RUSH: Our first caller, the only caller we’ve had today, Mel from Saratoga, New York, said, ‘Hey, Rush, we’re not going to understand our enemies unless we go talk to them. We gotta go out and talk to them. We gotta show ’em we mean ’em no harm,’ blah, blah. ‘We can’t be hurt. Obama knows Chavez needs our money for his oil,’ blah, blah, blah, blah. Look, we have to talk to one another, right? I keep hearing this from the left. Reagan didn’t talk to the Soviets until 1986! He knew what their leaders were. He knew what the Soviet Union was. He knew what their plan was. He didn’t need to talk to them. Besides, as he said, their leaders kept dying.
Well, when is the last time Obama spoke to me? Instead, President Obama has directed his hacks to attack me. Obama, Barack Obama, President Barack Obama, treats brutal dictators better than he speaks to (or of) many of his own countrymen who disagree with him. In fact, Barack Obama warned Republican members of Congress that they’re not supposed to listen to me, and he told the American people, ‘You’re not supposed to listen to people like Rush Limbaugh,’ but we’ve got a lot to learn from Hugo Chavez, and we’ve got a lot to learn from Daniel Ortega. Ortega went nuts in his speech at the summit for 50 minutes. He just kept bashing this country left and right with Obama sitting there.
Obama just sat there and nodded, smiled a couple of times, and said that he didn’t want to be blamed. No! He thanked Ortega for not blaming him for things that happened when he was just three years old or three months old or whatever, thereby pretty much confirming what Ortega said, ‘Well, thanks for not blaming me.’ He blamed the country, which was fine with Obama. You people on the left, you saps, don’t sit there and give me, ‘We gotta talk with our enemies.’ You people on the American left, you treat me and other conservatives as a far greater threat to your existence than left-wing socialist dictators around the world, including Ahmadinejad. Can’t wait to talk to him, can’t wait to talk to all these other people that have nothing but destruction and damage and harm planned for the United States of America.
Mr. Snerdley, who was the big guy on radio before I came along? (interruption) Well, no, no, in the modern era. I don’t want to go back to the days when TV was just new. (interruption) Arthur Godfrey. Okay, the big guy in radio was Larry King. That was the big guy. Larry King was the big guy in radio. I should apologize as the new leader of radio. I should apologize to the country for 
Larry King. I should apologize to the world for Larry King. Larry King’s time on the radio was an embarrassment, and things are not going to be right with American media until I apologize for King’s arrogance and his shoddy performance, even though nobody heard it because it was after midnight. I should apologize for National Public Radio.
I should apologize for them, too. I should. Not to them, for them. I should apologize to the world! I mean, if Obama can run around apologize for America because he’s now its leader, I should apologize for broadcasting because I’m now it’s leader. I’m going to apologize for Chris Matthews, apologize for Dan Rather, apologize for Katie Couric. Hell, I won’t stop there! I’ll apologize for Walter Cronkite. Walter Cronkite lost the Vietnam War. I’ll apologize for him. Larry King is seen and heard around the world. They should know America is sorry we subjected them to people like King and others. I want to apologize to the world for foisting Larry King on it.
These media people, why, they’ve embarrassed our country with all the biased and phony reporting they’ve done over the years. I apologize for them. That’s what Obama’s doing! He’s running around, he’s apologizing for Bush; he’s even apologizing for Clinton; he’s apologizing for all of America. But he’s exempting himself from having anything to do with it. Now, this story: ‘President Barack Obama’s top economic advisers have determined that they can shore up the nation’s banking system without having to ask Congress for more money any time soon…’ You know how they’re going to do this? All of the outstanding debt that the banks owe the country, they’re just going to take it as common stock. The United States government is going to take stock, common stock, in the 19 biggest banks of the country.
‘[C]onverting those loans to common shares would turn the federal aid into available capital for a bank — and give the government a large ownership stake in return…’ Now, you wonder why the stock market’s down 248 today. ‘Cause the banks are starting to report some healthy news, some of them are. Not all, but some of the reporting, you know, healthy futures and so forth, and some of them want out of the TARP deal — and the administration says, ‘Not only are you not getting out of the TARP deal, we’re not going to accept your loan repayments. We’re just going to accept whatever you owe us in the form of common stock in your bank and we’re going to own you. We’re going to have equity in the bank and this is going to save the taxpayers gazillions of dollars.’ No wonder Hugo Chavez was laughing and smiling all weekend.
