RUSH: Here’s Ted Kennedy, and he’s doing a fiery endorsement of Obama. He’s quoting Ronald Reagan, he said with Obama, ‘We will have our own rendezvous with destiny.’ He’s quoting Ronald Reagan… Mrs. Clinton has been out there talking, AP’s got a story, and the headline of the story is: ‘Clinton: Bush Has Lost Touch With Public.’ Now, this is pathetic. She is getting her rear end kicked by Obama and Ted Kennedy at this very moment. She’s still running against Bush, not on the ballot in November, not running for the Democrat nomination, obviously, this is desperation, and it’s panic, and it’s pathetic, because while this is going on, she’s making an appeal to the fringe-kook Democrat base. She’s gone back now to running against George W. Bush. I’ll tell you something, I watched the Senator Kennedy endorsement speech of Obama, which is still going on as we speak. We will have audio sound bites of this as the program unfolds this afternoon. But what we have here is the Uncivil War entering a new phase in the Democrat Party. Ted Kennedy is delivering the answer to the Clintons’ southern strategy, and it is the northeast liberal backlash.
Now, he did throw in there that we all want a Democrat president; we all support the nominee of our party. He threw that away, just threw it out there, and is now in a full-fledged endorsement of Obama and, as I said, he’s taking words from his own endorsement letter that he e-mailed out this morning trashing the Clintons, quoting President Kennedy and so forth and talks of ‘pass the torch,’ a new generation, move the nation forward, get rid of red states, blue states, and substitute it for the United States. He’s quoting Obama from his 2004 speech at the Democrat National Convention, praising him for that. So the Uncivil War has taken a new turn now. The answer to the southern strategy of the Clintons has been the northeastern liberal backlash as delivered here by the JFK wing of the Kennedy family. Meanwhile, Mrs. Clinton is now attacking George W. Bush, saying he’s lost touch with the public. Do you realize how many people in the Democrat primary today care about Bush? Look at where the war is on the list of issues and all these people that are voting are answering questions about it in the exit polls. It’s nowhere, and another thing that I predicted to you.
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RUSH: So Obama just got through thanking Caroline Kennedy for her support and endorsement. (singing) ‘Sweeeeeet Caroline — bamp, bamp, baam — good times never felt so good.’ Anyway, she was the young girl under the desk in the Oval Office. The mess that she left on the blue carpet was spilled milk. Who doesn’t remember, who hasn’t seen that classic photo from the JFK years: Little John John and Caroline Kennedy playing in the Oval Office under the president’s desk? We’ve come a long way since then. Caroline Kennedy is now Caroline Kennedy Schlossberg, mother of three, successful author, generous philanthropist; one of the founders of the Kennedy Profile in Courage Award, and the author of an op-ed in the Sunday New York Times that is reverberating around the world. It’s already the most e-mailed story in the New York Times site. The first and last paragraph pretty much say it all, ‘A President Like My Father’ is the title of her piece. ‘Over the years, I have been deeply…’ You know what’s shaping up here? The modern-day version of the Hatfields and the McCoys. The Clintons versus the Kennedys. ‘Over the years, I’ve been deeply moved by the people who have told me they wish they could feel inspired and hopeful about America the way people did when my dad was president. This sense is even more profound today. That’s why I’m supporting Barack Obama. I have never had a president who inspired me the way people tell me my father inspired them. But for the first time I believe I have found the man who could be that president, not just for me, but for a new generation of Americans.’
Now, it’s understandable but not joyous that she does not acknowledge Ronaldus Magnus, but look who she passes over here when she says that she’s ‘never had a president who inspired me the way people tell me my father inspired them.’ She’s passing over LBJ. She is passing over Jimmuh Carter. She passed over Bill Clinton. She has said in the pages of the New York Times that Bill Clinton did not inspire her, nor did LBJ, nor did Jimmy Carter. This is important, folks. Remember, Caroline Kennedy, ‘Sweet Caroline,’ is a proud liberal. This is rare because most liberals are not proud to be liberal. They try to hide it, they mask it, and they cover it up. She’s not a political activist. She’s not a political pawn. She’s the daughter of JFK and Jackie O, and she is a she. She is a she, and the she is not endorsing the she! She is endorsing the black guy that the she and her husband are trying to destroy, on the pages of the New York Times. (interruption) I know, Mr. Snerdley. That was the point, most people, most Americans, the last young girl playing under the desk was not Caroline. That’s why I made sure to say that the mess that she made under the desk was milk being spilled on the carpet. I covered my bases on this.
