RUSH: We find ourselves in the midst now of a whole brand-new template that has been created, and that template is we are to shut up, in the name of civility, we are to abandon our principles, we are to stop arguing for our principles, when this isn’t about civility or any of the rest of it. Accusing the president of trampling on our liberties and so forth is hate language. So Obama, he’s showing the way. How about this. Ho-ho. I can’t wait to dig deep and find the polling sample on this. The ABC News/Washington Post poll is out, and among other things in this poll, 78% of the American people approve of the way Obama handled Tucson in the aftermath. Thirty percent approve of the way Sarah Palin handled it.
Now, I don’t believe either number for a moment. Seventy-eight percent approve of the way Obama handled it and 30% approved of the way Palin handled it? Why is she even being polled? She has no official role in handling it. She makes a video response after three or four days because she’s dragged into it after being accused as an accessory. They’ll always tell us, as I keep saying, who they are afraid of.
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RUSH: I want to go back to this setup here that has been in place since Tucson. I’ve been thinking about that ever since we had that call from that brilliant caller who pointed out that this call for ‘civility’ is nothing more than a call for censorship, a call for people to shut up. You know, they say, ‘We have to get along. The American people want to see us get along.’ Is that what the American people want? This ABC/Washington Post poll says the same thing, by the way: The vast majority of Americans want Republicans and Democrats to get along. Isn’t it amazing how everything the left wants or puts into an agenda shows up as a majority-supported item in a poll?
If the American people wanted Democrats to get along with Republicans, then why this massive Democrat defeat in November? And of course not just in Washington but throughout the country. Now, it’s by no means time to start caving on the agenda. We have won the right to try governing our way. Whatever we do, it can’t be any worse than what the left has done for the majority of the last 80 years. You think we can do better than 9.4% unemployment? Damn right we can! You think we can do better than $3.50 a gallon a gasoline? Yeah! You think we can do better than a 25% reduction in home values across the board? Damn right we can do better than that! You think we can do better than the debasing of our currency?
Our annual deficit’s over a trillion dollars; you think we can do better than that? You know darn well we can do better in all of these areas. Think we can do better in personal liberty and freedom? Damn right we can. We just need the energy and the commitment to do so. Our view is very simple. It isn’t complicated at all. Socialism doesn’t work, it can’t work, so why continue to follow such a disastrous path? Because Obama insists on it? Because Chuck-U Schumer insists on it? Because the media insists on it? Because certain Republicans want to be seen as ‘civil’?
‘We don’t like all these loud voices in media. We just want to get along, and Obama won and so forth.’ There’s a sense I think even among some Republican conservatives who have been in DC a long time, that they can speak out from time to time or they can cast a vote against this agenda from time to time, but there’s really nothing else that can be done about it. I really believe some DC, elected conservatives think, ‘There’s really nothing can be done about it. So for the big picture, just go along.’
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RUSH: That’s right. According to the November elections, Americans want Democrats to get along. Go home! Get ‘a long way from Washington,’ not just get along. Go home. In fact, by the way, Senator Kent Conrad — Democrat Senator from North Dakota — is not running again. Why is that? You want me to hazard a guess, educated guess? I’ll tell you and it’s not even a guess. The truth is he can’t win. He’s up in 2012. Kent Conrad is getting out, knows he can’t win. Kent Conrad has played this moderate game to make himself look like a moderate while voting hard left for years, and that’s because Tea Party is exposing politicians like this. Not the RNC, not the GOP. They’re impotent on this. They have been for some time.
It’s the Tea Party doing all this. And the Tea Party, by the way, is no more loved in Washington now than they were before the election, including by establishment Republicans. There’s a sense — and you can see this when certain Republicans take to the microphones of these cable chat shows. They’ve been in DC a long time, and, you know, they speak out from time to time and sound good, enthusiastic. They even cast a vote against Obama’s agenda from time to time, but they just sense there’s really nothing else that can be done about it. They’re not willing to make a full-fledged opposition commitment. So just go along and wait and hope for the next election rather than doing the will the voters.
The entire effort by the left, whether the media or the White House (and frankly, too many in the GOP leadership) is to control, if not silence, the Tea Party movement. I am totally convinced of that, as are you. I’m sure you know it. This is primarily the agenda of the left: Discredit, silence, and control the Tea Party movement. Now, I’m not trying to be negative. As you people know, I can’t answer negativism. I’m off-put by it. But at the same time, you can’t be phony optimistic. You have to deal with reality. You can’t be blind to it. And I think we have fabulous opportunities here. But not thanks to the RNC or the GOP leadership. They’d all but surrendered after Obama won, starting in 2009.
There was a peep of oposition. They were positioning themselves to get on the support train! ‘First black president? No, we’re not gonna dare be critical! Ain’t no way.’ So had it been left to them, there would not have been any upset election in November of 2010. But there were people out there who followed principles: You, me, Tea Party. That means, and continues to mean, getting behind people who are not afraid to advance this agenda, these ideas. So it’s very simple. We’re not gonna be controlled. We’re not gonna be silenced. We’re gonna be heard. We’re gonna be listened to. This is a republic, we are the people, and we insist on it.
Now, Palin — this is breathtaking to behold this. She is despised, irrationally, by the establishment in Washington. Both left and right. Democrat and Republican. Certain inside the Beltway conservatives despise her, and that’s because she’s a leading voice of the Tea Party movement, which is a huge threat to the establishment in Washington of both parties. Ruling class. We’ve talked of all this. This poll, Washington Post poll: 78% approve of Obama handling of Tucson; 30% approve Palin. It’s ridiculous. But that poll was designed and timed to absorb all the hate and damage done by the media throughout this Tucson episode.
Obama was wonderful! Palin was responsible! The media do their damage and then head on down the road to the next story, and then they take a poll. After they do the damage, they take a poll almost to brag about the damage they do. You think when this poll came out they’re not smirking and happy? ‘Look what we did! Look what we did: 78% love Obama, 30% love Palin. Oh, it’s just wonderful, isn’t it?’ They brag about the damage that they get to do. So who is it, folks? Who is it, actually, that is creating all of this desperation and despair and pessimism and playing on people’s fears and weaknesses? I’ll tell you who it is. These people that hate Palin, I don’t care left or right, they are obsessed with attacking her.
Look at Tom DeLay. Tom DeLay may go to prison, convicted on a bogus money-laundering charge first brought by a left-wing Democrat prosecutor Ronnie Earl. He was tried in the most liberal county in Texas. The judge is a liberal Democrat, and what happened to DeLay is what they would do to all of us if they could — and, by the way, what’s DeLay’s nickname? The Hammer! DeLay was the poster boy in Washington for lack of civility. So here’s the warning shot.