| Media Agrees with Wilson: 2+2=5 |
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July 18, 2005 |
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BEGIN TRANSCRIPT |
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RUSH: I've been doing this -- what is it? Seventeenth anniversary is on August 1st, right? So we're going to be starting our 18th year in this, and I've said during these 18 years that I don't think there's much more that can surprise me. I don't think that lower depths can be plumbed, but they are -- and I am amazed, folks, at what is happening here. This get-Rove epidemic, this story was over on Thursday and Friday, and the media stood down; the DC media stood down -- and then all of a sudden somebody decided they had to keep this going because their credibility is at stake, and I'll tell you what's happening here. The best way to try to understand this -- because it's almost impossible to keep up with it, and the reason it's impossible to keep up with it is because, if you try, you become overwhelmed with disbelief. There are sets of facts in this whole Karl Rove-Joe Wilson story, and many of those facts are purposely left out in every mainstream press report you can see from the New York Times to the Washington Post to the LA Times to the news magazines to the Sunday shows, and yet we know what they're leaving out.
We know what they're not telling us the truth about. We know what they're fudging. We know what they're lying about, and we know what they are omitting. Now, I think what's happening here is this is exactly how the press conducted itself and always has conducted itself. When they were in control of the facts, they only reported those facts that they wanted you to know. Anything that conflicted with their view or their purpose was omitted -- and they're still acting this way. You know, we think at some point that when they're called on all their errors -- such as Memogate and such as Newsweek with phony reporting about Koran abuse down at Club G'itmo -- we keep thinking that there's going to be some reform. We keep thinking they're going to see the light and understand that they've got to clean up because there's more scrutiny on it. But it's not the case at all, just like the Democrat Party. The Democrat Party is out there lying through its teeth practically every day about Bush, about Bush judicial nominees, about the war in Iraq or whatever.
The fact that they're lying is perfectly established and easily done, and yet they keep it up! As though the opposite story or the alternative side of the story is not knowable -- and the press and this Rove thing. I sat here this morning and said, "How can I present this in a way that's going to be, A, understandable and interesting," and I got to the point here where I just threw up my hands a couple times because it would just be the same show we did last Tuesday. It would be the same show we did last Wednesday. It would be the same show we did last Thursday! In fact, I could have rerun last Tuesday's, Wednesday's, Thursday's and Friday's show to counter what was in the press over the weekend and was in the papers this morning. The fact this they are leaving out relevant facts, relevant information, ignoring other things -- like the Senate intelligence committee testimony and report on Joe Wilson -- the fact that they're leaving out the fact that the CIA unveiled Valerie Plame's identity a year or two before Robert Novak ever did.
 They're leaving out the fact that the media itself in filing briefs in this very case to keep their reporters out of jail and to keep their sources secret filed their brief, 34 or 36 media organizations joined in this brief and their whole point was that no crime had been committed, and yet their own brief doesn't matter! What they tell the court is one thing. What they're telling you and the people in the general public is quite another, and it's breathtaking to watch this. It's Twilight Zone time. It's other-planet time. It's third dimension time. It's almost hard, folks, to keep track of it because it's so hard to believe. It's as though it's still 1972. There is no alternative media. There is no other source or there are no other sources for the things the mainstream press is leaving out, and yet they act like they still own it all and whatever is out there that is in opposition to what they're saying is irrelevant and doesn't matter, and they're missing the boat on this. They are in the midst of an implosion. They are destroying themselves.
