RUSH: They were. They were blaming Bush. Well, people retweeting tweets, they’re sending me tweets. And even in the New York Times, some New York Times reporter tweeted that the power outage last night was Bush’s fault. They said, “Way to go, Brownie,” meaning this Brown guy that ran FEMA. I kid you not, they were blaming Bush. I heard Ray Lewis killed the lights to try to destroy 49er momentum. It was just alleged. It was never established.

I thought when the power went out, maybe either Martha MacCallum’s down there or Greta Van Susteren, because both times they’ve been here, they’ve blown our circuit breakers. Every time Fox has shown up to do a live interview — well, even taped, they blew us out for 45 minutes. Martha MacCallum did one day, and then Greta was next.

And then, look at this story that ran before the game: “Super Bowl City Leads on Energy Efficient Forefront — While the Baltimore Ravens and San Francisco 49ers compete to hoist the Vince Lombardi trophy this weekend, eco-friendly fans and city leaders in New Orleans are competing to maximize sustainability practices to the fullest. To make this the greenest Super Bowl, the New Orleans Host Committee,” which was chaired, by the way — did you know this? — by Carville and Matalin. James Carville and Mary Matalin were the Host Committee chairs. The New Orleans Host Committee “has partnered with fans and the community to offset energy use across the major Super Bowl venues,” by turning it off. Ha. No, I added that myself.

“The exterior of the Mercedes-Benz Superdome features more than…” they go through the lights here and the system draws only ten kilowatts of electricity. Everybody knows Beyonce blew it out. Did you watch the halftime show, Snerdley? Let me tell you something. You know, I marvel at people’s talent, and she has it. That was the most high-energy Super Bowl halftime show I’ve ever seen. I mean, production value, you gotta marvel at it. Snerdley, you have to marvel. When you see the upper echelon of professionalism on display, you have to acknowledge it. She didn’t do anything political last night. It was really good.

Poor Chris Culliver. I don’t know if you people paid any attention to this. Chris Culliver, who’s cornerback for the Fort’iners, who earlier last week said that there wasn’t gonna be any of that “sweet stuff” in the 49er locker room, meaning no gay players on the 49ers. He didn’t want them in the locker room, didn’t want any part of it. And then of course that was not cool. So they wrote an apology in which Chris Culliver went out and read what somebody else wrote, in which he said, “That wasn’t me,” which is the standard way you apologize. He said, “That wasn’t me. That’s not really who I am.” Anyway, the poor guy got torched last night.

And I told you — Snerdley, I don’t know if you were listening — Snerdley’s back after a vacation. I don’t know if you were listening on Friday or not. (laughing) His vacation was spent in bed in the hospital. I don’t know if you heard, I did sort of a modified environmentalist wacko prediction. I said that the winner of this game had to be the Ravens because they had the fewest problems involving gays, gay players, and gay marriage. I found it highly ironic that the team with the most luggage when it comes to gay rights happened to be the one from San Francisco. I said, the 49ers either lay the points or take the points, whatever, but it’s gonna be the Ravens because they’re more up to speed on gay rights. And, lo and behold, this is what happened.

And this poor guy Chris Culliver got torched. He’s a cornerback and they were throwing at him all night. Anquan Boldin, they just ate the poor guy up. And I told Kathryn, I said, “You know, I’m gonna turn on the Internet, I’m gonna read coverage and I’m gonna read that. I’m gonna read this guy got torched and he got torched because he was wrong on gay rights.” And, lo and behold, I found it in Sports Illustrated.

(interruption)

Hm-hm. Kaepernick and Flacco. (laughing) Tattoo man. Well, Flacco’s in his fifth or sixth year. This is this guy’s tenth game. Five yards, can you believe, forget, you know, all the stuff that happened prior to it and the referee calls. That’s irrelevant because what it is is what it is. What happened is what happened. You can say there was holding on that last play, but there was also holding in Atlanta on the 49ers that wasn’t called against the Falcons, and if that call had been made it might have been the Falcons last night instead of the 49ers.

You throw that all out, they had four plays to make five yards, the 49ers to win the Super Bowl, and they couldn’t do it, and they didn’t run the ball once. I could not believe that they weren’t running the football. From the five yard line, throwing these fades to the end zone. I thought they had this massively creative offensive coordinator. I was stunned by the play calling there, but all in all the power outage turned the game into the longest Super Bowl ever played, and it had the highest rating of any Super Bowl, and who woulda thought with the 49ers and Ravens? I mean, the 49ers are a marquee team but they hadn’t been there in a long time. The Ravens hadn’t been there since 2000.

Folks, you may not know this, but the two head coaches of the teams are brothers. Did you know that? Yeah, the coach of the 49ers is Jim Harbaugh, and the coach of the Ravens, a guy named John Harbaugh. They’re brothers. They’re separated by like 15 months. Their dad was a coach in football, too. And their mother was a mother. Yeah. And then of course it was Ray Lewis’ last ride. They had a lot of ingredients here that made this an attractive matchup, plus Beyonce.

Anyway, I gotta get back to poor Chris Culliver, number 29. First off, he made his youthful comments about gays, politically incorrect, and got taken to the woodshed. He corrected his comments, and then, I don’t know if it was before the game, I don’t know if it was Saturday or earlier on Sunday, it was announced that Chris Culliver is going to have to go to sensitivity training. He’s being made to go to sensitivity training which will be conducted by an LGBT group. No, no, it’s not a joke. He is going to go to lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender sensitivity training. I mean quick, like maybe even this week.

