RUSH: It was another good debate, on balance. I mean we can nitpick from candidate to candidate to candidate, but even Ron Paul didn’t sound kooky all night. He had his moments. But it was good night for conservatism in terms of the cogent way it was expressed. I thought Michele Bachmann did really well last night introducing herself and announcing her campaign. The media, starting last night, 
even today, all upset that the Republicans weren’t attacking each other. They’re really jumping all over Pawlenty. They’re calling Pawlenty a wimp. You know why they’re mad at Pawlenty is ’cause he mentioned my name. Pawlenty’s the one candidate that mentioned my name last night. He happened to mention that he comes from a family of Reagan Democrats, union members who now listen to me, so that did not stand him in good stead with the media, and then, you know, he came up with the term Obomneycare to describe Mitt Romney and his health care plan in Massachusetts being identical to Obama’s, and they gave Pawlenty a chance to ram that home, and he wouldn’t do it last night; he chose the polite route. The media is all upset ’cause he didn’t go cutthroat on ’em out there. They’re upset that all these guys did was attack Obama.
Now, folks, it’s 17 months out, and they are going to attack themselves at some point. It’s gonna happen when we get further into the debate process, the Republicans are gonna start going after each other, but right now Obama is the focal point, Obama is the opposition. And isn’t this the civility that everyone claims they wanted? It’s an excellent point. Everybody’s been demanding civility and so the Republicans epitomized it last night, and the media is all upset. They’re upset because the attacks on Obama were effective. I mean this regime’s got nothing to defend. The regime cannot say, “Give us four more years to do what we’ve done.” There’s nothing they’ve done that they can say give us four more years to do more of. Nobody really wants it.
The media hates civility at Republican debates. John King was the moderator last night and he had some technique that I found a bit curious. I have to be very careful here. When I utter media criticism of course everybody hears it, reacts to it, and I have to be very measured and civil, if you will, in my tone here. But, man, you heard some of these questions? Herman Cain, he’s deep dish, or thin crust. And I’m sitting there scratching my head, we’re in the midst here of a policy debate, each participant gets 30 seconds only to answer every question and they get peppered with that kind of stuff. And I don’t remember Obama being hit with those kind of questions. If Obama had been there would John King have said, “Lobster or Kobe beef? Dom Perignon or Cristal? Bill Ayers or Reverend Wright? Secure borders or murders, rapes, and kidnappings? What’s your choice, Mr. President? Harvard or Alinsky-U? Public or private sector? Socialism or capitalism?”
I think the effort to bring audience questions into a debate like this is a programming technique, Snerdley. It is a desire to have the audience connect and be part of the program rather than just participants. Some of their questions were good. Some of their questions were better and more pointed. The media questions were… Kathryn and I were watching this last night, and I said, “Yep, there you go, typical narrative question, template question.” You can guarantee yourself that two topics are gonna come up: abortion and gay marriage. And you could just see when both those topics came up John King came alive. I mean the top door to the casket that he was in came alive, and he popped out of there, and he was animated, oh he got excited. (imitating King) “Now this is the chance. I’m gonna really screw these guys. We’re gonna get ’em on gay marriage or we’re gonna get ’em on abortion.” It’s just standard operating procedure. And of course everybody handled these questions like a champ. Didn’t give them anything.
I think all in all, for the second debate, it made people watching who are conservative feel for the most part optimistic. Yeah, you can go candidate by candidate if you wanted to today, we could, and here’s what I didn’t like, here’s what could have been done better, and we can find the problems. I think it was Mitt Romney last night who said anybody on that stage would be a better president than Barack Obama, and anybody on that stage would be a better vice president than Joe Bite Me.
As usual, my friends, half my brain tied behind my back just to make it fair. Another John King question: “Anthony Weiner, hot dog or wiener?”
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RUSH: Ralph in Washington. Ralph, great to have you with us, sir. Hi.
CALLER: Hi, Rush. Longtime listener, second-time caller, and thank you for having me on the show.
RUSH: You bet, sir.
CALLER: Hey, after slogging through the debate last night I was really taken by the media’s reaction after the debate last evening and this morning to Michele Bachmann. And it seemed like there was a lot of glowing reviews for Congresswoman Bachmann, and I like her, too, I think she would be a great Speaker of the House, but all my years as a longtime student at the EIB Institute tells me there’s something else going on.
RUSH: You mean with her candidacy?
CALLER: Well, with the media’s glowing reviews of her. I kind of feel like they’re trying to set her up as the anti-Palin or in some way really build her up to try to keep Palin out. Does that make sense?
RUSH: Well, it could if you look at it from the following standpoint: The media doesn’t want Palin in the race, so build Bachmann up. Palin watches this, gets steamed because they know the media hates her, here they are building Bachmann up, she’s gonna realize, well, I can’t compete with her, they’re gonna love Michele, I have to stay out. Is that what you’re thinking?
