RUSH: Last Friday night on MSNBC, they had a guest host in there, Richard Wolffe, interviewing the White House press secretary, Robert Gibbs. Question: ‘Rush Limbaugh says this is all about ethnic politics,’ the Gates business. ‘He even compared the president to the prosecutor in the Duke rape case.’ Oh, that got them so upset! That got ’em so upset all day long when I called him ‘Barack Nifong.’ That sent MSNBC into fits. A couple people over there had to go into heart surgery. So I called him ‘Barack Nifong,’ and they don’t like it. He ‘even compared the president to the prosecutor in the Duke rape case today. He said the president was playing the race card. How do you respond to somebody with a bullhorn who is trying to provoke racial fears and resentment?’
GIBBS: The president wants to have constructive dialogue with people that clearly want to have constructive dialogue on issues that are as important as race. Uh, whether or not Rush Limbaugh wants to be part of, uh, a constructive dialogue or whether he wants to get ratings to sell commercials, uh, on a radio show, I’ll let him answer that question. Rush is paid a lot of money to fan the flames, uhhh, again so he can sell advertising on his radio show. Uh, I — I — I don’t think that’s what’s important. I think what’s important is obviously these are important issues, they have been over the lifetime and the history of our country, and the president takes them seriously and wants to deal with them seriously. I think that’s what it’s going to take. I think that, uh, very few of our issues are going to be solved yelling at each other on talk radio.
RUSH: Now, am I correct? Did I hear that I am fanning the flames and I’m doing it to sell advertising? I heard the White House press secretary say that? Who started all of this? Fanning the flames? His boss, the president of the United States. Mr. Gibbs and Mr. Wolffe of MSNBC have it exactly backwards if they blame anybody, especially me, for what the president did.
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RUSH: Bob in Chicago, you’re next on the EIB Network. Hello, sir.
CALLER: Thank you, Rush, very much —
RUSH: You bet.
CALLER: — for all the wisdom you have shared through the years. I’ve become a good listener of yours, I have to say honestly, in the last six months.
RUSH: Well, thank you very much.
CALLER: And all I can say is I want to apologize to the nation, as funny as it may sound to you for what representatives we send out of the state of Illinois and to lead the nation the way they’re doing, it’s a disgrace.
RUSH: Yes, it is.
CALLER: And I see it, I cannot believe it, and if anybody owes anybody an apology, the president should apologize to you because you probably have been more help — he probably listens to you more than a lot of us because you end up being a step ahead of them so many times and you were in this last incident, and I couldn’t believe it, it only took hours this time for him to turn around and throw him under the bus. And it’s just a shame.
RUSH: That was funny on Friday when he did throw Gates overboard. I knew it was going to happen. We knew that if it did happen, if the focus group, polling, whatever, if it got really desperate they’d throw Gates overboard, and they did. And now all kinds of news is coming out about this guy Gates and some of his past speeches, he’s got a charitable foundation that gives money to friends and Harvard colleagues, but not very much compared to what it’s raised. He’s a racist. He’s an angry racist, and when he applied for admissions to Yale, he said, yeah, okay, I have to sit and be judged by whitey again. Mark Steyn makes a point that he doesn’t even know the difference between Robbie Burns and Shakespeare and who said what, and he’s supposedly this great thinker and professor and so forth.
But the caller said Gibbs should apologize to me for the fanning the flames comment. The last two Democrat administrations have tried to make me out to be racist. Bill Clinton did it at a White House Correspondents Dinner early in the nineties and now Gates on television I guess Friday night, when I had nothing to do with it. All I did was report, and what everybody else did was report what the president said in his press conference. See, what really bugged ’em, what really bugged ’em is when I called him Barack Nifong. They always tell you when you score. They’ll always tell you when you hit the bull’s-eye. They were so busy worrying about Barack Nifong they didn’t hear me call him Barack Fonda. Wait ’til they get that.
We’ll be back. Stay with us.
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RUSH: When a Democrat White House gets into a tight spot, when a Democrat White House gets into a corner, what do they do? They lash out at Rush Limbaugh. They lash out at me.
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RUSH: Obama keeps saying that he is pushing government-run health care — which he mischaracterizes as ‘reform’ — for the people but the people do not want what he is pushing, which is why I’m going to replay a sound bite here from Robert Gibbs in just a second. Every poll shows the American people do not want what he’s pushing. It’s a good thing he doesn’t have to sell anything to get what he wants. You know, he can send his press secretary out there to say I fan the flames here to sell advertising. Every dollar spent in advertising on this program is freely given by the people who spend it. I don’t have the power to take one person’s money, not a penny from anybody. He does, and he’s doing it. He’s taking money out of the pockets of us, our children, our grandchildren, and kids that have not even been born yet. He has taken money out of their pockets!