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RUSH: Time now for you to hear excerpts of Senator Kennedy’s endorsement of Barack Obama. You know what strikes me? One thing that strikes me is go back to almost a year ago, when did this guy Ehrenstein write the piece in the LA Times, ‘Barack the ‘Magic Negro,” was that not in March or April? You get into February or March, it’s almost a year ago that we had all these people, Sharpton upset, we had Biden talking about what a clean-cut, articulate guy Obama was, made Sharpton mad. We’re almost a year in, so what was the point of all that? Back then, ‘Barack the ‘Magic Negro” column in the LA Times, he wasn’t black enough, he wasn’t down for the struggle. Is he authentic enough? Now, all of a sudden, he is the black candidate. He is the black candidate. There’s no question whether he’s black enough now. In fact, just to reiterate a suggestion, I wouldn’t be surprised if it happens: Future Clinton TV commercials on Obama, if they use still shots of Obama, don’t be surprised if they’re Photoshopped to show him a little darker than he is, like TIME Magazine did on a cover picture of O.J. Simpson. All right, we have five Kennedy sound bites from the endorsement, and we have Chris Matthews analyzing it when it’s over, which is all just too rich. But here’s the first of five from Senator Kennedy, and I have to tell you, I watched a little bit of this in the break between the first and second hours. It wasn’t bad.
KENNEDY: Let me say how much I respect the strength, the work, and the dedication of two of the Democrats still in the race, Hillary Clinton and John Edwards. They are my friends, they are my friends. They have been my colleagues in the Senate. John Edwards has been a powerful advocate for economic and social justice, and Hillary Clinton has been in the forefront on issues ranging from health care to the rights of women around the world. Whoever, whoever, whoever is our nominee will have my enthusiastic support and will have yours, too. Let there be no doubt, we are all committed to seeing a Democratic president in 2008.
RUSH: Okay, we’ve cut some of the applause out. And, in fairness, you have to trust me on this, when he made those references to Mrs. Clinton, there was some applause, wasn’t nearly as thunderous and loud as it was for other people, even for Edwards, the Breck Girl, or certainly when Senator Kennedy got going. But, of course, this is Senator Kennedy being gracious and this is also his insurance policy in case Obama doesn’t get it. He’s now positioned himself to go back to the Clintons and say, ‘Hey, we’re cool, right? I like my kneecaps. Everything is cool, right?’ So the insurance policy’s bought, paid for, it’s put down. Now we get to the meat of the matter.
KENNEDY: But I believe there is one candidate who has extraordinary gifts of leadership and character, matched to the extraordinary demands of this moment in history. He understands what Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., called the fierce urgency of now. He will be a president who refuses to be trapped in the patterns of the past.
RUSH: Yeah?
KENNEDY: He is a leader who sees the world clearly without being cynical.
RUSH: Uh-huh.
KENNEDY: He is a fighter, who cares passionately about the causes he believes in, without demonizing those who hold a different view.
RUSH: I told you this was going to happen. I had this letter from Senator Kennedy, this e-mail that went out endorsing Obama, and of the two or three really hot phrases in it, this was one of them, demonizing their opponents. He’s talking about the Democrats here, folks. He doesn’t mention Republicans at all to this point. So he’s bought the insurance policy with the Clintons, now he’s had the first wreck in the car, he’s hoping the policy pays up. But here come more wrecks. The Clintons cannot be pleased with this. Here’s the next bite.
KENNEDY: I remember another such time in the 1960s when I came to the Senate at the age of 30, we had a new president who inspired the nation, especially the young, to seek a new frontier. Those inspired young people marched, sat in at lunch counters, protested the war in Vietnam, and served honorably in that war even when they were opposed to it.
RUSH: Oooh!
KENNEDY: They realized that when they asked what they could do for their country, they could change the world. This is another such time, my friends. I sense the same kind of yearning today, the same kind of hunger to move on and move America forward. I see it not just in the young people, but in all of our people, and in Barack Obama I see it as well.
RUSH: Yeah, right on, right on, right on, applause was thunderous and sustained at this point. About those people who were inspired. They marched, they sat in at lunch counters, they protested the war in Vietnam, yeah, and some of them were spied on, including Dr. King by Senator Kennedy’s brother, Robert F. Kennedy, but we’re not going to talk about that now. I just wanted to mention it. Here’s the next excerpt from Senator Kennedy’s endorsement of Senator Obama.
KENNEDY: I believe that a wave of change is moving across America, if we do not turn aside, if we dare to set our course for the shores of hope.
