RUSH: I’ve got a lot of CPAC sound bites here, and a lot of the people that have spoken have really been great. They’ve raised the roof. Now, I mentioned Rick Perry in the opening of the program. Let’s actually listen. He, among other things, made the point. They say conservatism’s dead. Everybody thinks conservatism has gone by the wayside. How do we know? We haven’t nominated any conservatives. McCain wasn’t conservative. Romney wasn’t conservative. Of course, the CPAC audience loved hearing that. So I think we got three bites here from Rick Perry. Here’s the first…
PERRY: He’s decided to shut down White House tours. Apparently now the only folks who can get a tour of the White House are those that contribute half a million dollars or more. It would be laughable if he hadn’t taken it one step too far: Dangerously releasing criminals onto our streets to make a political point. When you have a federally sponsored jailbreak — and don’t get confused, that’s exactly what this is: A federally sponsored jailbreak — you cross the line from the politics of spin to politics as a craven form of cynicism where everything goes. Everything goes in order to win the next election.
RUSH: Now, for you low-information voters out there, what he’s talking about is that the regime — and they admitted this yesterday. They’ve been denying this. The regime admitted that they have released over 2,000 illegal aliens from jail. They weren’t in jail because they’re illegal; they were in jail because they’ve committed genuine crimes. The regime said, “Well, we got the sequester coming. We’re outta money, so we haven’t got the money to keep them in jail,” and they let ’em go.
They first tried to say, “No, we didn’t,” and then they tried to say, “Well, Janet Napolitano did that; we didn’t have anything to do with that.” That was like Clinton during the Waco invasion back in the nineties. The press shows up to ask Clinton about the Branch Davidian complex burning to the ground. There’s tanks! I mean, people were getting killed in there. They asked Clinton about it, and Clinton said, “Hey, hey, don’t ask me. That’s Janet Reno’s thing. Janet’s responsible. Go ask Janet,” and they did the same thing here.
They tried to pass it off on Big Sis. She said, “I didn’t do it! The ICE guy did it,” and the ICE guy said, “No, no, no, no. It’s just a couple hundred.” So yesterday they admitted the truth. The director of ICE is the fall guy. He’s taking full responsibility for thousands — not hundreds, as Napolitano said — hardened illegal alien criminals getting released. Of course, this is all about inflicting pain. This is all about Obama winning the political point. Perry is right about it. Here’s the comment about popular narrative being that conservatism’s dead.
PERRY: The popular media narrative is that this country has shifted away from conservative ideals, as evidenced by the last two presidential elections. That’s what they think. That’s what they say. That might be true, if Republicans had actually nominated conservative candidates in 2008 and 2012.
AUDIENCE: (applause)
RUSH: Right on! Right on. Now, we edited the applause here in the interests of time. Here’s the final Rick Perry bite.
PERRY: We’re not the people of equal outcomes and quotas of race-based appeals, or the cradle-to-the-grave Nanny State. We’re the people who say everyone — everyone — deserves a shot, but success is only the product of hard work and innovation. We’re the ideology that is blind to color and solely grounded in the merit system. These ideals are as old as America, and they will live on as the prevailing sentiment long after we’re gone because they’re what make America unique. We will never bend to the social and economic agenda of Western Europe. Yes, it’s an interesting place to vacation, but it is a sorry example of governance.
RUSH: Whoa! So there’s Perry launching both barrels. Now we move on to the Trumpster, Donald Trump. I got a note from a friend of mine this morning before the program who said, “You know, this is kind of fascinating. The media seems to be more excited about Trump than the audience.” I don’t know if that’s true or not. That was just somebody’s observation. But Trump was given a lot of speech time. You know, the CPAC people decide who gets to speak and for how long. How many Trumpsters do we have here? We have a couple, and then Wayne LaPierre after that.
TRUMP: I like Mitt Romney a lot, but if he made one mistake: It’s that he didn’t talk enough about his success. Because, honestly, people really want success. They want a leader who’s successful. And Mitt has done a great job, and I just feel that the Republicans and Mitt — and I told him this — didn’t speak enough about the things he did, the great things. They were on the defensive instead of taking that offensive.
RUSH: Except at the convention. At the Republican convention, it was a parade of people with glowing testimonials about the charitable nature of the Romneys, the genuine acts of charity that they have engaged in that nobody knew about. But I have tell, I know Trump, and I know what he means here. You’ve gotta go tell your story! You can’t count on other people to do it, and you can’t count on people to learn it.
But at the same time when you tell your own story, if you don’t know how to do it, like I do, it comes off as defensive and whining and, “Why don’t you notice me? Why haven’t I gotten any credit for this? How come I’m not being heard? Look at all the wonderful I am!” It’s a really, really tough thing to do, and people who have been raised to be humble find it incredibly difficult to go out and sing their own praises, which is why they hire PR people. When you hire the PR people, do you know what they tell you?
“Go have a meeting with the New York Times.”
“Well, I don’t need you to tell me to go have a meeting with them.”
“Yeah, that’s what you’re hiring me: For my expertise. Do an interview with the New York Times and have them tell your story.”