This underscores what is going on here. Obama is pushing his own agenda. It’s not an agenda in line with what the nation wants. He doesn’t care what the nation wants, nor do liberals in general care. They’re going to do what they want to do, however they can do it, whether you want it or not. Now Obama is trying to use brute political force to get it: dumping on the CBO, trashing insurance companies and doctors, and pressuring all these members of his own party. Let’s not forget, you know, they can sit out there and say I’m fanning the flames all they want. I’m not the guy that hates doctors. I’m not the guy that impugned doctors in a prime-time press conference claiming they do tonsillectomies unnecessarily just to line their pockets.
I’m not the guy who said, ‘I don’t like insurance company profits. They’re too big. I’m going to squeeze ’em.’ He said that Wednesday night. You know, we’re forgetting, I think. The most important aspect of that press conference was his attack on the health care system as it exists and it all got shoved aside because of the Gates question and answer at the end of the press conference. But to illustrate the brute force of this man, no poll shows that anybody wants any more stimulus. No poll shows that a majority of the American people want his health care plan. It doesn’t matter! How’s that hope and change working out for you? How’s all that ‘reform’ working out for you? By the way, from the Washington Prowler at the American Spectator:
‘It wasn’t out of a need for racial healing that President Barack Obama reached out to his old friend, [‘Skip’] Gates, Jr., and Cambridge Police Sgt. James Crowley. ‘We were looking at House hearings on the matter moving fairly quickly, and that wasn’t going to be good for us or for Gates,’ says a White House source. ‘We needed this thing to go away and go away fast.’ Early Friday, the White House got wind of Rep. Edolphus Towns’ interest in holding hearings into the matter of Gates’ arrest, and more broadly looking into the issue of racial profiling by law enforcement. Towns is chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, as well as the senior House Democratic Member of the Congressional Black Caucus.
‘Adding to the desire to get the story buried was the media’s seeming refusal to let the story drop. By noon Friday, House press secretary Robert Gibbs, along with other senior White House officials, recommended that Obama either walk back his statement further than he did on Thursday, or take proactive action.’ So it was wasn’t out of a desire for racial healing. They did not want Democrat hearings on racial profiling. They didn’t want Towns going to town. It wouldn’t help Gates; it wouldn’t help Obama. They didn’t want Congress getting sidetracked and putting on a national show on this sort of thing. They want to move the issue of race along in a little bit more stealthy way. Now, I want to go back to this sound bite from Gibbs. This is Friday night on MSNBC, a fill-in host. ‘Rush Limbaugh says it’s all about,’ the Gates episode, ‘ethnic politics. He said the same pretty much about Judge Sotomayor and the white firefighters. He even compared the president to the prosecutor Duke rape case.’ Barack Nifong. ‘And he said the president was playing the race card. How do you respond to somebody with a bullhorn who’s trying to stoke racial fears and resentment?’
GIBBS: The president wants to have constructive dialogue with people that clearly want to have constructive dialogue on issues that are as important as race. Uh, whether or not Rush Limbaugh wants to be part of, uh, a constructive dialogue or whether he wants to get ratings to sell commercials, uh, on a radio show, I’ll let him answer that question. Rush is paid a lot of money to fan the flames, uhhh, again so he can sell advertising on his radio show. Uh, I — I — I don’t think that’s what’s important.
RUSH: All right, stop the tape. It always comes down to — you’re right — my money. It always comes down to that. Moyers. Here’s Gibbs. I didn’t start anything. They did. And as I want to reiterate here: Every dollar spent on advertising in this show is freely given. None of it is coerced. The president of the United States cannot say that. The president of the United States, in order to fund what he wants to do, has to take money from every one of us. And it was the president of the United States who fanned the flames. He lit the match, and he fanned the flames. So when this White House gets in trouble: Lash out at Rush Limbaugh. Go to sound bite number five right now. This is also Friday night on MSNBC. The same fill-in host rebuke Richard Wolffe, is interviewing the sociology professor from Georgetown, Michael Eric Dyson — one of your favorites, Snerdley.
And Richard Wolffe says, ‘The president by his own admission helped to ratchet up this matter. He clearly wants to tone things down and elevate the discussion. Did he do enough today to move that in the right direction?’ And we now know that ‘elevating the discussion’ and ‘toning things’ down had only to do with the fact that they were scared of Edolphus Towns’ committee doing hearings into this. They weren’t trying to soothe racial tensions. It’s all politics. It’s always all politics with everything this bunch does. Now, here’s — here’s the answer to that question from Michael Eric Dyson: ‘Did Obama do enough today to move in the right direction?’
