RUSH: Michelle in Cincinnati, I’m glad you called, Open Line Friday. Hi.
CALLER: Hi, Rush. Thank you so much for taking my call.
RUSH: My pleasure.
CALLER: This call is about four years overdue, but after your monologue this afternoon I actually said a prayer that I would get through. My father was a high school journalism and English teacher, and under his guidance, his students put together an award-winning newspaper and yearbook. In fact, it won national awards for several years in a row. He never missed your show. He so respected you as a journalist because he himself believed in responsible journalism, the who, what, where, when, why, and how of a story. And he would actually tape-record your show on Wednesdays because his bridge game conflicted with your broadcast. He could be seen in the summertime pulling weeds with his little transistor radio next to him listening to your show. On behalf of my father, I want to thank you for your dedication and your devotion to responsible journalism and your excellence in broadcasting. Rush, we need people like you, especially in light of everything that’s going on. And after the election, the day after the election, I think we were all kind of shocked, but I heard something in your voice that really scared me. I actually heard just a tinge of despair. And it made me realize how much people like you who speak the truth are needed today in the media. And thank you for that.
RUSH: You heard despair?
CALLER: Well, despair is… I guess that’s kind of a strong word. But I could tell you were disappointed, as we all were.
RUSH: Scared.
CALLER: Scared. Exactly.
RUSH: Scared is the best way to describe it, and I still am.
CALLER: I am, too.
RUSH: However, I have a mounting confidence at the same time. By the way, thank you so much. I’m very touched and moved by what you’ve said and the description of your father, and I really appreciate that more than I can express to you. I really do. I thank you very much. All these stories about the Republicans — and it’s clear what their strategy is. The Republicans are basically gonna close up shop for a while. That’s what they’ve decided to do. And even with that, I’ve got this tinge of optimism going through me.
BREAK TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: It’s always dangerous to talk about optimism because some people interpret optimism sometimes as a false sense, or actually as a denial of reality, and I’m not doing that.
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No, no. No, no. Snerdley is wanting to know why I didn’t object to the previous caller praising my talents as a journalist. I think what happens here on this show is closer to real journalism than anything we’re getting from so-called journalists. I have said for the longest time, “We do here what the mainstream journalists used to do.” We’re doing their job for them. We do look at both sides of everything here. We tell you the pluses and minus of both sides.
I think liberals can find out more about what their belief system is about listening to this program than by watching any cable network, and certainly no cable network explains conservatism. We explain both here. But no, this optimism thing… I’ve noticed two things. The Republicans do seem to just be packing it in when it comes to trying to stop Obama on the theory that, “Okay, look, he won the election.
“He’s not even been immaculated yet for his second term, and he’s already on the march. We’re just the House and we lost, and so there’s not really a whole lot of we can do,” and I don’t sense that they’ve got a whole lot of fight in them at the leadership level, anyway. There certainly isn’t a lot of unity in the Republican Party right now. There are elements of the Republican establishment who are just as eager to discredit conservatives as the Democrat Party is.
I saw (impression) “the Krauthammer column,” as Dr. Kissinger refers to it — the Krauthammer column — and the latest Krauthammer column basically says the best thing the Republicans can do right now is sort of just wave the white flag and move on. I just get the sense that that’s gonna happen. So how in the world I have this little tingling optimism? And I do.
I have a sense that it’s gonna be okay. I can’t get specific, and I know it flies in the face of reality. I don’t know anymore than that. I’m not a soothsayer, nor am I a seer. I can’t predict the future. But I’m fairly confident — and it’s not because of the second term tradition that happens to every president. Some scandal or something comes along and distracts them and takes down the president. I’m not putting faith in anything like that. I’m just…
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What?
(interruption)
Overreach? No. I think Obama’s overreached for four years and gotten away with it. Snerdley just said, “What about overreach that Obama…?” What you’re really saying is that somebody’s gonna go too far and the country’s gonna wake up and say, “Oh, my God, what did we do?” I don’t think that. I’d love for that to happen. I mean, I could sit around and fantasize, but what I’m thinking is a strain of that, a variety of that.
I just think that it is going to be an event or series of events that reorients people in the way they’re looking at Obama. I do think that’s gonna happen, and it’s not gonna happen because I sit here and tell people who he is and what he’s like. I’ve been doing that for four years, and so have a lot of other people. Now, I’m not saying the four years have been wasted. We’ve built the foundation.
When the event or events happen that bring about this reality that I think is gonna occur, having this foundation, people saying, “Oh, yeah! You know what? Maybe they were right” is gonna happen. “You know, I should have listened to what Limbaugh or somebody else was saying.” Maybe it is a little overreaching, going too far. It’s rooted in a belief that a lot of people — and I don’t know how many and I don’t know if it’s a majority.
But certainly a lot of people voted for Obama having no idea what was really going to happen. Now, that could be blind faith. I try never to tell myself stories. Constantly. I never tell myself feel-good stories. I try to remain grounded in Realville where I’m the mayor every day. But I do believe that a lot of people will see this. We saw the first wave of this, by the way, when the paychecks went out and the take-home pay was smaller because the tax cut on payroll taxes was restored.
There’s gonna be more as Obamacare implements. At some point, all of these economic policies are going to hit. At some point the government, the Federal Reserve or somebody, is gonna run out of tricks to delay what’s coming. What’s coming is gonna eventually happen. Reality will eventually triumph here, and when it does I think it’s what’s gonna constitute this.
I’m not saying sit back and ignore everything else and don’t oppose Obama. I’m saying nothing like that. I don’t want anybody to get nervous here. I’m not gonna do that. I’m not waving the white flag and I’m not surrendering. I think the Republicans are. I think you better get used to the fact there isn’t going to be any serious legislative opposition to Obama for the next year. If there is and I’m pleasantly surprised, cool.