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Rush Limbaugh

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RUSH: There were 800 tea parties, and I think some outfit has calculated based on the estimates from law enforcement officials and others on all the sites, something like 189,000 Americans showed up yesterday total for all the tea parties. Now, do you remember, folks, when inspiring new people to the political process was a grand and glorious thing? In fact, that’s what we were told the Obama campaign was all about. President Obama was hailed as a candidate, because people who had never cared about politics before were now interested. They wanted to unify the country; they wanted to all get along. They were becoming politically active. It was a sign of a healthy body politic, and of course it was wonderful because it was a Democrat president doing it, and it was double wonderful because it was an African-American candidate doing it.

All this fits so many templates of the Drive-By Media and the American left. Obama was to be praised and admired for getting people involved in politics. Now, the dirty little secret is that these young people showing up to Obama campaigns were not interested in politics. They had no idea what he was talking about. It didn’t matter what he said. They were caught up in a cult of personality, a personality built on quicksand, a phony rock, you might say. Barack Obama is the man who sat in Jeremiah Wright’s church for 20 years. He’s not the man who claimed to reject it. Now, these people at the tea parties, they’re not caught up in personalities ’cause this had nothing to do with personalities yesterday. There were some personalities that tried to get in there and make it about them, and I’ll tell you, there are a couple downsides to what happened yesterday, minor, but I’m going to address those as the program unfolds before your very eyes and ears. The people yesterday at the tea parties were not caught up in personalities. They were there because of issues, and there were young people there, and there were people from all walks of life, and they are terribly concerned about what they see going on in their country. This was the result yesterday of tremendous substance, nothing personality oriented, nothing cult-like.

This was new people being brought into the political process. But since it wasn’t anything to do positively with Obama, it had to be impugned. The people had to be mischaracterized and criticized, and their reputations destroyed and so forth, their very identities. As far as the media is concerned, the Democrat Party, since they’re not caught up in personality, since they’re not part of a cult, since they’re not out there bowing down to Obama, they’re extremists, in the eyes of Janet Napolitano and others at the Department of Homeland Security. They’re caught up in adult issues. These people at the tea parties were caught up in adult issues, like irresponsible spending, self-defeating bailouts, higher taxes that are going to follow all of this.

See, when Barack Obama was the centerpiece of adulation, that was good for politics, we were told. It was good for the country, good for the world. By the way, we were told also that Obama was going to renew respect for America around the world. It hasn’t happened with Sarkozy. Sarkozy is still talking. Now he’s making jokes about Obama walking on water. Oh, yes. I have the details coming up. So when Obama’s policies are the centerpiece, then the people that showed up at the tea parties have to be monitored by Homeland Security, people who have never been politically active showed up at tea parties yesterday. People who have never attended — I got tons of e-mails, ‘This is my first rally, Rush, my first protest, Rush.’ There are a lot of people who had never attended a political rally in their lives and are now involved because of the tea parties yesterday. Now a few months ago we were told that was the surest sign that the United States was, for the first time, a country we could be proud of. But today, and yesterday, it was something to fear.

Now, there are two aspects to this. We’ve got lots of sound bites coming up. But there are two aspects to this that I do want to share with you. My greatest concern about this is that there are — I don’t want to impugn anybody here — but there’s a possibility that this is going to lead to a third-party movement, and that’s death. Third-party candidates succeed in one thing, and that is electing their alternatives. John Anderson, 1980, you had Perot in 1992. The temptation here is to go third party ’cause the Republican Party is not responsive. The real question, in my humble opinion, is that this effort and energy needs to be used, as Ronald Reagan did, to take over the Republican Party, to repopulate it and that’s exactly what Reagan did, he took it away from the Rockefeller blue-blood country club types starting in 1976, took him ’til 1980 to do it. Goldwater did the same thing. Both Reagan and Goldwater could have gone third party, and there’s a temptation here to go third-party, and a lot of people advocating third-party are the personalities that are trying to make this all about them, and that troubles me ’cause this is not about personalities, it’s not about any politician, and it isn’t about any media person that organized all of this.

