http://www.rushlimbaugh.com/home/daily/site_011211/content/01125106.member.htmlJared Loughner's Friend on GMA: "He Didn't Listen to Political Radio"January 12, 2011
BEGIN TRANSCRIPTRUSH: It was interesting on Good Morning America today, and it was interesting what wasn't in the New York Times today that they no doubt heard, that they edited out. And it's interesting how some people are upset with me over what I said yesterday. So we'll deal with all of that and we'll just keep plodding on.
The Excellence in Broadcasting Network. I am Rush Limbaugh, great to be with you, folks, as is the case each and every day here at the Limbaugh Institute for Advanced Conservative Studies. Telephone number if you want to be on the program, 800-282-2882. The e-mail address, ElRushbo@eibnet.com.
Good Morning America in New York City was truncated today because of coverage of the snow bomb that went through there. I got a tip earlier today that one of the shooter's friends appeared on Good Morning America and said the kid, the shooter, never listened to talk radio. Well, now, I, Mr. Talk Radio, found that pretty interesting. So we tried to find it on the New York feed of Good Morning America, it wasn't there. So we got a transcript of the program, we found out that the kid did say it, the friend of the shooter did say it. We had to get it from the Cleveland feed, and if we weren't able to do that we were gonna get it on the West Coast feed. Here it is. This morning on Good Morning America a portion of an interview Ashleigh Banfield did with Zach Osler, who is a high school friend of the shooter Jared Loughner. Ashleigh Banfield: "What was his motive in Saturday's attack and what about the speculation that he may have been fueled by partisan politics and rhetoric in the media?"
OSLER: He did not watch TV. He disliked the news. He didn't listen to political radio. He didn't take sides. He wasn't on the left; he wasn't on the right.
RUSH: Doesn't that kind of debunk virtually all speculation that we have heard since 30 minutes after the shooting on Saturday in the media? You know what the latest template in the media is? Why are we on the right so defensive about this? Mark Halperin got this one started, TIME Magazine, "You know, these guys on the right, I mean, you know, they're reacting here, it's a little bit over the top." What do you mean a little bit over the top? We have been accused of being complicit in murder for four days. It's not an isolated incident. Ever since 1990 the political left in this country has been mobilized to try to get this program off the air via one form of government regulation or another, or other kind of public pressure. They have never stopped. I was blamed for the Oklahoma bombing in 1995.
This is not an isolated event. Every time something like this happens, some disaster, it doesn't take 30 minutes for the media to start speculating that it's talk radio, and now Fox News and the blogs on the right and everything else. I got a lot of people who sent me e-mails yesterday: "Rush, I thought you were a little bit over the top yesterday when you said the Democrat Party profits from murder, wants to profit." How else can I say this? Try to put yourself in my shoes and I want you to try to do this outside of the normal give-and-take and ebb-and-flow of the daily hardball that is politics. Here we have a deranged, obviously mentally insane young man who has fired on and killed a number of people, wounded others. On Saturday, I was in my home watching NFL football. I happened to be alone. I hadn't been to Tucson, Arizona, in 20 years and all of a sudden I read it's my fault, and I'm hearing people say it's my fault and that it's inspired by me and what I do. I want you to put yourself in my shoes. And then more and more powerful political people start standing up and making that claim, including the chief law enforcement official for that county, Clarence Dupnik, a law enforcement official who has the ability to influence jury pools. You know the power of law enforcement. I've dealt with it myself before.
I'm minding my own business, bothering nobody. This program does nothing but try to inspire people to be the best they can be. This program takes aim at political opponents. Can't say that anymore, I bet. That's too incendiary. That kind of rhetoric takes aim at political opponents. Nevertheless, I'm just supposed to smile. "Oh, that's just the sheriff. Oh, that's just the media." I've had the president of the United States, Bill Clinton, accuse me of racism at a White House Correspondents Dinner. I've had that same president blame me for the Oklahoma City bombing, and now while I'm watching a football game last Saturday afternoon, I'm listening to the entire Democrat Party and media complex blame me for what happened in Tucson on Saturday, and then the sheriff out there.
