KERRY: We’re going to keep pounding, let me tell you. Just beginning to fight here. These guys are the most crooked, you know, lying group I’ve ever seen.
RUSH: Now, can I also tell you something else? I’m a little amazed at all the furor over this. I mean the Democrats have said far worse than this, they say far worse about Bush than this on the stump, they say it far worse than this behind the microphones. Why, this is nothing compared to saying Bush knew 9-11 was going to happen. This is nothing compared to some of the things that Kerry has said. And yet everybody is having a cow over this because of the words “crooked” and “lying.” Well, when do they not mean that? They mean that about Bush every time they open their mouths! Folks, there’s something about this that just doesn’t compute. The press is making this a big deal. Normally the press would overlook this as just “he didn’t know the mic was on.” But no, now the Republican National Committee chairman, Bush-Cheney campaign chairman, Racicot, is asking for an apology and all this.
Let me give the metamorphosis of the spin on this. This is from 3:30 yesterday afternoon. Something about these weird websites, they don’t print the newspaper when you go to the print-only version. I guess since he was in Chicago, this is a Chicago, no, it says the Times staffer. It doesn’t matter. It’s just the mainstream press. “Kerry’s comments came during a stop at a sheet metal plant in Chicago as he shook hands with workers. ‘Tell it like it is!’ a man at the Hill Mechanical Group told him, ‘keep smiling.’ And that’s when Kerry said,
Now this ran in some stupid newspaper, I’m sorry, my friends, I don’t know which one, but it could be the Los Angeles Times since it’s Pacific Standard Time dated and date stamped. So probably LA Times. So at 3:30 yesterday afternoon eastern it was my fault and Sean Hannity’s fault, that’s who Kerry was talking about, these guys are dirty, lying crooks, meaning me and Hannity and Karl Rove. Now, somehow the press was not interested in that.
Remember, all of these times that Howard Dean mentioned in his campaign appearances he was going to take back the flag from me? You know how few times, if any, the press ever commented on that. Seems like whenever my name shows up in a position of power, the press ignores it. Because if the campaign manager, a spokesman for John Kerry is going to say, no, Kerry was talking about me, this has slight echoes of Clinton’s comments about the Oklahoma City bombing. He didn’t mention any names when he originally talked about some of the hate speech, anti-government speech on radio, and [they] asked McCurry, and McCurry said, “guys like Limbaugh.” That caused a firestorm, and they said,
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RUSH: Even for John Kerry, this is impressive, a double lie. He calls the GOP crooks and then claims he’s talking about me and Hannity. Now, it was the LA Times. I have done my research here at the break. It was the LA Times, 3:30 yesterday afternoon where Don Wade, this Kerry spokesman says that the attack machine that they’re talking about is Karl Rove, me, and Sean Hannity. Then, that’s the last place it appeared. And all other subsequent stories it doesn’t appear in the media. I don’t know if the Kerry team stopped talking about it, started blaming other people but in the Chicago Tribune today, Wade, same guy who blamed me, Hannity, and Rove yesterday. Don Wade or whatever his name, stupid Wade, I don’t know his first name, said Kerry used the word “crooked” to describe the personal attacks he has endured. Those attacks he said included doctored photos of Kerry falsely showing him protesting the Vietnam war.
That much holds from the LA Times story of yesterday to the Chicago Tribune story of today. But then where Hannity and Rove and I get blamed in the LA Times in the Tribune, that’s gone, and in its place he also cited a report in the Tribune about a Bush political appointee, John Thomas Birch, who attacked John McCain’s credentials as a veteran in 2000 and said that he appears poised to do the same thing to Kerry, and then they get a long dissertation on who this Birch guy is and how he worked with Bush to besmirch McCain about whom we have more coming up, sit tight for that, ladies and gentlemen. McCain’s all over. I mean this is the era of John McCain. Or yesterday was the day of John McCain, John McCain Day. I mean it’s just all over the place yesterday, but we’ll get to that in due course.
So, Hannity, Rove, and I are out and this Birch guy is in. The doctored photos stayed in from the — it’s not a nuance journey, it’s an informative journey. This is a journey of explanation that they are on. What, Mr. Snerdley? Yeah ? yeah, no, look it, here’s what happened, here’s what happened. I know this. Look it. I’ve been doing this for 15 years. I know what happened. But, see, Kerry is about not making the mistakes that Daschle and Clinton and everybody made, and I will guarantee, every time Bill Clinton mentioned my name, James Carville called him on the phone and said,
Well, what happened was, when that shows up in print yesterday, somebody says “No, no, no, we’re not going to mention — Dean did — we don’t mention Limbaugh,” so they’ve got to scrub that because they don’t want to acknowledge or recognize my, well, their own fear of this program and my power and the whole conservative media out there. So of course they’re going to go to the Internet, of course they’re going to blame it on the Internet because these guys are trying not to make the mistakes of previous Democrats — the worst thing Daschle could have done after the 2002 election in November is to come out and start whining about how I am responsible for all the unfortunate things happening to his family. You know, and we start making jokes about it, all these funny parodies, Daschle hosting a talk show and so forth. They’re trying not to make this mistake. Remember, I’m not supposed to be in the ascension, I’m supposed to be finished and washed up, and so when they start mentioning me, somebody gets the brakes on it, and says, ah ah ah ah ah. But who do they intuitively, institutionally, instinctively seek to blame?
