RUSH: You probably heard by now (if you haven’t, I’ll tell you about it) the panic call to Scott Walker from a leftist ‘journalist.’ An obscure, wacko, extreme leftist publication, journalist pretended to be David Koch. Now, I know David Koch. Little disclosure here, I know David Koch. I know his brother Charles Koch. The so-called evil Koch brothers are nothing of the sort. They are, as is typical, the exact opposite of the way the Democrats and the media portray them. They’re just like any other people. They have organizations that are designed to influence and shape the country in ways they believe in. They happen to be constitutionalists. They happen to be conservatives.
I’ve met them at a number of charitable events — and they are, as is typical of people who are not in line with the American left, maligned in ways that in no way close approach who these two men are and their families. Now, you’ve probably heard by now that this prank call from a journalist at a fringe, extremist, leftist little rag newspaper pretended to be David Koch, who is referred to as ‘a fat cat conservative donor.’ So this guy calls the governor’s office in Wisconsin and claims to be David Koch. That name rings bells in the governor’s office amongst the underlings and he puts the call through, assuming it’s David Koch.
So the governor end up talking to ‘David Koch’ and now the AP has this story. In fact, it’s the top story at AP now. ‘Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker has been lured into a conversation about his strategy to cripple public employee unions by a prank caller pretending to be a billionaire Republican donor. Walker spokesman Cullen Werwie confirms the governor is on audio of the call posted Wednesday on the website of the Buffalo Beast, a left leaning New York newspaper. The governor believes the caller is David Koch. He talks about plans for layoff notices and what can be done to punish lawmakers who have left the state. The caller suggest that Walker take a baseball bat when meeting with Democrats. Walker jokes that he’s got ‘a slugger with his name on it.”
Now, the brothers, David and Charles Koch, ‘have given millions to support Americans for Prosperity, which has launched a $320,000 ad campaign supporting Governor Walker.’ I have spoken at Charles Koch’s event in Vail a couple three years ago, I forget which, and I met people there that I had previously met at other groups and organizations. This is the creme de la creme of conservative philanthropy, hardly any subversives at all. Now, funny thing is, if you listen to the tape — and it’s been made available. It’s a long tape. We don’t have it yet, and if we get it we will, it’s gonna take a long time to pare this down to the essentials. But if you listen to it or if you read a transcript of the phone call, Walker says in private to this prank caller exactly what he says in public, even to a possible fat cat donor.
He doesn’t say anything he hasn’t said publicly. He was not entrapped into saying something that’s embarrassing. He didn’t say, ‘Yeah, what I’m really doing here, David, will make you love me! What I’m really doing here…’ None of that. He was being up front. I guess that’s shocking to the left and the Democrats and their media minions, is that there’s not something surreptitious going on here. It is typical. This is a journalist, par… (interruption) Well, if you’re gonna talk about the ethics of posing as somebody else, then you’re gonna have to indict 60 Minutes. That’s how 60 Minutes put themselves on the map. (interruption)
Well, 60 Minutes would go into some gas station ripping people off — you know, one that had a Jesus on the cash register. They put on a hidden microphone and send in fake customers to rip ’em off. I mean, this is a common journalistic ploy. No, the real question here is: ‘Why wasn’t this properly vetted in the governor’s office? How did this call get in? Anybody can make a prank call. You can’t sit here and condemn what happened because prank calls are common. Hell, I used to do this on the radio, for crying out loud. I never called governors and stuff.
But I did this kind of stuff as bits, comedy bits back in the early days of radio, when you could do this without hving to get permission of the person you were talking to to put ’em on the radio or tape-record them. Oh, gosh, I did all kinds of stuff. I pretended to have a picture phone. The fun I had doing that? The phone calls I made with my nonexistent picture phone, the video phone when I was in Pittsburgh. No, that’s not the quite… (interruption) Well, you can say, ‘Yeah, typical journalist: False, misrepresentation, attempt to entrap’ and so forth. The thing is, the guy failed. What they were trying to get Scott Walker on is: He dared talk to a Republican donor!
