RUSH: Now, I had a lot of people — and I made mention of this earlier — worried here that we’re losing the headline battle out of Wisconsin, we’re losing the headline war on Twitter and Facebook and, ‘Gee, wouldn’t it be great if they were telling the truth about our victory (crying).’ This is coming from people on our side. So we aim to please here at the EIB Network. We have scoured the so-called mainstream media and we have found somebody who believes that the Democrats might be in trouble in the way they are behaving themselves. And that would be the Huffing and Puffington Post senior writer Howard Fineman, who appeared on PMSNBC last night with Lawrence O’Donnell, who’s already talking about quitting the network. He is. (imitating Fineman) ‘I can’t see myself doing this more than three years. Are you kidding? It’s much easier writing fiction for The West Wing.’ Lawrence O’Donnell said to Howard Fineman, ‘Howard, the Governor has already paid a price in Wisconsin polling. Polling turned against him. But did he just become a possible leading contender for the Republican Presidential inauguration since this Republican achievement in Wisconsin is something that was being cheered strongly by national Republicans?’
FINEMAN: This story is no longer, if it ever was, really about Wisconsin. It’s about the power of unions and the Republicans’ effort to destroy them. What they want to do here is to try, number one, to goad the people in Wisconsin into overreacting. The strategy for the Republicans is to portray Barack Obama and his allies as a sort of sixties style bunch of radicals out to upset American values. And they’re going to try to force the president to come out and defend the workers in Wisconsin. He’s been very quiet. They want ’em out there on the front lines.
RUSH: Yeah, and so does the left. The left would be happy for a visit from Obama. The left is wondering, where is Obama, by the way? Where is he on Gitmo? Where is he on all these promises? Why are we still in Afghanistan? Now, here’s something also interesting, too. Mr. Fineman, ‘What they want to do here is portray Obama and his allies as a sort of sixties-style bunch of radicals out to upset American values.’ No, Obama is portraying himself that way and his buddies are portraying themselves that way. What we are doing is reporting that that’s what’s happening, Howard. We are not trying to caricature Obama as that. We are the ones who have the honesty and integrity to tell people who Obama and his cohorts are. He is. The sixties, if you’ve read up on Obama, Obama wishes he had been front and center in the sixties. I mean that was community organizing as nirvana, that was agitation like it’s never been done before.
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RUSH: Here’s more Howard Fineman, by the way, because when he says that Republicans are trying to goad people in Wisconsin to overreacting — explain to me how can anybody overreact to what they’re seeing here? Somebody want to explain this? Goad? We goading anybody? We’re sitting back and watching. Mr. Fineman, you know, I love you, Howard. We’re sitting here watching you try your best — not you personally — cover this up, or to somehow write about these riots as though they’re justified. And we know full well if it’s the Tea Party doing this you’d be demanding the German shepherds and the dogs and the mace. But since it’s your precious union guys out doing this, why, there’s solidarity within the ranks.
Goading people here? Overreacting? You can’t overreact. Howard, have you read the death threat emails? ‘Rush, come on, you know that’s just part of politics, death threats.’ Oh, yeah, right. Just part of politics to blame people that had nothing to do with it, Gabrielle Giffords gets shot. Okay, so now you’ve got Jesse Jackson, who is really in need of help. If the Democrats really cared about Jesse Jackson they would stop this ’til they found out what’s wrong. And you have Michael Moore out there, and guys are calling for full-throated revolution, which is fine and dandy. I have no problem with revolution, but combined with death threats, if something happens here, who’s going to get blamed? Certainly, Howard, all pretense of civility has kinda gone up in smoke here. And our wonderful president gave that wonderful speech, one of the best ever, we are told from Arizona, we gotta get past these things, gotta make that little nine-year-old girl proud of us. We must live and our politics must be what she dreamed it would be.
I don’t know how many people dream of politics dream of death threats. We got it happening here right in front of our very eyes and there doesn’t seem to be a whole lot of concern about this. Republicans are being threatened. Peter King is being threatened for having hearings on domestic terrorism in the House of Representatives. We got a mob at the Wisconsin assembly trying to shut down the democratic government. Nobody gives a damn. No, we’re having a discussion here about how the Republicans are trying to goad people into an overreaction? Here’s how Mr. Fineman concluded his remarks.
FINEMAN: They’re in a college town of Madison, Wisconsin, where they want the students and the unions and the Democrats to take the bait of this provocation and overreact in a way that will sell poorly in swing states in 2012. Now, the Democrats are the ones who have to be the grownups because the Republicans have been the ones to issue the provocation. This is very serious stakes having everything to do with the 2012 election.
