“What’s So Wrong with What Biden Said?”

Let me tell you why first, and then I’ll tell you what I was going to do. Biden has put his foot in his mouth I don’t know how many times. He once called Delaware a slave state, and the Drive-By Media yawned. He then was walking through a train station or somewhere, and he was talking about the fact that every employee at 7-Eleven in Delaware is Buddha, Hindu or some such thing, and you had to speak a certain kind of language to be able to shop there. Well, let anybody else say that, let me say that Barack Obama is a ‘clean black guy’, and watch how few seconds it takes for this to reverberate all over the place. Now, Drudge has it up, but it’s going to be real interesting to me to see if this reverberates within the Drive-By Media, because, I’ll tell you what’s going to happen.

Biden is going to be asked about this. He’ll go on Matthews’ show or something, and he will be given a chance to clarify. He’ll be given a chance to explain his remarks. He’ll come up with something, Oh, come on, I can’t believe people are taking it this way. No, it was an ultimate compliment. I was trying to compliment the guy. Oh, thank you, Senator Biden, for clarifying this for us and it will be over with. So my plan was to open the program today by asking everybody, What was so wrong about what he said? He says Obama is a clean black guy. I look at Obama and I see a clean black guy. What’s so bad, what’s so wrong about what he said? Now, my strategery for doing this was to have Biden held accountable to it because if I agree with it, then the Drive-Bys and everybody will go bonkers. I knew that if I did it that way, I would become the story, Limbaugh agrees with Biden, and I would become the villain while Biden would get the pass. But it would still call attention to it and still focus attention on him in a way. We’ll just have to wait and see, but I bet it is not going to become a big problem for him. Now, the other two incidents didn’t at all, and this, by the way, is by no means the first time Senator Biden has stepped in it. The thing is, if he thinks Obama is clean, it is logical to conclude that he thinks somebody else or some others are not. So who did he mean? It’s a really, really odd statement.

See, folks, this is the problem for the libs. Once they get off script, they expose their idiocy; they expose their prejudice; they expose their bias. It’s like Hillary and her evil men comment, which Carville is trying to spin by saying, Wow, you reporters, why, you just don’t understand her sophisticated sense of humor. James, you know I love you, man, and you know I respect you. But, come on, not even you can convince any of us that Hillary Clinton has a sense of humor. I mean, she doesn’t. When she smiles they stop everything in old folks’ homes and declare it Halloween. There’s just no sense of humor about her, even when she wears pink, or John Kerry trashing the education of our troops. When these people get off script, they tell us exactly who they are, and they tell us of all their prejudices, they let us know of all their own bigotry, but more than that, they tell us that they’re not that bright.

Now, it wasn’t just Barack Obama at whom Senator Biden took aim. Here’s what he said in the New York Observer piece on Senator Clinton. He said, quote, Everyone in the world knows her. Her husband has used every single legitimate tool in his behalf to lock people in, shut people down. Legitimate. And she can’t break out of 30 percent for a choice for Democrats? Where do you want to be? Do you want to be in a place where 100% of the Democrats know you, they’ve looked at you for the last three years, and four out of ten is the max you can get? Well, okay, I understand that. Senator Biden, it’s not just three years. The American people have known her since 1992. It’s more like 15 years, Senator. We’ve known Senator Biden a long time, too. He doesn’t register near 30%, but his point is he doesn’t have Bill Clinton stumping for him. He doesn’t have eight years as first lady, or as co-president. His point is that she cannot improve name recognition. She cannot get any more famous. She cannot do any more than she’s done. She cannot lock down any more money than she already has, and still she’s only getting 30 to 40%.

On Senator Edwards, he said, I don’t think John Edwards knows what the heck he’s talking about. Now, I happen to totally agree with that. Edwards is one of the biggest phony baloney, plastic banana, good-time rock and rollers. Have you seen the stories about his house in North Carolina? He’s got the largest house in the county that Raleigh, North Carolina, is in. The main house is 28,600 square feet. It’s got a rec room, a gym, all kinds of stuff. You ought to hear his wife’s excuse. Well, you know, John grew up, always wanted a basketball court. He wants to shoot baskets and so forth. Everybody North Carolinian grows up wanting to shoot baskets. He has his own enclosed gym. Senator Kennedy has a lot, and he’s always done a lot of things for the poor. The excuses that they offer, look, it matters not to me where the Edwards live.

What matters to me is that here’s this guy who has run around talking about two Americas and trying to create the impression that America is a soup line economy — by the way, fourth quarter growth revised upward to 3.5%. The economy is in really good shape, very healthy shape out there, and Edwards is running around trying to paint the picture here of soup line America, while he’s sheltering himself in this vast estate off the beaten path that nobody can get to. The libs are just classic, and I think Biden is right. So I was going to say, What’s so wrong about what he said? The libs are demanding equal time. The libs say their views are not being heard. They want the Fairness Doctrine reinstituted. Well, Senator Biden, we need to let people know what he said, and my question was going to be, What’s so wrong with it? But I was talked out of that by a linguini-spined staff. Only kidding in there. So now that’s on the table. I imagine that where it’s been discussed is causing phone lines to melt all over the country.