Now, everybody knows they’re talking about Bush. This is what makes this, you know, somewhat know somewhat laughable. Everybody knows he meant Bush. He’s running against Bush, he’s not running against me. But they think they are, you know, when you get right down to it. They think they are. They don’t have the monopoly of mainstream news behind them anymore. They don’t have the self-assurance that whatever they say will be the news of the day uncontested anymore and so we’re on their minds, and this little episode proves it. This little discussion among NBC experts today on, where was this, this is, well, it’s just a montage of press, I’m assuming it happened on The Today Show because we’ve got Matt Lauer and Katie Couric, we’ve also got John Siegenthaler who is an NBC News reporter, Keith Olbermann, and listen to this little montage of these people.
LAUER: Senator John Kerry got a little lesson in broadcasting 101 yesterday, similar lesson to one that President Bush or then candidate Bush got in the campaign four years ago.
SIEGENTHALER: Made reference to a New York Times reporter named Adam Clymer that was pretty tough.
OLBERMANN: Was just one presidential campaign ago that Bush and Cheney themselves both got caught apparently inadvertently by an open microphone, when Bush made an off-color remark about the major leagueness of a New York Times reporter.
COURIC: They have to be careful, don’t they, because President Bush and Vice President Cheney were caught when they thought they were off mic discussing New York Times reporter Adam Clymer in less than flattering terms, right?
RUSH: Now, for those of you who think that they have a point here, just sit tight, we’re going to nuke that here in just a second, but Bush was talking about a journalist. And, by the way, do you remember that episode, he called Adam Clymer the exit — yeah, major league exit orifice, ladies and gentlemen — well, for some of you it’s an exit orifice. At any rate, there was not all of this outrage that there was here. Nobody disputed it, that’s why I was going to say, everyone in the press thought that Clymer was a major league exit orifice, they were laughing about it. You know, it was not a scandal, you know, Bush did apologize and all this, but didn’t react like they’re reacting to Kerry. Here’s the difference. Bush was saying it about a journalist. He was not saying it about Gore. Had he said it about Gore, had he said that Gore was a major league exit orifice then there would have been an accompanying furor or, but he didn’t, it was about a journalist. And so Katie, you know, you’re wishful thinking, barking up the wrong tree here though, at the same time.
But let’s go back to December 8th, 2003. CNN’s Candy Crowley is interviewing John F. Kerry, December 8th of last year, and she was discussing his use of the F-word in the Rolling Stone magazine, and Candy reported that Kerry brought up an incident in the 2000 campaign where a microphone picked up then-candidate Bush talking about Clymer, and Kerry then adds this to the discussion.
KERRY: Did you ever use a bad word?
CROWLEY: Absolutely, but I’m not running for president.
KERRY: George Bush used one publicly. Didn’t he call Adam Clymer [pictured right] something publicly? Didn’t seem to stop it. Look, I just was honest. I just said something that I felt, and that’s the way it came out, and it’s the way I felt.
RUSH: It’s the way I felt, it’s the way it came out, it’s the way I felt, we’re talking exit orifices, admitting what he’s plagued with here. So he’s excusing his use of the F-word because he was being honest, while he’s saying, hey, didn’t Bush call a reporter — yeah, that’s the point.
So, after making this comment last December, excusing himself, now Kerry comes out, does the same thing, and is caught in the middle of spinning. Now, this morning there was more hubbub, and bzz bzz — because Kerry had a strategery session on Capitol Hill with House and Senate Democrats. And he met with members of the Congressional Black Caucus this morning, and they started shouting questions at him. Who were these liars and crooks, they want to know. They want to know who he was talking about. That he was referring to yesterday in comments in an open microphone, and upon leaving the meeting Kerry was once again swarmed with cameras in Rayburn Hall and ignored the same questions, he finally said he would have something to say about it later, so I think in about an hour, at 1:45 Kerry is going to go on television and spin this himself, he’s going to say something about it. Our microphones which will be turned on, are already there, ladies and gentlemen.
Now, when I saw this, what’s the credential black caucus so interested in this for? Why are the Democrats acting so worried about this? Why are they so upset? Something about this, again, I have to tell you, this is not that big a deal other than it is about the president, everybody knows it’s about the president, liars and crooks and so forth. Maybe it’s because Nixon said he wasn’t a crook, and this reminds them of Nixon and they hated Nixon.
They’re scared of what? Oh. Well, you know, if that’s it, if they’re afraid that these going to do a Howard Dean, it’s like I said at the opening of this program, Kerry is Dean, he is Dean without the charisma. That’s becoming apparent more and more and more. I tell you what, here’s another way to say it, not only is he Howard Dean without the charisma, he’s Howard Dean without the emotional stability. John Kerry is Howard Dean without the emotional stability. Well, you’re right. You may be right. They’re worried about him doing a Dean on everybody, because he is starting to implode. This is an implosion. Now, a lot of people thought that Kerry was going to implode, but not this soon. This is an implosion. This is getting to him. It’s another thing this means. Maybe that’s what bothers them about it.
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