RUSH: We’re gonna start today with a couple of polls, interesting results, and a fascinating piece in the Washington Examiner by Michael Barone. Here’s the headline: ‘Tea Party Neophytes Outshine the Dems’ Old Pros.’ Now, he’s surprised by this. He’s happily surprised by it. My question is, ‘Why is he surprised? Why is he surprised the Tea Party neophytes would outshine Democrat professionals? Why is he surprised? Now, that may seem like a stupid question to you, but it won’t seem like a stupid question when I get around to explaining it, which will happen sooner rather than later because I’m here, El Rushbo, starter of a million conversations, mind over chatter here behind the Golden EIB Microphone. Telephone number if you want to be on the program, 800-282-2882. The e-mail address, ElRushbo@eibnet.com. Waiting on the audio.
Pat Caddell was on Fox within the last half hour saying the GOP will not win as big as they could because they are not nationalizing the elections. They are allowing Obama to drive the national discussion and letting the Democrats turn the election into candidate versus candidate rather than issue versus issue. Caddell, I think, is channeling your host, channeling me. Caddell went on to say that the voters are looking for what they’re gonna get after the elections if they vote for the Republicans, and they aren’t getting any guidance. All they’re hearing is some confusing stuff over whether or not the Republicans will actually repeal health care. He says, insofar as the Republicans are ahead in the polls, it’s all due to the Tea Party. It’s not due to the Republicans at all.
You recall yesterday on this very program there was controversy that had erupted over whether or not senators were traveling around to secret donor meetings and assuring the high-value donors, ‘Don’t worry, the kooks are not running the party. We’re not gonna repeal health care. We’re not going to do any of that.’ This led to a series of denials. Congressman Darrell Issa on the program yesterday saying that — well, he didn’t actually say that he was misquoted in a piece in the news yesterday that we weren’t really going to try to reverse much of the Obama administration, going to be fair and open debate, Boehner was gonna make sure that there is civil debate. Of course, people aren’t interested in civil debate or House rules, as I told Congressman Issa.
Noel Sheppard at NewsBusters today — and this is actually all over the place — ‘Republican Senator Says GOP Won’t Repeal Obamacare — There is a lot of media chatter about whether or not a strengthened Republican Party would move to repeal Obamacare pending the results of the upcoming elections in November. On Tuesday, the Davis Intelligence Group reported that Bob Corker (R-Tenn.) ‘recently told a group of high-dollar GOP donors that Senate Republicans would not move to fully repeal President Obama’s health care law next year, according to multiple sources who attended the event.” There are other places where Corker has been quoted as having said this. Corker is saying, ‘No, no, no, everybody’s misunderstanding.’ Judd Gregg is out there also saying, ‘We’re not gonna repeal it.’ We mentioned this to you yesterday. So to put this in context, the Corker comments, the Caddell comments at Fox this morning do raise an interesting question, that is, could this victory be bigger than it will be?
Now, the polling data from Rasmussen: ‘Most Voters Oppose the Reelection of Anyone Who Voted for the Health Care Law, Auto Bailouts, Stimulus Plan — Incumbents, beware: The major votes you’ve cast in Congress over the past couple years appear likely to come back to haunt you this Election Day. A new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey finds that most Likely Voters think their representative in Congress does not deserve reelection if he or she voted for the national health care law, the auto bailouts or the $787-billion economic stimulus plan. Those votes also appear to be driving factors in the GOP’s consistent lead over Democrats on the Generic Congressional Ballot.
‘Forty-three percent (43%) of all Likely Voters say someone who voted for the health care law deserves to be reelected. Fifty percent (50%) oppose their reelection. Thirty-six percent (36%) say if their local representative voted for the taxpayer bailouts of General Motors and Chrysler, he or she deserves to be returned to Congress. Fifty-three percent (53%) say that person does not deserve reelection. Similarly, 41% say their representative in Congress should be reelected if he or she voted for the stimulus plan. But 50% don’t see it that way and say the individual should not be reelected. The partisan divide is predictable since virtually no congressional Republicans voted for any of these measures. So Democratic voters overwhelmingly think those in Congress who voted for them should be reelected, while Republicans feel just as strongly that they should not be reelected.’
