RUSH: The New York Times, man, vicious. Now, the New York Times editorial board is made up of Jewish people by and large, not all, but the editorial page editor is a man named Andrew Rosenthal, and I would assume, intelligence guided by experience, Mr. Rosenthal is Jewish. I haven’t read such anti-Semitism as I read in this New York Times editorial today anymore, in a long time. In fact, I’ve had people ask, “Rush, Israel is filled with Jewish people, how in the world does the American left and the Jewish community here so hate Netanyahu and Israel?”
But it’s not just them. It’s the media in general. They’re so ticked off. Some of them are now trying to pretend yesterday didn’t even happen, like over at CNN. You’d never know there’s an election in Israel today, compared to their coverage yesterday.
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RUSH: Okay. Here’s the New York Times headline. And look, I know we talk about media bias every day. There’s nothing new here and I know there’s nothing earth-shattering, but still this is worth exploring. The New York Times editorial: “An Israeli Election Turns Ugly.”
How did it turn ugly? The only thing that happened was that Netanyahu won. It didn’t turn ugly. What are they saying there? Netanyahu won, while they thought Herzog was gonna win. They believed all their preelection polls.
Folks, it is stunning when you review exactly what happened here. It is almost verbatim for what happens in an American election. The polling prior to the election had Bibi losing. It was nip and tuck, but it looked like Netanyahu was gonna go down. The exit polling showed that Bibi Netanyahu was tied. The exit polling alternately, back and forth, said maybe, maybe Netanyahu is gonna lose.
The Drive-By Media was against Netanyahu, and he won overwhelmingly. The preelection polls and the preelection coverage gave Netanyahu very little chance. The exit polls, they were not expressed truthfully, either, or not reported truthfully or not polled correctly, whichever, because even during the election count, “Oh, my gosh, it looks like we’re gonna have an upset here.”
The exit polling was totally wrong, just as it often is here. And not only did Netanyahu win overwhelmingly, Likud picked up, what, 36 seats, and they were expected — 30 seats expected to pick up in the low twenties. The point is that Netanyahu won big down the ticket, down the ballot. His party also won big, outperforming expectation, exactly what has happened here in the 2010 and the 2014 midterms. And the biggest loser — this is why they’re so in a wad here — the biggest loser yesterday in Israel, Barack Obama.
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RUSH: So again, the snark is out in the e-mail. “Rush, why do you care? This is the second day in a row! Why are you talking about what happened in Israel? What’s the big deal?” Ladies and gentlemen, the reason we’re talking about what happened in Israel is because it’s such a big deal to Barack Obama. You want to know why? “Why has the Drive-By Media been so concerned about this election?” That’s what everybody needs to be asking.
The Drive-By Media has been covering the campaign in Israel and the election of Benjamin Netanyahu as though it were a domestic election. I didn’t spend much time on this election at all prior to yesterday, folks. But every day for the past three weeks, maybe even month, the Drive-By Media has been doing this story left and right, up and down, all over the place. And the reason why? Because Obama was campaigning in it. The reason the Drive-By Media is so concerned about the Israeli election, maybe more than they’ve ever been before, is because Obama wanted Netanyahu to lose.
So the Drive-By Media had to want Netanyahu to lose, even though most of the media’s narrative readers couldn’t pick Isaac Herzog out of a police lineup! Most of the people watching, reading, listening to the Drive-By Media on this could not even identify for you if they saw his picture Netanyahu’s opponent, Isaac Herzog, because it wasn’t about that. Barack Obama wanted this guy taken out, and that’s why the Drive-Bys cared. Since Obama wanted Netanyahu defeated, the media wanted Netanyahu defeated.
And that’s why the media’s been spending so much time on this. So, my friends, all I’ve done is be consistent here. Essentially what happens on this program every day is this: I get up; I start paying attention to the news. I remember the stuff I saw last night, the day before, the week before, the month before. I have a reservoir, an encyclopedia of knowledge inside my head. So each day when I get up, I see, I witness people that I love, things that I believe in under savage attack by the media, by the Democrat Party, and so my instinct is to come here and defend it.
Netanyahu, to me, is no different than you and me. His ideology. His values. His country is an ally of ours, and they have the same Judeo-Christian ethic that we have. They’re the one lone outpost of allied status in that region that we have, and we’ve got the American president and his administration trying to eliminate it, trying to defeat it. That’s worth defending, to me. Conservatism, the right things, the right values are worth defending. I don’t mean to make you think I need to make an excuse for what I’ve been doing.
I’m explaining it. I get up every day and I see the Drive-By Media hell-bent on defeating Netanyahu, and then I see that Obama’s sending money and a campaign team over there to do it, and then I realize what’s at stake if that happens. If Netanyahu loses, Iran gets a nuclear weapon — and maybe they do anyway. But Netanyahu’s presence is gonna make it that much harder for Obama to pull this off.
We don’t want Iran with a nuclear weapon. Nobody in that region does except Iran and maybe Hamas and Hezbollah. Al-Qaeda. You name it. But other than that, the peace-loving people have no desire for this. Our president seems to want the Iranians to get one. It’s a matter of grave concern. I want to take you back to the comment I made following Netanyahu’s speech earlier this month to the joint session of Congress. This is one of the first things I said about it.