RUSH: You see what I’m talking about here? It’s platitudinous; it’s empty; it’s Camelot. In fact, folks, I’m going to tell you something. It is clear here that what the Democrats desperately want to do is return to the past. They want to go way back beyond the nineties. They’re not looking to the future. This is a replay of the Kennedy campaign in 1960. They want to go back. Now, some of you might be shouting at your radio, ‘What about you? You keep talking about Reagan.’ Ah, it’s a big difference. This is the cult of personality on parade again, trying to make Obama into JFK, Camelot, relive an era which was imaginary to begin with. They want to go back and try to make it real. We are looking forward on the conservative side. You could say that McCain, I mean, with all the Jurassic Park residents that McCain has endorsing him, all these old establishment blue-blood country club types, that’s clearly a shout-out to the past as well. One more Senator Kennedy and then Chris Matthews puts all that you have heard into perfect liberal perspective.
KENNEDY: He is tough minded, but he also has an uncommon capacity to appeal to the better angels of our nature. I’m proud to stand with him here today and offer my help, offer my voice, offer my energy, my commitment to make Barack Obama the next president of the United States.
RUSH: And it went on and on and on to thunderous applause. It was a minute at least, if not longer, and then Kennedy I think continued, and Barack finally came up and took the podium and the microphone away and began his speech. But before Kennedy finished, he appropriated a phrase made famous by Ronaldus Magnus in talking about Obama, he said, ‘We, too, will have our rendezvous with destiny.’ And that’s Ronald Reagan from the 1964 Goldwater speech. ‘You and I have a rendezvous with destiny.’ It’s kind of embarrassing to me that the Democrats are talking more about Reagan than our guys are. All right. PMSNBC, otherwise known as DNCTV. Senator Kennedy’s endorsement of Obama, Chris Matthews said — you’re going to hear another voice, and it’s Mike Barnicle trying to interrupt and copy what Matthews is saying before Matthews finishes it — but Matthews is not giving up authorship of this one.
MATTHEWS: To you young people there, you want to know what the early sixties were like, you just saw it, it was magic, and I think it’s real, and I think that it’s not partisan, it’s not political. It’s just a fact that Teddy was able to bring back that today.
RUSH: This is magic. I don’t know if you heard it because of the cross talk. To you young people out there, you want to know what the early sixties were like, this is magic, is what Matthews said. It’s not partisan or political. Of course not. How could it possibly be partisan with Ted Kennedy? Who would ever, ever think that Senator Kennedy is partisan? It’s not partisan, not political. Not political? It’s all political. All of this is politics. It’s just a fact that Teddy was able to bring back that today. So this — (interruption) Snerdley, ‘Okay, you cynic, Rush, what’s wrong with hope?’ Tell me what it ever accomplished.
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RUSH: I appreciate those of you offering assistance in the e-mail. ‘Rush come on! You’re making too much of this Ted Kennedy endorsement of Obama. There isn’t anybody around that remembers Camelot and JFK, and what they’re trying to do.’
Oh, my friends. My friends, be careful if you think that; be careful if you think that. If you have young children today and they’re attending the public schools — high school on down — you ask them, ‘What have you been taught about FDR?’
(patented Limbaugh little kid voice) ‘A lot, Mommy, a lot! He was great. He was great.’
‘What have you been taught about JFK?’
‘Oh, yeah! Camelot, Mommy. JFK was one of the greatest presidents ever.’
‘What about LBJ?’
‘Who? LBJ? No. Nixon! They hate Nixon. Nixon was horrible. He started the Vietnam War and got two million people killed.’
‘Okay. What about Gerald Ford?’
‘Who?’
‘Okay, little Johnny. What about Jimmy Carter?’
‘Uhhhh, uhhhh. No. But Camelot, dad? Camelot, that’s Kennedys! JFK! Yes! Peace Corps!’
‘What about Reagan?’
‘He was the actor. Yeah, he was just the actor. The actor became president. Look, Dad, Republicans are warmongers. Look at Nixon!’
Don’t think your kids, don’t think these young people don’t know about JFK, and don’t think they don’t know about FDR. That’s what they’re taught in the schools, folks. That’s what’s in the school books: Republicans are warmongers. Reagan was an actor.
(Kid voice) ‘That’s right, a B actor! Bedtime for Bonzo. Can we read that, Dad? I want to see what an idiot Reagan was, like my teachers say.’
‘Sure, kid. Head on to Blockbuster. I’m paying for it anyway. We’ll see you when you get back. We’ll watch it after dinner, or after you finish your video game on how great JFK was, or what a great place Camelot was.’
Look for the video game on Camelot, by the way, soon to be forthcoming by a number of game producers on the Obama side.