Now, I ask you, you all know that I am a political enemy of these people. These are the people that keep talking about limiting speech with the Fairness Doctrine. The other day Al Sharpton goes to the FCC to want hearings on me to get them to curb what I can say. He came out of there claiming the FCC's interested in holding these hearings. Look, I'm not telling you people anything you don't know. You know that there are constant assaults on the existence of this program. There are constant serious political efforts made to terminate this program and all of talk radio, Fox News and what have you. So we have this incident, and now I have to sit here and just let it roll off my back that I'm responsible for this. Anything I say is overreacting to it. What I see is the Democrat Party, its representatives and its supporters on the American left attempting to take a genuine human tragedy, and their first instinct is to politicize it, and that desire, their political desire is to silence, to quiet people who they consider their opposition: me, people who do what I do, and Fox News. If that is not attempting to profit off murder, I don't know what it is. "But Mr. Limbaugh, that was very vicious to say it that way."
See, this is the problem. The truth is the great casualty. And what do you think the target is when people begin to say, "We've gotta dial back this heated rhetoric?" Truth is the great enemy to the Democrat Party. Truth is the great enemy to the American left. They have to wipe out truth whenever they can and wherever they see it, because truth is not them. So it was not intended yesterday as a media tweak. I intended to say these people profit off of these things, they try to. Their first instinct, they couldn't help it, every time something like this happens, is to advance their political agenda. And we know that part and parcel of their political agenda is to shut this radio program down, to shut down Fox News, to shut down all of what they call conservative talk radio. We know that this is what they seek. We've got Jim Clyburn out today saying we need the Fairness Doctrine back, despite now clear-cut evidence this shooter was in no way, shape, manner, or form affected by what happens on this program. Quite the opposite. This man was affected by media creations of leftists.
We have pretty good evidence here that one of the things that really upset this man or really influenced him was a series of documentaries and movies. "According to reports..." In fact, let's keep the sound bites going. I want to play #3 again. Zach Osler this morning on Good Morning America -- and, by the way, the New York Times talked to the guy, too. I have to think the guy told the New York Times the same thing he said to Good Morning America. They edited it out. Again, Ashleigh Banfield asked (this is Zach Osler, one of the friends of the shooter), "What was his motive in Saturday's attack? What about all this speculation he may have been fueled by partisan politics and rhetoric in the media? "
OSLER: He did not watch TV. He disliked the news. He didn't listen to political radio. He didn't take sides. He wasn't on the left; he wasn't on the right.
RUSH: "He disliked the news. He didn't listen to political radio. He didn't take sides. He wasn't on the left; he wasn't on the right." He sounds to me like he's a candidate for membership in the new No Labels group. This guy sounds to me like he's the model citizen for this bunch calling themselves No Labels and other political consultants who seek to identify the great undecided, the great independents, the great moderates and try to influence them to vote for the candidates that are paying them to get them elected. This guy doesn't sound like a political partisan. We know that his history with Gabrielle Giffords goes back to 2007. We know that she had sent him a note thanking him for attending one of her public appearances, and he had written on the note. They found the note -- and I'm gonna quote accurately, so forgive me here if you're offended.
The note says, "Die, bitch. Die, cops."
The note she wrote to him, that's his scribble on it.
The letter thanked him for attending an event of hers, was found in a safe in his Tucson home. I have a New York Times story that I'll dig outta my stack here in mere moments about the Republican agenda proving how they hoped to profit from this, a tragedy. In fact, one of the New York Times stories that I have today is almost a threat to John Boehner. (You better cancel what you were gonna do now that this happened; don't even think about repealing Obamacare now. You better not do that!) Don't try to tell me these people are not advancing their political agenda on the backs of the wounded. They always accuse us of trying to "balance the budget on the backs of the poor," do they not? They always accuse us of making the homeless homeless. Here they are attempting to advance their political agenda on the backs of the dead and the wounded. I don't know how else to describe it. It's exactly what's happening here. So Ms. Banfield, another portion of her interview with Zach Osler. After Osler said that Loughner wasn't on the left or on the right, never listened to political radio, Ashley Banfield said...
BANFIELD: Instead he points to this online documentary series called Zeitgeist as the gas on Loughner's fire. It's a documentary movement that rails on currency-based economics.
OSLER: I really think that this is Zeitgeist documentary had a profound impact upon Jared Loughner's mind-set and how he viewed the world that he lives in.
RUSH: It wasn't just Zeitgeist. " According to reports, Loughner's favorites included little-known conspiracy theory documentaries such as 'Zeitgeist' and 'Loose Change' as well as ... 'Donnie Darko' and 'A Scanner Darkly.'" Now, Zeitgeist is "a 2007 documentary that asserts Jesus Christ is a myth, that 9/11 was orchestrated by the government, and that bankers manipulate the international monetary system and the media in order to consolidate power." So a conspiracy movie (put together by deranged leftists, it turns out) appears to be, according to his best friend, the most influential media of this young man's life. "'Loose Change' is a series of films released between 2005 and 2009 which argue that the September 11, 2001 attacks were planned and conducted by elements within the United States government..."