CALLER: Well, I’m wondering if that’s what they’re thinking they can make us think. I just think that it won’t work. I mean I was taken last night by a poll that I saw that in spite of all the negativity, Palin still tracks just behind Romney, and I don’t know. I just was really interested in your viewpoint on how they were treating Michele Bachmann, which was over the top I thought, which was great, she did a great job, but I just think there’s something else happening.
RUSH: Well, I think at this point media treatment of any of these people is predictable in any number of connections. Here’s Bachmann new on the scene, they don’t think she has a prayer, they don’t think she stands a chance. Prior to last night they belittled her; they made fun of her; they made fun of her because she’s little. They’ve made fun of her because she’s an extremist and so forth. What they’re trying to do by elevating her now, I think is diminish everybody else in the race as well on the Republican side. But I actually think this. In addition to that I think sometimes we can be too smart by half, Ralph. And I actually believe there are some in the media who for the first time found out something about Michele Bachmann and they were shocked. They were stunned.
The media is like everybody else on the left. It’s like people who have never listened to this program but attack me religiously and claim to know everything about me. My personality, what I’ve said, what I haven’t said. They’ve never listened. They know it simply because it’s what’s been said by critics that they listen to. By the same token the media has a template narrative of Bachmann. And that is, she’s pro-life, she’s conservative, she’s stupid, she’s an idiot and so forth, and then they finally see her and it doesn’t meld with anything that they knew. It just doesn’t compute. They never bothered to learn anything about her because they didn’t care to. All they knew was that she’s a conservative female, therefore she’s a traitor, therefore she’s a wing nut. She’s a kook.
They see her last night in a totally different light, see her in ways that contradict everything they thought they knew about her. How many people watching last night do you think knew that she and her husband have five kids and raised 23 foster kids? How many people do you think knew this? Now, those of you who know it, well, why shouldn’t everybody? If I know it, why shouldn’t everybody? You’d be amazed about how ignorant the media is about people on our side. They’re not curious. All they know is that they oppose us and in some cases detest us and it’s purely and simply because we’re conservative, and that’s it. They don’t want to know anymore, they don’t need to know anymore. As such they don’t expect to like her. Plus she’s got another strike against her, and that is she’s very tight with the Tea Party. They hate the Tea Party.
So they think that John King and their buddies at CNN are gonna make her look like a fool. They believe they’re gonna be able to embarrass her off the stage by asking her a bunch of trick questions. She’s the one that got the question on gay marriage, and she hit a home run in her answer. And she’s the one that got the question about gays in the military, and she’s the one that got the question about abortion. They all chimed in on it, but she’s the one that got all those questions. Gay marriage, gays in the military, abortion, those are these issues that the left thinks that they can destroy any conservative with, and she hit a home run with every answer. And my guess is that some of them were just genuinely surprised. If there is an effort to take her out, it will begin now, not that it began yesterday. Now that they have seen her, now that they realize that they better take her seriously, that’s when they’ll focus on destroying her.
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RUSH: In Denver, Colorado, this is Tony. You’re next on the EIB Network. Hello, sir.
CALLER: Mega dittos O great Maha.
RUSH: You bet, sir.
CALLER: She deserves to be built up. I love her. Bachmann told the country last night Obama needs to direct the Treasury secretary to pay the interest on the debt first. Rush, do you agree with her on this alternative to avoid a failure of our full faith and credit?
RUSH: Run that by me again. It’s a hearing problem, I’m having trouble understanding what you’re saying. She told the country last night, Obama needs to direct the Treasury secretary to pay the interest on the debt first?
CALLER: Yes, that’s right. Do you agree with her?
RUSH: Well, what were the other options?
CALLER: Raise the debt ceiling.
RUSH: Oh, of course. We don’t need to raise the debt ceiling. The debt ceiling doesn’t need to be raised. We need to seriously cut spending. There’s plenty of money coming in via tax revenue to service the debt without raising the debt ceiling. We made the case for weeks here. This is just another of the never-ending straw dogs the Democrats throw up. In fact, CNNMoney.com on their website has a headline with a picture of I think Bachmann and Marco Rubio and one other Republican, I think Boehner, and they’re referred to in the headline as “wingnuts” on an CNNMoney.com website, wingnuts oppose raising debt ceiling. Now, it’s another disguised effort to get the government to expand and to grow and to try to proclaim the Republicans as mean-spirited and they want to cut old people’s Social Security and health care and so forth, and the Republicans right now have held pretty firm. I think they’ve done pretty well on it.
CALLER: Well, she has my vote. She was a hands-down winner of the debate last night. And what about that answer on Libya having no national security interests?
