RUSH: I’m sitting around, I’m minding my own business, I’m watching the Charlie Gibson excerpts there with Governor Palin. Here comes the fatalistic e-mails start rolling in from friends, I said, ‘Just calm down here. She’s doing great. She’s doing fine. There’s nothing to worry about.’ One thing that people have to understand about all this, and I’ll tell you who said this, Roger Simon said this on some cable network this morning. He was asked to review this. He said, (paraphrasing) ‘People look at these the wrong way. We in the media look at these interviews the wrong way. This is not some quiz show where you get one chance and you blow it and you’re gone. People do not look at a presidential campaign that way.’ He said, and I found this funny, ‘Sometimes this country does not elect the smartest people.’ (laughing) He was referring to Algore and of course the haughty John Kerry, who served in Vietnam. He said, ‘They’re going to elect who they think is the most authentic. They’re going to elect who they like the most. They’re going to elect who is, to them, just a normal person.’ He’s exactly right, but besides all that, she did fine last night.
Everybody knew what this was about and some of the media reviews were really good, but there was this one moment where the libs think they’ve got her, this so-called cringe-inducing moment where she seemed not to know what the Bush Doctrine was, but as soon as she understood the nature of the question, she articulated it just fine. You’re cringing in there when I say that? She had to have it explained to her what the concept was. Once she got that, she articulated it perfectly. She just wasn’t familiar with the term. There may not be eight people in the Bush administration who know what the Bush Doctrine is. What is the Bush Doctrine, Dawn? Tell me. You can’t explain it, either. Cheney probably knows. Bush probably knows. Rumsfeld probably knows. State Department probably has forgotten about it. CIA has tried to kill it. It’s no big deal. Very simply, the Bush Doctrine is preemptive strike. If we think you’re coming after us after 9/11, and we got evidence that you’re coming after us again, we’re going to hit you before you hit us. That’s common sense. To say that the Bush Doctrine is something new, the reason we had to articulate that is because the modern-day Democrat Party does not believe in that. They believe in us getting hit and reading the people who hit us their rights, and then giving them access to the US Constitution. We did have to establish it after Clinton, because Clinton didn’t do diddly-squat, so we did have to establish the Bush Doctrine.
They try to twist her answers on the religious questions that she got and they’re distorting that, and Charlie Gibson was not prepared, I don’t care what anybody says, but Charlie, you fell for a phony AP story that misquotes Sarah Palin on why we went to Iraq, that we’re doing God’s will. She praised that we are doing to God’s will when going to Iraq. Don’t worry about all this, folks. She did nothing last night to make people less enthralled. I’ll tell you who’s got to worry, who has to worry here is Obama. This guy, he always has run a purely personality-oriented campaign. There’s a story here in the New York Times, ‘Obama Plans Sharper Tone as Party Frets.’ Jake Tapper at ABC says, ‘This is the fourth time I’ve heard now that Obama is going to take off the gloves.’ I asked quite profoundly and brilliantly earlier this week how in the world does Obama get tough about the issues he’s for? How do you get tough about raising taxes? He can’t be honest about some of the things he wants to do. So it says here in this story that Obama’s message was ‘disrupted’ last week.
They’re trying to figure out a way to make Obama’s arguments ‘newsworthy’ again. His arguments never did make him newsworthy. His has been a campaign of personality and aura and image from the get-go. He’s never been newsworthy from the standpoint of his issues. He and Hillary Clinton, for example, didn’t disagree about anything, issue-wise. The only way Obama could separate himself was to do this Messiah business. But that’s over and done with. That’s all gone. Now, if they’re gonna try to recapture that, they can’t. They are in huge trouble, folks. They are the ones that are in big trouble out there, and by the way, do you remember, I think it was in July, ladies and gentlemen, when I lectured on this very program to Republicans that nothing was lost, that opportunities were being handed to them on a silver platter, not just for the presidential campaign, but for the congressional elections. The gas price, the energy issues, there were all kinds of things that if the Republicans would grab the reins and run right through the woods with them, that we could own this election. There were Republican elected officials who said, ‘It’s inevitable that we’re going to lose seats in the House and Senate.’ It was accepted as certain as manmade global warming that Democrats would add to their numbers and Republicans were doomed.
Well have you seen the latest Gallup Poll? ‘Battle for Congress Suddenly Looks Competitive — Democrats’ double-digit lead on the ‘generic ballot’ slips to 3 points.’ The margin of error. It’s not a slam dunk that the Democrats are gonna just roll to sweeping victory and it never has been a slam dunk that that was going to happen. That’s more media myth making that everybody believed because we seem to be pessimistic and fatalistic about certain things. Of course, I guess we have reason to feel that way at some point in our campaign, but anyway, all that’s gone, we’ve gone through a bit of a revival here. The real change that’s happening in American politics is on our side of the aisle. The real change is the first time since the Contract for America. The Republican Party finally has somebody who can effectively convey a conservative message, do it with authority and confidence and happiness. It comes at a time when the moderate Republicans have screwed things up as much as the Democrats have. So the moderate Republicans, it’s right in front of their eyes how to win. They eschewed all of this, trying to go after independents and Democrats and make that future of the Republican Party. Many of our conservative intelligentsia tried to do the same thing in the media by suggesting that we had to go out and attract these other people because our side is too small, it’s a bunch of kooks and hicks and so forth. One selection, Sarah Palin, has turned this around.
