RUSH: Eric in Charlotte, Virginia. Welcome, sir. It’s nice to have you with us.
CALLER: Yes. This is the Eric Woods guy that you said was the best call that you’ve ever had in your time of hosting this show. I’m the guy who said mental — that Democrats, or liberalism, is a form of mental illness and I told you about that blacks, the analogy between the slave, the slave master, and the liberator — or the pimp, the prostitute, and the preacher — and you’re one of the main preachers that these people have to go after. That’s why they’re doing this thing with the soldier stuff. They have to go after the preacher, and you’re the foremost preacher that the pimps have to go to in order to keep the prostitutes on the — all within the harem here, Rush.
RUSH: It’s a fascinating analogy. I’m a preacher that the pimps have to go to the prostitutes for in order to keep them quiet.
CALLER: Yeah. The pimp’s job is to speak bad or evil about the preacher, and the preacher’s job is to speak bad about the pimp. The pimp is a truly bad guy, and the reason why the pimp has to speak bad about the preacher is because he’s trying to keep the prostitutes from going over to hear the preacher and get them converted. And so I was saying that’s what’s going on with blacks in America, and the Democratic Party in particular, the way they’re — you know, they’re the pimps, and we’re in the middle being the prostitutes.
RUSH: Well, there’s no question. I understand your analogy, and I do remember your call.
CALLER: Well, Rush, I’m really, really, really ticked off at you right now, to be honest with you. I love you like a brother, but I’m very ticked off with you because about, I’d say, almost eight years ago. No, it’s been a little more than that —
RUSH: Let’s not go back eight years. We only have three hours here!
CALLER: Hey, man, you’re right. You’re right.
RUSH: I usually am.
CALLER: (laughing)
CALLER: But, Rush?
RUSH: And that’s a sign of my humanity when I say that, don’t misunderstand. Humanity is honesty, and I can’t be dishonest by denying that I’m right most of the time.
CALLER: But, Rush?
RUSH: What is your beef? You’re ticked off at me. What for?
CALLER: Well, because you are just speaking negative about what the Democrats are, versus what you need to be doing. I asked you a number of years ago: ‘If you were recruited and called to step up to the plate to run for — you know, to be the president of the United States, will you take it?’ You said yes. Now, wait a minute, before you hang up on me, Rush —
RUSH: I did not say I would take it!
CALLER: No, you said —
RUSH: Because of the pay cut.
CALLER: No, let me get to the point.
RUSH: Look, Eric, you’re wandering. I wish you’d get to the point. I know why you called and you haven’t gotten there yet, my patience is wearing thin.
CALLER: No, that is my point, that the reason why is you’re not putting forth — you’re not putting forth the negatives of the Democrats instead of putting forward a candidate we need. Right now, what we need, Rush, is if you would sacrifice your pocketbook — you make enough money to where you can retire right now any time you want. You know that. But if you would sacrifice just, I’d say five months, Rush —
RUSH: Sheeez.
CALLER: Listen to me, Rush. Come on, this is serious man, because time is short. But if you would sacrifice just five months —
RUSH: What are you saying? You want me to run for president?
CALLER: I am saying you better run! Listen to me, man, because this is important here. If Rush, if you just —
RUSH: Folks, I thought he was going to blame me for the base not being jazzed up.
CALLER: Well, I am.
RUSH: Well, you’ve only been on five minutes here! Brevity is the soul of wit. We’re losing the audience here, pal. Get to the point.
CALLER: No, we’re not.
RUSH: (laughing) Yes, we are.
CALLER: No, we’re not losing the audience. The audience is cheering me on.
RUSH: The audience is trying to figure you out. I’m trying to help them figure you out, because I’m having trouble figuring out where you’re going.
CALLER: No, the audience wants me. They’re true to themselves. They want to hear what I’m saying about you. Rush, if you would sacrifice five months of your life and just step out there and say, ‘Okay, let me see if I’ll get the nomination,’ because, Rush, you will get it, you will galvanize us in a way that you would never, ever, imagine, because right now, Fred Thompson is not going to really stir the conservative base, pro-life base. He’s not. He will get some.
RUSH: Here’s the problem. Eric, look, I appreciate what you’re saying, and I’m very flattered by it. But here’s the problem. If I actually got into the race for the Republican nomination, I would win, and the five months would not be five months. The five months would turn into eight years because I would win the presidency as well, and you gotta have a fire in your belly to do that, and I love doing what I’m doing now. I am doing what I was born to do. (interruption) What? (interruption) Snerdley wants to weigh in. I’ve what? (interruption) What now? Snerdley wants to know — this is playing off Eric’s point. What’s the question? Why is it that I’m considered the only conservative in the country today that we have? Why am I considered the only conservative that we have? You know, people talk about my braggadocio and lack of humanity all the time, but I gotta tell you something, I don’t think of myself that way. The only conservative that we have? I don’t think of myself as that. Visible on the national stage? There are a bunch of them that are visible on the national stage. I don’t think of myself that way, as the only conservative that we have.
