April 12, 2007

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RUSH: All right, this is now about racial politics, folks.  The Reverend Sharpton is out there saying, "This is only the beginning.  This must be a walk that CBS now does.  It must be a walk that others will do, then we must have a broad discussion on what's permitted and what's not permitted," and the Reverend Jackson and the Reverend Sharpton have been empowered as the final arbiters on this in the United States of America.  How absurd and ridiculous.  But they exist for one reason: liberal, white, plantation owner racists have created these two figures and have granted them power and authority as Democrats, and now, guess who have become the targets of the wrath of Sharpton and Jackson?  For now it's the white liberal executives at CBS and NBC.  So it's about racial politics.  It's about racial politics, and when it comes to the lack of minority reputation of the big three networks, MSNBC as well as CNN, I have to agree that Reverend Jackson, Reverend Sharpton are right.  On to something now that's the practical reality of all this.  If it's about racial politics then what shall be the ideal percentage?  This argument we've been having since the first affirmative action argument came up, the whole quota argument.

I made the point back in the early eighties, mid-eighties when this all started, "Affirmative action is about making sure that the race wars never end."  You won't get 'em to come. That's why they hate the quota business.  Because when you start saying, "Yeah, there should be quotas," then they're willing to put a finite number on the number of minorities can by anywhere and in any job, and that's not what this is about.  This is about shakedowns. This is about keeping the premise of discrimination alive and well to be profited from, but if we just look at the population of the country, we now have more Hispanics in this country than we do blacks.  The black population is 11%, 12%, something like that.  So 89, 88% of the population is not black.  So should we say in the guise of the racial politics here introduced by the Reverends Sharpton and Jackson, that the proper representation for blacks anywhere would be 11% -- football teams, basketball teams -- I know this is absurd, but I'm making a point here.  Now stick with me, because this is not about merit.  You have to understand, there's nothing about merit in anything these people are doing or talking about.  It's pure racial politics.  So if we go by the population of the country, there can never be more than 11% of blacks in any field.

Somebody said, "Wait a minute. Don Imus didn't just learn this phrase. He didn't wake up and have it come out of his own mind. He had to hear it someplace."

"Don't blame us for that," said the famous Snoop Dogg.

Anyway, if you look at the lyrics that are on radio, the public airwaves that need to be detoxified, where are the Reverend Sharpton and Reverend Jackson dealing with those lyrics, not just the words uttered by deejays and hosts.  I mean after all they are the public airwaves. These songs should be banned now!  If this is about cleaning up all this garbage, these songs need to be banned, and when we're done fixing TV and radio, folks, next we're going to move on to Hollywood, because a lot of pollution in popular culture is coming from and produced by, a bunch of white liberals in Hollywood.  Of course, they never come under attack, by the same liberals who are now attacking me and others, saying we're next.  "We've only just begun here.  You people are all next!" We gotta straighten out Hollywood. We gotta make sure the rotgut garbage that sacrifices for pictures and dialogue in these movies that's offensive, gets stopped.  They're poisoning the culture.  It's public film.  Public projectors.  Go into a theater; it's the public there.  When we're done with Hollywood, we move on to the publishing industry.  We look at what percentage of authors are of a given race.  Now, has Reverend Sharpton picketed anybody in Hollywood? Has Reverend Sharpton or Jackson picketed any urban radio stations?  

Have Reverend Sharpton or Reverend Jackson picketed anywhere where these horrendous lyrics are toxifying the public domain?  Chris Tucker? Chris Rock? These guys all need to be banned, folks. They make their living off stereotypes of whites and sometimes of blacks.  Why should Sharpton and Jackson be the only two people deciding who can say what, when and where, and why should they be deciding who can and cannot be offended?  As I've explained, the beauty of this is the libs have given us Sharpton and Jackson as the final arbiters.  We're going to sit here and we're going to allow these two race hustlers to dictate to us?  They have it figured out? They're always offended! They're always angry.  They target certain individuals or events, and they and the lib media manipulate the outcome, and notice they're always dividing the country.  They don't talk about people, they talk about race, and they want chaos, and they want tumult and they want people unsettled. They want the country divided.  We can use whatever figure we want to.  We can say 11 or 12%. We can go down the road and we can say, "Hispanics deserve more jobs in these places than blacks. They're a larger minority." If we're going to be fair about this, if we're really going to make this about racial politics. 

