As a 24 year listener, I hear, and I even have the transcripts.
Rush did his dirty work on Thursday, and this is how he rubbed our faces in it, he knew what he was doing, he teased us with the fact that he knew the truth, and then tossed the truth into the trash.
RUSH (on ‘Bloody Thursday’) But I’ve got a blog here, guy named Dan Riehl. He claims that the video of Newt bashing Reagan is bogus, this 1988 audio that we played of Newt saying that Reagan’s wrong.
Here’s the little blog post. “There’s a short excerpt of a 1988 C-SPAN video purportedly showing Newt Gingrich bashing Reagan when talking about how Bush, Sr. should run” his campaign, should not run as more Reagan, but do something new. Riehl writes, “As I suspected, it’s edited to give a false impression. What you don’t see is immediately after when Gingrich praises Reaganism and the Reagan platform. If you can’t watch it all, it begins at about 2:30 in to confirm it’s the same segment. It’s the minute or two afterward you also need to hear to understand that Newt wasn’t bashing Reagan at all. He was merely saying, Bush isn’t Reagan and the GOP needs something new to sell.”
So I knew something like this was gonna happen. It’s not really that it’s been doctored, but that it has been selectively chosen from. So I sent it up to Cookie ‘cause I can’t listen to it, I didn’t have the time to listen it. Cookie said, “Look, this thing is an hour long. I’m sure he praises Reagan at some point or another, but I wouldn’t say it’s doctored.” So my expert says it’s not doctored. The blogger says it’s been selectively edited or chosen. So I just wanted to get it out there. I think Cookie is protesting having to listen to an hour of Newt, basically, in order to find — (laughing) — what I asked her to find. He-he-he-he-he-he.
BREAK TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: Cookie is defiant. She’s giving me a minute and a half after of the Newt bite and she’s insistent that nobody’s doctored this and nobody’s changed — and I’ve read the transcript, that’s true. Newt still says look, the eighties were great but we gotta look forward, people — people care about the future, da-da-da-da-da. He praises Reagan in the bite, which the first — the — the excerpted bite doesn’t include any of but it doesn’t change the fact that while praising Reaganism, he still says to George Bush, you — you’re wasting your time if you campaign on Reaganism. Nobody wants more of the past. We want to look forward, nothing changes about that. So the — the Cookster was right.
END TRANSCRIPT
And you may have read but, for some reason, insist on misreading.
Point being, you came away from the show with a far different understanding of its content than I did.
To me, it was a straightforward report of what was then breaking news. In retrospect, it was probably timed to present Limbaugh with exactly that problem -- too big to delay, too fresh to research.
At no point did I gather that Limbaugh was doing anything other than reporting developments. I got no vibe whatsoever that he was actually endorsing them.
Friday, after enough time had transpired to adequately research the charges, it was apparent that the smears were anything but spontaneous, but had been orchestrated by the Romney campaign -- which essentially destroys whatever credibility they had. Limbaugh treated them as such -- which should have assuaged your concerns.
Full disclosure: I don't have a candidate yet. I do know, though, that it won't be Romney. And it won't be Paul. But I could vote for Newt.
You are evidently committed to Newt...and took umbrage. That's your privilege. But I honestly don't believe that you are reacting objectively to what was said on either day.