This is what he did to the oil industry down in his own Venezuela: nationalize it. Obama’s well on the — I guess the United Auto Workers going to end up not only on the board of General Motors, United Auto Workers may end up on the board of directors of some of these banks. Now, at this point, for somebody to say that they hope Obama succeeds, knowing full well what his domestic and foreign policy is and the people he embraces and rejects… It’s irresponsible to now say you hope Obama succeeds. The only way they can say that they want Obama to succeed are either committed leftists who are dead set on dismantling the United States and their free marketers, individual rights, American exceptionalism or so emotionally invested in Obama, they can’t admit they were wrong, or a combination of the two.
Don’t discount the second option here: they’re so emotionally invested in Obama, they can’t admit they were wrong. There’s a large contingent of Americans who voted for Obama who are just so emotionally invested, the historic nature and — and all this razzmatazz and rigmarole, they just can’t admit they were wrong. And at the other end you’ve got committed leftists dead set on seeing the United States dismantled. Who wouldn’t support Obama in that? The capitalist system of the US dismantled. The people who feel their way through life, internalize things. When I said, ‘I hope he fails,’ the people who feel their way through life internalize that as me hoping that America fails, and Obama knows this personality type exists by the millions.
Young people are especially likely to look at life in a self-centered, emotional manner. These are Americans so invested in their hope for what Obama stands for that for me to say that I hope Obama fails is the same thing as saying I hope they fail. And that’s why I caught such a lot of grief over this. Because the people who feel their way through life — not think their way, not live their way, but people who feel their way through life — have this unhealthy emotional attachment to the cult figure that is Obama, so here I come along, say, ‘Oh, I hope he fails,’ and think, ‘Oh, Rush Limbaugh wants me to fail, too!’ No, it’s just the exactly opposite. I want everybody to succeed. I want everybody to enjoy the fruits of liberty and freedom and the pursuit of happiness — and it’s being stymied, and it’s being stifled right before your very eyes with President Obama.
So that’s how I hope Obama fails, that’s how that single statement gets internalized, because people get this emotional attachment. So when I say I hope Obama fails, these people think that I was saying I hope they fail — personally. And such was not the case; it’s just the opposite. The same thing goes for radical leftists who support Obama. To say that I hope Obama fails is a hope that radical leftists fail, and that’s true. I do want radical leftists to fail. I want people like Chavez to fail. I want Daniel Ortega to fail. I want Ahmadinejad to fail. Obama only wants me to fail. The Democrat Party only wants me to fail. These people are not interested in why I hope Obama fails. It never rises to that level because they don’t think; they’re emotionally attached.
Their feelings have been hurt, and their worldview has been questioned. All they can do is attack me personally because they feel like they have been attacked personally because I’ve attacked their emotional attachment to the cult figure that is Barack Obama. I hurt their feelings when describing Obama’s foreign and domestic policies as failures. You know, Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn said that when he was in the Soviet gulag… I mean, this is what we’re up against. These are the kind of people that Solzhenitsyn described in the gulag are identical to the people we’re up against here who have this emotional attachment to Obama.
When he was in the gulag, Solzhenitsyn said that his fellow prisoners cried when the death of Stalin was announced. Stalin had put them there! Stalin had put them in prison. Stalin had imprisoned them and killed millions of them. Those who were alive in prison cried when Stalin died. It’s like Victor from Boca Raton said last week: ‘Stalin didn’t know all these bad things were going on,’ just like these people with the emotional attachment to Obama say, ‘Obama doesn’t know. He can’t possibly know what Janet Napolitano did to that Department of Homeland Securities briefing! He can’t possibly know.’ So the people imprisoned by Stalin who cried when he died, are the same kind of people we’re dealing here with Obama.
These people react in personal rage and anger when I say I hope Obama fails, because their emotional link to Obama tells them that I want them to fail, too, which is just the exact opposite. And they’re going to be hurt more every day now that Obama is revealing himself to be exactly as I have described and predicted, and it hasn’t been clairvoyance. My descriptions and predictions of Obama were based on his past and present statements, his affiliations. You see, what happened? I happened to flush out two kinds of people when I said I hope Obama fails: those who are emotionally invested in Obama (more so than they were invested in their own views and their own country) and I also flushed out those who share Obama and Bill Ayers and Jeremiah Wright’s views of the United States.
So I flushed out two groups of people. Now, I feel sorry for those of you who are emotionally invested in Obama and really do not hate your country. Because your emotional investment connection to Obama is so strong that you are in denial about Obama the president and Obama’s policies. These people have defined themselves as people who have allowed their personal feelings and false hope to trump reality. They define themselves by what they want to hear, not by what is reality, and Obama knows it and plays on it. What do you think…? The statement, ‘We gotta get rid of the failed ideologies of the past; we gotta get rid of the failed ways of thinking in the past and move on,’ what does that mean?
