RUSH: Back to the audiotape, the archives from this program. This is me, May 22nd, talking about the Democrat primary election.
RUSH ARCHIVE: I got an idea for you Democrats. Maybe you could do this. Maybe the Democrats could count three-fifths of each vote in Florida and Michigan. Well, it beats not counting any of the votes at all. Do you realize what they’re on the verge of doing here disenfranchising this many people? Exactly right, Snerdley, three-fifths. Well, I don’t know where you’ve heard it before. I’m sure you’ve got a great historical context for this, but I chose this number not at random, I chose it on purpose. We need to count three-fifths; Democrats count every vote three-fifths. It’s the way you used to count black votes. It’s the way the Democrat Party counted black votes, three-fifths of a vote for every black person of voting age. So maybe the Democrats could count three-fifths of each vote in Florida and Michigan. I mean, it beats not counting the votes at all, and get a little bit further down the road here of not having a totally illegitimate nominee. Look, the Democrat Party used to support slavery ’til they were defeated in the Civil War. Let’s be honest about this. They might be familiar with this three-fifths vote concept. But as I say, three-fifths would be a compromise with the Obama campaign, which doesn’t want to count these votes at all. I mean you gotta start somewhere, and three-fifths I think is a great number.
RUSH: ‘Cause the Democrats love historical legacies. They love to go backwards and not forwards. So they had their big confab, the bylaws and the rules committee hearing on Saturday in Washington, and they decided on every delegate in both states is worth one half of a vote. Obama tried to make some big concessions to Mrs. Clinton on some things by giving her a majority of delegates out of Michigan, but it all ended up one half vote for each delegate. So the Democrats are losing ground in terms of the value of votes that they consider important in their party.
BREAK TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: Harold Ickes. Let’s start with Operation Chaos. Harold Ickes spoke on Saturday in Washington, the Democrat National Committee rules and bylaws committee hearing. This is a portion of Ickes’ statement before the vote.
ICKES: I am stunned that we have the gall and the chutzpah to substitute our judgment for 600,000 voters. (cheers and applause) Was the process flawed? You bet your ass it was flawed. (applause) It’s hard to find an election in the United States that isn’t flawed. (applause) Did a lot of people not vote? You bet your ass a lot of people didn’t vote. Look at the voting stats. This country has one of the lowest participation rates in — of democracies around the world. That is not an excuse. I’ve never heard that advanced as an excuse to overturn elections, to substitute the judgment for the voters. Hell, we wouldn’t have — I don’t think one election would stand the test that has been laid down here.
RUSH: And the next statement, the next sound bite really has the Democrats a little worried.
ICKES: Not only will this motion hijack four delegates from Mrs. Clinton, it will take 55 delegates from uncommitted status — which is a recognized presidential status under our constitution — and convert them to Barack Obama. There’s been a lot of talk about party unity. ‘Let’s all come together, wrap our arms around each other.’ I submit to you, ladies and gentlemen, that hijacking four delegates — notwithstanding the flawed aspect of this — is not a good way to start down the path of party unity. One final word. We are… Mrs. Clinton has instructed me to reserve her rights to take this to the credentials committee. (wild cheers and applause)
RUSH: Yay! The applause went on. They went nuts over that. This is Mrs. Clinton threatening the Democrat Party with continued operations throughout the meeting of the credentials committee, which is at the convention. This is is the last thing they wanted to hear. They really thought that they could buy the Clintons off here by giving her some delegates and making sure that the Florida and Michigan delegations were seated. But you heard Ickes. This was veiled threats to contest the entire process, and he confirmed the things that I have been telling you about this process. It’s the greatest disenfranchisement since the passage of the voting right acts in 1964-’65. This is the Democrat Party seeing to it that every vote doesn’t count in order to get Obama nominated. Look, I know I say this a lot. I’m probably getting blue in the face saying it. But there’s not a big, happy, euphoric feeling with Obama, folks. In the deep, dark crevices of the Democrat Party and even in the deep, dark crevices of the small minds of the superdelegates — who, by the way, are not pledged until they vote. They can change their endorsements publicly 50,000 times. Until they actually vote, whatever they say really doesn’t matter.
This, the Clintons know. What the Democrats know is that Obama cannot get votes that traditional Democrat victors running for the presidency need. They know that he has got baggage upon baggage upon baggage, that he’s got unsavory characters that are his close friends and associates. They also know that he’s not the Clintons, and they want the Clintons gone. I am more convinced than ever that they have had it with the Clintons; they’re fed up. This I think is the primary reason for Vanity Fair’s big piece. I printed this thing out. It’s 15 pages. It is a huge story detailing everything we know about Bill Clinton and his nefarious, philandering, unsavory ways. But these guys act like it’s just recently been discovered and the reason they have to write it now is because, well, up until the campaign, Clinton was able to keep it in check; and he had the right kind of advisors around him to keep the bad people away from him. But something’s changed in Bill Clinton, which is the theme of the story. Something’s changed. It might have been his heart surgery. You know, people get depressed after bypass surgery. It can’t be explained. They just do.