They're literally destroying themselves here, and their credibility -- what little they have left. Then you've got Matthew Cooper, who goes on the Russert show yesterday -- and that was a disgrace yesterday. It was an absolute disgrace, and to call John Podesta in from the Clinton administration to ask about ethics in the White House, this current White House. You watch this, you can't believe it. It's a dream. It's a dream; it's a nightmare. You cannot believe this is happening and you wonder, "What world are these people on? What planet are they on? What lens are they looking through?" because it doesn't compute. None of this does. It's sort of like when they circled the wagons after the Newsweek Koran story. They made damn certain that that story as an error wouldn't survive, that they were going to find all kinds of abuses worse than what the Newsweek story was -- and, of course, they incorporated the Democratic Party as their willing accomplices to try to get this done. It's... It's... I'm out of words to describe this. I really am out of words to describe it. There is no story here. There is no crime here -- at least not the one that's being alleged by all the people aimed at Karl Rove. |
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For example, you can find in the LA Times today a reference to the fact that Karl Rove and now "Scooter" Libby who is Cheney's chief of staff were "on the warpath" trying to make sure that Wilson was discredited and his story was discredited. Everybody knew his wife was an agent. On the warpath? They answered the phone! They were minding their own business and reporters were calling them. Yet the impression is left that Rove and Libby are working the phones, calling reporters trying to get even with Wilson, and there's another aspect of the story here that is being framed that the administration wanted to punish Wilson for blowing the whistle on them. But we know he didn't blow the whistle! He blew his responsibility to track down the story. He didn't even file a written report. Did you know this? Joe Wilson didn't even file a written report. He came back and the reported to the CIA, and they probably wrote down what he said -- and then it all goes to the CIA and the intelligence committee, and the original conclusion is, "My gosh! What this guy found pretty much bucks up what we've been told," and yet Wilson claims that he is the victim here of revenge because he is a whistle-blower. What's going on here is that Wilson came back, the White House was trying to protect reporters from believing what the guy said because he was going down the wrong road about things. My favorite analogy -- I'm sorry it's lame, but I can't think of a better one -- it's like you know that 2 + 2 = 4, but TIME Magazine is telling you it's 5 because Joe Wilson says it's 5, and Karl Rove insists it's 4, but Rove has an agenda to destroy Wilson so Wilson is right: 2 + 2 = 5.
And you sit here, you scratch your head, and it just is breathtaking to watch this. I'm sitting... I'm actually... Well, I know I sound a little frustrated by it. I am. I can't help but think that this is just as destructive as it could be. I know that with Cooper going to the grand jury and coming back and going on television to tell everything that happened there, that's not going to help reporting here in Washington. That's going to shut down people who want to serve as sources. This single-mindedness here of getting Bush any way possible, whether it's genuine or not is so obvious. The media is destroying itself, ignoring many facts in order to present their version of "Rove is guilty." I mean we all know as much as they know but they only report what they want to report, as though we have no access to what they're leaving out, but yet we all do. Gotta take a break. I'll give you some details what I'm talking about when we come back. Sit tight. Oh, and The Forehead! The Forehead went out there and spoke to this same bunch of young skulls full of mush, liberal college students that Clinton spoke to last week, and The Forehead is out there saying, essentially, that the Republicans want to kill us all -- meaning the liberals. I mean, there's genuine hysteria out there on the left, folks, and it's no longer hidden. It's effervesced and it's bubbling over the surface now.
BREAK TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: Let's go the audiotape here, ladies and gentlemen. First I want you to hear this. This happened on CNN on Friday. Lou Dobbs Tonight. This is funny. He's talking to his audience. He says, "Tonight a surprising new development in the CIA leak investigation. Karl Rove's testimony to a federal grand jury is being reported. That testimony suggests that President Bush's political advisor may not have been the original source for the Valerie Plame leak," and here's where Dobbs picked it up, and then a female voice off camera shouted, "That's BS!" when Dobbs gets to a certain point. We've edited out the last syllable of "That's BS" because this is a family program, but listen to this. See if you can pick it up.
DOBBS: Rove testifying that he first learned about Plame from columnist Robert Novak, a CNN distributor. Dana Bash reports.
FEMALE VOICE: That's bull s---!
RUSH: So somebody off camera said, "That's..." and you know what the BS word is, and I play this for you just to -- and the media's got their minds made up. They had Rove in the crosshairs. Rove is guilty, and since they've decided it, it is going to happen. We move on now to the story on CNN. Joe Johns, Bob Frank and Ed Henry are discussing the media. They're sitting around discussing how the Rove story could somehow help journalists restore their credibility, and Ed Henry said, "This precedence coming at a time of the media is also under assault separately and credibility is on the line. I think those two are coming at almost a perfect storm and it's really an important time for the media to step up and show that we do have credibility and really open up the process on is people understand that we're open about it," and Bob Franken said.
