I guess I was mistaken. Rush did not meet with President Elect Obama.
Rush was not absent from his show because of a "super secret meeting" with President Elect Obama. It was in fact a super secret meeting with outgoing President George W Bush.
Excerpted from an exhaustive recap by Rush on his January 14 show:
Rush Upstages Obama's Dinner with Washingtonian Republicans
RUSH: Yes, I know, ladies and gentlemen, even when I'm not present at an event, I hijack it, I upstage it...
Last week I received an invitation from President Bush to attend a farewell luncheon with just the two of us in his dining room off of the Oval Office... I intended to mention this to you on Monday just to let you know that I would not be here on Tuesday. I forgot to mention it to you... So I decided to have a little fun and play a typical little radio prank...
the prank was [Fill-in host] Jason Lewis was going to replay the audio clip of me offering to go anywhere at any time at a moment's notice to meet with Obama... he then announced that he had been informed late in the day that I was to be mysteriously absent, he had to come in and do the program, which of course created the impression, understandably in people's minds that I had been summoned by The Messiah to come up and present ideas when in fact nothing of the sort was true. It was just a gag, you know, a radio bit...
The APF blog is a big fan of the absurd. Rush Limbaugh expresses similar as he deconstruct his own unwitting prank:
RUSH: (laughing) But let me ask you a question, seriously. You know, one of the things we do on this program, the root of the gag, of course, was we illustrate absurdity by being absurd. I think it's patently absurd that Barack Obama would ever ask for a meeting with me. It is not absurd that he would ask for a meeting with the guys he asked for a meeting with.
Interestingly whilst Rush saw Barack's meeting as a PR ploy to appear post-partisan, as well as a preemptive move to selectively legitimize favourable "Establishment Conservatives". Rush did not rule out meeting Barack if personally asked:
He went with the people who are being critical of conservatives, being critical of conservative leaders these days -- like me. The last thing he'll want to do is legitimize me, and he'd run the risk of doing that, were he to have a meeting with me. Unless, of course, he asked for the meeting. If he asked, I'd go. I mean, there's no question I'd go. If, after the meeting the leak went out, "Ah, Obama told Limbaugh what-for and Obama did this and Obama said that."You know, unless they tried to do it that way, but I don't see that. I don't see it happening in any way, shape, manner, or form.
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