RUSH: Here is Bruce in Fort Wayne, Indiana. Bruce, welcome to the Rush Limbaugh program. It’s nice to have you here.
CALLER: Thank you, Rush. How closely do you think the media establishment pays attention to your comments, in particular its substance? Because Russert certainly got a hold of it. Media Matters nitpicks around with it. How much do they actually pay attention to your comments, on a daily basis?
RUSH: Well, I’ve wondered about that. I mean, you’d have to say it’s a lot. But at the same time, if I answer the question that the Drive-Bys, people in the media listen a lot to this program, then how does Media Matters get away with taking this program out of context and smearing it?
CALLER: Precisely.
RUSH: So I don’t know how much they actually listen. I don’t know that Russert actually heard the program yesterday. I didn’t ask him, I didn’t send him a note or anything. Somebody had to, because, look, nobody was talking about this in the way I was talking about it until yesterday. I wondered if this was going to come up in the debate last night. It came up near the end of the debate, this whole question about New York driver’s licenses for illegal immigrants. There was this story yesterday in the AP, we had it out of Newsday, but it had to run in a lot of places. It could have been that anybody who read that story would have the same reaction to it I did, because it was somewhat amazing. The reporter actually acknowledging that the issue was radioactive for Hillary Clinton. The story also acknowledged she hadn’t commented on it, because it’s radioactive. That’s what blew my top. Well, then go ask her! Why give her a pass? This woman gets to dictate what she talks about, what she doesn’t talk about. So it came up last night, and as Reagan said, it doesn’t matter who gets the credit as long as the job gets done. The question was asked last night, and it was a bomb for Mrs. Clinton. This is where Chris Matthews was talking about how her prep book failed her. It’s the book’s fault that she botched the answer.
This is Mary in Atlanta. Hi, Mary, nice to have you with us.
RUSH: Because they’re not attacking her and they don’t want to make her mad?
CALLER: Yeah.
RUSH: Probably so. And they’re having a little fun raising some money along the way at the same time, plus they are able to have it on their résumé, ‘former presidential candidate.’
CALLER: That’s true.
RUSH: This is like Nobel Peace Prize winner. It will always be something that will crawl in graphic form underneath their picture when they’re on television. (doing announcer voice) ‘Former presidential candidate Bill Richardson. Bill, what do you think, as a former presidential candidate, what do you think of X?’
CALLER: I just have the feeling that they’ve given in to what they see as inevitable and are trying to jockey for their position.
RUSH: Perhaps. You might be right. I think a lot of people have your theory. I don’t even think any of these guys are the front-runner. I think the front-runner for veep is this Evan Bayh fellow out of Indiana. That’s what I’ve been hearing. It ain’t going to be Obama, because she’s not going to need Obama. She kills two birds with one stone. She’s a woman, and therefore a minority. So she sets the record for the first woman. Why have somebody else as the first-ever as the veep? She’s not into competition like this. Whoever the vice president is is going to be never heard from again. He’s going to be relegated to funerals overseas and this sort of stuff, and whatever Clinton doesn’t want to do, this guy is going to get, whoever it is. She’s not going to need Obama to win. She’ll pick somebody else she thinks could win, and it won’t be Edwards. It will not be Edwards. It will not be Bill Richardson. It won’t be Biden. It won’t be Chris Dodd. Who else? I forget who else? Hillary, Obama, Edwards. That’s top tier, right? Those are the three, and it ain’t going to be any of those. It’s going to Evan Bayh. If these people think they’re angling here for veep, then they’re making a big mistake.
Let’s go back to the audio sound bites. We still have some more. We’re up to number 16 here, from the debate, Tim Russert, ‘Senator Clinton, would you pledge to the American people that Iran will not develop a nuclear bomb while you are president?’
HILLARY: I intend to do everything I can to prevent Iran from developing a nuclear bomb.
RUSSERT: But you won’t pledge?
HILLARY: I am pledging I will do everything I can to prevent Iran from developing a nuclear bomb.
RUSSERT: But they may?
HILLARY: Well, you know, Tim, you asked me if I would pledge, and I have pledged that I will do everything I can to prevent Iran from developing a nuclear bomb.
RUSH: That’s why the Clinton camp think that Russert was belligerent and violating debate rules, but he wasn’t violating debate rules, and he wasn’t belligerent. ‘Will you pledge to the American people Iran will not develop a nuclear bomb while you are president?’ ‘I intend to do everything I can to prevent Iran from developing a nuclear bomb.’ It’s not the answer, Mrs. Clinton, it’s not the answer. Here’s Edwards’ response to Hillary with this.
EDWARDS: I just listened to what Senator Clinton said, and she said she wanted to maximize pressure on the Bush administration. So the way to do that is to vote yes on a resolution that looks like it was written literally by the neocons? We need to make it absolutely clear that we have no intention of letting Bush, Cheney, or this administration invade Iran. Because they have been rattling the saber over, and over, and over, and what this resolution did, written literally in the language of the neocons, is it enables this president to do exactly what he wants to do. He continues to march forward. He continues to say this is a terrorist organization. He continues to say these are proliferators of weapons of mass destruction.
RUSH: Well, they are. It’s exactly what Iran is. Everybody knows it. Written by the neocons. What Edwards is trying to say here is that Hillary signed the resolution giving Bush the authority to do this. But it was meager. The guy’s gotta think of himself in court next time.