WH: Rush Doesn’t Speak for GOP

RUSH: Wow! This is great, folks! This is utterly fabulous. Anita Dunn is the White House communications director. Technically she’s the boss of Robert Gibbs. She is out there saying — now, get this — Anita Dunn, White House communications director, is out there saying, (paraphrasing) ‘Hey, go easy on the Senate Republicans. Rush Limbaugh does not speak for Senate Republicans.’ She’s out defending Senate Republicans. What she’s actually trying to do is to manipulate the Senate Republicans into opposing Sotomayor, but about the nomination she is saying, ‘Hey, we got cut some Republican senators some slack here. They don’t agree with what Rush Limbaugh is saying.’ Well, now, wait a minute. ‘And Rush Limbaugh doesn’t speak for them,’ she said.

Now, wait a minute. It was just last week and the week before that and the week before that and the week before that and the week before that and the week before that and the week before that and the week before that and the week before that, I did speak for the Republicans. Since late January, from the White House out, it has been I am the leader of the Republicans, I speak for the Republicans. AP called today, they wanted to roll on my first-hour comments on Sotomayor because even though I passed the leadership baton to Colin Powell they said I’m still the leading voice for the Republicans. The Democrats put up billboards saying that I speak for the Republican Party. And today, the White House communications director, Anita Dunn, says, ‘Hey, go easy on the Senate Republicans. Rush Limbaugh doesn’t speak for them.’

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: Listen to this. This is Anita Dunn on MSNBC ‘Live’ this afternoon, Andrea Mitchell in her TV show. Mitchell says, ‘Rush Limbaugh called Sonia Sotomayor a ‘reverse racist’ and hit her and the president hard in other comments on his broadcast today. How would you respond to that?’

DUNN: Well, I think, in — in fairness to the Republican senators, I am willing to say that Rush Limbaugh probably does not speak for them. We’ve been heartened by the positive reaction — and really the excited reaction — that this choice has gotten from, you know, many people across the country, an extraordinarily qualified nominee who not only has a compelling personal story —

RUSH: Yeah? Mmm. Yeah.

DUNN: — but has extraordinary judicial qualifications as well.

RUSH: She’s not qualified. She’s not qualified because she doesn’t understand justice, but she does have a compelling story. There is no question. And that’s going to be used to sell her, ’cause there isn’t a soul that… After they create tears during the Senate confirmation hearings in this story, that’s all she wrote. But, again, all of a sudden now I don’t speak for the Republican Party. You know, she didn’t clear that with James Carville and Rahm Emanuel ’cause now I don’t speak for the Republican Party. So they gotta take that part of their agenda down. I don’t speak for the Republican Party anymore. I’m a maverick now! I’m out there on my own.