RUSH: You go to yesterday, every story about Romney was ABC: The Mormon story, the Cayman Island investment story, the tax rate. ABC made a big deal out of that, and now I think ABC’s assigned somebody (I’m not sure it’s ABC) to look into Romney’s great-grandfather’s polygamy and the story about Romney signing off some Bain Capital investment profits to the Mormon church. There was no question in my mind that yesterday was ABC’s attempt to take Romney out before the South Carolina primary or at least take him away from winning it.
That Cayman Island story, as I mentioned, I’m gonna say this again, too, if you read it all you find out at the end of it that ABC has to admit that there’s nothing illegal about what Romney’s done. But the first 75% of that story, the innuendo, the implication is clear that he is evading taxes, that he’s cheating, that he’s hiding money, ’cause that’s all you have to do to convince people. If you’ve got money in the Caymans, that’s what you’re doing. If you got money offshore, that’s what you’re doing. At the end of the story they point out Romney has paid his taxes on that money, is paying his taxes on that money, is not doing anything illegal. But if you only read the headline and the first couple of paragraphs you would never know that.
So I’m convinced that ABC and NBC are in a race to see who can do the best for Obama, the most damage to the Republicans for Obama. And CBS is in there, too. So ABC does their damage, theoretically the plan was, damage Romney yesterday. Drudge somehow, on the 14th anniversary of posting the Lewinsky story when Newsweek spiked it, gets hold of ABC and this Marianne Gingrich story and that they are holding it. That interview with Marianne Gingrich was done last Friday. Matt Drudge found out about it, and the news then became that there was this giant civil war inside ABC, and a big ethical discussion on when the interview should be aired. And should they do it before the vote or after the vote, should they do it to have little impact or the most impact, and I’m sitting there, what a joke. ‘Cause I know — I don’t know, but I mean I know — they were gonna hold that until Monday.
They were gonna run the Marianne interview on Monday after, theoretically, Newt came in a high two or even won South Carolina and the theory was to take Romney and Gingrich out both in one week. That’s what the news media has become. The news media does not take out Democrats. The news media isn’t even oriented toward doing damage. They don’t even vet Democrats. This is the agenda that journalism has become. That’s why it is important to remember this in context and to never forget the crossroads this nation is at and to never forget who has put us there. And I don’t care what Republican you cite and what social or personal or moral failing they’ve got, not a one of them has lost your job for you; not a one of them has raised your taxes; not a one of them is refusing cheap; plentiful energy to enter this country; not a one of them is living at the public trough like kings; not one of them is shredding the Constitution and living and governing in a lawless fashion.
Not one of these Republicans is responsible for anything that has led this country to high unemployment, hopelessness, home values underwater and a bleak economic future, not one Republican is responsible for the fact that the entire budget of 2013 and 2014 has already been spent. So there’s a perspective that needs to be kept here, and there’s a realization that must never be forgotten. And that is the whole point of this is not to warn the country of the personal failings of Newt Gingrich so as to save the nation from horrible governance, because if that was the objective, Obama would never have won the presidency. If ABC was concerned about doing the best thing for the country, and making sure that the wrong people didn’t achieve power, Obama would never have been elected. That’s not what this is about. What this is about is clearing the decks for Obama because he is a weak candidate. He can’t run on his record. They have to do what they can to make sure he doesn’t really have an opponent who stands a prayer. And that’s what’s taking place.