RUSH: You know, there I am up there on MSNBC. One little tiny comment about Santorum and Satan, and the media went nuts. And we got the audio sound bites to prove it. The media went nuts over this. By the way, we found a speech by Ronaldus Magnus in 1983, also to an evangelical group, that sounds eerily similar to the speech given by Santorum at Ave Maria University, which is Tom Monaghan’s university, founder of Domino’s Pizza. That was the famous Evil Empire speech. That was the speech that Reagan called the Soviet Union the Evil Empire and the media went just as nuts back in 1983 as they are going over Santorum and his speech at Ave Maria back in 2008.
Interestingly, nobody cared about Santorum’s speech in 2008 since he wasn’t doing anything. Now he’s running for president and there’s a reason why the press and the White House and everybody is going nuts over this and it has to do with the fact that Santorum isn’t backing down from it, which means essentially that he’s fighting back and the media and the left are not used to this. The media, the left, they’re used to cowering Republicans. The Republicans do something and the media reacts, “How dare you?” “Opps, sorry, sorry, won’t do it again,” and they slink away in the corner and the media and the Democrats chalk another one up, but Santorum’s not giving them that.
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RUSH: As I said yesterday, Drudge posted excerpts from a speech that Santorum gave at this university. Santorum said, “Satan set his sights on America,” and the media went predictably apoplectic. I also said yesterday, Santorum is gonna have to answer the media on this.
The subject of good and evil is not a new one in this country. I thought his comments were pretty innocuous, given who he is; he’s a devout Catholic. This is what they believe. And we’re told in this country that we have religious freedom. “That’s right, Mr. Limbaugh, but people do not run for the office of president of the United States speaking this kind of stuff. It just isn’t done, Mr. Limbaugh, it scares people.” Maybe so. But I thought the comments were rather innocuous. He was speaking to a Catholic audience, Ave Maria University. But for some reason, my offhand comment about Santorum having to answer was picked up by any number of media outlets and pundits, which I guess I should now realize and come to expect. The Big Voice on the Right, this is going to happen. I will have to answer for it.
Santorum, by the way, did explain his comments. He’s not backed down. He told CNN, “I’m a person of faith. I believe in good and evil. If somehow or another because you’re a person of faith and you believe in good and evil is a disqualifier for president, we’re going to have a very small pool of candidates who can run for president,” which I think is a pretty good answer. But to be honest, I have to laugh about the idea of candidates believing in good and evil when I think about some of the recent Democrats for office, John Edwards, the Clintons, the Kennedys. But I digress. Isn’t Rick Santorum really being attacked for having and expressing Catholic beliefs?
I mean who is the better Catholic example, Ted Kennedy or Rick Santorum? And who has been lionized by our media, and who is being castigated, laughed at, made fun of and destroyed, or the attempt to destroy being made? It would be Santorum. Aren’t we constantly told that we must always respect people for their religious beliefs? Or does that only apply to Democrats and Muslims? And nobody else’s religious beliefs, Christian beliefs, they’re gonna come down hard on you if you express yours. Nobody ever attacks Obama for his religious beliefs when he trots ’em out for political purposes, like saying Jesus would agree with my tax increases on the rich.
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RUSH: There’s only one that is a threat to religious liberty. Who do you think that is? Think it’s Santorum? Do you think Santorum is a threat to your religious liberty? If you do, you are wrong. Barack Obama has already shown that he is a threat to religious liberty. He has already indicated he doesn’t believe in it. By mandating that Catholic institutions give away things related to abortion, things they morally abhor and disagree with, or better stated, after they raised objections, “Okay, okay, I hear you. I hear you. We’ll make the insurance companies do it.” It doesn’t matter in the end, religious liberty dies when Barack Obama rules.
Now, you can sit there and you can get all agitated over Santorum talking about Satan, which is essentially a discussion of good versus evil and we all know that there is evil. But in terms of somebody that’s going to actually encroach upon your religious liberty, it isn’t Rick Santorum, it’s Barack Obama. And it’s not just Barack Obama. It is the left. There’s no question, they do it each and every day. And they are willing to impugn those religions that either frighten them or with whom they disagree, all while claiming allegiance and loyalty to the First Amendment. It doesn’t matter to them. Just to put this in perspective, talking about religious liberty, we already have a president of the United States who doesn’t care about yours. Rick Santorum would no more do what Barack Obama has done already than you would do if you were president.
