RUSH: You know, our friend Mark Levin, I was with him during the whole 18-month process of him writing his book Liberty and Tyranny. Liberty and Tyranny was released yesterday. He’s going to be on the program in this hour tomorrow. Liberty and Tyranny is a conservative manifesto and it is brilliantly written, because while it is constitutional, it is easily understandable, it is a page-turner as a novel is, and you don’t find books like this that can make that claim. It is now number one at Amazon. It is now number one at Barnes & Noble. It is now number one at every national place you can buy books. I get e-mails from people all the time, ‘Rush, Rush, what would you suggest as a reading list that I can go get and understand conservatism, or that I could give to somebody else who doesn’t understand it?’ You don’t need a reading list. You need a book. You need this one. I would recommend you getting this book for yourself and buying extra copies to give away. Liberty and Tyranny. It is by Mark Levin. He’ll be here tomorrow.
Now, Mark Levin, who is he? He’s a legal scholar. He’s a constitutional scholar. He runs the Landmark Legal Foundation. He was chief of staff for Ed Meese when he was attorney general in the Reagan administration. Mark Levin is a bare knuckles fighter for freedom. The left labels him mean and angry, while Obama is labeled as compassionate and reasonable and engaging, while fighting to snatch liberty from people at every turn with a heart that is as cold as ice. So we’ve got Levin’s book, Liberty and Tyranny, it embraces liberty. It’s out. It is number one wherever books are sold. Obama’s plans, they’re also out. They’re taking it away. You can read them every day in the Washington Post, open the New York Times on Sunday, the Washington Post today, executive pay limitations, not just on TARP bailout companies, but all companies. Geithner wants to be able to take over any company that he wants to be able to take over.
The Barack Obama take-freedom-and-liberty-away from people plan is out there, and it’s published in the newspapers every day, it’s on ABC, CBS, NBC, MSNBC, CNN every day and every night. Mark Levin’s book is also out, embracing liberty. There is an epic struggle that is underway, public sector versus private sector, collectivism versus the individual, liberty versus tyranny, good versus evil. You can sum all this up by saying there’s an epic struggle underway, good versus evil. Our country has mislabeled scholars, journalists, late-night funny guys and Washingtonian wizards of smart, spew a relentless stream of propaganda smearing the people who fight for liberty. They label freedom fighters as the bad guys. We’re told that people like Mark Levin are the ones wearing black hats. You have to make it easy to see who to root against. We’re told that people standing up for individual liberty, which, by definition, are people opposed to the Obama administration, we are the black-hatted people, we are the people you need to be afraid of, we are the ones fighting for your liberty and freedom, and we’re supposed to be the ones you need to fear.
While those taking your liberty away are on Leno, they’re on 60 Minutes, they’re on the covers of pop culture magazines, they’re trying to appear nice and funny, and one of us. It’s the so-called good guys, folks, who are the ones laughing about the economy, insulting special-needs children, instigating mob rule in Connecticut, and taking time out to slander Justice Scalia as a homophobe. That’s the latest from Barney Frank. That’s all about the Defense of Marriage Act, and all Scalia’s ever said, ‘I don’t see marriage in the Constitution, so I don’t think we should be ruling on this.’ Scalia is thus labeled a homophobe by Barney Frank, when all Scalia is is a brilliant constitutional scholar, as is Mark Levin. Liberty and Tyranny. Unfortunately, it’s difficult for too many Americans to know who is fighting for our liberty and who isn’t. But Levin is. I can’t emphasize this enough. I don’t want to overdo it. It’s a great book and it does meet the requirement that so many of you have asked me about. ‘Rush, what can I read to explain conservatism?’ This starts at the founding, comes to the present, shows you the bastardization that’s happened in this country. You won’t recognize your country after you read this book, and that’s good.
You need to understand what the left has done and how far we have come from the principles and concepts of our founding to where we are now. This is the kind of book that people will read in the bathroom with a flashlight on college campi. This is the kind of book that people will send with no return address to their parents, boyfriends and girlfriends. This is the kind of book that’s going to spread like wildfire through the underground. People who read it won’t admit to having read it, they’ll just claim what they’ve learned from it as their own knowledge. It will be passed around in various places in a plain brown wrapper, with whispers, ‘Read this. Don’t tell anybody where you got it.’ And at some point, after all this happens, Levin will come under assault from the wizards of smart, and sadly, Levin will come under assault from the pseudo-conservatives on our side, the moderates, self-proclaimed, who will be threatened, ’cause this is not just an explanation of Reaganism. This is not just an explanation of conservatism as it applies today. This is the history of the United States and how our country is being lost. It also has at the end of the book some things you can do, ’cause people also ask, ‘What can I do? Okay, I’ve read it, what can I do?’ The important thing here is to read this and to pass it along.
You do not need to have gone to Harvard. You don’t even have to have gone to Blagojevich’s high school. This read is easy, even though the material can be technical. The Constitution sometimes is technical to people. Liberty and Tyranny, if it’s not sold out yet, I mean I was stunned today to learn after one day out there, and without having me even mention it, it’s already number one. That’s incredible. Normally they don’t get to number one until I mention them. What this tells me is there is a hunger; there is a thirst among the people of this country for something to grab onto and hold onto because there are millions of people that didn’t vote for this, they’re scared to death of it, and this book is a security blanket.