FRANKEN: Well, and part of it is, what do you mean by "we"? We do we include Internet? Do we include blogs? Do we include the talk show people like Rush Limbough [sic]? Who are the media? It's a tough question, and really it's gotten so splintered that, uh, one of the effects might be that credibility has gone down a bit.
RUSH: A bit? Bob, you've lost it! You don't have any credibility -- and I'll tell you who Ed Henry is talking about. He's talking about you! He's talking about you: TIME Magazine, New York Times, LA Times, Washington Post. That's who he talks about. He's not talking about me. You guys are only worried about me to the extent that we're presenting the opposite version from what you present. We're presenting all the facts in this. You're only presenting the facts that you want to advance your own agenda. You are a political party now. The mainstream press has become -- and many of them admit it -- for all practical purposes, a political party -- and that's why they're ignoring facts, and the New York Times is leading this crusade and the others are just as excited to have something done. I mean, folks, Joe Wilson is a complete and proven phony. His wife's intense efforts at the CIA bureaucracy to promote him despite her knowing exactly where he was coming from? Meanwhile, the New York Times has never run a correction about his op-ed which is laced with falsehoods -- and they know it given the Senate intelligence committee's findings. He also lied to the Washington Post. They've never run corrections, despite Wilson's admission to the Senate intel committee that he provided inaccurate information to them -- and the rest of the media continue to pretend that Wilson is a legitimate victim, when he's the perpetrator in all this, the person at the center of this storm. |
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 Joe Wilson and his wife Valerie are being portrayed as the big victims here. and I'll bet you that if you dig deep you'll find that they are the source for all this working with Democrats -- and they were undercover, both of them undercover working with Democrats to undermine the Bush war on terror and the war in Iraq. She used her CIA position to ignite this entire firestorm. Mark Levin has gone through all this. You can see it at National Review Online. They posted it sometime this morning. As I say, your head's going to start spinning when you start reading all this because you're going to have read or heard what's in the mainstream media; then you're going to read what's not in the mainstream media and literally you're going to be amazed -- if you're not already. Audio sound bite #5. This is Meet the Press yesterday, the roundtable discussion. He had Bob Woodward and Bernstein's new book, and is talking to Carl Bernstein, and Russert says, "Well, Mr. Felt was sharing this information with Bob Woodward and Woodward with you and Carl Bernstein. You early on had a sense of just the bigness of it. While getting a cup of coffee at the machine in the Washington Post you turned to Bob Woodward and said, 'Oh, my God Richard Nixon is going to be impeached,' and Woodward said, 'Don't ever say that in this newsroom.'"
BERNSTEIN: That's correct, and the reason is that context is all. It's not just the individual facts. Just as context is all in the Karl Rove case [sic]. It's not just about Karl Rove. It's about WMD. It's about the truthfulness of the White House, and in Watergate we were able to get this context very early because -- not originally Deep Throat but rather the bookkeeper for the Committee for the Reelection of the President, some other sources that Bob and I had and Mark Felt -- all described to us this incredible, quote, "switchblade atmosphere" in the White House, and that context told us Watergate wasn't just about a break-in. It was about a mentality.
RUSH: And so here you have the Watergate mentality and the template on full display. You know, folks, as I say, "I love being right, because I am so often," but this is so transparent. They're not fooling anybody with all of this. That's the thing. They are not converting; they're not persuading. They're not fooling anybody with all of this. They're just trying to reenact the glory days of Watergate. Get Woodward and Bernstein to talk about this? Before these guys appeared on Meet the Press, Matt Cooper was there. That interview with Russert was ridiculous. He was willing to discuss his testimony about Rove and Libby, but not about others, and I find that strange. He obviously had a waiver to talk about other people, and yet he refused to talk publicly about them. The journalistic principle in picking and choosing what you tell the public, and Russert didn't call him on this? By the way, some of you think that he leaked grand jury testimony. He didn't. If you appear before a grand jury, you can say what went on in there. You are clear and freely able to describe your own experiences in front of the grand jury. So there's no leak of grand jury information here. But I think we have to make clear here what the media will not make clear, and that is that the Senate intelligence committee found unanimously major and repeated false claims by Joe Wilson. The media not only ignores that, but you have columnists promoting his assertions as truthful -- and that's what's mind-boggling about this. The Senate intelligence committee report, normally these guys revel and love and believe anything a government report says because that's their big ally.
