RUSH: Let me cover with you the latest on the eBay auction of the Dingy Harry smear letter. Let me check it here: $45,100. The auction will last until Friday at 1 p.m., and you can go to RushLimbaugh.com and see the link there. We have a little eBay widget there on our home page, which constantly updates the number of hits and the current bid. We’re getting a lot of e-mails. And, by the way, folks, I forgot to announce this on Friday. Of course, I’m going to match whatever this is. Of course, I always do. Whatever it ends up, I’m going to match the dollar figure, and I have suggested that Senator Reid and the 40 other Democrats who signed the smear letter to Mark Mays, the CEO of Clear Channel, also match the donation that’s going to Marine Corps-Law Enforcement Foundation. It provides college scholarships for the children of Marines and law enforcement officials killed in action. I’ve suggested they should show their support for the military also by matching whatever the high bid is.
When we left here Friday afternoon the bid was at $5,500, and over the weekend it just climbed, and climbed, and climbed, and now it’s at $45,100 and climbing. And we are getting — I want to acknowledge this — tons of e-mails from people who want to buy copies of the letter for donations to the Marine Corps-Law Enforcement Foundation. We are getting a huge number of e-mails from people who want us to make copies of the smear letter for sale or for auction as well. I’m talking thousands of e-mails. Because the price on eBay has gotten to the level now that a lot of people are automatically excluded, just don’t have that kind of money to bid even if it does go to charity, they simply can’t afford to bid for the original at this point. Now, we’re considering this, but in a way different than you might think. The smear letter is an official correspondence from the United States Senate. It is on Harry Reid’s official Senate majority letterhead and it was signed by 40 Senators, co-conspirators.
In the course of their working day, you’ve already paid for this letter. This is one of the points to be made about this. This was official Senate business, and you were not getting official Senate business done, you were getting this distraction regarding a smear of a private citizen for what you are paying these people. So you’ve already paid for this letter. Your taxes support these distinguished nincompoops, and there’s no reason that you should be asked to pay for it twice. Why should you have to pay? This is what we’re going to do: We want to raise every dollar we can for the Marine Corps-Law Enforcement Foundation, but unlike the libs, we’re going to treat you as adults, not children who need to be told what to do. I mean I would love to see a copy of the smear letter in every household in this country. I’d like to see a copy of the smear letter magnetized to everybody’s refrigerator in this country. If you have more than one refrigerator in your house like I do, then as many refrigerators you have, get as many copies of the smear letter.
So here’s what we’re gonna do. If you go to my website or the eBay auction page, just download it. Just download it and print it. We’re going to let you have it. It may take awhile to get this up and running because I’m springing this as a surprise on the web people. But just go to my website or the eBay auction page, download the letter, it’s four pages, and print it out. If you have a color printer, you’ll get an exact replica. If not, you’ll get a black-and-white version of it. We have reproduced it in full quality color, both places, my website and at eBay, so you can keep it as a memento. Then, if you’d like, we leave it up to you, if you want to go to the Marine Corps-Law Enforcement Foundation’s website we’ll put a link on our website where you can get to it, it’s already up there, you see the logo, and you can make a donation of whatever amount you want, five dollars, $50, $500, whatever you want to do. If you don’t want to make a donation, you can’t afford one, you don’t have to do that. It’s your letter already. You have already paid for this. You have already paid because the senators who wrote and signed this letter were doing it on official time.
We could go the other way and make this available for donations, but I want to leave that up to you. We’re not going to force you to make a donation if you can’t afford it or don’t want to just to get a copy. I want as many copies of this letter all over the country as possible. Now, in addition, about the original, a number of people have asked about the condition of the letter. We’ve had it under guard, as you know, if you’ve been paying attention, in a Halliburton metal briefcase since its arrival and it’s in the same condition that we received it. It has not been folded, and it has not been damaged in any way. It’s generally pristine. There are a couple flaws in it, but I don’t really consider them flaws. This is what makes the thing original, and you can see both of these flaws, by the way, if you enlarge page two of the letter at the eBay auction page. On page two there’s a light blue pen park about two inches long next to the top paragraph. It’s as though some senator of advancing years had a hard time holding the pen steady. Or maybe it was signed after five o’clock. We got an office pool on who made this blue streak. Our office pool money is on Senator Lautenberg at this point.
