RUSH: ‘Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton has dropped the use of her maiden name ‘Rodham’ in her bid for the Democratic presidential nomination. Clinton identifies herself as ‘Hillary Clinton’ in her campaign press releases and on her campaign website. The lone mention of her maiden name is in a campaign biography that says ‘Hillary’s father, Hugh Rodham, was the son of a factory worker from Scranton.’ She continues to use ‘Hillary Rodham Clinton’ in her New York-focused press releases and in the Senate. Clinton appeared surprised last week when asked why her presidential campaign had dropped her maiden name. Clinton laughed,’ you know, the laugh of the Arkansas broadbeam — Ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha.’–shook her head and replied: ‘I haven’t, I haven’t,’ before dashing off. Howard Wolfson, a top communications adviser to Clinton, downplayed any significance to the change. Asked if it was a strategic decision to drop ‘Rodham,’ Wolfson replied: ‘That’s a fair question, but there’s no plan behind it.” I will just guarantee you that it’s polling. There are no coincidences, folks. And especially, there are no coincidences with the Clintons. There’s so many things that look like coincidence, but there’s no coincidence.
Now, how about Carl Bernstein’s book. From the Times Online in UK: ‘Drawing on a trove of private papers from Hillary Clinton’s best friend, the legendary Watergate journalist Carl Bernstein is going to publish a hard-hitting and intimate portrait of the 2008 presidential candidate, which will reveal a number of ‘discrepancies’ in her official story. Bernstein has spent eight years researching the unauthorized 640-page biography, ‘A Woman in Charge, The Life of Hillary Rodham Clinton.” Well, now, isn’t this convenient timing, that the book happens to come out now, and not in the midst of the actual campaign, but now. What I am warning you people of is to not being fooled by this. For example, how is it that Carl Bernstein gets these secret files? Carl Bernstein, who can’t get anything published these days, how does he end up with them? If you read excerpts, yes, you’ll find out that she’s told some whoppers and she’s told some lies and maybe some of her histoire doesn’t match with what she has said, but his conclusion is, ‘So what? It’s not that big a deal.’
I’m going to tell you what. I think this is a total put-up job. I think Bernstein was given this job by Clinton, Inc., to get the skeletons out of the closet for everybody to see. I mean how did he get the private papers nobody else has been able to get? How did that happen? So Bernstein goes about the task of in the same book accusing her of lying about almost everything and then exonerating her in the book, by the way. This is the ploy that Hillary has used for decades. She wants to get rid of all of her skeletons so that she has to address them and be done with it, and again, well, what better time to do that now than in the primaries? What better way to address any accusations than to say, ‘Look, we’ve been there and done that with Carl Bernstein’s book.’ These things, if they surface again after she gets the nomination, ‘Oh, here goes the Republican attack machine, just recycling a bunch of old news. This was in Carl Bernstein’s book a year ago. Can’t we move on? Can’t we stop the politics of personal destruction? Can’t we just move on?’ The thing about Mrs. Clinton is that everything is a lie. Well, ‘lie.’ Nothing is as it seems, let’s just put it that way. Nothing is as it seems with the Clintons, and I think this book is probably part of that reality.
For example, here’s a story by Anne Kornblut in the Washington Post today: ‘Clinton’s PowerPointer.’ This is all about Mark Penn, who is the pollster, and here’s the pull quote from this story. ‘Armed with voluminous data that he collects through his private polling firm, Penn has become involved in virtually every move Clinton makes, with the result that the campaign reflects the chief strategist as much as the candidate.’ Well, now, isn’t that great. So if you are basically devoid of substance, by that I mean you’re not going to pin yourself down on anything because you’re going to wait for what the polls say, then doesn’t it make perfect sense that a pollster would be your primary architect of your message? If you are going to make yourself devoid of substance and ideas, then anybody can come along and fill you up. So a Mrs. Bill presidency promises a return to be run by polling, just like Clintons — I mean he would poll what to wear on vacation. He’d poll where to go on vacation.
People who are elected do more than follow the whims of public opinion, at least they were. But, you know, given that we’re in the age of terrorism now, we all know what happened, because Bill decided it wasn’t politically advantageous to confront the terrorist threat. Didn’t want those poll numbers going down, didn’t want to take on any real tough issues because he didn’t want to risk that 65% approval rating. Now, over the years, uh, ladies and gentlemen, as you know, I’ve been a very loud critic of polling, and what my basic beef has been is that the Drive-Bys used polling basically for two reasons. A, they’re lazy. But B, they go out do polling to create news. Every poll is presented as a news story. But I think polling also is a way to get what would be on the editorial page of a newspaper onto the front page. A poll, done by the Drive-By Media, is the best way to advance an agenda and make it look like it’s just a news story. If you’re the Drive-Bys and Democrats and you have an agenda, you come out with a poll that show the majority of Americans happen to agree with your agenda, well, bam, good for you.
I think it’s worse now than just a bunch of lazy journalists and just driving an agenda. Everybody thinks George Bush today is stupid. I mean, if you have a poll out there that says a majority of the American people wonder about Bush’s intelligence, well, then by gosh, he is. And the Drive-Bys can hide behind that, and the Democrats can hide behind it. It justifies them to behave like Harry Reid does. ‘Bush is an idiot, why, he is absolutely stupid. Why, the American people think so, we got a poll that says so.’ Harry Reid looks at the poll, ‘Well, Bush is an idiot, I’m safe, I can go say so myself.’ Everybody thinks we’re going to die next week from global warming, it must be true if polling data, there was a story in the New York Times last week, public shifting now, majority convinced global warming is a problem, but not sure what to do. Okay, well, it’s over, the issue is over, the American people agree that global warming is going to kill us tomorrow. If not tomorrow, next year, if not then, the next decade, and if not then, certainly by the end of the century. But if the American people agree, well, that’s it, there’s no more story. Must be true.
If you don’t believe that when you’re confronted daily with one poll after another, you can eventually be swayed to think it if you don’t think that global warming is a problem or that Mrs. Clinton is the greatest thing since sliced bread. After repeated polls and polls and polls of the American people, you’re told in a poll the American people think X, why, must be true. ‘I’m not that smart,’ you say to yourself. Most people think everybody else is smarter than they are. ‘Well, I must be missing something, those people are right, it must be true.’ So, we got global warming, we have to act, the American people say so, it must be true. Very sly, ladies and gentlemen, sort of like smoke. You don’t realize you’re overcome until it’s too late. Sort of like being put in a vat of cold water and they turn up the heat, starts boiling, by the time you’re cooked, it’s too late to get out of there. You know the old story with the frog. But it’s a trick now, and it’s not just for the creation of news and driving an agenda, it is to provide almost an authoritative conclusion to the question of any issue. Global warming? Well, the American people say so. Must be true. Bush stupid? American people say so, must be true. President Clinton, 65% approval rating and most popular president? Must be true, people say so. Going to get out of Iraq now, it’s a lost cause. Must be true, American people say so. That’s how these polls are being used, and that is exactly what Mark Penn is doing for Mrs. Bill Clinton. She’s out there, she’s like an empty fuel tank and he’s putting the fuel in there. Whatever the public says is what she’s going to be. The American people say so, I must be right, I must be the presidential candidate of your choice.