RUSH: Mrs. Clinton. Ladies, by the way: When did Hillary start wearing a wig? (interruption) Just what I said. When did she start wearing a wig? (interruption) Oh. Well, all right. I’m just asking.

Ladies and gentlemen, regular listeners of this program should know I have been saying lately — in fact, I’ve been saying for many, many moons here — that I refuse to get sucked in to the daily Drive-By Media soap opera. I just refuse it. And it’s hard to do. As somebody whose job is based on what’s happening out there, I have to interact with the mainstream media each and every day, it’s even tough for me to resist the subliminal lure into the daily soap opera, the narrative over any number of things. I can imagine how hard it is for laymen and just average, ordinary news consumers.

But what we have going on today and leading up to Thursday is just a clear example of what I’m talking about. Starting late last week and through this past weekend, we have seen a textbook example of how the Drive-Bys establish a narrative that may or may not exist/may or may not be true, all for the express purposes of setting up a big explosion that they want to create when the whole thing is over. Almost every news broadcast, every news site, every talking head show has been breathlessly anticipating Hillary’s testimony before the House Benghazi committee on Thursday.

And they are all pretending that it is gonna be some kind of historic showdown. And when I say breathlessly, I mean it. They are all just anticipating this and they’re sucking everybody in because they want you to believe that it’s gonna be fireworks. I’m telling you, this is exactly what they did about Bill Clinton’s grand jury testimony during the Lewinsky case. It’s a textbook case. It’s exactly the same. They got everybody all hyped up about the testimony itself before it happened; then after the testimony, they leaked that Clinton had lost it.

That there was a question about Monica Lewinsky and cigars and Clinton just lost it. But we had to wait a couple weeks before they released the video. The day they released the video the news channels broomed everything — every news channel — to show the entire video of Bill Clinton’s grand jury testimony. And there was nothing. There was a question about cigars and Lewinsky, but all that happened was Clinton’s eyes got big for a split second. That was it. Totally set up. Meanwhile, everybody had to watch the testimony and get an entirely different take because they were looking for Clinton to blow up.

And they keep looking, as they’re paying really close attention, and he didn’t blow up. It was one of the most well-played tricks the Clinton White House throughout their eight years, and they’re doing a modified version of it here with Hillary and her Benghazi testimony coming up on Thursday. It’s probably going to be as much of a showdown as the House hearing on Planned Parenthood was. How many of you were expecting fireworks on that? Raise your hand. Practically all of you.

How many of you have been expecting fireworks on Hillary’s e-mail stories and haven’t seen anything to show for it? How many of you expected to see fireworks when Lois Lerner was brought before the House and the IRS and John Koskinen, the IRS guy. Just ask yourself: How many times have you been led to believe that whatever’s gonna happen before some Senate or House committee is about to happen, is going to be big, and nothing has happened? So intelligence guided by experiences tells us that we’re about to be set up for nothing to happen on Thursday. It is going to be a giant nothing burger.

The Democrats will waste as much time as possible raising Hillary for her cervix. (interruption) Yes, I meant to say that. You think I meant to say “service,” right? No. They’re gonna praise her for being a woman. It is a big deal now. It’s the reason she’s running, first woman. They’re gonna praise her cervix. What else is there, when you talk about something to praise? Can’t mention the wig. So they’ll praise her cervix. (interruption) Okay, okay. I’ll say service, just to smooth it over. And the Republicans…

Seriously, do you really, really expect anything to happen on that side of the aisle? How many times have you expected something big to happen on that side of the aisle only to have been let down? Don’t misunderstand. I would love to be wrong about this I would love for there to be a showdown I would love for her to be called out on this I would love for her to be exposed on all this, but I just using the past as a guideline, I’m not expecting it. And coupled with the media hyping it as something that’s gonna be big.

“It’s gonna be major! It’s going to be fireworks!”

So the Democrats will praise her for her cervix; the Republicans will ask innocuous questions in order to not be blamed for beating up on her. See, that’s the main reason the Republicans are not doing anything, ’cause they don’t want the Democrats and the media accusing them of “hitting the girl.” I don’t care how much feminism advances, not a thing is gonna change in that regard. You’ll never be able to figuratively hit the girl. In other words, the girl is never gonna be able to treated just like a guy.

You can hit the guy. You can say, “That guy hasn’t paid his taxes in ten years! That guy, when he was president of the company and an employee’s wife died, that guy didn’t care! That guy, he put his dog on the roof of the family station wagon for a vacation!” You can’t say that about Hillary, can’t say that about the girl. The Republicans… Even if we had advanced to this mixed place of total equality, the Republicans still wouldn’t go after Hillary for fear, out of fear of what the Democrats on the committee will say about them and what the media will say.

