RUSH: To Pittsburgh and Craig, nice to have you, sir. Welcome to the EIB Network.
CALLER: Oh, Rush, it’s a privilege to talk to you, what an honor.
RUSH: Thank you, sir.
CALLER: I don’t want to make a big spectacle of this Obama thing and the drugs, but if a Hillary staffer leaked the information, isn’t it the seriousness of the charges that should be investigated?
RUSH: Well, see, now, it’s interesting, because, in a campaign, these kinds of standards sort of evaporate. In this instance, I tried to explain this yesterday, you have a black Democrat, a liberal black Democrat who is the first legitimate top-tier presidential candidate. You have liberal to the core Drive-By Media types who have their roots as liberals in the civil rights movement. That’s where they came of age, and then you couple their education at journalism school and you get the typical Drive-By reporter today. Then you have Mrs. Clinton and her campaign, which these people have been whoring for since 1992. I think they’re getting tired of being whores. They’re stenographers, they’re rubber stamps, whatever the Clintons have said about people, they accept it as truth and go ask the people that Clinton are talking about, ‘Why would you sell cocaine, Senator McCain, or Governor Huckabee,’ instead of, ‘How dare you say that! Where’s the evidence?’ They’re doing what they should do, because this is the first black, legitimate liberal black presidential candidate that we’ve had here. Clean and articulate, as Joe Biden said. So I think Mrs. Clinton doesn’t get away with this.
If this were being said about a Republican candidate in the general election, and they leaked something like this, the Drive-Bys, ah, blood in the water. Then they would accept the fact, as you say, that it is the seriousness of the charge, not the nature of the evidence that requires that we investigate, requires that we pursue. So if this charge were made about a Republican presidential candidate, the Drive-Bys would have a greater inclination to pursue it, and if not conclude anything, just keep reminding everybody that the Republican candidate is alleged to have sold drugs, cocaine. With Obama, they just can’t abide it. They look, and they had all these years of being shloomps for the Clintons, and some of this stuff is starting to offend them, and so the normal rules are being thrown out. I have to tell you, folks, I had a little schadenfreude here. I really am enjoying the Clintons going through this struggle. I don’t believe that this is concocted. I think a portion of it was way back when because she was inevitable, yet they wanted to be able to demonstrate she could overcome a challenge. Did you see her in that debate yesterday? We’re not supposed to be talking about appearances, but the face-lift has fallen. She is showing the strains here. She is showing the pressure, and she’s not responding to it well.
She doesn’t look like she’s enjoying or having any fun with this. She has chosen campaign people not because of their competence, but because of their loyalty, and many of them have jumped ship to Obama anyway. And I think that it’s showing. I’m getting a thrill out of it, because these people have had a cakewalk. These people have not undergone any of the scrutiny that normal public figures go through in times of — she gets away with saying, ‘My husband didn’t have sex with that intern. There’s a vast right-wing conspiracy out to destroy us, it’s been the case since whenever,’ and they just report that, and this right-wing conspiracy stuff gets born. I can give you example, after example, after example, and they would disagree, say, ‘What do you mean, we have not been scrutinized? Ever heard of Whitewater and this and that and the other thing?’ You have been scrutinized not by the Drive-By Media. You have been scrutinized by the alternative media. The New York Times did its due diligence on the Whitewater thing, and there was some damning information, and people did go to jail in that circumstance. But, for the most part, they get a free ride.
Hillary, every time she’s on the cover of the New York Times magazine, it’s like she’s a queen. Beautiful picture, puff-piece article. It’s been more of the same for the vast majority of the time they’ve been in public life. Now this is not happening to them. They’re not getting the automatic pass. Bill Clinton’s out there screwing things up, like he always has when he is stumping for somebody else. The dirty little secret is he’s a drag on this campaign. He’s not helping. He doesn’t help very many Democrats that he does endorse. Gray Davis, Kathleen Kennedy Townsend. You can trace this stumble that she’s in the midst of here to the driver’s license thing, which, of course, was brought to national attention by me and then Clinton getting involved afterwards because it was such a blunder. The more she’s out there speaking, and him, look at what’s happening to the poll numbers of Obama and others and look at what’s happening to hers, the more he’s on the scene. This is the dirty little secret.
BREAK TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: Okay, back to the audio sound bites. We got an Obama ad. It’s a minute and 20 seconds long. He’s running an effective ad. It has an Iowa Clinton volunteer describe why she left Hillary for Obama, and the video shows her switching campaign signs in her yard, and she actually puts up a sign that says ‘Hope’ in the yard. Here is the audio of the ad.
