RUSH: Ladies and gentlemen, the White House is on defense, totally on defense. They are disheveled; they are unraveling; they are becoming unhinged. Secret deals with Big Pharma have been uncovered. This upsets the left. And they are starting in the White House now to replicate the failed attempts by Bill Clinton to get rid of me. It’s Friday. Let’s roll.
JOHNNY DONOVAN: And now, from sunny South Florida, it’s Open Line Friday!
RUSH: Friday, baby, Friday. Open Line Friday on the EIB Network, And that means that when we go to the phones the content of the show is all up to you. Monday through Thursday, I determine what we talk about because I don’t want to be bored. A household name in every corner of the world, Rush Limbaugh here at the Excellence in Broadcasting Network, a place where there is no fear of standing up for the United States of America.
All right, let’s just get right to it. ABC News, Brian Ross, Good Morning America today, here is a montage.
ROSS: It’s been a very ugly week as the rhetoric about the president and the threats against him have deeply worried the people who track this country’s hate groups. The contentious debate over health care has helped to bring the vitriol into the open. Rush Limbaugh compared a logo for the plan to a Nazi symbol.
RUSH ARCHIVE: The Obama health care logo is damn close to a Nazi swastika logo.
ROSS: And the Internet is full of references to the president as Hitler or as a socialist or as a racist. To date, the Secret Service has disrupted at least three different assassination plots tied to white supremacist groups. In a new report, the Southern Poverty Law Center says that since Obama took office, there has been a sharp growth in the so-called militia groups.
RUSH: This is 100% total manufactured BS. It all comes from the Southern Poverty Law Center and a guy named Mark Potok. I don’t know how to pronounce his name but Mark Potok is the head of the Southern Poverty Law Center’s intelligence project. He’s a columnist at the Huffington Post. He is the source of all of these hate crime stories, and he has been for years. There is also an article at ABC posted by Brian Ross on their website. Much of this article has been dutifully spouted almost word-for-word in literally dozens of articles generated by Mr. Potok from the Southern Poverty Law Center. They only differ, really, in citing contemporary details to make the story seem fresh, but they’re ultimately the same claims that Potok has been making from the start. If you Google ‘Potok’ and ‘hate’ and ‘racism,’ it returns 21,600 hits. This guy has been trying to gin this up since before Obama was inaugurated. In fact, even since before Obama was elected. This whole thing is calculated to divide and distract. It indicates just how unhinged and out of whack the White House is on this.
This story is likely a White House plant just as the little girl who asked Obama the softball question in Portsmouth, New Hampshire. The sad thing is I predicted all of this. It’s despicable. The race card is being played because Obama’s facing opposition to his plan to seize one-sixth of the American economy. This is an intentional effort to divide the country. This is community national agitating at its worst. This is all that Obama, a community agitator, knows. Nancy Pelosi, Mr. Brian Ross, Nancy Pelosi said the town hall attendees were Nazis. Where are the stories? The White House is gathering an enemies list. People are getting e-mails from David Axelrod and they don’t know how he got their address. It’s the snitch website. Do you people understand what’s happening? People are sending in stories and e-mails, if you’re getting an e-mail from Axelrod and the White House, I guarantee you it’s a result of the snitch website.
The White House is clearly out of whack. Where’s the outrage over this in the State-Run Media? Nancy Pelosi said town haul attendees were Nazis. Dick Durbin called our interrogators at Gitmo Nazis. Rahm Emanuel’s brother has been an advocate of death panels. He’s advising the White House. They say there are no death panels, and yet the Senate removed the death panels from their bill. How could there have been no death panels if they removed them in the first place? They had to be there in order to be removed. Where’s the outrage? The American people are legitimately outraged about what is being planned here, and this is how they are treated. Rising militia groups, rising hate crimes, white supremacists, worried about doing harm to Obama, and then in advance trying to link me to it. This is Jeremiah Wright. I predicted this. I said Obama was going to spark race problems when anybody disagreed with whatever his policy was, the people that defend him are going to come out and say it’s all based on race. It’s all happening.
