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Rush 101: Media Bias

by Rush Limbaugh - Mar 9,2012

RUSH: Oakland, California. I don’t know who this is. Sean. Oh, great. Hi. How are you, sir?

CALLER: I’m doing just fine, sir. How are you?

RUSH: Very well. Thanks.

CALLER: It’s a pleasure to speak with you. I am 24 years old. I was born and raised here in the Bay Area in California where, I’m sure you know, “conservative” is a bad word. And I spent my whole life, you know, here under the shroud of what we were told and where I was raised. And I left high school when was 16 years old and spent a couple years in youthful misadventures. But now I’m back working full time paying my way through college and I’m getting educated. And the more I get educated, the more I see how much that we’ve been lied to. So now I’m calling you, ’cause now that my local talk station has been reformatted, I get you in the afternoons.

I’m calling you to say thank you and to let you know that I’ve been invited by the California Patriot, which is the UC conservative newspaper, to submit an article on anything that I please, and I’m gonna focus my article on media bias on the liberal side, which is where it really is. I see recently that the media has managed to target you to try and discredit the entire Republican Party, and we’re going into this election just like we went into the last one. The media takes everything that Barack Obama says at face value and vets to the deepest degree everything that any Republican candidate says while Obama just gets away with anything. Obama started lying to people before he even got the election and nobody bats an eye at it.

RUSH: Sean, let me ask you a couple questions here.

CALLER: Yeah, sure.

RUSH: Have you written your piece yet?

CALLER: No, I have not.

RUSH: Okay.

CALLER: I’m working on it.

RUSH: Good. Let me ask you. You are starting to see the injustice or the inequity or unfairness — whatever, however you would describe this — bias, media bias and so forth.

CALLER: Absolutely.

RUSH: Now, before I start the question, one thing you have to realize here: An informed electorate like your awakening, that’s the worst nightmare the Democrat Party could have. They rely people being dumbed down to levels-of-profound ignorance.

CALLER: Okay.

RUSH: So my question. You mentioned that you have seen me under attack.

CALLER: Yes.

RUSH: Why? You said it was to discredit whole Republican Party.

CALLER: That is conjecture. That’s my opinion. That’s what it seems like to me.

RUSH: I’m not arguing with you about that. What my question is: You’re a consumer. You’re starting to write a paper. You’re college age, recently out of college or still there. You’re just now starting to have all this stuff come into focus.

CALLER: Okay.

RUSH: So you’re out there watching all this. You’re hearing it all. What do you think is the reason they’re doing this? Why do they attack me in order to try to discredit the Republican Party? What is their purpose in that, or why do they have to do that, do you think?

CALLER: Well, I think it’s a problem with my generation. We generally are distrustful of government, but we’ve been raised in a society that is insanely media saturated. And in order to reach us, they have figured that that’s their only hope is if they broadcast on every single news network. Save for Fox. Fox is the only news network that does any alternative investigation into anything. That is their only way to reach us, and if every single news outlet is —

RUSH: The answer to the question is very simple. The reason they have to try to discredit me one day, Sarah Palin the next day, whoever it is —

CALLER: Yeah?

RUSH: — is they can’t persuade you to join them by telling you how wonderful or how right or how good they are.

CALLER: Exactly. They have to tear the Republicans, the right wing, the conservatives down. The conservatives, we are racist. We are intolerant. We’re closed-minded. We’re stuck in the past. We’re all these things. And they tout… I mean, I don’t know what they tout. They just try to tear the conservatives to pieces in order to discredit them, to make us fear them.

RUSH: They don’t tout anything. That’s my whole point, Sean. What they tout, you are supposed to infer. They can’t tell you how great their economic policies are, they can’t tell you how great their social programs are because they’re an abysmal failure. The war on poverty, the Great Society, they are destroying — their policies have destroyed — the social fabric and the culture of this country. They can’t sing their own praises. All they can do is lie to you about people who oppose them and intimidate you into not becoming one of those enemies because, “This could happen to you.” What they’re doing to Palin, you don’t want to be on their bad side! What they’re doing to me, you don’t want it.

It’s fear, Sean. It’s fear. They have nothing positive to say, and in the process… This is for your paper. In the process, what they’re really telling you is what they do fear. I mean, who am I? Sean, I’m a guy on the radio. What can I do? I can’t raise anybody’s taxes. I can’t send anybody off to war. I can’t force anybody to go out and buy a $50 light bulb. I can’t make anybody give up their car and buy an electric car. I can’t make anybody do anything, and yet I have to be destroyed. There’s a reason for it, and that’s because I’m an effective critic of who they are, and that has to be shut down with character assassination or some other thing. That’s why this is done.

They have to clear the playing field. You hear them talk about wanting a “level playing field.” They don’t want a level playing field. They don’t want anybody on the playing field but them. Nothing level about it. They have to rid the field of opposition. There is no compromise with them, Sean. There is no walking across the aisle and getting along with them. They will never compromise a damn thing they believe in. There is no compromise. All that’s a one-way street. I hope you have the fortitude to hang in. You must, because you have been your whole life out there in the Bay Area as a conservative.

Look at Obama’s first words his first two weeks in the White House. He brings the congressional leadership up there, Sean. This is three years ago. He brings the congressional leadership up to the Oval Office and he says to John Boehner and the guys, “Don’t listen to Rush Limbaugh anymore. That’s not how things get done here.” His first words to the Republican leadership, after he became president! So it’s all about silencing and intimidating critics into shutting up. And when you don’t, they keep coming at you, pure and simple. So welcome to the club. I’m happy to have you on the team, and letting ’em have it. Don’t let them take one thing away from you. I’m glad you called.