Friday, November 22, 2002

This partial transcript from Hannity & Colmes, November 21, 2002 was provided by the Federal Document Clearing House.

ALAN COLMES: Welcome back to HANNITY & COLMES. I'm Alan Colmes. Coming up, Senator Fred Thompson will join us. He's getting ready to leave Washington. Did he get everything done he wanted to on Capitol Hill? We're going to ask him.

But first, yesterday Senate Majority leader Tom Daschle lashed out at conservative radio talk show host Rush Limbaugh for promoting a culture that leads to threats against him and his family. Sean had a chance to sit down with El Rush Bo today and here is that interview.

HANNITY: So here it is, Tom Daschle lashing out, what did you think?

LIMBAUGH: I'm stunned. You know every time they lose, they have this pattern of blaming talk radio for their losses instead of examining themselves. I think the root of this, Sean, is actually in the fact that they held power for 40 years, lost it in the House.

When you run the House, you run Washington, and they still haven't figured out how to act like losers. They still haven't figured what it is to be in the minority. They look at all of these losses as aberrations, and they haven't changed their playbook or their game plan, its personal attack, personal insult.

They don't refute the issues that we stand for. They don't refute the points we make. They just attack us personally, and now Fox and all this other media, they get challenged. They had a free run for all those years with the mainstream press just parroting whatever they said, and those days are over.

HANNITY: Well I'm a friend and a fan for a long time, and I think I understand your program. You know you never said anything over the line, and I think you really are careful every day not to.

LIMBAUGH: One of the best pieces of advice I got when I was in Sacramento in 1988, it was a station that wanted controversy -- they said, look, we'll back you up as long as what you say is what you believe. If you're just going to say outrageous things to make people mad, we're not going to back you up. And you know you don't have to do much to make people mad, just tell them what you think.

HANNITY: Just be Rush, right...

LIMBAUGH: Well same thing with you. I mean statically half the people are going to disagree with you.

HANNITY: Right.

LIMBAUGH: But no, I -- the point is to communicate and persuade...

HANNITY: Right.

LIMBAUGH: ... you know, and you don't do that by alienating people.

HANNITY: You know I wonder, though, and one of the things I know you've chronicled, I've talked a lot about is Republicans are racist. Republicans are sexist. Republicans want to kick grandma down the stairs.

LIMBAUGH: Right.

HANNITY: This is a card that Daschle himself and a lot of prominent Democrats have played. Is he as guilty of the very thing he's accusing you of?

LIMBAUGH: Well I think so, and I think the difference now is - as I say, it's an old playbook. There aren't many pages in it. We know for 50 years we've had to develop intellectual responses to this stuff. They've gotten a free ride. We challenge them. They come back with these slogans.

They try to divide people into group and pit them against each other based on fear. And it's just not working anymore, and so they come out and accuse us of doing what they're now failing to succeed at. And - but the point that they're failing to realize, answer our charge, answer what we believe on issues. They can't, because they're liberals and they can't admit that.

And they say well, we've got to come back and come out with a new campaign or a new plan. We've got to come up ways to distinguish ourselves from the Republican - they did for 50 years, and they can't be honest about what they're going to do. It could be like Mondale in '84. We've got to raise taxes, fine, that'll win, right.

HANNITY: Was it attempt when he tried to identify what it is that you do on talk radio or what others do on talk radio as entertainment, as a means of trying to diminish this?

LIMBAUGH: Yes, of course.

HANNITY: Yes.

LIMBAUGH: But you know, Daschle, to say that politics isn't entertainment, you ever heard Johnny Carson...

HANNITY: Of course.

LIMBAUGH: ... or Leno or Letterman? They are entertainment. They take themselves so seriously they need to be knocked down, this public life -- you and I are in public life.

HANNITY: Right.

LIMBAUGH: We get threats. I mean entertainment, did you have a college professor that was funny as well as informative?

HANNITY: Favorite one.

LIMBAUGH: Exactly. So there's -- the effort to qualify or classify us as entertainers is actually going to make us more intriguing to people that haven't yet found us. So more...

HANNITY: Do you think - I mean look, you have the biggest audience by far in talk radio, on average 21 million listeners a week, somewhere around there...

