RUSH: It was disgusting and it was reprehensible and it was predictable. Greetings, my friends, it’s Rush Limbaugh, this the EIB Network and the Limbaugh Institute for Advanced Conservative Studies. Great to have you here. Telephone number, 800-282-2882. And the e-mail address, ElRushbo@eibnet.com.
The office of the president of the United States was demeaned last night. President Barack Obama gave a grossly inappropriate and, to me, embarrassing speech, a campaign speech disguised as a big speech to a joint session of Congress. It was grossly inappropriate in content. There were lies, falsehoods, distortions, it was embarrassing in tone. He called his critics liars when his own positions have been proven to be untrue. It’s just like this CNN poll. That speech last night was a fraud. It was dishonest. It demeaned the office of the presidency. Now, after the speech CNN and Opinion Research Corporation released a flash poll and said, wow, look at this: Two-thirds of the people who watched the speech have changed their mind. You want to hear who was sampled? Forty-five percent Democrat, 18% Republican. That is also fraud. Passing a poll with a sample like that off as a representative sample of the country is absolutely fraudulent, which is what the entire State-Controlled Media has become.
Last night was uncomfortable, especially how about if you’re a parent and you had your children in school this week, the president’s speech to the kids, just as I said, it was to set up last night’s speech. We’re being told and kids are being told to look up to this man. It was an awful speech. He was petulant; he was childish; he was a community organizer and agitator; he lied; he was divisive; he attacked me; he attacked Sarah Palin; he attacked conservative Republicans in Congress who dare to challenge government-run health care. He continued to attack tens of millions of Americans who spent the summer attending town hall meetings. It was crude. It was disgusting. The most crude and disgusting performance by any president I have seen.
You want a summary of the lies? He lied about only 5% of Americans being forced to the public option. Not true. He lied about the money he would drain from Medicare. Not true what he said. He lied about end-of-life decisions which comes down to rationing. He lied about coverage for illegal aliens, on and on and on, having attacked and lied throughout this thing. He then claims he wants to work with Republicans with whom he has not met since April. He claims to be nonpartisan, above the fray. Now, Joe Wilson, congressman, South Carolina, this is what happened at one point during the speech last night.
OBAMA: There are also those who claim that our reform efforts would insure illegal immigrants. This too is false. The reforms — (crowd rumbling) the reforms I am proposing would not apply to those who are here illegally.
WILSON: You lie! (crowd rumbling)
OBAMA: It’s not true.
RUSH: That’s Joe Wilson, a congressman from South Carolina, a freshman. That was a blatant lie. I’m going to tell you something. One of the things that’s really irritated me all morning and last night was listening to Republicans, even after Wilson has apologized, and I wish he had not, but he’s apologized and even after he’s apologized, members of his own party are all over television denigrating him, ‘It was bad decorum.’ Folks, can I tell you what is happening here? This speech last night and this administration is not your average presidential administration. This is not a garden party. This is not a lecture at Harvard or any other University. We are in the process, we are in the midst of an administration that is trying to totally tear down the institutions and traditions that have made this country great. He is lying, President Obama is, from the moment he opens his mouth until he ends the speech. I was shouting, ‘You’re lying,’ throughout the speech at the television. You’re lying! It’s a lie! Joe Wilson simply articulated what millions of Americans were saying. This is a beanbag.
We’re not talking about the Marquess of Queensberry rules here. This is not some debating society. You people in the Republican Party, I’ve heard you. You are accusing this administration and its allies and all the entire left of dismantling every institution that has defined this country’s greatness. And if you now are going to attack one of your own, Joe Wilson, especially after he’s apologized for simply joining the argument — it’s about time somebody said this to Obama! It’s about time Biden got upset. It’s about time Michelle Obama got upset. It’s about time that Nancy Pelosi got upset. These people get a free rein. They can sit there and boo George Bush in 2005 all they want. You got Code Pink come in congressional and Senate hearings and disrupt, they can do their Abu Ghraib stuff, and they say they’re great citizens, they are great heroes, these are great examples. Remember, dissent was the new definition of patriotism. ‘But, Rush, but, Rush, this was a total departure from parliamentary decorum and rules.’ Don’t give me that with all those standing ovations last night, a 35-minute speech stretched out to almost one hour because of the standing O and the applauses and so forth.
