Hillary Clinton's campaign literally encircling reporters with a rope during an Independence Day parade to prevent them from approaching Clinton and asking pesky questions, and the reporters acquiescing -- a scenario tailor-made for Rush Limbaugh to mock.
Limbaugh didn't comment on this during his radio show Monday, saying he didn't want to, uh, "get roped in." But on his program yesterday, Limbaugh compared it to a scene from one of the funniest comedies of the last half-century, and one so persistently incorrect that it could never get made today -- Blazing Saddles.
The scene that Limbaugh cited might not come right to mind, but his analogy hit its mark --
Bernie Sanders is drawing crowds like I used to draw crowds at the Rush to Excellence tour. Meanwhile, Hillary can't draw flies. She can't sell books, she can't draw flies. ... I mean, really, the networks are going ga ga over the fact that she's going to sit for an interview. And now they're asking themselves, will she face tough questions? Will she get tough, how will she deal with the tough questions? She's not going to get tough questions! I guarantee you, the questions have been vetted. The Clintons control everything they can. You know, for all the talk about how we on the right distrust the media, one thing, you may have trouble believing this, but I have it on good authority, 'cause I didn't believe it when I first heard it, that Hillary hates 'em. ...
Did you see, I didn't talk about it yesterday because I just refused to get roped in, I'm not making a pun. I just refused to get roped in by this daily soap opera, but did you see the photos from the Fourth of July weekend where the press got roped in? The press following Hillary got roped in. I mean, they actually roped 'em in! They put ropes around the press contingent so the press contingent would be contained and so everybody knew who they -- you know what it reminded me of? Did you see Blazing Saddles? One of the funniest sight gags in Blazing Saddles is, you got Slim Pickens and his gang, the bad guys, and they're riding into town to get the sheriff, the first black sheriff in whatever, what was the name of the town in Blazing Saddles? (Rock Ridge). It doesn't matter.They've got a black sheriff and Mel Brooks is named (Governor) William J. Le Petomane Jr. (correct except for "junior"), plays paddleball with himself, Hedley Lamarr runs the whole town (no, he was state attorney general), Harvey Corman, and of course the cowboys in the, they don't like the fact there's a black sheriff. So Slim Whitman and the gang (Limbaugh corrects himself) ... Slim Pickens gets his gang of bad guys and they're riding through the desert on the way to this town. And in the middle of the desert, there is a toll booth. It's just that, there's no, there's no border, there's no impediment, there's no obstruction, there is a little, you know, you put the quarter in when you leave a parking garage and the little bar raises up so that you can drive, there is one of those.
But all these guys would have had to do was, you know, take their horses 10 feet in either direction, they could have missed the toll booth! They could have run over the, they stopped and they grumbled and they went through their pants to try to find change to pay the toll. Count Basie and his orchestra are playing right next to the toll booth.
Different scene as I recall -- the cameo by Basie and his musicians came when the Gucci-clad Sheriff Bart, played by Cleavon Little, is riding his horse en route to his new job in Rock Ridge while the exuberant strains of "April in Paris" are heard in the background. The music is performed by the Count Basie Orchestra, inexplicably situated in the desert, and Basie gestures appreciatively toward Little's character as he rides past.
And these idiot cowboys stop, look for money to pay the toll on their way to get the black sheriff. Well, that's what the press reminded me of -- Hillary roped 'em in and they stayed roped! Wherever she was! I thought I was looking at the bad guys in Blazing Saddles. And here are these sycophant media types and you should have seen it on CNN and MSNBC, all these analysts were embarrassed for Hillary, they thought it was horrible optics. They thought it was the kind of thing that could doom a campaign. I mean, they literally were sitting on the set with their heads in their hands and they were all really worried about the optics and how it was going to hurt Hillary that the press had been roped in and contained.
It's not going to hurt Hillary. Nobody's going to remember it! The only people, and the optics -- the only people who got harmed by the optics, the media! They're the ones that look like the -- wouldn't you love to rope the media?! Hell, if I could do it, if I could get away with it I'd do it. Good for Hillary for roping 'em in! Wish that we could all do that! They're the ones that look like the sycophant idiots, not Hillary.
The tollbooth scene remains a classic, all these years later, though it's not my favorite in the film. This would come when Sheriff Bart rides into Rock Ridge to be greeted by its aghast, racist residents who did not realize until then that they had hired a sheriff who is black. Just when it appears the heavily armed townspeople will lynch Bart, he draws his pistol and aims it at his head, warning that "the next man makes a move, the n***** gets it!"
"Hold it, men," warns a town official. "He's not bluffing." The residents proceed to drop their weapons as Bart hastily departs while holding a mock conversation with himself as hostage and hostage-taker. Much the same scene was replayed 20 years after Blazing Saddles appeared when O.J. Simpson led police on a slow-speed chase in his Bronco.