Another thing I find interesting. They say that they need these sources to find out what's going on in government to bring down those engaged in scandal so forth. Normally these guys love big government. You put a Democrat in the White House these guys aren't going to dig deep to find out anything and they will spike stories in fact harmful to a Democrat president, i.e., Lewinsky and Kathleen Willey and all of these other things. But change the occupant of the White House, the government becomes the big enemy here. So the fact is, this could prove the utter undoing of the media. This is no different than Rathergate. This is no different than Newsweek's Korangate. They say one thing in court; they say another thing to the public. They embrace Wilson's demonstrable lies to perpetuate the notion that he's an objective diplomat put upon by the White House. They conceal Valerie Plame's role in instigating this scandal from her spot at the CIA, but the conclusions that can be drawn from this are absolutely clear. We have the media forging a story now. Basically they're writing their own story. This is a forged story. The forged story is based on Joe Wilson who may as well be Bill Burkett in this case. Valerie Plame may as well be Mary Mapes in this case, and they're using selective information in order to make their case because they're not willing to give up. They thought they had Rove last Wednesday and Thursday, and then that New York Times story on Friday blew it to hell; they spent the weekend trying to put it back together by ignoring everything exculpatory toward Rove and everybody else.
BREAK TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: The old nonpartisan Joe Wilson. (chuckles) He's just a mainstream guy; he just got caught up in all this just trying to serve his country, right? A number of left-wing websites today are featuring an ad, and the ad reads: "Congressman John Conyers invites you to Rovegate / DSM house parties. Special guests include Joe Wilson." DSM is "Downing Street Memo," which, as you know, is more sacred than the Bible in some corners of the left. Wilson is the guy who stood up with Chuck Schumer (D-NY) last week in a press conference and said, "This is not a partisan issue, and for the Republican National Committee to try and turn this into a partisan fight, I think, is unfortunate." So while he stresses that everything he's doing is nonpartisan; he's going to show up with one of the kookiest members of the US Congress, John Conyers from Michigan, to one of these Rovegate / Downing Street Memo house parties. Here's Dominic in Sheboygan, Wisconsin. Nice to have on you the program, sir, welcome.
CALLER: Thanks. Dittos, Rush. I think this story with Karl Rove is just going to disappear, just like the Bob Woodward book. I mean, the Bob Woodward book came out, everyone was all in a tizzy. "Oh, it's going to hurt Bush," and everything like that, and now this is already starting to fade -- and even my liberal coworkers, they're not even -- usually they walk past me in the hall and fling something at me that they got from the media and, you know, a couple weeks ago it was Rove, and now it's nothing, and I already think it's starting to disappear.
RUSH: Yeah, I hope you're right. I have the same sense as you do, and I'm glad you called and said this, because this whole Rove story has bothered me as a human being as well a broadcaster and eminent talk show host across this country since it broke, and I have really struggled with this whole notion of "do I spend all this time on it?" Because, frankly, I haven't wanted to. This is one of those rare times where I have spent far more time on something than I really cared to or than I was even interested in, because it's such BS. It's such BS, but then again, it's not. I mean, just on the surface, it's the media, perhaps, with as glaring as example yet of their bias, of their lack of honesty of the duplicitous nature that they engage in with themselves and of their efforts to actually harm a sitting presidency and perhaps force him from office, or at least render "lame-duck status," and I never thought this story took off. It's just like if you go back to the week before the elections. Remember that New York Times story on the Tuesday before the election about the "missing" explosives in Iraq and how it was somehow Bush's fault? It was nothing other than a rehashed old story, and it was designed to turn the election -- and it fizzled, and it didn't work. Rathergate didn't work. Bill Burkett didn't work. The Korangate didn't work. Abu Ghraib has not worked. Club G'itmo has not worked. Now, but why? I think it's not enough to just sit here and say, "Well, the media is imploding and everybody knows it," because you still have to inform people how. You still have to give them examples in order for them to be fully informed -- and that's been the struggle here, if you don't mind my sharing it with you, to sit here and have to everyday. |
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I'm just getting so sick and tired of responding to lies. I just don't watch the Sunday shows anymore, folks. Somebody said to me the other day, "Well how come you don't watch?" I said, "Because I gotta deal with lies Monday through Friday. I need at least two days off." I can't handle seven days of lies. I cannot handle it. I don't want to deal with it anymore. I've got better things to do, especially with weekends, and to sit there and watch a bunch of prefabricated, planned and orchestrated lies. I'm tired of watching Sunday shows that are nothing more than an attempt to uplift the Democratic Party and promote its agenda and that of the American left. I don't need to watch it anymore because I know it's not working. They're on the downward spiral, but at the same time I know why they're on the downward spiral and that's because people are being given the alternative information, and there comes the conflict. All right, I don't want to talk about this, but I'd better because it's so important -- and the same thing today. I thought this story was over on Friday, and then here comes yesterday, and now the newspapers today, and by gosh, if they haven't just ginned it all back up as though last Friday didn't happen, as though last Thursday didn't happen! This is as though there hasn't been any contradictory information to what they're presenting out there at all. So I'm looking at a forged story. We're reporting another forged story. We're looking at a made-up story. In fact this story has already been written. It's not being written as it happens. It's already been written and the selectively used facts that could advance the story as written are used, but they're lies so they're not even really facts.
