BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: Here's more on this tire gauge business. This is in Elkhart, Indiana. Obama is continuing to make fun of the whole notion of drilling for oil. I asked him yesterday to keep this up, keep laughing at the notion people want to take steps to lower gasoline prices and energy prices. You keep laughing at it, Obama, go ahead. The American people need to see you laughing at it and making fun of that concept, as often as possible. We're gonna help. Here's this little bite from this morning.

OBAMA: George Bush's own Energy Department will tell you that you will not see a drop of oil from offshore drilling for seven years, seven years and that even when full production is going, 20 years from now, it would make just a marginal difference in terms of the price of gas. But, uh, nevertheless John McCain stood in a building somewhere, and he said we're going to drill here and drill now, and I don't know what he knew was below there.

RUSH: Sophistry, ladies and gentlemen, this is childish immaturity from the Democrat presidential nominee, The Messiah, Barack Obama. This is true childish immaturity, this kind of comment. And they keep reiterating this seven-to-ten year business, and get what they're saying. They're saying you properly inflating your tires will save more oil than anything we're going to drill for. An interesting timeline, by the way, to show you the sycophancy of the Drive-By Media. When Obama first made this comment, he said, "If we inflated our tires properly and got tune-ups, why, we would save more oil than we are going to get by any new drilling," which was just off the charts absurd. Later, it has been modified by Obama to be this three-to-four percent business. And the Drive-Bys are right in line with it, continuing to ignore what he originally said about this. They think they're on a roll over tire gauges. Well, once again it boils down to something very crucial. Conservation is great, and I'm not opposed to it. Neither is anybody else. Conservation doesn't equal growth. Strip all this away and you still are left with a Democrat Party at war demonizing oil, demonizing energy, doing their best to make you hate it. They want people hating oil just as they want people to hate George W. Bush. One more Obama bite, and this is interesting, too, because I mentioned this at the beginning of the program, how McCain's out there agreeing with Obama but only partly.

OBAMA: Last night after all that, Senator McCain actually said he agreed that keeping our tires inflated was a good idea. (laughter and applause) Which makes sense because it turns out NASCAR, which knows something about tires, apparently said the same thing, so did the triple A. And so in the coming days it's going to be interesting to watch this debate between John McCain and John McCain.

RUSH: Now, I think McCain debates himself anyway already and has been doing so for quite a while. But, ladies and gentlemen, the AAA and NASCAR are not saying that properly inflated tires will replace drilling for oil. They are not saying that. Of course you gotta have air in your tires. Gee whiz, this is so -- I'm sorry, ladies and gentlemen, for appearing so hysterical about this. I'm trying to remain coherent, 'cause this just defies any reason whatsoever that we're even having this debate, that people are actually debating the concept of tire gauges replacing drilling for oil. That's what this boils down to. Now as to the McCain business. McCain did say -- I have the quote. McCain said, (doing McCain impression) "Yes, yes, I agree, I agree with the AAA. We should all inflate our tires." And that's what the Drive-Bys are reporting. The Drive-Bys are reporting that that's what McCain said, we should all inflate our tires and, hey, McCain agrees with Obama. The rest of the quote, after McCain said, "Yeah, I don't disagree with inflating tires. The AAA strongly recommends it. But I also don't think that's a way to become energy independent," said McCain. And they're leaving that out. The Drive-Bys are leaving that out of his quote. So he doesn't agree with Obama, thank God, on this. He agrees with him on too many other things.

His leading vice presidential candidate, Tim Pawlenty, the governor of Minnesota is out there praising Obama today. I don't know about what. I just saw the graphic. Now, listen to this, though. Yesterday on Good Morning America, on ABC, the reporter, Jake Tapper, who was part of our montage earlier, circling -- and I like Jake. I think Jake's pretty good, but they've got this website, all the media guys have this website somewhere on which the Bush Energy Department purports to say that inflating tires will save all this -- it may, but it doesn't replace drilling for oil, which is Obama's point, it doesn't replace new sources of oil, period. And the idea that 800,000 new barrels of oil a day? Do you know how many barrels of oil we import a day? I looked it up. Do you know how many barrels of oil we import a day? About 10 million. Forty-nine percent of it comes from the western hemisphere, but that's another discussion.

