RUSH: I wonder if today over at CBS they are on drugs or if they are drinking. They have a poll out today on Obama’s approval rating and health care that I’m sure is just ripping their hearts out. ‘Obama’s Approval Rating Hits New Low — Last week, President Obama signed historic health care
So he’s 44 approval, 41 disapprove, and once again evidence abounds that Obama has divided America. He has come to divide. He is not a unifier. He has never unified anything or any people or any group that he’s been a part of. ‘When it comes to health care, the President’s approval rating is even lower — and is also a new all-time low. Only 34 percent approved, while 55 percent said they disapproved. Americans are still worried about the economy, with 84 percent telling CBS they thought it was still in bad condition. However, even that high number represents an improvement: nine in ten thought the economy was bad.’ Okay, 84% think the economy is still in trouble, bad condition, and that’s an improvement? Hubba hubba. There you have it.
I guess I need a new title for myself. I need to start calling myself the Troublesome Rush Limbaugh, because the president said that comments I make are troublesome. Harry Smith, certainly no Edward R. Murrow here, doing great journalism. I wonder if it’s too late to redo the Peabody awards so that Harry Smith could get one. A basketball court backyard interview with Obama, Harry Smith asks this question.
SMITH: I’ve been spending time out and about listening to talk radio. The kindest of terms you’re sometimes referred to out in America is a socialist. The worst of which I’ve heard is called a Nazi. Are you aware of the level of enmity that crosses the airwaves and that people have made their daily conversation about you?
RUSH: Who has called him a Nazi? Who do we know that has called him a Nazi? Socialist? Yeah. Stalinist? Yeah. Marxist? Yeah. Nazi? We have compared health care in America to what the Nazis tried to do in Germany and get the control of the people going in that regard. Anyway, here is President Obama’s response to the brilliant probing insightful question of Harry Smith who actually is intelligent in one way. He knew that talk radio across the country, which has 15,000 times the audience of his piddling little morning show on CBS would give him all kinds of publicity. And it’s worked. We don’t mind. Happy to help our favorite liberal at CBS, Harry Smith. Here’s Obama’s answer.
OBAMA: When you listen to Rush Limbaugh or Glenn Beck —
SMITH: It’s beyond that.
OBAMA: It’s pretty apparent and it’s troublesome. But keep in mind that there have been periods in American history where this kind of vitriol comes out. It happens often when you’ve got an economy that is making people more anxious and people are feeling as if there’s a lot of change that needs to take place. But that’s not the vast majority of Americans. I think the vast majority of Americans know that we’re trying hard, that I want what’s best for the country.
One of my theories about President Obama is that he has been filled with anger from day one, that he has a chip on his shoulder about something. It’s laugh-out-loud funny to hear him pretend to be concerned about dissent from the people he has insulted, people he has provoked and ridiculed and run over. A domestic terrorist, Bill Ayers, is one of his best buddies. Jeremiah Wright was one of the most important people in his life, as was Frank Marshall Davis, an avowed communist who raised him. Barack Obama always honors the infamous Jewish hater, Louis Farrakhan with the title ‘minister.’ This guy’s worried about truthful, informed political speech? Of course he is, because all radical leftists have to shut up and shut down anybody who stands in their way. They clear the field. They don’t look at leveling the field. They clear it. And now they have the State-Controlled Media to help ’em out.
Look at the language toward Republicans that his own party uses. Look at the false claims of racism at the tea party people on Sunday, the date the health care bill was signed. They faked an incident. They were trying to provoke an incident. There’s no reason to walk above ground to get to the Capitol building from their offices. There are tunnels underneath with trains, subways and so forth. The Congressional Black Caucus and Pelosi walking over there with a big gavel trying to provoke an incident. When an incident didn’t happen, they made it up. The media reported the incident without one shred of evidence. There still is no evidence that anybody shouted the N-word to anybody. There was video being taken by hundreds of people of these incidents. Not one of those videos shows the incident to have occurred. These are the kind of tactics that Barack Obama inspires. In Philadelphia during the campaign Barack Obama: ‘If they bring a knife to the fight, we bring a gun.’ Is that vitriol? Barack Obama, Jim Messina, deputy chief of staff: ‘If you get hit, we’re going to punch back twice as hard.’ Barack Obama: ‘You can’t just listen to Rush Limbaugh and get things done.’ This he said to top Republican leaders whom he had invited to the White House to discuss his failed $1 trillion Porkulus bill.
In San Francisco, Barack Obama: ‘You go into these small towns of Pennsylvania like a lot of small towns in the Midwest, the jobs have been gone now for 25 years and nothing’s replaced them and they fell through the Clinton administration and the Bush administration, each successive administration has said that somehow these communities are going to regenerate and they have not. And it’s not surprising, then, that they get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren’t like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustration.’ Is that vitriol? Barack Obama daily insults the American people. There’s no question. Barack Obama: ‘I do think everybody has a responsibility, Democrats and Republicans, to tone down some of this rhetoric, some of these comments.’ He needs to start with himself. He needs to start with Reverend Wright. He needs to start with any number of his party members.
