RUSH: To the Alfred E. Smith dinner last night. McCain killed. He really did bring down the house last night at the 63rd annual Alfred E. Smith Benefit Dinner. This is a Catholic Charities Foundation dinner that is held every year. They raised over two-and-a-half million dollars last night. We have a series of bites from both candidates. McCain first.
MCCAIN: This campaign needed the common touch of a working man. (laughter) After all, it began so long ago with the heralded arrival of a man known to Open Line Friday as ‘The One.’ (laughter) Being a friend and colleague of Barack, I just called him ‘That One.’ (applause) Friends, he didn’t mind at all. In fact, he even has a pet name for me: ‘George Bush.’ (applause)
RUSH: The laughter went on and on and on and on. We’ve cut the laughter for the time constraints here. Here is Senator McCain skewering the Clintons while sticking it to Obama.
MCCAIN: Even in this room full of proud Manhattan Democrats, I can’t shake that feeling that some people here are pulling for me. (applause) I’m delighted to see you here tonight, Hillary. (raucous laughter) Where’s Bill, by the way? Can’t he take one night off from his tireless quest to make the man who defeated his wife the next president? Larry King asked President Clinton couple weeks ago, what was delay and why wasn’t he out there on the trail for Barack. Bill said his hands were tied until the end of the Jewish high holidays. (laughter) I just know Bill would like to be out there now stomping for Barack until the last hour of the last day. Unfortunately, he is constrained by his respect for any voters who might be observing the Zoroastrian New Year. (laughter)
RUSH: This is great stuff, and the laughter went on and on and on. This is a great McCain line on Obama and the economy. And they cut to Obama during all the jokes, and Obama laughed at some of them, but you could tell some of these things were really getting to him. To me, last night I learned Obama does not have a sense of humor. This is the next one.
MCCAIN: We all know that Senator Obama is ready for any contingency, even the possibility of a sudden and dramatic market rebound. I’m told that at the first sign of recovery, he will suspend his campaign and fly immediately to Washington to address this crisis. (laughter and applause)
RUSH: Yeah, baby, yeah! If the markets start doing great, Obama is going to stop and head to Washington to deal with it, find out what happened. He then went after the media a little.
MCCAIN: My old friend and greenroom pal Chris Matthews. He used to like me, but he found somebody new. (laughter) Somebody who opened his eyes, somebody who gave him a thrill up his leg (laughter), and we’ve talked about it. I told him, ‘Maverick I can do, but Messiah is above my pay grade.’ (laughter)
RUSH: I know. I know. I know you’re asking, ‘Where the hell has this been? Where the hell’s this kind of stuff been?’ Now, I don’t know who wrote this for McCain, obviously somebody did, but somebody behind the scenes knows full well who Obama is, what the Clinton relationship with Obama is, what the Clintons’ desires regarding Obama are. You know, humor just works so well when you skewer somebody and everybody’s laughing when you do it, it’s just profoundly good. Now let’s get one more. This is the classy McCain. I think this is generational, by the way. A lot of things get lost in terms of class as generations pass and come and go. The old days of, you know, being gracious and complimentary to your opponent and so forth. Those days have gone by the boards for the most part. But McCain is old enough to have had that been part of his upbringing and so forth, and this is near his close. This is not how he closed it. He closed it with more humor, but this is what he had to say about Obama.
MCCAIN: My opponent is an impressive fellow in many ways. Political opponents can have a little trouble seeing the best in each other. But I’ve had a few glimpses of this man at his best, and I admire his great skill, energy, and determination. It’s not for nothing that he’s inspired so many folks in his own party and beyond. Senator Obama talks about making history, and he’s made quite a bit of it already. I can’t wish my opponent luck, but I do wish him well. (applause)
RUSH: I know you’re saying, ‘Why is he saying this? Why does he have to compliment Obama?’ Because he knows his audience. He knows who the audience is. He knows what the purpose of this dinner is. He knows what’s called for, and he gave it all. He gave the humor. He did the humor well. He was properly respectful of the host of the event and the guests, honored guests and so forth. Katie Couric was up there. She had her Sarah Palin hairdo last night. Brian Williams was up there. New York elite is who’s in the crowd.
BREAK TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: Here is Obama — now, let me tell you what happened. I did not see when it was going live last night. I had forgotten it was even on, and I had the baseball game on in the background. You know, at home, I have to turn away from the TV to use the computer. I turned to my left, I got an L-shaped desk there, and I’m at the computer and I’m working on today’s show and a number of other things and occasionally glance at the screen to see how bad the Red Sox are getting blown out. Then my e-mail, I got a flash from a friend: ‘McCain is killing tonight.’ What’s going on tonight? Whoops. Alfred E. Smith. So I turned on C-SPAN, and I caught the last line of McCain, and the crowd going nuts, and then I saw Obama introduced, and I did watch Obama live. Then I went back and I found the McCain stuff before I went to bed last night. I sent my friend who had sent this note ‘McCain is killing tonight,’ I fired back, I said, ‘I think Obama is bombing.’ Now, I admit I was a little bit reacting to his telling me that McCain had killed. I didn’t see McCain, but I’ve seen Bush kill at these things. Bush just was fabulous at these things. It’s all about who writes them.