However, according to Rasmussen, ‘voters not affiliated with either party also feel strongly that supporters of the health care law, the auto bailouts and the stimulus should not be returned to Congress.’ These are the precious independents who also agree, ‘You voted for health care, you don’t deserve to be sent back.’ ‘A vigorous post-Labor Day Democrat offensive has failed to diminish resurgent Republicans’ lead among likely voters, leaving the Republicans poised for major gains in congressional elections two weeks away,’ according to a new Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll. The Drive-Bys are reporting this as a category four hurricane event. They’re terribly disturbed by this. ‘Exactly two weeks until Election Day, Republicans remain poised to make significant midterm gains across the country, with 50 percent of likely voters preferring a GOP-controlled Congress, according to the latest NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll. What’s more, Republicans appear to be benefiting from the public’s pessimistic mood, as approximately 6 in 10 registered voters think that the country is on the wrong track, and that the economy will get worse or stay the same in the next 12 months.
”Election Day is coming, the hurricane force has not diminished and it is going to hit the Democrats head on,’ said Democratic pollster Peter D. Hart, who conducted the survey with Republican pollster Bill McInturff. ‘It’s hard to say that the Democrats are facing anything less than a Category 4 hurricane,’ Hart added.’ That is from the pollster. Hart also said that the lead is somewhat hollow because not all registered voters will participate, especially in midterm elections but that the generic ballot is still strongly favoring Republicans. Among those expressing high interest in voting in this election, Republicans hold a 13-point advantage in the generic ballot, 53 to 40. That’s unprecedented. That hasn’t happened, gosh, in I don’t know how long. And among Tea Party supporters who make up 35% of all likely voters in the poll, Republicans have a whopping 84% to 10% edge, among 35% of voters, the Tea Party.
Now, meanwhile, there are Republican political operatives insulting Tea Party members of not being sophisticated, not having read Friedrich Von Hayek. Wonderful, great people, but just not sophisticated. Karl Rove said this, but he’s not alone. I got a note today from a friend, ‘Why would Karl be saying this, Rush? You know Karl. Why would he be saying this? Why doesn’t Karl learn to keep his mouth shut?’ I said, ‘Karl means to say this. Mike Murphy, all these guys, they think this.’ It’s not easy for me to say here, folks, it really isn’t. But it’s what ought to be a euphoric period still indicates that on the Republican side there are divisions and jealousies and egos and competition. And the simplest explanation is that the Tea Party cannot be claimed as credit by anybody. Nobody can say, ‘I am the Tea Party.’ Nobody can say, ‘I started the Tea Party.’ Nobody can say, ‘I saw the Tea Party coming, and I steered it.’ Nobody who makes a living generating political support, generating political donations, nobody in that business can point to the Tea Party and say, ‘I did it.’ So it’s a threat.
It’s a genuine effervescent, grassroots effort. Nobody has any control over it, nobody can honestly claim any credit for it, and therefore it’s a threat. Folks, I could give you the greatest analogy I ever could, but I would probably end my career doing so in talking about this program in its early days. None of the experts — and they were all very nice people — none told me it would work. They all told me it wouldn’t work. Therefore when it did, none of them can say they had anything to do with it. So there was ambivalence about it while people were happy about it at the same time. Same thing with the Tea Party movement. Any time people that are considered unprofessional or outside the professional realm enter somebody else’s professional realm and shake it up, you have a bit of a threat there. And I think it’s partially what’s going on here.
