Tom Flocco
Rush Limbaugh: 9-11 Families Used, Coached, Exploited
Sat Apr 10, 2004 18:40
63.228.145.202

Rush Limbaugh: 9-11 Families Used, Coached, Exploited
http://www.tomflocco.com/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=56&mode=&order=0&thold=0

NEW YORK -- April 9, 2004 -- 23:15 ET -- TomFlocco.com -- Earlier this evening a snippet of this afternoon's broadcast of the Rush Limbaugh Show was sent to this website, as Mr. Limbaugh had for the second time placed in the line of political fire, the 9-11 victim families seeking truth, justice and accountability.

On March 10, Limbaugh played a portion of a cable news broadcast quoting widows Kristen Breitweiser and Monica Gabrielle--without naming them. Limbaugh was highly critical of the two, calling them "campaign consultants, obsessed with rage and hatred." The widows recognized their voices after receiving a copy of the broadcast and wrote letters of response to Limbaugh which were re-published around the internet, including this website.

In the interests of fair play and continued discussion as 9/11 becomes more politicized as the election approaches, we are reprinting the section of the transcript in which Limbaugh discusses the 9-11 families as a group. The controversial talk-host's remarks are somewhat more tempered this time; but since the 9-11 families are becoming a force to be reckoned with in the middle of the current election campaign, the remarks below are likely to engender a firestorm of controversy and discussion. At this time, we do not have a response from the 9-11 steering committee; but it will be linked to this transcript if and when a response becomes available. [The real player link is also enclosed for those who would prefer listening to Limbaugh while following the transcript.]

Listen to Rush… (...document, without emotion, the understandable politicization of some 9/11 families)


BEGIN TRANSCRIPT

I want to go back before we began our interview with Dan Senor , who was on the phone with us in Baghdad. We had a typically snooty, silly little liberal on the phone who wanted to take potshots at me for daring, daring to say that some of the 9/11 family members are close to becoming or have become Democrat operatives, and I was in the process of explaining this to him, but we ran out of time. But I want to take you back to this program yesterday. I had a woman call and she was all upset about these families and the way they're acting, and I went the extra mile, folks. I tried to explain it as best I could understand what it is that hurts these people -- and I understand it! They lost family members. They're emotionally involved, and they want an answer: Why did this have to happen?

This is the most powerful country in the world, and it's not enough to blame the terrorists. If there's anybody that comes along and makes them think it could have been stopped, they're going to grasp onto that. The emotion that they have over the loss, they're going to grasp onto it. If a bunch of demagogues come along and convince them it needn't have happened, and in honor of the family members they lost and their memory and the quest not to let go of them they are going to be easily persuaded to join a movement that gives them a sense of purpose. I understand all this, but at the same time, I'm just not gonna roll over and not comment when I think that they're being exploited or used, or maybe they've made up their own minds to join.

Maybe some of them have, you know, joined forces on their own. I don't know. All I know is what I hear -- and I have common sense, and if it offends people, then I'm sorry, but let me set it up -- and we're going to go back here, one of the early days. March the 5th. There was something that happened March 5th, 6th. There was something that these families were on television. Oh! It was the Bush TV ads. Remember this now? The first Bush campaign ads that ran featured pictures from 9/11. The day the ads ran family members were on four different networks. Maybe it was...one, two, three -- one, two, three, four different networks, all saying the same thing. Now, this is where common sense comes into play, folks. I know for a fact that family members sitting at home, all by themselves, watching a Bush campaign ad do not all end up on television that day all spouting the same thing. It just doesn't happen.

I'm sorry. If it offends you, you have the problem . If you're offended, don't complain to me because it's your problem for being offended. I'm not trying to offend anybody here. I'm just observing, and this is pure common sense. It just doesn't happen. Not if you're sitting alone at home, not if they're watching all this stuff and they're shocked on what they see. The only thing that can explain it is they knew it was coming. They were part of an effort to combat the message in the Bush ads and that's what I want you to hear. We have a montage of appearances by two women, Kristin Breitweiser -- who has become the co-host of the Today Show with Katie Couric -- and Monica Ga-brielle or Gab-rielle. I'm not sure how she pronounces it.