They’ll be afraid of igniting the War on Women meme. They’ll be afraid of angering the independents. This has all been telegraphed. The Republican establishment’s already told us what they fear about conservatives, what they fear with the Trump campaign. “It’s angering the independents! It’s gonna risk the Republicans’ chance to win the White House.” The Republicans, I guess, could ask questions that are so far in the weeds that only the most hardcore Benghazi wonks will even know what they’re talking about. The difference — the difference, now — is that all this drama of a showdown…

This is what it’s all for, and this is gonna be hyped up with each day. They started, as I say, over the weekend hyping this hearing on Thursday. Mrs. Clinton’s out there; she’s ready. What’s she gonna say? She’s just gonna tell the truth. That’s all she’s gotta understand. That’s all she has to do. “I’m eager,” she says. “I can’t wait to tell ’em the truth about Benghazi. I can’t wait to tell ’em about my e-mail.” The media’s hyping this. “Can Hillary survive it? Will Hillary survive it? Will Republicans be out for the long knives?” All of this.

When it’s all over and nothing happens (that’s the point of all this), the Drive-Bys will be able to, on Benghazi, once and for all, pronounce it over with nothing there. After all this time — after all this time, after all the attention the conservative media and conservative blogosphere has given Benghazi and after all of the efforts that have been made to get to the bottom of it –after the hearings on Thursday with no fireworks, the Drive-Bys or the Democrats will be able to say, “See? There was never anything to this. Can we move on now?

“Can we finally put Benghazi behind us? Could you extremists please let it go?” That will be the theme on Friday. Maybe even Thursday, late afternoon or evening, after the hearings. And the low-information crowd, the target of all of this, will believe them because they saw the hearings on TV, and there was nothing to see, other than Mrs. Clinton’s wig. That was the only thing different. There was nothing to see. “There weren’t any fireworks. Nobody scored any points. Mrs. Clinton didn’t admit anything.

“She didn’t stand seriously accused of anything. Hillary answered all of their questions, she was as cooperative as anybody could possibly be,” and that’s how they sweep this away. And the key to it is the buildup, which really is nothing more than establishing expectations.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: This is Carol in Lake County, Ohio. Great to have you up first today on the Rush Limbaugh program. Hi.

CALLER: Hi, Rush. All I want to know from this investigation/questioning of Hillary Clinton, is where were all those people who should have been in charge containing all that murder and mayhem that was going on? They were rampaging for seven grueling hours, and during that time there was no response.

RUSH: Well —

CALLER: That could have been a nuclear attack.

RUSH: Now, here’s what we know. What we know is that Obama went off the grid. He was unreachable for those seven hours, or a good portion of them. And that’s what “off the grid” means. Beyond that, has it been established somebody knows where he was? If it has, I’ve forgotten it.

CALLER: Never.

RUSH: But —

CALLER: They don’t ask the question.

RUSH: He left Hillary and Leon Panetta in charge, if I’m recalling this right.

CALLER: I don’t even remember hearing that.

RUSH: You don’t remember? Oh, I do remember hearing that at some point. He told Hillary or Panetta that they were in charge or something, to keep him posted or whatever, and he went out. The joke assumptions were that he’s out playing basketball with Reggie Love.

CALLER: Who gave the stand-down orders is what I want to know.

RUSH: Well, they were given because there were some specific requests made. You know, the best proof of that, by the way, is one of the American soldiers that was killed actually raced to the scene and lit up via laser where one of the enemy installations was that was firing on everybody, and the reason he did, is he was trying to paint their location for an American bomb to be dropped on them. He thought that there were assets in the sky that he was lighting up the target for. And in doing so, he exposed his own position. It’s how he ended up getting killed.

Everybody says, “He wouldn’t have done that if he didn’t think there was assets in the sky or were assets in the sky that were gonna bomb that installation he was lighting up.” But once he lasered it, he gave up his own location, and it’s… Well, this whole thing’s been a sore spot, and the efforts by the Democrats and the media to deflect this are legion. And, I mean, remember Susan Rice went on every Sunday show shortly thereafter and blamed it on this video, and Mr. Obama and Mrs. Clinton cut a television commercial, an ad that ran in Pakistan blaming this video for it, when everybody knew it wasn’t.

