RUSH: Sheriff Clarence Dupnik is on the path here of attempting now to expressly personally associate me with this event in Arizona. I’ve asked myself, ‘Is there another time in recent history where we have seen a law enforcement officer act so brazenly political?’ We have a law enforcement officer, the sheriff of that county, admitting he’s got no facts for what he’s speculating about; that he has no evidence. A member of the law, the sheriff, saying he’s got no evidence to support his contention that Tea Party did it first, then it was Sarah Palin, and now me. Sheriff Dupnik is supposed to be the chief law enforcement officer of Pima County. He keeps running to the microphone and spewing uninformed opinions like he’s the mayor of New York City or something.
This is not the way real law enforcement people act. They don’t give opinions. They bend over backwards to make sure they don’t say anything that will detract from the criminal investigation, in fact — and they certainly don’t provide, on purpose, defenses for the accused. And I really want to point out again, this mug shot, Mr. Loughner, he’s smiling, deviously so. He’s getting everything he wants here. He’s obviously craved attention, he’s getting a lot of it now, and he’s sitting in jail knowing full well he’s got a major political party in this country running interference for him. I know that may be hard for some of you to hear and accept but how else would you explain this? We have a Democrat Party and its allies in the media doing everything they can to blame everybody other than this guy.
He’s a victim! He’s a victim of ‘incendiary rhetoric,’ found only on Sarah Palin’s website and on this program and at Tea Party gatherings and other television or radio talk shows. So there’s no wonder this guy would be smiling! He’s got the sheriff running around, the chief law enforcement officer — who had every chance to arrest him for three years, who had every chance to see to it he didn’t get a gun. The sheriff taking none of that preventive action, if you will, now running interference for the department by claiming that other things made him do it — and he’s got a first class legal team, which will know how to use this. As I say, law enforcement officials bend over backwards to make sure they don’t say something that will detract from the investigation.
I don’t know. Maybe Pima County would have been better served by a real sheriff, one who spent his time trying to lock up nutbags and criminals rather than finding ways to excuse them. Which is what he’s doing. The sheriff is actually embarked on a course here that if he doesn’t stop, will provide an escape hatch, one way or the other, for the accused. And all the while, he has yet to offer a shred of evidence that Loughner listened to me or read Sarah Palin’s website or attended Tea Party rallies. He hasn’t pointed out a single thing that I have said that would inspire such a heinous act — and unlike most media, he didn’t even make something up! At least when the media want to accuse me of stuff and it’s not there, they make it up, like during the ill-fated attempt to be part of the St. Louis Rams ownership group.
They made up slave and race quotes I’d never made, and they got full use out of them until they had to admit that I never said ’em and then they said, ‘Well, but at least we know he thinks it,’ but this sheriff has not even made anything up, much less produced a scintilla of evidence that anything I’ve had would inspire such behavior, and when somebody lays out — and this is a serious accusation. If I weren’t a public figure, this is actionable. If somebody lays out such serious accusations without a scintilla of evidence, why, it should be plain for all to see that it’s done out of political motivation or some petty personal vendetta, which I don’t think this is.
I don’t know the guy; he doesn’t know me. Megyn Kelly confronted him on Sunday, a lot of others have; and asked to back up his accusations, and having failed to do so, you would think that he would be quiet and get back to the facts of the case. But he isn’t. He’s standing by it, and he’s being praised in the media for standing by it! He’s being praised in the media for not backing down. Can you imagine me or Palin being praised for not backing down on anything? No, we’re ridiculed for it. This guy is being praised for not backing down, despite having no evidence whatsoever. Now, this is a degree of vanity that is not healthy in law enforcement. It would be trivial if he were an ordinary citizen, but he’s not. He has a badge.
Sheriff Dupnik has a badge and a gun and the power to enforce or not enforce the law as he sees fit, and he’s proven over the last four days that facts don’t mean anything to him, or very little to him. You’d have to think that throughout the state of Arizona and elsewhere serious law enforcement people are cringing over the way he is engaging in this. I mean, he’s undermining law enforcement’s ability to really investigate and prosecute this case. He is influencing the jury pool, potentially, with his endless media appearances and intemperate remarks. He’s handing sound bites to defense counsel to use in an insanity defense. He’s displaying a reckless, unbalanced nature that poisons entire investigative prosecutorial process here — and all the while being praised!