Now, that takes me to Michael Barone’s piece at the Washington Examiner: ‘Tea Party Neophytes Outshine the Dems’ Old Pros.’ Let me give you the pull quote. Now, nobody, by the way, disputes, and certainly not I, disputes that Barone is brilliant. He is a genuine political analyst. This guy writes the handbook after every election precinct by precinct telling us what happened. I mean his tentacles are deep into every sector of this country. There’s nobody that understands the nation precinct by precinct like Michael Barone, and he admittedly was slow to the Tea Party movement. But now he gets it, and he writes today about how he gets it. And here is the pull quote: ‘The Tea Party movement today, like the peace movement 40 years ago, has brought many new people into politics — and many with sharper political instincts than their detractors in the press have been able to understand.’
Now, this, my friends, is a profundity, particularly coming from Michael Barone. Let me read this to you again. ‘The tea party movement today, like the peace movement 40 years ago, has brought many new people into politics — and many with sharper political instincts than their detractors in the press have been able to understand.’ Here you have the pros on one side, they spent their life in it. They stake their reputations on understanding it better than anybody else. Over here, the neophytes, you, the grassroots, the ordinary people who accomplish extraordinary things every day, all of a sudden you have become engaged — it’s really not all of a sudden, it’s taken place over years and years and years. Now your political instincts are sharper than old pros. This is one reason why the pros are sort of down on the Tea Party and people in general. But my question is — I’m going to answer this after the break — why was Michael Barone so surprised at this? Why did it take him so long to arrive at this conclusion?
Here’s another quote: ‘As on so many points, I think the mainstream media has gotten it nearly upside down. What strikes me about so-called tea party candidates — those with little or no political experience who have won Republican nominations by opposing the Obama Democrats’ vast expansion of government — is not that some of them are bumblers but that so many of them seem to have terrific political instincts.’ Michael Barone is struck by that. He’s struck by the fact that Tea Party candidates — he’s being complimentary here, don’t misunderstand now — he’s struck by the fact that people with little or no political experience who have won nominations by opposing the Obama Democrats’ expansion of government is that so many of them seem to have terrific political instincts. Now, to me there’s an obvious question. Why are you so struck by it?
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RUSH: All right, stand by audio sound bite number 47. That’s Pat Caddell on Fox today. Let me read to you again here. This is Michael Barone today, Washington Examiner: ‘Tea Party Neophytes Outshine the Dems’ Old Pros.’ It’s a complimentary piece. I don’t want anybody calling Barone and to start ripping him. It’s not what I’m doing here. But this, to me, is an illustration. I don’t know of what, but to me it’s big. As on so many points, I think the mainstream media has gotten it nearly upside-down. ‘What strikes me,’ Barone says, ‘about so-called Tea Party candidates … is not that some of them are bumblers but that so many of them seem to have terrific political instincts.’ Now, Michael, we love you, but why does this strike you? These are normal people. These are the people who make the country work.
These are normal people with normal concerns. It’s instinctive that they would resonate with people. But here’s my big question. For years Michael Barone and Charles Krauthammer and Bill Kristol and you name it have been on television analyzing political events. For who? Who is their audience? Who watches Fox News? A bunch of bumbling neophytes? Why is it so strange to think that people who have been listening to your analysis and reading your books would have learned from it? Barone’s not a neophyte. He’s an educator. He’s an analyst/educator. The Tea Party people have been sitting out there learning, listening, reading, absorbing, reacting, and finally are fed up with the way professionals in politics are taking the country.
And so they, in some instances, have risen up and said, ‘I’m gonna get in the game here,’ and because they have been involved and been in the game as, quote, unquote, ‘customers,’ for lack of a better word, why is it surprising that they would have sharpened instincts? I mean, I’ve been at this for 23 years, and I am not surprised that people in this audience are not neophytes. I’ve been at this for 23 years; I am not surprised that you have sharp political instincts. If I were surprised that you have sharp political instincts I’d have to question my own job, my own job performance and my own worth. So who do these guys analyzing the news and writing these books think their audiences are? Who do you think the audience is? Why are they so surprised that so many ordinary Americans have heard their analysis over the many years and been influenced by it?