“Well, that’s very helpful.”
Look, I understand Trump’s point but take away the politics for just a second. I don’t think that you’re going to find a more decent, genuine, just plain old nice and solid citizen human being than Mitt Romney. That was, to me, what was so outrageous about this, “Romney doesn’t care if this guy’s wife dies from cancer,” or, “Romney hates dogs,” or whatever. You know, we’re sitting around thinking, “Nobody’s gonna believe that,” and the low-information voters did, because that’s all they heard about Romney for months.
It’s what Caddell was talking about. Why didn’t Romney buy some ads? See, he couldn’t spend the money that he had raised for his campaign because this was before the convention. The law says you can’t spend that money ’til after the convention. So he didn’t have any money unless he would have spent his own. He didn’t spend it. Obama couldn’t run for reelection on his record, so he had to go out and demonize Romney, which he did — and there was no retort to it. There was no response to it. We said, “Nobody’s gonna believe Romney hates dogs,” but you can make low-information people believe anything if you hit ’em enough with it, which is what happened.
Now, Trump was firing both barrels here about how this country is being run by a bunch of genuinely stupid fools.
TRUMP: Now, I buy all my televisions from South Korea, I’m sorry to say. I just ordered 3,000 units, 3,000 televisions, South Korea, LGs, et cetera. We don’t make ’em in our country anymore. I get criticized, “Oh, why didn’t you buy ’em here?” You can’t buy ’em here. We don’t make televisions in this country. So North Korea, as it always does, gets frisky, and then we pay ’em off, and they get less frisky, right? North Korea gets frisky. What do we get out of it? We’re run by either very foolish or very stupid people. What’s going on in this country is unbelievable. Our country is a total mess, a total and complete mess. And what we need is leadership.
RUSH: Wow. Who else would walk up to the microphone or podium and tell you how many TVs they just bought? Snerdley, what are you pointing at me for? I would tell them how big the one TV I just bought is, but I wouldn’t — 3,000 TVs? And he didn’t say for his hotels or his casinos. So you got some people, “Well, 3,000 TVs for his house, Mabel, whoa, wow.” Anyway, one more from the Trumpster.
TRUMP: The fact is 11 million people will be voting Democratic. You can be out front. You can be the spearhead. You can do whatever you want to do, but every one of those 11 million people will be voting Democratic. It’s just the way it works. And you have to be very, very careful, because you could say that to a certain extent the odds aren’t looking so great right now for Republicans, that you’re on a suicide mission. You’re just not gonna get those votes.
RUSH: That’s Trump talking about amnesty. Republicans are making a move here trying to agree with immigration reform. And his point is, whatever number it is, they’re gonna vote Democrat. And it’s silly, even if you get one million of ’em, big whoop. What are you doing to the other members of your base that you’re ticking off in the process? But this is what happens when a party gets shellacked. They lose confidence.
Look, the thing about this that amazes me, who is telling us that we need to moderate our position on immigration? Who’s telling us this? The Democrats. The people that beat us. “You know what you need to do? You guys, you need to moderate your tone on illegals. You need lighten up, you know, be for amnesty.”
Do they really want to help us? Do they really feel so bad for us that they want to share some of their votes with us? What’s amazing to me is that we have people on our side who believe it. It’s a trick. It’s a trap. It’s no different than when the Democrats say, “You better stop criticizing Obama. You’re gonna really tick off the independents.” And we say, “Yeah, you know, we better stop criticizing Obama, gonna tick off the independents.” And so they neuter us. Well, not me, but I mean the Republican leadership. Wayne LaPierre, National Rifle Association, could not believe when the vice president of the United States, Joe Bite Me, actually told women (imitating Bite Me), “Just grab a shotgun if somebody’s trying to get you and fire the shotgun through the door.” That’s all you need. This is what he said about it.
LAPIERRE: I’m gonna quote him directly. “Just walk out, walk out and put that double barreled shotgun and fire two blasts outside the house.” The vice president — I know, you’re smiling, but, gosh. The vice president of the United States actually told women facing an attack to just empty their shotguns into the air. Honestly. Have they lost their minds over at the White House? (cheers and applause) When it comes to that right, sir, you keep your advice; we’ll keep our guns. (cheers and applause)
RUSH: Red meat for the CPACers. Ah, Bite Me is such an easy — you know, they’re doing a video on Bite Me. A day with Biden at the White House or some such thing. And he’s narrating it, some such thing. A day with Plugs. Anyway, one more from LaPierre. I don’t need to explain this. This is self-explanatory.
LAPIERRE: Some members of the Colorado legislature think women are too emotional to deal with a violent attack. Senator — listen to this. Senator Jessie Ulibarri said that instead of using a firearm, you’d be better off using ballpoint pens to stab an attacker when he stops to reload. (laughter) A ballpoint pen? At the University of Colorado at Colorado Springs, officials recommend that women defend themselves against a rapist with passive resistance. Passive resistance? The one thing a violent rapist deserves to face is a good woman with a gun! (cheers and applause)
RUSH: More red meat for the CPACers, Wayne LaPierre, the NRA.