RUSH: Birmingham, Alabama. This is Michael. Michael, thank you for waiting. It’s great to have you here. Hi.
CALLER: Hey, Rush. Crimson Tide dittos from Alabama. I just wanted to call and ask you, I wanted to comment on the liberal media taking your quotes out of context regarding Robin Williams.
RUSH: It’s not that they took things out of context. They just made things up, Michael. I mean, they took things out of context, but they just attributed things to me that I never said, which is happening more and more, and it’s all started by Media Matters. But what did you observe?
CALLER: Well, what happened yesterday is I was on Facebook, and I saw a guy made a huge comment, he’s like, “You won’t believe the things that he said! Rush Limbaugh, he’s despicable,” and when I was looking at it, I was like, “What? I just got done listening to his podcast, and I didn’t hear anything.” So I looked at the article, and I think it was article from the Washington Post, and I read the article —
RUSH: It was the Washington Times, not the Washington Post.
CALLER: Okay.
RUSH: Yeah.
CALLER: Well, when I saw it, I was like, “This is unbelievably false.” So what I did was, my girlfriend sent him a link to your full transcript of the show, and I was like, “Okay, good. He’ll see the transcript. He’ll see that the record’s been set straight and he’ll realize it was mistake.” Well, what he did was, he responded, “I just read the transcript, and I no doubt believe that he is using Robin Williams’ death to promote his right-wing agenda,” and I was just in shock, because I thought to myself, “If he sees this proof right in his face, he will realize what happened.” I thought that, you know, the Washington Times —
RUSH: I’m glad that you experienced this! He was confronted with proof that he was wrong, and he immediately dismissed it and then recast it to fit another bias that he has.
CALLER: Right, and another one of his buddies commented, “I read another article from Yahoo News,” and I just started laughing at that point. I really wanted to get some insight from you about: How do you battle willful ignorance like that? I just see them as, if they see proof, they just put their hands over their eyes, put earplugs in their ears and don’t want to hear it.
RUSH: You can’t. It’s impossible to deal with it. That’s what I’m glad you learned. They found out that what they wanted to believe was dead wrong, and they couldn’t accept it. Therefore, they’re not interested in the truth. They’re interested every day in feeding their corrupt, perverted worldview and their preexisting bias or their prejudice So they feed it, and anything that challenges it is, “Uhhh…uhhh….uhhh.”
They don’t know what to do with it, garbage in… “Uh, uh, uh!” So they have to immediately recast it. “Well, well, maybe so, but see I can see how he’s just using this to advance his right-wing agenda!” That’s what he’s doing. Even though you confront him with incontrovertible evidence — my own words — that’s what this guy responds: “Well, I don’t care! I just saw it on Yahoo News!”
CALLER: (laughing)
RUSH: “Wait a minute. I’m sending you what he really said, and you’re quoting Yahoo News to me!” So the proof? You can’t change their minds. They don’t want their mind changed; they’re not interested. This is your classic low-information voter, Michael.
CALLER: Yes. Exactly.
RUSH: They do not know what they don’t know, and they don’t want to know what they don’t know, because they think they know it all.
CALLER: I like to think that the news outlets, the news media, they have to report things in a negative light no matter what. However, you hope that for, you know, the normal rank-and-file person, if they do see proof to their face that they would change their mind, that they’d have more of an open mind, but —
RUSH: I used to think that. I used to think that. I’m being very honest with you. I used to think… Back 20 years ago, 25 years ago, I used to think, “People won’t believe this. People will be able to see and understand.” No, they believe it. They believe everything they see there. They believe everything they see on TV. They believe everything that’s published, and when they’re confronted with what they believe, they’re not gonna accept it.
They just can’t live in a world where Yahoo News is wrong. They can’t live in a world where the New York Times is wrong. So even though you confront them with the truth of what I said, there’s a trick. There’s still something that they’re able to spot that you aren’t. They’re able to translate what I really mean, like coded words or whatever the hell they think I’m sending to further my agenda.
CALLER: That’s right.
RUSH: It’s just what it is.
BREAK TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: Orin, a trucker on the Pennsylvania Turnpike. Hello, sir.
CALLER: Hi. How are you.
RUSH: Good. Thank you. Got about a minute.
CALLER: Okay. I’ll be quick. Great honor, by the way. The Obama and Hillary thing, the rift. Do you think that might be theater? I mean, everybody knows he has low approval ratings, and maybe that’s just for public’s showing. The second thing real quick is the Robin Williams thing that you’ve been talking about the last couple days is particularly disgusting as far as the misrepresentation in the media. Is there any way…? I mean, you have legions of fans here. We would be willing to boycott maybe the parents or the advertisers of the company that these so-called journalists work for?
RUSH: Oh, well, if you wanted to do that, you could. I don’t advocate it.
CALLER: You can lead that charge. I mean, we’d be right behind you.
RUSH: Well, I know, but I never have. I never have done it. I don’t have the time to tell you now why. There is news, however, on the Robin Williams front. His wife has issued a statement saying he was in the early onset stages of Parkinson’s disease, and I remember… Well, that’s just the latest there.
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