This hour of the Limbaugh Wire brought to you by all those "experts" who need to "shut up"
By Simon Maloy

It seems almost quaint to talk about health care with so many other more important issues out there, like President Obama's nascent plan to enlist ACORN and lawless minorities in helping to establish himself as President for Life, but it turns out that there are more than a few significant cracks developing in the conservative opposition to health care reform. First off, there was that New York Times poll from last week showing that three-quarters of the public support a public option. Conservatives like Rush dismissed the poll as "rigged," even though 50 percent of Republicans in the poll want a public option. That argument is looking even less credible now that Quinnipiac has released a survey showing that 69 percent of Americans support a public option. Also, supporters of employer health-care mandates got a boost from an unlikely source -- Wal-Mart. The giant retailer, which is often on the receiving end of free-market conservative hosannas, endorsed "an employer mandate which is fair and broad in its coverage." So the next time Rush attacks health care reform as Obama's attempt to grow government for the benefit of the unions, remember that Wal-Mart, which does nothing for the benefit of the unions, is also on board.

Rush got things rolling this morning with a Drudge special, saying that they're "rounding up guns in Houston." Rush said: "This is just the first-ever census for guns. You know, ACORN, AmeriCorps, going to be joining the feds soon. They'll sweep the country, they'll do an inventory, they'll get one or two more liberals on the bench of the Supreme Court, they'll find a way to get rid of the Second Amendment, and they can confiscate guns like FDR confiscated gold in 1933." Actually, no -- this is ATF agents tracking down guns that were "used in murders, kidnappings and other crimes in Mexico." But if Rush has a problem with the ATF investigating crime, we'll let him explain that.

Then Rush had an "observation" for us on Michael Jackson: "He reached a level of success that may never be equaled. He flourished under Reagan, he languished under Clinton/Bush, and died under Obama. Let's hope the parallel does not continue."

Anyway, we had just recovered from the shocking inanity of that "observation" when we heard Rush's theory that more and more AP and Reuters articles critical of Obama are published without bylines because the reporters are "scared to death." Then Rush read from a bylined AP article on Obama's request that Congress "create a new agency to police the fine print on consumer products like credit cards and mortgages and determine what fees, penalties and interest rates are fair." Rush objected to the idea that the agency is being promoted as a protection for consumers: "The way you get all this stuff done if you're Obama is you simply insult the intelligence of the average American, call whatever you're going to do -- you could legalize rape and call it the consumer-something and it would pass. You're protecting consumers. Likewise, you could legalize rape and call it the Civil Rights Act of 2009. It would probably pass 'cause who'd have the votes -- the guts to vote against something with 'civil rights' in it?" Anyway, Rush said that there is no demand from Americans to regulated fine print -- the fine print is there to protect the credit card companies from law suits. Rush then defied anyone to tell him the difference between the fine print and the average bill in the House -- no one ever reads or understands it.

Anyway, Rush continued, saying that the government has ownership of the automobile companies and nationalized just about everything else, and now we have a "fine print czar." That's not quite right either -- the AP article Rush read from said that the proposed new agency "would be in charge of regulating those products in the same way other government agencies regulate the safety of drugs, food and toys." So, in other words, just like the FDA, the head of which has to be approved by the Senate. "Czars," as typically understood, are appointed without Senate approval. Rush's first hint at this should have been the fact, reported by the AP, that Obama "asked Congress" to create the agency.

Leading into the first break, Rush said that Obama "celebrated" the anniversary of the Stonewall riots at the White House last week. Not sure "celebrated" is the right word, but anyway, Rush read from Obama's remarks to gay rights activists, concluding with Obama's statement that by the end of his term in office, "I think you guys will have pretty good feelings about the Obama administration." Rush said that Obama told "the gays in the White House that they'll be happy in the end."

After the break, Rush said he's talked about the cap-and-trade bill a lot, in particular this 300-page amendment that no one read. Well, Rush said, a member of the press has read it, Edward Felker of The Washington Times, who wrote that House Democrats "finally secured the vote of one Ohioan, veteran Democratic Rep. Marcy Kaptur of Toledo, the old-fashioned way. They gave her what she wanted - a new federal power authority, similar to Washington state's Bonneville Power Administration, stocked with up to $3.5 billion in taxpayer money available for lending to renewable energy and economic development projects in Ohio and other Midwestern states." They bought off this Ohio legislator to turn her back on her state, said Rush.