(CROSSTALK)

HANNITY: ... somewhere, over the years, and it's consistent throughout the years. Do you think you have the ability to persuade? Do you think you have the ability to convince people your right and does that motivate people to go out...

LIMBAUGH: Well if I had any doubts, I don't anymore. If you go back and look at what Daschle said, he said we've been talking to experts, and we found out that even people who disagree with Limbaugh listen because he's entertaining. Guess what? That means we're crossing the line. That means their people are listening to us and enjoying it because it's entertaining. And yes, we can persuade them. We won the election, didn't we?

HANNITY: The real reason they lost, they're void of ideas, how do you - quick analysis in the final second left.

LIMBAUGH: Yes, no ideas - well no, I think they lost because everybody now knows what they stand for.

(CROSSTALK)

LIMBAUGH: And recognize that they couldn't admit what they stood for. It's a popular president and nobody wants to listen to their president being beat during a time of war by a bunch of people put in politics, their own reacquisition of power over the national interest. It's that simple.

HANNITY: All right -- your hearing is phenomenal. This is a medical miracle.

LIMBAUGH: Well in one-on-one conversation, it's pretty good. If everyone else in this room was talking, I'd really have to focus on your lips and try to -- because they'd be as loud as you are. It's just part of the technology here...

(CROSSTALK)

LIMBAUGH: But it is miraculous because...

(CROSSTALK)

LIMBAUGH: ... if I take this thing off, I am stone deaf.

HANNITY: Yes.

LIMBAUGH: And with the right liberal interviewer, it'll come in handy.

HANNITY: I remember when you first had this, you banged on the desk and you told me you couldn't hear it. So now to see this, I'm a friend, I'm real happy for you.

LIMBAUGH: Thank you. Thanks...

HANNITY: Hey, continued success. Thanks for doing this, Rush. Good to see you.

(CROSSTALK)

LIMBAUGH: Sean and hey, you know, you - this is -- we're all in this together, you know.

HANNITY: Yes.

LIMBAUGH: I think we all will be very proud and happy.

HANNITY: I'm going to the person (UNINTELLIGIBLE) you paved the way and you made it a lot easier for a lot of us following you.

LIMBAUGH: Yes, I'm getting all this full coverage...

HANNITY: I know...

LIMBAUGH: ... of "TIME" Magazine. They put me on the cover...

(CROSSTALK)

HANNITY: It's because you paved the way. It's easy...

LIMBAUGH: Barbecuing with Sean, a conservative (UNINTELLIGIBLE) with me.

HANNITY: Oh man.

LIMBAUGH: And it's fun.

HANNITY: It is fun.

(CROSSTALK)

HANNITY: And I never dreamed it'd be this fun. So, good to see you. Thanks for doing this.

LIMBAUGH: You bet. My pleasure. Give everybody who cares over there...

HANNITY: Even Alan. Say hi to Alan.

LIMBAUGH: (UNINTELLIGIBLE) loves Alan. Alan is a...

HANNITY: I know.

LIMBAUGH: ... great guy. He really is...

HANNITY: He is a good guy...

LIMBAUGH: Well tell them all I said hi.

HANNITY: He was defending you last night.

LIMBAUGH: I saw...

HANNITY: I know.

LIMBAUGH: I saw that.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

HANNITY: You were defending him last night. You like Rush.

COLMES: I like him very much. I don't agree with much of what was says, and I disagree with much of what was said there in terms of the content, but we'll get into that in the next segment...

(CROSSTALK)

COLMES: ... debate the host.

HANNITY: I've some something I've got to show the audience. I've got to tell him -- I've got Daschle in the biggest hypocrisy. I'm going to show you next. I'm going to show it.

COLMES: May we take a break now?

HANNITY: We can take a break...

COLMES: Would that be OK with you?

Coming up next, how does the liberal talk radio world feel about the senator's statements? And then they feel a little left out. We'll ask host Nancy Skinner after the break.

And then the bill is passed, but will our homeland actually be safer, or will big money pockets just get bigger? Senator Fred Thompson joins our debate coming up on HANNITY & COLMES.

-- Anonymous, November 22, 2002