RUSH: Charlotte, North Carolina. This is Melanie. I am so glad you waited. Welcome to the program. Hi.
CALLER: Thanks a bunch, Rush, for taking my call. I’m a proud gun owner and NRA member. My comment is, I don’t think the Obama administration is really interested in protecting people from gun violence. I think their real agenda is to bully conservatives and the NRA. You know, put the screws to the bitter clingers. That certainly seems to fit their template of political revenge.
RUSH: You know, I think you are on to something. I remember back in the Clinton years, Wayne LaPierre was on This Week with David Brinkley. And it was after an event such as Sandy Hook. It was after some mass shooting. Wayne LaPierre went on the ABC Sunday show, and he said — paraphrasing, this is very close — he thought President Clinton was comfortable with a certain level of violence because it allowed him to pontificate against guns. He was comfortable with the level of violence ’cause it allowed him to advance his agenda blaming the gun.
CALLER: Right.
RUSH: You essentially would agree with that, right? Because you’re saying the same thing. They don’t care about gun safety. They’re using this as an opportunity to get rid of a group that opposes Obama.
CALLER: That’s correct. It’s a political opportunity. You wouldn’t want to waste a crisis.
RUSH: Right. It’s a political opportunity to negate a political opponent.
CALLER: Right.
RUSH: In this case, the NRA.
CALLER: Right. Probably one of their greatest adversaries in the last two elections.
RUSH: No question about it. Obama is not running anything again, we think, but the Democrats surely will be. And despite what they say, we know that there is a deep resentment for the NRA. And, you’re right: Obama and his bitter-clinger comment when he was in San Francisco: They cling to guns and their religion during periods of change that they don’t like or can’t explain. I think you’re on to something. I really do. I know it sounds harsh to say that the president is really not primarily concerned with gun safety so much as he sees a political opportunity, but I do. I think you’re on to something. I think that’s really smart.
CALLER: Well, thank you.
RUSH: All right, Melanie, I appreciate it.
BREAK TRANSCRIPT
I just got a note from Erick Erickson. He has an occasional guest spot on CNN. He’s at RedState.com. And he’s right about something here. He said (paraphrasing), “Mark the date, it isn’t gonna be long before moderate Republicans start going on television to push the notion that guns are hurting Republicans with independent voters and women.” Just like abortion, just like the pro-lifers are hurting Republicans with independents. Just like immigration. The moderate linguine-spined Republicans, it isn’t gonna be long as this controversy heats up, you know, they wilt with a little heat. It doesn’t take the moderate Republicans long to slink away. They don’t like having to stand up and defend what they believe. They’d rather give away a core belief. They’d rather annunciate something that would make them friends with their enemies.
So you watch. It won’t be long before the same bunch of Republicans that tell us we’ve gotta get amnesty, we’ve gotta go after the Spanish vote, and we’ve gotta relax our position on abortion, we cannot keep up this War on Women. We are ruining ourselves. Never mind the fact that Romney won independents in five out of the eight battleground states. In fact, the thing to take away from this election — if I may make a brief departure — it’s the first election in I don’t know how long that the candidate who won a vast majority of independents lost the election. The reason Romney lost is the Republican base didn’t show up, and the reason the Republican base didn’t show up is precisely because Republican moderates ran the show.
If the Republican moderates nominate another northeasterner moderate Republican they’re gonna lose again because the base is gonna sit home. The base does not want to hear that they are the problem in the Republican Party. So the NRA, members of the NRA — you see, you gun owners, I have to tell you, you are seen in exactly the same light as pro-lifers are seen, a bunch of pickup-truck-driving hayseed hicks who get to church on Saturday night to get a close parking space for services on Sunday. And you go to things like ice cream socials, and you do all this old-fashioned, embarrassing stuff while wearing those weird orange hunting uniforms, and you’re embarrassing.
The guns and the NRA, they’re gonna be tossed in with the stack of other things that embarrass Republican moderates, and that is, “We’ve gotta relax our stance on amnesty, Rush. Rush, what are you gonna do about the Christians? You’ve got to get this abortion issue off the table.” Well, add guns to it. It’s coming. And the left knows this, by the way. They’ve got years of experience of learning exactly how to make Republican moderates buckle.