You go in the political arena, and you are going to be subject to analysis and criticism. That’s what they can’t believe that I did. ‘Why, that’s heartless and cold and cruel.’ They were saying, ‘Doesn’t he have hope?’ He can exercise his hope all day. We all have hope. I’d love to get my hearing back. We all have hope. But you don’t get to lie in the political arena and not have yourself called on it. That’s my only point. So this whole thing was I was ‘making fun of him,’ which I wasn’t. Michael J. Fox himself in his book [ video | excerpt ] admitted that he manipulated his meds before Senate committee hearings so as to demonstrate these symptoms, to make a connection and an impression on the senators, which I said I can understand. You’re trying to get attention. You’re trying to draw attention to the disease. You think you need federal funding and assistance for research into a cure. I can understand that. Well, then, if the man admits to having done this, it’s not outside the realm of possibility that such things could have happened for the TV commercial, which is what I speculated on — and when he said later on, ‘I overmedicated when I did the commercial,’ I apologized. He said he overmedicated. In other words, he used more medication than he normally does. For whatever reason, I don’t know.
Now, this whole thing was blown up and used for a month. It was distorted. It was taken out of context. One of the reasons that I’m confident, folks, when I say I know they’re coming after me, is you know the truth, and you and I both know that in order for them to try to make a case out of something I say or do, they have to lie or misrepresent or take it out of context. I’m not a voiceless individual. I have 15 hours a week, and I can respond to it. Many public figures can’t. They gotta make the talk show circuit and so forth to explain their case when they are attacked. But I have the truth on my side on all this and I’ve got 22 million people a week who also know what the truth is. So they’re not able to shake your faith in the program because you know exactly what they’re doing. So Paula Zahn resurrects this thing as though it happened yesterday, with the same lies and the same distortion, and it is a purposeful — and it’s no accident this was CNN. It was done for the express purpose of putting me in the crosshairs next, while they have this thing going on with Imus.
So all of you are sitting there, ‘Rush, be on the lookout, man, we love you,’ folks, I’m never not in the crosshairs of these people. The reason for it is we’re effective here. They don’t like debate. There is no alternative to liberalism. Yet for 18 and a half years we have demonstrated that there is with facts. They can’t deal with it. I don’t care if they like me. I don’t want to be in their clique. I’m not going to grovel or any of that sort of thing. When you’ve got the truth on your side and you’ve got 20 million friends that love you and understand the truth, it’s power, folks. I appreciate the concern, but relax. Sit tight. It going to be fun.