We’ve got to tear America down, put it back together in my way! The failed ideologies of the past, the failed policies. America’s past is over, and it was reprehensible, Obama believes, and we’ve got to get rid of — we’ve got to move on. ‘Yes! Yes! We must unify, Mr. Limbaugh. We must admit our mistakes and our follies and we must move forward. Obama wants to do this and take us with him!’ These are the people who are emotionally attached. And, sadly, it’s a lot of America today. So many people have been encouraged and taught in schools and the culture to get in touch with their personal feelings in matters of public policy. They are taught how they should feel about things, how they should react, what it means to them. Not the intent of the speaker.
It’s a dangerous way to go through life. Critical thinking requires effort. Shallow feelings are immature and gutless. The people I’m talking about don’t want to know why I say what I say. They’re obsessed on how the speaker’s words make them feel. I say, ‘I hope Obama fails.’ Their emotional attachment tells them I also want them to fail, therefore I’m not their friend. I’m their enemy — when in fact their real enemy is not me. I’m the biggest ally they have. It’s what Obama says, what that means to me, not what he intends to do. That’s how these people look at it. But in the process we’re finding out what he intends to do. Too many Americans play in the arena of emotions, not the arena of ideas. Obama knows it and he encourages it, because his ideas are not America’s.
His ideas are not the clear majority. A real crisis ought to help us think, but the latest economic downturn has been misrepresented to make us intellectually and emotionally susceptible to making bad decisions and assigning blame incorrectly. Why is it that those of you who listen to this program are so well informed, and Obama followers are so poorly involved and informed? This according to studies. Both men purposely achieve this. I want my audience to be as informed as possible. Obama wants his to be as uninformed and emotional as possible, because that’s how Obama is able to use that kind 
of support to advance his real agenda, which is unimportant to the people who have an emotional attachment. It’s incumbent on Obama and Bill Ayers to keep as many people as dumbed down and emotionally attached as possible.
It is a real condescension and smugness to treat people and look at them this way, but this is the way of Obama. It is the way of the Democrat Party. Emotional manipulation is used because so many people are susceptible to it. I’ve never played the card of emotional manipulation — being taught how to feel, I mean, not think. And that’s what political correctness is all about. Political correctness is not thinking; it’s feeling. It’s about how you feel. ‘Are you offended?’ That defines what somebody else can say or not. That’s why we now have constitutionally correct behavior. ‘How do you feel about the tea parties?’ Tea bagging jokes meant to manipulate how people felt about tea parties. Not what was being said and why was it was being said and why it was being done — and Obama understands this. Obama’s trying to make patriotic constitutional behavior appear to be inappropriate and incorrect.
BREAK TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: Lennie in Pittsburgh. Lennie, home of the Steelers. It’s great to have you on the program, sir. Hello.
CALLER: Hello. How are you today, Rush?
RUSH: Fine and dandy, sir.
CALLER: Good. Well, you want me to just fire off what I called about?
RUSH: No, I want you to go kind of slow because I’m in a bad mood today.
CALLER: Okay. Well, what I’m calling about actually is a comment you made earlier. You said that you — you don’t choose your words — or actually you didn’t say it like that. You said that you don’t say things to evoke an emotional response out of people, that you do things and you say things to teach, and it’s, I guess, about learning on your show. And I kind of take offense to that because, uh, every day, all day, I hear one thing after another that is somewhat exaggerated just to get an emotional response out of people.
RUSH: Give me an example.
CALLER: Oh. Okay. You say that Obama was ‘palling around’ with those world leaders. The word (sic — phrase) ‘palling around’ kind of is to get an emotional response from people, I would think. You know, you call him The Prophet (sic) and The Messiah. Well, he’s really not those things —
RUSH: He thinks he is, though. He thinks he is and he acts that way.
CALLER: Well, but for you to say those things is just to get an emotional response out of people.
RUSH: No, I’m trying to communicate what I think about the guy, and I’m trying to communicate what I think is how other people react to him.
CALLER: Do you think he’s The Messiah?
RUSH: This program operates in the arena of ideas. I am trying to share my own critical thinking with people so that they pick up on the technique. Using ’emotion,’ as I mean it, is President Obama telling people things that will never happen, promising them that they will. Emotion is used primarily in demagoguery and populism. You identify what people think they want and you tell them you’re going to give it to them, when you’re going to give them the exact opposite, when you’re going to not do it at all. That’s using emotion. The last thing Obama wants is for his voters to start actually thinking about what’s happening, versus what he’s saying, ’cause if that ever does happen, he’s going to be in a world of trouble.
