RUSH: I want to take the occasion while I have your attention here. This press conference last night, again, there was not a single question about the shrinking gross domestic product, or shrinking economy. Not a single question about this massive debt that’s being piled up for generations. Not a single question about the outrageous budget that was just passed by Congress. Not a single question about nationalized health care plans. This is such an opportunity, such an opportunity for an articulate, attractive conservative candidate to take Obama and the liberal media apart. This is not the time for a conservative Republican to think, ‘Okay, I gotta go be a little like Obama in order to get votes.’ That’s not how he’s getting them. He’s not getting votes, he’s not getting the majority of his support from policy.
He’s getting the majority of his support from personality, celebrity, cult-like characteristics, but not from policy. The biggest mistake the Republicans could make is to look at this and say, ‘I guess we need to come out with our own version of a national health care plan, just a smarter one. I guess we need to come out with our own version of bigger government.’ No! It’s just the opposite. Never, ever has there been a better time to contrast the views of the founding principles of conservatism with what is happening now. There is such a hunger. Do you know yesterday Obama went out there to that town hall in Arnold, Missouri, Fox High School? Did you know that there were hundreds of protesters outside? There were. I didn’t know it, either, ’til I got a newspaper story about it.
Hundreds of protesters outside! There is a hunger for an alternative way to manage this country’s affairs. I think — I really do — the way I look at this, Obama is extremely vulnerable to a full-fledged conservative attack right now. The public hates the media, for good reason. Last night’s press conference being just the latest example. His policies are not all that supported. His policies are radical. His policies aren’t gonna work. That press conference last night, it was a worthless exercise in inside-the-Beltway game playing. The public learned nothing, but they swooned. They swooned and they felt good, but they didn’t learn anything. But our side should have. Our side should have been uplifted by the fact that he’s getting weaker in terms of policy, and he’s vulnerable.
You know, the Democrats have no excuse now, what with the Specter defection — I mean, people are saying this, but it’s not just a cliche. They own it all. There’s not one thing Republicans can do to stop this. Therefore, it makes no sense to go along with it. It’s not going to help Republicans electorally to go along with this. The thing that’s going to help Republicans electorally is to oppose this — and there’s nothing to lose, because they can’t stop it anyway! It’s such an opportunity for full-fledged, fearless honesty about all this. Look, folks, the purpose of last night — the purpose of all media reporting and Obama press events, the purpose — is to demoralize us. I don’t want this happening to you. I know it is. You watch this, you get demoralized.
You watch the press, and they just act like a bunch of spoiled children. It demoralizes you. That’s what they want to happen. When the Democrats are out there saying, ‘You know, you Republicans need to become more like us,’ they want to demoralize you. They want to build Obama up. That’s a given. But the media didn’t ask him any tough questions that would have exposed the failure of his policies and the worsening economy. It shrank by 6.1%, for crying out loud. Not a word about that, because the media knows he is vulnerable, folks — and they’re protecting him, and they’re trying to demoralize us. Any other president presiding over a 6.1% drop in the GDP would have been roasted with questions about it!
He’s had policies to stop it. He’s had policies to fix it. He said his policies are going to reverse it. Any other president and the questions would have been asked, ‘Well, where’s the stimulus bill, Mr. President? Where’s all this investment that you’re making? Where are these new bridges and roads being built? Where’s all the infrastructure? Where’s it happening? Where are all the new jobs?’ None of that is being asked. We don’t have to buy into this sophistry and idolatry. We need to hammer this. Obama’s now exposed, folks, with policies that do not work and will not work, and will only provide and cause harm. ‘What about your massive deficit, Mr. President? What about double-digit unemployment in over a hundred American cities?’
We had that story yesterday. One hundred nine metro areas have double-digit employment. El Centro, California, 25% unemployment, rivaling Great Depression unemployment numbers. ‘What about an economy, Mr. President, that just shrunk on your watch by 6.1%? What about the trillions that have been lost in the stock market, Mr. President, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera?’ If the media isn’t going to ask these questions, it is time for somebody in the Republican Party — outside of the media, talk radio or whatever — to stand up and start asking these questions, boldly. And don’t give us the excuse, ‘Well, I can do it but nobody will cover me.’ You will be heard. If the media is not going to ask these questions, somebody has to — and I’m talking about from the political arena.
