RUSH: Now, one thing is happening and I knew it was gonna happen before I did it. It’s one of the reasons I did it, in fact. You know me, if you’re a regular listener here, you know that I love tweaking the media, and it’s very easy to do because the media doesn’t listen to this program. This is one of the most amazing things. You know, you and I could together contrive a full-fledged prank or conspiracy involving the media and pull it off, and they would never know that they’ve been punked because they don’t listen to the program.

They don’t go to RushLimbaugh.com to find out what happened on the program. They go to one place which exists for the express purpose of misrepresenting what happens on this program. Ergo, I see the picture of Mrs. Obama in the diplomatic reception room, and I’m sure it took a bunch of different takes to get her facial expression just right, the proper mixture of solemnity and concern and deep caring with the sign, the hashtag, #BringBackOurGirls.

And I knew when I pointed this out that the Drive-Bys were going to have a fit. That once again they would all be talking about the insensitivity of Rush Limbaugh and the backwardness and the just refusal to adapt to a changing world. Rush Limbaugh just doesn’t understand things. And, low and behold, it’s happened.

Let’s go to the audio sound bites. Sunday morning on the Today show, here is a portion White House correspondent Kristen Welker, the weekend Today White House correspondent reporting on me and my criticism of the #BringBackOurGirls. Have you heard the latest about what’s actually happened to these girls? They have all been converted to Islam by Boko Haram. And they claim that they’re not gonna give ’em back until we give back their brethren.

So somebody is holding members of their group prisoner somewhere, and they want their brothers back, and when they get their brothers back, they supposedly will return our girls. Except they’re not our girls. They’re Nigerian. That was another thing. But that’s insensitive to point out, too, because we’re all citizens of the world now. Now, you, who were listening here, know full well what my point was. I specified it. If you have no power to do anything about this, and you want to do this Twitter hashtag thing to make yourself feel better, get in on the action, the equivalent of placing flowers along the parade route of the funeral route of Princess Di, go right ahead.

But if you in any way represent the administration the United States, the government, and you do this hashtag, I mean, it’s pathetic. It’s absolutely pathetic and it’s inconsequential. It’s not gonna matter a hill of beans except in one way. It’s all about intentions and showing that you care. These phonies on the left get behind their Twitter hashtag campaign and they get credit for caring. “Oh, Rush Limbaugh, he doesn’t care. He’s cold-hearted and mean-spirited. He doesn’t care.” Right. So all I would have to do to care is get behind this Twitter hashtag. What would it accomplish? Nothing. Nothing toward the objective.

I mean, if the objective is to get the girls back, getting behind a hashtag campaign on Twitter isn’t gonna do it, and holding up a picture all of hashtag, wherever you are, in the White House, on the battlefield in Afghanistan, I don’t care where you are, it isn’t gonna matter a hill of beans. But it’s sure gonna send a message that you care to the pop culture media and its customers, the low-information voter. And so in that sense it’s a rousing success.

Now, I’m sorry; I don’t know. I couldn’t, in good conscience, get behind such a thing. I mean, it’s phony. All it is is a cheap attempt to make me look like something. It’s not gonna accomplish anything. I’m about actually doing. It’s the same thing with left-wing policies. Their policies all fail. I don’t care what it is; Obamacare, you name it, everything they’ve tried in this Regime has failed. It’s an abysmal failure in terms of accomplishing what they claim they want to accomplish, but it doesn’t matter because they’re trying.

You see, they care. At least they care. At least they want to help. At least they want to do something, and Rush Limbaugh, he doesn’t even care. That’s the way it all falls out. It’s really a crying shame because it’s not true at all. I just don’t understand applauding futility. I don’t understand applauding and crediting doing nothing toward really achieving an objective.

Anyway, here’s how the media treated it, predictably, and even maybe a little boringly.

WELKER: The hashtag #BringBackOurGirls has gone viral! With more than a million retweets, it’s now an international rallying cry for helping the missing girls in Nigeria. But critics like conservative radio host Rush Limbaugh say it won’t accomplish a thing.

RUSH ARCHIVE: The sad thing here is that the low-information crowd that’s puddling around out there on Twitter is gonna think we’re actually doing something about it.

WELKER: But journalist and author Sally Armstrong disagrees.

ARMSTRONG: This is a turning point for the rights of women and girls around the world. This is working, #BringBackOurGirls.

RUSH: It is?

WAKLER: One thing is not up for debate: Social media can give a voice to people who are otherwise deprived of one. In fact, the #BringBackOurGirls campaign began in Nigeria, cries for help that quickly went all the way to the White House.

RUSH: Yeah, didn’t take long, did it? It’s working, Sally Armstrong? Sorry, sorry. Welker? No, that was Sally Armstrong. Who is Sally Armstrong? I never heard of her. Have you heard of Sally Armstrong? I don’t mean anything by it, I just never heard of her. I disagree that it’s “a turning point for rights of women and girls around the world. This is working, #BringBackOurGirls.”