Why waste time going on television and writing books, commenting-analyzing if you believe no one in the audience is gonna learn from you or gain any insight? So I don’t understand how you can be struck by the idea that your audience understands you, when your express purpose has been to inform people. We would all agree that Barone’s political instincts are sharp as hell. So when he shares them and people pick up on it, shouldn’t theirs improve? It’s always amazed me. Who do these people on television doing the commentate think their audience is? I know when Chuck Todd’s on TV his audience is Bob Schieffer and Brian Williams and other people in the news business. But people on Fox know their audience is the American population. Why so shocked that they have instincts?
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RUSH: Let me rephrase this and try a different direction, a different way. If I were Michael Barone, if I were Charles Krauthammer, if I were Bill Kristol or Karl Rove or any of these people that have been on television and on newspapers for years — writing, analyzing, pointing out essentially conservative point of view — I would be proud! I’d be popping buttons with pride over the Tea Party. Where do these…? It’s kind of like this. I’ll remind you of a story. First time I’m on Nightline. My dad thinks I’m a total failure ’cause I didn’t go to college. In his world, coming out of the Great Depression, if you didn’t get a degree, you had no hope. Nobody would ever talk to you about hiring you, and if they ever did it wouldn’t be to do anything other than shine shoes. So the first time I’m on Nightline, debating Algore on the environment, first commercial break, he turns to my mother.
He’s totally perplexed. He does not have the slightest idea how any of this happened. He turns to my mother and he says, ‘Millie, where did he learn all this?’ and she looked at him and said, ‘From you, silly.’ So where are the Tea Party people learning? Where are they getting these instincts? I’m not saying that they’re not self-starters. But they are involved. They have been reading Krauthammer and George Will and Karl Rove, and they’ve been watching ’em on television, and they make sense to ’em. In that sense these people are all educators. This is why the whole notion that the Tea Party is a bunch of neophytes… Yeah, in the context of professional versus amateur, I guess you could look at it that way. But, for crying out loud, we’re talking about issues that people live every day. It is, I would argue, professionals who blurred what the purpose of politics is all about here.
It is professionals. I told you Mike Murphy, one of these political guys was writing on the Ricochet website. He was all upset Christine O’Donnell got the nomination in Delaware. So he said, ‘Okay, you guys, you think I’m sitting here in the Washington cocktail party circuit? You think you’re smarter than I am? You go in there! You go in there you run her campaign you show me how to do it.’ Instead of, ‘All right, why can’t I take what I’ve learned and help out here?’ Why feel threatened by all of this? Well, it goes back to the professional versus amateur aspect of it and the fact in the case of the Tea Party there’s not one person that could claim credit for it. If there is a singular individual who could — and this is even a stretch — it would be Rick Santelli of CNBC who went on and started talking about ‘tea parties’ and so forth early on in the Obama years.
But he didn’t do anything to organize it. He just gave voice to a groundswell of public opinion already that existed, he validated it. So nobody in the professional realm here can embrace this and say, ‘Yeah, yeah, I saw this coming, and I did it. These people are the result of me.’ But in final analysis, they almost could. You know, they’ve been on Fox since 1997 doing commentary and analysis. Who do they think has been watching? They’ve been writing their columns in newspapers. Who do they think has been reading? Better question: Why are they doing all of this? If they don’t want an educated, informed audience why they doing it? For the money? For the recognition inside the Beltway? Why they doing it? (interruption)
No, Mr. Snerdley, I am not a mountain out of a molehill. I’m focusing on this because we’re talking about the future of the United States of America as it was founded. We’re not talking the ordinary give-and-take, chump change day-to-day of politics as usual. The issues that are on the table here are crucial. This election is crucial. What’s going to happen after the election is as crucial, and therefore that’s why people are paying attention. ‘Is Corker really saying that they have no desire to overturn or repeal health care?’ Corker is out there now vehemently denying it. He’s denying it every which way to Sunday. Human Events’ Connie Hair just published a piece. Corker’s denying it. Mitch McConnell’s office is denying it all over the place, saying that they are not saying this, that there are no private donor meetings.
