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RUSH: Now, the news media is gonna lose interest in this shooting out there pretty soon. It’s in the cards, folks. It probably won’t even last the balance of this week and they’ll have moved on. (interruption) Well, because I somehow have hijacked this from Sarah Palin. Over the weekend and yesterday morning, Sarah Palin was responsible for the shooting. Now it’s me. This idiot sheriff has gone out… I don’t know who’s coaching the guy but he’s blown it. He’s out there blaming me now. You know, the radio did it! That’s gonna be the defense: ‘The radio did it,’ but I’m not running for office. They think Palin’s gonna be running for office, and so they figure they can no longer get away with blaming the Tucson shootings on Palin or the Tea Party.

They’ll move on to other things, which they already are. I told you that yesterday, because of the quick move to gun control. There’s a new Facebook page out there, started last night: ‘I hate it when I wake up and Sarah Palin is still alive,’ and there are 2,051 ‘friends,’ people who like this so far. ‘I hate it when I wake up and Sarah Palin is still alive.’ Perhaps another indication of just how off-the-tracks this whole thing is becoming for the left, perhaps to show that they’re just throwing the kitchen sink out there now. And, by the way, in mere moments, we have a warning from the sheriff. Sheriff Dipstick himself has asked for time on this program.

We have granted him a few seconds, and we have a warning from him for all of you for the good of the country coming in mere moments. Plus I’m going to endeavor to in depth explain for the gazillionth time since I began this program the liberal mind on this. But to show you that it’s about over, that they’re throwing everything up but the kitchen sink here and hoping it sticks to the wall, this is last night on Sergeant Schultz’s show. Well, maybe it was on Sergeant Schultz’s radio show. I don’t know which, but it’s Sergeant Schultz, one of his two shows. Jim Clyburn, member of the US House of Representatives, explaining what caused the shooting…

CLYBURN: All of this stuff about delegitimizing the president of the United States. That is uncalled for, and all this stuff taking place in the chambers the other day when the Constitution was being read, all that stuff is uncalled for. The hanging over the banister that some members did last year, egging on the demonstrators out there, that stuff is uncalled for. We ought to conduct ourselves in public office in a way we teach our children to conduct themselves when they go out into the public.

RUSH: Did you hear this? Did you? I know it’s kinda hard to understand. He said, ‘All of this stuff about delegitimizing the president of the United States. That is uncalled for, and all this stuff taking place in the chambers the other day when the Constitution was being read, all that stuff is uncalled for.’ So reading the Constitution led to the shooting of a Democrat member of Congress, according to James Clyburn (Democrat, South Carolina). How more ridiculous can you get? By the way, there also is a ‘Kill Sarah Palin’ Facebook page. There are two Facebook pages that have to do with Sarah Palin dying. Yes, you heard correct. Congressman Clyburn said reading the Constitution was ‘uncalled for.’ He was answering a question, ‘What led to all this?’ Reading the Constitution on the floor of the House. Here, ladies and gentlemen, a warning from Sheriff Clarence Dipstick from Arizona.

(playing of spoof)

RUSH: An exclusive warning to those of you in this program’s audience offered by (I mistakenly said ‘Dipstick.’ Somebody’s been writing to me calling him that. It’s just like you have a favorite song in your mind and it won’t leave) Clarence Dupnik, Pima County Sheriff, warning of all the terrible things go wrong listening to this program. Folks, the left — in its various forms, the media, politics, et cetera, the left — cannot accept the reality of a madman slaughtering innocent people. They can’t accept that. It has to be something more. It cannot be individual responsibility. They reject that concept, anyway, whatever we’re talking about. But the reality of a madman slaughtering innocent people in their dream world, it’s not possible. The reality of their rejection in the last election, they cannot accept that.