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RUSH: You know, you gotta wonder what Biden meant. By the way, here’s the bite. This is August 15th last year. This is Senator Biden, and he’s walking somewhere in a train station.

BIDEN: In Delaware, the largest growth in population is Indian-Americans, moving from India. You cannot go to a 7-Eleven or Dunkin’ Donuts unless you have a slight Indian accent. I’m not joking.

RUSH: Yeah, okay, he said it, and you might be saying, so what? The point is he was brought on some PMSNBC show, and the info babe reporterette pleaded with him. Senator, can you explain to us what you meant? Oh, yeah, look it, I love these people. This is the fastest-growing segment of the population of my state, I love these people. I didn’t mean and she batted her eyelashes, whoever it was, Thank you, Senator Biden, for clearing this up. And it was over. Wash your hands of it, and it was over. We’ll see what kind of legs “Barack Obama is a clean black guy” has. Because that’s gotta mean that Biden looks at some people and sees them not clean, or dirty. Who would they be?

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RUSH: Jim in Fayetteville, North Carolina, welcome to the EIB Network, sir. Nice to have you with us.

CALLER: Yes. I’m here. Mega dittos, Rush.

RUSH: Thank you.

CALLER: I was just giving you a quick call, one simple, quick clarification. John Edwards’ big retreat, palatial mansion is in Chatham County, not in Wade County.

RUSH: Well, my North Carolina source misinformed me. I’m never wrong. It’s my sources who are.

CALLER: Okay. But anyway, I don’t know all the details about Chatham County, but my guess is that per capita it’s probably poorer, so it’s actually a worse indignation than Wade County. And then another thing, just a little detail about John Edwards’ wonderful new house, $309,000 spent on the gym, slash, basketball court.

RUSH: Right.

CALLER: That’s really nice. And just one thing about this —

RUSH: Well, now, wait, wait, wait. Let’s not just gloss over this, Jim.

CALLER: Okay.

RUSH: You sound like you got a problem with how much a basketball gym can cost.

CALLER: Oh, it’s a lot, it’s too much.

RUSH: No, it’s not too much. It’s only too much in some people’s judgment.

CALLER: True.

RUSH: Most people wouldn’t spend 300 grand on a gym, but he’s got the money to spend on it. That shouldn’t be the complaint. You start going down the road that people don’t have a right to spend their own money the way they want, then you’re going to become a liberal and you’re going to try to limit salaries and pay. The problem for Edwards is he’s a hypocrite about all of this.

CALLER: Exactly. That’s the point. Exactly. And then just getting to the articulate, you know, the Biden stuff, it’s just incredible, but I just had a small anecdote to share with you. Back about ten years ago I was working for a newspaper in North Carolina. I won’t tell you which one or I’ll be completely run out of the business which unfortunately I’m still in, although who am I kidding, they don’t listen to your radio show anyway.

RUSH: No, but they’ll hear about it from media.

CALLER: Exactly. It will end up all over, you know, pointer or whatever, you know, stink piece they have.

RUSH: The headline will be: “Reporter calls Limbaugh, trashes journalism, who is this guy so we can find him.”

CALLER: Exactly. So, anyway, about ten years ago the newspaper did some profile piece on a black person of some stature in the community. I can’t remember if it was a sports figure or community leader, something like that, whatever, the person who wrote the story described the person as articulate. And the next day, you know, in the meetings upon meetings the newspapers have, there was, of course, a meeting to talk about the newspaper from that day, and, you know, talk about the story and blah, blah, blah, blah. Well, the sports editor who was black, he’s now moved on to be another major editor at that paper, I won’t tell you which one —

RUSH: My God, I’ve never heard such fear from a caller in my life!

CALLER: You have no idea what it’s like to work at newspapers — it’s incredible. I don’t tell anybody I’m a Republican. It’s terrible.

RUSH: You know what actors in Hollywood who are Republicans feel like.

CALLER: Oh, yeah.

RUSH: (Laughing.)

CALLER: So anyway, we were sitting there talking about this story, you know, it just comes up and the sports editor is just  — there’s this righteous indigestion, that, — Oh, my gosh, we never should have described this person, this black community person as articulate, because well, we would never describe when we’re doing profiles of white people, we’ve never used the word articulate to describe them.

RUSH: You know, this is an excellent point. Everybody talks about how articulate Barack is. They talk about how articulate Tiki Barber is.

CALLER: Yeah.

RUSH: Now, your esteemed black editor was insulted because, by implication, that means some people aren’t articulate.

