RUSH: An AP story: ‘Flag Lover or America Blamer? Questions About Patriotism Often Dog Democratic Candidates.’ This is a story much akin to Obama going to the VFW and saying, ‘By the way, I love my country. I do.’ Obama telling McCain, ‘You call me a patriot.’ (laughing) ‘The political landscape is littered with Democrats whose campaigns have been hurt by questions about their patriotism. Barack Obama wants to avoid the same fate. Critics have questioned Obama’s patriotism for months, whispering about why he didn’t wear a flag pin on his lapel and contending he didn’t put his hand over his heart during the Pledge of Allegiance. Republican rival John McCain has asserted that Obama has placed his political self-interest ahead of his country’s. ‘Behind all of these claims and positions by Sen. Obama lies the ambition to be president,’ McCain said.’
You know, they write this story every two or four years because it’s a legitimate question. See, we live in two different worlds. The Democrats live in a world of fakery, fraudulent phoniness. We live in a world of reality. For example, liberals will fall, did fall hook, line, and sinker for the John Edwards story. Those of us on the other side in politics saw a fraud from the get-go. At the same time, the Drive-Bys and the libs and the Democrats have fallen for the Obama story. And then a genuine story of war heroism in a prisoner of war camp in Vietnam is said by the libs to be a fake one. They support fakes, they nominate fakes, they promote and market fakes, and they look at real stories and condemn them as fakes. So Julie Pace at the AP has to agonize and wring her hands together, ‘Why every election, why do questions arise about the patriotism of the Democrats?’ The questions arise because of the things the Democrats say! I mean, look, Julie, go back and listen to Dingy Harry, go back and listen to Obama, go back and listen to Pelosi happily, proudly, hopefully wishing for defeat in Iraq. Go back and listen to Mrs. Clinton redefine patriotism as being equal to ripping your president to shreds. All you have to do is look at what these people say. That’s why the questions arise. Again, it’s all reality based.
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RUSH: This is Rod, Chapel Hill, North Carolina, I appreciate your patience. Welcome, sir.
CALLER: Mega dittoes from the land of the Tar Heels, Rush.
RUSH: Thank you.
CALLER: Hey, listen, your comments earlier about Barack’s lack of substance, it kind of got me thinking about the Barack Obama ‘brand.’ I should say, I’m a professional marketing guy. I’ve been in marketing for most of my career, and there’s two fundamental things that I think Barack is missing as a brand; and the first is, the people at P&G have taught us marketers that there are two moments of truth. The first moment of truth is when you buy the product, and the second moment of truth is when you use the product. So my contention is that Barack has done a great job of proposing himself for the first moment of truth, but it’s setting target consumers up for disappointment during the second moment of truth.
RUSH: Why is that? Look, I appreciate the analogy and I actually think that early on, people were eager as hell to buy the Obama product. Fewer and fewer people are now. Is that because they’re not prepared to use it after they buy it?
CALLER: Well, I would say that all great brands have to deliver both rational and emotional benefits. And my contention is that Barack is nailing the emotional benefits but has not defined the rational benefits well enough, and the best way to give a consumer an unsatisfying experience is not to deliver on the rational. So I think that’s where he’s failing and I think —
RUSH: I think you’re right on the money. I’ve got a story here in my Obama stack. It’s from the AmericanThinker.com. It’s by a guy named J.R. Dunn. He is a consulting editor of the American Thinker, and I’ve quoted his work before. He’s got a piece today that says Obama just ‘a flake,’ and the American people have begun to see it.
CALLER: Yeah.
RUSH: Just let me read to you a real short paragraph here: ‘The chief characteristic of a flake is that he makes choices that are impossible to either understand or explain. These are not the errors of the poor dope who can’t grasp the essentials of a situation, or the neurotic who ruins things out of compulsion, or the man suffering chronic bad luck. The flake has a genius for discovering solutions at perfect right angles to the ordinary world. It’s as if he’s the product of a totally different evolutionary chain, in a universe where the laws are slightly but distinctly at variance to ours. When given a choice between left and right, the flake goes up — if not through the 8th dimension. And although there’s plenty of rationalization, there’s never a logical reason for any of it. After awhile, people stop asking.’
CALLER: (laughing)
RUSH: It kind of dovetails here with ‘the rational.’ You say he’s not presenting the rational to people.
CALLER: Yeah. I would say he’s not delivering the rational, and clearly there are consumers out there who will always be attitudinally and behaviorally loyal to a brand no matter what happens, but for the vast majority of people who are not blindly, behaviorally loyal, I think that’s going to be the downfall of the campaign.