This is like the snitch website at the White House. It’s meant to have a chilling effect on free speech, but neither the American people nor I will be intimidated. They know why they oppose Obama’s health care, and these efforts here to make every one of these town hall attendees a potential assassin and part of a militia or part of a white supremacist group is despicable, it is shameful. This is 2009. And this is also the EIB Network, a place where there is no fear of standing up for the United States of America. Now, let’s go back to Good Morning America today. Here’s a portion of the report by Brian Ross. This portion begins with Mark Potok of the Southern Poverty Law Center, who is the source for all of these claims made in Brian Ross’s report at Good Morning America.
POTOK: I think that the president has, in effect, triggered fears among fairly large numbers of white people in this country that they are somehow losing their country.
ROSS: Officials tell my colleague Pierre Thomas at ABC News that the president’s daily threat matrix has yet to reflect a sharp increase in threats. But White House officials privately admit deep concern and have told the Secret Service to keep security tight, even if the president himself objects.
RUSH: Wait a minute, Brian. You just said here that the president’s daily threat matrix has yet to reflect a sharp increase in threats, then why the story? Why the story? Why even do this if the White House says there’s no increase in threats? And how do we tabulate threats anyway? And, by the way, where was all this reporting when there were books on how to assassinate George W. Bush, when there was a movie about the assassination of George W. Bush? Where was all this concern, Mr. Ross? Where were all the reports on the wacko leftist groups who wanted Bush dead and who were actively out there saying so and describing how to do it? Where were your reports then? This is straight out of the playbook. They don’t change. They’re just recycling everything because they’re in a state of panic. They are losing their signature issue. They are losing the American people.
So now after attacking the American people via these town hall meetings, calling them unruly mobs, now let’s go to the mat even further and let’s say they’re potential assassins. Then let’s add to it just because he’s black, people want their country back. Remember, it was Howard Dean, Brian, and Mr. Potok, all through 2004 who was running around saying we want our country back. ‘I want my country back! This is not Rush Limbaugh’s country. It’s not Rush Limbaugh’s flag. We want our country back.’ This is absolutely despicable what these people are trying to do in advance, and let’s go back. This is April 24th, 1995, in Minneapolis.
CLINTON: We hear so many loud and angry voices in America today whose sole goal seems to be to try to keep some people as paranoid as possible and the rest of us all torn up and upset with each other. They spread hate. They leave the impression that by their very words, that violence is acceptable. You ought to see — I’m sure you are now seeing the reports of some things that are regularly said over the airwaves in America today. It is time we all stood up and spoke against that kind of reckless speech and behavior.
RUSH: In 1995, President Bill Clinton attempting to blame me for the bombing at the Murrah Building in Oklahoma City. Today, ABC News and Brian Ross, stenographer for Mark Potok at the Southern Poverty Law Center and Rahm Emanuel now set it up that if Obama is harmed, it’s my fault. I seem to remember all this talk before the immaculation of unity and post partisanship and a new era of love and togetherness that would be this country as a result of President Obama’s election. I remember all of the hope and all of the goodwill that the red states and the blue states would come together and all become pink, and we wouldn’t know the difference from one to another. And now look where we are. We have the president of the United States and his henchmen attacking ordinary, everyday Americans as an unruly mob, as Nazis, as white supremacists, as racists. This is coming, from the White House that was going to unify this country, and dutifully, falling right in line, the dupes at state-controlled ABC and Brian Ross.
Let’s go through this story paragraph by paragraph. The Secret Service are investigating a Maryland man who held a sign reading ‘death to Obama and death to Michelle and her two stupid kids’ outside a town hall meeting this week. In New Hampshire, another man stood across the street from a presidential town hall with a gun on full display. The Secret Service ought to be investigating this stuff, just like when Bush was president. This is nothing compared to what Bush faced, and where was the concern then? Journalists loved it when the Iraqi journalist threw a shoe at George W. Bush. They were disappointed it didn’t hit him. They loved every movie and book filled with hate about George W. Bush, and they told us that we must respect the art that was contained in every book and movie about the assassination of George W. Bush.