They’re not saying that they’re not going to repeal health care, that this is a false attribution. Well, the reason why there’s so much attention being paid to this is because what happens after the election is crucial because the issues here are crucial. To the voting public it’s not about who is chairman of a committee, and it’s not about, ‘Okay, who’s going to be in charge of passing out the spoils now.’ The people inside the Beltway think, ‘Okay, it’s our turn. It’s our buddies who are gonna get the defense contracts. It’s our buddies who are gonna get the grants.’ That’s politics as usual. Who is in charge of the money and who disburses it and who gets it. Well, pork, earmarks are a small percentage of the giant transfers I’m talking about. Doesn’t matter to people right now. Saving the country is what matters, and the pros don’t seem to understand the degree of concern, sincerity, and severity that the American people attach to all this.
At the end of the day, if you see this newly discovered sophistication and are being struck by it, I’d be proud. Otherwise I’d ask myself, ‘Who am I talking to?’ On Election Night, I’m Michael Barone. I’m doing all this analysis: ‘Here’s what’s happening in the 44th precinct of Indiana’s subgroup 3A.’ That’s how deeply involved he is. Why is he doing it? Who is he trying to inform? And then when people watching this learn from it, get energized by it, want to get involved in it, why the shock? Let me try again. You are a math teacher. You’re trying to teach Anastas Mikoyan a simple algebraic formula, and for weeks Anastas can’t get it. He’s trying, but can’t get it — and finally he gets it, and the world opens up, and you think, ‘Mission accomplished.’ Why would you be surprised Anastas Mikoyan figured out the equation when you’ve been teaching it to him, or trying to, for weeks? (interruption)
What are you shouting at me, Snerdley? What are you shouting? (interruption) Okay. All right. (interruption) Snerdley, is saying that they don’t teach, that they do play-by-play. They’re doing play-by-play, not teaching. See, Snerdley is so loyal, Snerdley’s afraid I’m leaving myself out of the teacher equation. I’m not leaving myself out of the teacher equation, Snerdley. They are doing more than play-by-play. They are doing commentary and analysis, and they are expanding people’s thoughts. They’re expanding people’s brain vision, if you will. Well, I don’t understand why the shock and surprise that an audience listening to you would become smarter, more informed, more educated.
And it’s important because this Tea Party… Forget pro versus amateur; it’s real versus phony. It’s the people who make the country work versus the people who live off the people who make the country work, and the people who live off the people who make the country work are trying to tell everybody else they’re the smartest ones and that the producers, the people from whom wealth is taken to be transferred, are the neophytes? It’s not the case. Now, here’s Pat Caddell. Let me get to this. This is Pat Caddell on Fox News Channel’s Happening Now this morning. They’re talking to cohost Jenna Lee, who said, ‘Tell us what it is, because sometimes when we’re watching all these different negative ads coming out, you hear a lot of debates. It’s tough to know exactly what each party stands for.’
CADDELL: The president, though, is out there making them, of course. He’s everywhere on it but he’s stirring it up and he’s getting a lot of attention. The Republicans have failed to have a national — this is a national election — referendum. They failed it on health care; they failed on the stimulus. They have no national message. They’re fighting World War I in the trenches, and what they’re doing is they’re drawing more and more attention so what the Democrats want to wage this campaign on: Candidate versus candidate. The Republican victory is going to be very short-lived, and it’s due almost entirely right now to the tea parties.
RUSH: Now, in fairness here, ladies and gentlemen, you can always say, ‘It coulda been better.’ No matter how something ends it could always be said, ‘We could have won more,’ whether it’s true or not. But the conservatives know what has to be done. This is a voter-led revolution. Whether the Republicans are providing a ‘national referendum’ or not, the voters are. In every poll you look at — we just had it, Rasmussen — a clear majority say anybody who voted for health care does not need to be reelected. Anybody who voted for the Porkulus bill does not deserve to be reelected, a clear majority. Anybody who voted to take over General Motors and Chrysler does not deserve to be reelected.