Let me explain this name pronunciation. I don't listen to TV anymore. Maybe that's why I don't get so upset about it. I watch closed-captioning. I can hear it. It's just I've gotten into the (habit). I can just read it. Believe me, it's a lot less stressful. It really is, because I don't hear what these -- I read it and it's much easier to digest it and react to it because there's no emotion in it or not nearly as much so I don't hear these names pronounced as often as perhaps you do. So I am not trying to mispronounce Ms. Gabrielle's name. Gabrielle... Gabrielle, I'm not trying to be disrespectful. You knew and know that that kind of thing is beneath this program. So we're having Kristin Breitweiser and Monica Gabrielle on N-BS, CN-BS, CNN-BS and MSN-BS on the 5th of March. Two women on all these networks. This is a montage of all these different appearances, and they are commenting on the Bush 9/11 campaign ad.

BREITWEISER: I think for someone like President Bush who has not cooperated with this commission, who has stonewalled this commission.

GABRIELLE: This president and his administration blocked the creation of the commission, have stonewalled the commission.

BREITWEISER: If this was realistic from the morning of September 11th, it would show President Bush before a group of children listening to them read while, uh, the TwinTowerswere burning.

GABRIELLE: If he wants to show a picture of 9/11 depicting what he was doing, it should be a picture of him sitting and reading in a classroom to school children. That's where he was on 9/11.

BREITWEISER: And we need to find out why 3,000 people were murdered on his watch.

GABRIELLE: You know, this happened on his watch.

RUSH: All right, folks, what are we supposed to do here? What are we supposed to do? This does not change any affection I have for these people or pain that I feel for them and understand that they have. Their loss is real, and I think it's fundamental to the way they're behaving today. It's totally understandable. Somebody convinces them that this needn't have happened and that it could have been stopped, and that's all it takes. You've got to put yourself in their shoes. But to say that this is the way average, ordinary people talk on the day the Bush commercial hits, and they just end up on TV together?

Sorry, this is not a coincidence. This is not ad-lib. This is part of a presentation. This is part of a plan, scheme, whatever you want to call it. So since that happened on March 5th, every time I see 9/11 family members, my antenna go up now. I'm going to listen to what they say with a certain filter, if you will, ladies and gentlemen. This is only using intelligence guided by experience. This is not judgmentalism, you leftists. This is simply intelligence guided by experience. So fwhen we come back from the break, we'll listen to what some of these same women have had to say recently. As in yesterday, last night, and what have you. All coming up. Can't you just wait?

All right, continuing on with our sound bites now. So we just played you this obviously coordinated appearance by Kristin Breitweiser and Monica Gabrielle. [Aside to staff:] Oh, that reminds me. Make a note, will you? Website kind of upset people yesterday. I mentioned this piece on Salon, Salon.com, about this therapist that is a big fan of mine that upset the writer of the column. It's a really hateful piece, and the way I portrayed it people think it was funny, and people went to read this thing and they can't -- stuff that's in the piece is outrageous about me; it's hateful. And I didn't mean for it to be posted yesterday before I talked about it. So remind me, I've got to talk about it before the program ends today. All right. All right, let's go now to The Today Show today. Today show co-host Kristin Breitweiser tries to move the goalposts again in her conversation with Katie Couric.

So I rented a car and I got back and I asked the people at my hangar. One of them was a former pilot of Air Force One for (Jimmy) Carter, and I said, "Would you have flown that airplane into the World Trade Center?" He said, "No way , and there's no American pilot that would have. Those pilots were dead." Now, this is new information to me here, that the terrorists actually convinced and coerced these pilots, American pilots, to fly into the World Trade Center . This is the first I've heard of this. These pilots -- I don't want to get graphic, but you can imagine what was done to them with the box cutters. Am I wrong about this? Am I under some...? So, folks, this is what I mean, now. The families are emotionally involved, and if they're being told that there was a way their family members need not have died, they'll glom onto it. Diversion technology and American pilots could have told the terrorists to go to hell? They probably did anyway before they died.

All right, somebody has sent me a note. Cookie sent me a note trying to explain what Kristin Breitweiser was just saying here. She's saying that people were taught to cooperate with the hijackers, that they weren't supposed to fight back. (Story) She's not saying Americans flew the planes into the buildings, but that they were passive and were killed because they didn't fight back. Okay, she said that; she said that. Well, play this again. Grab audio sound bite #4. Because frankly, folks, it's getting tough to maintain this decorum and restraint here with these people. I'm doing my best. I think we'll all agree, but let me listen to sound bite 4 because it didn't make sense to me the first time I heard it, I must admit.

