RUSH: Let me just tell you, ladies and gentlemen, we have two weeks to go before the election. And the campaign has reached the point the Obama campaign feared the most: foreign policy. With two weeks to go, the last thing the Obama campaign wants on the table is foreign policy. Thank you, Joe Biden. Joe Biden has put foreign policy on the table and has said essentially that Obama’s response to being tested — and he will be tested by mean people — his response will be unsatisfactory and he’s begging Obama supporters to support him no matter what happens. Don’t take us down in the polls like we took Bush down in the polls. He didn’t say it in those words, but that’s exactly what he meant.
This is not where the Obama campaign wanted to be two weeks out. They did not want a campaign focusing on foreign policy and Joe Biden has made it front and center. They also did not want anything like what’s happened to them regarding this Joe the Plumber fellow. They wanted it out there that they’re going to help the little guy; they’re going to tax the rich; they’re going to make sure the rich pay. ‘We’re going to tax the rich and we’re going to spread the wealth.’ And what’s happened is that country has seen the Obama campaign try to destroy an average American who simply asked The Messiah a question and The Messiah gave the wrong answer, and so the punishment meted out to Joe the Plumber, all of his thugs, union thugs lined up trying to destroy Joe the Plumber’s ability to do business. This is not where the Obama campaign wants to be two weeks out.
BREAK TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: My friends, the fur is flying between the McCain campaign and NBC News over NBC News’ refusal to play the most damaging parts of Joe Biden’s comments in Seattle. Now, they have only played the segment where Biden says that Obama has a spine of steel. They have not aired any of the other aspects of this where Biden talks about how unhappy people will be with the response that Obama gives to this test, that it’s going to definitely happen that the poll numbers are going to drop. So the McCain campaign has sent out a little statement here, a little response to the refusal of NBC to air the relevant parts of Biden’s remarks. ‘On NBC Nightly News last night when Andrea Mitchell reported on Biden’s remarks, she failed to play the relevant portion, the portion that says campaign and a variety of news outlets had found controversial, or revealing as the case may be. Instead, Andrea Mitchell,’ NBC News, Washington ‘played a tape of Joe Biden talking about how Barack Obama has steel in his spine. This morning on MSNBC, the network again aired the tape of Biden, and again they aired the segment in which Biden heaps praise on his running made, but Joe Scarborough noted that the network had played the wrong clip and that what Biden said directly reflects the central criticism this campaign has made of Obama: that his inexperience, his poor judgment, his foreign policy proposals will, in Biden’s own words, ‘guarantee a crisis.” So how is it that NBC repeatedly failed to play those remarks? This afternoon on MSNBC Live Andrea Mitchell, NBC News, Washington, spoke with McCain campaign spokesperson Nancy Pfotenhauer, and Mitchell said, ‘Let’s talk about Joe Biden.’
PFOTENHAUER: I think that his statement yesterday was one of the most revealing and interesting perhaps in modern history. If you play the entire clip — I’m going to gently chide you and beg you to play the entire clip —
MITCHELL: You mean the part where —
PFOTENHAUER: — you hear that what Senator Biden —
MITCHELL: The one where he talks about Obama’s steel spine…perhaps?
PFOTENHAUER: No, the one where he talks about the fact that the election of Obama would cause a generated attack by this nation’s enemies and that he himself could think of four or five — and he’s guaranteeing that it would cause a generated attack.
MITCHELL: We did play it earlier for Tom Daschle to respond to, so it has…
PFOTENHAUER: Did you play the whole thing?
MITCHELL: It… We…
PFOTENHAUER: Tell me you played the whole thing.
MITCHELL: I think we played the whole thing.
PFOTENHAUER: (laughing)
MITCHELL: As best I can tell we played the whole thing. We’ve been playing it all day — and by the way, what Joe Biden said was ‘generate crisis,’ not generated attack, two different things, Nancy.
PFOTENHAUER: Did you play the part where it says that it won’t be apparent that he’s done the right thing as well? Because that’s important also, I think.
MITCHELL: Okay.
PFOTENHAUER: (laughing)
MITCHELL: Thanks for your editing advice.
RUSH: That is Nancy Pfotenhauer reading the riot act to Andrea Mitchell, NBC News, Washington. ‘Thank you for your editing advice.’ Did you play the part where he says it won’t be apparent that he’s done the right thing, as well? They’re trying to cover this up. Folks, this would not have made the news. Dan Blather said this morning on MSNBC! If Sarah Palin had said this, it would be above the fold in major newspapers today. This was not news until three o’clock yesterday afternoon, and now everybody’s all over it. NBC is trying to cover up the most damaging part. I guarantee you, as I said opening this brilliant half hour of broadcast excellence, this is not where the Obama campaign wants this campaign to be with two weeks to go: focusing on foreign policy, with his own vice president saying (paraphrased), ‘We’re going to be in trouble. We’re going to get hit. There’s going to be international crisis. They’re going to test this little guy, and you’re not going to like some of what we do and the poll numbers are going to be down. You gotta stay with us. You gotta love us,’ blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.