RUSH: Would you like to hear how the Drive-Bys dealt with the Tim Mahoney story today in the Mark Foley seat. These people went nuts over Foley. They yuk it up here over the Mahoney story. They will not give ‘the ugly details.’ Here are the Co-Host Willie Geist and the exchange with political analyst Chuck Todd and Mika Brzezinski.
BRZEZINSKI: Uhhhhh.
GEIST: You want to talk about the smut in Palm Beach?
BRZEZINSKI: (cackling)
TODD: Only the poor folks in Palm Beach. One congressman in one sex scandal last year, and there a new — their new congressman in a new sex scandal.
BRZEZINSKI: Chuck Todd!
GEIST: We’re talking about Democratic congressman Tim Mahoney, Mark Foley’s replacement. Apparently —
BRZEZINSKI: Okay!
GEIST: We are not going to get into the ugly details —
BRZEZINSKI: Okay!
GEIST: — having personal problems of his own.
BRZEZINSKI: We aaaaaare…
TODD: Apparently he is.
GEIST: There’s something about that seat, I guess.
TODD: There is something about it and, uh, there’s something being a one-term member of Congress, uh, I think.
GEIST: (laughing)
BRZEZINSKI: Okay!!!
RUSH: Oh, there’s something about that seat. There’s something about that seat. We’re not going to get into the details, though. We’re not going to get into the details! Well, we’ll get into the details. He paid $121,000 to his mistress in hush money. He sent her off to work for a firm he had relationships to. The firm has since canned him and dissociated himself with him. This is far worse than what Foley ever did. But see, Foley was sending these little text messages in Washington, and Mahoney was… Well, now, wait. Where was the affair? It doesn’t matter. I was going to say that the affair was down here. The big thing is that Rahm Emanuel was in on this. The Democrat leadership was in on this. This guy has asked — Mahoney has asked — for the Ethics Committee to investigate him. So he’s asked for an investigation of himself. Of course, Pelosi says, ‘Hell yes we’re going to investigate — after the election,’ because they’re adjourned now, you see?
The Rangel investigation… Now, let’s go back to October 1, 2006. Listen to this media montage on Foley.
O’BRIEN: …the resignation of Florida Congressman Mark Foley over improper e-mails to a teenage page. Five weeks until the elections. Is the GOP in trouble?
NURENBERG: Five weeks before the election it seems unlikely that those Democrats will let the issue die.
MALVEAUX: This is the last thing they anticipated five weeks before the midterm elections.
CHRIS CUOMO: The implications could be very big for the election.
LIASSON: I think the question now is how this affects the midterms.
HOLT: The resignation of Congressman Mark Foley over those emails is heating up in an election year season bonfire.
HALPERIN: The Democrats are 1/15 of the way there. I can’t see how they could lose this seat.
EPSTEIN: You begin to get a very strong, wave and a sentiment out in the public to throw the bums out.
HARRIS: A potentially massive, metastasizing scandal, just five weeks before Election Day.
RUSH: So these guys were just thrilled. They couldn’t wait to get rid of Foley. It’s all they talked about for five weeks, and they were talking about ‘Macaca’ at the same time. Let’s go to the same date, October 1, 2006. CNN’s Anchorette Carol Lin talking to reporter John King about Foley. Lin says, ‘How is the GOP base likely to respond and what will they make of Hastert’s request for [an] investigation?’
KING: It’s the Republican Party that presents itself as the party of family values, as the moral party in this country, that is counting — in a midterm election in which both parties say the most critical element in their success or failure is will their base turn out to vote?
LIN: Mmm-hmm.
KING: Who is the Republican base? Christian conservative voters who are likely to be very offended by this. One of the big things to watch in the week ahead: conservative radio, like Rush Limbaugh. This is likely to send a domino effect across the base of the Republican Party.
RUSH: Yeah, the Republican Party is the sole home of morality, right? What did Mahoney say in 2006 when he was campaigning for Congress? He promised ‘a world that is safer and more moral,’ and as soon as he gets into office, ‘Bam, bam, bam! Wham-bam, thank you ma’am!’ here comes the affair. Pelosi and Emanuel know about it, start covering it up and trying to help it not harm his reelection effort.
BREAK TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: By the way, we have an audio sound bite here of a montage of last night’s coverage of the Tim Mahoney story on the network nightly newscasts.
(silence)
RUSH: Oh. I’m told there is no montage; there were no comments on the nightly news about Tim Mahoney. This of course is nothing like the Foley case, yet silence from the media. Here is… I don’t have time to play it. We’ve got some audiotape here, telephone calls of Mahoney’s firing his mistress on the phone. We have audiotapes of Mahoney telling her what life is like. We have Mahoney intimidating her, trying to get her to shut up and then telling her that if she doesn’t say anything, if she stays and stands mute, that he will pay her off. We had nothing like this in the Foley scandal. The Drive-Bys could not care less, and we all know why: because this year, it’s about 535 Democrats being elected.
