RUSH: Tom Brokaw showed up last night on Charlie Rose. He was on MSNBC as well. Charlie Rose said, “I begin with that because you have spent an enormous amount of time reaching out and looking at America and where it is.” So, Tom, as you’re looking out there at America, what do you see now, Tom?
BROKAW: I thought about my own lifetime. I was born in 1940, right before the war, and I think there have been about eight big ideas in my lifetime: mobilizing for the war, GI Bill of Rights, Kennedy saying we’re gonna go to the moon, the Civil Rights Act, Nixon saying we’re gonna open relations with China, Ronald Reagan staring down the Soviet Union and the Cold War ends without a shot being fired. We’re trapped in a lot of little ideas in this country at the moment, and they don’t seem to be serving anybody particularly well.
RUSH: So that’s Tom’s attempt to explain the election results last night. You’re saying, “What the hell was that? Why is Rush playing that sound bite?” I asked myself the same thing, but what it means is — (interruption) No, I did. It’s just his version of Peter Jennings temper tantrum is all it is. (imitating Brokaw) “Little ideas. Back when I was a newsman, back when I was an anchor it was all about big stuff. This stuff happening now, don’t bother me with it. You got me on here to talk about what the kids are doing. I got better things to do, Charlie, than to come on your show and talk about this Podunk stuff here.
“Back when I was a newsman, back when I was with Peter Jennings and Cronkite and Rather, we did big stuff. We stopped Reagan, we tried to stop Reagan from defeating the Soviet Union, but he beat us. We did get rid of Nixon, you know, and we convinced Kennedy to go to the moon. And we convinced Kissinger to go to China to save Nixon. We did all kinds of big things in the media. But now this Podunk stuff, I don’t have time for it, Charlie.” Obamacare was their hundred year dream. What Tom Brokaw has to do here is minimize this outcome. Exactly what I told you yesterday they’re gonna do. They gonna trivialize it, delegitimize it, minimalize it. Doesn’t think what you think it means.
One more. Charlie Rose said, “That person with the bully pulpit, Tom, that’s the president. Regardless of whether the Senate’s Republican or Democrat — and the House will certainly be Republican — the president’s at the White House. He has the bully pulpit. And it is his responsibility, is it not, to offer the leadership and take the lead in trying to set the tone for the final years of his presidency?”
BROKAW: A lot of this has to do with the fact that he gets hammered 24/7 by Fox News on the right and by talk radio, which is a huge voice in this country. I was in the Midwest the other day listening to talk radio. I don’t know who the guy was, but he was saying, “Obama’s voters are people who live in excrement.” That was his phrase! “And they — they expect us to lift them out of excrement.” I’m not gonna lift a hand to lift them out.” That was the kind of language that was going on. At some point, that penetrates.
RUSH: No, no. He was reading a Democrat website. He wasn’t listening to talk radio. Anyway, so you see, this is all because talk radio — which is really big, Charlie, in this country; it’s really big — and Fox News, all they do is hammer Obama. So it doesn’t mean anything. Don’t worry, Charlie, everything’s cool. If I have to, I’ll come back and be a real newsman again to show you, but don’t sweat it.
BREAK TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: Now, before we go to the break here, I want to go back to the archives, the Grooveyard of Forgotten Favorites. We just had Tom Brokaw and Charlie Rose, in which Brokaw tried to say that this election doesn’t mean anything because it was about small things, so many small things. He doesn’t even really know what they all are. So many small things.
But back when he was doing the news, back when Tom Brokaw was reading the news teleprompter every day, that’s when big stuff was happening. That’s when we had Nixon going to China, and that’s when we had Reagan taking on the Soviet Union, and that’s we have Kennedy taking us to the moon. But this stuff going on now is chump change and it doesn’t mean anything.
Really? Saving the country from socialism is not a big idea, Tom? But see if you’ll recall this. This is October 30th, 2008, same show, Charlie Rose Show. Folks, this is a week prior to the 2008 election, a week prior to what turned out to be an historic election in the country, the first African-American president in our history, Tom Brokaw and Charlie Rose talking about Obama.
ROSE: I don’t know what Barack Obama’s worldview is.
BROKAW: No, I don’t, either.
ROSE: I don’t know how he really sees where China is.
BROKAW: We don’t know a lot about Barack Obama and the universe of his thinking about foreign policy.
ROSE: I don’t really know. And do we know anything about the people who are advising him?
BROKAW: Yeah, it’s an interesting question.
ROSE: He is principally known through his autobiography and through very aspirational (sic) speeches.
BROKAW: Two of them. I don’t know what books he’s read.
ROSE: What do we know about the heroes of Barack Obama?
BROKAW: There’s a lot about him we don’t know.
RUSH: Yeah. And the sad thing is, they still don’t, even now. These two guys still don’t, in the midst of an abject national calamity and near-disaster, these guys still don’t know who Barack Obama is. They still remain clueless. They remain clueless about the import of last night and what it was all about, and all day yesterday.
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