There’s also, and you’ve probably seen this if you’ve looked at this any time in color, there is a small yellow smear on the paper in the left margin of page two. We think that Senator Kennedy may have been eating a hot dog when he signed. I don’t know. It looks like it’s a little Sharpie, a yellow Sharpie or highlighter. That’s how it was when we got it, and we didn’t do these things to it. Nobody has touched this. You see it as we got it. Neither of these smears — uh, smudges, ladies and gentlemen, impede the value of the document in any way. But in the interest of full disclosure, we thought you ought to know because people have been asking about it, and it’s a good question.
BREAK TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: We’ve posted a pdf file of a copy of the Dingy Harry smear letter at RushLimbaugh.com. People have been, in the thousands, asking us to make copies available for a small donation to the Marine Corps-Law Enforcement Foundation. You’ve already paid for this letter, folks, because these senators that wrote it and signed it did so during normal business hours. So we’re giving it to you, and if you want to donate to the Marine Corps-Law Enforcement Foundation on your own, please feel free, in whatever amount that you want. We’re treating you as adults. We’re still at $45,100 on the original at eBay, and that auction is open through one 1 p.m. Friday.
RUSH: Ken in Oakmont, California. It’s great to have you on the program, sir. Welcome to the EIB Network.
CALLER: Rush, thank you for taking my call, and thanks for being there.
RUSH: Thank you, sir.
CALLER: Listen, the reason I’m calling: This document, I think it has historical significance only because it’s such a classic example of abuse of power. You know, not too many months ago I remember Rockefeller and I think Olympia Snowe signed onto a letter on Exxon threatening them with consequences if they continued to fund research to find out the real cause of global warming.
RUSH: Right.
CALLER: Now here they’re going after a private citizen, you, and using the full force of the Senate to try to coerce you and make you apologize for something you didn’t do. It just makes me sick to my stomach, and I wish everybody in America could get a copy of that thing, because one of them is running for president, and people better look out, because if she’s willing to sign, spend that money —
RUSH: More than that, Chris Dodd is running for president, and his signature is on there. John Kerry did run for president. His signature is on there.
CALLER: Oh, okay.
RUSH: I don’t think Obama signed it. I haven’t memorized the list.
CALLER: Yeah.
RUSH: We’re making it available today as a pdf file on our website. Obama did sign it? Okay, so Obama signed it, too.
CALLER: So you have candidates on there.
RUSH: Well, three, because Dodd’s already in there.
CALLER: Oh, gosh, forget Dodd. He’s just in it for the money. But I’m just so appalled that they’re getting away with this, and the media is not saying nothing. Of course, they wouldn’t.
RUSH: Well, that’s interesting, though. That is a fascinating point. I had lunch yesterday with Mr. Buckley up in Connecticut.
CALLER: Oh, my friend! I love that man.
RUSH: Pardon?
CALLER: Where is he?
RUSH: He’s up in Connecticut.
CALLER: I know, but I never see from him or hear from him anymore. I’ve read all of his books, including his mystery novel. I love that man.
