He — Barack — hasn’t changed. Bill Ayers hasn’t changed. After 9/11, he has no repentance whatsoever. He has no regret for what he did. His only reaction is, ‘I’m sorry we didn’t set off more bombs.’ Look, folks, this man hangs around with ultra left-wing radicals. It’s because he finds comfort with them, feels comfortable in their midst. This is not somebody whose acts are 40 years old. We have somebody of a certain mind-set. We have a reverend, Pastor Jeremiah Wright, somebody with a certain mind-set. We have a wife who has a similar kind of mind-set. We have Mrs. Clinton, who has just as much baggage, and so she’s gotta rely on the Republicans, the threat of the Republicans going after Obama, because she really can’t do it herself. They’re both tainted. They’re both incompetent. They’re both unqualified. They have no business, neither one of them. See, the Democrats, like I said yesterday, get caught up in all these meaningless things. They get caught up in the story line, and they think, ‘Wow, it doesn’t matter what our candidates believe, we’ve got the first woman, serious female candidate. We’ve got the first serious black candidate. Oh, the country is going to love us.’
Doesn’t matter what they say, doesn’t matter what they stand for, the Drive-Bys are going to help puff ball their images: Smartest woman in the world; brilliant speaker, the messianic Obama. And now the truth is coming out, and the superdelegates are faced with, I’m sure, something they never contemplated, and that is the recognition that neither of these two candidates can win. Obama will not be able to withstand a general election campaign of longer than two months or a month, if that. Despite what Democrats think, a majority of Americans do not hate this country. A majority of Americans are not resentful of this country. A majority of Americans are not running around bitter, are not running around enraged, and they’re not running around angry. And to the extent that those who are angry are angry, it’s because of the incompetence of the government they have to deal with from federal, state, to local. It’s not because government’s not doing enough. It’s because government doesn’t do enough right. Governmental takes on too much, does too much wrong, intrudes on everybody’s lives, and these people want to expand that scope, the Democrats.