RUSH: I want to mention to you, because you can’t read an AP story on this Imus situation without them alluding to the ‘fact’ (and I’m sure you’ve seen it elsewhere) that, ‘Well, what Imus said and what Imus said, but what about Limbaugh?’ There’s no question that I’m in the crosshairs. Everybody thinks I’m in the crosshairs ‘next.’ What they’re wrong about, is I’ve been in the crosshairs long before Imus knew what it was like to be in the crosshairs, by a Democrat funded arm of their machine, this Media Matters for America, a tax-exempt foundation. What they do is they listen to these programs, all of them, and they put ’em up there, and that’s where Drive-By Media types and the liberals hear — or rather, a better point, they read — what is said on this program within the context that the watchdog groups choose to present it. They never listen. They do not listen to this program or any others. They wouldn’t deign to lower themselves. So they rely on these watchdogs. Mainstream media reporters do it. They all do. Now, I’m going to say something. I asked Mr. Snerdley here at the break if he thought that this would sound too self-serving.
He said, ‘No, you gotta say it.’ These people that are doing the watch-dogging, these people that are running these websites as arms of the Democrat machine and are agenda-driven, all of the critics of this program, they wouldn’t last a week behind this microphone, with the scrutiny that I’ve had. They wouldn’t last a week with the scrutiny they give anybody else in conservative broadcast media. They couldn’t handle it. Most of these people read cue cards on the morning shows or on TelePromTers or on the newscasts. You put ’em behind a microphone with no net. You put them there with no guests, and you say, ‘Do fifteen hours a week and you make it so people want to listen.’ They couldn’t do it, and the first moment they were criticized they would go bonkers and batty. They couldn’t handle it, folks. They could not deal with the character assassination. They couldn’t deal with the out-of-context reports and lies which are nothing more than attempts to destroy my credibility and others’. These are people who couldn’t do what we do if their lives depended on it, and succeed at it. Another thing about talk radio: this is a spoken word medium. It is not the printed word.
When you print what is sometimes said on talk radio, and you don’t get the context and you haven’t listened and all you’re doing is reading it, you can draw an entirely incorrect inference and conclusion from what has been said. This is understood by the watchdog groups who purposely structure what they print about what is said on this program in a way to influence the Drive-Bys and others, who only read. I want to give you the equivalent. Let’s say that I decided to rely on somebody who literally hates the New York Times for my knowledge of what’s in the New York Times. Let’s say I decided to stop reading it, and I assigned somebody who I know hates it to tell me every day what’s in it and then come on this program as an expert about what’s in the New York Times. That’s what these watchdog groups are doing. They’re listening to it. They’re characterizing it out of context. They’re putting it in print, a spoken word format, and then the people who claim to be the experts in journalism in telling us what happened weren’t there to see it, they don’t listen to the source. They don’t take the time to find out what was really said or hear the context. They just believe everything that’s written about it by people who have an agenda that is paid for by the Democrat Party.
BREAK TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: Here’s Mark in Charleston, West Virginia. Mark, welcome to the EIB Network.
CALLER: It’s a pleasure to speak with you today. I have three daughters who play basketball in the school system. When they play against public schools they’re constantly pummeled by insults of bitch and ho, and they tell me that this is normal. My point would be that the girls — excuse me?
RUSH: We were late bleeping you. You caught us totally by surprise. There are people out there listening to this show trying to destroy it out there and there you are calling up and start using the word (bleep). Thank gosh, I bleeped myself.
CALLER: Well, Rush, I apologize, but this is common in the school system.
RUSH: You people in Media Matters, it was Mark in Charleston, West Virginia that said it. I didn’t say it. I would never say the word (bleep), but you said it. Let ’em come after you.
CALLER: That’s right. It is common in our public school system. It goes on in the public courts every day, and I believe that the girls in New Jersey have probably been called this by their opponents before —
RUSH: Ah, ah, ah, ah. We don’t know that. Don’t start speculating on this.
CALLER: I won’t speculate any further.
RUSH: Well, you might want to say that they have heard it in music or watching TV or something like that.
CALLER: They might have heard it. My point would be if we want to solve this, start in the public schools. Have some accountability there.
RUSH: Well, that would be a great place. One of my points early on in this is if you take a look at Imus or anybody else who has uttered these uncomplimentary terms, what have they done to hold anybody back in the inner city school districts in this country? What have they done to stunt their growth? What have they done to poison their minds? What have they done to hurt them in any way? Zilch, zero, nada. But who is? The people that run the schools. The Drive-By Media supports the teachers union, the Democrat Party supports the teachers union, that in these inner city schools are doing genuine damage. Look at the dropout rate. They’re doing genuine damage, and if what you say is accurate about these words being tossed around on play — and I don’t doubt they are. They’re all over popular culture. They’re all over music. They’re all over books. Well, I don’t know if they read it, these young kids, in some of these places, but they’re certainly watching television, and it’s all over the place out there. The people that produce it, manufacture it, sell it? Pfft! They are under no scrutiny.