They become more in touch with their mortality, and so they want to live as much as they can as soon as they can ’cause they never know when the last moment of breath might be. But something’s changed. He’s playing the race card. He has a gotten mean. He’s undisciplined. So the point of the story is: Look, when Clinton was doing everything we knew he was doing, at least he was creaming Republicans at the same time and at least he was embarrassing the Newt Gingriches of the world, at least he was making us proud to be Democrats, but now, it’s a different era. Bill Clinton doesn’t know how to campaign in the era of YouTube and MySpace, nor does Hillary. He hasn’t the slightest idea how to deal with the fact that what he says can be on the Internet within seconds if anybody has a video recorder that’s watching him. So he still thinks he can get away with all these lies. (doing a Clinton impression) ‘I didn’t say that. Who told you I said that? That’s a total fabrication of what I said.’ But then they’ve got the video because somebody saw it. Clinton’s not used to this. All of these phony excuses, they want ’em gone. But they’re nervous as they can be about Obama.
So here’s Ickes, throwing out this threat. Oh, he said, by the way, ‘Mrs. Clinton’s instructed me to reserve her rights to take this to the credentials committee.’ Now, ‘ABC News’ Teddy Davis and Karen Travers Report: The Obama campaign is not worried about the tempest that erupted at a Washington, DC, hotel on Saturday when top Clinton adviser Harold Ickes threatened to take the fight over Michigan’s delegates all the way to the convention. ‘He said ‘reserve the right,’ not that he was going to do it,’ said Obama adviser Anita Dunn. ‘They have to get through the next three days. I’ve been there before,” meaning they have to get through Puerto Rico and then Montana and South Dakota on Tuesday. ‘Now that the Democratic National Committee’s Rules and Bylaws Committee has decided what to do with the Florida and Michigan delegations, Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., is 68 delegates away from clinching the Democratic Party’s presidential nomination, according to the ABC News delegate estimate. Obama’s campaign expects to win around 38 delegates in the final three contests of Puerto Rico, South Dakota, and Montana. If he hits that mark, it would leave him 30 superdelegates away from his party’s nod. The Obama campaign [says], ‘He’s not going to wait by the phone like a high-school girl waiting for a date,’ said Dunn. ‘That’s not Barack Obama.” He’s not going to sit around waiting for the phone to ring for Hillary to call and concede; he’s just going to go on about his business. We have a poster child for Operation Chaos. This is exactly what we had in mind when Operation Chaos began. Saturday in Washington, after the meeting of the Democrat National Committee Rules and Bylaws Committee, supporter Harriet Christian spoke to reporters. An unidentified reporter said, ‘Hey, where are you from?’
CHRISTIAN: New York City. Hillary’s state! The best nominee that’s possible! And the Democrats are closing the election away. For what? An inadequate black male who would not have been running had it not been a white woman that was running for president. And I’m not going to shut my mouth anymore. I can be called white but you can’t be called black. That’s not my America! It’s inequality for all of us, and it’s about time we all stood up for it. I’m no second-class citizen. God (bleep) the Democrats.
RUSH: Okay, so we’ve gone from Obama’s church to ‘God bleep America’ to a Hillary supporter saying ‘God bleep the Democrats.’ (laughter) Operation Chaos. And this woman, she’s exactly right. She’s exactly right. The Clintons and their supporters are sitting out there, these women, and they cannot believe that the Democrat Party is throwing Hillary overboard for this young, inexperienced black guy. After all Hillary’s done, after the promise, after all that she’s put up with, all the humiliation, all the degradation, this was her time — and the Democrat Party had made America’s feminists and feminazis believe that Hillary was to be nominated via a coronation. Now these feminists have seen the truth. They thought they controlled these linguine-spined males in the Democrat Party. But they found out what they’ve always been thought of, that the men have been faking it all this time. They’ve been tolerating, been putting up with these loud-mouth biddies and now finally when they get a chance to kick ’em to the curb along with Hillary, they can’t wait to do it in favor of a black guy, and they are steaming. The reporter then said, ‘Look, I asked you: where are you from. Where are you from?’
CHRISTIAN: I’m from Manhattan. Maybe you’re the CIA, the FBI. We don’t even find out where this convention was being held. Yeah, my name is Harriet Christian. I came here for the vote of every American, and our Democratic Party threw us down the tubes. I was a second-class citizen before; now I’m nothing. Why? Because they want to do what they want to do, and they think we won’t turn and vote for McCain. Well, I got news for all of you! McCain will be the next president of the United States.
RUSH: You know what they say about scorned women.
BREAK TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: This is Lee in Keego Harbor, Michigan, a Hillary supporter. Lee, great to have you on the Rush Limbaugh program today. Hi.