RUSH: It already is, isn’t it? We have to go back a couple months when he had a 15-point lead.
CALLER: Right. Right. Right.
RUSH: Now, at that point would you say he was closing the deal on both the rational and emotional?
CALLER: I would say the emotional basically just trumped the rational, and it was presented in such a way that I think consumers were willing to give him the benefit of the doubt. But I think as we get closer I think your point that the polls are starting to matter, the closer we get, I think folks are taking a harder look at them — and again, for the consumers who aren’t behaviorally loyal, and I would call those the undecided or the swing voters, I think that’s what we’re starting to see is that they’re deciding that he isn’t delivering on the rational.
RUSH: Yeah. Which means he’s not real.
CALLER: Right. Exactly.
RUSH: It just means it’s not real.
CALLER: (garbled) substance. Right.
RUSH: All right. Rod, I appreciate that very much. If you just tuned in Rod is a marketing executive from Chapel Hill, was giving us a marketing analysis of Obama’s problems.
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RUSH: LA Times poll. ‘More striking, however, is the drop in Obama’s favorable rating. Obama’s favorable rating has slid from 59% to 48% since June. At the same time, his negative rating has risen from 27% to 35%. The bulk of that shift stems from Republicans souring on Obama amid ferocious attacks on the Democrat by McCain and his allies.’ That’s it. See, the Drive-Bys are just so upset with these so-called ferocious attacks. These have been benign. Even the Britney Spears, Paris Hilton ad was funny. It was benign. Obama’s patriotism is not being attacked in an ad. McCain’s just out there saying he’s putting his own personal political ambition ahead of the country’s. You know, it’s just that you can’t hit the girl. I don’t care how far feminism has taken us, you can’t hit the girl, and you can’t criticize the little black man-child, you just can’t do it because it’s not right, it’s unfair, he’s such a victim.
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RUSH: Here’s Obama yesterday in Raleigh, North Carolina at a campaign event.
OBAMA: I don’t intend to lose this election. John McCain doesn’t know what he’s up against right now! I don’t intend to lose this election. He can talk all he wants about Britney and Paris, but I don’t have time for that mess.
RUSH: I think he’s coming unraveled! I think he’s coming unglued. Here’s McCain this afternoon in Las Cruces, New Mexico.
MCCAIN: Yesterday, Senator Obama got a little testy on this issue. He said I’m ‘questioning his patriotism.’ Let me be very clear. I am not questioning his patriotism. I am questioning his judgment. (applause) I am questioning his judgment. (cheers and applause)
RUSH: Play 17 again. Play cut 17. This is amazing here. This sounds as undisciplined as anything Obama said other than the stuttering.
OBAMA: I don’t intend to lose this election. John McCain doesn’t know what he’s up against right now!
RUSH: Yeah!
OBAMA: I don’t intend to lose this election. He can talk all he wants about Britney and Paris, but I don’t have time for that mess.
RUSH: Uhhhh, I think, Senator, you don’t know what you are up against. What you are up against, Senator, is your past.
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RUSH: I think this is unhinged. I think Obama is getting small. He is looking and sounding small — in stature, I mean. The pressure is getting to him. He can’t stand being criticized. I think this guy has led a protected life, a charmed life his whole life. He’s always been treated as something special, a messiah. He’s always looked at himself that way, and now we’re in the pressure point of the campaign and he’s unraveling. Listen to this again.
OBAMA: I don’t intend to lose this election. John McCain doesn’t know what he’s up against right now! I don’t intend to lose this election. He can talk all he wants about Britney and Paris, but I don’t have time for that mess.
RUSH: Why you bringing that up? Everybody knows that’s one of the reasons why you are plummeting, because that ad was effective. That’s why the Drive-Bys are upset because it was effective. It worked dreamily well. And, by the way, McCain is not quaking in his boots there after that admonition.
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RUSH: Tom in Atlanta, I’m glad you waited, sir. Welcome to the program.
CALLER: Mega eternal dittos, your eminence.
RUSH: Thank you, sir.
CALLER: I say that, though, let me qualify that, I consider you the eminent voice of conservatism today, lest you be accused of idol worship.
RUSH: I appreciate that. Appreciate the clarification.
CALLER: Listen, you know, they have propped this guy up as an American Idol candidate, and they made a big flaw, they’ve undermined the American people — actually underestimated the American people. You see, what happens with these reality shows is at some time they gotta sing, and so Obama has got through with the lip-synching through the primaries, and now, you know, Milli Vanilli is being exposed here.