DYSON: Rush Limbaugh has perverted the nature of the conversation. To call Barack Obama an angry black man is as ridiculous as calling Rush Limbaugh a first-class intellectual. So the reality is that, uh, President Obama — with equanimity and poise — articulated his viewpoint, talked about the competing forces that, uh, made this situation untenable, and then tried to resolve it by acknowledging that perhaps, uh, tempers flared on both sides but not denying the legitimacy of the point that m-must not be lost here in all of the discourse: The president is committed to using his bully pulpit to inform, to enlighten, and to elevate the conversation beyond the trashy character that Rush Limbaugh is addicted to.
RUSH: (laughing) Bull’s-eye last Friday! (rubbing hands together) Bull’s-eye, bull’s-eye. Well, you know, not just the Barack Nifong line, but they’re finally hearing me. He’s an angry black guy. I do believe that about the president. I do believe he’s angry. I think his wife is angry. All liberals are enraged all the time anyway. They’re always mad. But if he’s not mad, if he’s not angry, why does he run around apologizing for the country all over the place? There’s something going on here, and it certainly isn’t a love and devotion to the whole concept of American exceptionalism, is it? Yeah, Barack Nifong! (grumbling) ‘First-class intellectuals like us, that trashy Rush Limbaugh, first-class intellectuals like us, right on.’ (laughing) Lord, thank you for my enemies.
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RUSH: This Eric Dyson guy, and Gibbs, these guys talking about, ‘If we want to have a constructive dialogue, and if Rush Limbaugh wants to be part of that, well, we welcome him.’ Constructive dialogue? Who was the first to offer a compromise stimulus proposal? Me! It was in my Wall Street Journal op-ed. I published that offer in the Wall Street Journal. As for ratings and profit, I’ll take my ratings over Obama’s any day of the week, folks. Mine are way up, his are way down. As for profit, I don’t need lectures from people who have never created a real job or held a real job but who are in fact destroying jobs in record numbers. I don’t need to be lectured by people who are tearing apart the US economy. Profits beat bankruptcy. Profits propel jobs. Profits beat your philosophy of socialism, Gibbs.
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RUSH: I just noticed on the next page of the audio sound bites that there was more from Michael Eric Dyson. So, I’ll tell you what, grab number five. We’ll play these two back-to-back so that they are in context. Michael Eric Dyson asked on MSNBC Friday night if Obama had done enough to move in the right direction toward racial healing.
DYSON: Rush Limbaugh has perverted the nature of the conversation. To call Barack Obama an angry black man is as ridiculous as calling Rush Limbaugh a first-class intellectual. So the reality is that, uh, President Obama — with equanimity and poise — articulated his viewpoint, talked about the competing forces that, uh, made this situation untenable, and then tried to resolve it by acknowledging that perhaps, uh, tempers flared on both sides but not denying the legitimacy of the point that m-must not be lost here in all of the discourse: The president is committed to using his bully pulpit to inform, to enlighten, and to elevate the conversation beyond the trashy character that Rush Limbaugh is addicted to.
Did he write his answer? It sounds like he’s reading a written answer. I know, I know, it’s a speech pattern, but ‘first-class intellectual.’ (laughing) Exactly right. Obama was not using the bully pulpit to inform, enlighten, and elevate the conversation. He was trying to shut it down. He was trying to stop the conversation, Michael. Trying to stop it because one of his buddies in the House was going to start having hearings on it, and that wasn’t going to help anybody. So then the next question, ‘Rush Limbaugh did say that Obama played the race card. He said here you have a black president trying to destroy a white policeman. So how do Republicans win black African-American voters, even suburban independent voters, when this is the kind of debate they’re listening to?’
DYSON: Rush Limbaugh does not play to the better angels of their nature. Rush Limbaugh, his entire modus operandi is to deconstruct the sheen of genius and of incredible popularity around this president. The Republicans must be willing to be self-critical. We’ve heard of driving while black, now housing while black, being housed while black, is that a sin as well?
RUSH: I don’t understand that. Driving while black? The aura of genius? I guess it is first-class intellectualism. If nobody can understand what it means then it sure as hell is first-class intellectualism. If Obama was not trying to harm this cop, what was he doing? You think Obama would have said a word about this if the cop had been black? Do you? Do you think there would have even been a question at the press conference asked if the cop had been black? As it turns out there were three cops there and one of them was black and the other one was Hispanic. The white guy was — (laughing) — I know, that’s right. The woman that called in did not identify the race of the guys that she thought were breaking into Gates’ house. Gates and Obama were the ones that went after the cop. They’re the ones that first injected race into this. The cop didn’t. The 911 caller didn’t. But somehow now it’s all Rush fanning the flames here, tearing at the better angels of our nature.
