RUSH: Well, this is the dilemma that I admitted having when the program began. I've talked about this a bunch. Brief history. When I started this radio program in 1988, I had never been called a racist, a bigot, a sexist, a homophobe. People who knew me never thought that. It was ridiculous. But then I got on the radio as a conservative and all of a sudden I started being attacked as a racist, sexist, bigot, homophobe. And I didn't know what to do about it. It had never happened, and there was nobody that could give me any guidance. I just got a bunch of advice and there are basically two pieces of advice I got. "Rush, you gotta hit back! You can't let people make those claims about you and try to ruin your reputation and smear you. You gotta fight back on that!"

So I would take that advice and I would respond to it, and the critics would just (rubbing hands together) laugh with glee, "A-ha! We must have hit a home run. Limbaugh's upset," and they would just add to the smears. And then other people said, "Look, you're bigger than all that combined. You just have to ignore it because if you acknowledge it, you just elevate it and more and more people hear about it than otherwise would," and those are always the two options that you have. Now, there are mitigating factors, that is, I think when race is brought into it that you can't let stand. If people are trying to destroy your reputation and your credibility, your life and your career by attacking you as a racist, then you have to stand up and fight that. Now, we are in the process behind the scenes working to get apologies and retractions with the force of legal action against every journalist who has published these entirely fabricated quotes about me, slavery, and James Earl Ray. I never said them. We have tracked them. We know where they came from. We don't know the identity but we know where they came from, a single blogger who posted the stuff on my Wikipedia page in Wiki quotes, unsourced. Wikipedia says, "Well, this is in dispute." It's not in dispute. They were never uttered. I never said them. And I've even told reporters, "I never said them." One reporter said to me, "Oh, don't worry about it. You've created a masterful publicity stunt here," meaning my effort to buy the St. Louis Rams is just a publicity stunt. "Enjoy the controversy. I'm not going to retract it. Why should I? This is good for you," he wrote. He's black. Jason Whitlock.

Do you realize how few people are ever part of a championship team, winning a Super Bowl or a World Series, compared to the percentage of the population they are. I mean 300 million people and there are 53 players on a Super Bowl team, that's really a rare thing.

I've always admired the people who are the best at what they do and the people in the National Football League are the best at what they do. So I was given an opportunity to be a part of a group and to help, perhaps, keep the team in St. Louis so I eagerly accepted. And now it's being portrayed that I'm the primary owner, primary bidder, which was not the case, I'm just in the group. I can't say who else is in the group except Dave Checketts, it's leaked out, but that's what it is. It just boggles my mind. Now you've got the Justice Brothers, Reverends Jackson and Sharpton, I mean Reverend Jackson rode a bus in Chicago today to the school where the violence took place as though that's going to do anything. I mean these guys are hustling race, I predicted this would happen with President Obama's election. I mean there are people that profit from all this. Reverend Sharpton is one. You know, he wanted to get into radio. I didn't try to stop him even though he's got a checkered past. He was the author of the Tawana Brawley hoax. But I believe in freedom, and I don't discriminate and if he wants to get into radio, fine and dandy.

But look at these people running around trying to prevent people they don't like, don't even know, from engaging in an activity which might actually improve current circumstances. Jesse Jackson, who wanted to neuter President Obama at one point during the campaign, these guys could no more survive being held to the same standard they apply to everybody else, and especially when they get involved they start telling lies about people. So it's a fascinating thing to go through. It's a fascinating thing to watch otherwise professional journalists totally embarrass themselves by repeating fabricated, made-up quotes I have never said. And we found out where it all came from, and we're going to do two things. To everybody who has repeated these lies we're going to send a letter and say, "Back it up, source it, prove it, find out where I said it, I want to know." If they can't, which they won't be able to, then we're going to demand an apology and a retraction, and that is the least that some of these people can do.

There is no way anybody could have made -- and they say the statement happened in 1998. They all say that. Well, the guy that posted it, his name is "cobra," by the way. That's his moniker on the Internet. You can hide and be anonymous on the Internet and he's been posting at all over the place, and he claims that he got it from a book.

By the way, the publisher is Nation Books in New York and the quote, he said he got it from a book written by some guy named Huberman's book, 101 Worst People in America or whatever. It was published in 2006. The problem is he was spreading it in 2005. We know who the source of this is. We know that the guy that wrote the book did not source the quote! Nobody can source it because it wasn't never made. I never said it. And look at all of these people who are repeating it without checking, and these are the people who tell us that they are the professionals, that they are the ones we should trust to weed out what's garbage and what's not garbage in the "sewer," they say that is the Internet. They are the sewer! They are the sewer, and they are in the midst of it. They are waste and they are promulgating waste all over the place! (interruption)

Oh, I'm told Mr. Zirin's name is pronounced "Zy-rin." It doesn't matter. Zirin, he was utterly, utterly irresponsible on that program yesterday. These people repeat lies because it fits their already prejudiced agenda. They are the ones with prejudice and bigotry coursing through their vanes, through their hearts, and through their souls. They are consumed with jealousy and rage. They are all liberals -- and make no mistake: That's what this is about. It is about ideology. It isn't about race. It's about their being jealous and attempting to discredit me, and they've now sunk to the low of repeating fabricated quotes that they cannot source. So we have sent them all letters. But we're going to have to add Tamron Hall to the list. We're going to have to add James Carville to the list. We're going to have to add David Shuster to the list. We're going to have to add Al Sharpton to the list.