 The facts that can be used to demonstrate the lies and the stories in the mainstream press are being ignored, and it's those things that we've tried to spend time here in the past five days informing you of. But at the same time, just as Dominic said, the story is fading. It never was that big a deal. I speculated last week: If you did a name-recognition survey in this country, what percentage of Americans you think ever heard of Karl Rove? I bet it's less than 5% that ever heard of Karl Rove, and yet they're trying to make a case on getting rid of Bush and getting rid of Rove. TIME Magazine, New York Times, LA Times, Washington Post, all these stories, they're not being written for you. They're not being written for their readers. They're being written for other journalists. The journalists are just writing amongst themselves. We now have the front pages totally taken over by activists. The New York Times is nothing more than an underground left-wing newspaper anymore. You can't distinguish the difference in the front page and the editorial page particularly on a big story like this -- and they're out there, and they've still got something to hide, their reporter in jail. I don't want to beat dead horse on that, but it's just as I say, it's almost incomprehensible to watch this -- and there is this notion, "Well, does anybody still care about it?" But the thing that gnaws at me is that I don't want to take for granted that it's fading and that everybody understands what this is because it's too important.
I was telling somebody over the weekend. I said, "You know, I really did not get into radio for this. I didn't get into radio to be standing up here and defending this and defending that and defending that every day. I got into radio for a whole bunch of different reasons." Okay, what's happened has happened. The show has evolved and it's become what it is. Sometimes there's a sense of duty associated with this now, and that's also frustrating. I do it, just like when duty calls you do it; whatever duty is and wherever, but by the same token, at the same time, I am so eager for these guys to have their final death blow. I just want them to be defunct. I want whenever they run a story like this for the mass national reaction to be, "Ha-ha! Ho-ho! Hee-hee! You expect us to believe you after Rathergate, after Korangate, after all the lies and things that you've made up about Bush and the war on Iraq? You expect us to believe this?" and maybe it's slowly starting to happen out there -- and maybe not even slowly. But it's just, you know, five days on one story! The fact that we're even doing this indicates to you just how passionate the desire is on the part of the mainstream press to get rid of these people, and it also should indicate what their real purpose is, and it needs to be dealt with, and that's the bottom line. Jim in Washington, DC. Welcome to the EIB Network. Great to have you with us.
CALLER: Mega dittos, Rush.
RUSH: Thank you.
CALLER: It's an honor to talk to you.
RUSH: Thank you, sir.
CALLER: I just wanted to say, you know, if you listen to the press conference with the Indian prime minister, it looks like Bush is giving the media just enough rope to hang themselves with his latest statement that if there is a criminal leak, that person can't work with his information. In other words, he's basically saying, you know, "Go ahead. Keep this story going for as long as you want. Dispose of as much of your credibility as you want," and then at the end when the actual facts come out, you know, the damage is going to be incalculable.
