RUSH: Here’s Jim Clyburn. Monday night on NPR’s All Things Considered the host is Robert Siegel. He said to Congressman Clyburn, ‘I want to ask you 
to draw upon your own personal experience in your life. People are commonly saying that the political environment nationwide is today more vitriolic, more toxic than ever. You’re an African-American from South Carolina, and you came up at a time when a black man who asserted himself could face really serious consequences. And there was nothing unusual about death threats at that time. Does this really compare to, say, the ’60s in South Carolina?’
CLYBURN: During the 1960s we saw the cattle prods, we did see some murders, and they were very, very unfortunate. But we didn’t have the Internet back then. We had restraint on speech back then. I came up in a time that the Fairness Doctrine did not allow media outlets to say things about a candidate or a person in public office without giving that person equal time to respond. And I really believe that everybody needs to take a look at where we are pushing things and they need to take a serious step back and evaluate what’s going on.
RUSH: So a question about ’60s racism in America related to an event Saturday in Tucson becomes we have to get the Fairness Doctrine back because elected officials don’t have the chance to respond to all of the lies that they claim are being told about them. Is there more hate and bigotry now or back in the times of the civil rights movement? More hate and bigotry now? I mean that’s insane to claim that there’s more hate and bigotry now. Besides, racism has got nothing to do with this. Racism has not one thing to do with what happened in Tucson. Yet that’s his expertise that the NPR people wanted to call.
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RUSH: Scott in Jackson, Mississippi, great to have you on the program, sir. Hello.
CALLER: Happy birthday, Rush.
RUSH: Thank you very much, sir.
CALLER: Yes, sir. I wanted to respectfully take issue with your characterization of Representative James Clyburn’s remarks and one of the clips that you played yesterday. I believe your assessment was that he objected to the reading of the Constitution on the House floor. And if you listen carefully to the clip, I believe he said he objected to what occurred during the reading of the Constitution. While he didn’t elaborate I think specifically, he was talking about the outburst that occurred from the gallery when they were covering the portion of the Constitution that spells out the qualifications for the office of the president.
RUSH: Yeah, somebody in the gallery said, ‘Obama, Obama.’ I think there was one instance of that, yeah.
CALLER: Yes.
RUSH: I don’t have the transcript of the clip in front of me, nor do I have the clip, but he didn’t specify that. He just talked about reading the Constitution and —
CALLER: Well, he did specifically say what happened during the reading, and that was a recent report. Surely he’s trying to associate that nut job in the gallery with the members on the House floor, which is inappropriate —
RUSH: No, no, not surely, otherwise I would agree with you. I don’t think that was his context. I think Clyburn, a bunch of Democrats think the reading of the Constitution on the floor of the House is provocative, and I think they think it’s provocative for a reason. The Constitution threatens them. The Constitution is an obstacle to them. Now, I understand you’re respectfully disagreeing, but you’re putting words in his mouth he didn’t say, which we try not to do here on the EIB Network. He did not specify the outburst in the gallery. He threw it into a list of a lot of things that he thought were revving people up unnecessarily so. Anyway, Scott, time’s short, I’m glad you called, thanks much.
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RUSH: I just reread Congressman Clyburn’s comment about what happened in the House reading the Constitution. It is conceivable that he was talking about the outburst in the gallery, it is conceivable. But he didn’t say that. We’re not mind readers. Congressman Clyburn needs to learn to express himself better is the lesson to be learned from this. (laughing) That’s what you call a correction.