Rush plays a good bit of the Caddell interview.
RUSH: Fox News Channel yesterday, Pat Caddell, loaded for bear. He was on Dayside with Linda Vester, and she said, (paraphrasing) "John Kerry, in an interview just out in TIME Magazine, talking about what's going on in this campaign, the question is people's views of the strength of your leadership have declined in the past few weeks. Is this in part because you're slow in responding to the swift boat ads? Do you think you should have been more aggressive? And Kerry says no, I think we did absolutely fine, I think we're doing absolutely fine. What do you say to that, Pat Caddell?"
CADDELL: People in America are not stupid. They know that he's had a bad month. What is it about politicians that they can't simply be honest with people and say, "It's a tough process, we made some mistakes. But I'm going to be fighting every day, and the big day that matters is Election Day, and I'm going to prove myself." No, to say something honest is somehow contaminated, apparently, and whatever the world that Washington has become. I think the problem is, first of all, I don't think the campaign has a definition. It didn't have one in Boston. You know, the reason we had the problem with the swift boats is not because George Bush rounded up the swift boat veterans, it's because the Democratic campaigners decided they would make John Kerry's campaign about Vietnam. And when you take that scab off, the natural result was going to be to bring people out who have very strong feelings. Nobody in history has ever run for president as a hero. You become a hero because people know you're a hero. You don't run around and say you're a hero.
RUSH: Limbaugh Echo Syndrome! Limbaugh Echo Syndrome, two examples on parade there. It was Kerry who brought up Vietnam. It wasn't Bush that rounded up the swift boat guys. Which came first? What came first is Kerry's convention and going on and on and on about his medals, and his service and all this stuff and the swift boat stuff. And then how many times have I told you, the thing that's always struck me about John Kerry is he has to explain why he's great or why he's good. It doesn't speak for itself when you see John Kerry. He doesn't stand out, he doesn't tower over people in a characteristic sense, he does of course physically in a Lurch sort of way. But he's out there running as a hero, and he's not a hero, he's not perceived as a hero. He's trying to make people think he is a hero. You become a hero because people know you're a hero. You don't run around and say you're a hero and have people believe it. Greatness does not have to be explained, and these constant references to his service in Vietnam is precisely what Caddell means when he says, "You don't run around and say you're a hero, people know you are or you aren't." And he gets even more strident in the next couple bites.
BREAK TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: Let's go back to Pat Caddell. Let's not lose track of where we were here. Pat Caddell was on Linda Vester's Fox show yesterday afternoon, the second of three bites that we have here. She said (paraphrasing), "Something else that's interesting is that right now John Kerry travels with the national news media, they trail him, and you record everything he does but he hasn't talked to them, he's not talked to them, given them an interview in 34 days, why is that?"
CADDELL: Because there's an arrogance. First of all, we have some of what I would call, look, as a Democrat, we have some what I call political crypto-gangsters who have taken over the heart and soul of the Democratic Party in Washington, and their job is hold onto power and hold onto money. And these are people advising a good man. And I've known John Kerry for many years, for him not to talk to the press is a mistake. He isn't the president. He's the challenger. But you know what, I'll tell you what they are counting on, which I find ridiculous, they're counting on things like what's going on at CBS this morning with those documents, which is just unbelievable. Why does the Democratic Party want to get into the issue of the National Guard? National Guard leads to swift boats. And that is the last issue in the world that John Kerry needs to be --
RUSH: The Democratic Party has been taken over by what he calls political crypto-gangsters who have taken over the heart -- he's right. Now, this was the guy, this was Jimmy Carter's (Watch the Malaise Speech) pollster. Pat Caddell, and he's been involved with some other prominent liberal Democrats. He's no shrinking violet as a liberal Democrat. But he's right, Limbaugh Echo Syndrome here again, there's an arrogance in the Kerry camp and did you notice, he said, they were counting on the document thing at CBS to carry the day.
BREAK TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: One more Caddell bite, and he opens fire here on the crypto-gangster Terry McAuliffe.
CADDELL: Let me tell you, when you have your national chairman, Terry McAuliffe, who put in a hundred thousand dollars into Global Crossing and walked off with $18 million as your national chairman, it tells you the moral and the integrity level my party has been reduced to at the DNC. You're going to have Terry McAuliffe going out as he did the other day calling the president of the United States a liar? What is wrong with these people? I don't care whether the people agree or disagree with the president, they do not like political hacks going around calling the President of the United States a liar. Whether he's a Democrat or Republican. We should be talking about vision, we should be arguing what we're going to do to change the country, and I'm fearful, I've been saying this for months, I'm afraid the same people are taking this party down to defeat in 2002 and 2000 are taking it right down to defeat again. It's hand in hand with some of the national media. Look at NBC today. They put on Kitty Kelley. Why don't they just put on the National Enquirer? They put her on for three straight days. (Laughing) For three straight days, do you know I went back and checked because I read, I couldn't believe this, too, do you know that O'Neill and the swift boat people has never been on the Today Show?
RUSH: Yeah, we all know that, that's the point. We exactly all know that. Kitty Kelley is not making any news of the kind she hoped and dreamed of, nor of the kind the mainstream press hoped and dreamed of, and because we've got the sound bites -- because of this whole forged document business, CBS, Matt Lauer is creaming her. You know, NBC, there was talk last week, NBC -- (talking to program observer) I know, Caddell does sound a lot like me, doesn't he? I mean, not voice quality, of course, but in some things, what he says about McAuliffe, yeah. I thought this for the longest time.
At any rate, last week, everybody the asking, "Okay, does NBC go ahead with this?" Given what's happened here with these forged documents, can NBC run the risk of putting Kitty Kelley on? Well, they couldn't very well, I think, cancel here. She was suing people if they canceled interviews with her. So they contracted for three days on the Today Show and they turned -- I don't know if Katie Couric was originally going to do this or not. They turned over Matt Lauer and he's firing both barrels at her. I mean, saying things like, "You know, this is strange, Ms. Kelley, but it's a long book. You haven't found one nice thing to say about this family? I mean is there not one decent thing you can say about these people?"
[Kelley answers] "No, everybody thinks they're the Donna Reed Show but it's more like The Sopranos."
None of it's real, none of it's believable. This Kitty Kelley book is no more than the next installment of this entire bash-Bush year that has been coordinated somehow, somewhere, at least as far as timing and perhaps in even more ways. But, at any rate, Caddell is right. |