They’re not coming under any problem whatsoever, but that’s a good point. It started on the school playground. But, see, it boils down to something else. In your example, two kids on the school ground calling each other these names, they don’t have hate in their hearts. No, it’s only conservatives, they say, who have ‘hate in their hearts’ and use these words to try to hurt people, and try to harm them. But there’s no attempt to harm on the playground, which of course we all know is one of the most harmful places when the kids get going against each other. (interruption) I did hear Snoop Dogg’s reaction. I quoted Snoop Dogg’s reaction last week. You know what Snoop Dogg said? It’s going to be tough to repeat. I can’t say the words. Snoop Dogg said, ‘Don’t lump us in with this Imus business. When we, in the rap artist world, when we use those terms, we’re talking about specific women, and these are these lazy bums (censored) who only want to steal money,’ and use the N-word. ‘They’re just laying around trying to steal our money.’
So he insults them again! In the process of saying, ‘Don’t compare me to Imus,’ he sits and says that the black women in his ‘hood, are nothing but a bunch of, what? Sponges? They’re just sitting out there waiting to steal his money and that of his fellow rap ‘artists,’ and that’s the culture in which they grew up and it’s frustrating and they’re trying to alert the world to it, but don’t compare what we sing about to any of this stuff that these right-wing hate guys are saying on the radio and so forth. What’s Snoop Dogg’s real name? Calvin Broadus. What was the movie? I watched a movie last week, and he was a character. He was a wheelchair bound, ex-con, drug addict who was caught for selling cocaine again somewhere on the street in some dingy neighborhood of some dingy city. Of course, the character was cool. He got roughed up by the cops, but the character was cool. (sigh) I don’t know. That’s the kind of thing I’m talking about here. I told you, I watched the movie last night where the black characters were not portrayed as anything other than reprehensible, and who writes this? We know liberals write this stuff. Who produces it? Who films it? Who directs it? Who distributes it, and who’s raking in the profits from it? A bunch of white liberals! Anyway, I appreciate the call out there, Mark.
RUSH: This is Lou in Massapequa out on Long Island. How you doing today, Lou?
CALLER: Hey, Rush, I’m doing great.
RUSH: Thank you, sir.
CALLER: I think you’re right on when you say that these groups always target the right. They have one of their own in the midst of them who’s been talking about that H-word forever, and I’m talking about the Walt Disney studios. The Walt Disney studios who had a film —
RUSH: Oh, you’re talking about the dwarves out there, and they go, ‘Hi, ho! Hi, ho!’
CALLER: The seven dwarves, all they sang to this poor young women was ‘Hi, ho! Hi, ho!’
RUSH: Damn! I’m sorry, folks. I’m doing my best.
CALLER: They ignore, ‘Hi, ho! Hi, ho!’
RUSH: Come on! (bleep!) No, no, no! Gosh what’s going to happen? I should resign now.
CALLER: It’s all over, Rush.
RUSH: You people are not helping me out there today. I know. I already addressed this. When Santa comes down the chimney, he should say, ‘Hee-hee-hee-hee-hee-hee. Merry Christmas!’
RUSH: This is Benji in Houston. Benji, nice to have you on the program. Nice that you’re there.
CALLER: Mega dittos, Rush.
RUSH: Thank you, sir. Thank you.
CALLER: It is an extreme honor to talk to you. I’ve been listening to you since the late eighties.
RUSH: Well, you’ve been veritably here from the beginning then. I appreciate that.
CALLER: Almost. My best friend hooked me on to you. But the point I wanted to make is you had a very good point about the liberals and believing that they’re elitists and that they are better than everyone but I don’t think you took it far enough. I believe that the liberals believe that they are above everyone because they deify themselves, and it’s obvious in the way they treat themselves.
RUSH: You mean like they’re gods. They’re the gods of judgment, the arbiters?
CALLER: Precisely, and it is evidenced in the media. It is evidenced in the entertainment industry.
RUSH: You may be right. Maybe that’s why liberals don’t believe in god because they think they are.
CALLER: Exactly, exactly. That was something I said to your call screener. A perfect example is anyone who is a conservative actor — which I am, by the way. I’m not in the mainstream entertainment industry, but I’m working my way there. At any rate, you have to hide that. You can’t call yourself conservative and make it in the entertainment industry. Mel Gibson has been vilified for an admittedly very stupid thing that he has done.
RUSH: Well, look, I know that’s a universally held belief, but there are enough exceptions to it that I think it’s in the process of changing a little bit. It’s still oppressive, exactly as you say, and I know that you as a young unknown really have to keep your identity, your ideological identity close to the vest. You’re absolutely right about that. Well, best of luck. I appreciate the loyalty that you have demonstrated and shown over all these years. As I said last Thursday, people ask me all the time, ‘You know they’re gunning for you next?’ Next? Well, they’ve been gunning for me I don’t know how long. They’ve fired some pretty big shots. I’m still here, and there’s a reason for it, and that is you. The connection, the bond of loyalty we have with this audience — and you listen every day, and there are 22 million of you. You know what’s said here and how it’s said and what isn’t said, and so you are easily able to recognize when a bunch of BS is going down. You’re able to recognize the attacks that are taken out of context and so forth, and you don’t get squeamish. You don’t say, ‘Gosh, I can’t support this anymore! I can’t listen to this,’ because you know, because you listen every day, that the attacks on this program are not rooted in any fact or truth but rather out-of-context innuendo on any number of things, and for that, I can never fully repay everybody. The thank you that I have will have to be sufficient.
That’s one of the reasons why the real power of this program, aside from my brain, is you.