Folks, we are in a serious struggle to save our country and Joe Wilson voiced what millions of Americans have been saying about this man, Barack Obama, for months. And if we’re going to start censuring our own people on our team who are willing to try, then maybe we need new people in the game. I was ecstatic when I heard that last night. This is serious. This is not normal, everyday politics. One of the things I’m going to do here shortly, I’ve got the standard traditional analysis of the speech, but I’m going to translate this speech for you last night and I’m going to give it to you as if Obama is speaking to you, in addition to the standard line-by-line analysis. Last night he equated profits with overhead. I don’t know if he’s just stupid. Somebody wrote this speech. Somebody had to put that in the teleprompter. Somebody vetted the speech. Profits are equated with overhead? And somehow we’ve gotta reduce them. I know he hates profit, and I know he wants to use profit as a weapon against successful people. But profit is what’s left after the overhead and the other expenses. He’s either a blooming idiot or thinks that we are and knows that the State-Controlled Media is not going to call him out on this kind of thing.
There was another thing last night that I just had to laugh. He is going to cut $500 billion from Medicare but not from coverage. No, from fraud and waste. Well, if he’s going to do that, why not do that now, why not do that six months ago, why not do it today? Why wait four years? But that’s not even the most salient point about this. Stop and think of this. Barack Obama, the architect of waste, fraud, deficit spending, lying, everything you can think of, says that he is going to use the waste and fraud and abuse in government to pay for more government! The waste and fraud and abuse in government is going to be used to pay for more government. I was just stunned last night. Joe Wilson need not have apologized and members of his own party need not jump on him now, all this business about decorum. Folks, if we’re serious about the things that we’re charging, if we’re serious about the things that we’re accusing this administration of, then we cannot trash and destroy and discard one of our own. I mean finally somebody in the Republican Party spoke up. May not have been the best place, but, frankly, I don’t have a problem at all with what he did because of the serious nature of what we face, the serious nature of what we’re up against. But, for crying out loud, somebody finally comes along and tries to get in the game. You know a lot of people in that room last night know he’s lying through his teeth and wanted to say it and Joe Wilson finally did. Let’s listen to some audio sound bites of the State-Controlled Media and Obama flacks calling this kind of heckling unprecedented.
WILLIAMS: The president was heckled by at least one member of Congress. For a time it sounded much more like the British parliament than a joint session of Congress.
BLITZER: It was sort of unusual to hear one congressman say —
BROWN: ‘You lie.’
BLITZER: ‘You lie’ to the president.
AXELROD: I have never seen it before in a presidential address and it was unfortunate.
GIBSON: I have never heard anybody in a presidential speech, be it a State of the Union, somebody yell out ‘lie’ when the president says something in a speech.
RUSH: Well, there’s a first time for everything, and it happened to be true, Charlie, it happened to be true. Here’s Vice President Biden. This is on Good Morning America today and Diane Sawyer said, ‘We watched your face at that moment, you turned to Pelosi, what did you say to her?’
BIDEN: I was embarrassed. I was embarrassed for a chamber and a Congress I love. I served there for 36 years and I thought it demeaned the institution, and I thought it sent a signal to every young person out there that — that was very, very damaging, but I know Joe, he apologized, I take him at his word that he got caught up in the emotion of the moment, but the fact is that the assertion the president made is absolutely true. It will not cover undocumented aliens.
RUSH: It’s simply not true. It will cover undocumented aliens. Now, it may not specifically say so in the bill. But we have to know that what’s coming is amnesty. They’re going to be made legal. We’re going to have all of this. If Obama gets his way we’re going to legalize 12 to 20 million illegals, and they’re going to become citizens and they’re going to get coverage. And they’re, at the end of the day, going to still be illegal regardless the law and amnesty and everything else. It’s coming, there’s no question, this is the point. This is precisely what Obama wants to accomplish. We got new job numbers today. We got new foreclosure numbers today. It’s through the roof bad. The crisis that should be addressed by this president last night is the one of his making: nearly three million unemployed. He had the audacity to open up last night and tell people we’re coming back from the brink. He had the audacity to lie about the state of the economy and his role in repairing it. He’s in the process of destroying it, and on purpose. And this is what we know and finally a guy stood up last night and said ‘you lie.’ He ought to be a guidepost, Joe Wilson, for everybody else on our side in dealing with this. Let’s go back to 2005. It’s unprecedented, Charlie Gibson never heard anything like this; Brian Williams never heard anything like this. State of the Union address, first one of his second term, February 2, 2005.
BUSH: By the year 2042 the entire system would be exhausted and bankrupt. (crowd rumbling) If steps are not taken to avert that outcome, the only solutions would be dramatically higher taxes, massive new borrowing, or sudden and severe cuts in Social Security benefits or other government programs. (booing)
RUSH: Got booed in 2005, what about the decorum there, what about the precious protocol? And, of course, Bush was telling the truth here about Social Security where it was headed and his attempt to reform it. Same night, same speech, Ted Koppel reported after the speech, said this.