So while the Republicans may not be nationalizing the election, the voters already have. The voters are ahead of the party. The conservatives of America are ahead and are determining what’s going to happen here in this election. That’s why what happens after it is crucial not for you and me, although it is. It’s crucial for the people who win. Do they want to win again? Now, the Democrats are succeeding here to make this candidate versus candidate. Christine O’Donnell versus Coons is one example the way they’re continuing to this day to distort this whole ‘separation of church and state’ stuff that happened in that debate yesterday at Widener Law School. Even the dunces at The View and elsewhere in State-Controlled Media are also exhibiting and illustrating their pure idiocy and ignorance by suggesting O’Donnell doesn’t know what she’s talking about.
They firmly believe ‘separation of church and state’ is in the Constitution, when it is not. But where have they been educated? Who have they hung around with? People who are just as ignorant as they are and just as arrogant in their ignorance as the people who have been teaching them and informing them. So you could always say it could be better. You always coulda done more. There is — I think phone calls yesterday and what we’re gonna experience today. There is some… You talk about instincts. Barone talks about instincts, political instincts being sharper than the pros. You people, you’ve called here; you’ve written me e-mails. You instinctively know that the Republicans are still kind of cowering in the corner here, don’t want to make any waves. Their philosophy is, ‘The other side’s committing suicide. Shut up, get out of the way, let it happen.’ You want more. You want an agenda articulated.
You want your agenda: ‘We are going to repeal health care. We’re gonna do everything we can. If we don’t — if we can’t override the veto — it’s not an excuse not to try. We’re gonna make the case that it’s stupid, damaging, and should not become the law of the land. That’s what is desired. That’s the big lesson of 1994: They stopped teaching. After the election everybody assumed, ‘Hey, the country’s gone our way! They’re gonna understand everything we do.’ No. You gotta keep teaching. You have to keep explaining. At this point I have to give Caddell some kudos. You’d better tell people what’s wrong with this health care bill while you do what you can to stop its implementation.
If you rest on your laurels and say, ‘Hey, you know, don’t expect us to do anything here because we can’t override a veto,’ that isn’t gonna cut the. Not with the people who are gonna turn out in droves who represent this conservative ascendancy at the ballot box in a couple weeks. They are going to expect an equal passion to save the country as the people voting for them showed up at the polling booth with the passion. If they don’t see passion — if they see cowardice, lack of interest, or a focus on the traditional inside Washington and the way it works, ‘We’re gonna be fair, we’re gonna be civil, gonna open the House rules’ — it ain’t gonna fly. It’s not what it’s about this time.
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RUSH: I want to take you back to this program on February 19th of 2009, because of all of the intelligentsia expressing shock, being struck by the political instincts of Tea Party people being sharper than those of the Democrat professionals. From my website, February 19th, 2009, the headline we put on the website that day: ‘The Pulse of Revolution has Begun.’ I got it, the first day, my point. I understood what was happening here the first day. This is only a month after I said, ‘I hope he fails.’ January 16th is when I said, ‘I hope he fails.’ That’s before he’s even immaculated. Could it be, ladies and gentlemen, could it be the pulse of the revolution began today, perhaps even yesterday in Mesa, Arizona? What’s apparent to me, ladies and gentlemen, your loyal, devoted host is that President Obama cannot kill the spirit of America. It cannot be silenced.
BREAK TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: All right, now, to this e-mail. It came in with not enough time to read it to you in the previous hour. It’s from a friend. And, in fact, at the end of the e-mail it says: ‘Just read this out loud,’ from a friend. Subject: ‘Oh, for goodness sake, what are you talking about Barone for? Just admit that you taught this. You’ve been the professor at the Institute for 22 years now. You’ve taught people how to look at the news in a different way. You have taught us by example every day how to dissect the news and the Drive-By lies and separate them, and then how to articulate the argument for the other side. You’ve taught us how to love conservatism and how to be proud of it despite constant trashing from the elites. You and the EIB, you’ve done this. I’m not saying you are the reason for the Tea Party, Rush, but you are the reason that candidates who emerged are being articulate on politics and conservatism. Just admit it and move on. I’m tired of hearing about Barone. You’re the one who keeps teaching. It all started with CPAC.’ I’d say arguably it started before that.
