RUSH: I did not want that to end last night. I did not want Sarah Palin’s speech to end. I didn’t want the night to end. I didn’t want Rudy to stop. What a night! Folks, we have a future beyond November here, regardless what happens. Do you realize what happened last night? This party has been unified, the convention has been unified on the basis of conservatism, properly executed, brilliantly articulated. What a night it was. Greetings and welcome, it’s Rush Limbaugh, the Excellence in Broadcasting Network, and we are here for three hours. We’ll be talking to you at 800-282-2882, the e-mail address, ElRushbo@eibnet.com.
Gloria Steinem in the LA Times today has a column. In it she trashes the choice of Sarah because she says — and Sarah — it works as one name. We all know who we’re talking about when we say Sarah. She trashes Sarah Palin because she’s only got, what, one-tenth or something of the chromosomes of Hillary Clinton. And then, as a disqualifier of Sarah Palin, Gloria Steinem, who is now 74 years old, and if there is ever a woman who is out of touch and who no longer represents American women in much of anything, or a majority of American women, it’s Gloria Steinem, and she says, look, proof that this is a bad pick is that Rush Limbaugh has been touting her all summer, which means that apparently they’ve got focus group data that says the mention of my name to feminist women just sends ’em through the roof. It’s a badge of honor, ladies and gentlemen. I’ll tell you something, there’s so much to say about this last night. But the great thing about it is that convention, I know a lot of people were worried, in fact, let’s put something out there, let’s be very honest about something. You and I, together, you know it, I know it, we’ve talked about it, you’ve called here, we have been concerned, a lot of people have had a feeling of hopelessness because in the McCain campaign we didn’t see our values and ideas represented, and therefore how to win or triumph. And therefore we’ve been worried about the country. We have been deadly seriously worried about the future of the country.
This lady has turned it all around. And I’m here to tell you today that John McCain, from now on, on this program, regarding this choice, will be known as John McBrilliant. This was a brilliant choice on the part of Senator McCain, and he let that convention get turned loose last night. He let Rudy fire both barrels; he let Huckabee fire both barrels; he let Romney fire both barrels; and he let Sarah Palin fire both barrels. And, by the way, you know something? Whoever wrote the speech, last night I’m doing a lot of follow-up after the speech and the speechwriter, some guy named Scully, I don’t know if he put his name out or somebody else floated it. The Democrats are doing everything they can to discredit Sarah Palin because it was somebody else wrote the speech. Somebody else from the Bush campaign, somebody named Scully. Well, I don’t care who wrote the speech. The speech was about her life. A speechwriter cannot make that up. A speechwriter cannot tell that.
I don’t know how many of you know this, but the teleprompter got all screwed up last night in her speech. Have you heard about that? Whoever was running the teleprompter did not stop it during the applause lines. It kept rolling. She was doing that speech from memory, over half of it, so don’t talk to me about speechwriters. If we’re going to talk about speechwriters, let’s talk about Obama’s speechwriters, as in Karl Marx, as in Jeremiah Wright, as in Bill Ayers. We know that Obama cannot do what she pulled off last night. If he loses the prompter, it’s a crisis. It’s an emergency. It also happened to Rudy. The teleprompter operator kept going during the applause lines, these things happen. I was watching, ‘Something’s not right here,’ she’s looking down at the podium a lot, and I’m thinking, ‘Maybe she doesn’t like prompters. Maybe she’s just doing that speech from notes.’ Whatever the case, this whole notion about the speechwriter being responsible for this is just another attempt to take away from her. Speechwriters ought to shut up. Speechwriters ought to realize that it’s a collaborative effort with the speechwriting shop. It is the person that delivers the speech that pulls it off and so forth.
It seems like everyone wants to get into the act. You got somebody like this that comes along, Sarah Palin, a once-in-a-lifetime politician that I think is genuine, and everybody wants to get in on the act, ‘Yeah, I helped. I did a little bit of this.’ Everybody wants some credit, get in on the act and so forth instead of realizing what is at stake here. But this whole notion of hopelessness that a lot of people have called and written me about was just broomed last night. This lady has turned it all around. We’re much more upbeat this week. We have been since last weekend because we see beyond November with a lot of hope. She’s just fabulous. I was laughing myself silly during this speech. I was laughing myself silly during Rudy. I mean Rudy and Palin, what do we have up there? We had good cheer. We had people having a good time. We had people who were getting in some huge digs with smiles on their faces. In fact, Joe Biden is all over the board today. He said first he didn’t see it. Then he said he only saw half of it. The one guy in this country we know who saw all of it, and has probably watched it three times, is Joe Biden.