‘He’s as a stand-up guy. He’s got courage! He’s got guts! He’s not backing down! He’s standing by what he says.’ I had from this website yesterday, and I didn’t use it ’cause I’d never heard of the website. It has since shown up everywhere. The website is TheChollaJumps.WordPress.com, and the headline: ‘Jared Loughner is a Product of Sheriff Dupnik’s Office — ‘This is the report that Pima County Sheriff Clarence Dupnik has been dreading since the tragic event on Saturday January 8. The sheriff has been editorializing and politicizing the event since he took the podium to report on the incident. His blaming of radio personalities and bloggers is a pre-emptive strike because Mr. Dupnik knows this tragedy lays at his feet and his office.
‘Six people died on his watch and he could have prevented it. He needs to step up and start apologizing to the families of the victims instead of spinning this event to serve his own political agenda. Jared Loughner, pronounced by the Sheriff as Lock-ner, saying it was the Polish pronunciation. Of course he meant Scott or Irish but that isn’t the point. The point is he and his office have had previous contact with the alleged assailant in the past and that is how he knows how to pronounce the name. Jared Loughner has been making death threats by phone to many people in Pima County including staff of Pima Community College, radio personalities and local bloggers. When Pima County Sheriff’s Office was informed, his deputies assured the victims that he was being well managed by the mental health system.
‘It was also suggested that further pressing of charges would be unnecessary and probably cause more problems than it solved as Jared Loughner has a family member that works for Pima County. Amy Loughner is a Natural Resource specialist for the Pima County Parks and Recreation,’ his mother. ‘My sympathies and my heart goes out to her and the rest of Mr. Loughner’s family. This tragedy must be tearing them up inside wondering if they had done the right things in trying to manage Jared’s obvious mental instability. Every victim of his threats previously must also be wondering if this tragedy could have been prevented if they had been more aggressive in pursuing charges against Mr. Loughner.
‘Perhaps with a felony conviction he would never have been able to lawfully buy the Glock 9mm Model 19 that he used to strike down the lives of six people and decimate 14 more,’ and, of course, where did he get the money for it? As this website says, TheChollaJumps.WordPress, ‘This was not an act of politics. This was an act of a mentally disturbed young man hell-bent on getting his 15 minutes of infamy. The Pima County Sheriff’s Department was aware of his violent nature and they failed to act appropriately. This tragedy leads right back to Sherriff Dupnik and all the spin in the world is not going to change that fact.’
‘Additionally, Dupnik once told residents in part of his county to buy guns to protect themselves because he did not believe his department, given its limited resources, could adequately do the job themselves. Dupnik expressed his views about mentally ill people not being institutionalized to the Tucson Citizen newspaper in September 1999 after four people had been shot by local law enforcement officers in the course of a single week. The Citizen published the sheriff’s remarks in its Sept. 21, 1999 edition in a story by staff writer Michael R. Graham that ran under the headline ‘Dupnik: Guns, Drink Making Streets Unsafe.’ ‘Each day, a higher percentage of the population is armed.
‘And a lot of them are emotionally disturbed, violent, psychotic, and they drink too much,’ Dupnik told The Citizen. ‘When they drink and lose their temper and a firearm is available, they pose a threat to society. I’m not sure it’s safe for anyone on the streets today,’ Dupnik said.’ That’s Sheriff Dupnik in 1999. ‘According to The Citizen, Dupnik said he did not believe that the public was becoming more violent generally. Then he blamed ‘an element in our society’ for no longer institutionalizing mentally ill people,’ and that part he’s got right, and that goes back to what I said in the first hour of the program, which has to do with the libs’ idealistic view of the world.
If people were just controlled by them, if people would just listen to them, there wouldn’t be any crime; there wouldn’t be any poverty, there wouldn’t be any real wealth. Everyone would be the same. And so they look at institutionalized people and say, ‘Let ’em out! It’s not fair! You’re violating their rights! We can handle it; let everybody out. Nobody should be in jail.’ Terence P. Jeffrey at the Cybercast News Service. This is a story that ran yesterday. ‘Sheriff Who Suggested Talk Shows Incited Attack Was Asked by Dems to Apologize for ‘Inflammatory’ Immigration Remarks.’ So Sheriff Dupnik seems to have problems dealing with this suspect over the years that he would rather not be known, hence his very public statements on this issue as an act of deflection perhaps? Who knows?
