Now, here’s the story. Dan Balz and Howard Kurtz: “Senator John Kerry was the big story in Portland on Monday. His dinnertime rally down the with former Vermont governor Howard Dean drew thousands of supporters and dominated a local TV news that night. ‘Portland crowd rallies around Kerry’ said a front page headline on Tuesday’s Portland Oregonian, but the presumptive Democratic nominee barely caused a blip on the national news media radar even though he was paired against President Bush in ceremonies in Topeka, Kansas commemorating the 50th anniversary of the Brown vs. Board of Education ruling. Kerry got a one-sentence summary in the CBS Evening News and a two-sentence summary on the NBC Nightly News. ABC’s World News Tonight aired a two-sentence sound bite to Bush’s three-sentence sound bite.
“Earlier this year, Kerry had little trouble attracting national attention as he racked up a series of primary election victories. Since then he’s been far less visible, struggling almost daily to compete for attention with the news out of Iraq and the bully pulpit of the White House. All this has left Kerry with a smaller megaphone at a time when challengers often struggle to be heard.” Oh give me a break. Challengers don’t “struggle to be heard.” Anybody ever heard of Ross Perot or Bill Clinton? What is this? Still making excuses for the guy. It’s not even his fault. It’s the news media’s fault. Here’s Kurtz and Balz blaming the news media! “Kerry advisors argue that with Bush on the defensive and his poll numbers dropping, their candidate has hardly suffered from a lack of national media visibility.” It’s the other way around. If Bush is in this so-called free fall, why aren’t you also going up?
“Other Democrats worry that Kerry has been slow to develop a compelling message for his candidacy, rendering him unable to take full advantage of the president’s weakened position. From April 1st through last week, the three network newscasts did not run a single report on Kerry’s proposals on jobs, education, health care, the environment or other issues that he’s been hitting on the stump,” and there’s a good reason for it: they’re trying to help him. These are idiotic ideas. If these ideas get out, this guy is doomed. The media is doing this guy the biggest favor in the world by suppressing him. It’s one of the few times you can say this, that no media attention is actually helping somebody — but in Kerry’s case it’s relevant.
“However, the media did carry reports that tended to portray Kerry to the defensive. The controversy over his throwing away his Vietnam medals [or ribbons], an attempt by some Catholic leaders to deny him…” There’s a great parody piece, by the way, I got sent last night by somebody who fell for it. Yeah, people send me news all the time like I can’t find it myself, and I got this story, and the headline: “Kerry to Announce Wednesday Creation of New Pro-Choice Catholic Church,” and the person sending it to me bought it, said, “Rush, you won’t believe this.” The problem is it proved something: good humor, good comedy, good humor must have an element of truth or believability in it to be funny and of course there are people who believe he would do this, start their own pro-choice Catholic church. (Laughing.) I looked at it; I just prayed that it was real but I read and I read, and I discovered it was a parody — and then I was mad that I didn’t think of it myself. You always get upset when somebody out-creates you. You always do, or I do, and that’s just too rich: John Kerry to announce creation of pro-choice Catholic church. (Laughing.)
The thing is now that it’s out there it will give somebody the idea and they’ll do it like Arianna Huffington or somebody, come along and think it’s a great idea. So, anyway, all this news here, Kerry can’t get noticed in the media. He can’t break through — and the right spin on it is they’re helping him out by making sure nobody hears his idiotic ideas. Now, from the American Spectator. We’re going to go back to this conflict that Kurtz and Balz referred to here, Kerry and Bush on the ground in Topeka. Well, not “on the ground.” That’s the point. They’re in Topeka on the same day to commemorate the 50th anniversary of Brown vs. Board of Education. “Presumptive, assumed Democratic presidential candidate Senator John Kerry belittled President Bush while the candidate’s plane sat on the tarmac in Topeka, Kansas on Monday. After making his speech commemorating Brown vs. Board of Education,” and does anybody remember hearing it?