Rush said he talked about this earlier this week -- if there were profits to be made in any of these green technologies, we would already have it. The only way to lose money in the energy business, he said, is to go green. Or if you're George W. Bush. Or Enron. Whatever. Rush said that they gave all this money to this Ohio legislator to hand out money for green innovations, but that's not how innovation takes place. The government does not sit there and decree who invents what. The eight Republicans who voted for this thing did so because they got all these donations from the environmentalist community, said Rush. Waxman included this project as a vote-getting provision, said Rush, and we're being told that this is piece of legislation that we can't do without, but it's really nothing but a collection of millions of earmarks. The pork is what secures the votes, said Rush.

Another break and Rush returned asking if we'd seen the Gallup poll which found "a statistically significant increase since last year in the percentage of Americans who describe the Democratic Party's views as being 'too liberal,' from 39% to 46%." We had seen it. We'd also seen the same poll showing that 43 percent of Americans think the Republican Party is "too conservative." Anyway, Rush said that describing the "Democrat Party" as too liberal doesn't come close to adequately describing how far left the party has actually gone. It's flirting with socialist Marxism.

Anyway, Rush then had a question for us -- actually, he didn't have a question at that very moment, he had to preface the question with his boilerplate rant about how the economy is in the crapper because everything Obama has done is designed to ruin the economy. "This is a war on prosperity waged by Colonel Obama," exclaimed Rush. Anyway, Rush finally got around to his question, which was how can any sane economist predict an economic recovery while cap and trade and health care reform are looming. There will be no recovery if either of these bills become law, said Rush, and anyone with a semblance of education has to see cap and trade as a job-killing job. Leading into the break, Rush aired some sound bites of Obama talking about cap and trade in early 2008, saying that Obama was telling us who he is -- a man who views profits as "evil," and gleefully looked forward to jacked-up utility rates.

After the break, Rush had some advice for us: "I'm telling you, pay no attention to anybody who is promising an economic recovery anytime soon, because they are not factoring in the passage of one or both of cap and trade and socialized medicine -- nationalized health care. If one or both of those things happen, forget economic growth. Forget it. These experts need to shut up and be concerned about their credibility here." That's actually a pretty good summation of what happens on The Rush Limbaugh Show every day -- "experts" should "shut up" because they're not nearly as "credible" as Rush.

Anyway, Rush then noted that Tom Daschle and John Podesta reproached Republicans for "overreaching" in opposing health care reform. Rush said they can't overreach because they can't stop anything: "The Republicans can't stop anything, and now that the Democrats have a 60th vote in the name of a genuine lunatic in the Senate, there's nothing that can be done to stop 'em if they stay unified. The Republicans can't do one -- why do you think 'Tommy Taxes' and Podesta are so desperate to have Republicans sign on to this garbage."

Rush closed out the hour by noting that yesterday he aired a sound bite of Obama praising the troops as they left Iraqi cities, which offended him because Obama and the Democrats were a huge obstacle the military had to overcome to secure victory in Iraq. The Democrats are going to claim credit for the win in Iraq, he said, and they're certainly not going to saddle themselves with defeat.

Greg Lewis and Zachary Pleat contributed to this edition of the Limbaugh Wire.

Highlights from Hour 1

Outrageous comments

LIMBAUGH: This is just the first-ever census for guns. You know, ACORN, AmeriCorps, going to be joining the feds soon. They'll sweep the country, they'll do an inventory, they'll get one or two more liberals on the bench of the Supreme Court, they'll find a way to get rid of the Second Amendment, and they can confiscate guns like FDR confiscated gold in 1933.

[...]

LIMBAUGH: Michael Jackson -- I have an observation. I have an observation about this Michael Jackson thing, not about the details of his death or something, Jackson's success, if you stop and think of it -- and this is going to really irritate some people, which I will enjoy doing -- Jackson's success paralleled the rebound of the United States under Renaldus Magnus.

I mean, Michael Jackson's biggest successes -- and as it turns out his final successes, real successes -- took place in the '80s. That was "Billy Jean," "Thriller," and all this. I mean, he was as weird as he could be, but he was profoundly, because of his weirdness, an individual. He wasn't a group member.

He reached a level of success that may never be equaled. He flourished under Reagan, he languished under Clinton/Bush, and died under Obama. Let's hope the parallel does not continue.

[...]