So he's a "truther," or he bought into this notion that the people like -- a couple of Hollywood lefties, I forget their names -- have advanced the notion that Bush was behind all of this on 9/11, the government was. "'Donnie Darko' (2001) and 'A Scanner Darkly' (2006) are movies about altered states of consciousness and brainwashing." So left-wing documentary makers are not to blame for his actions even though his close friends identify left-wing documentaries and movies as highly influential. How come Hollywood is not to blame? And guess who's also escaping total blame here? Let me identify that person by asking you a question: If George W. Bush were president today, who do you think the media would be blaming for this?
George W. Bush and the war in Iraq and the lies about weapons of mass destruction would have been responsible for driving this guy crazy. Plus, of course, Bush was behind 9/11! But Obama somehow escapes. But who is it that has this hard-left agenda not supported by the majority of Americans? Who is it that's the author of the hard-left agenda not supported by the majority of Americans -- shoved through without reading the health care bill -- that might make a sick man a little crazy? Has Obama unified us, as was his promise, his intent? As we saw last week, analysis of the last election shows that Obama, his party and their tactics have split us right on racial lines.
"Oh, come on, Rush! Now you're really reaching for it, blaming Obama."
Oh, come on, folks. Sarah Palin? Sarah Palin? I don't know what she was doing Saturday. For all I know, she was hunting a moose, maybe watching football. I have no idea, but I know that she wasn't in Tucson. Nor were any of the people who have been accused of this. Speaking of the Bamster, let's do a little flashback. March 18th of 2009 in Washington, after Obama delivered remarks on the South Lawn about bonuses on Wall Street. Remember, the shooter thought bankers were part of a conspiracy controlling the world. A reporter said, "Mr. President, new round of bonuses from these contracts are coming out. What could you say to the American public to quell the anger? Because people are angry about this new round of bonuses coming out. There's more bonuses. It's said to be coming for AIG executives."
OBAMA MARCH 18, 2009: I don't want to quell anger. I think people are right to be angry. I'm angry! What I want us to do, though, is channel our anger in a constructive way. It's very important to r-remind ourselves that there are a whole bunch of folks now who are feigning outrage about these bonuses that a year ago or two years ago or three years ago said, "Well, we should never mettle in these compensation plans. These are the best and the brightest. They know what they're doing."
RUSH: Right.
OBAMA: "That's part of the market," and now suddenly they're outraged.
RUSH: Right. So here's a guy whose favorite movie is Zeitgeist, Jesus Christ is a myth, 9/11 was orchestrated, bankers manipulate the international monetary system and the media to consolidate power -- and the president of the United States in 2009 says, " I don't want to quell anger. I think people are right to be angry. I'm angry!"
"Come on, Rush, you can't seriously mean that."
Hey, look, there's more basis in fact for throwing that out. If you want to start talking about blaming people that aren't responsible, it's a two-way street, media.
You don't like how it sounds?
Join the club.
BREAK TRANSCRIPTRUSH:
I stand corrected on something. Well, it's major but minor in terms of an error. I said that ABC News did not post the Zach Osler story, his comments that the shooter, Mr. Loughner, did not listen to political radio. They did post it, but they buried his comments about talk radio. I've got the link to the ABC News website online. The revelation that Loughner did not listen to talk radio or news did not make the first page of the ABC News story. It wasn't mentioned by ABC until the 12th paragraph of their story. Now, that happens to be purposeful because what has been the mantra? What's been the template, the narrative, ever since Saturday? It has been that Loughner was influenced by the "mean-spirited rhetoric" heard on this program, Fox News and other talk radio programs. That's been the template, and the discussion has not been, "What are we gonna do about mentally deranged people?" not, "What are we gonna do about sheriffs that don't do their jobs?" No! It's been, "What are we gonna do about Limbaugh? What are we gonna do about Palin? What are we gonna do about talk radio?" So ABC News' Good Morning America bumped what for them was a major scoop, which has been the topic of the news cycle for four days. They bumped it in New York for a snowstorm -- and who outside of the environs of New York City cared about weather in New York City anyway? So will Dupnik now apologize? We have ABC, Good Morning America, in the 12th paragraph of their website story: His friend says he never listened to political radio.
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