So we import 10 million barrels of oil. Properly inflated tires almost would reduce that to only 9 million a day? Is that what we are to believe here? The only way that could be is if people are driving around on flat tires, and nobody is driving around on flat tires. The assumption is that nobody is driving around on correctly inflated tires. This is just plain stupid, and the way these people circle the wagons and fall for this, and they are supposed to be journalists, I mean at least intelligent people. I know they're in the tank for Obama, and I know that they want Obama to win and they think his candidacy is historic, but for crying out loud, I would not throw my reputation away, I would not dare do what they are doing with my own reputation. Anyway, Good Morning America, Jake Tapper interviewing Anne Mathias. She's with the Stanford Group. And this is what Anne Mathias said.

MATHIAS: Unless everybody in the country is driving, you know, a 1969 Chevy Impala or something like that with the tires at half inflation, you're not going to realize as much savings as he's talking about.

RUSH: Precisely, Jake! And Jake Tapper was doing the interview with her. I like Jake. In fact, at one time -- just to share a personal thought with you -- I thought Jake should be considered to replace Tim Russert. But this is just mind-boggling, because she's exactly right. I don't know what the Stanford Group is, and I don't know who Anne Mathias is, but I'll bet she knows who I am and what the EIB Network is, and we're both on the same page here. If everybody is driving around on flat tires, friends, then this stuff matters. And the tune-up business, we dealt with that yesterday in great detail. Cars don't get tune-ups since 1985. San Bernardino, California, this is Dave. Great to have you on the EIB Network, sir. Hello.

CALLER: How you doing today?

RUSH: Fine and dandy, sir.

CALLER: The overinflation of the tire thing, I'm a licensed mechanic for 25 years here in California. It's an old trick the mechanic used to do to give the impression that you got better gas mileage, when they tuned-up your vehicle. You can check with the bureau of automotive repair, it's an illegal procedure here.

RUSH: Wait, wait, I lost you. Are we talking tune-ups or tire inflation?

CALLER: Tire inflation. Now, the whole thing is saving barrels of oil, right?

RUSH: Yeah, but what you're talking about, 25-year-old trick mechanics used to do. Start this again.

CALLER: Okay. During the smog check program, the old bar 90, let's see, cars that come in with bad emission, the mechanic would sell him a tune-up, not perform it, overinflate the tires, so that the customer thought that he was getting better gas mileage.

RUSH: Okay, okay, got it, so they'd come in, ask for a tune-up. The mechanic would fake the tune-up and charge for it, right?

CALLER: Doesn't save on --

RUSH: Well, no, but I've run into this so many times, I mean this mechanic tells you you need a tune-up, what are you going to do? Can't go do it yourself. Most people can't. Okay, yeah, fix it. At any rate, at any rate --

CALLER: But there's a whole point to it. I'm just a little nervous being on the phone, but you could do some research on that, and it wouldn't save a million barrels of oil a day or such.

RUSH: Of course not. So you would overinflate the tires so the customer would think he got a tune-up because his gas mileage would be better?

CALLER: Right, when in fact the car wasn't fixed.

RUSH: Yeah.

CALLER: Just more emissions, we're not saving any fuel.

RUSH: Yeah, yeah. This is getting even more absurd. Don't be nervous out there, Dave. I appreciate the call. I didn't hear a couple things you said in the first go round. It was my fault, not yours. I am tempted, I am tempted to actually go out and overinflate my tires and deal with the dashboard warnings that I will get, and I want to see if my mileage increases from what I'm getting now, which is about seven and a half miles a gallon, to eight -- I want to see. I know they say this, but I don't believe it's noticeable. I don't believe you would actually notice it. How do you know that your tires are not losing, what about wind, if the wind's in your way, you got a head wind, you got two forces against you then, you've got roadway tension, and you've got wind tension. I cannot believe this whole thing.

As to mechanics lying to you about your car... (laughing) Kansas City, making no money, 1979, old Pontiac Bonneville on its last legs, air-conditioner is not working, and then the engine just goes nuts. I'm out near the Kansas City Royals stadium at the time, Royals stadium, so I pull into this mechanic, this auto repair shop, the mechanic had a plastic Jesus on the cash register, I said, "This is the place for me." So I took it in there, and the guy looked at it and said, "You need a new disgronificator." I said, "I never heard of that, what do you mean?" "Well, you can't drive without it. You can leave here and you might get a couple, three miles but you're going to be back here." "How much it cost?" "Eight hundred bucks." Eight hundred bucks for a disgronificator. I didn't have another car to use, I'm in a jam here. So I said, "Okay, go ahead and put it in." So we've all had our experiences here. Somebody tells you something is wrong with your car, you can't fix it yourself, you just gotta get it done. And if it drives, maybe you'll get a second opinion someplace.