KOPPEL: When the president talked about the bankruptcy of Social Security there were clearly some Democrats on the floor who thought that that was taking it too far, and they did something that — they booed.
RUSH: Well, Ted Koppel describing it, it happened numerous times, and they did something that was taking it too far. Bush wasn’t lying about anything. Barack Obama was lying through his teeth last night. That’s taking it too far. That demeaned the entire chamber. If you want to talk about demeaning the chamber, the president of the United States demeaned the chamber last night. He showed up and lied through his teeth. He was petulant, he was mean-spirited, he was angry, he was arrogant, conceited, condescending, but more than anything else he lied through his teeth and everybody knows it. Everybody knows it. Here’s John Roberts, cookie-cutter anchor at the time working for CBS. He was the White House correspondent talking about the boos that Bush got in 2005.
ROBERTS: At a couple of points in this address it looked more like the British parliament than the United States Congress. I’ve never heard the minority party shout at the president during the State of the Union address.
RUSH: Yeah, never heard it, and who did it? It was the Democrats and it wasn’t just one voice it was a whole bunch of them. See when they’re in power anything goes and we’re not to tread it. They have the floor and nobody else does and that’s it. Now, this next bite is when the speech started to go — well, I think it started to go south from the moment it started, first lie about the economy ‘we’re back from the brink,’ foreclosures at an all-time high, teen unemployment at an all-time high since records have been kept, 560,000 more jobs lost. I mean it’s breathtaking. But listen, this is when it finally dawned on people that they had to do something in response to the lies.
OBAMA: Improving our health care system only works if everybody does their part. And while there remain some significant details to be ironed out — (laughter) I believe (laughter) — I believe a broad consensus exists for the aspects of the plan I just outlined.
RUSH: He doesn’t have a plan, he hasn’t presented a plan and what he claimed last night cannot be found in any plan in the House or the Senate. He still didn’t produce a plan.
BREAK TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: Okay, we’re back. Rush Limbaugh, the EIB Network and talent on loan from God. This morning on Capitol Hill, Joe Wilson (Republican, South Carolina) spoke to the press.
WILSON: I’ve heard from the leadership that they wanted me to contact the White House and say that my statements were inappropriate. I did. I’m very grateful that the White House, in talking with them, they indicated that they appreciated the call and that we needed to have a civil discussion about the health care issues, and I certainly agree with that. And so I’m happy to discuss the health care issues and in particular on the issue which I think is very important, of whether the bills would include illegal aliens or not.
RUSH: All right, so the Republican leadership asked him to call the White House and apologize. That should tell you something. But he stuck to his guns on Obama’s lie on illegal immigrants.
WILSON: There were two different amendments on the bill which would have provided for verification of persons having citizenship. They were almost party-line votes. On one of the amendments several Democrats actually voted with us. Also, the Congressional Resource Services has indicated that indeed the bills that are before Congress would include illegal aliens. And I think this is wrong. We need to be discussing issues specifically to help the American people, and that would not include illegal aliens.
RUSH: So he’s sticking to his guns. He said the truth. Here’s the thing that’s amazing about this. Here you have a president lying through his teeth from the start of that speech through the end of that speech — and in this speech he’s accusing conservatives of lying about his plan, a plan which does not exist! He wasn’t even grounded in reality last night. There is not one piece of legislation that has anything remotely like what Obama said was in his plan. He’s not going to submit a plan. The only workable plan right now is the House plan, and nothing that he said is in it. The House bill contradicts everything Obama claimed last night! So while he is in the midst of lying about his plan, he is at the same time falsely accusing us of lying about it. So the question is: Why is it okay for Obama, as president of the United States, in a legislative setting to come out here and lie through his teeth and somehow it’s bad form for Joe Wilson to tell the truth in the same setting? Because the fact of the matter is Obama was lying. What Joe Wilson said was true. They were harping today on the truth-teller. It ought to be the other way around.
BREAK TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: Yes, I’m disgusted now. I was disgusted last night. I think I slept disgusted. So Obama doesn’t intend to provide health care to illegal aliens, huh? Well, I have a piece of legislation here, a summary. It’s from 1998, when Obama was in the Illinois legislature: ‘Provide Funding for Social Services for Noncitizens.’ It was a bill that he supported and cosponsored: ‘Provide Funding for Social Services for Noncitizens.’ Here’s the official summary: ‘To establish a grant program to provide financial assistance to states and local governments for the costs providing health care and educational services to noncitizens and to provide additional funding for the state criminal alien assassin program.’ He did this also as a United States Senator. Senator Clinton made the introductory remarks on this.