So why am I spending time on this with Barone? Well, again, just to share with you what Barone said: the Tea Party movement today has brought many new people into politics and many with sharper political instincts than their detractors in the press would have been able to understand. Now, the headline gets it kind of wrong. The headline says: ‘Tea Party Neophytes Outshine the Dems’ Old Pros.’ But that’s the Examiner headline writer. The actual quote from Barone is that the Tea Party people have sharper instincts than their detractors have been able to understand. Not that they have sharper instincts than their detractors, but I guess one would mean the same thing.
I also got an e-mail: ‘I don’t understand why you’re doing this. These people you’re talking about, all they do, they never credit you with anything. They always rip you to shreds on TV. Why are you giving them all the credit?’ I’ll tell you why. ‘Cause I’ve always assumed we’re all on the same team. You know, I’ve always assumed conservatism is a team. And, as you well know, I do not spend time criticizing other people who do this, particularly media people. Success is what it is, and I’ve always thought we’re all on the same team. But, I know, I know, there are territories, jealousy, envy, this kind of thing. Even the New York Times a couple of months ago grudgingly reported that the Tea Party was amazingly educated. By the way, I would say one thing to Karl Rove, and, you know, Karl and I are friends. Karl was a guest at my wedding. He’s been to my house for dinner. I’ve been at the White House with Karl and George W. Bush. One of the things Karl said, and it was to Der Spiegel or some foreign press when he talked about Tea Party people, great, great people, but they’re not sophisticated, they have not read Friedrich Von Hayek.
This audience has. I can remember in the first two years of this program recommending two books by Von Hayek, The Constitution of Liberty and Road to Serfdom. The people in this audience have heard of Von Hayek, and they have read Von Hayek and others. Milton Friedman. It’s not a surprise to any of us who have been talking to people for 22 years here that there is a level of sophistication out there. What it boils down to is that there’s just nobody who can lay claim to it, who can say, ‘I did it. I saw it coming. I’m the organizer. I told my candidates the Tea Party was coming, you better listen,’ nobody can say that. I’m talking about no professional inside-the-Beltway political consultant or campaign specialist has said any of this. Yet there’s a disconnect.
This is the last thing I’ll say about Barone, and, again, I have all the respect for him in the world. He’s never said a thing about me. I’m not being critical of him now. This just fascinates me. The way people think and the way they arrive at conclusions has always fascinated me. But I think this is an illustration of how isolating and glimmering the Washington bubble is, that even a guy as brilliant, indisputably brilliant as Barone, he’s not arrogant, he’s not really an elitist, he doesn’t fit the template of any of this ruling-class stuff we’re talking about. He knows the country, but even he drinks the DC Kool-Aid and parrots the talk from the inside-the-Beltway dinner parties about who these unsophisticated rubes are. It just goes to show you how infectious it is inside the Beltway. Incestuous would actually be a better word.
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RUSH: To the phones, we’re gonna start in Crofton, Maryland, with John. Great to have you on the program, sir. Welcome to the EIB Network.
CALLER: How you doing, Rush?
RUSH: Very good. Thank you.
CALLER: You’re a great man and you followed after a great man as your mother reminded you. He wondered where you got it from and that’s what mothers are for —
RUSH: (chuckles)
CALLER: — to tell fathers the half of the story they don’t know about their kids, that you got it from him. And I once told you that it’s a good thing you didn’t stay in college for the full four years because you woulda been biased and maybe not as successful and as intelligent and as perceptive you are, because you woulda been taken in by some of this influence.
RUSH: Well, there is that possibility. I like to think that I would have resisted it.
CALLER: Yeah, we all try to resist it.