RUSH: Wow. So what Howard Fineman is saying is that the Republicans are targeting Obama’s unions in Wisconsin and trying to cause these riots, the Republicans are trying to inspire these riots so it will help them win the election in 2012. The Democrats have gotta be very, very careful not to be manipulated into rioting here. This is what he seems to be saying. The Democrats are gonna have to be the grownups here and stop with the Molotov cocktails and the defacing of the Capitol and the threats and all this, they’re gonna have to be the grownups here because the Republicans have been the ones to issue the provocation? It’s a parallel universe. Who’s doing the provoking here? Unless the democratic process is a provocation. There was nothing illegal or unconstitutional about the way they passed this legislation last night. So you got a mob shutting down a State Capitol for three weeks is not overreacting? That’s the adults? What were these Democrats hiding out in Illinois, what would they be?
I’ve got one Michael Moore sound bite. He’s calling for riots here on MSNBC. Let’s play this because some people who heard this say he’s out there saying this is a real war, Michael Moore saying it’s a real war. And some people think that what Moore says is really chilling. I have trouble taking the guy seriously. I know Fahrenheit 9/11 and, well, none of his other movies did that well. But maybe I’m wrong. Is he that big a figure in the Democrat Party? Is he godlike to these people? Is he really? He is? Okay. Well, there’s no explaining taste. Here’s what he said. He was on last night with Rachel Maddow and they were talking here about — I guess Michael Moore didn’t get the Fineman memo because he’s calling here for Wisconsin riots.
MOORE: Anybody who lives within driving distance of Madison, Wisconsin, right now should make their way to the Capitol. Thousands of people are there right now in that Capitol building, in that rotunda, out on the lawn. Whatever it takes. This is war. This is a class war. Students in Madison, Wisconsin, are calling for, not only in Wisconsin but a nationwide student walkout of high-schoolers. There’s gonna be a massive student walkout Friday afternoon. This has to continue day after day after day, and these governors have — are gonna have to step down, they’re gonna be recalled, they’re gonna be impeached.
RUSH: He goes on to talk about how the rich have all the money and they’re not giving it back and it’s the typical insane stuff, insane rants. But, anyway, that’s that. A lot of people are taking that seriously. A lot of people think that’s chilling. I have a tough time associating chilling with Michael Moore, but I go different directions when talking about reacting.
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RUSH: I want to make a little comparison here, folks, for those of you who continue to feel frustration over the fact that we’re ‘losing the headline,’ which I reject anyway, but there are people on our side who are boohooing the fact that we’re losing the Twitter headline war for this Wisconsin business. Look, if you want some things to fire back with, how about this: Why don’t high-schoolers go protest against their teachers and principals? How about we taxpayers take over the schools and universities? Would they like that? We pay ’em. Why don’t we try some of their tactics? They’re talking about how rotten we are. If we were like the left, you know what we would do? Right now we’d be organizing 50,000 people to go to Richard Trumka’s house and march and chant and yell.
Does anybody doubt our ability to get 50,000 people? If I wanted to get 50,000 people to meet me at Trumka’s house, do you think I could pull it off? Well, that’s what they do. They have all these people showing up at the homes of AIG execs and wherever in Washington, DC. If we were really like them, that’s what we would be doing. How about this: How about we treat MSNBC and Howard Fineman like the unions and our government treat Fox News and have thousands of people surround their reporters, block their cameras, manhandle their reporters? How about if we do that? How about if we show up and we start physically assaulting MSNBC reporters like they’re doing to Fox reporters?
That’s not who we are.
It is who they are.
We don’t want to be like them, but if we wanted to we could do it. It’s just that’s not who we are. If we did all of those things we’d be just like these thugs, wouldn’t we? And there is no doubt we have the people power to do ’em. There are more taxpayers than union members and liberal reporters, after all. But we don’t do this, do we in Reverend Jackson calling for revolution. Moore calling for revolution. Fineman accuses the people of fomenting revolution. I don’t think it would be very pretty if there were one because they would lose it. They’re already outnumbered. The people are fed up with all these losers. The people are fed up with the cheaters. The people are fed up with the people who are not telling the truth about these things.
They better be careful what they wish for — and you don’t hear me talking like this, folks; but if they’re gonna start talking about ‘revolution,’ they better be very, very careful what they wish for, ’cause they are outnumbered. No question about it.
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RUSH: You know these guys that keep calling for civil war and revolution, Jesse Jackson and Michael Moore? They better remember: All they’ve got are fire hoses. They can’t compete with us. Their fire hoses not gonna intimidate us. By the way, according to reports, the Wisconsin Assembly has met. They are now voting, the roll call is underway, on making this official. God bless and protect these courageous people that are engaged here. This is, folks — we live it, but it is — a great and historic day, and let’s hope that it is the first of many similar days yet to come.