I think the better way to answer this is: ‘Why are the Republican presidential candidates not as conservative as the base is, whether it’s represented by me or some other talk show host or whoever?’ I could only take wild guesses at that, but I think fear has a lot to do with it and plus where these people come from. Many of them are Washington insiders, been politicians all their lives; they play the equivocation game, think they gotta go out and get the moderates, think they gotta go out and pick off some Democrats, pick off a little of that Democratic constituency, a little bit of that one — and then plus the play the let-me-try-to-be-friends-and-get-the-love-and-support-of-the-media game, and to do that, you can’t follow the fire in your belly that is conservative, and they may not be genuinely as conservative as we are, and we’d have to go into an in-depth explanation of why that is, and I think I just touched on some of the reasons. I think there’s a fear of being conservative on the part of a lot of people in public life, because you get hit. You get destroyed. You get aimed at, certainly.
You get targeted. All kinds of grief comes your way — and then you win. If you stick to it, then you win. If you fight back, pick your poison and pick your battles wisely and you fight back — not all the time, but when it’s necessary — and you win, because people like that. You know, I don’t know these guys well enough personally to be able to explain why they’re not conservative or why there hasn’t been a conservative farm system. It’s always puzzled me why, with the lessons of Ronald Reagan from the eighties, that somebody hasn’t said, ‘That’s how to do it.’ A forty-nine-state landslide coming out, running against a miserable Democrat incumbent, Jimmy Carter. We tell ’em how to do it. We tell ’em how to do it each and every day on this program — and that’s why people are angry, I guess, that they’re not paying attention or that maybe their conservatism is not as thorough as mine is, or ours is. Whatever. I know it’s frustrating. So in that sense, Eric, I have to spend time talking about the Democrats here, because the Democrats, as currently constituted, pose one of the gravest threats to our country as we know it today, that I have seen, particularly Mrs. Clinton.
There’s a great piece in the American Thinker today, and it involves me. It’s by Kyle-Anne Shiver. It’s pretty long, and I’m going to link to it at RushLimbaugh.com later this afternoon. But its title is, ‘Hillary, Soros, Alinsky, and Rush,’ and, basically, what the author of the piece does is describe, in different ways, what I have been trying to tell you that the Democrats have in mind, that they are wolves in sheep’s clothing, that they’re wearing camouflage. They’re trying to portray themselves — Mrs. Clinton is particularly — as a centrist and a moderate, when they are radicals. They are socialist radicals who will do anything to get what they want, and they will expose what they really are going to do only after they get there. They will not be honest and expose what they want to do before they get there, because they would never get there. They would be rejected.
BREAK TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: Let me cherry-pick this piece in the American Thinker because it is quite long, and it’s about, in large part, the recent dust-up over the phony soldier, but it’s not about that, so don’t get worried here, folks. You know, you have been critical of me for being ‘diverted’ by spending so much time on this, and I’m telling you: You gotta pick your battles, and know when to respond and when not to. This was one of those times to respond. By the way, as I mentioned at the top of the program, I deserve a Congressional Medal for distracting them while all this was going on. Anyway, Kyle-Anne Shiver, the American Thinker: ‘Hillary, Soros, Alinsky, and Rush — In 1995, George Soros appeared on PBS with Charlie Rose, and said this: ‘I like to influence policy. I was not able to get to George Bush (Senior). But now I think I have succeeded with my influence… I do now have great access in the (Clinton) administration. There is no question about this. We actually work together as a team.’ … If you want a complete rundown on how all of Hillary’s and Soros’ ‘non-profit groups’ work together in her plan to take over America, get yourself a copy of the book by her mentor, Saul Alinsky…’ The name of the book is Rules for Radicals.
‘In it, you’ll find the complete outline for throwing Judeo/Christian principles and honesty to the winds of revolutionary fervor. Hillary Clinton has been the perfectly patient disciple of Alinsky’s since she wrote her thesis about him her senior year at Wellesley in 1969. If her admiration of Alinsky had died with her thesis, no one would care. But it didn’t. He remained a close confidant until his death … and his tactical fingerprints are all over her projection of the false ‘Centrist’ image she is manipulating to garner political power.