RUSH: He’s working on a biography or treatise on Reagan right now, within the research phase, and he’s back to writing his columns. No, he looked great yesterday. But we were talking about this at lunch, and Norman Podhoretz and Mitch Dechter were there, and Jay Nordlinger from National Review. I made the point to them, I said, ‘You know, in this case the mainstream, the Drive-By Media, the broadcast networks, have not touched this story.’ The New York Times came to it a week late (albeit with a Media Matters press release). The Washington Post has not done anything on it. TIME Magazine hasn’t done anything on it. Newsweek hasn’t. ABC, CBS, and NBC have not. The cable networks have. Now, the truth of the story is exactly what you said: ‘The Senate Majority Leader and 40 Senators Signed Letter Smearing Private Citizen on False Accusation.’ That should be news. They haven’t reported that, either. What this tells me is the reason they have not touched it is because they know it’s bogus. They’re waiting for a better shot to go at me —
CALLER: Oh, yeah.
RUSH: — next time around, rather than report what’s actually news here, which is what you said, which is a private citizen has been focused upon and with attempt to damage reputation and abilities to do business, using the full force of the Senate majority leader.
CALLER: And then they went after a private corporation, Exxon, for the same types of things, because they disagree with who’s causing global warming. So they went to shut them up. They said, ‘Don’t use your money for any more research to disapprove the theory that we’re causing global warming.’
RUSH: Right. Well, you’re right: It is historic. There’s no question about it. Look, I’ve been looking at the news coverage of this now, and I think we’ve turned the corner on this. I don’t know that Dingy Harry and these guys are getting away with this at all. I think they’re probably fuming. The most interesting thing about this is, you don’t do this to United States senators. You don’t do, folks, what we are doing to these people. You do not publicly humiliate and embarrass them. You just don’t. These people — most of them, in their minds — are at the epitome of power, and they have this sense of entitlement about them. What’s happened here, I have no doubt that in the cloakrooms, I have an even bigger target painted on me now. Now they really gotta get me somehow. It was one thing… See, I should have known! I should have known just to let them go ahead with their charade, which is what this is. I should have understood that they’re just doing this to satisfy their base, and I should have just dropped it. But then to get the original, put it on eBay, auction it, and give the proceeds to the Marine Corps-Law Enforcement Foundation? Why, that’s rubbing their nose in it. They don’t have the discipline to understand that they were — well, actually they do. They know exactly what they were trying to do. They were trying to damage my reputation or my ability to do business by spreading a lie. I’m just supposed to sit there and take it, just like Exxon and Wal-Mart are just supposed to sit there and take it. Or make campaign contributions, or do something to make them go away, protection racket. As you people know, I don’t play it that way. I fight these people. It’s going to put an even larger bull’s-eye on my front or back, whichever way they happen to be aiming at the next time. But it is what it is. It is historic, and it’s profound. That’s why I say my parents would not believe this. They really wouldn’t. My dad would be fit to be tied over this, I have to tell you, just like the majority of you are.
RUSH: Here’s Wayne in Slidell, Louisiana, great to have you on the program, sir. Hello.
CALLER: Hey, Rush.
RUSH: Hey.
CALLER: Just to make it short and sweet, Friday I tried to call about 480 times, which is okay, but I wanted to make two suggestions, and you guys figured one of them out already and doesn’t surprise me at all, that some people could possibly be able to make donations to that charity of yours, the Marine Corps-Law Enforcement —
RUSH: Foundation.
CALLER: — Foundation, I believe.
RUSH: Yeah. We got one minute here.
CALLER: Okay. And I think if you were to deliver the titanium briefcase yourself, in person, it might put the price way, way higher than —
RUSH: Well, I thought about that, but then I fear I might have to go to Senator Reid’s office (laughing) or the Democrat National Committee, depending on who buys it. I don’t think it’s unusual or odd to think that they might be trying to buy their letter back. You think they might not have some offshore corporation or third- or fourth-removed person like a Norman Hsu or one of his associates trying to buy the thing back? But I’ll tell you something, where does that stop? Okay, I deliver it. ‘Well, since you’re here, let’s go to dinner. Why don’t you stay and let’s play golf?’ You know, we could get all kind of things. Why don’t I just stay in your house for the week and do the show in your backyard? What could we generate with that kind of thing?