And the media, as I say, I always thought the media was supposed to be suspicious of power. I’ve never seen a media like this so supportive of a regime amassing such power. They’re almost giddy about it. But the American people are not a bunch of extremists. The American people are not a bunch of freaks. They’re not bitter clingers, and they’re not overly anxious about the economy and the country. They are overly anxious about Obama’s agenda. They are scared to death of Obama’s agenda. They do not understand how it is that a man was elected like Obama who willingly, purposely governs against the will of the people, oversees the destruction of the private sector where their jobs and the future jobs of their children and grandchildren were supposed to be.
BREAK TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: It’s really funny how we never heard from our State-Controlled Media about the real Nazi skinhead groups when they were out there protesting Bush and the Iraq war. You go to the Daily Kos website or whatever it’s called, and you’ll see the word ‘Nazi’ I don’t know how many times, do a Google search, they call everybody on the right Nazis over there. And remember that joke Wanda Sykes told about me when she did the White House Correspondents Dinner? It involved me dying, and Obama sat there and laughed at it. He was the guest of honor at that thing. So I would suggest if this vitriol exists it is not the responsibility of the Troublesome Rush Limbaugh. This country has been divided and roiled on purpose to create chaos for the express purpose of the expansion of government to fix the problems that they are causing. I told the broadcast engineer I need to hear a song today reminiscent of the situation I now find myself in.
(playing of song)
Lindsey Buckingham solo there, part of Fleetwood Mac. You can fade the tune down now. Think I’m in Trouble. So let’s see now, I’ve had Harry Reid honoring me on the Senate floor, I’ve had Dick Durbin honoring me on the Senate floor, I’ve had Tom ‘Dung Heap’ Harkin honor me on the Senate floor. I’ve had Barack Obama honor me two or three times, most recently yesterday with Harry Smith. Obama warned lawmakers at the White House not to listen to me, that’s not how things get done, and is now calling me out by name in the press. Not bad for a little kid from Missouri. I wish my parents were alive to hear all of this. The only person that has not honored me is Pelosi. I don’t think she has ever, and I will not consider my career a full success until I’m called out by the Speaker of the House as George Soros pronounces her name, Nozi Pelosi.
BREAK TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: We’ve got some sound bites here regarding I, El Rushbo, being troublesome, vitriolic. Here is the Wanda Sykes cut, May 9th, last year, White House Correspondents Dinner.
SYKES: Rush Limbaugh, one of your (unintelligible). Boy, Rush Limbaugh said he hopes this administration fails. Like, I don’t care about people losing their homes or jobs or our soldiers in Iraq, he just wants the country to fail. To me that’s treason. He’s not saying anything differently than what Osama Bin Laden is saying. You know, you might want to look into this, sir, ’cause I think maybe Rush Limbaugh was the 20th hijacker, but he was just so strung out on OxyContin he missed his flight. Rush Limbaugh, I hope the country fails. I hope his kidneys fail, how about that? Needs a little waterboarding, that’s what he needs.
RUSH: Yeah, that’s not troublesome and that’s not vitriolic, and, of course, Obama was shown on camera laughing heartily at Wanda Sykes. Here’s Obama back on the CBS morning show today with Harry Smith, and this is his comment about criticism of him.
OBAMA: It used to be that somebody who said something crazy, they might be saying it to their next-door neighbor or it might be on some late night AM station at the very end of the radio dial. I am concerned about a political climate in which the other side is demonized. I’m concerned about it when Democrats do it. I’m concerned about it when Republicans do it. I do think there is a tone and tenor that needs to change, where we can disagree without being disagreeable or making wild accusations about the other side. I think that’s what most Americans would like to see as well.
RUSH: Now, there’s an — oh, I think that’s what most Americans — most Americans know that we’re trying to do what’s best for the country, most Americans think that we’re trying to do the best, we ought to tone it down — demonize? Demonize? He wants to end demonization? Who does he think started this? It is almost the exclusive tactic of his administration, the Democrat Party. And, of course, the president himself has demonized many. The insurance industry. He has demonized Big Oil. He now has demonized health insurance. He has demonized doctors. Remember this.
OBAMA: If a family care physician works with his or her patient to help them lose weight, modify diet, monitors whether they’re taking their medications in a timely fashion, they might get reimbursed a pittance. But if that same diabetic ends up getting their foot amputated, that’s 30,000, 40, $50,000 immediately the surgeon is reimbursed.
RUSH: So he accuses surgeons of unnecessary amputations for the express purpose of stuffing their back pockets with money. That’s the demonization of doctors, surgeons, pediatricians. Here is Obama demonizing fat cats on Wall Street.
RUSH: Demonizing Wall Street. And here is Obama not wanting to quell the anger at the execs at AIG who were receiving bonuses. This was March 18th last year on the South Lawn of the White House. Reporters said, ‘Mr. President, a new round of bonuses from these contracts are coming out. What could you say to the American people to quell the anger? Because people are angry about this new round that’s coming out. There’s more bonuses it’s said to be coming for AIG executives.’