LIMBAUGH: The way you get all this stuff done if you're Obama is you simply insult the intelligence of the average American, call whatever you're going to do -- you could legalize rape and call it the consumer-something and it would pass. You're protecting consumers. Likewise, you could legalize rape and call it the Civil Rights Act of 2009. It would probably pass 'cause who'd have the votes -- the guts to vote against something with "civil rights" in it?

[...]

LIMBAUGH: My point is very simple. It's not complicated. I'm telling you, pay no attention to anybody who is promising an economic recovery anytime soon, because they are not factoring in the passage of one or both of cap and trade and socialized medicine -- nationalized health care. If one or both of those things happen, forget economic growth. Forget it. These experts need to shut up and be concerned about their credibility here.

[...]

LIMBAUGH: The Republicans can't stop anything, and now that the Democrats have a 60th vote in the name of a genuine lunatic in the Senate, there's nothing that can be done to stop 'em if they stay unified. The Republicans can't do one -- why do you think "Tommy Taxes" and Podesta are so desperate to have Republicans sign on to this garbage?

This hour of the Limbaugh Wire brought to you by the FDA regulating CO2 and the EPA's "silly ban" on Zicam
By Greg Lewis

Well, it's lunch time, and Rush kicked off the second hour reminiscing about the smell of hot dogs and cigars from when he went to St. Louis Cardinals games as a child. Rush had a good reason to talk about this, though -- apparently, advocacy group The Cancer Project is installing a billboard in St. Louis warning about the "dietary disaster" of stadium hot dogs, just as the city prepares to host the All-Star Game. Rush complained about how stories like this were pushed out by press releases from these types of organizations, and they did not represent actual reporting.

Unsurprisingly, Rush used this as an opportunity to rant about the nanny state micromanaging everybody's lives. He quoted from a "Founding Father" who said that the tyranny of a brutal dictator is not as bad as the tyranny of a "bunch of nannies" -- or something like that. The theory, Rush explained, is that the dictator will take some time off to leave you alone.

As Rush moved on to another story, we want to point out how he oddly mangled some of the federal government's bureaucratic alphabet soup:

LIMBAUGH: There's a story in the stack today -- the FDA has an advisory group. Now the FDA -- by the way, I need to warn you all of something. Even if Congress doesn't pass cap and trade, FDA has the authority to implement it. Because the Supreme Court rendered a decision, which said carbon dioxide is a pollutant and gave the government the right to regulate it.

So even if cap and trade doesn't become law as it's written, elements of it can be implemented by fiat from the EPA. So, an advisory -- the EPA has -- you've got to start looking at the EPA, folks, as politicized as the Justice Department or anything else in this administration. I mean, this silly ban on Zicam for example?

So, the FDA -- wait, the EPA -- can regulate carbon dioxide emissions. And the EPA -- wait, the FDA -- put a "silly ban" on Zicam. Got it.

Anyway, Rush really wanted to talk about the FDA advisory panel that has advised a ban on Percocet and Vicodin. Rush wasn't denying that the drug, acetaminophen, can't destroy the liver. But Dr. Limbaugh, MD, explained that "everything" gets metabolized by the liver. This is just another attempt by the government to try to micromanage our lives under the premise that none of us needs to die. Rush again brought up all the "czars," like the new "fine print czar" in the Obama administration, who aren't accountable to the Senate. Except, as we explained in the last hour, the "fine print czar" will actually be accountable to the Senate -- that's why Obama "asked Congress" to create the agency. Pesky facts.

After the break, Rush figured out which "Founding Father" he paraphrased earlier -- C.S. Lewis. He went on to read the quote as written, which was indeed about tyranny and stuff.

Then Rush got back to his Iraq rant, which he had closed the show with yesterday. He played some more audio from Obama's speech addressing the U.S. pullout from Iraqi cities. Rush was still "offended" by this:

LIMBAUGH: This is Barack Obama who led from the United States Senate his party into doing everything he could to ensure the defeat of the U.S. military. This man did not believe what General Petraeus was going to say about how the surge was working. Petraeus came up and they accused him of lying about the success of it, being in league with President Bush to lie to the Senate and the American people and the House about this. They said there was no way we could win.