CALLER: Well, thanks, Rush. I can’t believe I’m calling for the first time, but I’m definitely one of those disenfranchised Michigan voters. I think Hillary got ripped off, and I’d like to say, too, I’ve been voting since I’ve been 18 years old. I haven’t missed an election. I’m 52 and this is definitely, if Obama goes in, definitely a time either I don’t vote or I will vote for McCain.
RUSH: Now, it’s easy to say that, Lee, here at the first of June. There’s going to be a lot of emotion that you’re going to experience between now and the election. You’re going to have a raucous convention, and you’re going to have Obama’s acceptance speech on Thursday, August 28th, which will be the 40th anniversary of Martin Luther King’s ‘I Have a Dream’ speech. You’ve gotta allow for the possibility you’re going to up all revved up for the Democrat Party once they get through with their convention.
CALLER: No, I’m really firm in my belief. I’m with you on everything about him belonging to that church he doesn’t even denounce. He’s doing it for the reverend not because he does not believe in that. And, besides, I honestly believe he’ll be like another Jimmy Carter. I think, you know, he thinks he can go in there and change things but I don’t think he’ll be able to. I also don’t think he’s experienced. I resent the fact that he got, you know, voted as a senator and spent most of his time campaigning, and unless he does have a speech in front of him, he’s not very good.
RUSH: I am sitting here stunned. I am practically speechless, although that’s never really been accomplished.
CALLER: Oh, honestly, if you knew me at —
RUSH: You are a Democrat. You’re a Democrat; you’re a woman; you want Hillary to be nominated, correct?
CALLER: Absolutely.
RUSH: You are saying, you are echoing me on the observations and criticisms of Obama.
CALLER: I can’t believe it.
RUSH: I thought people in the Democrat Party, particularly women, hated my guts?
CALLER: I listen to you all the time, but I will tell you that people at work would call me very liberal, and I am, but I’m very disappointed with the party, I can tell you that.
RUSH: How much of your disappointment, Lee, is rooted in Mrs. Clinton being a woman? This is probably the last chance in many women’s lifetimes that they’ll get this close to a female president, how much of this is discrimination you feel by the male leaders of the Democrat Party aimed at Hillary and by association, you?
CALLER: You know, it’s kind of mixed because they’re always bringing up the fact of, you know, Obama being black but nobody’s ever brought up the fact that Hillary is a minority in the political arena. It’s really not that she’s a woman, but I think for me it’s experience. Unfortunately, you have to know how to deal with the Washington crowd, and Obama is going to hit a stone wall just like Jimmy Carter.
RUSH: Can I tell you the truth about this though, Lee? All this is sort of hyperbole, because the fact of the matter is, the Democrat Party knows full well Obama is not experienced. The Democrats in Congress and the Senate know that they’ll control the guy; they’ll run the guy, legislatively. I think he will turn this country to the left as badly or worse than Jimmy Carter did. He’ll be just as incompetent. I’ve even referred to his administration if he gets elected as Jimmy Carter second term. But the thing that strikes me is that here all of this time has been the presumption that Mrs. Clinton was owed this because she’s been a loyal soldier in the Democrat Party. She kept your party together. She kept her husband in the White House with her loyalty. You know, she may have bungled some things strategically along the way, but she clearly felt that this was her time, she was owed this and a lot of women thought that was the case, too, and now you say they call him a black guy. He is a black guy, and he’s an inexperienced black guy, he’s a rookie, and he’s —
CALLER: Absolutely.
RUSH: — being portrayed as a messiah, and guess who’s being discarded as though you were no longer worth anything more than a dishrag? You and Hillary and her female supporters.
CALLER: Absolutely. Absolutely. For me, too, it has to do with experience, and I get upset when every time they want to talk about Hillary, actually they bring Bill into it. I mean why don’t they just deal with Hillary, not Bill?
RUSH: Well, have you heard about this Vanity Fair piece that’s coming out in the magazine by Todd Purdum?
CALLER: No.
RUSH: I just discussed it on the program. It’s nothing new. They expose virtually every philandering rumor and fact, all of the nefarious, questionable people he runs around with. Nothing new; we’ve all heard of it before. But now it’s in the Drive-By Media, Lee. Now it’s in the big, liberal publication. I think you Clinton supporters, if you’re mad now your anger is going to only amplify when you find out what this really is about. This is about getting rid of Clintons for your party. They know Obama’s weaknesses. I’m going to tell you something else. I mean this from the bottom of my heart and I say it to you as a loyal listener to this program even though you are a liberal Democrat, I’m going to tell you, you talk about Obama’s experience, they all know that, they all know he’s got none, they all know he’s not a unifier, they all know he’s not a messiah. There is one reason Barack Obama is your party’s nominee. Not ’cause he’s black. That might have helped him pull this off, but it’s not because he’s black. Your party is on the verge of nominating Barack Obama for a single reason. That reason is he is not Hillary Clinton.