OBAMA: I don’t want to quell anger. I think people are right to be angry. I’m angry. What I want us to do, though, is channel our anger in a constructive way. It’s very important to remind ourselves that there are a whole bunch of folks now who are feigning outrage about these bonuses that a year ago or two years ago or three years ago said, ‘Well, we should never meddle in these compensation plans, these are the best and the brightest, they know what they’re doing, that’s part of the market,’ and now suddenly they’re outraged.
RUSH: Yeah, so anger and vitriol were just fine and dandy when rent-a-mobs from ACORN were on the lawns of AIG executives: ‘I don’t want to quell the anger, I think people are right to be angry.’ Well, they are right to be angry at your agenda, Mr. President, and they are scared of their agenda because they see that the Constitution does not matter anymore to your party or to you. And why do you care? Why does Obama care what the American people think anyway? You’re not listening to the American people, you’re approval numbers show it, you’re governing against the will of the people on purpose, so why do you even care when they think? It makes no sense.
Now, let’s go back to his book, The Audacity of Hope. ‘Still, it’s hard to deny that all the sound and fury, magnified through television and the Internet, coarsens the political culture. It makes tempers flare, helps breed distrust. And whether we politicians like to admit it or not, the constant vitriol can wear on the spirit. Oddly enough, the cruder broadsides you don’t worry about too much; if Rush Limbaugh’s listeners love hearing him call me ‘Osama Obama”– I didn’t, it was Ted Kennedy that did that — ‘my attitude is, let them have their fun. It’s the more sophisticated practitioners who can sting you, in part because they have more credibility with the general public, in part because of the skill with which they can pounce on your words and make you seem like a jerk.’
So he wasn’t too concerned about it when he wrote his book. Wasn’t too concerned about it at all. Now he’s changed his tune. I think, in fact, ladies and gentlemen, I inherited a vitriolic world the minute this guy was elected. I was sitting here minding my own business — actually, I inherited a vitriolic world when I first heard the Jeremiah Wright sound bites. You talk about vitriol! So I think I inherited this, and we’ve done a marvelous job of dealing with it. Here’s another, here’s the bitter clinger comment.
OBAMA: They get bitter, and they cling to guns or religion or antipathy toward people who aren’t like them.
RUSH: Here’s Obama suggesting to tone down the rhetoric.
OBAMA: I need you to go out and talk to your friends and talk to your neighbors, I want you to talk to them whether they’re independent or whether they are Republican, I want you to argue with them and get in their face.
RUSH: Argue with them, get in their face, that’s September 17th, 2008, Elko, Nevada, at a campaign event. And we will never forget Pelosi, August 4th, 2009 — where was Harry Smith when she said this?
PELOSI: I think they’re Astroturf. You be the judge, of carrying swastikas and symbols like that to a town meeting on health care.
RUSH: So Nancy Pelosi calls tea party people Nazis! ‘Carrying swastikas’ and all of that. Finally, before we go to the break, Obama on the Early Show, CBS, Harry Smith said, ‘There are plenty around you, even people within that building, who said, ‘Let’s do health care piecemeal, let’s do it one piece at a time.”
OBAMA: The one thing I don’t do, Harry, is to think short term based on day-to-day polls. I look at what does the country need long-term. My attitude was that if I didn’t make an effort now to change how we deliver health care, this country was going to go bankrupt.
RUSH: Gonna go bankrupt? It is bankrupt! You have bankrupted the country, Mr. President, and the American people know it, and they’re angry about it, and they’re frightened. And they deserve to be. They have earned this anger. They see you dividing the country. They see your party attempting to smear innocent people. They see your party just governing against their will, basically spitting in their face, politically. And you wonder why there’s vitriol.
BREAK TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: You know, it seems to me Barack Obama was much more forgiving of Jeremiah Wright’s anger and vitriol than he was his own grandmother, typical white woman. He was much more forgiving of the 9/11 terrorists’ anger than he is of me and any of his domestic critics. Well, yeah, we were told that we need to understand why they hate us. There may be a reason they’re doing this, there maybe a justified reason why they’re doing this. We have to understand why they don’t like us, why they are angry. But when it comes to us, there’s no desire to understand why we’re angry. There’s no forgiving tolerance of our anger. No, we’re called troublesome. Troublesome. King Henry VIII said of one of his primary political critics, Thomas Becket, King Henry VIII getting rid of the Catholic Church, starting the Church of England, Thomas Becket, Sir Thomas More, a lot of people, no, no, no, we’re not going to support you in this, King Henry. And King Henry VIII said, ‘Who will rid me of this troublesome priest?’ And four of his guards assumed that Henry VIII wanted him dead so they murdered him. The word ‘troublesome.’ Well, I am the troublesome, vitriolic Rush Limbaugh, archenemy of the regime.
BREAK TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: Folks, I misspoke. It was not Henry VIII who said, ‘Who will rid me of this troublesome priest?’ It was Henry VII. And now I’m going to get notes, ‘No, it wasn’t Henry the VII. It was Henry II.’ I misspoke. It was King Henry II who said of Thomas Becket, ‘Who will rid me of this troublesome priest?’ It was just verbal dyslexia, but critics are waiting to pounce on how I always get facts wrong and make ’em up so I shoulda said Henry XVI. I don’t think there was one. April 2nd Fool’s Day.