For crying out loud, I’d much rather spend time with them than Richard Trumka! I’d much rather go to a conference about what’s wrong with America with those guys than I would are Richard Trumka who’s meeting with Obama. For crying out loud, we’ve got some people trying to subvert capitalism. We’ve got an administration that is leveling an assault on free markets of this country each and every day and now we’re all out of whack because the governor of Wisconsin — well, nobody’s out of whack, but the left is acting like some moral transgression of the highest order is taking place here because Governor Walker talked to David Koch.
Big whoop! It’d be no different than if… Take a donor. It doesn’t matter who. Pick a name. George Soros! George Soros, for crying out loud, calls all these leftists, and they take a call, do you think there would be an accompanying story rooted in controversy over it? I think it’s a sign. They’ve got nothing to hold onto. They’ve got nothing of substance on their side to promote their case. This is typical of the left trying to discredit and impugn the people who oppose them. Don’t argue with them on the merits. Don’t by any stretch.
In fact, go so far as to leave the state and then fake a call and pretend to be somebody you’re not, hoping that the governor steps in a pile of it. We’ve heard so much more about the Koch brothers in the mainstream media than we’ve ever heard about George Soros, and compare how little they do compared to Soros. The Koch brothers, I don’t think they’ve (sigh) I know they haven’t. Who funded Media Matters? Who funds Americans for the American Way? George Soros is at the root of all of the problematic Democrat liberal things in this country. So, anyway, if you haven’t heard about it, you have now, and that’s the hay that they’re going to try to make out of all this.
BREAK TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: We have some sample sound bites of the prank call from the so-called journalist Ian Murphy of the Buffalo Beast who posed as David Koch calling the governor of Wisconsin, Scott Walker. In our first excerpt, Murphy, the ‘journalist’ (the term used loosely here) posing as David Koch, says, ‘I’m a little disheartened by the situation there, Scott. What’s the latest?’
RUSH: Okay, so he’s saying exactly what he says in public. There’s nothing new here. There’s no news — and there wasn’t, by the way. In the whole call he didn’t say anything that he hasn’t said publicly. So there’s no gotcha here. But the media is having fun with it all because it’s a secret conversation, and we found out about it! We made it public, a secret conversation between Walker and a rich Republican donor! We never hear about all the calls George Soros makes to people. Somehow those end up never being taped. Then the hoaxing ‘journalist,’ Ian Murphy, posing as David Koch says, ‘Now, you’re not talking to these Democrat bastards, are you?’
WALKER: Uhhh, there’s one guy that’s actually voted with me on a bunch of things I called on Saturday for about 45 minutes, mainly to tell him that while I appreciate his friendship and he’s worked with us on other things, tell him I wasn’t gonna budge.
MURPHY: [Bleeped] right.
WALKER: His name is Tim Cullen.
MURPHY: All right. I’ll have to give that man a call.
WALKER: Well, actually in his case, I wouldn’t call him, and I’ll tell you why. He’s pretty reasonable but he’s not — he’s not one of us.
RUSH: Well, how about that? ‘So, are you even talking to these dumb Democrat bastard?’ Yeah, in fact in his case he’s a pretty reasonable guy. He’s not one of us but, yeah, I’m talking to him,’ and then they finally had this exchange.
MURPHY: Bring a baseball bat!
WALKER: (chuckles)
WALKER: I have one in my office. You’d be happy with that. I’ve got a slugger with my name on it.
MURPHY: Beautiful.
RUSH: ‘Beautiful.’ So that’s it. What was learned from this… Oh, Walker did end up saying, ‘Hey, look, it’s Wisconsin, it’s Madison. There’s a lot of sixties protesters still hanging around, let ’em protest.’ So there’s no news here other than he got scammed by somebody pretending to be David Koch and wasn’t. So, ‘Bring a baseball bat.’ The impersonator says, ‘Bring a baseball bat.’