RUSH: (laughing) Look, it’s a little early here to say this is over. It’s clear that there has been a significant change. He’s losing ground in the polls. The magic and the aura that surrounded him, the halo, if you will, has evaporated, it’s gone, and now people, you’re right, are beginning to listen seriously to what he says and what he does and it isn’t computing.
CALLER: Exactly. After the convention we’ll all be paying — or the vast majority will be paying attention, and the contestant will have to sing, and guess what, they get voted off, just like Heidi Klum says, ‘One day you’re in, the next day you’re out.’
RUSH: Yeah, Heidi Klum, a great philosopher. I’ve read a lot of her work. (laughing) Tom, thanks very much.
Michael in Kingsport, Tennessee, you’re next, sir. Nice to have you with us.
CALLER: How are you today, sir? It’s a beautiful day in northeast Tennessee. I’ve been listening to you for several years now.
RUSH: Thank you, sir.
CALLER: I had an observation here that may be not as profound as Rod earlier but I was noticing particularly after the thing down at the Saddleback Church the other day.
RUSH: Yeah.
CALLER: I got another look on some of the other websites, namely just to kinda find out what they’re saying and because it amuses me.
RUSH: What Democrat websites do you visit?
CALLER: Well, ones like Kos and Democratic Underground.
RUSH: Oh, yeah. Yeah. Those two and you can have a field day. You gotta check your sanity when you log off of those two sites just to make sure you’ve held onto it, but they can be fun experiences for a short time.
CALLER: As I read them I sit there and I think I may not be having as much fun as you, but I’m having a lot of fun. But the observation that I was coming to, I was reading a lot of them where they were talking about the hesitation that Obama gets —
RUSH: The stuttering, yes.
CALLER: — versus where McCain just flat out answers the question. I mean you ask him a question, he has the answer.
RUSH: Let me guess what they’re saying. They’re saying, Obama was thoughtful, nuanced, and was precise, whereas McCain was just robotic and automatic and wasn’t exhibiting any depth whatsoever and why do we not want somebody who is a quality thinker?
CALLER: Why do we want somebody who is just knee-jerk reaction —
RUSH: Right.
CALLER: — to everything.
RUSH: See, the dirty little secret is that Obama’s not a thinker. When he’s in those forums, he’s defensive. He is trying to avoid saying something that will betray the truth. Remember, we’re dealing here with a marketed package. We’re dealing with a story that has been created, and that story is false, it’s fraudulent, just like the John Edwards story was, but it looks good when all the lights are right. And so they gotta make sure the lighting doesn’t change and gotta make sure the script is held to, and that’s what they worry about with Obama when he slides off the teleprompter.
Fairhope, Alabama, this is Carrie, you’re next on the Rush Limbaugh program.
CALLER: Hello, and thanks to Mr. Snerdley for putting me through.
RUSH: Yes.
CALLER: Great to talk with you, more years on the radio, more Gulfstreams, more jackrabbit starts in the GMs that you and your staff drive.
RUSH: Thank you, sir. (laughing)
CALLER: Sure.
RUSH: Very much.
CALLER: Carbon footprints should be that of the fraud that they found here in the Bigfoot. Barack Obama’s complaint that John McCain’s ferocious attacks bring Barry down run down the same road that McCain knew the questions in advance. It’s always someone else’s fault that Barry performs poorly. Had McCain known all the questions, it could only help McCain, not Barry. Obama’s poor performance is not tied to McCain. It was Barry’s choice of words alone. He needs some cheese. He and his campaign need some cheese with their wine. In addition, John McCain is the son of an admiral, a Navy fighter pilot and a POW for five years. I doubt if he has a scintilla of fear in going up against Barack Obama, a young, inexperienced, and obvious puppet of someone.
RUSH: Right.
CALLER: And finally —
RUSH: That’s what makes it even funnier when Obama starts threatening McCain. (doing Obama impression) ‘You know what you’re up against, McCain. You don’t know what you’re up against here, boy.’
CALLER: What is John McCain’s depth of experience in terms of fear? Jeez, give me a break. But one more last thing. You were talking that Barry should have maybe, you know, with his quote of his favorite Bible verse —
RUSH: Yeah.
CALLER: — we’ve got to, as we’ve done it to the least of them, we do —
RUSH: Yeah, I got 25 seconds here.
CALLER: Is Barry implying that he should do that or that the government should be the one who saves us, who does it to the least of us?
RUSH: Look, what that quote was about in that forum is trying to convince people that Christianity equals socialism. That’s all Obama’s trying to do, and he failed at it.