McCain’s picked up 15 points among independents. There’s a Wall Street Journal piece today that says it has nothing to do with McCain’s campaign tacking to the right, it’s totally due to his picking Sarah Palin. Well, who is Sarah Palin? Is it gender? Are these independents simply joining because she’s a woman, or is it because of who she is? Of course it’s because it’s who she is, and that she espouses conservatism with confidence, with flair, with authority, and with happiness. I guarantee you, that lunch that Clinton and Obama had, it was a two-hour lunch, and don’t think for one minute that they did not discuss the possibility of Hillary Clinton ending up on this ticket as the vice presidential candidate. Do not think they didn’t discuss that. There is huge trouble in the Democrat side. They’re trying to cover it up in the media with all these attacks on Sarah Palin and so forth. But that’s why they’re doing the attacks, because they know they got nothing to talk about with their guy. How is he going to get tough? How is he going to become newsworthy? How is he going to make news with his issues when he doesn’t have any? We got audio sound bites from when he and McCain appeared at a Columbia forum last night. We’ll get to those in a moment. But first, ladies and gentlemen, the Obama campaign has announced a new movie soon to be released, before the election.
(playing of movie spoof)
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RUSH: One of my favorite moments last night in the Charlie Gibson interview with Sarah Palin, was her reply to her lack of experience. I love this. ‘Cause this is essentially a point that I have been making. She said, ‘There are lots of people in Washington with big, fat old resumes who have plenty of experience in doing the wrong things,’ and what kind of experience, what kind of qualification is being wrong all the time? Now, she didn’t say that. I added that, but that’s what she means. Now, look what we got here, folks. We have three members of the most despised political institution in our country: the United States Congress. We have John McCain. We have Barack Obama. We have Joe Biden. Congress is in single-digit approval numbers
Against these three members of the most despised political institution in our country, we have fresh face who seems to share the values that most Americans share. She can convey them in a pleasant, effective, confident, authoritative, humorous manner — and, by the way, she happens to be a woman. I think as much as her gender and her appearance, I think these are the reasons that she’s the center of the political debate right now, whether these old guys and this man-child like it or not and whether the gals like it or not. That’s why: She’s real, she’s authentic, she’s an American. She’s likable, and it’s not complicated. So if you stack her up against them, if you look at it that way — three members of the most despised political institution going right now, the US Senate, versus Sarah Palin (laughing) You want to tell me what’s change? She’s change.
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RUSH: Faith in Austin, Texas. Faith, welcome to the EIB Network. Hello. It’s great to have you with us.
CALLER: Hi, Rush. How you doin’?
RUSH: Never better.
CALLER: Great. Now that I heard that McCain was on The View — I never watch The View. It’s like throwing your pearls before swine. He never should have gone on there.
RUSH: (laughing)
CALLER: Well, no, it’s true. Those women are just insane! The point I wanted to make with Palin: last night, what I noticed, is she challenged Charles Gibson twice with asking questions back to him about Bush’s policies. She said, ‘Well, what are you referring to?’ You know, he got flustered — and then, about the global warming thing, she challenged him again. He was making a big deal about global warming, and then she said, ‘Well, you know, Charlie, all through history man has made some kind of effect on the earth,’ and he went, ‘Let’s go onto ANWR.’ He just completely changed the subject. He was really flustered, and just one more real quick comment: All these (static). I’m sorry. All these liberals that keep calling (static). I’m sorry. All these liberals who keep calling in about (static) about… about… (static) I’m sorry. My phone is acting up.
RUSH: Yeah, I thought it was my speaker here, but it’s your phone.
All these liberals (static) who keep calling in and attacking (static) Bristol, her daughter (static) that’s 17 and pregnant, but she’s going (static) to keep the baby because she loves it — she’s going to get (static) married (static) because (static)…
RUSH: Faith? Faith? I’m going to have to let you go. That sound is driving me nuts, on your phone, and I’m unable to hear what you’re saying. I heard… We’re not getting too many calls here ripping Bristol. That must be happening somewhere else, but it’s fascinating, ’cause here’s a woman who watched the interview last night and this is her perception. So, a lot of people on our side (sigh) were just watching this last night, hoping that she didn’t blow it. Because our side is just so convinced that our stars are going to blow it, that they’re not genuine and so forth. One or two little mistakes, and ‘Oh, noooooo! Ooooh, no!’ and they start writing what she should have said and so forth. So it’s interesting to get the perception of people who just see this, ordinary people out there across the fruited plain, and get their reactions to it. I have not heard this reaction — from anybody that I have seen, anybody I have read, anybody I have heard. I have not heard anybody reference the fact that she fought back with Charlie Gibson a bunch of times and flustered him — and I’ve read a lot. I’ve read a lot. These interpretations to me are always fascinating.