I’m told that Matthew Scully wrote McCain’s last night who also wrote Palin’s speech at the Republican convention. Well, you gotta be able to tell a joke, and McCain’s timing was impeccable, his timing last night was impeccable. You gotta be able to do that. I don’t know who wrote Obama’s, I’m thinking somebody at Saturday Night Live, like Lorne Michaels, or maybe they went and got the teetering normalcy, Al Franken to write it, because this was bitter. There were parts of it that were bitter and that really weren’t funny, and something else I noticed as I watched Obama, he was ad-libbing the part where he got to praising McCain, and I think — I’m just guessing — but I’m pretty good analyzing this stuff ’cause I’m a highly trained analyst and specialist. But I’m pretty sure that Obama did not have any words for McCain in this, or not very many, and then after McCain goes on and on and on praising Obama, Obama said, I’m going to have to say something here, and he’s ad-libbing. We don’t have tape of that, I’m just passing this off to you. Let’s just get to the Obama bites. We have four of them here. Here is Obama making fun of his middle name.
OBAMA: Many of you know that I got my name, Barack, from my father. What you may not know is Barack is actually Swahili for ‘that one.’ (laughter) And I got my middle name from somebody who obviously didn’t think I’d ever run for president. (laughter)
RUSH: Okay, now, that one was so good that he then went on to say — we don’t have tape of this — he was not born in a manger. Contrary to popular opinion, he was not born in a manger, he was born on Krypton, and he was sent here by his father, Jor-El, to save planet Earth. That fell flat. I don’t know. I wasn’t born in a manger, I’m not Christ, I’m not Jesus. I’m Superman. I know he’s trying to be self-deprecating and laugh at himself, but I don’t think Obama laughs at himself. I don’t think Obama laughs much. That’s what I picked up from this. Here’s the second joke about his middle name.
OBAMA: In the spirit of full disclosure, there are a few October Surprises you’ll be finding out about in the coming couple weeks. First of all, my middle name, it’s not what you think. It’s actually Steve. That’s right, Barack Steve Obama.
RUSH: See, the first middle name joke went over so well, Swahili is for ‘that one.’ He closed out, let’s go to 29. This is the one that made me think he is bitter. Well, I know he’s bitter about this because in the debate he was crying, he was whining and moaning about how if it weren’t for Fox News he’d have three or four more points in the polls to which the retort is, if it weren’t for MSNBC, CNN, ABC, NBC, CBS, the New York Times, Washington Post, LA Times, USA Today, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, you wouldn’t be at 30% in the polls. But he’s gotta go (crying) Fox News (crying) Fox News (crying). So he got in a little dig at Rupert Murdoch.
OBAMA: Rupert Murdoch the other day, Fox News actually accused me of fathering two African-American children in wedlock. (laughter) By the way, John, I’m just curious, is Fox News included in the media? Because I’m always hearing about this love. Just curious.
RUSH: Now, I don’t know, folks. This is not a guy can rise above this kind of stuff, this petty little stuff. Man, if you’re running for president, you can’t take the media and you can’t handle one dissenting voice, can you imagine if Obama were a Republican? Fox, by the way, I don’t know if you saw the post-debate analysis, Obama, but the Fox All-Stars want to fix you breakfast every morning, and they want to put you to bed every night and they want to drive your car every day. You gotta look around and find out you got real friends over at Fox News, Obama. Something here, folks, just doesn’t sit right. He closes with a little bit of class warfare about New York City.
OBAMA: Beyond the walls of this hotel on the streets of one of the greatest cities in the wealthiest nation on earth, there are men and women and children who have fallen on hard times and hard luck, who can’t find work or even a job that pays enough to keep a roof over their heads. And some are hanging on just by a thread.
RUSH: Now, there’s Obama saying this while dressed in a white tie. This was a white tie dinner last night, and that meant the babes could bring out all the finest baubles and jewels that they either rent or own, and the finest gowns and all this. New York Page Six reports: ‘Though he’s battling GOP accusations that he’s an Ivy League elitist, Barack Obama has a lifestyle of the rich and famous, like TV show host Robin Leach, who always signed off, ‘Champagne wishes and caviar dreams!’ While he was at a meeting at the Waldorf-Astoria at 4 p.m. Wednesday, Michelle Obama called room service and ordered lobster hors d’oeuvres, two whole steamed lobsters, Iranian caviar and champagne,’ and there’s Obama waxing eloquent about all the suffering outside the hotel on the streets of the one of the greatest cities in the wealthiest nation — so had to get in a little class envy. Not funny. He was not warm, even. Some of these jokes he was laughing at them alone. He was laughing at his own jokes himself.