BREAK TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: I just got a horrified note, a horrified note from a friend. ‘Oh, no, I’m skeptical about what you just read, Rush. That Cholla Jumps blog author, he says that the source is ‘confidential.’ He’s not even standing by all of that. I’m really worried. Those claims have still not been substantiated.’
How does it feel, Sheriff?
A blog out there says things about you might not be true, Sheriff. It’s just some guy’s opinion at a blog that’s been circulating. I mean, it would be quasi-journalistic malpractice of me to ignore that this is being said about you. So who knows? It might not be true. I guess we’ll find out in due course. The most fake public official who reminds me of Sheriff Dupnik is a prosecuting attorney by the name of Mike Nifong of the Duke lacrosse case, the Democrat DA for Durham County now removed and disbarred. He was running for office at the time of the Duke lacrosse team rape case, of course. When is Sheriff Dupnik’s next election, I wonder?
BREAK TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: To Concord, New Hampshire. John, thank you for calling. You’re next on the EIB Network. Hello, sir.
CALLER: Hello, Rush. Thanks for taking my call. ‘Live free or die’ dittos to you. I don’t know if ‘dittos’ is still a greeting. I haven’t called in a while. Is it still fashionable?
RUSH: Yes. It’s one of the things that even if I wanted to erase it, I wouldn’t succeed.
CALLER: (chuckles) It never goes out of style. It’s part of the fabric of the program.
CALLER: Okay. Well, what I was going to say is ‘mega-super-ulto-primo dittos,’ and I just wanted to say thank you for being our champion and also to maybe extend an offer to the sheriff and just tell him, ‘Hey, let’s make a deal: You stick to law enforcement and I’ll stick to the opinions.’
RUSH: (chuckles) This sheriff has a political agenda, is the point. He’s a member in good standing here of the American left, and he has been for quite a while. I don’t know if he’s in over his head. You would think so. There are a lot of microphones. Let me tell you something: If I were making allegations like this on the radio and I had no evidence the weight of the world would be falling down on me here. If any of my buddies who do what I do were doing what the sheriff’s doing, folks? Pshew! I have to tell you, we wouldn’t be praised for standing by it. There would be demands: ‘Proof! Give us your proof. What is your evidence that this leftist inspired the shooting?’ If we come out with baseless claims like this, I guarantee you all hell breaks loose.
This guy’s being credited for not backing down. He’s stuck now. What’s he gonna do? To show his manhood he’s gotta stick with his position here, but he can’t back down now. So now the question is: ‘What’s he doing? Is he working with Media Matters? Has somebody given him a grant? Do you think he got started poring through transcripts of this program?’ which we post each and every day. You think he’s trying to find transcripts looking for places where I told people to go out and buy guns and start shooting people? I guarantee you he is now. He honestly probably thinks so, and so it’s possible. Somebody’s out there going through that trying to find this. That’s the place they find themselves in now. They’re out there making this claim.
Or are they going to go out and try to find evidence of incendiary things I’ve said that even though this guy never listened to me might somehow have made its way to him? I guarantee you they are. It’s just the template. He’s an accredited member. In fact, I was taking some time off from show prep last night, and got a note from my brother, ‘Are you aware of this?’ and it was a web link to Drudge that the sheriff has started blaming me. I hadn’t heard it. My first thought was, ‘Who has he been talking to the last 12 hours? Who, if anybody in the Democrat apparatus, is coaching this guy?’ That was my first thought. He’s not a lone wolf out there anymore. He’s gotta have someone. This is my thinking. ‘There had to be somebody coaching the guy. Somebody had to be guiding him through this,’ and of course since he’s saying what the media wants said, he’s not being challenged on it. I’m being blamed for causing it, for calling him out yesterday. So he may find himself in over his head now, but this is a position he wanted. This is a stakeout that he wanted to be involved in. He’s put himself in it. Eric in Little Rock, Arkansas, you’re next on the EIB Network. Hello.
CALLER: Hello, Rush, how you doing today?
RUSH: Very good, sir, thank you.
CALLER: And global warming dittos from Little Rock. Can I borrow a snow shovel?