This is a turning point, having ’em kidnapped by an Islamist terrorist group and no effort has been made to get ’em back? I mean, if you’re gonna do something, you’ve gotta do something. You can’t just get behind a Twitter hashtag campaign and end up doing nothing. The bad people around the world, I guarantee you, are not intimidated. They’re not scared. It rather obvious.

They say it’s working?

Boko Haram attacked a village, killed people, and kidnapped kids over the weekend! Maybe Boko Haram isn’t on Twitter. Maybe that’s why it hasn’t worked. Maybe if Boko Haram was on Twitter and saw the hashtag campaign, maybe they’d be very scared, and maybe they would have given the girls back by now. Let me just tell you something.

This is gonna be misunderstood, too, but if the objective of the hashtag campaign is to get these girls returned, it’s already failed, and it will fail. It’s not gonna accomplish a thing. But you can’t say that to the people, particularly at the White House, getting behind this, ’cause that’s not the objective. The objective here is not to get them back. It’s to show you care. It’s just the equivalent of wearing a red ribbon or a yellow ribbon.

All of this symbolism over substance. This is, by the way… Now, I could have inoculated myself many criticism if I’d have gotten behind this campaign, if I would have gotten behind the Twitter hashtag campaign. They might have said I didn’t mean it. They might say I didn’t believe it. But I could have inoculated myself. That’s how you do it.

You know, as Victor Davis Hanson said (summarized), “Invest in liberalism, and you protect yourself. Invest in saying things that are liberal, and you can be the biggest hypocrite in the world.” We were talking about this last week. All of these powerful leftists from Hollywood leftists to Algore, don’t live the lifestyle they demand of everybody else.

They don’t even get close to it.

Not even close.

They don’t even pretend to live under the guidelines they claim everybody else should, and the guidelines they claim everybody else should live by are about big things. Saving the planet! Climate change! Other big things. It’s really important stuff, but they don’t do it. They just say that you should, and they try to make you think they really care about all of it.

But they don’t do anything about it. They never do do anything about anything, except bungle it and make it worse. But they get all the credit in the world for caring and for having all of these great intentions. So here is this Sally Armstrong: “This is a turning point for the rights of women and girls around the world. This is working, #BringBackOurGirls.

“Social media can give a voice to people who are otherwise deprived of one.” Really? Do the kidnapped girls have a voice now? They’re the ones being deprived of speaking, and nobody’s heard from them. I don’t think it’s good, folks. I think it’s all phony. This phoniness, at some point it’s all gonna come home to roost. Here’s The Five Friday night on Fox. They talked about this, and they played this clip from this program before they talked about it…

RUSH ARCHIVE: I just think this is pathetic. I’m just stunned. We got 300 Nigerian girls kidnapped by an Al-Qaeda group, and nobody cared or talked about it for a while. Hillary wouldn’t call ’em a terror group. Now, all of a sudden, for some reason, we’re on a big push to get ’em back and this is how…? [T]he sad thing here is that the low-information crowd that’s puddling around out there on Twitter is gonna think we’re actually doing something about it. … It is just unbelievable. #BringBackOurGirls. They’re Nigerian!

RUSH: Right. All right. So here’s Kimberly Guilfoyle on The Five…

KIMBERLY GUILFOYLE: Yeah, I mean, it is sad. It’s a hashtag. They’re holding up a sign. I understand their hearts are in the right place, but I would like to have seen some movement, some action, some leadership in a real significant way — meaning results oriented.

RUSH: Be careful, Kimberly! They’re gonna accuse you of not caring, because the only thing that matters here is the hashtag campaign. Are you or are you not on the right side of the hashtag campaign? It is a mistake to talk about results. You never are supposed to talk about results when talking about liberalism and their policies and their programs, because they all fail. That’s why you’re never supposed to talk about results. You are supposed to only talk about the good intentions.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: I’m thinking of some of the great hashtag campaigns of the past. Imagine if Twitter had been around during the Civil War. Can you imagine Abe Lincoln from the White House, #FreeTheSlaves. How about McKinley? #SpainOutOfCuba. How about Reagan? #TearDownThisWall. How about George H. W. Bush? #GetOutOfKuwait. I don’t even know what Clinton’s hashtag would be.

Clinton didn’t even take on anything big. (interruption) Yeah, Clinton #HaveACigar, #BeCarefulTheDress, #WhatBlueDress. That would be it: #WhatBlueDress. Even the AP asks, “Can a Hashtag Offer Any Help to Abducted Girls,” and here’s how it starts. I can’t believe this is the AP. “Parents of the kidnapped Nigerian schoolgirls are hoping for a miracle. So far, all they have is a hashtag.” (Gasp!) Even AP.