Rush also objected to Obama saying that those who "tried to pull Iraq into the abyss of disunion and civil war" were on the "wrong side of history." Rush said this is absurd, given that Obama was one of the people who said that Iraq was in a civil war. It should go without saying, but we're going to say it anyway: describing Iraq as being in a civil war and denouncing those who "tried to pull Iraq into the abyss of disunion and civil war" are two wildly different things and are in no way inconsistent. We could see some tension if, say, Obama denounced those who "tried to pull Iraq into the abyss of disunion and civil war" after he had bombed a mosque in Fallujah, but thankfully he never did that.

Anyway, Rush welcomed us back from the break with a couple of articles. He read from a Bloomberg story  reporting that India would reject any greenhouse gas emissions cuts under a new climate treaty. Rush said India and China are taking this position because they want economic growth, not economic paralysis. Rush also read from a Wall Street Journal article about Germany's Angela Merkel's plan to cut taxes. This led Rush to bloviate for several minutes about his glorious "bipartisan" stimulus plan from a few months back, which also involved tax cuts. Rush actually upped the ante a bit, calling for a three-year tax holiday for businesses, but then he acknowledged that would be a bit extreme. Rush then claimed that Obama doesn't want the private sector to recover, he wants the government to recover so he can take credit.

Then Rush took a caller who's blood was boiling because of the "insanity" of cap and trade and alternative energy. This led Rush to pull up a May 13 article about British Petroleum's CEO explaining why they were cutting funding for alternative energy. Rush put a lot of weight in a big oil CEO saying "we can't do this," and then complained about the "environmentalist wackos" who were accusing the CEO of greenwashing. Rush said you see the wackos complaining that BP didn't even try, but you don't see them investing billions, do you?

After another break, Rush wanted to further illustrate how "silly" alternative energy really is. He did this by reading an article stating that chickens could power hydrogen cars. We guess if it sounds silly, then it must mean alternative energy is silly. Rush exclaimed that it was "clucking brilliant" to use chicken litter for energy.

Then Rush played his rendition of Andy William's "Born Free" -- like he did yesterday -- before reading a UK Telegraph article about a polar bear expert being "barred" from a conference on polar bears because of his views on global warming. Rush says this was just like the "suppressed" report from the EPA "scientist" on the hoax of global warming. Well, it seems this one isn't going away, so let's remind everyone: The "scientist" in question is actually an "economist," his report was unsolicited and compiled in haste, and actual climate scientists say the report is scientifically unsound.

Simon Maloy, Zachary Pleat, and Hannah Kieschnick contributed to this edition of the Limbaugh Wire.

Highlights from Hour 2

Outrageous comments

LIMBAUGH: This is Barack Obama who led from the United States Senate his party into doing everything he could to ensure the defeat of the U.S. military. This man did not believe what General Petraeus was going to say about how the surge was working. Petraeus came up and they accused him of lying about the success of it, being in league with President Bush to lie to the Senate and the American people and the House about this. They said there was no way we could win.

Easy as ABC

LIMBAUGH: There's a story in the stack today -- the FDA has an advisory group. Now the FDA -- by the way, I need to warn you all of something. Even if Congress doesn't pass cap and trade, FDA has the authority to implement it. Because the Supreme Court rendered a decision, which said carbon dioxide is a pollutant and gave the government the right to regulate it.

So even if cap and trade doesn't become law as it's written, elements of it can be implemented by fiat from the EPA. So, an advisory -- the EPA has -- you've got to start looking at the EPA, folks, as politicized as the Justice Department or anything else in this administration. I mean, this silly ban on Zicam for example?

This hour of the Limbaugh Wire brought to you by President Bush, who was "full of class"
By Greg Lewis

Rush began the final hour of the show by touching on Obama's town meeting in Virginia today. Rush told us how there are normally young and vivacious cultists at these events, but the crowd today looked dead, like it was the last place they wanted to be. Rush also had this to say about the crowd: "It looked like, in fact, this crowd had been rounded up, that they were going to be doing something else, like going to a movie, or maybe half of them going to the welfare office to get the check, and they'd been interrupted -- said, 'No, before you go get the check, you're going in here to listen to the president.' "

But for all this, Rush was far more interested in White House press secretary Robert Gibb's briefing today, during which a bit of a kerfuffle ensued between Gibbs, Helen Thomas, and Chip Reid over the fact that the White House had pre-screened questions for today's town hall. Rush linked this back to the Nico Pitney controversy: "Now what they're talking about, what's obviously outraged them here, is the Huff Po guy got into the last formal press conference with a staged question. He was told the night before, 'You're going to get in there on a temporary pass, a visitor pass, and here's the question that we want you to ask.' " This is absolutely wrong; both the White House and Pitney denied that Obama knew what question he was going to be asked. Rush said the other aspect of this is that the "beltway types" didn't like the "interloper," Pitney.