KLOPFER: I’ve always been involved in politics. I’ve been co-chair of the central committee. I’ve run for office, and I’ve always voted, and so politics and the Democrat Party are important to me. Finally to see a woman run. I got involved early on licking stamps, stuffing envelopes, doing the things that a volunteer does; making hundreds of phone calls. I was really surprised to see personal attacks from one Democrat to the other Democrat, and when my husband and I sat and watched this on TV, we said, ‘What’s this campaign coming to?’ It’s silly to talk about being in kindergarten and — and deciding that you want to be president. Actually, if my kid said in kindergarten he wanted to be president, I’d call the grandparents. (chuckles) That would be an exciting thing. So that’s reaching kind of low. The negative stuff, it just isn’t going to work. I kept seeing this disconnect, and I decided, ‘No. No.’ I always liked Barack Obama. It was always difficult to make this decision, but it didn’t become difficult anymore. I’m Susan Klopfer, and I live in Mount Pleasant, Iowa, and I’m caucusing for Barack Obama.
RUSH: You know, she’s got a point about this kindergarten business. Every kid… That’s the great thing about this country, is that everybody grows up thinking they can be president. Here’s Mrs. Clinton saying, ‘It shows calculation. It shows he hasn’t been honest.’ That’s from the most calculating pair that we have had in American politics in a long time. So I just delight in seeing this stuff, because we haven’t seen it before. And we hope, we all hope it’s the result of people wising up because throughout the nineties, was that not the frustrating thing, that people bought into this soap opera as something serious and meaningful hook, line, and sinker? Listen to this. This is cool. Hardball with Chris Matthews last night via satellite from Iowa, he talked to Mark Penn, Hillary’s pollster. Obama strategist David Axelrod and Edwards campaign strategist Joe Trippi were also there. Matthews said, ‘Mark Penn, these comments that are coming out of your campaign from different directions, I’m not sure how they’re coming. Nobody does, but going after his perhaps youthful drug use, which he admitted in his book, and going after comments he made as a kindergarten student the age of five, I should say, do you think those are appropriate shots at the opponent, or are they below the belt?’
PENN: We’ve made clear that the — the (unintelligible) related to the cocaine use is not something that the campaign, uh, was in any way —
RUSH: Stop the tape. He caught hell for that, which you’ll hear in just a second. Recue this to the top, Mike. ‘We’ve made clear that the — the (unintelligible) related to the cocaine use…’ They’d just gotten through apologizing for her bringing all this up, and then they bring it up again.
PENN: We’ve made clear that the — the (unintelligible) related to cocaine use is not something that the campaign, uh, was in any way, uh, raising —
RUSH: It did!
PENN: — and I think that’s going to be clear. I think this kindergarten thing was a — a joke after Senator —
TRIPPI: You just did it again. You just said it again.
PENN: This kindergarten thing, after this —
TRIPPI: It’s unbelievable.
PENN: — what the senator did —
TRIPPI: It just literally —
PENN: Excuse me, Penn.
TRIPPI: No, no, no.
PENN: Excuse me.
TRIPPI: No, no, Mark. Excuse me.
PENN: Excuse ME! Excuse me!
TRIPPI: This guy is filibustering on this.
PENN: Ha-ha! Don’t do that.
TRIPPI: He just said ‘cocaine’ again. It’s like this is what —
PENN: I think you’re saying ‘cocaine.’
TRIPPI: No, no. You just did —
PENN: I don’t know, but I think you’re saying it.
TRIPPI: — and I think there’s something wrong with what’s going on.
PENN: I don’t know why you’re saying it.
MATTHEWS: Okay, Joe Trippi’s turn.
TRIPPI: No.
MATTHEWS: Joe Trippi’s turn.
TRIPPI: Look, what happened —
PENN: Excuse me.
TRIPPI: Look, the person who won today was — was John Edwards. He was talking about real stuff that — that is really, really affecting working people —
RUSH: In your dreams.
TRIPPI: — here in Iowa who are frustrated and worried about their jobs, while we listen to this garbage that’s been going on for a couple of days now, and needs to stop.
RUSH: Yeah. So you heard. They are flustered. They are still flustered, and they’re still trying the same old Clinton tricks, and they’re getting called on it now. In the next bite, which is a little longer than I have time to air at the moment, he tries to bring up the kindergarten thing again, and gets called on that. I’ll tell you, it’s just schadenfreude. I just enjoy, especially these people… I will admit it, folks. I’m a human being. I try to be above it, and I try not to be excited by the suffering of others, but with these two, it’s hard not to be.
BREAK TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: A little more on the Clinton implosion. Clearly, when you have Howard Fineman out there writing that she could lose four early states — Nevada, South Carolina, New Hampshire, and Iowa — there’s clearly something going on out there that was never planned for. I think the Clinton advisory team, the campaign team, they were just so smack-dab convinced that this primary stuff was just a coronation, it was essentially a coronation parade around the country, and they had it all figured out. They knew that the Republicans, after Mrs. Clinton got the nomination, were going to screw it up by going back and focusing on the nineties where the Clintons had all the sympathy and people wouldn’t want to relive that. Hillary’s talking about change, they had it all figured out. But then something went wrong at Wabash central. The sleaze, the techniques that you and I have all known Clinton, Inc., capable of and famous for started to show up when she began to run into problems, when the coronation ceased to be a coronation and actually became a battle. And guess what?