They don't dare make their case in public.  They can't anyway.  They can't argue it.  That's why liberals fail in talk radio. It's why they fail anywhere where they don't dominate. It's why they refuse to go on Fox!  There is no alternative to liberalism.  They refuse to acknowledge it.  They are the ones trying to censor. They're the ones trying to indoctrinate -- and it's now funny because one of their chosen ones, Don Imus, is the victim of liberalism, and he did his best to be one of them, but he was never a liberal with a capital L. He never really got in the club like he thought he was.  His buddies are abandoning him left and right now.  The people that enabled him, the people that propped him up, the people that looked the other way when they heard him say far worse than what he said about the Rutgers basketball team. Now they're acting like they never heard this stuff before. "I didn't know this, why, this is (grumbling)," blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.  We conservatives talk of equal opportunity based on merit, not quotas, not pigment, not anything else.  Liberals want to shut down radio programs. They want to shut down Fox News. They want to shut down political speech.

They want to shut down anybody who doesn't embrace their ideology, and they want to criminalize those who don't embrace their ideology.  Today it's the race baiters.  Tomorrow it's going to be some other cause, but liberalism is what it is, and it exists to silence people who don't agree.  They can't win the debate, which they admit by their own actions.  They don't want debate.  Now, Imus is not the issue anymore.  He's the catalyst for advancing their agenda.  Listen to Jesse Jackson.  He's long gone, long past Imus.  If they can shut down talk radio -- and they'll try -- they'll shut it down tomorrow.  Make no mistake.  They cannot compete, folks.  Air America was an embarrassing, blithering, total bomb-out of a failure.  Every liberal talk show that's been tried is insignificant, at best.  They can't silence their opposition, so they take a run at it here and there through proposals to renew the Fairness Doctrine or use intimidation or the threat of sponsor boycotts or whatever to demand the things they don't want to hear, not be allowed to be said.  They can't compete in the open marketplace of ideas because their ideas are flawed and airing those ideas makes it clear that they are flawed.  

They succeed politically when they conceal their true intentions during elections, as we have discussed.  But there's no hiding on talk radio.  When you're on the air for three hours, I don't care if you waste your time interviewing guest after guest after guest after guest, if you can't hide what you think on talk radio, you are going to be exposed, and when you cannot back up what you say, and when your ideas sound stupid, it's out there to be exposed for one and all, and that's why Air America and liberal talk radio doesn't get an audience because it's not worth listening to! People can't make the case -- and they do not think they should have to argue, because there is no alternative in their minds.  I'll tell you what, Sharpton and Jackson have their eyes on talk radio.  You know what's going to save talk radio?  You know what's going to save this program is going to be you people because you have the depth of loyalty and a bond here.  You and I have a connection, successful hosts do, and you understand it. You know the gig here. You know what's up.  You're aware of how they're trying to shut people down, and you will not allow it to happen.  

Nor will I, don't misunderstand, but this is what the left doesn't understand.  They do not understand the connection that exists between me, the host of this program, and you.  They don't understand it.  You're mind-numbed robots. You're idiots. You're just like everybody else that's not a liberal. You really don't even exist!  You're just a hayseed hick, a southern Christian or what have you. Whatever bigoted stereotype they have created, you will fall into one of them, as do I.  But talk radio?  Talk radio today is one of the last open markets for ideas -- and that's why it is a threat to the left.  Talk radio, look at everybody who wants to get into it! All these television failures, all these stand-up comedians that lose their way, guess where they all want to go?  They all want to go to radio!  I wonder why?  What's happening on radio lately that they see the opportunity for wealth and success, hmm?  I wonder.  Radio, ladies and gentlemen, is one of the last open markets for ideas.  Newspapers aren't anymore.  Television isn't anymore.  Have you seen what the left is trying to do now?  They're trying to say Imus is a conservative. 

The LA Times had a piece quoting Media Matters for America, that Imus is a conservative.  Imus, who supported Kerry and who is against the war, is no conservative.  He wouldn't have the crowd of media guests that he has if he was, but calling him a "conservative" fits into their broader agenda.  So we are defending speech here.  We stand up for speech. We engage in it. We allow it when liberals call. We never demand anybody be censored. We are content to let the marketplace deal with liberals as it does on talk radio: it rejects them.  One final question here.  Since race is the sole criteria now, I want to know why Al Sharpton has not endorsed Barack Obama.  I know the Reverend Jackson has.  But I'll tell you why. Al Sharpton, who's making everything about race today, will not endorse the black candidate in the Democrat presidential primaries -- and why?  Because Obama's name is not Sharpton.  There is jealousy. There is outrage.  Sharpton doesn't like the fact that Obama -- and, by the way, Sharpton has maneuvered an end run around Obama, in terms of the struggle.  Sharpton talks about role models? We need black role models out there?  Say what you want about Obama's politics, but apparently Barack Obama is not a good enough role model for Al Sharpton.

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RUSH: Here's Tom in Medford, New Jersey.  Tom, thank you for waiting.  Welcome to the broadcast.

