Snobs Still Smarting Over Rove

RUSH: The Drive-Bys are still talking about Karl Rove on this program. Now they’re upset — they’re admitting it — that they had to find out about his resignation first in the Wall Street Journal and then he came here. Then he appeared here! Here’s one of the things that I said yesterday in discussing how upset David Shuster was. (zooming Dittocam) By the way, here’s another shot of the watch, Dave. In fact, if Shuster’s watching, let me zoom in here and get an even better look at that baby. Well, it’s out of focus. I don’t have time to focus. (interruption) There aren’t any diamonds on this! I’ve made sure that the focus made sure you can’t see the diamonds. Anyway, let me zoom it back out. Here’s what I said yesterday.

RUSH ARCHIVE: I’ll tell you, one of the most fun parts of this job is irritating these people and taking them to a place they’d rather not go, and that is displaying who they really are. Rove has that ability. I, of course, have long had that ability. They’re upset that they’ve lost their monopoly. They’re upset that Rove doesn’t come talk to them (laughing), and then when he comes and talks to me, he calls ’em effete snobs!

RUSH: So this morning on Scarborough’s show, ‘Morning Joe’ on PMSNBC, he’s talking to Howard Kurtz on the phone. He said, ‘It seems like people like Karl Rove and the president seem to have very little use for the media in Washington. Do you think that may be one of the reasons why there’s been such a hostile relationship?’

KURTZ: You know, Bush and Rove and others have made no secret of the fact that they consider the press to be just another interest group, members of the elite. It was no accident that Karl Rove’s resignation came out because he leaked it in advance to Paul Gigot —

WOMAN: (Snickering)

KURTZ: — the editorial page editor of the Wall Street Journal, and then he gave a big interview to Rush Limbaugh in which he talked about, well, you know, you don’t have much of a life if you’re worried about what the New York Times editorial page says about you. Karl Rove knew who his allies were. It’s no accident that we found out about that he was leaving the White House after more than six and a half years, not from some news report, not from a press conference, but from the editorial page of the Journal.

RUSH: Why, is that illegitimate? Is that illegitimate Howard? The Drive-Bys are upset here, folks, not happy that they didn’t learn of the Rove resignation through their filter, through their narrative, through their ability to ‘manage the news,’ and of course the pièce de résistance was David Shuster the other night, Wednesday night, on Hardball with Chris Matthews.

SHUSTER: There’s Rush Limbaugh smoking a nice cigar, wearing a golf shirt. There was another video where you could see his nice watch. Who’s the snob in this case?

RUSH: We’re going to send him some EIB golf shirts. Brian, put together a pack down in Florida. Make sure you got logos on them of some EIB XLs with my signature on the left sleeve. Just send a couple of them, but make sure you’ve got the logo on them because in some of them on the stacks down there they forgot to logo ’em. Send them over so he, too, can learn how it feels to wear a snob golf shirt.