The sleaze and the typical character destruction, politics of personal destruction characteristics have been introduced into the campaign by the Clintons, by Clinton, Inc., and everybody can see this. Republicans haven’t said a word. Republicans haven’t done anything to cause this. Nor has Obama, other than show well. The only reason there is sleaze in this campaign is because the Clintons have produced it, and their guy continues to introduce it, Mark Penn, after last night trying to use the word cocaine again in association with Obama, after the campaign supposedly apologized for it, then tried to revitalize his kindergarten business. Matthews said to him, ‘Let me ask you this. Guys, you all know the history of Iowa caucuses. And it could be that you’re the campaign that slips ahead when the other two are fighting in the gutter, as somebody put it. If the campaigns of Hillary Clinton and the campaign of Barack Obama involve themselves in what the senator from Illinois said as a kindergarten student or whether he used drugs or shared them or whatever, doesn’t that allow John Edwards to sneak by, both of you guys?’
PENN: We all know that Senator Obama raised this question about whether or not there was a 20-year effort to become president, that he actually launched an attack. This kindergarten thing was something that was a joke at the end of a long research document. It was not meant to be taken seriously. What was serious was that Senator Obama said his being, you know, age 6 to 10 in Indonesia was a qualification for foreign affairs.
TRIPPI: I can’t believe we’re doing this again. This is amazing. (cross talk) Every day they go out and prove — every day they go out and prove that they’re a status quo candidacy. It’s not about change.
MATTHEWS: David Axelrod, I want to ask you a question. Do you believe that you’re a victim here? Is your candidate a victim here of a series of attempts to try to diminish him by going after his ambitions as a 5-year-old, his admitted drug use as a kid, as a youngster or younger person, is this an attempt to try to bring him down to size so the Clintons can beat him?
AXELROD: Well, look, you’d have to ask Mark what the intention was.
RUSH: They’re not rising to the bait at all, the Obama people are not rising to the bait at all. So here you have Penn once again bringing up this kindergarten business and the 20-year ambition to be president, as though Mrs. Clinton just decided last year that she wanted to be president.
BREAK TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: A little more on the Clinton implosion. Clearly, when you have Howard Fineman out there writing that she could lose four early states — Nevada, South Carolina, New Hampshire, and Iowa — there’s clearly something going on out there that was never planned for. I think the Clinton advisory team, the campaign team, they were just so smack-dab convinced that this primary stuff was just a coronation, it was essentially a coronation parade around the country, and they had it all figured out. They knew that the Republicans, after Mrs. Clinton got the nomination were going to screw it up by going back and focusing on the nineties where the Clintons had all the sympathy and people wouldn’t want to relive that. Hillary’s talking about change, they had it all figured out. But then something went wrong at Wabash central. The sleaze, the techniques that you and I have all known Clinton, Inc., capable of and famous for started to show up when she began to run into problems, when the coronation ceased to be a coronation and actually became a battle. And guess what?
The sleaze and the typical character destruction, politics of personal destruction characteristics have been introduced into the campaign by the Clintons, by Clinton, Inc., and everybody can see this. Republicans haven’t said a word. Republicans haven’t done anything to cause this. Nor has Obama, other than show well. The only reason there is sleaze in this campaign is because the Clintons have produced it, and their guy continues to introduce it, Mark Penn, after last night trying to use the word cocaine again in association with Obama, after the campaign supposedly apologized for it, then tried to revitalize his kindergarten business. Matthews said to him, ‘Let me ask you this. Guys, you all know the history of Iowa caucuses. And it could be that you’re the campaign that slips ahead when the other two are fighting in the gutter, as somebody put it. If the campaigns of Hillary Clinton and the campaign of Barack Obama involve themselves in what the senator from Illinois said as a kindergarten student or whether he used drugs or shared them or whatever, doesn’t that allow John Edwards to sneak by, both of you guys?’
PENN: We all know that Senator Obama raised this question about whether or not there was a 20-year effort to become president, that he actually launched an attack. This kindergarten thing was something that was a joke at the end of a long research document. It was not meant to be taken seriously. What was serious was that Senator Obama said his being, you know, age 6 to 10 in Indonesia was a qualification for foreign affairs.
TRIPPI: I can’t believe we’re doing this again. This is amazing. (cross talk) Every day they go out and prove — every day they go out and prove that they’re a status quo candidacy. It’s not about change.
MATTHEWS: David Axelrod, I want to ask you a question. Do you believe that you’re a victim here? Is your candidate a victim here of a series of attempts to try to diminish him by going after his ambitions as a 5-year-old, his admitted drug use as a kid, as a youngster or younger person, is this an attempt to try to bring him down to size so the Clintons can beat him?
AXELROD: Well, look, you’d have to ask Mark what the intention was.
RUSH: They’re not rising to the bait at all, the Obama people are not rising to the bait at all. So here you have Penn once again bringing up this kindergarten business and the 20-year ambition to be president, as though Mrs. Clinton just decided last year that she wanted to be president.