RUSH: Yeah, but you know something? I understand that. That may be what the president is doing. I don't know that that's what he's doing. I'll play the bite for you that Jim is referring to here before we go to the break in just a second. That may well be what he's doing. I'm not sure that it is. But if that's the case, that should have been Friday. This story was over on Friday when the New York Times itself reported that Karl Rove did not leak the name, that Matthew Cooper did, that Karl Rove did not hear it from... What was the story on Friday? This is how confusing this is all getting. Rove could not have leaked it because he was told about it from who? Cooper? Yeah, journalists told him. Journalists knew who Plame was. Journalists knew who it was, and journalists were calling around town asking questions about it, and that's where Rove found out about it, and that's what the story was on Friday. It should have been over there. This story should have been over there. Anybody in the media with self-respect, it would have been over. But, no. They have to ignore that story. It doesn't fit the template, doesn't fit the agenda so ignore that, and go to Sunday as though Friday never happened. So we're just going to omit Friday that last week's news cycle. We're just going to omit it. It never happened. Somebody better than me is going to have to come up with a way of dealing with this in any other way than I have because, frankly, folks, I'm getting tired of it. I have lost all respect for those people. I resent that they get so much attention on this program. The media is discredited already in my mind.
They're setting themselves up. They don't need the president to do it -- and they're doing it in a time-honored way of good old human nature: They're lying, and they're lying to themselves, and I don't care what you think, that never takes you very far. At some point the jig is going to be up. The jig was up on Friday. The jig was up with Bill Burkett and Rathergate. The jig was up on the phony Koran story. But they don't see it yet because they haven't accomplished the mission. They have a mission -- and to hell with the facts! To hell with the truth! But they can't put it off anymore. If this were 1972 and Watergate they could pull it off because only their facts would get out, and so only those facts would be known. But now anybody in this country can learn what they're not being told and in the process by learning what they're not being told, learn who it is that's lying to them -- and if you think this is not hurting the mainstream press's credibility, think again, because it is. Here's this Bush bite. He got a question today with his press conference with the Indian prime minister. The first question came from the AP's Terrence Hunt. He asks, "Mr. President, you said that you don't want to talk about an ongoing investigation, so I'd like to ask you: Regardless of whether a crime was committed, do you still intend to fire anyone found to be involved in the CIA leak case? And are you displeased that Karl Rove told a reporter that Ambassador Joe Wilson's wife worked for the agency on WMD issues?"
BUSH: We have a serious ongoing investigation here (laughter) and it's being played out in the press, and I think it's best that people wait until the investigation is complete before we jump to conclusions. I will do so as well. I don't know all the facts. I want to know all the facts. The best place for the facts to be done is by somebody who is spending time investigating it. I would like this to end as quickly as possible so we know the facts, and if someone committed a crime they will no longer work in my administration.
RUSH: All right, so now the press is saying, "Oh, he's moved the bar! He's moved the bar!" He hasn't moved the bar! He always said if somebody did something illegal -- that's the definition of a crime -- that they'd be gone. He says it again here. "If somebody committed a crime, they will no longer work in my administration." That's pretty consistent. But how about this question? "Are you displeased that Karl Rove told a reporter that Ambassador Joe Wilson's wife worked for the agency in WMD issues?" Wait a minute! I thought the complaint was that Karl Rove "leaked her name" to the reporter. Now, you can't say that anymore because we find out that it was journalists all over Washington that knew her name that were calling administration officials asking about her -- and Rove did say, "I think she's on the WMD or something." So now they want to try to make a crime out of that. So what this is, is the same old time-honored template, and this has been going on for a long time, folks: The attempted criminalization of Republican administrations is simply because they exist. It is a crime for George Bush to win the election. It's a crime for Bush to be in the White House and it's a crime for her Rove to be there. It's a crime when they speak to the press. Their policies are a crime. The war on Iraq is a crime. The war on terror is a crime. Social Security reform is a crime. Tax cuts are a crime. That's the mind-set. That's the template. These people are criminal because they're conservatives. They're criminal because they're Republicans. "Those things are criminal and we're going to get these guys out one way or the other," and it's all because they can't get their power back, that they are so frustrated that they're making absolute asses of themselves in the process -- and we are laughing ourselves silly amidst all the frustration. It's sort of conflicting but it's happening.
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