It’s just… My gosh, folks, it’s such an opportunity. It’s sitting there on a silver platter again. Just because the media celebrates doesn’t mean that we have to. The question of the first 100 days was all in the context of, ‘Gee, how’s Obama doing? How’s Obama doing in his first hundred days?’ ‘That’s right, Mr. Limbaugh! That’s on everybody’s mind. That’s all America wants to know: How is President Obama doing his first hundred days.’ Sorry. President Obama’s first hundred days are not about him. President Obama’s first hundred days, as are any president’s first hundred days, are about America. The question is: How is America doing during Obama’s first 100 days?
Is there a Republican with a heartbeat? Is there a Republican that has any brain wave activity whatsoever to spot this? What are you afraid of? Being criticized? Being vilified? What’s new? It’s happening anyway! No matter how you comport yourselves, no matter how you try to be liked, no matter how hard you try to garner the respect of these people that run Washington, it isn’t happening, is it? Meanwhile, you’ve got half a country dying for these questions to be raised — somehow, somewhere — to the country at large. And they happen via the political system. It’s not about Obama and his first hundred days. It’s not about how ‘enchanted’ he finds the job. It’s not about how surprising he finds it.
It’s about, ‘How is America doing?’ and there wasn’t one question about that, because the assumption is, America is in love, America’s never been better. Yeah. GDP is down 6.1%. Unemployment is heading to 10%. America’s never been better. America is being remade! That’s right, from what? And by whom? And for what reason? And under what authority is America being remade? And what’s wrong with America that it needs to be remade? The fact of the matter is America is worse off in the last hundred days than it was before Obama became president, and that is a fact that you can analyze and stipulate to in any number of ways, primarily economic. We’re supposed to give Obama more time before we say that, they tell us.
‘We can’t judge him too quickly! No, it’s only a hundred days.’ Oh, but they can. They can celebrate him as an effective president after a hundred days, but we can’t criticize, and we can’t point out the toilet the country is about to be flushed down? What is it? We measure his first hundred days or we don’t? Where’s all the progress? Where’s all the success? Where are all the new bridges? Where are all the new roads? Where are all the new schools? Where’s the accomplishment to this administration? You don’t measure things by how many laws, bureaucracies, and programs are created or how many press conferences have taken place or how many members of the press love the president. You measure it by results, and the results are that people are becoming poorer. The private sector is shrinking, which means opportunities and jobs are shrinking. Taxes are going up. Regulations are increasing — and for what? To remake America? The president stepped in to take over Chrysler. He has all but killed it, and is on his way to doing same thing to General Motors.
BREAK TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: It is, folks, it is a golden opportunity. Obama and the Democrats own everything. This is the time to provide the contrast. Look, the president of the United States moving heaven and earth to fix General Motors, Chrysler, and a bunch of banks, moving heaven and earth. And what is he doing in the process? He’s putting his people in charge. The United Auto Workers in significant ownership positions of both General Motors and Chrysler, the Treasury department in banks. Meanwhile, institutions of the federal government are in far, far, far more trouble than General Motors or Chrysler. In the private sector, if a business fails, you go to bankruptcy, you reorganize, hurts a little awhile, you come back stronger. The market has winners and losers every day. Not everybody in the market’s smart. They get outsmarted, some people get outworked. It’s the way it works. Government has a monopoly on everything it does. And right now, for all the trouble General Motors and Chrysler and the banks are in, how about Social Security? How about Medicare and Medicaid?
While the president’s moving heaven and earth to, i.e., supposedly fix these private sector firms — actually take them over — he’s also responsible for fixing Social Security. It is going broke, and we don’t hear a single proposal from him on that, because we cannot hear from President Obama that anything about the government is wrong at all. There is no mistake, there is nothing going wrong, there’s no crisis and no emergency in government. All of the crises, all of the emergencies are in the private sector, and that’s why we need to remake America. Medicare, Medicaid, going broke. His proposal is to take over the entire health care system, which is completely opposite of what the lessons are from government running Medicare and Medicaid in the first place. President Obama does not fix anything. President Obama does not reform anything. He just keeps grabbing and spending and dictating to enhance his own authority, and that of the government. And in the process, the Obama administration is killing the United States economy as he remakes America.
Now, the economy is going to fight back. There are too many millions of Americans who are not going to sit out there and take it. They want the best life has to offer. They know that they’re Americans and they’re going to do what they have to achieve it, regardless the penalties that they will face from Obama, and regardless the obstacles put in their way. And as these millions of Americans, many of you among them, fight to improve your lives despite the penalties coming in taxes, despite the obstacles, you’re going to be innovative, you will go to work, you will try to create, you will try to produce. That’s who we are, and that’s how we work. And this is going to bring the economy back. The economy will come back. It’s just that Obama’s making it much more difficult. He is punishing us, smearing us, denouncing us. Barack Obama smears and denounces, punishes those who seek success for themselves and for others. Says he wants to remake America. He is never asked, ‘Under what constitutional authority are you free to remake America?’ He’s never asked, ‘Remake it from what?’ He’s never asked, ‘What’s wrong with or about America?’ Now, he will apologize all over the world for things he thinks we have done or things that we are that are immoral and unjust.
