RUSH: We’ve been here. We’ve been here before, folks.
We have been here. Yesterday on this program I cited and shared with you how livid I was back in 1991 when this Clarence Thomas-Anita Hill thing was going on. I made mention of this because I’m feeling the identical sense of anger and outrage now. But there are substantial differences. In 1991, CNN was the only cable news network and this show (and some other local conservative radio talk shows which had begun to spring up) was it.
There was no blogosphere. There was no Fox News. There was nothing. This show and other related local radio talk shows were it in terms of conservative opposition, and when I was talking about how angry I felt yesterday, it triggered something in Cookie’s mind. Cookie controls the archive of audio sound bites of this program, not just sound bites we’ve used, but actual sound bites of me. And it triggered something. She went back to our archives and she found in 1991 in October an appearance I made on Charlie Rose.
It was after this show, by the way. I’ve never been invited back by Charlie Rose and PBS. Not that I’m whining about it. I’m not. It’s just historical fact. I want to play these sound bites for you because what they show is we’ve been here before. It is the same exact playbook. It is the identical thing. Back in 1991, I had to go on TV to refute these clowns. I don’t have to do that now. But back then I did. I was so livid, I can’t tell you. I didn’t know Clarence Thomas, but I knew what this was.
I knew this was not about sexual harassment with Anita Hill. This was about denying Clarence Thomas a seat on the United States Supreme Court. One of the most easy, instinctive things I have ever done is defend Clarence Thomas. I had people saying to me at the time, “Rush, you’re really way out there. You don’t know the guy.” “I don’t care. I do know the guy. I know plenty of people who know him. I’ve seen him talk. My instincts on this are this is a fine, decent man. I know he’s being railroaded. I know this is a typical, left-wing trick.”
I had no doubt then; I’ve got no doubt now. Let’s go back. I just want to share this with you for the purposes of demonstrating to people that this is just another page from the playbook, that we’ve been here before, that there’s nothing even really unique about this in terms of Democrat strategy. So it’s October 15, 2001, Charlie Rose’s show on PBS.
It aired at 11 o’clock at night live on PBS back then. He had me on with the executive director of the New York Urban League, whose name was Harriet Michel. We’re talking about Thomas’ appointment to Supreme Court. Charlie started by saying, “What should the Senate Judiciary Committee have done if somebody comes to their attention and raises the issue of sexual harassment? What should the committee have done?”
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RUSH ARCHIVE: The thing that has to be done is the American system of jurisprudence has to be consistent in focusing. I kept hearing people talking about “the seriousness of the charges.” The seriousness of the charges is irrelevant. The nature of the evidence is what’s relevant. The presumption is always with the accused and just ’cause someone comes forth at the last moment and claims that something happened, her accusation cannot be regarded as evidence. And, if there’s nothing to corroborate it, there is no way — just because she charges it — any weight should be given it.
ROSE: All right, it’s evidence but it doesn’t have corroboration, but — but —
RUSH: No, it’s not evidence! An accusation is not evidence. It can’t be evidence.
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RUSH: It can’t be! An allegation is never evidence, it cannot be evidence — and, notice, back then they didn’t care. It was evidence. It was the seriousness of the charge. They didn’t care about it being corroborated, just like today. Her lawyer is saying, “It’s not her job to corroborate the charge. The charge is enough! The allegation is enough. When we say it, that’s what happened.” That’s their cock-certain, arrogant attitude. “When we say it, it happened, and it’s up to investigators to prove that it didn’t.”
Why hasn’t the woman come forward before now? Why has she not accepted the invitation to come to the committee? F. Chuck Todd’s out there saying, “Do you people who think that a woman of her age would destroy her life by coming forward like Christine Blasey Ford is now, you don’t understand left-wing…” What do you mean, destroy her life? Has Anita Hill’s life been destroyed or is she become a hero? Anita Hill’s become a heroine! They still make books about her.
They take something that didn’t happen, they make it look like it did happen, and they make her a hero victim. They’re now trying to say that Anita Hill was actually at the forefront of the #MeToo movement. There has yet to be a shred of evidence that Clarence Thomas did what he was alleged to have done, and yet look what they’ve done with it — and they’re in the process of doing the same thing to Kavanaugh, and I’m afraid we don’t have an Arlen Specter this year.
Oh! In fact, if you forgot… I got three more of these Charlie Rose sound bites. Hang on. Arlen Specter back in 1991 just took it to Anita Hill. Legally. I don’t mean in an unfair way. He just destroyed her as a witness, and I think it had such a profound impact on him. It’s one of the reasons why he became a Democrat much later on in life. I heard somebody say on Fox that that couldn’t happen today. It was last night. It was last night. Somebody on Fox was saying, “Yeah, there could not be the kind of interrogation of Anita Hill by Arlen Spector in this #MeToo movement.”
See? So a woman makes an allegation and we cannot probe her as though she is a human being. Arlen Specter ripped Anita Hill apart, demonstrated that a lot of this could not be backed up, had no evidence — and he got creamed for it; don’t misunderstand. But the idea that today we couldn’t do that? Like if this woman were to show up and be interrogated or questioned, we couldn’t do to her what Arlen Specter did to Anita Hill.
Which means because of the #MeToo movement we pretty much have to go with whatever a woman who claimed to have been abused says. We can’t investigate too much, we can’t probe too much because that then is potentially harming psychologically to the victim and all this.” All of this is part of the plan too. To soften any attempt to get to the truth of these things has been long part of the strategy. Let me go back to the Charlie Rose sound bites. After that bite where I made it plain to Charlie Rose that an allegation is not evidence because it doesn’t have corroboration, Charlie said, “Well, it is evidence. It just doesn’t have corroboration.”