Really. I’m talking psychologically, a huge rejection. They just got blown off by every girlfriend they’ve ever had. Try to understand the magnanimity of this, or the…bigness of it. I’m having a mental block on the word I want to use. They see everything through the prism of their desires, their power, their designs. That’s how they vow the world: Through the prism of their desires, their power, their designs. They live in a fantasy world. They believe utopia can happen. They believe they are the architects. They cannot deal with anything that happens in reality that illustrates there’s no utopia and that they can’t make it happen. Now, we, on the other hand — the rational — we see this killing for what it is.

We pray for the victims and their families. We support legitimate law enforcement’s efforts to investigate and prosecute the killer. Our thoughts and emotions focus on the event. We don’t seek a deeper understanding of it. We do not seek to advance our political agenda, except to the extent that we are about truth, which is why we look specifically at evidence and facts. We don’t look at dreams, we don’t look at, ‘Gee, I hope this is the result of… Gee, can we make people think this is the result of…?’ We — conservatives, conservatism. We, as I have said for 23 years on this program: It’s a daily, relentless, unstoppable pursuit of the truth. I live, I have told you countless times, in Literalville. I live in Realville, and I understand that not many people do.

But I do. We, I, don’t seek a deeper understanding of a madman like this who has committed the worst kind of crime. You see this guy’s mug shot? I mean, this is the mug shot of all mug shots. This guy’s getting exactly what he’s wanted: Attention out the wazoo. And stop and think of this: What Mr. Loughner knows is that he has the full support of a major political party in this country. He’s sitting there in jail; he knows what’s going on. He knows that a Democrat Party, the Democrat Party, is attempting to find anybody but him to blame. He knows if he plays his cards right, he’s just a victim. He’s the latest in a never-ending parade of victims brought about by the unfairness of America; the bigotry, racism, sexism, homophobia of America; the mean-spiritedness of America.

So he sits around, he gets reports, he understands. He probably never paid any attention to Sarah Palin. All of his friends say he didn’t like things political. This guy’s been on the sheriff’s radar in Pima County since 2007, long before Sarah Palin was nominated to run with McCain and long before there was a Tea Party. That smiling mug shot, this guy clearly understands he’s getting all the attention, and he understands he’s got a political party doing everything it can (plus a local sheriff) doing everything that they can to make sure he’s not convicted of murder but something lesser. He’s a victim, he’s deranged, and yet he’s smiling. He’s snickering at every one of us in that mug shot.

What must it feel like to be Jared Loughner, to know you’ve done this and to realize that the party of the President of the United States is trying to figure out a way to blame their political opponents for it, to understand that advisors to the president are telling him how to capitalize on this incident for his own political advancement, the president’s. He’s gotta be sitting there thinking, ‘What a lucky turn of events this is. Thank goodness they’re focusing on the congresswoman. Thank goodness, the media,’ Mr. Loughner is saying, ‘doesn’t care about the dead Republican judge.’ I got a note from my friend Andy McCarthy today. He said, ‘I wonder, Rush, what would happen if things were a little different here.

‘Let’s say that the dead individual happened to be a Democrat judge and the wounded individual fighting for life is a Republican member of Congress. Who do you think the media would be focused on in that incident?’ It’s a rhetorical question but we all have the answer to it. So if you’re Jared Loughner, no wonder you’re smiling in your mug shot. You have an entire political party, the Democrat Party, working to blame somebody other than you — and make you, Jared Loughner, the victim 00 and trying to find a way for that party to use this as a way to advance their own political agenda. We don’t do any of that on the conservative side of things. We don’t seek a deeper understanding of madmen who commit the worst kind of crimes.

We seek justice. The left seeks more.

What’s happening here, folks? The American left, liberals, the Democrat Party — right now, we’re watching it — are trying to justify their own existence. They’re trying to justify their own politics, their own ideology through unrelated events like this. They seek to advance them through the derangement of projection. That is, they are good people, they know the truth, and those who disagree with them are bad and are knowing-nothings. They think if the world were just more organized by them, if the world were just more centralized by them, if the world were just more controlled by them, bad things like this wouldn’t happen. They believe. There would be less ‘hate’ if they controlled everything. There would be less violence if they controlled everything. There would not be any poverty if they controlled everything. There wouldn’t be any real wealth if they controlled everything. Everybody would be the same.