RUSH: Especially if I’d-a gone home… Heh-heh-heh. If I’d-a gone home and said, ‘Hey, Dad, you know what? You’re full of it. My professor said so.’ That may be why I wouldn’t be here, not that I had attended college.
CALLER: Well, now, I just think that you went out and you struck out on your own. It was something that was inside of you. I’m a senior citizen. I live less than a half hour from Washington. I’ve been to almost every single Tea Party. Nobody had to tell me to go; nobody had to tell me what to put on a sign. I didn’t take a sign. I took my house American flag and that I think says most of what we believe in. We believe in this country, and we’re doing this because this election, this point in history has to do with our future. It has to do with our survival. If you’re a parent or a grandparent, you’re thinking, ‘I don’t want to leave this world, this country so messed up for my, you know, progeny.’
RUSH: Exactly right.
CALLER: And I think everybody feels the same way. I talk to people at the Tea Parties and they’ve come from great distances. There was a whole team there, an emergency room team from North Carolina, and they were wearing these green scrubs, and I said, ‘Oh, did you guys go to some costume store to pick up the scrubs?’ because they were against health care. And they said, ‘What are you talking about? We drove 12 hours to get here and we are an emergency team from’ they told me the hospital ‘and we’re against health care.’ Well, you know, most of the Tea Party people are against health care. They’re against the big deficit, this wild spending, the takeovers, the czars, everything that’s unconstitutional. Our playbook is the Constitution, and the trouble is we have a president in there that hates the Constitution. He hates this country, and I give you credit for saying he’s doing all this on purpose.
RUSH: Well, thank you, sir. Somebody had to say it. It’s the only conclusion you can come to, especially after the passage of this much time. Now, I want to ask you a question: How many of you heard any racism in what this man said? You hear him say he opposes any of this ’cause Obama’s race or his religion? No. It has nothing to do with that. The opposition to Obama, the opposition to Democrat Party is entirely rooted in substance, ‘the issues,’ if you will. John, thanks for the call.
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RUSH: Here’s John in Hinton, Iowa. Welcome to the EIB Network. Great to have you here.
CALLER: Hey, Rush.
RUSH: Hey.
CALLER: Just wanted to ask you if you think an idealist could survive in Washington.
RUSH: Well, I think there are idealists in Washington, but I have a problem with idealists. I don’t mind idealism as something way out there to aspire to, but ‘ideal,’ by definition, is not possible. ‘Ideal’ is pretty close to utopia, and there’s never going to be a utopia. I don’t mean to complicate your question here. But I know what you’re saying: Is Washington so corrupt that it’s going to just gonna suck up everybody that’s good, it’s just gonna suck the decency out of everybody? That’s basically what you want to know, right?
CALLER: Yeah.
RUSH: No. There are plenty of good people there, plenty of good people who have remained decent. Reagan did not end up being corrupted by DC, I don’t believe. Reagan survived and prospered in Washington because of his sunny disposition and a number of other personality quirks. Reagan had really what I would wish for a lot of people. He really didn’t care what people said about him. He really didn’t care. A lot of people say they don’t care. He really didn’t. When he said, ‘If you don’t care about who gets the credit, what you can accomplish is limitless,’ he meant it. But more people really do care about what people say than even they would realize and believe — and that’s what ends up being corruptible.
When you start work what people think of you or what they write about you or what they say about you, the underlying is you think you’re supposed to be criticize. If somebody criticizes you, you’re not perfect, therefore you’ve fallen — or you’re living secrets, and somebody discovers them and writes them in the secret of your life is blown. Everybody gets caught up into this stuff. None of us is perfect, none of us will ever be the ideal, not one of us. Not one of us could ever run for office and undergo the typical media anal exam and have nothing found that would be embarrassing. Not one of us. But yeah, I think it’s possible. The next question: ‘Why don’t you do it?’ I don’t want to. Heh heh. I don’t want to even subject myself to it. I would become cynical. While optimistic at the same time, I still would become cynical.