RUSH: I’m holding, ladies and gentlemen, in my nicotine-stained fingers an interesting little story from New York magazine. There’s lots of juicy stuff in this story, and a whole lot of this hasn’t been picked up on yet because it’s been overwhelmed by the remembrances today on 9/11, but the editor in this story, Bill Keller, New York Times editor, says he “felt justified in publishing the leak on the National Security Agency’s foreign surveillance program in part because the Bush administration had lost credibility,” and the Times couldn’t give them less benefit of the doubt. Now, to set the table for you on this, the Bush administration brought Keller in there to the White House. Cheney was with them, and I forget who else was in there. 
But Bill Keller, the editor, Little Pinch was in the room, and somebody else from New York, maybe the bureau chief, Washington bureau chief, came in, and Bush implored them. New York magazine, in fact, has got a cover that replicates the New York Times front page, and Bush told Bill Keller, “You’re going to have blood on your hands.” If you run this story, you are going to have blood on your hands because you’re going to compromise a program that is working, and that’s when Keller says, “We listened for a week, and we thought about it for a week, but we decided the Bush administration lost credibility and so we didn’t know whether to believe him.”
Well, what a cheap, childish, lowball thing to say. Why has the Bush administration lost credibility, Bill? You think you might have had something to do that, you and your buddies in the Drive-By Media? Here’s Keller’s quote. “‘There was an erosion of the administration’s credibility, not just with us, but with the public as more and more was revealed including in the New York Times, by the way, about the use of intelligence in the run-up to the war. As time passed,’ added Mr. Keller, ‘they’ve demonstrated that they’re entitled to somewhat less benefit of the doubt.'” All right. Now, this provides an opportunity for an interesting comparison. Here you have the New York Times runs a leak, runs a story based on a leak of the National Security Agency’s foreign surveillance program.
The Drive-By Media and everybody, lying about it, the Democrat Party calling it domestic spy program, creating the impression that President Bush actually goes somewhere and listens to your phone calls. Whatever you’re saying to whoever, just wants to spy on you because Bush doesn’t want you to have freedom and Bush doesn’t want you to have civil rights and Bush doesn’t want you to have human rights. He did all that even before he sent the hurricane to New Orleans to destroy it and the levees. They’re out there creating all of this, and then they lament and whine that there’s this loss of credibility. But what did Bush do? Bush brought ’em in. You’re going to have blood on your hands. Don’t do this. The program is succeeding. We’re having tremendous success. 
It wasn’t long after that, they leaked a story about how we’d successfully interrupted the financial resupply lines of terrorists throughout the world. Now, let’s compare that, Bush brings in the editors and the publisher of the New York Times and says please, don’t do this. You’re going to compromise a great program and you’re going to have blood on your hands. ABC-Disney announces they’re going to run The Path to 9/11. It gets screened in Washington, DC, for a bunch of people. Amongst those seeing it are a bunch of Democrats. By the way, all this talk that I got this started is bohunk, because Richard Ben-Veniste saw this before I did, and Richard Ben-Veniste and one of his aides threatened the writer and the producer with action if they went forward with this. So the Democrats saw this. All this talk about Clinton hasn’t seen it and all that, it was screened for a whole bunch of Democrats, including members of the 9/11 Commission in Washington at the press club long before I ever saw.
But that’s just a side point. They screened the movie. The movie is about to air, and Bill Clinton sends his own four-page letter to Bob Iger at ABC, and then Clinton’s lawyers send another letter threatening action and Sandy Burglar gets on the phone and says, “You can’t fix it, just yank it” and then Senate Democrats send a letter to Bob Iger at Disney threatening broadcast licenses. Now let’s compare these two things. On the one hand, you have George W. Bush calling the New York Times in trying to protect the country. In the other instance, you have Bill Clinton, Richard Clarke, Sandy Burglar, Madeleine Albright, Senate Democrats and their threatening letters and lawyers trying to kill a movie to protect Bill Clinton. Bill Clinton acted to protect himself. George W. Bush acted, the New York Times, to protect the country. No more stark comparison of reality could possibly be made. I, of course, am the one to conclude it, come up with it, and make it public.
END TRANSCRIPT
*Note: Links to content outside RushLimbaugh.com usually become inactive over time.