Ron Paul is out there trying to take credit for it, by the way. He issued a big press release, but this is grassroots, this is why this kind of energy from the grassroots needs to be harnessed into the existing political apparatus that can actually win if it is built and structured right. That’s the Republican Party. Third party can’t win. Third party is not going to have any congressional candidates. I just think that the effort here to make this third party — which is bubbling under the surface, it’s not something you hear outright, but it’s something I sense that is taking place. I also just want to share this with you. This really is not going to be a surprise to you, and I don’t know how widespread that it is, but I have a friend who lives near Kansas City, who went to a tea party in Kansas City. He’s got a couple kids in college and he sends me a note today saying that his daughter made an interesting point about the coverage of the tea parties, which, this is not going to surprise anybody, but this is an on-site reaction. My friend’s daughter said that watching the television coverage was to watch stereotypes of right-wing groups. The stereotypes were what ended up being highlighted. The pictures showed some pro-gun signs with anti-tax signs, country bands were shown playing, the media made sure to get a bunch of fired up angry white guys, young people generally shown were below the age of five. This is her recollection.

This is not me speaking. This is my friend’s daughter, college age. As though these young children were being forced to do something they wouldn’t do if they were teenagers. Now, did you see that? This is just one potential recruit, open-minded watching this stuff. She commented that young people watching this are going to be pushed away, and that depressed her. She understands the message of the events. She concluded the message was lost in the coverage of the event. Who was there was more important than why was there, in her opinion. That’s exactly what the media wanted to accomplish. The who was there and who were they and who are they rather than the why. Even though they took some shots at the why itself — and this feeds right into the DHS report. But my friend tells me that his daughter is not aware of that. But you’ve got the DHS report out there defining pro-life, anti-gun control, as right-wing extremist. So hello, Susan Roesgen at CNN and all these other just shameless, irresponsible agenda oriented media people who catered right to that. So once again, we have a disconnect, and I have experience with this. By the way, folks, my most recent example, the CPAC speech, went on an hour-and-a-half. There was one line from it that was replayed over and over and over, about wanting Obama to fail.

All of the stuff that really had the crowd cheering and clapping and inspired was left out and ignored. This is just what happens to people when they’re in the mainstream media, when the mainstream media is reporting on them. So I mention this only to say to those of you that were there who are watching the media coverage and maybe a little bit disappointed, don’t know how many of you are, but I do know that a lot of people still make the mistake of measuring our success against how honestly and positively actions we take are reported on the mainstream media. That’s never going to happen. So my admonition to you is ignore the coverage and do not let it affect how you are going to be involved and what you’re going to think. This coverage is designed not only to dispirit you, but anybody else who watched it. It was disingenuous; it was dishonest; it was an embarrassment. I watched the Drive-By Media, I’m 58 years old, and I watched the Drive-By Media, and for the first time I said, ‘I’m really not recognizing my country here. I don’t recognize the country they talk about. I don’t recognize the country they support.’ It’s got me scared.

I’ve been frightened about this Obama stuff for a long time, but it’s clearly us versus them. It really is. It’s us versus them. I have decided there might be exceptions to this, because there always are, but I’ve decided it makes, and will make, no sense for me to ever agree to be interviewed by anybody in the mainstream media, especially if they’re going to tape it and edit it themselves and air it later. What’s the point? I don’t need ’em. We know that it’s not going to be fair. We know that it’s going to be altered and misreported and so forth. It really is, it’s an us versus them, and ‘them’ now includes the media, without question, without any doubt about this whatsoever. So the media covers this stuff yesterday and of course it’s much easier for them to cover the who than the why, especially when they can create the false notion of a prejudice, bias on the part of the participants. Pictures speak to groups and stereotypes. I, for example, speak to individuals, and the reason this program is as effective as it is, is largely due to you listening to the program and admitting it.

But radio is great because you can create your own pictures. The pictures aren’t provided, so you’re not distracted by a false picture. I’m able to zero in and speak to you with words, with one voice. On television, you see groups that can be maligned, mischaracterized, as they were yesterday. So I’m not saying don’t do it again, and I don’t think anybody can stop it. I think there’s going to be more of them. I’m hearing talk that July 4th is going to see a rebirth of these things. Keep on, folks, don’t misunderstand. I just want to be honest here and share with you some of the perceptions that people who were not emotionally involved in this thing or politically involved in this thing had when watching it. Some of them; not all of them. Most of the bastard coverage was CNN and MSNBC.

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