CALLER: Mmmm.
RUSH: ‘Cause they’re two different things. But everything I tell you I believe. When I say I want Obama to fail, you think that’s an emotional ploy?
CALLER: Yeah, kind of.
RUSH: No.
CALLER: No, no. Originally I did, actually.
RUSH: That’s 100% intellectually honest.
CALLER: Now I actually believe that you believe that. Which is… You know, you’re spreading that around now, which is getting an emotional response from people. I — I truly believe that a lot of the tea parties and — and all that activity had a lot to do with you and some other conservative radio and Fox News, who is fair and balanced, but they were actually — but they had like commercials for this stuff.
RUSH: This is classic. What you’re doing to me, what you’re saying, is you are regurgitating the drivel I have read on left-wing blogs. You are classic. You have not said one original thing. I’ve heard everything you’ve said spewed by television commentators, or written by bloggers, and you are trying to mischaracterize and impugn the people that went to the tea parties as nothing but a bunch of mind-numbed robots who were led there by Svengalis and pied pipers like me.
I. Had. Nothing. To. Do. With. A. Single. Tea party!
These people that showed up, showed up because they understand intellectually what is happening to their future and their children’s future and what’s happening to their country, and they want to stop it. Now, I can’t argue with you that I get an emotional response from emotional people, but I wish I didn’t. When I say, ‘I want Obama to fail,’ I want people to stop and think: ‘What does he mean? What is he really saying?’ Even though I say it as clear as I can, it is the emotional response that people think I’m saying I want them to fail because they have an emotional tie to Obama, because he’s a cult leader to them. So they think I’m insulting them, when I’m actually standing up for them.
Individual liberty is going to triumph only if Obama fails. How anybody can say after this summit — after giving up the interrogation memos and the secrets of the CIA, after $4,000 billion dollars in debt (that sounds bigger than four trillion, right?) 4,000 billion dollars in debt, 4,000 billion dollars in debt — he’s going to cut 100 million! Now, I’m telling you, Lennie, what’s happening out there is destruction of the country as we have known it, sidling up… He was palling around with people. He was palling around with these people! Now, I understand I get an emotional reaction, and I hate it. Because any time I get an emotional reaction, it is not fact-based, and it’s so embarrassingly wrong, it makes me worry about the country.
I can say, and I sit here and I plan it very carefully what I’m going to say, even though I do improvisational monologues, but I say what I think. And the fact that people respond emotionally without even hearing the intellectual substance of it is a frightening thing. It’s frightening where our country is. But the Democrat Party — not just Obama, the Democrat Party and liberals — live off this emotional connection. The greatest emotional connection I can think of (and may not be) is the attachment that black voters have to the Democrat Party. The Democrat Party has destroyed the black family for 50 years. The Democrat Party has done not one thing they have promised the black family except to try to go out and punish a bunch of people who they think have held black people back.
Just like Obama, here’s what I would say to Obama. Obama thanks Daniel Ortega for not blaming him for what happened when he was only three months old. Obama thanks Ortega for not blaming him for the rotten aspects of America. I would like to say, ‘Obama, well, then stop blaming me for slavery. I wasn’t alive.’ But, see, they still do. They blame white America today for continued ongoing slavery. The Democrat Party has done more to keep this country divided and roiled and failing to make progress than anything I could have attempted myself, ’cause I want just the opposite. If there’s ever anybody who really wants us all to agree, it’s me. It’s just I want you to agree with me. ‘Cause I’m right, and I have the best interests of everybody at heart. I want you to succeed! I want this country to be greater than it’s ever been! Do you realize how frustrating it gets for me to see stupidity multiplied in geometrical progressions every time I utter something that I passionately, truly believe that is singularly intelligent, brilliant, whatever you want to call it?
To look at the stupid, uninformed, ignoramus, head-up-the-rear-end emotional responses from fellow Americans, that’s what’s frustrating. To watch people like you swallow the Kool-Aid on the false premise that the people you vote for are the nice ones, the compassionate ones, the tolerant ones. I want to grab you by the shoulders and shake you until you wake up! I want you to start using your head instead of blindly following your heart. Start thinking something of yourself rather than hoping other people get cut down to size so you feel better. Love yourself! Realize how great and unique you are, but you’re never going to do that if you’re caught up in emotional tugs with a president or popular sentiment or whatever. Well, I don’t want to cash my individuality in at the door. I don’t want to check it when I walk in anywhere. So, yeah, people have emotional reactions to me. It’s the last thing I want.