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RUSH: I’ve gotta check the transcripts of the first half hour of this program today. There’s a story that’s just been posted by Politico and also at CBS News on their website. The headline to this story is: “House GOP Mocked by Rush.” Now, as far as I remember, I said, “God bless the House Republicans,” today. “House GOP Mocked by Rush.” For those of you in the House GOP — those of you on The Hill listening, those of you who know people on the Hill — I did not mock the House GOP today. I got on conservative media for mocking the House GOP! Here’s what this story says: “Rush Limbaugh opened his show today by piling on top of House Republican leadership for claiming that a crucial number of their members voted against it bailout package because of a partisan speech that Pelosi gave.”
They quote me as saying, “Come on, guys, can you grow up? There were a whole lot of reasons for House Republicans to vote against this thing yesterday.” I’m having Koko at the website check the transcript. What I said today was that I was upset that conservative media was jumping all over Republicans. I was praising the House Republicans for the vote, and I pointed out that the real reason that they… I said, “They probably said this, but the real reason that they voted against it was they saw what the Democrats were doing. They saw all kinds of Democrats voting ‘no’ on this.” Whatever the case, I am not the one “mocking the House GOP.” There are others — like at National Review Online in their Corner blog, Republicans in the House are being mocked — but not by me.
I’m the one standing up for ‘em! Others on our side of the aisle are saying, “Well, you know, both sides are to blame.” No, both sides are not to blame. It’s the Democrats who are to blame. I’m not going to blame the Republicans for anything here. This headline is designed to dispirit the House Republicans and to make ‘em think everybody on the right is aligned against them, and it’s not the case. There may be people on our side aligned against the House Republicans for shortsighted and illiterate reasons, uninformed reasons but I’m telling you: I am not one of them. I praise them. As soon as I get this transcript I’m going to find out how in the world this misunderstanding happened here. I’ve said a lot of words here. It’s hard to remember them all specifically. That’s why we’re checking the transcript.
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RUSH: I have looked at the transcript of what I said in the first hour, and ladies and gentlemen, the Politico, the guy that wrote this, Ryan Grim — I’ve actually had no trouble with the Politico before. All the people there who have written about me have been aboveboard. Jonathan Martin has been excellent. So has Mike Allen. But this is absurd. Here’s the transcript of what I said: “The Republicans in Congress, I think went out there and said some things about Pelosi’s speech yesterday that a lot of Republicans, a lot of conservatives, “Come on, you guys, can you grow up? Don’t tell us that you changed your vote on saving the country because Pelosi delivered a partisan speech,” quoting, frankly, people writing at The Corner at National Review Online, conservative media. Then I resumed speaking for myself, “I, frankly, think that’s what they said, but I don’t think that’s at all why they changed their vote, if they changed their vote at all. I think that’s what they went out there and said.”
I was defending them. I was not accusing them of being childish. I was not mocking them. I was being critical of our own media for mocking them, when what happened here was that the failure of the thing was planned, that Pelosi wanted it to go down in tubes. Now, I acknowledge that the Republicans went out there and made the comments that Pelosi’s partisan speech had an effect on this, but then in the very comment I say here, “That’s not why they really changed their vote.” I defended them. They changed their vote because they saw what the Democrats were doing. They saw Democrats voting against it. Politico has become Media Matters here: “House GOP Mocked by Rush.” The segment containing this transcript on the website tonight is going to be headlined: “God bless the House Republicans.” I have been the one supporting them totally without wavering against them here during this whole thing, and the Politico comes out and tries to say I mocked them. Now, admittedly the Politico did not have access to my quotation marks in my uttered voiced comments, but it’s not hard to figure out here. “The Republicans in Congress, I think went out there and said some things about Pelosi’s speech yesterday that a lot of Republicans, a lot of conservatives, “Come on, you guys, can you grow up?” It was not I saying that about the Republicans in Congress.
It sounds to me like there is an ongoing effort here to dispirit the Republicans in the House for hanging tough. That’s exactly what it is, and to let them think, to have them think that one of their strongest support avenues has betrayed them. I assure you, I don’t care what the Politico writes, I don’t care how people interpret it, I have not abandoned the conservatives in the House. Do you realize where we’d be if these guys had caved? I don’t care why they didn’t cave. I don’t care why they say they didn’t cave. I know why they didn’t cave, and I know why it is that they hung tough, ’cause they realize this was an election year maneuver by Pelosi that had nothing to do with salvaging the US economy, quote, unquote. They knew that from day one. They also knew that there was nothing different in this bill from its original proposal as brought forth by Henry Paulson over a week ago.
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