RUSH: (laughing) How about that?
CALLER: Yeah. I know this was presumptuous of me on my first call, but I have to kind of minorly correct you on an issue.
RUSH: What’s that?
CALLER: The left does believe in lone whack jobs, as long as they’re from a constituent group like Muslims or any other group they’re afraid to confront.
RUSH: Oh, oh, you’re taking issue with my saying that no individual could ever do something; they don’t accept the notion of individual responsibility and you’re giving me evidence to the contrary?
CALLER: Right, like the Fort Hood shooter ’cause, well, you know, he couldn’t be a Muslim terrorist.
RUSH: And even though he had contacts with the imam, Anwar al-Awlaki.
CALLER: He was shouting ‘Allah Akbar’ as he was shooting and, you know…
RUSH: You know, still doesn’t mean that he had any association with anybody else. I see your point.
CALLER: Yeah.
RUSH: He’s just a lone wolf, acting on his own. We shouldn’t jump to any conclusions.
CALLER: Of course not.
RUSH: Yeah.
CALLER: You know, that was just someone obviously with mental problems.
RUSH: Yeah, yeah. You know, you’re right. I will stand corrected on that. It’s a good catch.
CALLER: Mmm-hmm. Thank you very much, Rush.
RUSH: You bet. You bet. Eric, you have an iPad?
CALLER: No, actually I don’t.
RUSH: Do you want one?
CALLER: Sure!
RUSH: Well, I got some engraved EIB iPads, and I’d be glad to send you one. It’s very rare that somebody who is right, very rare that anybody ever corrects me, but it never happens that —
CALLER: ‘Cause you’re right most of the time.
RUSH: Well, I know, but it also never happens by somebody polite.
CALLER: (chuckles)
RUSH: And you have been polite. So I want you to hang on. Some nice man or woman, depending on who gets to the phone in there. We’ll get all necessary information. We’ll FedEx this thing to you. We don’t send everything regular mail ’cause that means we would have to go to the post office. So FedEx or somebody here will come pick it up. You hang on. We’ll get all the information and send it out to you, all right?
CALLER: Thank you, Rush.
RUSH: Don’t hang up. Stay on hold out there. Appreciate it.
BREAK TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: Here is Clarence Dupnik doubling down with new evidence, admittedly no evidence whatsoever. Sheriff Dupnik blaming me. We know that he now missed all the warning signs on Loughner, or ignored them. We know that Sheriff Dupnik bungled the case. He needs a big distraction. Last night on ABC’s World News Tonight, Diane Sawyer said, ‘I don’t know if you heard about Rush Limbaugh.’
DUPNIK: The kind of rhetoric that flows from people like Rush Limbaugh, in my judgment, he’s irresponsible, uses…uh, partial information, sometimes wrong information, uh, attacks people, angers them against government, angers them against elected officials, and that kind of behavior in my opinion is not without consequences, and I think he’s irresponsible.
RUSH: He has not been asked, by the way, to cite any evidence or any examples of partial information, wrong information. This is all cliched. This is all part of the book on me that they have. ‘Well, we like Limbaugh. He’s a great entertainer but, you know, he gets so much wrong.’ That’s all Dupnik knows. It’s all part of the cliché. Attacks people? Angers ’em? You can’t find any evidence I have suggested people behave like the shooter deductible, and they’re not even asking him for any. Megyn Kelly did at Fox, and he said ‘I’m speculating,’ and Diane Sawyer and Sheriff Dupnik continue with this. Sawyer says something to him.
SAWYER: Is it right to link it to this horrible incident?
DUPNIK: Well, that’s, uhhh… That’s my opinion. People can have their own opinions. The — the — the listeners, the viewers can — can judge for themselves. But my feeling is that there are millions of people in this country who feel exactly as I do, and nobody is saying anything.
SAWYER: (incredulous) That it is somehow linked?
DUPNIK: Of course.
RUSH: It sounds like Diane Sawyer was even having trouble buying this. I know Diane Sawyer. I can tell you some stories. I won’t, but we know each other a little bit. All of these people in the media who are making these comments listening to this guy, they all know me, and not one of them actually believes it. Now, it fits the liberal template to say it — and Dupnik thinks he’s the only guy saying it? He wants a medal here! ‘There are millions of people in this country who feel exactly as I do, and nobody is saying anything!’ Nobody is saying anything? You’re it, Sheriff? Try the whole media, for crying out loud, and many in the Democrat Party. Last Love Client No. 9, Eliot Spitzer, on the Parker/Spitzer show on CNN.
