{"id":14743,"date":"2012-08-29T16:09:08","date_gmt":"2012-08-29T16:09:08","guid":{"rendered":""},"modified":"2012-08-29T16:09:08","modified_gmt":"2012-08-29T16:09:08","slug":"convention_theme_it_s_about_love_or_it_s_about_respect_but_it_s_not_about_obama","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/admin.rushlimbaugh.com\/daily\/2012\/08\/29\/convention_theme_it_s_about_love_or_it_s_about_respect_but_it_s_not_about_obama\/","title":{"rendered":"Convention Theme: It\u2019s About Love… or It\u2019s About Respect… But It\u2019s Not About Obama"},"content":{"rendered":"

RUSH: Okay, folks. What do you want? What do you want today? Do you want me to tell you about media bias, outrageousness, unfairness, racism<\/a>, and bigotry? Do you want me to tell you how wonderful and fabulous and it was the best political wife speech ever? Or do you want me to tell you how bad you thought it was? Do you want me to tell you what a barnstorming, knock-down, drag-out, over-the-top, fabulous speech Chris Christie gave? Or do you want me to tell you what a disappointment it was? And do you want me to review all of the speakers with excerpts from each of their speeches with a top-down review?<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Do you want to talk about the overall tone of the convention? Do you want me to say, “My gosh, what a bunch of wimps. Don\u2019t even have the guts to mention Obama\u2019s name. Christie didn\u2019t have the guts to mention his name”? Do you want me to tell you how this bunch seems to be afraid to be critical of a party that\u2019s destroying the country? Or do you agree with the party, “No, we don\u2019t need to mention that because everybody already knows it and we\u2019re trying to attract swing voters<\/a>, and they don\u2019t want to hear that stuff”? Or do you want to not even talk about the convention? (laughing) No, it\u2019s not an option. That\u2019s not an option. (laughing)<\/p>\n

The only thing that\u2019s fascinating about football to me is the New York Jets haven\u2019t scored a touchdown in the preseason. For the first three games in the preseason, I don\u2019t know that that\u2019s ever happened. The Jets say that\u2019s okay, just wait \u2019til week one. We\u2019re keeping it all in reserve. He-he-he-he-he. Don\u2019t want to peak too soon. <\/p>\n

Little League World Series. You know what, I got a note from a friend — I gotta mention this before I forget it. I got a note from a friend so upset over the chickification of the news, chickification of the culture. Apparently in a Little League World Series, a pitcher hit a batter with a pitch and went to home plate and apologized. Now, when I was growing up, there was the Bob Gibson rule. When you hit \u2019em in the head, you throw inside again to show them you meant to hit them. That\u2019s the way I grew up, baseball. You hit somebody, and then you throw inside again to let \u2019em know it was on purpose. To hell what the empire said. Then I was told — this I don\u2019t believe. If this is true, folks, it\u2019s over, doesn\u2019t matter what\u2019s happening at the convention. <\/p>\n

Little League World Series, guy hits a home run, the pitcher who threw the home run waits at home plate to congratulate the kid who hit the home run. That\u2019s what I was told. It\u2019s what I was told. Yes, I am trying to avoid discussing the convention. (laughing) New Orleans is still there. Look, it\u2019s not an official hurricane \u2019til Shep Smith starts crying, and Shep Smith hasn\u2019t started crying yet, so it\u2019s not really a bad hurricane.<\/a> It\u2019s still there. New Orleans is still there. Mississippi is still there. Alabama. Yeah, it\u2019s still there. Storm\u2019s still there, storm kinda paused, or stalled. It\u2019s moving very slow. It\u2019s gonna dump a lot of rain there. It\u2019s a Cat 1, and Katrina was all the way at Cat 5, revised to a Cat 5. Kind of like the unemployment numbers were revised. They revised Katrina after the fact, you know what, Cat 5 there for a couple of minutes.<\/p>\n

