RUSH: It’s Open Line Friday. The greatest career risk taken in modern American big, major American media, turning the content of the program over to rank amateurs. Compared to me, highly trained broadcast specialist. And that’s when we go to the photocopies. On Friday, whatever you want to talk about is hunky-dory, so have at it. Whatever: question, comment, a brief sentence and a hang-up. If you want to call in protest, if you want to pretend you’re Code Pink. You know, how about that?
Folks, I must tell you, right when the program ended I keyed the intercom and I said to the staff, remarking how long Obama spoke yesterday. It was a minimum of 45 minutes and he was basically proclaiming the War on Terror over, ’cause Americans are war-weary, and we’ve had it. It’s over, and, you know, aside from the onesies and twosies, as Christiane Amanpour calls it, the war is over.
And I said, “You know…” I had an observation, and I wish I woulda had it while the program was on, and that is, “No wonder the speech was going so long. He’s trying to change the subject.” And that’s exactly what that speech yesterday was, a change of subject, trying to get everybody off the IRS and the Benghazi scandals. And then this Code Pink babe, Medea Benjamin shows up, she was the protester. Nobody will convince me that that wasn’t set up.
Here comes this woman protesting while she’s getting exactly what she wants. The woman wants Club Gitmo shut down, which means we’re gonna have to come up with a replacement in our thriving merchandise business for Club Gitmo stuff. They’re gonna become collector’s item stuff if they actually do shut it down, which remains to be seen. But she was getting everything she wanted. Her dreams were coming true, and yet there she is protesting, and there’s Obama stopping and listening to her and telling everybody while he didn’t agree with a thing that she had to say, we ought to listen to her. We ought to listen to what that woman is saying, “even though I don’t agree with the things she’s saying,” which is not true.
The president agrees with pretty much everything she was saying. This is the first time that Code Pink has not been thrown out of wherever they were protesting. That woman went on and on and on and on and on. So the whole thing was staged.
BREAK TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: You have to hear this, folks. Medea Benjamin, the Code Pink protester babe, was on CNN today. You gotta understand, when Medea Benjamin or Code Pink show up at a Republican-led Senate or House hearing or a Bush presidential speech and heckle, hero status, they love Medea Benjamin. Cindy Sheehan, they love these people when they’re harassing Republicans. But Medea Benjamin showed up and harassed Obama. I want you to listen to Carol Costello’s question and Medea Benjamin’s answer.
COSTELLO: A lot of people said that you were hurting your own cause because, one, you appeared rude to the president of the United States. And, two, you just seemed a little crazy.
BENJAMIN: Well, I’ve gotten a fabulous response, and I think killing innocent people with drones is rude. I think keeping people who are innocent in indefinite detention for 11 years is rude. I think not respecting the lives of Muslim people is rude.
RUSH: Now, the setup to this, Carol Costello talked about all the Twitter that she had seen and the Facebook and she had gone to her Twitter and Facebook pages, and people were responding in ways that were angry toward Medea Benjamin. They were unhappy with her, and Carol Costello was pained to have to tell her this. Carol Costello was pained and strained, her face was taut with tension and grimace as she reported to Medea Benjamin that, “You know, they think you’re crazy.” They would never say something like that if it had been a Bush protester. And then you heard Medea Benjamin’s answer. We’ve got the protest itself. The whole thing was set up, I’m convinced, because she wasn’t rolled out of there. But it was more of the same.
BREAK TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: Before we get off of this subject of Obama yesterday claiming the War on Terror is over and trying to change the subject — and by the way, he’s not gonna get away with changing the subject on this program, don’t worry about that. I want to get in, get this, and get out. I want to play you the two sound bites where Medea Benjamin of Code Pink goes in there and heckles Obama. He was at the National Defense University announcing the end of the War on Terror. It’s over. Just the onesies and twosies are out there.
But what this basically means is, the authorization to permit the use of force that was signed by Congress three days after 9/11 in 2001, that’s what’s going to be retired. That’s what’s going to be essentially expired. And in that sense Obama is claiming victory in the War on Terror. That’s one of the purposes of the speech, and he’s gonna go up and close Club Gitmo, but he’s gonna keep the drone program alive. So here he’s speaking and then Medea Benjamin of Code Pink intrudes on this and I think you can make the case that there’s a little bit of Limbaugh Theorem to learn here.
BENJAMIN: (yelling)
OBAMA: Let me address it.
BENJAMIN: You close Guantanamo today!
OBAMA: Why don’t you let me address it, ma’am?
BENJAMIN: Release those 86 prisoners being held —
OBAMA: Why didn’t you sit down and I will tell you exactly what I’m gonna do.
BENJAMIN: — by your government today. That includes 57 Yemenis.
OBAMA: Thank you, ma’am. Thank you.
BENJAMIN: It includes — (crosstalk)
OBAMA: Thank you. Ma’am, thank you. (applause) You should let me finish my sentence. Now, ma’am, let — let me — let me finish. Let me finish, ma’am. This is part of free speech is you being able to speak but also you listening and me being able to speak. All right? (applause)
RUSH: That’s not exactly true, folks. The First Amendment doesn’t give anybody the right to be heard. People don’t have to listen to you. The First Amendment doesn’t guarantee that once she comes in and intrudes, that she has to stop and listen to Obama. That may be a nitpicking, fine point, but that’s not what the First Amendment is. He’s simply describing fairness. The fact that she shut up tells me this whole thing was rigged. Normally Medea Benjamin shows up with three or four compatriots, and she doesn’t shut up. They don’t shut up. They keep shouting. They throw things, pink underwear, pink bras, whatever, until security come and literally walk them out of there.
But she actually shut up. After Obama asked her enough times to be quiet and let him finish, she actually shut up. Somebody has to give her a ticket in there. Somebody has to grant her permission to get in there and then somebody has to let her pass when the crowd is entering. The same thing with a Senate committee hearing. She doesn’t get in there by accident. So she was in there to serve a purpose, and I think the purpose is revealed here when it happens again here in the next bite.
BENJAMIN: Will you compensate the innocent family victims? That will make us safer here at home. I love my country! I love the rule of law! (being dragged out of the room) Drones are making us less safe and keeping people in indefinite detention in Guantanamo is making us less safe. Abide by the rule of law.
OBAMA: You know, I think that the — and I’m going off script, as you might expect here. (laughter) The voice of that woman is worth paying attention to.
RUSH: It is? The voice of that woman is worth paying attention to? Is that why they dragged her out of there? Because they did there in that bite, they finally dragged her out. That’s why they dragged her out because she’s worth listening to? What’s going on here? I’ll tell you what’s going on here is the Limbaugh Theorem. Obama ends up agreeing with the heckler. Actually he didn’t. He said (impression), “That woman, you know what, the voice of that woman is worth paying attention to.” And then after that he said, “Now, as you might imagine, I don’t agree with much of what she said, but it’s very important what she said.” So he wanted that said. He wanted a protester in there saying that, because if Obama himself is being protested by a far-left wing fruitcake nut, normally thought to be one of his supporters, and she is, Medea Benjamin and Code Pink and Barack Obama are equal parts radical — this whole thing had to be staged.
In addition to Obama speaking very long and trying to change the subject, this makes him look like a reasonable centrist when this Looney Toon walks in there, and then they let her go on and on and on and on and shout all these grievances, and then Obama, in true Limbaugh Theorem style, ends up suggesting that what she is saying is worth paying attention to. So he’s got the left-wing base which is adamant that we close Gitmo and adamant that every terrorist there be released and have their run of the country here. So, I think we got played again.