‘Los Angeles police officers apprehended a man Thursday after a standoff with him inside a red Volkswagen bug car in Westwood, California. The latest disturbing case, even though officials said the man had mental problems.’ Yeah, union thugs are beating up Americans at town halls. Where are those stories, Mr. Ross? The American people don’t have the Secret Service to protect ’em. Now, the article just cited a case of a mentally disturbed man. But look at the next sentence. ‘I don’t think these are people simply who are mentally ill or off their rocker,’ said Mark Potok. In ABC’s own story they quote officials as saying the guy in Westwood was mentally disturbed and then they go right to this Southern Poverty Law Center guy, ‘I don’t think these are simply people who are mentally ill or off their rocker. In a very real sense they represent a genuine reaction, a genuine backlash against Obama.’
‘Experts say a sharp growth in so-called militia groups that helped spawn a wave of domestic terrorism in the 1990s.’ What experts? Are they the same experts you cite on the economy that are constantly surprised no matter what the news? There is one source for all this, the Southern Poverty Law Center, Mark Potok in this case, and ABC News and Brian Ross simply took the dictation. Here’s this paragraph. ‘Garrett, former FBI agent, said statements like one recently made by Rush Limbaugh comparing logo for the White House plan to a Nazi symbol ‘legitimizes people who are on the edge to go do something or say something.” What about Pelosi? What about who started all this? Where is the reporting of Nancy Pelosi, speaker of the House, third in line to the White House, third in line to the presidency, calling half the people in this country Nazis? Let’s not forget who started this. Now, grab audio sound bite number two again. I want to make one more comment about this before we go to our first obscene profit time-out.
POTOK: I think that the president has, in effect, triggered fears among fairly large numbers of white people in this country that they are somehow losing their country.
ROSS: Officials tell my colleague Pierre Thomas at ABC News that the president’s daily threat matrix has yet to reflect a sharp increase in threats. But White House officials privately admit deep concern and have told the Secret Service to keep security tight, even if the president himself objects.
RUSH: Okay, there’s no increase in the threat matrix. Why, then, if they’re so frightened are they sending him out to so many public places? There are all kinds of ways to reach the American people. Why send him out there? If they’re this concerned, if they’ve got one of their State-Run Media organs now putting on television and on the website they fear the assassination of this president, why are they putting him out there, then? Stop and think about that.
BREAK TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: One other thing about this, ladies and gentlemen. I don’t get their point, either — either the White House’s point or ABCs point or this guy from the Southern Poverty Law Center. It’s utterly illogical. They say what I did — I compared an Obama logo, an Obama insignia to a 1930s insignia that the Nazis used — and in making that comparison, they say I’m calling Obama a Nazi and therefore Nazi sympathizers are…what? Threatening him because of this? How does that make any sense whatsoever as a simple matter of logic? I compare a Nazi logo to an Obama health care logo… That would cause Nazi sympathizers to be upset with me, not Obama. It is I who’s denouncing all of this. Brian Ross also played a role in helping Pelosi become speaker a few years back with Mark Foley, don’t forget.
He was spoon-fed information, held it back until the most critical time in the 2006 elections. He ought to actually try reporting rather than repeating, because that’s what Brian Ross is becoming known for is repeating things that certain Democrats and liberals tell him. But I want to know how it is, when I take an Obama logo and say, ‘Wow, that looks like something I’ve seen from the thirties, from Nazi Germany,’ how in the world does that rev up Nazis and sympathizers in this country to be mad at Obama? They’d be mad at me. So they’re just grasping. They’re reaching at straws, folks, grasping at straws. They are desperate to make this about anything other than Obama and the debacle that this health care plan has become. What’s also amazing about this, if I may say this, is this is a play from their playbook. As you heard, Clinton tried this in 1994.
The Democrat Party has tried to make me the issue. They have tried to demonize and villainize me since I have been behind the Golden EIB Microphone. They distorted my comments and actions about Michael J. Fox in the Claire McCaskill commercials. They have distorted me on this. They distorted me on Bill Clinton and so forth. It never works. I’m still here. Clinton’s reduced to making speeches to the netroots convention in Pittsburgh yesterday. I am still here. Hillary is in Africa. I am still here. My audience is larger than ever. What do they think they’re gaining here? It’s typical for them because they have no other way to go. They cannot stand behind the goodness of their ideas because there isn’t much. They can’t stand behind the honesty of what they’re trying because they can’t be. So they are cornered.