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RUSH: Here is Santorum. We’ve got two Santorums, and then we’re gonna take a break after the two Santorums, and come back and we’re gonna visit Ronaldus Magnus, his speech to an evangelical group, March 8th, 1983. This was the speech where Reagan called out the Soviet Union as an Evil Empire, called them the focus of evil in the world, and the media back then had the same conniption fit that it’s having today over Santorum. Last night in Phoenix after a speech at a campaign event Santorum spoke with reporters. A political correspondent, one of them from CNN, Jim Acosta, said to Santorum, “Is there any chance you can respond to this headline that was splashed across the Drudge Report today about the speech you made in Florida?”
SANTORUM: It’s absurd. You know, if a person — I’m a person of faith. I believe in good and evil. I think if somehow or another because you’re a person of faith and you believe in good, evil is a disqualifier for president, we’re gonna have a very small pool of candidates who can run for president. Ronald Reagan talked very much in terms of good and evil and the fact of the matter is good and evil exists. Ronald Reagan recognized it. I think, again, vast, vast majority of Americans recognize it.
RUSH: He’s exactly right. In a political sense, the Democrats or the regime here, if you’re gonna try to make an issue out of this good and evil business, you’re gonna be in the minority. This is a classic example of the good old silent majority that Richard Nixon talked about, vast majority of Americans believed in the concept of good and evil. No question about it. And if the regime wants to act like that’s something odd, if the media and the Democrats want to act like that’s some kook premise, let ’em go ahead. They’re gonna find themselves once again thinking they live in a foreign country, they’ll be so out of touch with the vast majority of Americans. Santorum wasn’t finished. He continued with his answer.
SANTORUM: Guys, these are questions that are not relevant to what’s being discussed in America today. What we’re talking about in America today is trying to get America growing. That’s what my speeches are about. That’s what we’re gonna talk about in this campaign. And if they want to dig up old speeches, you know, talking to a religious group, they can go right ahead and do so, but I’m gonna stay on message, and I’m gonna talk about things that Americans want to talk about.
RUSH: And his point was, look, I made this speech in 2008, it’s four years ago. I’ll be glad to talk to you about it, but I’m not going to be taken off message either.
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RUSH: Last night on the Situation Room with Wolf Blitzed, uh, Blitzer. Mary Matalin is the guest, and Blitzer says, “Mary, how is this gonna play, this Santorum and the devil stuff, how is it gonna play out there, Republican voters in Arizona and Michigan a week later on Super Tuesday?”
MATALIN: You know, Wolf, he’s a devout Catholic using the language of the well-versed Catholic at a Catholic university. That was not a campaign event. There’s also nothing particularly over the top to use that language right now or for Catholics to hear that, because they are 30% of the electorate, they’re in the swing states, and Obama has lost the support that he enjoyed among that Catholic demographic in the last go round. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing for Rick Santorum.
RUSH: That’s an excellent point, and she knows her stuff, and she knows what she’s talking about, and it’s obvious that Obama’s written off the Catholic vote. He has written off white working-class voters. They announced that, don’t forget, in a column in the New York Times. A guy named Thomas Edsall, who’s now at the Huffing and Puffington Post. They’re writing these people off. Obama is campaigning to the people in the cart who are being pushed or pulled by the five or six percent that pull the cart. Obama’s campaigning for the people he thinks outnumber the producers. Takers versus producers, Obama’s aiming at the takers. He’s counting on the fact there are more of them who will vote than there are producers who will vote, and with his attacks on religious liberty?
It’s like I said earlier, you got two candidates here if it ends up this way, Santorum and Obama. Which one of those two is a greater threat to religious liberty? There’s no question it’s Obama. He’s already assaulted religious liberty.
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RUSH: Here’s Sarah Palin last night. She was on Hannity, who said to her, “I believe there’s good in evil, I believe in the Lord’s Prayer, you look at the killing fields, 9/11. I would argue that that’s evil, is it not? Evil in our time in this century as well.”
PALIN: Sean, that’s foreign to so many in that leftist media. They will attack any conservative who boldly proclaims their faith and talks about there is good in the world and there is evil in the world, and that’s what Rick Santorum was talking about. And this was a speech that he gave back in 2008 where he named evil as Satan. And for these lamestream media characters to get all wee-weed up about that, first you have to ask yourself, have they ever attended a Sunday school class? Have they never heard this terminology before? And that’s why they just got so, you know, just whacked out about this speech.
RUSH: That is a fascinating question to me. I know that Chris Matthews is a Catholic. But I have to wonder, does he go to mass, and when he goes, what does he hear? When he hears Santorum speak, is that the first time he’s ever heard this stuff? It’s like Juan Williams when he heard Lord Monckton give the counterarguments to global warming, he at least admitted, “I never heard this before. I never heard this.” But Santorum is not out of the Catholic mainstream at all. So she’s exactly right about that.