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RUSH: Deborah in Pensacola, Florida, hi. It’s great to have you here.
CALLER: Hi, Rush. I just wanted to say one thing.
RUSH: Yes.
CALLER: I saw you on TV the other night with Greta and my husband and I are so thankful that you have lost so much weight because we need you.
RUSH: Thank you very much.
CALLER: You are a necessary part of our nation.
RUSH: You know what? I lost six pounds over the weekend.
CALLER: You look great. I mean, you’re very handsome. You look great. We’re very happy for you.
RUSH: Thank you.
CALLER: My husband listened to you on Greta the other night. I recorded the program. He’s a very bright man, board certified in two specialties of medicine. He’s an associate professor at FSU medical school. We live in Pensacola, he teaches students blah, blah, blah. So you get the idea. He was listening to you, and we listened to the whole show, both of them, and my husband said to me, he goes, ‘You know…’ He goes, ‘Obama is a very good speaker. He’s eloquent.’ He goes, ‘But, Rush, is much more eloquent because he is able to get down to the people in terms that they understand without doing this rhetoric that he constantly does with his fancy language and his, you know, chip on his shoulder and the way he struts his information.’ You are so intelligent. You are much more intelligent than he is, and they are afraid of you. They’re afraid of you and Sarah Palin, they’re afraid of Sean, and they are afraid of Glenn Beck. You guys are just the best, and we need you so badly.
RUSH: Well, they’re also afraid of Levin. He’s got a million copies of his book out there.
CALLER: Oh yeah! I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to skip over him.
RUSH: Well, if you’re going to list it, you gotta include Mark Levin in the roster. I just want to thank you very much, because you’re very bright to have spotted my intelligence (laughing) in light of it being under assault today by ‘first-class intellectual’ Michael Eric Dyson, whatever his name is, but I want to correct one small —
CALLER: Take it as a compliment. I’m sorry to interrupt you. Take that as a very big, big compliment.
RUSH: Oh, I do. That’s why I thanked God earlier for my enemies.
CALLER: (laughing)
RUSH: But I want to say to you, you said or your husband said that I was able to get down to the American people and speak in a way —
CALLER: Communicate, yes.
RUSH: Yeah. But I am one of them. I’m not up… You know, I’m not an elitist. I don’t have that kind of attitude or carriage.
CALLER: No, you don’t.
RUSH: The reason that I’m able to speak the truth to people is because I’m one of them.
CALLER: That’s right but you know how many people have been one of them and then all of a sudden they, you know, make a good living for themselves and all of a sudden they’re above it all, they’re above the fray? You’re not like that. You know, you know who you are and realize that you’re just one of the people in this country that’s trying to make a good living and be a good person. That’s what it’s all about.
RUSH: Well, thank you.
CALLER: Thank you.
RUSH: Like I said in the second half of the show. Friday night I said this. She asked me, ‘How have you been around at 21 years at this level,’ and the reason that I never forget (and it’s constantly in my mind) who it is that’s made me successful. It’s all of you. You know, I don’t…
CALLER: (laughing)
RUSH: No. This show every day, the expectation, I mean the desire I have is to meet and surpass everybody’s expectations, and those are pretty high expectations. People know this is the number one-rated radio talk show in the country and they expect it to continue to be that. If I started phoning it in, I’d lose my self-respect. But all of this stuff matters deeply to me, too, as it does to a lot of people.
CALLER: You’re absolutely right.
RUSH: You’re very kind. It’s very nice. I really —
CALLER: We all love you. There is really true love and respect for you. That’s the point that we want to make. And when my husband says something — because he’s not really, you know, a television person. He doesn’t like to watch the news that much because it bothers him. Because every day. his job is affected by it, treating these little 22-week babies. You know, those are the babies that Obama throws in the garbage. I mean, I hate to mention it on TV but those are the ones that my husband saves: the baby Obama says you can abort.
RUSH: Yeah. Really, you’re not elevating the dialogue here with that. Michael Eric Dyson is going to be on your case that we —
CALLER: I’m sorry about that. (laughing)
RUSH: MSNBC will be on your case.
CALLER: I’m flattered. (laughing)
RUSH: Deborah, thank you — and thank your husband for me, too, okay?
CALLER: I will. Thank you very much for speaking with me, Rush.
RUSH: My pleasure.
CALLER: Have a nice day. Okay.
RUSH: You do —
CALLER: Okay, bye.
RUSH: You do the same.
