RUSH: Back to audio sound bites from the debate last night. Here is the question, ‘Senator Obama, if you were president of the U.S. today, would you honor Barry Bonds at the White House?’
OBAMA: Barry Bonds has been a remarkable baseball player and I honor his achievement. But I hope that all of us are focused on making sure that sports is something that kids can look up to, not something that they start feeling cynical about. We’ve got enough cynicism in politics without having cynicism in our sports teams as well.
OLBERMANN: Was that a no, sir, or a yes?
OBAMA: He hasn’t done it yet, so we’ll answer the question when it comes.
RUSH: Come on. He can’t even answer the question. By the way, Bonds hit the home run last night. Hank Aaron just took everybody off the hook on this. Everybody was just, well, I got a question today from somebody, ‘You talk about Barry Bonds yet?’ I said, ‘No, I haven’t.’ I have to admit, I’ve been affected by this never-ending barrage of coverage on the allegation of steroids and all of the things that have come out about it. It has tainted my appreciation for the achievement. But, that notwithstanding, Henry Aaron last night, all of the media people, ‘This is going to be such a horrible day, oh God, if he hits a home run. It’s going to be tainted, horrible, a bad day in sports,’ and then he hits the home run. Amidst all of the hoopla last night in San Francisco, after the fireworks and all of the celebration, there appeared a video on the giant screen and it was Henry Aaron, whose record had just been broken; congratulating Bonds; commenting on the uniqueness of the achievement; the romanticism in America culture with the home run in baseball.
There are home runs in other aspects of life, too. But we are talking about baseball. It took everybody off the hook, because Henry Aaron whose record has been broken — he didn’t show up in person — but sends a video out congratulating Bonds for this and makes no reference, in any way, shape, manner or form to the controversy, then everybody is allowed to celebrate it now. Everybody is allowed to go ahead and invest in it whatever they want because Henry Aaron has paved the way. A very, very, very class act for him to do that. He didn’t want to go and be there in person. They brought Willie Mays out on a golf cart. He’s Barry Bonds’ godfather. So, it ended up being a lot less painful than people thought. Meanwhile, here is Obama, he wants to be president. He has no problem inviting Chavez, Castro, you name it, the thug of the day, to the White House for a meeting, and he begs off a question of whether or not he will have Barry Bonds. If there are any of you out there asking yourselves if Barack Obama is down for the struggle, I would say you’ve got your answer. He doesn’t appear to be down for the struggle.