‘Senator Tom Harkin jumped on the Hush-Rush Campaign that time too, just as he is now, demanding ‘balance’ in media. With the taxpayer-funded, liberal propaganda organ, NPR, being broadcast to the troops 24/7, it’s hard to believe that anyone could feel one hour a day of Rush Limbaugh is a threat to
‘No, no, no, no. I am ‘equal time.’ You guys own every other media outlet there is. This is it on our side. I am equal time. I don’t need to be balanced.’
But this is the ruse that they have continued to use. ‘The only reason that Hillary Clinton keeps up the public façade of ‘moderation,’ and doesn’t dare to go on record with her deep disdain for our military is that she is following the Alinsky model, which admonishes revolutionaries to milk their white, middle-class backgrounds and appearances to achieve the political power necessary to carry out the socialist revolution. According to the Alinsky model of bloodless socialist revolution, Rush Limbaugh represents a
‘Rush’s
This goes on and on, but here’s the conclusion: ‘In short, bringing down Rush — or bursting the bubble of Rush supremacy, as George Soros might say — would prove more than a political plum in Hillary’s pudding. It might actually give her the throne of power in the Oval Office, with George Soros her backer and enabler. And the only thing that remains to be seen is whether it will be as easy to control the ballot box on Election Day as it apparently has been to control the Democratic Party.’ Now, people ask me frequently, ‘When did this current iteration of Democrats — these radicals, these socialist libs, when did they — surface?’ Well, you can go back to the sixties and before that. I mean, FDR was a lib, but he was not a radical. The guy was a patriot. He defended the country. Hubert Humphrey and those people. LBJ was strong-armed and twisted people’s arms, banged heads. Jack Kennedy cut taxes like Ronald Reagan did. There are many theories to explain what happened to the libs, but you go to the class of 1974, the Democrats elected after Watergate in 1974, I think, is where you can trace this current iteration, and they all come from this Alinsky school of thought — which is lie, obfuscate, mask yourself and your real intentions, come across as middle-class as you can; use the usual liberal things of supporting the little guy, supposedly standing for free speech — but in the reality of your life, you’re working to form a total takeover of the government with your ideas becoming paramount.
But you know you can’t get there by being honest with anybody about what they are so you have to put on a façade. And when this façade is uncovered, and when it is exposed by people like me, the people who are telling the truth about you (according to the Alinsky model), have to be taken out. They have to be destroyed, discredited somehow. Whatever it takes, it doesn’t matter. The truth is irrelevant. Only getting the power and being able to make the big changeover in the way you want the country to be is important, and however you get there doesn’t matter. The truth is not a factor. Facts are not factors. I was talking earlier about the media. The media has been incorporated into this. The media, they themselves share the same socialistic ideals as the Democrats do, because they’re going to be one and the same. They’ll enjoy the power. They’ll enjoy the social life that Washington will feature with these people having ascended to power. There are all kinds of factors here, but first and foremost is their ideology, their radical ideology — and average, ordinary Americans today understand that there is something terribly wrong with the media. It is getting worse. They are not interested in facts. They are not interested in truth. They are interested in pushing an agenda. They hide behind such words as ‘fairness,’ being ‘objective.’
‘We try to get it right,’ and this sort of thing, but we’ve gotta guy moderating the debate this afternoon, the Republican debate, who at a book party this past week talked about how the Bush administration’s ‘criminality’ has finally been proven or realized. And he’s out there saying he’s not a partisan. Now, I know it’s a throwaway line trying to sell a book (which is not working; the book’s at 98 on the Amazon list) but people in this country know there’s something terribly wrong with the modern-day Democrat Party. Thirty-five percent of Democrats in a poll say that Bush knew about 9/11, before it happened, and thus had to let it happen. One in five Democrats in a poll think that it would be better for the world if the United States lost the war in Iraq and the war on terror. Average, ordinary people — the people who make this country work, laboring away in anonymity, not seeking fame and frivolity and notoriety — they instinctively know that something is terribly wrong with the country, and when they hear the Republican presidential candidates, they don’t hear them addressing these wrongs. They hear them discussing policy and so forth, which is all well and good, but there is something terribly, terribly wrong in the country and with the Democrat Party and with the media.