Then Rush told us a completely anonymous story that we just had to trust him on. At some nameless Obama industry round table, a nameless participant was told by a nameless White House staffer to ask the president a question. Apparently, the nameless participant asked the question, but Obama "botched it to smithereens." So after the nameless round table event was over, a nameless White House staffer approached the nameless participant and asked him, how dare you embarrass the president this way? So the nameless participant apologized because, as Rush explained, they are scared to death of these people. This, said Rush, is the [nameless city in Illinois that is home to the Cubs and White Sox] thug way.

After the break, Rush continued with his bizarre obsession with rape:

LIMBAUGH: Did you hear there has been an actual rape in -- at Duke University? An actual rape in Durham, North Carolina. Not a phony thing, not a false charge, but an actual rape. A guy sold his adopted five-year-old son to sex practitioner -- five-year-old.

There's a problem with this, too, because the guy is gay. Gay adoption -- this is why you haven't heard about it. This does not fit the template, the false charge of rape at Duke when you had the poor black down-on-her-luck dancer and the rich white lacrosse players. That fit the template: guilty -- well, I mean, before the evidence. This you haven't heard about because this doesn't -- this is a -- doesn't fit the template here of what we're trying to accomplish.

Then Rush took a call from a listener who recounted her phone calls with one of the staffers for Rep. Chris Van Hollen (D-MD). The caller said she tried to explain to the staffer why the Heritage Foundation's analysis of the cost of cap and trade was more reliable than the CBO's analysis, but the staffer didn't buy it. Rush says the caller was dealing with "authoritarian statists" and "quasi-Marxists." He added that the CBO number was just a technique used to sell this "lie." Rush then said: "Van Hollen was going to vote on this no matter what. You could have told Van Hollen that this vote will set off a nuclear detonation somewhere around. Well, he'd still vote for it."

After some more ranting about the leftist fringe in Congress, Rush took a call from an Iraq veteran who was sick of Obama's hypocrisy, just like Rush. Rush said that Obama has a serious self-love complex and won't let anything stop him. Rush then set up a rather silly hypothetical situation: If it had been Clinton's Iraq war, and the surge worked for him, then President Bush would have had him at the event celebrating the U.S. troop withdrawal, because Bush was "full of class."

Now before we get to the next segment, we must warn you that things may get a little meta. Rush began by pondering the Ricci case, and how four of the Supreme Court justices "saw no discrimination" when it was obvious. Rush asked how nobody found Justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg's dissent in the case "outrageously un-American."

Gracefully pivoting from there, Rush brought up another set of questions. He explained that "many people have puzzled over the origins of homosexuality," adding that "the question is still asked: These people choose that or are they born this way?" He continued: "I think we need to ask the same question of liberals: Are they born that way or do they choose it?" He rambled on about this for a few moments, then stopped to converse with Snerdley, his producer:

LIMBAUGH: You can't believe I said what? See, you just want me to ask it again. That's all you're doing. You're just -- Snerdley expressing mock shock that I would ask the question. Like he couldn't -- could not have heard it the first time.

All right, in case the people at Media Matters and MSNBC missed it, here it is again. We need to ask a very important question about liberals: Were they born that way or do they choose it?

Yeah, Rush, we're listening. We listen every day. Every mind-numbing, soul-shredding day... And yes, we're going to do something with that. Now, the default position on things like this is outrage, and rightly so, but we're going to go in a different direction. We're taking this as a cause for hope -- he's at least allowing that homosexuality might not be a choice, right? Well, maybe not. But we can dream... As to whether liberals are "born" or "made" that way, we'd have to hope that liberalism is a choice, because if it's not, we're wasting a lot of time and money using the schools and the media to indoctrinate the youth with our "multicultural" gobbledygook.

Rush then took a caller who asked why it is the opposition party that always has to come up with a counter-bill. Rush didn't understand the question -- and neither did we -- but went on to explain "Civics 101." The Democrats wrote the cap-and-trade bill and filled it with pork, he said, so it would get more votes. He explained that the amendments are meant to allow energy companies to go broke in exchange for re-election money.