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RUSH: George in South Windsor, Connecticut. Hi George, welcome to the EIB Network.
CALLER: Yeah, Rush, I’m so glad you mentioned unchecked power. I am so frustrated and aggravated, not surprised over this Gates situation, because all you have to do is listen to Obama’s words. He said in the press conference, ‘I don’t know all the facts,’ and then the next words out of his mouth are, but the Cambridge police acted stupidly. There is no other way to interpret that other than I don’t know what the hell happened but the cops are wrong. And that is just in his words, his own words, he is admitting —
RUSH: It’s prejudice. It’s prejudice, bias.
CALLER: How can you not — and then all these mouthpieces are out there for Obama trying to spin this, and it is absolutely ridiculous. And the dirty little secret is this cop’s got a recording. They haven’t played it yet, but as soon as it was going badly, he pressed a button. He’s got a recorded conversation. And let me tell you what, that must be very incriminating. And that’s why, to your point, Obama is throwing Gates under the bus, he wants to have a beer, he wants to make this all go away with all his mouthpieces. And how can you misinterpret his words? There is unchecked power. This is an example of unchecked power in the media. This guy can do whatever he wants. And, you know, if I can make one other comment?
RUSH: Yeah, quickly.
CALLER: I think your speeding up recording is innovative. I love the way you sped up all these Democrats, it shows how desperate they are and it’s just an innovative way to — nobody else on radio does what you do. And that’s an example of it.
RUSH: Thank you. Thank you very much. You’re very kind. I appreciate that. By the way, time is limited here. But I do want to play a soundbite for you. On Fox News Sunday yesterday, Bret Baier asked Robert Gibbs, ‘Before Wednesday’s news conference, did you prepare the president for a question about the Gates arrest?’
GIBBS: Safe to say we went over a whole lot of topics that we thought might come up and certainly this was a topic that was and has been in the news.
RUSH: So they planned for it. They planned for it and he still blew it. Well, he didn’t think he was blowing it. Obama thought what all guys like him think. He thought he was going to nail this cop, he’s going to get it done, nobody could stop it ’cause he’s got the power of the presidency. But he goes out there and says, ‘I don’t know all the facts.’ Even prepping it he still blew it. We have to admit and they admit, by the course of action they’ve taken that he blew it.
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RUSH: Oh! Joni somewhere in North Carolina. Hi. Nice to have you on the program.
CALLER: Hello, Mr. Limbaugh. It’s a pleasure to talk to you.
RUSH: Thank you very much.
CALLER: I was on Drudge Report today, and I was reading some stuff about the… Oh, gosh, what is it? Mr. Gates?
RUSH: Oh, yeah. ‘Skip.’
CALLER: And I was so upset — and I just lost the thing. But he talks about ‘whitey.’
RUSH: Yes.
CALLER: Have you read about that?
RUSH: Yes, yes, yes, of course. I’m the host.
CALLER: Okay.
RUSH: He said. Yes, it was when he was getting into Yale. He said he had to sit and be judged by whitey.
CALLER: Yeah. I think that’s so offensive, because speaking to the judge that screened my call, and I just think that it sounds like they were both sitting — Obama and Gates were sitting side by side in front of Reverend Wright. I think this is inappropriate. I think it’s demeaning to the office of the presidency. I’m just breathless… Frustrated… I mean, I can’t even talk about it. It’s so upsetting to me because I think it’s wrong, and he should apologize because he’s offended so many people.
RUSH: Well, but he didn’t say it recently. That was back…
CALLER: Oh, I’m talking about Obama.
RUSH: Obama.
CALLER: Obama should apologize for taking this man’s side when he didn’t know all of the facts, and knowing — because aren’t they good friends? He should know.
RUSH: Now. Now, now, now, now. Now, now, now, now. Gods don’t apologize.
CALLER: Mmmph. That’s right, I forgot.
RUSH: Yes.
CALLER: The Messiah.
RUSH: Get your mind right.
CALLER: Ugh! Well, I think it’s going to be a long three and a half years.
RUSH: Well, that’s why I’m here.
CALLER: And we thank you so much.
RUSH: I will tell you when it’s hopeless.
CALLER: Ugh.
RUSH: And it isn’t.
CALLER: Well, we do look to you.
RUSH: Thank you very much.
CALLER: We do. And thank you so much for everything that you do for us.
RUSH: Well, Joni, my thanks to you, seriously. I gotta take a quick time-out here, folks. We’ll do that. We’ll be back with more broadcast excellence right after this. Well, this is a commercial break that came about ‘fanning the flames for advertising,’ quote, unquote, Robert Gibbs, White House press secretary, that’s what he says I do.