Now they’re sending out e-mails to innocent Americans from the White House, Joe Axelrod — or David Axelrod. I’m sorry. I keep calling him ‘Joe’ because a friend of mine used to run the Kansas City Kings basketball team named Joe Axelson. So I’ve had that on my mind. David Axelrod. People are saying, ‘I didn’t send the White House an e-mail. How did he get my address?’ What do you think the snitch website is all about? These people are in a corner. They saw a crisis. They saw an opportunity in the crisis. They rely on the power of the ‘gift’ of personality that Obama has, and it’s not helping them. It’s hurting them, because Obama is detached from reality. He doesn’t speak about specifics.
Sarah Palin comes out and says, ‘There are death panels in this bill,’ and that really got Obama because he had to quote her and say, ‘Oh, there are people who say there’s death panels in this bill. How can that be?’ Remember, folks: We don’t treat the healthy. We cannot save money by cutting back on what we spend on the healthy because we don’t spend anything on the healthy. We only spend money on the sick, and if we’re going to cut costs that means we’re going to have to stop spending as much as we do on the sick, and that’s the elderly. If there aren’t death panels in here, I’ll guaran-damn-tee you there are not life panels! But there are and were, death panels in it because the Senate has announced, ‘We’re going to pull ’em out. We’re going to get rid of all that stuff.’ So they were there. They are cornered. So we’ve got ’em.
BREAK TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: Look what I have here in my formerly nicotine-stained fingers, from November 15th of last year, state-controlled Associated Press, headline: ‘Obama Has More Threats Than Any Other President-Elect — Threats against a new president historically spike right after an election, but from Maine to Idaho law enforcement officials are seeing more against Barack Obama than ever before,’ and guess who the source is? Mark Potok, Southern Poverty Law Center! Saturday, November 15th, 2008: ‘Obama Has More Threats Than Any Other President-Elect.’ This guy has a fetish! This guy has a single-minded focus and purpose on this.
‘It is not surprising that a black president would galvanize the white supremacist movement, said Mark Potok, director of the Southern Poverty Law Center, who studies the white supremacy movement.’ So he was trying to gin this up last November, and he got the Associated Press to run with it. He got Brian Ross to repeat it today on ABC’s website and Good Morning America. Now, let me just say something here and then I’ll go to more audio sound bites. There is no bigger supporter of Israel than me. Not Obama. Me! The Jew haters, the anti-Semites, they’re not part of my circle. They’re not part of my life. I don’t run around with anti-Semites. I don’t run around with people that don’t like Jews or hate Israel.
It was Obama who surrounded himself with such people — and I never heard one word from Brian Ross or the Southern Poverty Law Center about Khalidi or Jeremiah Wright or Bill Ayers or any of the rest of them. As a matter of our own foreign policy, it is not I who urged dealings with the Islamo-Nazi regime in Iran. It’s not I who insist that Israel make itself weaker to appease Hamas and Hezbollah. It is Obama doing all of this. It is not I who’s putting the shoulder on Israel comparing the Holocaust to the Israelis defending themselves against missiles hitting their cities from Gaza. That would be Obama who did that. It is Obama who compared the Holocaust to the Israelis defending themselves with defense missiles launched from Gaza. It is Obama who has surrounded himself with anti-Semites and anti-Israel people for all of his life. Not me.
BREAK TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: Let me ask you a question, ladies and gentlemen. If someone ran an intelligence project like at the Southern Poverty Law Center that actually went out there and researched and identified an increased threat level to the president of the United States, and if one’s objective were to help the president avoid such threats, rather than one’s objective being something else, like fundraising, publicity seeking, libeling opponents, whatever, what would you do? If you were out there really researching death threats, and you find an increased threat level to the president, what would you do? You would quietly call the Secret Service. You would quietly pass along whatever information you had developed. You would not go public with it because that would tend to incite and create copycat behavior. You would be quiet about it. Damn right I’m questioning the motives of the Southern Poverty Law Center.