Who else are we going to have to add to the list? I guess that's it. Of all the other people, Drew Sharp of USA Today, this Zirin guy of The Nation. Brian Burwell. We're going to say, "You've got a few hours here to produce the cite, produce the source. Source this quote! Tell us where you got it. You prove to me that it was said, or else we will demand a retraction and an apology." I doubt that they care enough. In their minds, "mission accomplished." They're laughing about it and having a grand old time with it. But it is an embarrassment to them. I'm sounding like a parrot here. They ought to be ashamed of themselves to call themselves professionals. They're nothing but hacks. I mean, everybody in the world knows you don't believe anything on Wikipedia because anybody can go in there and put anything on that they want to unless you succeed in getting your site locked, and I don't even care about that.

Wikipedia is as irresponsible as anything else. Anybody can post anything they want on there. But these are the professionals! They're supposed to check this stuff. The idea that somebody could reportedly say, "Hey, slavery was great! You know what? Why, it kept the streets safer at night," in 1998 and it is only now surfacing? I said that in 1998? I guarantee you the Clinton war room would have been all over it! In 1998? This quote sat dormant for 11 years and all of a sudden shows up with a vengeance in conjunction with a report that I am a minority participant, minority participant in a bid to buy the St. Louis Rams? You would think... You know, I'm not hard to reach. My office isn't hard to reach and the radio show is not hard to listen to.

Just find the radio and turn around. Hit the seek button and you'll find me all over the dial. Whatever happened to journalists calling people and saying, "Did you actually say this? I'm doing a story on blah, blah, blah. Did you actually say this?" They didn't want to take the chance I didn't say it. They wanted the excuse to run the fabricated quote. They wanted the opportunity to do it. These people are scum. They are literal professional scum and their responsible in many ways for the deteriorating standards and quality of journalism. They are leading the pack. They are found on both the news side and the sports side, and they are doing everything they can to promote disunity and discord throughout our culture and society while holding themselves up in their own minds as great unifiers and people who care only about social justice. When they're basically just incompetent, irresponsible, impersonators of journalism.

We'll have to see how it works out.

The statements are false --the slavery one, the James Earl Jones--the McNabb comment was an opinion and the guys there were in agreement. They didn't correct him when it was said on ESPN.

So you have people who got to the other guys on the show with Rush to change the whole meaning of the opinion.

And there is something to the Wiki cite--not trustworthy in the least bit.

And how does a statement appear after 11 years?

Well when it's a lie of course.

So when people talk about Obama and his birth certificate--that makes most everyone here mad as hell.

There are like 55 threads of people blasting that the bc issue is false and a lie etc.

But when someone says that Rush is a racist and it's a lie and puts up a thread for people to at least consider that--although they may not like him--at least consider that the man is not a racist--no critical thinking need apply.

Is that about right?

Have you read the link?

He is not a racist--but people keep passing around the same statements that he did not say!

I listen to Rush--most every day.

i don't agree with everything he says.

But the man is not racist.

He never said slavery has merit--that is a lie.

A lie the left continually tries to perpetuate.

McNabb's comment was an opinion.

James Earl Ray comment was never said by Rush.

#57 | Posted by 726 at

Where is the link 726??

That is one of the comments that Rush says he never said--it's fabricated out of thin air. The slavery one.

Where is the context of the other 'quotes'??

And Jay Z the gangsta rapper --owns part of the Nets!!

That's ok and not Rush??

LOL

Exactly 726--they are not sourced and as folks have claimed--the internet is a sewer.

Those quotes were not made by Rush--the salvery one is disputed by Rush--it is a lie. He is sending out letters to people to stop it and apologize if they can't find the source--Rush saying that statement.

He didn't say it.

The others--have no context.

Jay Z--great song!

So it's ok for Jay z to be racist and use his art to be one of the worse for women and blacks--but of course he's black so he can call them all the
n-word..

#74 | Posted by 726 at

Did you read your own link??? Scroll down to

ORIGINS...

The quote from the 1970's?? Are you joking??

They can't source the quotes--except for the McNabb quote which isn't racist--it's an opinion!!

The guys on the program were in agreement.

It was the next 2 - 3 days that Sharpton et al. got on the bandwagon making it into something it wasn't.

#75 | Posted by Sully

His website missed the memo that he is not gangsta.

Group seeking to buy Rams drops Limbaugh.

www.cbssports.com

#76 | Posted by reinheitsgebot

Now he could claim damages against the people spreading the unsourced lies of comments he did not make.

Of course Sharpton is happy--maybe Rush should send him a check and that would change his tune and Sharpton would be all for the deal.

Truth and satire are a bear....

And BB--the slavery comment was supposedly in 1998.

Don't you think that Clinton would have driven this story back then and not 11 years later to now??

As for Byrd--he was with the KKK--he erred and lived long enough to show something separate and apart from being in the KKK. He apologized for being in the KKK.

He is a corrupt liberal--with all the money into W VA under his name and everything named after him.

But his KKK feelings may have left him at the old age of whatever...