They knew before it happened that it was gonna happen. They knew it was gonna be a terror attack, that it was not the result of protests that got out of control over in Cairo. Remember, folks, our embassy in Cairo put out an apology before anything had ever happened. They put out an official apology from US State Department, the embassy in Cairo. They put out an apology apologizing for this video. The story at the time was, “Yeah, we’re trying to prevent any protests. We’re trying to prevent violence.”

And it was just the exact opposite. Here they are apologizing for something nobody knew anything about. It was almost an invitation to the “protesters,” quote/unquote, to begin their activities. Now, this is a really sordid, sordid element in American history, and particularly of this administration, but your questions are very valid. “Who was in charge? Where was Obama? Why was the distress call not answered? Who gave the stand-down orders.” We’re expecting all that to be revealed on Thursday. That’s why everybody’s so hot to trot here.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: This is Doc in Bethesda, Maryland. I really, really appreciate your waiting. And greetings. Hello.

CALLER: Hi, Rush. Pleasure to speak to you.

RUSH: Thank you, sir.

CALLER: I was told to get to my point, so I will. Hillary Clinton, you’re right. I think she is trying to pull a page out of Bill Clinton’s playbook. You know, getting the issue behind them and not really taking responsibility but saying that she took responsibility. The problem is that she’s not Bill Clinton. She can’t charm people. You know, there are two Hillary Clintons. There’s the unlikable one you see in public, and then there’s the horrible one that nobody other than aides see. You know, I was in DC, so I hear things ’cause it’s always talked about.

RUSH: So what do you think, she’s gonna be in trouble after these hearings on Thursday?

CALLER: I think that she’s just going to go away because she doesn’t have the skills that Bill Clinton had. Come on. He was a great politician. I love to hate him, but he’s a great politician. She doesn’t have his charms. She looks at him and thinks, “Oh, that bumpkin? I’m way smarter than him. I can do what he did,” and she can’t. She doesn’t have it. She’s a zero on a scale of 10 of personality.

RUSH: I agree with you, but I don’t think it matters.

CALLER: Oh, actually I think it does. It always seems through history that the more likable candidate seems to win unless there’s something odd going on.

RUSH: Hillary Clinton could be a donkey and get 260 electoral vetoes because there’s a (D) next to her name.

CALLER: Oh, I wouldn’t be surprised.

RUSH: They start with winning California, they start with winning New York, they start winning some other Democrat states with large urban areas. And it doesn’t matter who the Democrat is, and it doesn’t matter whether she’s likable, unlikable, or not. Now, when it comes to these hearings, the point about the hearings that I was making earlier is that I don’t think anything is gonna happen. They had Huma Abedin up there last week. Did anything happen? Huma is knee-deep in this, or maybe hip deep. Nothing happened. They didn’t go after Lois Lerner. All these hearings where we’ve all been hyped and, “Okay, fireworks now! We’re gonna get to the bottom.” We’re not getting to the bottom of anything.

CALLER: She’s not Uma Thurman. I mean, she’s not she’s not ‘Uma Weiner, either. She doesn’t have the personality that ‘Uma has.

RUSH: Okay, so then you must be convinced that the Republicans on this committee on Thursday are gonna be loaded for bear and they’re gonna go after her and they’re gonna expose her as the phony and the liar that she is?

CALLER: Brilliant! That’s exactly what I was thinking. Thank you. I couldnÂ’t put it into words. I’m a little nervous since I never talked to you before. So yes, it’s exactly right. I think —

RUSH: Well, I’m not disagreeing with you that personality matters. I mean, that’s one of the things… You know, Trump is oozing it.

CALLER: I think she’s gonna blow up, possibly. If they can get her in the right position, she’s such an imperialist, she’ll turn into her “What difference does it make?” mode.

RUSH: But she already did blow up when she said, “What difference does it make? What difference does it make now?” She’s already blown up.

CALLER: That was years ago. People are stupid. They forget.

RUSH: All right. Well, Doc, I can’t blame you. I mean, I know exactly what’s going on. You are hoping. You know this woman’s a fraud — you know it — and you’re so frustrated that the other people in the country that support her don’t. And you just so desperately want for this woman to be tricked into exposing herself as a fraud or doing it on her own that you’re almost wishing it to happen on this program. A lot of people have the same desire.

And it’s born out of the completely understandable frustration that the Clintons continue to get away with literally everything that they corrupt, touch, poison, or what have you. And you’re just looking for that one day of equalization. And you’re relying on the fact that she’s not likable. The more she speaks, the bigger problems she has. All that true. You know, her approval numbers do drop the more she’s in public and the more she talks. I hope you’re right. But it’s gonna require the Republicans going after her, and that’s what we have not seen happen much at all in all of these seven years.