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RUSH: If I do this right, I think, this is telling. It’s important. I want to take you back, talk about Chris Christie and talk about why there is not a huge wave of people defending him. The Tea Party isn’t because the Tea Party doesn’t like him. The Tea Party does not think that he is a conservative. The Tea Party…


This Bridgegate’s one thing, but basically embracing Obama and screwing Romney, that was all it took, that one time and you’re done. But the Tea Party’s not Christie’s buddies. The Republican Party establishment is Christie’s buddies, and they aren’t even defending him. They’ve all got this caveat, “He’s home free IF he’s telling the truth.” “IF.” Now, can I contrast this with something for you? Clarence Thomas and Anita Hill.

Clarence Thomas was nominated the Supreme Court by George Bush 41. The moment he was nominated, the left’s long knives came out. That was their seat, Thurgood Marshall. Clarence Thomas, Republican, conservative, traitor, Uncle Tom. When this all happened, I didn’t know Clarence Thomas. I had never met Clarence Thomas. I had to read about Clarence Thomas to find out who he was. From the moment Paul Simon, Democrat senator from Illinois…

His wife, actually, was the one responsible for this, if you want to know the truth. They dragged Anita Hill forward. Snerdley, you’ll remember this because you’ve been here the whole time. I began the biggest, full-throated defense of Clarence Thomas that there was, and I didn’t know him. I’d never met him. I had to read and find out who he was and, you know, about his life, the things he’d done, where he’d worked, gone to school.

Yet I didn’t feel I was taking a risk at all in a full-throated, never-ending, full-fledged not only defense of Clarence Thomas, but an attack, a returned attack on Anita Hill and the Democrats. Now, how was I able to do this with such confidence, not having met the man, not having known the man? I don’t do things for show here. I don’t do things to get noticed here. I was in either Tulsa or Oklahoma City on the Rush to Excellence Tour.

I was doing an appearance on Saturday when the Anita Hill stuff really hit, and all of the outrageous allegations, the “pubic hair on the Coke can” and all the sexual harassment stuff, and I can’t tell you how livid I was. I spent the entire almost two hours on stage that night (it was a Saturday) talking about this, and how sick it made me and how angry it made me. The reason that I — and I have been fully vindicated, by the way — was able to defend Clarence Thomas with total confidence against this, is I knew he didn’t do it.

I knew he didn’t do it, and I didn’t know him. But I learned about his character. I learned about his family. He was conservative. He was courageous. He was a conservative African-American. You learned that they had tried to destroy him at Yale ’cause he didn’t get in with affirmative action. He betrayed them. He betrayed the civil rights coalitions because he climbed the ladder without them, showing that it could be done.

I learned very quickly that Clarence Thomas became the biggest threat breathing to people like Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton, the biggest threat alive to the civil rights coalitions, because Clarence Thomas was living proof that a minority could reach the pinnacle without having to be a liberal or a Democrat or part of that whole civil rights coalition. I also knew that the people attacking him were totally capable of lying and making things up.

The left, the Democrats, take your pick — Biden, take your pick of ’em on that committee. Ted Kennedy. I knew their character, and so without knowing Clarence Thomas, without ever having met Clarence Thomas, I knew he didn’t do it. I’ve since gotten to know Clarence Thomas. He’s become a very good friend and he didn’t do it. He thwarted all of that by standing up for himself at those hearings, if you’ll recall, by finally accusing the people of conducting a “high-tech lynching” on him.

But what was it, folks?

I didn’t know Clarence Thomas.

What was it that made me do this? I didn’t think I was risking anything. I really didn’t. If I’d had the slightest doubt of his innocence, I woulda never opened my mouth. If I thought that there was just a tiny thread of possibility that what Anita Hill was saying and what the Democrat witnesses were saying was true, I woulda stayed silent. But I didn’t. I went to the equivalent of the mountaintops and started shouting. Now, why? Character, conservatism, and and my knowledge of the left.

I only bring this up because there isn’t any of this going on for Governor Christie, from anywhere. Now, partly, the fascinating thing about this… I’m not saying it’s not deserved, don’t misunderstand. My point is that the Republican RINOs, Republicans-In-Name-Only, and the Tea Party have an ideological basis for not running to Governor Christie’s defense. They disagree with him on policy. They felt that he betrayed his own party and cause with that embrace of Obama.

They feel he sabotaged his own party in their quest to win the White House. The Tea Party, they’ve got substantive reason. Now, the people on the right who support Christie, to launch him, this is the problem with the Republican Party. There’s no foundation there. There’s no ideological basis on which to defend Christie, is my point. They’re RINOs. They’re Republicans-In-Name-Only. They’re establishment types.