I said, “No. It is not evidence. It cannot be evidence.”
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RUSH: I think that what’s happened here is that liberals fear the democratic process because people vote against liberal things. Liberals cannot win the White House. When the referendum is conservatism versus liberalism, liberalism loses in landslides. The Supreme Court is the most important political branch of government to liberals. That’s where all of liberalism has found its way into our society and they’ve lost it now and they feel they have no recourse. It’s sheer panic out there, I think, Charlie, and I don’t exaggerate here. I think that they are palpably worried —
ROSE: Yeah.
RUSH: — that they now no longer have a route to the mainstream of society.
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RUSH: Right, and this kept going. The next sound bite here is… Let’s see, what is it? I asked Harriet Michel of the New York Urban League if she believed Anita Hill.
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RUSH: Do you believe her?
MICHEL: Do I believe her?
RUSH: Why do you believe her?
MICHEL: Yes, I believe her.
RUSH: Why would you believe her? Can I ask you why you believe her?
MICHEL: I — I — I believe her — I be —
RUSH: She offered no evidence, Harriet. There was no —
ROSE: You asked the question. Let her answer.
MICHEL: That’s exactly right. I believe that for everybody to make this assumption that Clarence Thomas, the public persona, cannot possibly — under any circumstances, in a room one on one with a female — be gross and be obnoxious is out of their minds.
RUSH: Wait a minute. What’s dangerous is assuming he did it with no evidence.
MICHEL: I don’t — I don’t assume that he did it. I believe —
RUSH: If you believe her, you have to.
MICHEL: I believe that it’s possible that he did it, and I believe that four —
RUSH: So we convict him on that?
MICHEL: — lawyers coming forward —
RUSH: We convict him on the possibility?
MICHEL: This wasn’t a trial though!
RUSH: Oh, it was.
MICHEL: And the fact that the possibility… I happen to believe there is a cloud that follows him.
RUSH: Because what?
MICHEL: I happen to believe it.
RUSH: Because what?
MICHEL: Because I don’t think…
RUSH: She wants there to be a cloud.
MICHEL: I think that she was a credible —
RUSH: I think you want there to be a cloud.
MICHEL: No, I think —
RUSH: That’s what this is all about.
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RUSH: No evidence. No reason to believe her. She just chooses to believe her. It’s where we are — exactly where we are here — with the same kind of thinking, the same kind of thing. Well, there’s no reasoning going on here. This is pure politics. None of these people know this woman, I don’t think. (chuckling) You know, before this is all over, we might find out that this woman’s family had something to do with Perkins Coie, which had something to do with the Steele dossier. I mean, anything is possible with this group of people!
Would you be surprised if this woman was found to have roots by virtue of people she’s known to the Steele dossier and to the effort to get Trump kicked out? Would you be surprised if, after all this shakes out, we found out this woman is actually a resistance activist? I’m not saying so. Although if I wanted to be like a liberal, I could I could make an allegation right here. “I don’t have any evidence but I could start making the claim this woman is a left-wing activist.
“She’s got ties to the Steele dossier! She’s part of the effort to get rid of Donald Trump and has been from day one.” “You can’t say that!” “Why?” “Because you don’t know it to be true.” “Well, you don’t know that what she’s saying is true, either, but you’re choosing to believe her.” It’s a one-way street with this stuff. So here’s Harriet Michel who doesn’t know Clarence Thomas and look at what she said. There’s a lot of talk-back there.
But she said, “I believe that for everybody to make this assumption that Clarence Thomas, the public persona, cannot possibly — under any circumstances, in a room one-on-one with a female — be gross and be obnoxious is out of their minds.” Meaning you’d be crazy to assume the guy has any morals. You would be crazy to assume that Clarence Thomas behaves himself. In her world, it’s totally reasonable to think that Clarence Thomas would force himself on women, one-on-one in a room! That’s what she’s running around claiming she believes.
Is it any different today?
Here is the final sound bite, and this is basically Charlie Rose and Harriet Michel. Just listen to this. It will be self-explanatory.
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MICHEL: Don’t you think that some men were struck by the fact that if this woman’s charge had prevented, uh, Clarence Thomas from going on the Supreme Court, that that would then, a lot of men interpret that as perhaps encouraging some other women to come forward and make similar charges? Don’t you think if they could get him there and settle this, that means that they’re not as vulnerable? They didn’t feel as vulnerable themselves about similar charges?
ROSE: Let me disagree with that. I think, Harriet, that this at least — among other things — has raised a consciousness on sexual harassment and therefore it’s not so much getting men getting behind them. But it raised the consciousness, and I suspect that there’s a different kind of conversation taking place in the workplace in America as a result of this.
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RUSH: Ah, right, of course was. And that’s Charlie Rose out there saying that this will change the way men view sexual harassment. It didn’t change the way Charlie viewed it. I think CBS had to get rid of him, right? CBS is trying to erase any awareness that Charlie Rose ever worked there! They’re getting rid of all the pictures of him in the lobby and all of that. Yet here he was carrying the water for the left back in the Clarence Thomas days. So you see, my friends, we’ve been here and done that. There isn’t anything new except the players are different and the race is different. Clarence Thomas and Anita Hill were both African-American. Kavanaugh and Christine Blasey Ford both white privilege.
BREAK TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: Those sound bites of me on Charlie Rose are 27 years ago, folks. That’s 27 years. And you’ll notice that what I believed and stated back then is identical to today, rock solid because my core is my core. My core beliefs are not calculated daily or weekly or monthly or annually. They are what they are. You’ll also notice that nothing changes with the left. It’s the same things that motivate ’em and animate ’em and it’s the same strategies and tactics that they use.