They’re good.

They know the truth.

If only the rest of us would learn or be forced to adapt to their beliefs and brace their truth, things like that would never happen ever again. Nobody would ever die. So they lash out — no matter how irrationally, no matter how irresponsibly — against those who reject them, which is a majority of the country. To the American left, for the American left and the Democrats, no individual and no one event is bigger than them and their beliefs. Therefore every opportunity must be taken to advance their agenda, no matter how unrelated events are to their belief system. This sheriff is an embarrassment to committed law enforcement officers all over the country. This guy… Joe Arpaio even said, ‘I hope this guy is not creating a defense for smart lawyers to use.’

Well, he’s already done that. There are a lot of things this sheriff doesn’t want people to learn, and I think one of the reasons that Sheriff Dupnik is lashing out at me… I did call him out personally yesterday, justifiably so. I think one of the reasons he’s lashing out at me is to hide all of the opportunities his department has had to put this guy away before this event happened. They have a timeline and a series of facts about the incidents involving Mr. Loughner in the jurisdiction out there where the sheriff, his department had ample opportunity to… I mean, how did this guy get a gun? Well, he passed the federal requirement ’cause he didn’t have… Something didn’t produce a red flag, I forget what it was. Now, I don’t know that this guy was on unemployment benefits.

Mr. Loughner, I don’t know if he had a job or not. I don’t know if he was on extended unemployment benefits, but what if he was? Do we need a rule? Should there be some rules about the mentally ill receiving unemployment benefits from the federal government? Who knows how they’re gonna spend the money. We could start generalizing in ways here. Like Quin Hillyer of the American Spectator had a pretty good post: This guy is an atheist, therefore all atheists are mass murderers, therefore all atheists need to be locked up. I mean, this is turning on its head the, quote, unquote, ‘logic’ the Democrats and the left are trying to use against me, Sarah Palin, you name it. Names on the right. Tea Party at large. So that’s where we are.

Oh, and even this! The No Labels gang has moved in on this. From the Washington Post: ‘Tucson Tragedy ‘a Real Opportunity’ for Nonpartisan Groups No Labels, Third Way — As the debate over civility in politics continues in the wake of the shooting in Tucson, groups founded to push bipartisanship see an opening: Could this be a moment for the political middle? ‘It’s a real tragedy, but it’s also a real opportunity,’ said Mark McKinnon, co-founder of No Labels, a nonpartisan group founded last month. Third Way, a group of moderate Democrats,’ which don’t exist; there are no moderate Democrats; they’re all Democrats, ‘is likewise seeking to spur the conversation on moderation.’ Yeah, well, all these moderates, great independents, who did they vote for in November? Republicans, I think. And Mr. Loughner, if anything, he was No Labels guy. He himself was No Labels! He wasn’t a Republican or Democrat. He didn’t like politics. He’s made to order for the No Labels group, and he’s a murderer!


BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: Hey, folks, let’s dabble here in a conspiracy theory just for the fun of it. While the Drive-Bys and Sheriff Dupnik and others are now trying to lay this squarely on me, who was it last November who actually suggested that Obama needed an event like this just like Clinton had the Oklahoma City bombing to revitalize his presidency? It was Mark Penn, a Democrat pollster and fundraiser. Well, what more do you need? You’ve got a Democrat fundraiser and pollster, Mark Penn (very popular, worked) with Hillary, suggesting that what Obama needs is an event like Oklahoma City, people mass murdered to revitalize his presidency. All of a sudden here in early January we get one.

Why not connect the dots? Your average conspiracy theorist would suggest, ‘Are the Democrats behind this?’ Because Democrats, powerful Democrats, wished for this. It happened on Chris Matthews’ show. Powerful Democrats wished for this as a means of an opportunity for the president to shore up his sagging base, poll numbers, what have you. Voila! In two months’ time, we have a nutcase opening fire in Tucson, Arizona — and, lo and behold, leading Democrats are conducting strategy sessions with the president on how he can use the right words to maximize this event. He wants to lay this on me or Palin when we have nothing to do with it, yet leading Democrats actually hoped for this. Interesting conspiracy theory, isn’t it?


BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: I checked the e-mail during the bottom of the hour, you’re making that up about Mark Penn. I’m not making it up. We had the audio sound bite of Mark Penn saying it. We played it on the program yesterday. Cookie, see if you can grab it real quick. I got people claiming I’m making up the fact that Mark Penn suggested that this kind of event is what Obama needed like Clinton had the Oklahoma City bombing. November 5 of 2010 from the Mediaite website, Mark Penn, Democrat strategist, former chief strategist for Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign let out the kind doozy on last night’s hardball that must be seen to be believed. Here. We had it. This is Mark Penn approximate Matthews last November.

PENN: President Clinton reconnected through Oklahoma. And the president seems removed, and it wasn’t until that speech that he reclicked with the American public. Obama needs a similar kind of event.

MATTHEWS: You think this will work.

RUSH: Obama needs a similar event to achieve that reconnection, following his party’s midterm losses. Well, you got it. You had a Democrat wishing for it last November and now we’ve got it — and somehow, ladies and gentlemen, this is still my fault now, according to the sheriff. A deeply saddened CBS News reporting today: ‘Nearly six in 10 Americans say the country’s heated political rhetoric is not to blame for the Tucson shooting rampage that left six dead and critically wounded U.S. Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, according to a CBS News poll.’ Again, imagine if the wounded congressman were a little known Republican and the dead federal judge a Democrat. Imagine the difference in coverage. Even here in the CBS News story, a federal judge appointed by George H. W. Bush is not identified. He’s just one of the six dead.

‘That’s right, Mr. Limbaugh, because this was an event of the congresswoman’s!’

I understand that, Mr. New Castrati. I’m just saying that we all know it. Change this around a little bit, and I guarantee you if the dead contained a federal judge appointed by a Democrat president, that would be the focus of the media’s coverage, not the wounded Republican congressman. So six in ten, 60% ‘say heated political rhetoric not to blame.’ So either our media masters had better ratchet up their efforts or move on to their fallback position which is gun control, which they will do. ‘In the wake of the shooting, much focus has been put on the harsh tone of politics…’ By who? Who? Who put this focus on it? The media did. People aren’t focusing on it. If you went around the country, that’s not what average, ordinary Americans first thought of when this happened.

You want to try to tell me that when people first heard the news of this shooting on Saturday the first thought they had was, ‘I wonder if Sarah Palin inspired it; I wonder if the Tea Party inspired it’? No, no, no. That’s not how people think. The media thinks that way, and so here’s the media, Daniel Carty. ‘In the wake of the shooting, where focus has been put on the…’ Who put the focus on heated rhetoric? The media did. They set the narrative, they set the template. It’s not a reflection of popular thinking. In fact, it’s the exact opposite of popular thinking. Popular thinking does not think ‘heated rhetoric’ had anything to do with this. The media is trying to create it. ‘Rhetoric and imagery from both Republicans and Democrats have included gun-related metaphors, but the majority of the country isn’t connecting the shooting to politics.’

What stunning admissions by a state-controlled news outlet, CBS News. You know, somebody needs to dial up every Republican campaign consultant and ask ’em, ‘Have you ever used crosshairs or bull’s-eyes in campaign literature? Have you ever done so?’ Ask Democrats if they have. It’s a staple in American politics. Go to the audio sound bites. And we will start here. Last night in this morning we have a montage of NBC’s Andrea Mitchell, me, Diane Sawyer, Jeff Brady of NPR, Willie Geist at MSNBC, Betty Nguyen at CBS. They’re all talking about the Tucson shooting and me — and the template now is that everything was just fine. Everything was just fine until I ‘attacked’ Sheriff Dupnik and the Democrats.

MITCHELL: What started as a squall turned into a storm.

RUSH ARCHIVE: Sad tragedies, where people, die are seen first as moments of political opportunity for Democrats.

