RUSH: Here’s Kirsten in Houston. Kirsten, it’s great to have you with us on the EIB Network. Hello.
CALLER: Hello, Mr. Limbaugh!
RUSH: Hi.
CALLER: It’s a pleasure to speak with you today, sir.
RUSH: Thank you. Thank you very much.
CALLER: I did not know that you had such tremendous pull with the McCain campaign. Because Mr. Kerry mentioned on George Stephanopoulos Sunday morning, that it was because of you that McCain did not pick Mitt Romney or Tom Ridge or whoever else he was considering.
RUSH: Well, the dirty little secret is that everybody knows this is true, that when I strenuously objected to the choice of either Lieberman or Ridge — because it would do just the opposite of one half Palin has done here. It would turn the base off, McCain needs the base. He doesn’t need women so much, the Hillary voters, as he needs to rally the base, which this has done. I just explained passionately that while Lieberman and Ridge are fine guys, they’re not the right pick for Senator McCain because he’s got the moderate wing of the party handled. He has the attraction to disaffected Democrats handled at the top of the ticket. The Drive-Bys wanted Lieberman and Ridge and the Democrats because they wanted a depressed Republican base. If Lieberman and Ridge are so damn good, why didn’t they have Obama pick ’em?
CALLER: I agree. Well, I just thought it was so funny that John Kerry told everybody that it was your fault that McCain picked Sarah Palin.
RUSH: Well, in this case — and it happens rarely — John Kerry is right. We have the audio sound bites. Let’s go to This Week, George Stephanopoulos, and he says, ‘Let me ask you the question. Howard Wolfson, former Clinton communications director, said that this pick, Sarah Palin, might just work to draw women to the ticket. Are you worried about that?’
RUSH: And what John Kerry has proven with this comment is that he remains an idiot, and doesn’t understand the basics of electoral politics, at all. And let’s go CNN’s Late Edition. Wolf Blitzer talking to Chris Dodd, he of the scandal evolving the Countrywide home mortgage outfit. Blitzer said, ‘Fred Thompson said vice presidential running mate for McCain — the Alaska governor, Governor Palin — has more executive experience at the top of the Democrat ticket, Fred Thompson says, and even than Barack Obama.’
DODD: John has made a choice here. But the suggestion how the — that somehow this is a — a wise — this is the choice of Dobson, Robertson and Limbaugh. This is — This is a real tip to the extreme conservative elements of the Republican Party. John McCain’s knees buckled, uh, because he was fearful of what the extreme right was going to say about this ticket. That’s what this comes down to.
RUSH: (laughing) He actually was a maverick in this pick. He was a maverick in the shock and the surprise that he managed to pull this off. See, they’re just beside themselves. They wanted somebody that they knew he would lose with. By the way, this all started on Friday lauding Sarah Palin as my pick. World News Tonight correspondent David Wright reporting my reaction to Palin as the VP nominee. He says, ‘The McCain campaign hopes Palin can excite conservatives given her lifelong support for gun rights, and her opposition to abortion rights,’ and then the piece begins.
RUSH ARCHIVE: I think McCain has made a brilliant move, folks.
WRIGHT: Rush Limbaugh, for one, was impressed.
RUSH ARCHIVE: She is a maverick pick! She is a total maverick! We’re the ones that have the babe on the ticket!
RUSH: Anderson Cooper 180. He said this about Governor Palin as the Republican VP nominee.
COOPER: This is causing a major stir, not all of it politically correct. As Rush Limbaugh put it today, quote, ‘We’re the ones with the babe on our ticket.’
RUSH: (laughing) And this is the Washington Post’s Keith Richburg about Governor Sarah Palin’s pick.
RICHBURG: I can’t see anybody who’s a real Democrat, uh, who is voting for Hillary switching over to vote for somebody who’s pro-life, you know, anti-abortion, uhhh. She’s a — you know, she wants to teach creationism in school. I mean she was the choice for the far right. Rush Limbaugh is going — going nuts saying this is the best, most brilliant pick ever. So, you know, I don’t see anybody who would vote for Hillary and her agenda suddenly switching to vote for McCain because he put this person on the ticket. It just doesn’t make any sense.
RUSH: Keith? Keith, who was it that saved Mrs. Clinton’s campaign and gave it a chance? It was I, Keith. It was Operation Chaos. Had you taken the time to educate yourself as a genuine reporter, you would have learned that it was I, Keith, who was extremely sensitive and sympathetic to the women who wanted to vote for Hillary and how they were being disrespected by the Democrat Party hierarchy. It was women who wanted Hillary who were being disrespected and ignored. It was I, El Rushbo, who stood up for them, who comforted them, who spoke to them on a daily basis, telling them I understand just how they felt, that this had been going on their whole lives.
And I pointed out to them, Keith, old buddy, old pal, that it wasn’t me and conservatives who savaged Mrs. Clinton. It was your own Democrat Party, Keith. Even though you’re a reporter at the Washington Post, we know you’re a Democrat. Don’t hide behind this independent garbage. We know you’re Democrat. You’re going to vote Democrat. It was the Democrats who savaged Mrs. Clinton. It was Democrats who used Mrs. Clinton’s voters and then threw ’em away. It was I, El Rushbo, with Operation Chaos, who kept hope alive and energized the Clinton campaign. Those Clinton ladies that voted for her and are disappointed, understand I was on their side. I attempted to help them make their dream come true. So if you think they’re automatically going to reject Sarah Palin simply because I like her, you are not doing your job, Keith, old buddy, old pal.
BREAK TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: I want to go back to this John Kerry comment. I don’t want to play it again, but when John Kerry said that John McCain’s crazy, Rush Limbaugh’s crazy if they think that Hillary voters were voting for her because she’s a woman, well, why else were they voting for her? Her views and Barry’s are identical. The policies of Hillary and Obama were identical. Senator Kerry, they were specifically voting for Hillary because she is a woman. The only difference between Hillary Clinton and Barry Obama is that she is a woman and that she is white. He is a man; he is black. That’s the only difference. I love it that these people don’t get it. This is what happens to you. Let this be a life lesson. This is what happens to you when you think you’ve got things in the bag; when you can’t lose; when you think your opponents are a bunch of doofus idiots. This is exactly what happens to you. They are making fools of themselves again, as they did during the Wellstone memorial.