They had Dupnik, he was making the rounds, and Client No. 9 said, ‘What do you have to say to Rush Limbaugh’s language and the crazy things he said on his radio program today?’ Now, they didn’t define these ‘crazy things’ that I said. What do you think I said yesterday that is crazy that they think is crazy. I was thinking about that last night because somebody sent me a note, ‘Hey, Spitzer called you crazy!’ I said, ‘What did I say yesterday that they would think is crazy? What was it?’ Maybe it’s that I accused them of having this as a policy, that the Democrat Party seeks to profit for murder. Are they not doing that?
That may sound crazy to them, but we’ve got Mark Penn last November suggesting that what Obama needs is something like an Oklahoma City bombing to reconnect with the American people. We don’t make these things up. We are in relentless, unstoppable pursuit of the truth here, and we listen to what these people say. We quote it, react to it, and it does appear to me that these people are gonna work attempting to politically profit off this event which featured what? Murder! There’s no question about it. These people are seeking to advance their political agenda. I’ll tell you what I said today that gonna drive ’em nuts if they haven’t heard it (if they did it’s already driving them nuts) and that is that this smiling perp and his mug shot, why, wouldn’t you be smiling too if you had the entire Democrat Party running interference for you?
If you knew that you had committed this act, that you were the shooter, with six dead and a number of people wounded, and the Democrat Party is out there trying to blame everybody but you, wouldn’t you be happy? Wouldn’t you be smiling? You know that’s gonna bug ’em, but somebody tell me where I’m wrong. Seriously. Somebody tell me where I’m wrong in this assertion. The Democrat Party is trying to make Loughner a victim. They’re out there saying I’m responsible! Yesterday it was Sarah Palin. Today it’s me, and that’s ’cause I called the sheriff out by name. That’s why he’s coming after me. But is it beyond the pale to suggest that the sheriff’s comments are helping the defense in this case? It’s beyond the pale to suggest that Mr. Loughner can take comfort in the fact that the Democrat Party is seeking to find anybody but him to blame for this?
If they thought what I said yesterday was crazy, this is gonna be driving them insane. So, anyway, Client No. 9 says to Dupnik, ‘What do you have to say to Rush Limbaugh’s language and the crazy things he said on his radio program today?’
DUPNIK: It’s exactly this kind of personal name-calling. He didn’t sound like he was, uhh, really concerned about me when he was, uhh, criticizing and saying things that absolutely were not true. He knows they’re not true. I have a — a reputation of (nervous laugh) 50 years that I don’t think I have to defend myself on the kinds of issues that he was raising. It’s my belief that the hard right is deliberately fueling the fire against public officials, elected officials, government, and the administration. They think that in some way — and maybe they’re right — it benefits them in the election process.
RUSH: Didn’t Sheriff Dupnik see the CBS News poll: Most Americans don’t connect the shooting to the rhetoric? Now, Sheriff Dupnik also vehemently opposes Arizona, his own state, on their new immigration law. Two-thirds of the American people support the Arizona bill. So who is it, Sheriff, that’s out of touch? Who is it, Sheriff, that’s actually in the minority? Sixty percent of the American people do not see a connection between the shootings and anybody’s ‘rhetoric,’ and two-thirds of the American people support the Arizona immigration bill, which you don’t. You’re in the one-third minority. Now, who’s outta touch? What did I say about him yesterday that’s not true? They say these things and they don’t cite them. I don’t know if they played audio of me, what I said yesterday, but this is generally how this works.
‘Yeah, what Limbaugh said about me, he knows it’s not true! It’s not true and he knows it.’
What did I say? I had three hours on this program yesterday. I’m not gonna be able to, just on recall, know what it is he thinks he’s talking about. Eliot Spitzer then says, ‘Can you talk about voices on the hard right about who are you referring? Give us names! What do you mean specifically? Who’s doing this?’