CALLER:  Thank you, Rush, and I just want to give some stuff to your comment earlier about the liberals and these two shakedown artists, Jackson and Sharpton.  I've been trying to get a hold of MSNBC all morning about Keith Olbermann, who is a hatemonger, whose whole show is based upon hate of people like me and you.  You're doing a hell of a job.  Thank you.  But I want your audience to know that last night, as I was channel surfing -- I don't watch Olbermann because he's a hateful person -- he asked Jesse Jackson if he would use the same tactics boycotting sponsors against Imus, would he do that with other people, "like Rush Limbaugh"?

RUSH:  Yeah, I know, he tried --

CALLER:  Jackson said yes.

RUSH:  I've been told.  I didn't see it.  I've been told he tried to bait Jesse Jackson three times.

CALLER:  He did bait him, and Jackson fell for it the last time. He said, "Yes." That's what I'm talking about.

RUSH:  But Jackson did not take the bait from what I'm told.

CALLER:  He did confirm what hateful Olbermann said, about going after people like you. Rush, you're the target. 

RUSH:  I know.  We will all know that I am the target.  I've been the target.  That's why did I this brilliant monologue mere moments ago, to explain what the left is about.  They don't want to debate; they want argument; they don't want alternative viewpoints out there, because we succeed.  They can't deal with it, but folks, I have to tell you (sigh). There's a reason the Reverend Jackson didn't take the bait last night, and I know why, but I'm not going to say.  I'm not going to open up that door.  I know why he didn't take the bait.  He's focused on other things right now. There's no reason to take that bait right now.  As far as Olbermann is concerned, you gotta understand it: 700,000, 500,000 people, it's insignificant.  It is in our world, anyway, it's a thimble in terms of the audience.  It's just not even worth commenting on!

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RUSH: Bob in Sacramento, my adopted hometown, nice to have you on the EIB Network.

CALLER:  Thanks for taking my call, mega dittos from California.  Listen, I want to follow up on a point you were making earlier.  You know, we know that you're not at all, you're head and shoulders of that idiot Imus and you're not likely to shoot yourself if the foot.  But let's face it, the Justice Brothers are on a role.  Sure they got their hair mussed with Duke.  But, you know, they're on a roll.  They put a big scalp up on the wall with Imus, and they're hungry, and they're looking for an issue.  Tom was saying, you know, those guys might boycott, they might try to get these sponsors to boycott you, but they'll need an issue.  So who knows what form some trap might come in.  Maybe we need Mr. Snerdley to be on that kill switch super vigilant to make sure that nobody tries to lay a trap for you the way --

RUSH:  Let me address this, because I'm glad you called.  I don't want to give too much away here because I don't want to help these people.  I'd love to launch on this, but I'm trying to be guarded in the ammo I give people, and not the kind of ammo you think.  In the first place, I know, and I don't see this out of ego, this a pure business thing.  I know I'm next because they've run everything at me they can.  Michael J. Fox -- do you know that CNN on Tuesday night, Paula Zahn, to whom I have been nice.  When she at Fox I went on her show a number of times.  I never said a word about Paula Zahn.  Paula Zahn does a whole feature on the Michael J. Fox episode from last October, repeating all of the lies, replaying the looped video of my supposedly making fun of and impersonating Michael J. Fox.  Now, as I said earlier, the reason this stuff doesn't work is because you people who listen are tremendous in number, and you know the truth.  They have to lie about what happens on this program in order to be critical of it.  And they lied again on Tuesday night. 

They just repeated everything I have refuted and said that they got wrong on this Michael J. Fox episode.  When I saw that, and it was done under the context of, "Hey, you think Imus is bad, look at this Limbaugh guy," and they went out and had failed liberal talk show hosts on to comment, failed liberal talk show hosts who never, ever got an audience, went bankrupt and had to quit and go do something else.  I'm under no illusions that I am the real target, and Hannity, and Mark Levin, and Neal Boortz.  We all know this.  What they don't understand -- look, they've tried -- there was the ESPN thing, the Michael J. Fox thing, the legal situation in Florida whatever year that was.  They've given a pretty good run at it and we haven't lost a single sponsor.  They tried.  We haven't lost a single station.  They tried. 

Now, there are reasons for this that they don't understand and that's what I'm not going to tell you.  But I'm just telling you, I understand why everything here has continued to grow, by the way, despite all of these attempts to destroy this program, we do nothing but grow, both in business and in audience, and I know why, and they don't, and they will never understand it unless I tell them.  And if I tell them, they probably wouldn't believe it anyway, but there's no sense taking the chance.  It's all about having a connection with people, a real, daily personal connection, such as you and I all have.  I'm not a preacher and I'm not talking at you, we're talking to one another, you're talking back.  My empathy allows me to know what you're thinking in terms of instincts and so forth.  So I appreciate the concern but I want you to know I'm fully aware of it, prepared for it, and know how to deal with it when it happens.

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