If one of these candidates, or all of them, would simply find ways to acknowledge to their base that they understand this and that they know they’ve gotta overcome this and beat this opposition down, it would rally the base like I don’t know what else could, at this stage of the campaign. Because it’s not going to be enough just to run against Mrs. Clinton. You’ve gotta give people reasons to vote for you. You know, and the Republican Party is not a monolith. There’s all kinds of competing ideas from people putting pressure on certain candidates now. ‘If they win the nomination or form a third party here because we’d rather have somebody in there that we oppose that we can fight rather than somebody we elected that we disagree with and can’t oppose and fight.’ So it’s really fluid, and this whole campaign is taking on a life of its own in ways that nobody could foresee, which is why early on, I said, ‘I’m not telling you who I prefer here because it’s too soon. There’s too much that can happen on both sides.’ The Democrats are monolithic. The Democrats — I don’t care who the candidate is — say the same thing. None of those Democrats are afraid to go after Hillary for a host of reasons. She’s going to be the nominee, and it’s going to be up to the Republican nominee to be honest with the American people about what a presidency with Hillary Clinton would mean. It’s not that hard, but it may take some guts to do it.
BREAK TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: The 13th tactic in Saul Alinsky’s book (he’s one of Hillary’s gurus, mentors) this is on page 130 of the book: ‘Pick the target, freeze it, personalize it, and polarize it.’ Well, at this stage, and for the last two years, I have been the target. So they pick the target, then freeze it, personalize it, and polarize it, and just keep repeating the process until as many people as possible believe the smear. So these smears are going to continue, and the efforts are going to continue. I’ve spotted this. We’ve had on this program recently a large spate of seminar callers. They’re easy to spot. I like ’em; they’re fun; like to humor ’em and so forth. But I think they’re all part of the ruse, and I think their purpose in calling is to create a circumstance where I or another host will say a couple of words that they can then take out of context. I think it’s all part of the ruse here. So I told Snerdley, ‘No more seminar callers.’ I used to have fun with them but I’m not going to give ’em the added opportunity. Screw ’em. They’re idiots anyway and I know they get boring to listen to unless I, as a brilliant host, can make the whole experience fun. But it’s not worth what’s up here with the target having been picked, personalized, frozen, et al.
BREAK TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: Our first call today took a long time to get where he was going. Only a seasoned and highly trained broadcast specialist such as I could have made this call work. His name was Eric and he was from Charlotte, Virginia. We finally got him to get to the point. His point was I have a duty to run for president and save the country because nobody in the Republican field is capable of winning it and doing it. I don’t know what some of you think of me, but believe me, that idea to me is absurd. It embarrasses me. So I dealt with the call as I felt I should and moved on, finished the rest of the hour, go back and talked to Snerdley. He said he got lots of calls after that guy, he didn’t put any of them up, but a lot of them said: ‘You do! You’re on the national scene; you’re the most prominent conservative, and you have a duty to put country first here.’ So my eyes crossed and glazed over in there, and I think, ‘Gee, how in the world do I address this?’ I don’t know how to address it now.
I don’t know what to say. (interruption) You don’t understand, Snerdley. One of these callers actually told Snerdley that Washington did it, Washington put the country first, that Thomas Jefferson put the country first, that Abraham Lincoln put the country first. You’re lumping me in with the Founding Fathers! Now, come on, let’s get real here. I know I run the country, you know it and I know it, but do you know how this embarrasses me, to be lumped in with that group of men? To take that seriously, it’s interesting to me that people have the view they have. That’s more interesting to me than the way it affects me, because of what it says about the hunger for real leadership that’s out there on our side. (interruption) What you are mouthing, Dawn? Go ahead, tell me. She says, ‘We’ll have the largest turnout ever.’ I am not even a candidate, and you see how they’re trying to destroy me. Can you imagine if I actually ran? This is absurd. This is ridiculous. I don’t want people to think I’m entertaining this.
There are already people who think my head’s too big for this room, and if they only knew the truth about it, they would laugh at that whole notion. I know Washington was a farmer. I was out at Mount Vernon. I know he was a distiller and he gave it all up, but would you please stop this. (interruption) This is a radio show. Snerdley is still shouting to me. (interruption) They were ordinary people making good livings and they still — (interruption) yes, I know all that, I know all that. Let me get on with the Stack of Stuff here, but I wanted to address this because Snerdley says — (interruption) I did address it. I addressed it with the first call. I’ve always addressed it when people suggest I should run for office. I don’t want the pay cut. I’ve addressed it I don’t know how many times. I’m doing what I was born to do, and I love what I’m doing, and I love the way I do it. I’m probably accomplishing more here than if I were a candidate, because I’d have to give up this radio show and I would lose this microphone, and I wouldn’t have nearly the opportunity or access to respond to all the anal exam attacks that I would get, that I’m getting now. I’m sorry about this, ladies and gentlemen, but I had to address it because it caused me to open this hour in a little bit of a frustrated frame of mind.