Here’s the first of commentary from The Five on me Friday night.

BOB BECKEL: I’m a little surprised at old Rush — which, by the way, using Rush is unusual thing for the show — but, uh, the, uh… Uh, he said it’s Nigerian girls. What does he mean by that?

ERIC BOLLING: I’m not sure. I mean, I’m not gonna put words in Rush’s mouth.

JESSE WATTERS: I think he means they’re not American girls.

DANA PERINO: The hashtag is #BringBackOurGirls. He’s being specific to “our” meaning our –

BOB BECKEL: Oh, I see.

KIMBERLY GUILFOYLE: American.

DANA PERINO: — the president and first lady, but I think that is actually just a hashtag that started actually in Nigeria.

RUSH: Yeah, which we have since learned. So the Regime gets on board, #BringBackOurGirls, and people in America didn’t even care. I wonder how many people getting behind it in America on Twitter even know the girls are Nigerian.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: How many people do you think know that this terror group Boko Haram has been attacking Christians since 2009? The jihad aspect of Boko Haram is almost completely ignored by the White House and the media, and I can tell you why. I just saw why. There’s video that’s been released, about half of the kidnapped girls have been converted to Islam, the other 150, no mention of. The Boko Haram leader, or whoever Boko Haram had perform on video, is a good-looking guy. This is why Mrs. Clinton wouldn’t call this terror group a terror group, because they’re black. Can’t afford to do this. This is how surface conscious the left is.

We cannot call people what they are, in this case a jihadist anti-Christian terror group aligned with Al-Qaeda, we can’t call them terrorists because they look like African-Americans, and we just can’t go there. Nobody will ever convince me that that’s why they didn’t call this group a terror group. Just can’t do it. Just can’t go there because the left doesn’t go any deeper than skin when identifying people. Everything is racial politics, identity politics, whatever. And if you’ve got a group of terrorists who are, particularly from a foreign country, not domestically, and they’re black, we can’t call ’em a terror group. No, no, no, no, no, that will not help us domestically politically.

And so this group escapes any scrutiny. They don’t get the proper treatment from this country foreign policy-wise, and in effect they’re allowed to just behave without any stops whatsoever. You know, I wonder sometimes, and I know that maybe this is a bit much, but where would the media be without me every day saying what I think? Do you realize, I’m all over media just simply uttering a contrary point of view to the conventional wisdom media soap opera every day, and that is used, little snippets of this program are used for guests to bounce off of.

I mean, I’m honored. I’m happy to be a contrarian. I happen to know that what we do here is relentlessly pursue the truth and stay focused on the substance of things rather than the surface.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: We’ve got sound bites of people still talking about me talking about Moochelle Obama and the Nigerian girl hashtag. Friday night on the O’Reilly Factor, Eric Bolling was filling in, and had NewsMax columnist James Hirsen and a Democrat strategist named Marjorie Clifton, and they were talking about me. This is how it went.

BOLLING: Rush Limbaugh said, “What’s the message we’re sending here? Are we this powerless that that’s all we can do is hashtag something?” And if we are, is that President Obama’s fault?

HIRSEN: We refuse to call terrorism terrorism. We call it “man-caused disaster.” We refuse to acknowledge this group as a terrorist group. I mean, Hillary Clinton in her tenure, refused to acknowledge them as a terrorist group.

CLIFTON: Awareness is step number one, and no one can criticize Hillary Clinton for the work that she’s done for women and girls worldwide. She created the office on women and girls at the State Department.

BOLLING: Hold on. Hold on, Marge.

RUSH: See? No one can criticize Hillary on this. You can’t “criticize Hillary Clinton for the work that she’s done for women and girls worldwide. She created the office on women and girls,” so you can’t criticize her. Really? Hillary Clinton created “the office on women and girls”? Big whoop. So you can’t criticize her on this? I didn’t know anybody was.

Was anybody criticizing Hillary?

Has Hillary gotten on this hashtag campaign?

If so, I didn’t know.

Up next: Yesterday morning on CNN’s Reliable Sources, during the Red News/Blue News segment, the host Brian Stelter had this to say about the recently released National Climate Assessment and me.

STELTER: It’s time now for Red News/Blue News, a look at a story that becomes two different stories when it’s told on left- and right-leaning media outlets. This week one of the biggest stories of our lifetime, climate change, and the alarming study released by the Obama administration. We’ve talked here on Reliable Sources before about how there’s a pretty reliable scientific consensus on this issue.

But some conservative media big shots told their audiences this week that this is all just a political ploy. Rush Limbaugh says Democrats are harping on climate change because, quote, “there isn’t a single issue they can run on in the midterm elections,” because, quote again, “everything they have done has blown up on them.”

RUSH: Well, so far so good. So let’s go to the next bite. I guess there’s… Let’s see. No, we’re gonna skip the next bite. It’s just more of the same.