DUPNIK: I don’t want to get into name-calling. You know, uh, you played, uhhh, one of the — the people who is, uh, a master at this kind, uh, of diatribe. And he inflames a lot of people against people like me, and against Democrats and liberals, and this benefits the other party. Uh, when it comes election time, I think they’re happy when people are very angry at government, period.
RUSH: Well, it must not be me, because… (interruption) Oh, they did play audio! I just got an e-mail. They played audio of me. Well, I still don’t know what the audio was, but they did play audio of me. At some point here I guess I’ll find out what it is and then I’ll be more specifically able to respond. Then Kathleen Parker and Sheriff Dupnik had a conversation about the Tucson shooting and me.
PARKER: It’s not my job to defend Rush Limbaugh, and I don’t intend to, but I do think that in his case just now he was exaggerating. He was using hyperbole to try to show you what it felt like to be accused of something of which you were not guilty. I think that’s what he was doing.
DUPNIK: He was inflaming people a-against me, which — uh, uh, uh — the right and people like Rush Limbaugh don’t want to listen to — to the voice of reason, at all. They have an agenda, uhh, and they pursue that, and they make a lot of money at it.
RUSH: Well, this guy is touchy, isn’t he? It’s almost like he can’t take it. So I don’t know what they played. I have to find it at a break or somebody. I don’t know what I said or what they played. But when he says here, ‘Well, he was inflaming people against me, which the right and people like Rush Limbaugh don’t want to listen to the voice of reason at all.’ As is always the case, what happens on this program is we come here and we start the program each and every day minding our own business. We’re not bothering or harming anybody. And then somebody says something about us, and we react, and we respond, and we defend ourselves upon occasion when necessary.
And he might not-a used my name at first but he was using names of people who believe things I believe on my side of the aisle — Tea Party, Sarah Palin, ‘voices on the radio.’ There’s no question what he meant. So I did respond to him. ‘He responded me! That’s not fair! He was inflaming people against me,’ as though what he did was not inflaming people, and he inflamed people without any evidence! He admitted he had no evidence for what his opinion is, for what his belief is! Zilch, zero, nada. Then when we respond to it, he becomes a little crybaby and appoints himself as the ‘voice of reason,’ and now he’s a victim! He starts all of this, and he’s the victim — and it pains Kathleen Parker to try to tell him, ‘You know, this guy, Rush, is just exaggerating try to show you how all this felt.’
(Dupnik sobbing) ‘He was inflaming people! (unintelligible sobbing). He was inflaming people against me!’
For crying out loud, like he was almost crying there. (crying) ‘He was inflaming people against me!’ These people are unaware of what they say about people and then when those people react to it it’s like, ‘Who do they think they are?’ Doesn’t this sheriff…? What is he doing on television? Does he have a job to do here? Isn’t he a sheriff? Shouldn’t he be conducting an investigation or leading it or something or providing guidance for the people who are actually engaging in it? Calling Tea Party supporters racist bigots, that’s not inflaming people? Here’s a guy calling for civility in our conversation, our discourse, promoting just the opposite. Kathleen Parker said, ‘Do you have any evidence whatsoever that this was a politically motivated act or that ‘rhetoric’ indeed influenced this young man to do what he did?’
DUPNIK: Rush Limbaugh knows, along with, uh, a lot of other people that, uh, we can’t prove what was in this man’s heart, uh, at the time of the act. It’s my feeling that the tenor of the country particularly influences unbalanced, unstable personalities especially. I’m not blaming Rush Limbaugh specifically, but I’m saying that people who do this continually — 24 hours a day, seven days a week, and have an agenda — have a responsibility. They have free speech, but I think with free speech comes some responsibility, and there can be consequences, and I — I firmly believe that.
RUSH: Do I need to take a break here? I’ve lost track of time. Okay, here we go.
BREAK TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: This is what I said that Sheriff Dupnik was reacting to. This is what CNN played for him that Client No. 9 then characterized as ‘crazy.’ Have any response to the crazy things Rush Limbaugh said?
RUSH ARCHIVE: My guess is the sheriff wouldn’t mind president shooter’s acquitted. After all, it’s not the shooter’s fault! If you carry the sheriff’s logic all the way out. (interruption)
Well, what do you mean, H.R.? If the sheriff’s gonna speculate, I’m gonna speculate. How does it feel?
‘Hey, Sheriff, I’ll betcha hope he’s acquitted, right?’