SAWYER: The Sheriff here versus Rush Limbaugh.

BRADY: Rush Limbaugh was his defiant self.

GEIST: Rush Limbaugh fired back at criticism.

NGUYEN: Sheriff Dupnik is blaming ‘extreme political rhetoric’ and said Rush Limbaugh is ‘irresponsible’ for continuing the vitriol.

RUSH: Now, Sheriff Dupnik, it needs to be pointed out, is calling for civility, right? He’s leading the call and yet he is the one who started this. Sheriff Dupnik started all this incendiary rhetoric. He started baseless allegations, admitting he was speculating. A man of the law, a sheriff speculating, admitting on Saturday and Sunday night he had no facts to back up what he was saying. And we’ve now learned the sheriff long knew of the state of mind of this poor shooter out there. I mean, there’s a Reuters story that says law enforcement contacted the shooter after he made death threats. This is back on Sunday. I don’t know if it was college police or Tucson law enforcement, but we have all kinds warnings from college professors, college students.

This guy was a menace. They were afraid he would walk in and start shooting with a gun. Was well known that he was unstable out there. Pima Community College had to call for police action on five different occasions on the shooter. The sheriff’s department says they were aware of the shooter’s incidents at Pima College. That’s another story. Now, these items and more, interesting as to the timeline of this horrible crime, what did the sheriff’s department know about this kid and when? We know what the kid was in. The kid was doing all kinds of stuff in 2007, long before the Tea Party was formed or even before Sarah Palin was nominated to run. So what are we supposed to do? You know, I guarantee you…

I asked the question Saturday afternoon. The American people are running around doing their thing, watching football, shopping, what have you, and they hear of a mass shooting in Arizona, what’s the first thing they think of? Sarah Palin? Tea Party? Rush Limbaugh? No. One of two things: Illegal aliens went wild, or a Muslim terrorist attack. Those are the two things they’ll think about. Why? Because those are reality. The last thing they think is, ‘Gee, I wonder if this guy that did the shooting in Arizona was a Sarah Palin fan.’ If anything — yes, I’ll say this. If anything, this guy probably had more inclination to watch Bill Maher than read a Sarah Palin website or listen to this program — and that’s a connection. You know, it’s never made.

You notice no shooting, no crime somehow ever gets linked to leftist influences. Never! Isn’t that amazing? Isn’t it interesting? Only (sigh) conservatives who are said to be boring seem to have the ability to influence this kind of behavior. But it’s never Letterman, it’s never Bill Maher, it’s never Jon Stewart. It’s never any of these people. It’s never Michael Moore. Never. Michael Moore’s running around talking about what a crime this country is and health care is awful. The president running around ripping the banks. I mean, if you are a devout follower of Barack Obama, you gotta think this whole country is out to get you — and yet leftist media people somehow are never, ever linked when it comes to inspirational messages found in the media. Even violence in television shows and movies is rejected as an explanation.

‘Oh, no, no, no, no!’

In fact, there’s a YouTube video with a song (I forget the name of the group here; it’s on the tip of my tongue) that lyrically is very close to what the guy did. Yeah, and the leader of the group says, ‘You know, our work continues to be misinterpreted here.’ So the real influences on this guy are exempted and excused, and all the leader of the band has to say is, ‘Oh, our work is being misinterpreted here.’ Oh, okay! Fine. Sorry. We’ll go back to blaming this on Limbaugh and Palin — and now Jim Clyburn, as we showed you in the first half hour of the program, is blaming this on the reading of the Constitution on the floor of the House last week. That was an ‘uncalled for action.’ Uncalled for action. Yeah, the favorite video features the song ‘Let the Bodies Hit the Floor.’ The group is The Drowning Pool. Let the Bodies Hit the Floor, the Drowning Pool, and they go to the leader of the Drowning Pool, ‘I’m sorry our work continues to be misinterpreted.’