Somebody in the press corps never stands up — golden opportunity for a Republican or a conservative here once again — ‘Mr. President, don’t you recognize America is a magnificent country, the most magnificent country, made up of millions of people who are inventing and producing on their own, without you yelling at them and telling them how to work and how to live and behave? How did these people, how did this country get so great before you came along, Mr. President? How is it that we came to dominate and rule the world for good before you came along? And since you’ve come along, Mr. President, all you’ve done is impugn, criticize, punish, and put obstacles in the way of people who are truly great in this country.’ I just look at this and I’m stupefied why there’s any fear. If you’re going to be afraid of somebody’s effect on people, and if it’s going to silence you, ‘Well, we just gotta let Obama run his course,’ we’re going to have even more problems. Mr. President, when you say you’re remaking America, are you condemning the American people? What do you mean, remake America? Who is America? The United States of America is her people. Going to remake what? The United States of America is not the United States government. The United States is her people. Are you condemning the American people?
This is really radical, folks, remaking America, he said it last night, remaking America starts now. When we call President Obama on this remaking America nonsense, truly a radical notion, why, we’re told that we’re overreacting. And once again, he’s praised by the media for remaking America. But when he’s criticized for it, we’re told we’re overreacting. Just give him more time. This is why the media are a joke and why I see so many opportunities for a conservative to take on Obama and whip him politically. Americans love their country. They don’t believe it’s a nation built on hate. They don’t believe America’s a nation built on class warfare. Americans don’t believe that this is a nation built on government power and so forth. Obama has been able to slither and slide between the lines, been able to say he stands for America’s traditions while he trashes them. It’s not that he is so clever or so good at spin. It’s that we lack the leadership to seize the moment and call him on this phoniness.
We lack the leadership to seize the moment to craft a message, to advance our principles, so we’re supposed to spend ten days beating ourselves up over the defection of Arlen Specter. And we’re supposed to buy into the notion, well, that’s the end of the Republican Party. Arlen Specter left. And we’re supposed to run around with our heads hung low, and we’re supposed to be depressed. We’re supposed to be dispirited. We’re supposed to be demotivated. We’re supposed to just give up. Sorry, my friends, but I don’t buy that. For me it’s offense, baby. Or, as Al Davis, the Oakland Raiders, would say, ‘Just win, baby.’
BREAK TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: Now, here’s what I’m talking about. This is exactly the kind of thing that inspires the past monologue. Boston Globe today, new poll. ‘A new poll released last night of Massachusetts voters,’ Massachusetts voters, ‘echoes national surveys… Sixty eight percent say,’ in Massachusetts, Obama’s got ‘the right priorities, but 54% prefer smaller government.’ Big disconnect. They think his priorities are smaller government because he says so. He’s able to make everybody think he says what they believe. So when they’re asked, ‘What do you believe’? Fifty-four percent say ‘smaller government and fewer services;’ sixty-one percent oppose these bailouts. The time is ripe. To the phones. Tom in New York City. Glad you waited, sir. Welcome to the EIB Network. Great to have you.
CALLER: How are you, Rush?
RUSH: Good. Thank you.
CALLER: Thanks for taking the call. I just want to say congratulations on the last half hour of this show because you couldn’t be more correct. This is the time to drive a stake right through the Democrats and get a sharp, forward-thinking young Republican out there who can help take the White House back at the end of this first term.
RUSH: In the old days — in the old days — we didn’t have any problem finding these people. They were all over the place and willing to fight for it, peaked in the late eighties and early nineties. What’s happened now is that I don’t know how many Republicans actually think that this is a golden opportunity. I don’t know how many of them think that very many Americans agree with them. I think a lot of Republicans think that they are the smallest minority they’ve ever been and that they’re in the wilderness, that nobody agrees with them, and if they come out and say this kind of thing, they’re just going to get laughed at. They will get laughed at by the media, but they better pay attention. Fifty-five million Americans did not vote for what’s happening now. It’s a goldmine waiting to be tapped.
CALLER: This is starting to be huge, and I don’t think that this upcoming Republican is at the national level right now. I think you’re going to find him at a young level, like mayoral or state senate or possibly lieutenant governor that is going to say, ‘You know what? I am sick of these people trying to demoralize me. Because I’m too smart, and I’m too strong, and I love America too much, to be demoralize by weak-willed Democrats.’