BREAK TRANSCRIPT<\/p>\n

RUSH: I\u2019ve heard every opinion. I\u2019ve heard Romney\u2019s wife was horrible and the best thing ever. I\u2019ve heard the same about Christie. I\u2019ve heard every pro and con you can imagine about this thing. And I\u2019ve got sound bites of Republican consultants talking about, “It\u2019s great that they didn\u2019t mention Obama\u2019s name. It\u2019s wonderful, yeah, because we gotta go get the swing voters, and, yeah, everybody knows how bad Obama is. We didn\u2019t need to waste time talking about Obama.” Ed Rollins and Karl Rove particularly. <\/line><\/p>\n

RUSH: Everybody wants to know what I think about this. Folks, I tell you, there\u2019s good and bad. There\u2019s positive; there\u2019s negative.<\/p>\n

It covers the gamut. One of the things that struck me and Kathryn while we\u2019re watching this last night… This is one of the things that just reared its head at us right away. There was such a stark contrast in Ann Romney. She was taken home safely from the dance by Mitt, and they fell in love, and that was the subject of her speech.<\/p>\n

(Can You Feel the Love Tonight by Sir Elton John)<\/p>\n

RUSH: The tone of the convention.<\/p>\n

(song continues)<\/p>\n

RUSH: Got home safely from the dance.<\/p>\n

(song continues)<\/p>\n

RUSH: Oh, it\u2019s a beautiful thing. My old buddy, Elton John. That\u2019s from the Lion King and Can You Feel the Love Tonight. And then, ladies and gentlemen, it wasn\u2019t along after that this big guy roared out from backstage and said, “To hell with love!”<\/p>\n

(Respect by Aretha Franklin)<\/p>\n

RUSH: “We are talking respect. That\u2019s what we\u2019re about here.” Which is it?<\/p>\n

(song continues)<\/p>\n

RUSH: Okay, so, Can You Feel the Love Tonight? Then, “To heck with that! My mom said it\u2019s respect that we\u2019re going for,” and we did. That hit me pretty soon after. Not immediately. I\u2019d love to tell you it hit me right smack-dab when it happened, but it took a while. It hit me during the postmortem. New York Daily News headline. This is a news story! Get this. “Ann Romney Leads Way as Republicans Kick Off Convention by Wrapping Brutal Attacks on President Obama in Blanket of Sentimentality.”<\/p>\n

Would somebody please…? I watched this last night. Would somebody please direct me to the “brutal attacks on President Obama”? I\u2019m having a tough time recalling his name coming up. I don\u2019t think Governor Christie mentioned his name at all. A lot of people are making a big deal, by the way, that Christie didn\u2019t mention Romney\u2019s name for 17 minutes. (sigh) Well, look. There are a whole lot of theories to explain what the Republicans are trying to accomplish here.<\/p>\n

One of the reasons, by the way, that I spent some time in the first half hour telling you about this Luntz focus group with the swing voters is — make no mistake — that\u2019s the target of this convention. Those people — the undecideds<\/a>, the swing voters, the independents, whatever you want to call \u2019em — are the target. And it\u2019s clear. It is clear. We suspected this and we got confirmation of it the day before the convention, and people told me I was wrong, that they didn\u2019t really say that.<\/p>\n

But it\u2019s clear that this convention<\/a> is not going to criticize Obama. This convention so far. Now there\u2019s still two nights to go. But last night there was not a recitation of Obama\u2019s record. There was not one effort. I\u2019m gonna tell you: I had high hopes when Christie started with his “what we believe and what they believe” stuff. I had really high hopes for that. I thought, “Okay, now we\u2019re gonna get into telling the country that\u2019s watching this who the Democrats are; what their policies are.”<\/p>\n

We didn\u2019t do that. And the prevailing reason is, “Well, everybody knows, so we don\u2019t need to say that.” Let\u2019s go to the audio sound bites and start here at number seven. This is Ed Rollins this morning on America\u2019s Newsroom on Fox. Bill Hemmer said, “Ann Romney didn\u2019t mention Obama by name; Chris Christie didn\u2019t mention him by name. He just said ‘the president\u2019 one time.”<\/p>\n