Now, that may not be a big deal to you, but imagine if they could send you to retraining if all you had to do was say you’re sick and tired of seeing the Kardashians on TV every day. How would you feel if they could send you off to get your mind right, if that’s all you said, you’re sick and tired of seeing the Kardashians. So this guy, I mean, he got torched. They were throwing at him, and it succeeded. Now, I don’t know about you, the pregame was patriotic like I have never seen at the Super Bowl. Alicia Keys sang the national anthem. It was the longest rendition of the national anthem in history at such an event, two minutes and 35 seconds. Everybody thought she was finished when she wasn’t.

Now, just as a little side issue. This is not what I intend to say here, but I’ve always had a problem with the National Anthem presented as a funeral dirge. I think the National Anthem ought to take about 45 seconds! That’s a song that you play up tempo. You are proud; you are excited. You belt that baby out! That’s about the survivability of the country; it’s not a funeral tune. You know, “the bombs bursting in air”! That song ought to be played up tempo, and it ought to take no more than 45 seconds to get that thing done if it’s done right. This is just me.

Holy cow, look at that! Look at Bill Richardson there. (interruption) Is that Bill Richardson? (interruption) That’s not Bill Richardson? That’s not…? (interruption) Jimmy Lee Dykes? That’s not Jimmy Lee Dykes! Jimmy Lee Dykes is in a bunker with a five-year-old hostage. That’s Bill Richardson. He’s gone all gray. There must be some political advantage to that. He’s got a beard; he’s all gray now. That’s gotta be Bill Richardson, isn’t it? They have it in the Chyron.

Anyway, that’s the first thing I said. I said this to myself while they had the National Anthem, then the Newtown kids, and then Jennifer Hudson. I said, “This has got to be tearing some liberals apart. This has gotta be ripping them to shreds. “This much patriotism? This much honoring America? Just play the game,” I can imagine them saying. Lo and behold, ladies and gentlemen, from the Washington Post… I have it here in my formerly nicotine-stained fingers.

The headline: “When We Cheer for Our Team, Do We Have to Cheer for America, Too?” It’s by Tricia Jenkins, and this is before the game. This is January 31st. She wrote this thing last week, and I have been holding it in abeyance. I didn’t say anything about it, ’cause I had no idea what this pregame show was gonna be. It took 10 or 15 minutes to do all this, and I could just imagine. You know, liberals don’t like that. It makes ’em nervous. They get queasy. And here’s proof.

The Super Bowl is too patriotic and too militaristic. You got the color guard people out there. You got the military people out there. Here’s how she begins her piece, again, in the Washington Post on January 31st: “The customary flyover by fighter jets may be absent from this weekend’s Super Bowl; after all, the Mercedes-Benz Superdome in New Orleans is covered. But a military color guard will be on the field during the pregame ceremonies. CBS will cut to shots of troops watching the game overseas.

“Veterans will be recognized on the stadium’s video boards. And flag imagery will abound, as will stirring renditions of the National Anthem and, most likely, ‘America the Beautiful.’ Sports games — some of the only events that lead Americans to set their differences aside and sit down and watch together — have become stages for large-scale patriotic theater. This is no accident…” It’s a conspiracy! Did you know that this is a pro-America conspiracy?

“This is no accident” that we have flyovers and the National Anthem and America the Beautiful are played before sporting events. “This is no accident many of the militaristic rituals we see in stadiums and arenas across the country were deliberately designed to promote unity during times of crisis. But they’ve stuck around far longer than needed, making sports feel less like pastimes than pep rallies for our military or a particular war.

“During World War II, team owners introduced the National Anthem and ceremonies honoring the armed forces as a way to win President Franklin Roosevelt’s support for continuing play amid the conflict. The weekend after President John F. Kennedy’s assassination in 1963, NFL Commissioner [Alvin “Pete”] Rozelle inserted moments of silence and flag ceremonies into his league’s games.” Actually, I looked it up.

The Star-Spangled Banner was played during the Seventh Inning Stretch of the 1918 World Series. It preceded World War II. Before that, it was performed as early as 1897 during the opening-day ceremonies in Philadelphia, and then regularly at the Polo Grounds in New York City starting in 1898. Then she writes: “The small flag decals on many athletes’ uniforms arose from basketball and football organizers’…” and blah, blah, blah. “But gestures that once offered comfort have become habit.

“And the patriotic displays have only gotten more inventive. College football’s national championship game last month between Notre Dame and Alabama featured Air Force paratroopers who jumped out of a plane and glided onto the field to deliver the game ball to officials,” and this thing goes on and on and on. “What comes next? Navy SEALs sneaking through the bleachers to deliver free pizzas? Beer sold in combat-boot-shaped cups? Or maybe miniature drones dropping T-shirts onto the crowds below?”

Tricia Jenkins, by the way, is the author of the story. That’s what she writes here. I’m telling you, I saw the pregame and I knew this would be the reaction. When I say that this kind of stuff irritates liberals, I know what some of you out there say. “Come on, Rush! You really think that?” Here’s the proof right here. “Tricia Jenkins is an assistant professor of film, television and digital media at Texas Christian University and the author of ‘The CIA in Hollywood: How the Agency Shapes Film and Television.'”

So there you have it, folks.

We’ve got… (interruption) No, I’m not kidding. Somebody just told me — I think it’s on Drudge — that Beyonce blew circuit breakers twice in rehearsals at the Superdome. But they still don’t know really why it happened. The air-conditioning, everything went out. There was a big buzz in there like an electrical buzz, like an insect light outside zapping a bug. A lot of people were understandably nervous.