(Replaying of Breitweiser sound bite.)

RUSH: Oh. Okay. So they didn't fight. They acquiesced. They didn't think the terrorists knew how to (fly the plane). I still have a problem with this. I don't believe that American pilots are going to sit around and be diverted into buildings and let that happen. These pilots did not fly those planes into that building. American pilots would not have done that. At some point they said, "To hell with this," and would have fought. [Program Observer Interruption] They were killed. Box cutters. They wouldn't have [Program Observer Interruption]. No, no, no! She's not saying they wouldn't have given up the cockpit because she's saying the pilots should have been told that these Middle Eastern men knew how to fly planes.

Kristin is saying here that the American pilots didn't think that the terrorists knew how to fly so they didn't give up the cockpit. They stayed in the cockpit and did what the terrorists said, and I'm just telling you that I've asked enough pilots. That's tough to know, but at some point these people are not going to fly their airliner into an American building, and they didn't. They didn't. Look, bottom line is, on all of this, uh, ladies and gentlemen, there's a story here in the Reuters wires, says, "Some relatives of the September 11th victims responded in anger [italics added] on Thursday to what they described as the White House's failure to accept responsibility for the 2001 attacks that killed nearly 3,000 people." Uh, I don't even want to get started.

That makes me so damn mad, I don't even want to have to address this. They said these are the -- folks, I'm looking at the heavens before I say this and asking in advance for understanding -- These are the people that bitched and moaned that they didn't get enough money after 9/11. These are the people that complained and fought over the huge, huge -- what did each family get? Over a million dollars? – that was the...? No, that was the average amount. That was the average amount that the families got. Some of them got much, much more, and they're still not satisfied. In the meantime, there are American men and women dying in Iraqand Afghanistanand around the world to avenge this, and there is no concern for the families of these people, and you don't see them parading up through Washington, D.C.demanding that Bush do something to stop this wanton slaughter.

There is something about this that just smells. It just smells. There's something about this that just rubs me the wrong way. "Bob McIlvaine of Orland, Pennsylvania, whose son died in the WorldTradeCenter, said, 'No one wants to take any responsibility. Three thousand people died, all they want to talk about is structural problems.' Beverly Eckert of Stamford, Connecticut's husband Sean died in the WorldTradeCenter. 'I'm angry at the lack of accepting accountability. That's what the president should have done, accepted responsibility.'" Who in the world...? Let me ask a question. When this happened, the days immediately after it happened, did anybody think this? This wasn't on anybody's mind that the president ought to go (accept responsibility).

Can you imagine if the president had done this? Can you see on the night of September 11th, President Bush calls a press conference, "I am taking full responsibility for this"? People would have thought he was nuts! People would have thought he was absolutely crazy. He didn't do anything. He didn't fly in the airplanes into the buildings. There's two things going on here. First off, the liberals have told people not to fight back, to sit there and acquiesce. So when the terrorists take over an airplane, they sit there and do it. Thank you, liberals! The next thing, the liberals have got us all convinced that the people who actually commit crimes don't do it. That somebody else is always responsible, either society or some socioeconomic circumstance or what have you.

Now all of a sudden -- if there's any anger here, how in the world can the anger be at anybody? I mean, even Bill Clinton, for crying out loud! You can make a better case for that because the Clintonadministration refused -- and we've got it on tape. The NewsMax gang had it on tape; Clinton admitting it. Forget what Madeleine Albright said during testimony sworn or not. Clinton's admitted that he blew it when he rejected the offer from the Sudan to make a deal for bin Laden. And he didn't do it because of the legal circumstances that they had themselves tied up in knots with, said they didn't have enough evidence or didn't so some legal circumstance necessary to extradite him and charge him and hold him. It was asinine. But even that misses the point, is not going to solve anything.

And I'd like to know just how it is that anybody is going to be made to feel better if anybody in this administration stands up and takes accountability. Dick Clarke did it and they don't feel any better about it, and Clarke was part of Bush administration. Clarke went up and said, "I'm sorry. Your government failed." Why isn't that enough? Why, if Clarke was there? If this is what these people want, why isn't that enough? Who do they want it from? And that's what makes me suspicious. You know, I still think some of these people may be -- I think I've heard some of them are "Republicans and voted for Bush." That story is out there. You never know. But it would be an easy way to diffuse any criticism to say that, but the fact is, I still believe th