RUSH: That is what it’s about, to me. See, I believe Western Civilization’s under attack everywhere, particularly here. The cultural rot that’s taking place in America is the result of an attack on Western Civilization. The multicultural curricula is an attack on Western Civilization. Much of the left is attacking Western Civilization, and Benjamin Netanyahu is one who seeks to defend it. So he’s an ally. He’s under assault by no less than the president of the United States, and that means the entire American media for the most part is arrayed against him.
So your real question is: “Why was the media covering this election so much? Why did they care so much?” This New York Times editorial is just… It’s so filled with hatred and rage from the headline: “An Israeli Election Turns Ugly,” and then there are terms like “desperate” and “craven,” “duplicity,” “outrageous,” “demagogy,” “subversive,” “fear mongering.” Those are just some of the terms used to describe Benjamin Netanyahu in this New York Times editorial, as in this:
“Mr. Netanyahu showed that he was desperate, and craven, enough to pull out all the stops. On Monday, he promised that if his Likud faction remained in power, he would never allow the creation of a Palestinian state, thus repudiating a position he had taken in 2009. His behavior in the past six years — aggressively building Israeli homes on land that likely would be within the bounds of a Palestinian state and never engaging seriously in negotiations — has long convinced many people that he has no interest in a peace agreement.”
No interest in a peace agreement?
The only thing he cares about is peace for Israel!
That’s the thing he cares about, the peace and security of the people of Israel, and he’s not gonna negotiate it away — and for this he is hated and despised. “Israel’s election has done a lot to reveal the challenges facing the country and the intentions of the men who seek to lead it,” writes the New York Times. “Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s outright rejection of a Palestinian state and his racist rant against Israeli Arab voters on Tuesday showed that he has forfeited any claim to representing all Israelis,” and you see, my friends, it’s the exact opposite.
Benjamin Netanyahu is protecting the nation of Israel and all who reside there. He is not going to give up its security, he is not going to negotiate away its peace. And for this he’s hated and despised and called all these names by the New York Times, and the election is characterized as turning ugly. And it didn’t turn ugly! There weren’t any allegations of cheating. There weren’t any allegations of vote fraud. You didn’t have the equivalent of the New Black Panther Party at the polling place like the Democrats have in Philadelphia here, intimidating and frightening people away.
That’s how an election turns ugly. The way the Democrat Party in this country treats polling places, that’s how an election turns ugly. That didn’t happen. The only thing that made this election ugly to the New York Times and the American left is who won it. But what really has them soured, folks — do not doubt me on this — is that this election is an Obama defeat. It is an Obama defeat, and it is made even worse by the fact that the victor was Benjamin Netanyahu, who Obama doesn’t like personally or professionally.
Don’t doubt that. Make no mistake about it. So this is a double whammy. It’s why, in the Associated Press you get a headline like this: “Netanyahu’s Likud Surges to Stunning Israeli Election Win.” What’s stunning about it? What really is stunning about it that the conventional wisdom had Netanyahu defeated. There’s nothing stunning here. Netanyahu won. It’s only stunning based on the projections that were made. It’s only stunning because of the expectations that were raised.
I could argue that this election is the most common-sensible election result that we could have. This is a huge stamp of approval for common sense. This is what everybody should have expected to happen, by the way. For anybody being honest with themselves, anybody using their own common sense, this should have been the expected outcome. Why in the world would the people of Israel be expected to vote against their own security and their peace?
Why would they? Yet that’s what be the Drive-Bys here told us would likely happen, that the Israeli people would vote against themselves. That’s what would happen if they sent Netanyahu out. If they will elected an Obama-like leader, they are electing Iran getting nuclear weapons. Is the common-sense expectation that’s what’s gonna happen? Well, to the American left it is, but to reasonably intelligent common-sensical people, it is no way expected.
What happened yesterday is the expected outcome, among people who think rationally. But the Drive-Bys were so invested in Netanyahu’s defeat because that’s what Obama wanted — and whatever Obama wants, Obama must have. John Podhoretz has a great piece in the New York Post. Pull quote: “Something else — something entirely unexpected — happened. Bibi’s Likud was expected to secure 20 to 22 seats in the Knesset on Tuesday night.
“That’s what all the polls showed. Instead, it appears Likud won 29, maybe 30 seats. Not only was that shockingly good for Likud, it was a far stronger showing than in the last election, because in 2013, the party had merged with another…” Another pull quote: “Bibi’s path to forming a new government is clear and should be relatively easy, especially compared to last time.
“He gambled his entire career and he won, just as he did with the speech in front of Congress earlier this month.” This election mirrored exactly what happens here when Democrats lose big. The polling prior to the election makes it look like the Democrats are gonna win big. The exit polling shows that the Democrats are indeed winning big. The media prior to the election is all in for the Democrat Party. But when the votes are finally counted, it’s a landslide defeat for the Democrat Party, a landslide defeat for the Drive-By Media.
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RUSH: No, folks, I can’t emphasize this enough. The Israeli media was totally wrong. Newspaper polls, television polls, news wire polls, completely wrong. Exit polls completely wrong. Obama effort to unseat Netanyahu, total failure. Netanyahu, landslide win.
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