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<\/p>\nRUSH: Back to the phones and to Chicago. This is Carol. Great to have you on the EIB Network. Hello.<\/p>\n
CALLER: Rush, I\u2019m so excited to be talking to you. I can\u2019t believe I got through. I\u2019m very nervous.<\/p>\n
RUSH: Thank you. Thank you very much.<\/p>\n
CALLER: I drive in my car and I listen to you. I\u2019m constantly yelling at the radio every day. So I\u2019m glad I have my time to speak. (giggles)<\/p>\n
RUSH: What are you usually yelling at when you\u2019re yelling at the radio? <\/p>\n
CALLER: I\u2019m just frustrated. Every four years I get more and more stressed out when it comes to the political arena.<\/p>\n
RUSH: So you\u2019re not so much yelling at me.<\/p>\n
CALLER: I\u2019m not yelling at you.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
RUSH: You\u2019re yelling about the things I\u2019m discussing.<\/p>\n
CALLER: Right. Exactly.<\/p>\n
RUSH: Yeah.<\/p>\n
CALLER: I\u2019m very engaged. Anyway, two points I wanted to make. I worked in government for a long time. And my first day on the job, a very astute coworker said, “Two things about working in government. The first thing is: Never legitimize that what is illegitimate, and the second thing is: You have to be like Teflon. People are going to throw things at you and you just have to let them bounce off.” So in a lot of ways I think that by lowering themselves to even talking about these ads that they\u2019re putting on and all this trash that they\u2019re throwing on Romney, it just brings them down to their level. What do you think about that?<\/p>\n
RUSH: Well, I\u2019ve been through this countless times over the years. There are all these schools of thought. I\u2019ll tell you what happened to me. When I first started this show nationally in 1988, it wasn\u2019t long before — in places all over the country — I was seeing stories about being a racist and a bigot. I\u2019m neither. Nobody that\u2019s ever known me thinks I hate anybody or am a bigot or a racist or any of that, and nobody prepared me for it. I didn\u2019t have the brains enough to realize that it was going to happen. <\/p>\n
So it was all a big surprise. And then the dilemma hit: What do I do about this? And there were as many different suggestions as there were people I spoke to. And a lot of people had your theory. “You can\u2019t react to that. If you react to that you\u2019re just legitimizing it. And if they think they got under your skin, they\u2019re going to do more. They\u2019re going to say, ‘Oh, Limbaugh is responding? It must bother him,\u2019 and they\u2019ll pile on.” Others say, “You can\u2019t let them say that about you! You can\u2019t just ignore it. If you let this racist stuff stick, you\u2019re going to be destroyed. They\u2019re going to wipe you out.”<\/p>\n
And other people would have their theories. It went on for four years, and I tried everything. I tried everything, and it\u2019s 24 years later and it hasn\u2019t stopped<\/a>. There is no way to stop it, is the bottom line. So then the question becomes: If it\u2019s not going to stop — if it\u2019s going to be continual, if it is now a part of my career — what do I do? What I had to do… And this is really something I had no preparation for. There was nobody that talked to me about this or warned me. I don\u2019t know that there was anybody who could have. <\/p>\n I had to do a major psychological reorientation with myself, and I had to learn to accept — well, not just accept. I had to learn to appreciate that being hated was a sign of success. Now, most people are not raised that way. Most people don\u2019t grow up wanting to be hated and most people are not told to be hated. Everybody\u2019s parents tells them to do whatever it takes to be liked and everybody wants to be liked. They want to be liked universally. They care more about what other people think and say of them than they care about anything. <\/p>\n CALLER: You have to play the game on their playing field and this is what they do. And so it\u2019s hard to. It really is frustrating.<\/p>\n RUSH: No, if you play the game on their playing field, then it\u2019s the opposite of the advice you were given.<\/p>\n CALLER: Right. But it seems like I\u2019m very idealistic. It\u2019s like, put the facts out there. Put an agenda out there that\u2019s really going to tell people what you\u2019re going to do to make changes to this country, and people will listen. There are very intelligent people in this country that will listen to that.”<\/p>\n RUSH: Hang on just a second. Since you said that, grab sound bite 16. This is David “Rodham” Gergen on CNN last night with Anderson Cooper and he\u2019s talking about Obama\u2019s dishonest attacks. It goes right to what you were saying. You said, “Just put your agenda out there. Just tell people what you\u2019re going to do and they\u2019re going to listen.” Here\u2019s what “Rodham” Gergen\u2019s theory on that is…<\/p>\n GERGEN: Does it help one of these candidates? Clearly the Obama people feel that having a campaign based on this — this is a different campaign than he conducted four years ago — is helping them. If you look over the last few weeks, this was a very close race. It was a one-point race about three, four weeks ago, and President Obama has now opened up a lead especially in some of the battleground states. So I think it actually — right now, generally speaking — is working in Obama\u2019s favor. He\u2019s discrediting Mitt Romney in a way that people say, “Oh, I really don\u2019t like Obama is doing, but I can\u2019t vote for Romney. I guess I have to vote for Obama.”<\/p>\n![](\"https:\/\/live-rush-limbaugh.pantheonsite.io\/wp-content\/uploads\/00-Rush24YearsAnniversary400WIde.jpg\"\/)
<\/a>And here I had to reorient myself and say, “The fact that they hate me is a sign of my success,” and then learn to smile about it, because it wasn\u2019t going to go away. There was no way to stop it, as these 24 years have shown<\/a>. So that was just for me. The best piece of advice I ever got really came inadvertently and accidentally. A guy just said: “You know what? Laugh at it. Just laugh. That will drive them crazy. Just laugh at it and make jokes about it.” So, for the most part, that works.<\/p>\n