‘What do you know about it, Limbaugh?’
‘I don’t know anything. I just know how liberals are, Sheriff. I think you probably have a tough time putting the guilty behind bars ’cause it’s always somebody else’s fault, right, Sheriff? It’s never the guilty’s fault. They didn’t do it, somebody made ’em do it, right, Sheriff?
RUSH: That’s the ‘crazy’ comment from me that the sheriff is reacting to. Why is the sheriff entitled to an opinion but I’m not, and the sheriff can forgo his own investigation and spend time on television? This sheriff is just so upset with the election results in November, he is obsessed with it, rather than focusing on his own very important job. I’m just pointing out: The sheriff says incendiary rhetoric made this guy do it. The guy is a victim. The guy didn’t do it. Somebody made him do it. So I was just trying to give the sheriff a dose of his own medicine. ‘Hey, Sheriff, it’s never the guilty’s fault. They didn’t do it. Somebody made them do it, right? I mean, you probably wouldn’t mind if the shooter is acquitted. I mean, it would facilitate your case that somebody made him do it.’ The sheriff didn’t like that. The sheriff said that I was ‘inflaming people’ against him (sobbing) and he had to respond to it on CNN.
How dare we question the government!
How dare we citizens insist that our representatives represent us and follow the Constitution?
How dare we act insolent like this?
That’s what the sheriff is saying.
BREAK TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: ‘He was inflaming people against me!’ (crying) After the sheriff had just spent a whole day and a half inflaming as many people as he could against Sarah Palin, the Tea Party, the Republican Party and anybody who is conservative, he goes out and talks about people who are ‘angry at government.’ Sheriff, are you talking about all that ‘hate Bush’ stuff from the liberals, particularly in Bush’s second term? ‘Bush = Hitler.’ ‘Bush is a Nazi.’ I remember all the assassination movies and books about Bush. Is that the anger at government that you’re talking about here? All the anti-war stuff from liberals, was that love? Was all the hate rhetoric at Bush, was that love, Sheriff? All those attacks on Supreme Court justices for ruling in the Citizens United case? The President in his State of the Union speech personally castigating the court?
That was love, Sheriff?
You see, folks, what the sheriff really means but can’t say it or won’t say it is he doesn’t like liberalism being challenged. He doesn’t like his point of view being challenged. He doesn’t like the Democrats being challenged. He believes free speech, political speech, debate, arguments, elections should be left to him and his fellow liberals. This sheriff is so upset with the election results in November that he is obsessed with that rather than focusing on his very important job. This guy has got election hangover. He cannot get over it. Just as I told you earlier today: They can’t shake what happened. This rejection that they faced and got last November was thorough and complete — and they have not yet found a way to deal with it.
How dare we question the government? How dare we question the sheriff. How dare we citizens insist that our representatives represent us? How dare we insist that they follow the Constitution! In fact, how dare are we to even be engaged, informed, and passionate about this? Don’t we know we’re just supposed to shut up and let the smart people run this stuff and control it? We want the government to do its job, Sheriff. We want the government to secure the border, for example, which you apparently don’t — and it was you, Sheriff Dupnik, who attacked the Arizona government when it passed a law to do its job. So it was this sheriff who was attacking the government?
How dare we attack government! How dare we be angry at government! But this sheriff can call his own state, the capital, the cesspool of bigotry and racism because of what his government’s gonna do. See, it’s okay for Sheriff Dupnik, an approved liberal, to criticize the government. But not us. It was the liberals who attacked the Supreme Court when it upheld the Second Amendment in a gun case, when it upheld the First Amendment in the Citizens United case — including the president at the State of the Union. It’s okay for them to attack the government, it’s okay for the president to attack the Supreme Court, but we can’t. It’s okay for the sheriff to attack his own government in Arizona.
But we can’t.
It’s okay for them to engage in the destructive rhetoric aimed at George W. Bush, but we can’t. It is the left that attacks government every time they attack our military, whatever we are at war. Harry Reid: ‘This war is lost! This war is lost!’ The Democrats attack this government all over the world! Bill Clinton, Algore, wherever they were in the 2004 election cycle. Sheriff, during the 2008 election, I couldn’t distinguish the comments about this country between Democrats to Ahmadinejad, they sounded the same. It’s okay for Ahmadinejad to attack our government. It’s okay for our president to go around the world and apologize for our government.