Back right after this.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: Yeah, we have time. Let’s squeeze in a phone call here. Rush Limbaugh, great to have you here on the Excellence in Broadcasting Network. Garden City, Long Island. This is Thane. Welcome, sir. You’re up.

CALLER: Thank you, Rush. Mega dittos.

RUSH: Thank you.

CALLER: You know, I’ve been listening for the last couple of days to all the news broadcasts, and they’re — they keep bringing up all the shootings and terror attacks and everything for the last 20 years, but the one thing never mentioned is the one on the Long Island Railroad that Colin Ferguson did. If you remember that, that was a month after Giuliani got elected mayor.

RUSH: I do remember that.

CALLER: Yeah. And he was actually found to have a note in his pocket saying that he was doing this because, A, he hates white people; and, B, he wanted to be sure he was outside the city limits so he wouldn’t embarrass Dinkins. This was after people like Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson had been just scouring Giuliani and just saying horrible things about him; and immediately they began walking it back saying, ‘Oh, no, this poor guy, he’s just crazy. It isn’t our fault. This isn’t what we do.’

RUSH: Yeah, exactly. This is my point. When there is firsthand evidence that a leftist engages in this behavior because of an ideology, because he’s been influenced by somebody else, ‘No, no, no, no, no, no, no. You can’t say that. Let’s not jump to conclusions here. This is a rush to judgment. Wait! We need to gather all the facts here.’ The exact opposite approach to an event like this. But I think it is important to point out again that at no time are any Democrat constituent groups ever blamed or associated. Hollywood movies and TV are very violent. Music is very violent. Some music promotes violence against law enforcement people. Obama’s friend, Bill Ayers, was very violent. We have stories of union thugs beating up Tea Party activists.

In one case, a black Tea Party activist outside St. Louis. None of this matters. There is no control ever proposed. Well, there are now and then groups of social activists on the Republican side who say, ‘We need warning labels, more stringent warning labels,’ but no control is ever proposed over Hollywood, music, associations by politicians with domestic radicals, control of union violence. Never happens. Nor is it the case that any left-wing media is ever associated with any violent behavior like this. The profile of this guy, Jared Loughner? We know he listened to heavy metal. We know he was influenced by The Drowning Pool. But no speculation. If this guy does listen to talk radio or watch cable news shows? Do you think this guy actually listens to me or reads Sarah Palin’s website? Highly unlikely. Do you think he might be the kind of guy that likes Bill Maher or Keith Olbermann?

It makes more sense.

To me, anyway.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: Here it is right in the Washington Post: ‘Jared Loughner’s Music Choice, Drowning Pool’s ‘Bodies,’ Strikes Chilling Chord.’ Stuff he listened to, why…heavy metal music. And the leader of the band said: No, no, no, no; we’re being misinterpreted here. You can’t possibly make this association.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: I’m still stunned that Democrat Congressman James Clyburn would go after me like this after I single-handedly fought to preserve his position of real leadership in the Democrat Party. Remember when they…? I forget when it was. After the election, Jim Clyburn faced the prospect of being out. Steny Hoyer wanted to move up and Pelosi wanted to stay in charge. (interruption) Right, he lost the position because they weren’t in the majority anymore. I know Clyburn didn’t go after me precisely here, but by joining all this talk about what’s responsible for this he’s joining the fray of blaming everybody but the guy who did it.

Clyburn lost the election to Steny Hoyer, which we all knew was gonna happen, and I raised the possibility that they better do something other than give him an affirmative action leadership position. I was in Clyburn’s camp, I was in his corner, because I saw what was happening out there — and yet Clyburn was Sergeant Schultz, says, ‘All this stuff…’ Well, I’m not gonna play sound bite 27. I’ll just read it because it’s not good phone quality. ‘All this stuff about delegitimizing the president United States, that’s uncalled for. All this stuff taking place in the chambers the other day when the Constitution was being read, all that stuff is uncalled for.’ I’m a big believer in the Constitution. I have a ‘fetish’ about it, as you know, and Clyburn is claiming that reading the Constitution on the floor of the House was ‘uncalled for’?

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