This is from the ABC News blog, Matthew Jaffe is reporting that some might have expected Biden to come out swinging, but this morning, ‘Biden threw more punches at the ‘sexist’ press than at his vice presidential counterpart. ‘I think this stuff about how can she be a governor and vice president and raise three kids, c’mon, whoever those folks are don’t know any strong women.” Joe, they are your supporters! They are your supporters and voters, and Obama’s supporters that are leveling these insults. ‘I was also impressed with what I didn’t hear,’ Biden said. ‘I didn’t hear a word mentioned about the middle class or healthcare or about how people are going to fill up their gas tanks.’ You didn’t? Here is a woman who has led the way on energy production and energy independence. These guys are just beside themselves. And then Biden said this about her zingers: ‘They’re good funny lines. I gotta admit, I’m glad they weren’t about me, ya know. I mean, I’m sitting there thinking, ‘Whoa, look at that zinger.”
So Biden says, boy, I’m glad they zinged Obama and not me. He’s out there saying this stuff. But they did. They zinged with humor, and they cut right to it. Listen, here is a great illusion, going to go through the Palin speech in a little more order but I wanted to pull one out. Oh. I keep thinking of things. She sold the state jet. ‘I put it on eBay.’ (laughing) I put it on eBay, put the state jet on eBay. And then that family sitting there watching, the little seven-year-old Piper moistening her fingers and patting down the hair of the infant, of the baby. My heart was going crazy. My mind was going nuts. It was just what we’ve been longing for. I think this is as excited as I have seen the conservative base since 1994, 1993, it’s been 14 years. And John McBrilliant pulls this off with the gutsy choice of Sarah Palin. Here’s a little sound bite where Governor Palin rips in to Dingy Harry.
RUSH: Yeah, right on, right on.
PALIN: Clearly what the majority leader was driving at is that he can’t stand up to John McCain, and that’s only one more reason to take the maverick out of the Senate, put him in the White House.
RUSH: You know what else is one of the great lines last night? There’s only one man on this ticket that’s actually ever fought for you. I loved that line. I thought that was just — she had ’em all. The whole speech, there wasn’t anything, there wasn’t any point in time where it was down, where we lost attention, where she lost rhythm. And I’ll tell you something, folks, those of you who have never spoken with a prompter and if you come to depend on it and if you got a prompter operator that’s not paying attention, and if the prompter operator doesn’t stop, you’re kind of dead, but there’s another factor here, too, and that is, this was her first coming-out party to such a large audience, we are told. She had to adapt to the audience applause lines, not, you know, being sustained and so forth. You don’t know how hard it is to maintain the rhythm of your speech when it’s interrupted a lot, and she pulled that off. Flawlessly. Flying colors, in a room that big. I’m telling you, folks, you don’t know how good this was. And you think it’s excellent, you think it was great. You don’t know how good it was. The Obama camp is in fear. I got it here. They sent out a fundraising letter last night that is totally on the defense. This convention, two nights of it, have put us on offense, which is where you have to be in situations like this. They’ve actually put out a fundraising note defending what a community organizer does because of the zinger that she delivered last night. Okay, so here she has just zinged Dingy Harry. Last night on CNN, panel discussion, cohost Campbell Brown says this about Palin’s remark about Dingy Harry.
BROWN: The Democratic majority leader Harry Reid sent out a statement describing her speech tonight. And listen to the wording of this because it’s really important. He says, ‘Shrill and sarcastic political attacks may fire up the Republican base. They don’t change the fact that a McCain-Palin administration would mean four more years of failed Bush-Cheney policies.’ The catch word there is ‘shrill.’ I rarely, if ever, hear the word shrill used to apply to a man, with regard to an attack or style of attack. It’s usually applied to women. And if they, Democrats are seen as treating her in a condescending way, then it mutes and it will totally backfire any attack she makes and allow her to be even tougher.
RUSH: They’re starting to get it even at CNN. We know that Campbell Brown was in the chorus of ripping her earlier. Now, they’re starting to get this. So then Blitzer double-checks with his reporter to make sure that Dingy was actually referring to Palin.
BLITZER: It’s clear, Dana, that this statement was referring to what Sarah Palin said, not the men.
BASH: Yes.
BLITZER: — who were speaking earlier; is that right?
BASH: Correct.
RUSH: Yeah. So Wolf was hoping against hope here that Dingy was not talking about Palin, but he double-checked there with his reporter. The Forehead lost it last night. The beds were flying. I think they’re going to need to call in the men in the little white suits, the paddy wagon for the MSNBC crowd and they’re going to need shrinks. They’re just out of it. They can’t figure out what happened. They’re sitting there dazed and dazzled trying to figure out how to carry on in a normal way, realizing they can’t pull it off. The Forehead just went nuts.
THE FOREHEAD: I think we have to be careful of the right wing politically correct police editing our language. There are some words that are off-limits like the B word which was used against Hillary Clinton frequently on this and other networks, and I think that was outrageous and sexist.
RUSH: Still defending Hillary, there’s The Forehead, the B word, on CNN. I don’t even remember who used the word.