RUSH: Yeah.
CALLER: She really took it to ’em on that one.
RUSH: She was great. There’s no national interest in Libya. What are we there for? There’s no question she was on her game last night. I think they all were. And I’m not saying this because I want to avoid naming anybody over anybody else. I just think the whole debate last night was as good as the first one. You had a decent, in most cases a well above average, presentation of conservatism last night. And the media today is all upset because they didn’t go out and attack Romney as the front-runner. That’s not right, they should have been attacking Romney. And that’s because they were so effective in attacking Obama.
Believe me, we’re 17 months out, the Republicans in these debates at some point will start focusing on each other. That will happen. But right now the education that needs to take place is that this party is unified against this current regime and that anybody on that stage would be better than what we’ve got. And that message was made clear last night, even Romney I think made that statement. I can only think of a couple exceptions to that last night, and maybe not even one. Anybody on that stage would be better than what we’ve got. This has been my point when people tell me they can’t stand Palin. I say, “Yeah, that’s right, give me four more years of Obama.” Elmer Fudd, folks, anybody would be better than what we’ve got. This is serious business. This administration and its policies have to go, and not just for one election. We need to begin a trend here if we’re really going to reverse this. If we’re going to be true to the cause that we have pledged ourselves this is gonna have to be something that’s ongoing every election.
Liberalism must be beat wherever it’s on the ballot, wherever it’s personified. Everybody that asked a question in that debate last night would be a better president than what we’ve got. Every member of the public that they dragged forth to ask a question would make a better president than Obama. When I hear about so-and-so is not qualified, don’t give me not qualified. Where is Obama qualified? What the hell did Obama ever do, community organizer, vote “present” as a state senator, serve in the US Senate for a hundred and some odd days? Where is he qualified? I get livid when I hear people try to assault the Republicans who are running for office on the basis they’re not qualified.
Yeah, now in an ideal world we could afford to sit here and start being microscopic about this. Right now, folks, there’s not a Republican on that stage that wouldn’t do a better job for this country than what’s currently being done as president. There is not a person on that stage last night that would not end up with a much better support team, better cabinet, better people at CIA, Department of Defense, you name it. It’s not even close. We don’t have anybody in this current administration, either any of the czars or any of the cabinet members who have ever held a job in the private sector, not one. Not a single one. Meaning we don’t have anybody in this administration who’s ever spent time as an adult in the real world. They come from academe, the faculty lounge, the classroom, or wherever the hell else, think tanks or what have you. But they don’t come from the sectors and the quadrants of this country where people live who make it work. And they don’t have any contact with people who have made the country work.
Their relationships are all incestuous with people who are just like them, a bunch of theoreticians who think they’re smarter than everybody else, arrogant, condescending. I think it’s pedal to the metal time. Whenever I hear any standard criticism against any Republican nominee, I simply say, “What about Obama? Somebody explain to me what were his qualifications?” Sounded smart, spoke well with a teleprompter, what is it? Telegenic, sounded intelligent, sounded educated, big whoop. What were his qualifications? What are they now? In fact, in the case with Obama we’ve now got a record, and that record is evidence of one of two things: He has no clue what he’s doing, or he knows exactly what he’s doing. Either way, we are screwed.
All these limits that we want to place on our people that we don’t place and demand on our opponents. They gotta be morally a cut above, it’s not realistic. I thought they all did great. I thought they all, in their own ways, made great presentations of conservatism last night. Last night and the previous debate we got a brilliant exposition of the alternative to this, which is what has to happen. Never before have we had an opportunity like we have now to contrast who we are with liberalism. Never before have we lived in a time where liberalism, Marxism, what have you, the Democrat Party has so openly, eagerly embraced the destruction of this country. It’s there for one and all to see each and every day.
I know I get in trouble from people when I say this because they think I’m gonna cause people to be overly confident. I think Obama, the election today, loses in a landslide. I have friends who disagree with me, who think the Democrat have the fix in. They got voting irregularities and fraud and all these kinds of things that guarantee Obama reelection. I know that kind of thinking exists. I’m just relying on my common sense, that it’s combined with a faith that I still have in a vast majority of the American people to understand this is not the kind of country they want; this is not the way they want to live; this is not the future that they want. I don’t think they’re any longer caught up in the historical nature of this presidency. I don’t think they’re dazzled. I think it’s long gone now. I think the rubber has met the road. And if there were an election today, and if this guy got 20% of the vote, I would not be surprised. He’s got about 25, 30% support of the people in this country because that’s the percentage of the country that’s liberal.