BREAK TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: Rahm Emanuel knew about Tim Mahoney over a year ago. The firm where Mahoney parked the woman with whom he was having an affair is now suing him and has severed ties with him. And remember in 2006, Tim Mahoney pledged a safer, more moral world as he campaigned to replace Mark Foley. Here are some tapes, audio sound bites of Mahoney firing the mistress on the phone.
MAHONEY: You’re fired. It’s correct. It is what I believe. You’re fired. Do you hear me? Don’t tell me whether it’s correct or not.
ALLEN: Tell me why else I’m fired.
MAHONEY: There is no why else.
ALLEN: Yeah, there is.
MAHONEY: No. Because — you’re fired because I said that you — you know, I’m the judge and the jury, okay? You’re fired. Do you hear me? Call what’s her name. Today was your last day. If you want to keep on thinking like, you know, I’m not being fair or somehow this is a negotiation, this is not a negotiation. Okay? You know, you’re not in a position to negotiate with me on this, okay? It’s my decision, okay?
RUSH: And now he goes on to tell the mistress that she works at his pleasure — now, this is a kind, loving, tolerant, compassionate Democrat who pledged a safer, more moral world as he campaigned to replace Mark Foley.
MAHONEY: You work at my pleasure. If you’re doing the job that I think that you should do, you get to keep your job. Whenever I don’t feel like you’re doing your job, then you lose your job. And guess what? The only person that matters is, guess who? Me. Do you understand that? Now this is how life really is. This is how it works.
ALLEN: You know that —
MAHONEY: You don’t have a job.
ALLEN: — you’re upset about something else.
MAHONEY: No, I’m not upset about something else. I’m upset because we continue to have this discussion and you continue to try to push it someplace where it’s not supposed to be.
RUSH: And this is Tim Mahoney, my congressman, for crying out loud, the pervert involved in a big sex scandal now. Jonathan Martin at Politico says, ‘What is it about Palm Beach and sex scandals?’ I say, ‘You don’t know the half of it.’ A government budget item the other day, in some bill, like $500,000 to discuss and study why Eskimos still swap lives, and I said, ‘For half that I’ll blow the whistle on Palm Beach.’ But the point of Martin’s e-mail, they all think this is funny now. ‘Oh, it’s another sex scandal in Palm Beach.’ You heard the bite from MSNBC, well, we’re not going to get into the details of this. Here’s Mahoney telling the mistress, if she doesn’t do anything, he’ll pay her off.
MAHONEY: And let me tell you something else. If I find out you say anything else, you won’t get your last paycheck.
ALLEN: Like what? What do you think I’m going to say?
MAHONEY: I don’t give a ****, okay? But if you say anything, you won’t get your last paycheck. I’ll pay you off, all your expenses and you’re done, okay? You can’t call me. You don’t understand me, okay? You keep pissin’ me off because every time I get you on the phone you keep telling me I’m wrong.
ALLEN: You are wrong.
MAHONEY: I’m wrong. Okay, guess what? You don’t have a job, okay? You’re right that you don’t have a job. Guess what? How does that make you feel?
ALLEN: You’re firing me for other reasons and you’re not man enough to say it. Why don’t you say it? Why don’t you say it and be a man?
RUSH: Why don’t you say it and be a man? You’re firing me because you’re trying to cover up an affair that you willingly had with me. She also thought, by the way, that he was seeing somebody else so she thought that she was in some sort of triangle here, maybe a quadrangle because the wife is involved here, too. So she thinks that he’s seeing two other babes while he’s seeing her, and but the Drive-Bys don’t care. So you just heard this thoughtful, kind, going to bring a new morality to Washington, Tim Mahoney, fire the mistress and then intimidate her. She shuts up, she’ll be paid. And, of course, the Palm Beach Post, which endorsed him, ‘Well, he really owes us an explanation on this. He’s gotta get this all straightened out.’ Nobody’s surprised here, folks, don’t misunderstand. Nobody is surprised at the difference in treatment from the Drive-By Media to Mark Foley.
By the way, I remember something on the Foley case, not that it matters now, but I was very suspicious about this when it happened because pages are teenagers. Here’s this guy strutting around and he’s obviously gay and he’s giving them some kind of indication — I think they’re playing practical jokes on him. I think they’re sending him text messages and he’s responding to it and so forth. But I think the pages started all that. No excuse here for Foley, but this is clearly an instance of immorality far worse than Foley. Foley never touched one of these kids, never did anything with them, and here we’ve got the Democrat that replaced him all in a tizzy and having an affair and paying hush money and he’s been fired by the firm where he parked this woman and so forth, they dissociated themselves with him. His opponent down there is a guy named Tom Rooney, who is just a stand up guy, and he’s actually doing pretty well in the polls up ’til now. It’s going to be interesting to see how all this affects that race.