But then it was "back to the chickification of the media." This time, the target was those nefarious "cankles," thanks to an article on MSNBC.com. After some inane rambling about this, Rush made things meta for us again: "OK, Mr. Snerdley. Media Matters, MSNBC, if you're listening, Bo Snerdley, the official program observer here, thinks the definition of cankles is that you think Hillary Clinton. You stand by that. OK." So, right now, you're reading Media Matters' write-up of Rush talking about Media Matters listening to Rush. Great. Now, we're dizzy...

Anyway, Rush closed out the program with another caller, who expressed his opinion that people are born liberals, because it's like how religious choices are passed down from family member to family member. Rush said he understood the caller's thinking, and again asked why someone would "choose" to be liberal.

That concludes today's Limbaugh Wire. We hope you enjoyed Rush's shout-outs as much as we did. We exhort you to take a look at our vast Limbaugh archives, which aren't quite as "meta" as this hour, but are no less mind-blowing.

Simon Maloy, Zachary Pleat, and Hannah Kieschnick contributed to this edition of the Limbaugh Wire.

Highlights from Hour 3

Outrageous comments

LIMBAUGH: Van Hollen was going to vote on this no matter what. You could have told Van Hollen that this vote will set off a nuclear detonation somewhere around. Well, he'd still vote for it.

[...]

LIMBAUGH: I think it's time to ask the question, just as many people have puzzled over the origins of homosexuality. People have been puzzling over this for -- I mean, the question is still asked: These people choose that or are they born this way?

I think we need to ask the same question of liberals: Are they born that way or do they choose it? Because there's no rational explanation for it other than it's easy. All you've got to do is see some suffering and say that you care and think other people should do something about it and you are liberal.

And it gets even worse when you start telling other people how to live their lives. And part and parcel, liberalism is having elements of this country that you just despise, that you think unjust and immoral, have to be changed. But, mostly, you don't have to think, you just have to feel. And we all feel, except certain men.

I said what? You can't believe I said what? See, you just want me to ask it again. That's all you're doing. You're just -- Snerdley expressing mock shock that I would ask the question. Like he couldn't -- could not have heard it the first time.

All right, in case the people at Media Matters and MSNBC missed it, here it is again. We need to ask a very important question about liberals: Were they born that way or do they choose it?

[...]

LIMBAUGH: OK, Mr. Snerdley. Media Matters, MSNBC, if you're listening, Bo Snerdley, the official program observer here, thinks the definition of cankles is that you think Hillary Clinton. You stand by that. OK.

America's Truth Rejector

Rush falsely claimed that HuffPo's Nico Pitney had a "staged question" at the June 23 White House press conference:

LIMBAUGH: Now what they're talking about, what's obviously outraged them here, is the Huff Po guy got into the last formal press conference with a staged question. He was told the night before, "You're going to get in there on a temporary pass, a visitor pass, and here's the question that we want you to ask." And the guy -- "Oh, more than happy to do it."

And the question he asked was: "Mr. President, we're in contact with people inside Iran, Iranian citizens, and they are saying X, X, X" -- holding the stage and the press. See, it's just they're outraged here that Gibbs would stage this. So what that -- what this means is they know everything else has been staged. How did they know this town meeting was staged? They only know it because everything is.

Ladies' man

LIMBAUGH: Did you hear there has been an actual rape in -- at Duke University? An actual rape in Durham, North Carolina. Not a phony thing, not a false charge, but an actual rape. A guy sold his adopted five-year-old son to sex practitioner -- five-year-old.

There's a problem with this, too, because the guy is gay. Gay adoption -- this is why you haven't heard about it. This does not fit the template, the false charge of rape at Duke when you had the poor black down-on-her-luck dancer and the rich white lacrosse players. That fit the template: guilty -- well, I mean, before the evidence. This you haven't heard about because this doesn't -- this is a -- doesn't fit the template here of what we're trying to accomplish.

War on the poor

LIMBAUGH: And when you watch this, if you do see any tape of this, you just take a look at the crowd. There was nothing they could do to hide the fact that this crowd was dead. It looked like, in fact, this crowd had been rounded up, that they were going to be doing something else, like going to a movie, or maybe half of them going to the welfare office to get the check, and they'd been interrupted -- said, "No, before you go get the check, you're going in here to listen to the president." I don't know -- they sat there and had sour looks on their faces.