Washington’s the beginning and end of everything, what happens there, and whatever you have to be to succeed there is what you do. So Christie may well be worth defending, is my point. I don’t know. He may well be worth a Clarence Thomas-type defense, but notice that nobody is coming forth with one. They’ve all got that caveat. “He’s home free IF he’s not lying.” This is not a comment about Governor Christie, so please don’t misunderstand or be confused.

I’m trying to illustrate (What’s the word?) the emptiness of the Republican… (interruption) No, it’s not. My purpose here is not to comment on Governor Christie. I’m trying to make the point that over there in the RINO Club, the Republican establishment, the wildebeests, whatever, there’s not an ideology. There’s not a belief system. There’s not a foundation on which to base a defense, as I had with Clarence Thomas — and, by the way, he’s not alone.

I have also offered full-throated defenses of Sarah Palin and Robert Bork, and a whole bunch of people on our side. Miguel Estrada. I mean, the left has tried to take out people on our side with cheap lies and phony accusations, like they did with Clarence Thomas. They’ve done it with Bork. What Kennedy did to Robert Bork, to me, to this day still — and what they tried to do with Clarence Thomas — is just near criminal, even though it all falls within the purview of the First Amendment and politics. (interruption) Carl McCall?

Well, yeah, but Carl McCall… I wasn’t defending Carl McCall ideologically. I was defending Carl McCall because his own party abandoned him and I was illustrating something there. We ended up raising money for Carl McCall because, here’s the Democrat Party, this guy’s a black guy who wanted to run for governor of New York, and the Democrat Party threw him overboard, and they supposedly are the ones championing black people, and they threw him on the ash heap. So we raised a little money for him here to try to defend him.

Now okay, you mentioned Clinton. Why did the Democrats go to the mat defending the Clintons knowing his character and background? It’s precisely because of his character and his background that they do it. It’s because Clinton has a track record of beating us every time he opens his mouth, and that’s why they love him. They love Clinton’s ideology. Now, we don’t have enough data here to track the left defending Obama because they haven’t done anything but that. I explained that earlier. But I’m just… looking for the word here. Not “surprised.” Although that fits. It’s just every Republican who has entered the fray defending Christie has to put a caveat out there “if he’s telling the truth.”

Now, if there were a fervent ideological foundation, if there was a substantive reason of believing in Governor Christie, then whether he lied wouldn’t matter. They’d be out there defending him left and right just to make sure the Democrats don’t get away with this. And I’ll admit that was part of the reason that I jumped into Clarence Thomas. There was no way they were gonna get away with this if I had the ability to have a little bit of something to do with it. There’s no way. I wasn’t gonna sit there and put up with this. I’d done enough to find out he was a fine man and know this was a witch hunt. They were out to seek and destroy. It had happened with Bork. It was intelligence guided by experience, and it took not one shred of risk on my part to do it.

And it’s not just Governor Christie. You note the Republicans, any one of their brood comes under assault, and they throw ’em overboard. Satisfy the sharks and try to make the sharks go away, satisfy their hunger and their appetite so maybe they’ll go away and forget about it. Sarah Palin, throw her overboard, get rid of her. Any number of people, Scooter Libby, throw him over, get rid of him. You name it.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: Here is Mark in Grand Rapids, Michigan, great to have you on the program. Hi.

CALLER: Hi, Rush. How are you doing?

RUSH: Just fine, sir. Thank you.

CALLER: Listen, thanks for that retrospective on Clarence Thomas.

RUSH: I appreciate that. Thank you, sir.

CALLER: Yeah, that was just terrific. Listen, a question: If Christie is cleared of the bridge incident, can we expect the New York Times to endorse him as the next Republican candidate for president?

RUSH: (laughing) Interesting thought. But will he ever be cleared, or will there always be a lingering doubt about it? I’m talking about as far as the way the media reports this.

CALLER: Yeah, the never-ending story, huh?

RUSH: Yeah. How can they ever really prove that he didn’t know? They can’t read people’s emails.

CALLER: They have a great opportunity here. They have a great opportunity to pair this in parallel to John McCain and what they did to essentially help select our candidate for president. I don’t consider myself a Republican any longer, I consider myself a staunch conservative, and so I really thank you-for-creating what I consider the greatest radio program in broadcasting history to try to basically resurrect our principles of liberty and free market capitalism. I do so much appreciate listening to you every day, and knowing what kind of an effort you must put for us in order do this every day.

RUSH: Wow. I really appreciate that. I can’t thank you enough. That’s a great birthday present. I really do appreciate that. As for Christie, don’t forget, they are afraid of him. You and I may think they’re crazy, but they’ve got two polls (and they live and die by these things) that show Christie as the only Republican beating Hillary. So they are palpably frightened by the guy.

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