This guy would not come close to winning if the election were today. I’m telling you, I’ve got friends that cringe when I say this and warn me that I shouldn’t be talking this way, ’cause I’m gonna get caught short, “What are you gonna do when he wins, Rush, what are you gonna do? It’s entirely possible he could win even now if the election were held tomorrow.” I have to concede that anything’s possible and I’m just predicting it based on what, to me, are obvious commonsense things, that there’s nothing that is happening in this country that anybody who’s in charge would be rewarded for doing. Unless Obama’s gonna be rewarded by the left for defeating conservatives. I think, sure, there’s a percentage of people who will vote on that basis. That’s why they loved Bill Clinton.
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RUSH: Here now, ladies and gentlemen, the entire exchange Newt Gingrich and John King on immigration last night where Gingrich said that one of the reasons we have so much trouble here is that we give ourselves nothing but catastrophic alternatives.
KING: President Bush, Senator McCain spent a lot of time on this, Mr. Speaker. I want your view. There are an estimated maybe 20 million illegal immigrants in this country, people have different numbers. If you were going to round them all up, Congressman Tom Tancredo at this stage four years ago would have said, “Round them up and kick them out. They broke the law, they shouldn’t be here.” I don’t know where the money would come from in this environment, so I want your sense — is that what the states should be doing, the federal government should be spending money and resources on, or like President Bush and like Senator McCain, at least in the McCain-Kennedy days, should we have some path to status for those who are willing to step up and admit where they are and come out of the shadows?
GINGRICH: One of the reasons this country is in so much trouble is that we are determined among our political elites to draw up catastrophe alternatives. We either have to ship 20 people out of America or legalize all of them. That’s nonsense. We’re never gonna pass a comprehensive bill. Obama proved that in the last two years. He couldn’t get a comprehensive bill through with Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid, and he didn’t even try because he knew he couldn’t do it. You break this down. Herman Cain’s essentially right, you break it down. First of all you control the border. We can ask the National Guard to go to Iraq. We ask the National Guard to go to Kuwait. We ask the National Guard to go to Afghanistan. Somehow we would have done more for American security if we had had the National Guard on the border. But if you don’t want to use the National Guard… (applause) Just one last example, if you don’t want to use the National Guard, take half of the current Department of Homeland Security bureaucracy in Washington, transplant it to Texas, Arizona, and New Mexico, you’ll have more than enough people to control the border. But —
KING: All right, let’s —
GINGRICH: No, let me say, John, no serious citizen who’s concerned about solving this problem should get trapped into a yes-no answer in which you’re either for totally selling out, protecting America, or you’re for totally kicking out 20 million people in a heartless way. There are humane, practical steps to solve this problem if we get the politicians and the news media to just deal with it honestly.
RUSH: That’s a great answer from the Newtster. I mean there’s no question about it. But you’ll notice here, even in the question King said, “On this stage four years ago Tom Tancredo, round ’em up, they’re illegal, kick ’em out, get rid of them. The smart days of McCain-Kennedy, smart days,” blah, blah, blah. So the effort was on. Another reason why this was good last night is because the effort was made throughout this debate last night by King and the other media people to make those people look like a bunch of fringe kooks, and they failed to make them look like fringe kooks. These people came off as responsible, reasonable, patriotic Americans. It’s one of the reasons why so many people were shocked by Michele Bachmann.
Michele Bachmann, she’s been portrayed as this fringe nutcase kook just like Palin has been portrayed that way, and all of a sudden she doesn’t come off that way because she’s not. And people are scratching their heads, “This is not what we thought.” But this question that King asked was typical of the way the media tried to construct this thing last night to make every Republican on that stage look like a tinfoil hat nutcase, like a bunch of Lyndon LaRouches up there. (interruption) What do you mean they couldn’t play with the camera angle? Oh, oh, yeah, yeah. When Michele Bachmann did the State of the Union response and they had a camera situated in such a way that made it look like she was not addressing the people. She was addressing the Tea Party camera because she was doing the Tea Party response to the State of the Union. They set up a second camera in there. They couldn’t do things like that last night, but they tried. This is my point.
You heard this question. This question is filled with, “Okay, all of you wackos here, one of your fellow wackos, Tom Tancredo wanted to get rid of all these poor people. They shouldn’t be here, they broke the law but I don’t know where you’re gonna get the money for that now so if you can’t get the money for that, what are you gonna do? Shouldn’t we have like Bush did and Kennedy did and McCain, shouldn’t there be some path to status for these people.” And Gingrich was right, what are we dealing with a catastrophic solution, kick 20 million people out or not; that’s not the solution to the problem. Everybody on that stage last night, even Ron Paul at times sounded reasonable. And you could see the frustration on the media faces. You could see the frustration a little bit on King’s face. You could see the frustration in some of the local anchors that they had from New Hampshire. I’m telling you, folks, it was all good.
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