Has anybody told you what Kerry said to these reporters — the guys with the notebooks — and women — with the pencils, writing down for history what these candidates are saying? Not me. American Spectator, first time I’ve heard of this. Kerry says, “You mean you’re not staying for What’s His Name?” The Kerry staffer said, “He seemed to be enjoying putting out the president’s flight. It wasn’t mean-spirited. He just kind of got on a roll humor-wise and went with it.” Well, hardy-har-har. I mean, we’re all in total jocularity here, folks, unable to contain the tears of our laughter. “The truth is that Kerry may have been in a foul mood from his speech. It was noted by a number of supporters who were standing with him in Topeka that one of his biggest applause lines had actually been John Edwards’ big applause line when he was running for president.
“Kerry had told the civil rights audience, [Kerry sing-song voice:] ‘Todaaaay, more than ever, we neeeeed to renew our commitmeeeent to one America.’ Kerry blamed his speechwriters for the oversight,” again. What was the other thing he blamed the speechwriters for? He kept saying something that was [program observer interruption]. Who? Oh, yeah, it was the Benedict Arnold corporation, said [Kerry sing-song voice], “Aaaah, my speechwriters. I told them to take that oooout of there, but it keeps showing up.” Well, why do you keep saying it? “Well, it’s just you don’t understaaaand how things happen out here on the campaign. It was in the speeeeech. It was invented by the campaign. I told them to take it out. It’s still in there. I’m going to really get tough and make suuuure they take it out.” Why don’t you just not say it? Weeeell, that’s easy for you. You just don’t understand how this works.”
“Kerry blamed his speechwriters for the oversight and according to a Kerry staffer in Washington, asked that the line no longer be used in his speeches. He’s the guy that gives the speeches. He’s asking them, “Make suuuure that I don’t say that again in my speeches.” This is why they don’t tell you what’s going on with this buffoon! It’s just, he’s also — we got an audience. He’s stealing a Howard Dean line. Remember, Howard Dean always closed out his speeches, [Screaming Dean impression] “The flag of the United States of America doesn’t belong to Rush Limbaugh, Jerry Falwell…” Kerry is starting to use it but not with my name. We have the audio. Oh, folks, sit tight here. We may be in the third hour but we’ve only scratched the surface. [program observer interruption] Kerry? Petty? Of course! He’s arrogant. He’s condescending. He’s not capable of making a mistake. He’s not capable. It’s a speechwriter’s fault; it’s his stupid wife’s fault for buying the SUVs; it’s somebody else’s fault for making him ride in one.
COMMERCIAL BREAK
I’m going to go ahead and mention this because this is good, too. “Tom Daschle was said by senior leadership staffers in the Senate to be furious with his colleague, the assumed presumptive Democratic presidential nominee [that can’t get noticed], John Kerry, because he missed that vote last week that would have extended unemployment benefits here in our roaring, recovering economy. Leadership staffer said, ‘We just got outflanked by the Republicans. Kerry knew about that vote. Daschle asked him to be there. We asked Kennedy to make clear to him how important we thought the vote was, but Kerry ignored him. He’s basically no longer a U.S. senator. He’s a full-time candidate.'”
I’m telling you, this is arrogant condescension. His excuse is saying [Kerry sing-song voice], “Weeeell, it wasn’t going to pass the House anyway. I didn’t neeeeed to be there.” What about getting your vote on the record, dunderhead, so you can go out there and tell your constituents that you want to pay them for not working, which is what your campaign is all about? I mean, you have a GV. You charter — I’m not talking computer — you have SUVs; you have any number of ways of getting to Washington in hours and then going back to wherever you are. Just go there and vote so you can go out on the campaign trail and say, “I don’t belieeeeve this economy is coming baaaack, and I don’t want it to come back, so I think people should be paaaaid 13 more weeks for not working, because they caaaan’t. It’s either that or go to Vietnam and — I’m sorry, Iraq. I went to Vietnam — go to Iraq and die.”
But, no! Pass up a brilliant political opportunity and tee off your Senate colleagues at the same time. [program observer interruption] Ummm, what was that? Well, yes, I do understand the nuances of the campaign trail. I understand the nuances of the campaign trail better than Kerry does. If it would have been me and I’m trying to get the votes of these kooks on the left who want to get paid for not working, I’d have made sure I was there and voted, especially when I knew that my non-vote was going to be the reason the whole thing tanked? Jeez! [ear-splitting tone]
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