With great joy I bring you the March 24, 2005 transcript of Rush Limbaugh's radio show in which he, at length, makes a total and utter ass of himself crowing about the "fake" Schiavo memo the Democrats created to embarrass the Republicans, and how this issue will blow up in the Democrats' face like they've never seen.
Too bad the memo is real and Limbaugh is, once again, full of shit.
Supposed GOP Schiavo Memo Forged by Democrats
March 24, 2005
RUSH: This is really heating up, but apparently all the Democrats were all excited that they found this memo that Republican senators were circulating on Sunday, talking points, on the Terri Schiavo case -- and it appears it's a forged memo all over again! As the American Spectator reports, "It's Rathergate all over again, and the same vigilant entities that brought about to the collapse of CBS News could now also cause heads to roll among Democratic Senate leadership staffers and further shame multiple news organizations that would appear to have fallen for another document hoax.
"Very quietly, Senate Republican leadership aides to both Sen. Rick Santorum and Sen. Mitch McConnell, as well as the Senate Republican Policy Committee, have been using the Senate recess break to reconstruct the purported distribution of a document that media outlets, including ABC News, the New York Times and a number of regional newspapers, identified as Senate 'GOP talking points' on the Terri Schiavo fight that unfolded over the weekend.
"'There is a process here for documents like this that are passed around down on the Senate floor, which is where the media claimed that the "talking points" were being distributed last Thursday,' says a Republican policy committee staffer. 'There was a lot of stuff going on Thursday, but a document like this one was not being distributed. As far as we know, the only documents being handed out related to votes on a series of amendments being pushed through before the recess. Schiavo wasn't part of that package.'
"The document, which was posted online by ABC News, as well as several Democratic-leaning websites, was unsigned, bore no Senate office letterhead, and was rife with errors, including the incorrect Senate bill number and the misspelling of Schiavo's name. For days, Republicans denied any knowledge of the document, and a number of Republican Senators claimed they had never seen it.
"Republican leadership staffers now believe the document was generated out of the Democratic opposition research office set up recently by Senator [Dingy] Harry Reid, and distributed to some Democratic Senate staffers claiming it was a GOP document, in the hope -- or more likely expectation -- that it would then be leaked by those Democrats to reporters. In fact, the New York Times stated that it was Democratic staffers who were distributing the 'talking points,'" memo, the document.
"'Democrats have tried to pin this document on Santorum's staff, on [Sen. Bill] Frist's staff, on [Sen. Sam] Brownback's staff,' says a Senate leadership staffer. 'Watching the investigation underway on line has energized us enough up here to want to at least confirm that we weren't the source, and everything we have found would confirm that Republicans didn't generate this memo. This is just amateurish. Perhaps Democratic staffers think we put out work product like this, but it's laughable.'" We have a montage of the press talking about this on the Sunday shows we have Tim Russert, Wolf Blitzer, Gwen Ifill of PBS, Chris Matthews of PMSNBC, Mara Liasson of NPR, Linda Douglas of ABC, Chris Wallace of Fox all talking about this memo.
RUSSERT: There was a memo circulated [sic] that this would be good for the 2006 midterm elections with the conservative voters.
BLITZER: There was a GOP memo that's been published [sic] widely circulated [sic].
IFILL: This memo shows [sic] it's something they are very much aware of.
MATTHEWS: There was a memo distributed to Senate Republicans [sic] telling their members that, quote, "This is an important moral issue." It suggests that there's political pay dirt here.
LIASSON: A memo got circulated today [sic] talking about how great a political issue it was for Republicans. I think that makes this whole thing seem a little bit unseemly.
DOUGLAS: You saw the talking about points that were being circulated.
WALLACE: How do you explain, then, these talking points which have been circulated [sic] among Republican senators.
RUSH: Apparently the explanation is it was forged! The memo was made up by Democrat staffers. Even though it's forged it's probably still true so what difference does it make, just like Dan Rather's excuse for the Bill Burkett documents and so forth. You know, it is (Laughing.) You would think that after the CBS incident and somebody starts handing you documents that purport to be a talking points memo from Senate staffers, you would think to go ask the Republicans about it and check it out instead of just running with it given what all happened.
So it is clear that the Democrats wanted to politicize this and make the Republicans look like they were politicizing Terri Schiavo, and pandering. Why would the Democrats do this? Because they're scared of this issue. Make no mistake about this: For all the gloating and all the glee and all the happiness about this woman's death, make no mistake about it, the left as they keep this up is going to cause a backlash against them the likes of which they haven't seen. I mean this is the strangest way to make entreaties to the red states I have ever seen, and it proves once and for all the idea that the Democrats and liberals to want try to make peace with the people in the red states and say, "Hey, we have values, too." It's just talk. It's just talk because when an issue has the rubber meet the road the liberals cannot, the Democrats cannot hide who they really are.