CALLER: Right. You have to point out the ones that are. It’s incredible.

RUSH: Yes. And so Biden has done it. Not only do we have a clean black guy, we’ve got one who can talk.

CALLER: Yeah. Over the top.

RUSH: (Laughing.)

CALLER: Anyway, Rush, I’ll just leave you with those parting thoughts. And then just one more thing, I don’t want to take up too much time but anybody who wants to think that John Edwards has a shot, although at times I am frightened of him, needs to just look at what happened in North Carolina in 2004, when he was on the presidential ticket, he got only .02% more of the electorate to vote for it, with someone who’s from North Carolina.

RUSH: I know. My instinct too is that Edwards is nowhere and nobody. But, you know, there’s too much time to go here in this campaign, too many things that can happen, too many decisions that can be made. It’s just impossible here to start handicapping this based on all the conventional wisdom and data that people use. Well, let’s examine this policy position that Edwards has versus this, let’s look at the charisma and the articulation and the cleanliness that Obama has versus the lack of articulation, say, of Hillary Clinton. All these things just don’t matter yet. Too many other factors nobody can anticipate. I don’t rule any of these people out. I mean in all candor. It will shake out pretty quick, but at this stage, I understand people in North Carolina who are conservative Republicans just have, you know, no respect or affection for Edwards at all. Anyway, Jim, I appreciate the call. Thank you so much.

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RUSH: All right, we got a little movement out there, ladies and gentlemen. Somebody did call the clean and articulate spokesman for the clean black guy, Barack Obama, and ask, What do you think about Senator Biden’s comments that he’s clean and articulate and so forth? The spokesman for the clean and articulate Obama said, Senator Biden’s words speak for themselves. He said it very articulately. So that’s kind of a slam. That’s kind of like the dagger going in. Up next will be Mrs. Clinton because Biden took after her today on Good Morning America. Diane Sawyer said, Senator Hillary Clinton, she’s talked about a proposal to cap American troops, also threatened Iraqi leaders with cutting off funds if they don’t meet some of the benchmarks. You’re quoted as saying in the New York Observer that the results of her position will be quote nothing but disaster.

BIDEN: It will be a disaster if that is her plan, to one, cap the American forces — I think we should lower American forces — and two, cut off funding for the local Iraqi forces. They are the people we’re supposedly — we’re supposed to be training so that we can rely on them to aid us in the efforts that we undertake. The next president of the United States, because of the policy of this president, is going to have no margin for error. He or she, the moment they take office, is going to have to figure out how to extricate us from Iraq without making the Middle East even more destabilized.

RUSH: Okay. The Clinton camp now is figuring out how best to respond to this salvo. Remember Kerry’s botched joke supposedly about the stupidity of the troops, I forget what Hillary said, but she leveled him. It was the end of Kerry once Hillary came out. And the same thing could possibly happen here. Regardless what Biden has said, I’m going to have to ask Cookie because she was rolling tape on this whole interview, Good Morning America — I don’t think Diane Sawyer asked him about Barack Obama being a clean, articulate black guy, just about Hillary. Now, let’s go back in time, shall we? July 31st of 2002, the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on the possible military campaign to evade Iraq to remove Saddam, just a few comments here from Senator Biden.

BIDEN: President Bush is right to be concerned about Saddam Hussein’s relentless pursuit of weapons of mass destruction, and the possibility that he may use them or share them with terrorists. Other regimes hostile to the United States and our allies already have or seek to acquire weapons of mass destruction.

RUSH: So, you see it’s easy for these guys, they say it in 2002, they say it in 2003, then they pretend they never said it or they blame Bush for tricking them into saying it, so they can change their minds because they don’t have any accountability. They don’t have any responsibility for it. So here Senator Biden on Good Morning America today ripping Hillary’s plan, ripping Bush’s plan. Bush has put us in an untenable situation. Back in 2002 Senator Biden was just one of countless Democrats who couldn’t wait to walk to the floor of the Senate and get on board with this whole notion of taking out Saddam.

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This is from an interview that Senator Biden gave with the New York Observer.

BIDEN: I mean, you’ve got the first, sort of, mainstream African-American who is articulate and bright and clean, and a nice-looking guy.

RUSH: That is Joe Biden in an interview with the New York Observer discussing the appearance of Illinois Senator Barack Hussein Obama. Articulate, bright, clean, nice looking guy. First mainstream African-American who is — no, it’s not the first mainstream African-American. He is the first mainstream African-American who is articulate. He is the first mainstream African-American who is bright. He is the first mainstream African-American who is clean. He is the first mainstream African-American who is a nice-looking guy. I still don’t see what all the hubbub is about. And there really isn’t any. MSNBC did the whole story on this, and he was on Good Morning America. The Drive-Bys are not bringing this up. They know it’s no big deal. It would have been a big deal if I said it.

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