RUSH: Well…
CALLER: I mean, that question last night from the New York Times reporter about being ‘enchanted,’ the president took that silver spoon and answered the question like he was in Mr. Rogers’ Neighborhood rather than the White House, and it was simply appalling. It was embarrassing. He makes us look like pansies. Everybody in the world watches these press conferences!
RUSH: Hey, hey, hey, hey, hey. Be careful here on pansies. You never know who asked the question.
CALLER: (laughing)
RUSH: I’m trying to find it here.
CALLER: My apologies.
RUSH: It was Jeff Zeleny.
CALLER: When they throw him softballs like this… You know what this… You said it’s a governmental occupation. You know what it is? And you made analogies earlier in the program. This is the equivalent of governmental tee ball. You know how the kids they play T-ball. They don’t really play baseball because everybody gets up there and they get a whack at it and they hit it out because they don’t have to learn how to read a pitch or read a pitcher or see how the other players are playing, they hit something. But I tell you they’re not learning how to play baseball. That’s what the government is doing, they’re coming in and they’re teaching all the citizens, ‘Here’s tee ball. Everybody gets a whack, and, you know what? When I’m finished I’m taking it home.’ That’s wrong.
RUSH: Yeah, but I’m going to tell you something.
CALLER: That does not produce a generation of free thinkers.
RUSH: Let me tell you something. I know you’re right about that, but it’s not bleak. It’s been going on for a long time now. You know, kids are being told don’t keep score in the afternoon football games, baseball games or whatever, ”Cause it’s just humiliating, Mr. Limbaugh, that somebody has to lose. It’s too punishing for young minds to suffer defeat, defeat, defeat at that young age. It’s better, Mr. Limbaugh, that there’s no winners and that there’s no losers.’ Kids keep score. Their parents tell them not to keep score. They’re keeping score. It’s natural! It’s a natural thing. Wanting to win is a natural thing. They can’t beat that out of it. They can beat it out of some who allow themselves to be beaten and pliant and so forth, but they’re not going to beat it out of the country. Here is the question, by the way. Grab audio sound bite 17 and 18. Here’s the question. It was Jeff Zeleny of the New York Times. It’s Zel-e-ny or Zel-ee-ny. I never hear these names pronounced so I pronounce them both ways to cover myself. I’m not trying to mispronounce it. So I look at it Z-e-l-e-n-y, and say, ‘I guess it’s Zel-e-ny but maybe it’s Zel-ee-ny.’ Anyway, he has this exchange with President Obama.
ZELENY: During these first 100 days what has surprised you the most about this office, enchanted you the most about serving in this office, humbled you the most, and troubled you the most?
OBAMA: Now, let me write this down.
AUDIENCE OF SO-CALLED REPORTERS: (roar of laughter)
ZELENY: Surprised. Troubled.
OBAMA: I’ve got… What was the first one?
ZELENY: Surprised.
OBAMA: Surprised?
ZELENY: Troubled.
OBAMA: Troubled.
AUDIENCE OF SO-CALLED REPORTERS: (laughter)
ZELENY: Enchanted.
OBAMA: Enchanted, right.
ZELENY: And humbled.
OBAMA: And what was the last one, humbled?
AUDIENCE OF SO-CALLED REPORTERS: (laughter)
ZELENY: Humbled. Thank you, sir.
OBAMA: All right.
RUSH: Okay, so that’s what passes for a press conference question. And here’s a montage of the answer. We don’t have the answer in this montage. The answer went on for 20 minutes.
OBAMA: Surprised. Uhhh, I am surprised, uhh, by the number, uh, of critical issues that appear to be coming to a head all at the same time. Troubled. Umm, I — I’d say less troubled, but, ummm, sobered by the fact that change in Washington comes slow. Enchanted. Uhhhhh. Enchanted. Uh, eh, um. I — I will tell you that, umm, when I meet, uh, our servicemen and women… Enchanted is probably not the word I would use. Humbled by, uh, theeee — uh, humbled by the fact that the presiden-cy, uh, is extraordinarily powerful but —
RUSH: Wake me up when this is over.
OBAMA: — it is part of a much broader tapestry of American life.
RUSH: Oh, yeah.
OBAMA: So I can’t just press a button and suddenly have the bankers do exactly what I want.
RUSH: Seems to me you can. It seems to me he sure as hell can press a button and get people to do what he wants. Somebody’s pushing a button and making this stuff happen. So that was the question and the montage of the answer.