It is the left that attacks the government in the form of police officers whenever there’s a racially sensitive crime caught on video. Sheriff, you leftists attack the government all the time. You’ve made a career out of trying to destroy Republican administrations, all for the sake of advancement of your political agenda. Who, I ask, is attacking the government when they attack those who believe in the Constitution that established the government? We have James Clyburn saying that reading the Constitution on the floor of the House is ‘uncalled for,’ that it is equivalent to ‘incendiary rhetoric.’ I mean, who’s attacking government there? What we reject, Sheriff, is liberalism. Say it, Sheriff: ‘We reject liberalism.’
But unlike liberals, we play by the rules. We don’t seek to evade them, those rules set out in the Constitution. And our agenda, what is it? Freedom. Liberty. That’s what we’re on the path. (Can’t say ‘warpath;’ that’s incendiary.) We’re on the freedom path. That’s our agenda, freedom. That’s what we reject, Sheriff, is liberalism. Now, Sheriff, you’ve had your rounds on TV and you’re getting your praise and your accolades for not backing down even though you have no evidence for the claims you’re making. Now it’s time to start acting like a real sheriff. Even the Arizona Republic newspaper lead editorial: Sheriff, come back and do your job. Sheriff, please, there’s enough embarrassment in Arizona enough.
They just want Sheriff Dupnik to come back and start doing his job. Don’t act like a hack. Sheriff, you’re embarrassing other liberals. It’s other liberals who should be saying what you’re saying, but you’re a law enforcement officer. You can’t, as a law enforcement officer, go out there and start assigning guilt in this case with no evidence! Which is what you’re doing and you’re embarrassing your fellow liberals. You know, leave that to the liberals on TV, radio, and the blogs. They’re comfortable doing that. But you are a law enforcement official. You’re supposed to at least disguise your liberalism, but you’re embarrassing even your buddies when you run out there and start accusing people of guilt and then admit in the next breath you don’t have any evidence.
If you like what you’re doing now, making the rounds on television, then step down and allow a professional to do it. I don’t remember this sheriff telling Obama or Harry Reid or Pelosi and his party to stop attacking Bush. Do you? I don’t remember Sheriff Dupnik telling Obama, Reid, Pelosi, Schumer to stop attacking Bush and his policies at any time. I don’t. I don’t remember Sheriff Dupnik telling Harry Reid to stop attacking, period; or Pelosi; or Steny Hoyer. I don’t. I don’t remember it. Sheriff, did you speak out when the left attacked Dick Cheney or Donald Rumsfeld? I don’t recall. Maybe those of you in Arizona remember if he did. I don’t. I just don’t recall. We’ll have to get some research on that.
Dale in Blythe, California, as we go back to the phones. Great to have you here with us, sir. Hello.
CALLER: Hello, Rush. Thank you for taking my call.
RUSH: Yes, sir.
CALLER: I’m a longtime listener, first-time caller. You know, I was listening to you earlier and you basically said that Sheriff Dupnik was a representative of the law to enforce it or to not. I am a retired peace officer. I worked in corrections for California for 24 years. And to me it struck a note that he’s really much more than that. He’s actually a symbol of the law — that symbol of right and wrong, justice, fairness, equality — and by voicing his opinion like you’ve done is he’s totally —
RUSH: Dale?
CALLER: — walked away from his sworn duty peace officer.
RUSH: Dale? You are inflaming people against Sheriff Dupnik.
CALLER: Oh, I’m sorry, Rush.
RUSH: Yeah, you are. You’re hurting his feelings, too.
CALLER: Yeah. Yeah. Because as a peace officer, I do take that as an affront. What we call ‘walking the line’ with convicted felons —
RUSH: Yeah, I know what you mean.
CALLER: — we have to keep our opinions to ourselves.
RUSH: Yeah, in. Well, you know, Sheriff Dupnik was on MSNBC last night with Olbermann. He did not tell Olbermann to stop attacking the GOP. He didn’t tell Olbermann to stop all the ‘incendiary rhetoric.’ In fact, Sheriff Dupnik is trying to chill free speech. Isn’t that a violation of the law? First Amendment? It’s just a question.