When he says, for example, ‘Nothing in this plan will require you or your employer to change the coverage or the doctor you have,’ it’s very clever, but we’ve read the bill. No, nothing will ‘require’ it. It’s simply going to happen! Because the private sector cannot compete with an entity that does not have to make a profit. It’s in the House bill. If you change any aspect, including the price of your premium, of your current plan, you are automatically disqualified from it and you are sent to the public plan! You’re sent to the government-run option. Now, you’re going to be coerced. He says, ‘Nothing in this plan will ‘require”? The plan will eventually force you there. He has said it in 2003 and 2007! We have the audio. Cookie, get it out of the archives again. He said it many, many times.
‘The public option may take 10, 15, 20 years but that’s how we’re going to get there.’ A number of Democrats today said the same thing. He’s lying through his teeth about this.
BREAK TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: The House Republican leader John Boehner just on television reading from the House bill the amendment that would provide health care to illegal aliens. Facts are facts. They’re problematic for Obama. He believes that the power of his personality and the power of his biography and the power of his telepromptered oratory can overcome the truth. Well, he’s going to have some trouble. March of 2007, Service Employees International Union health care forum, these are Obama’s buddies, this is where he tells the truth. These are the people to whom he’s honest. Now, he said last night, ‘If you like your doctor and if you like your insurance plan, you’re going to be able to keep it, you’ll never, ever have to give it up,’ blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, ‘nothing in this plan will require you or your employer to change coverage, the doctor you have.’ Want to know his real intentions?
OBAMA: My commitment is to make sure that we’ve got universal health care for all Americans by the end of my first term as president. I would hope that we set up a system that allows those who can go through their employer to access a federal system or a state pool of some sort, but I don’t think we’re going to be able to eliminate employer coverage immediately. There’s going to be potentially some transition process. I can envision a decade out or 15 years out or 20 years out.
RUSH: But he wants to eliminate employer coverage. He wants to eliminate private sector coverage. This is just two years ago, my friends, to his buddies at the Service Employees International Union. Here back in 2003 speaking to more of his buddies at the AFL-CIO, a conference while campaigning for the United States Senate.
OBAMA: I happen to be a proponent of single payer universal health care coverage. A single payer health care plan, universal health care plan. That’s what I’d like to see.
RUSH: We know what he wants. We know he wants to legalize all illegals via amnesty. We know that he wants them to all have health coverage and health insurance, and he wants a public option. He wants single payer, government-run. Everything he said last night was to the contrary. There’s no other way to say it. It was disgusting; it was demeaning; it was insulting to the office of the presidency. It was fraudulent. One guy told the truth in that House last night, and that was Joe Wilson.
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RUSH: Grab a quick call. Ron in San Francisco. Great to have you on the EIB Network, sir. Hello.
CALLER: Hey, dittos, Rush, from one of the millions that was cheering Joe Wilson last night and one of the millions that are pissed off because he apologized.
RUSH: Well, he was made to. The Republican leadership, which should tell you something, asked him not just to apologize, but to call the White House and do it.
CALLER: Yeah, well, I’m just listening to you here, and the way you’re describing Obama. I have a different take. I thought Obama was nervous last night. I thought he was nervous as hell, and he did not sound like a president that I’m used to hearing give uplifting speeches, that’s for sure.
RUSH: No, he didn’t. There’s a great question we could ask today. How many people is Obama going to save today? And the next question, how many people is our health care system going to save today? Obama’s going to save nobody. By the way, he lied through his teeth about these two poorhouse examples he gave, people who had their mean insurance company withdraw coverage. He just told half-truths about those. I got the evidence coming up. Now, how many people will he save today? How many people will our health care system save today? You are exactly right. There was nothing inspiring. He couldn’t give anywhere near the speech he gave to the school kids last night. I don’t know whether he was nervous or not. It was a campaign speech. It wasn’t presidential. It was insulting. And I, frankly, am fed up with the president of the United States trashing virtually every aspect of things that make this country successful and great.
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RUSH: Did you see it last night on TV? Did you watch TV? Did you hear it on the radio? What an historic event. None of us will forget it as long as we live. History will treasure it for decades. Derek Jeter, shortstop, New York Yankees, tied the career hit record of Lou Gehrig, the pride of the Yankees. That’s what people are going to remember from last night. Barack Obama ignored something major last night, and that is America wants jobs, not changes in health care.