RUSH: And greetings to you, music lovers, thrill-seekers, conversationalists all across the fruited plain, Rush Limbaugh back at it here in the saddle again, glued tight to the air chair, the throne behind the Golden EIB Microphone here at the Limbaugh Institute for Advanced Conservative Studies. Telephone number is 800-282-2882. The e-mail address,
I really did take some time away, folks. I literally paid no attention to anything — well, a couple things, but I paid no attention to anything until I started cramming yesterday when I got back home. And there’s some stuff that happened. Did you know, Snerdley, I had no idea that I was the focus of attention all over the media. From New York to Los Angeles, Boston to New Orleans, Chicago to Dallas, this Idris Elba thing, and I had no idea. I had no idea. Until I saw the audio sound bite roster today, I had no idea.
I looked at the transcript of the audio sound bites and not one of the people — and apparently it was everybody in the Drive-Bys. Well, you know what it was. The Sony hack has caused a bunch of people at Sony to try to — oh, have you seen the story about — well, we knew this, I mean, we instinctively knew it, more than instinctively knew it. There’s a big story in the New York Post yesterday about how Al Sharpton shakes down corporations and how companies pay him to leave them alone. How they pay him to ensure that he does not ever accuse them of racism. That’s his income. That’s how he makes his living. They donate to the National Action Network or whatever it is.
Anyway, in the Sony hack, the people at Sony, they were bending over forwards with Sharpton, trying to save their racial reputations and everything, and one of the things that came out was that the new James Bond should be Idris Elba. He’s African-American, but he’s British. He’s black from Britain. He’s a great actor. But James Bond’s a white guy and I pointed this out. I even said, “You probably are gonna see this portrayed as racist.”
I had a friend ask me yesterday watching all the pregame stuff for football — and by the way the Lions got jobbed on that pass interference call. I don’t care what anyone says, the Lions got jobbed on that call. Yeah, the Cowboys still won, and the Lions didn’t do enough to win. I understand all that. I’m not saying it’s a conspiracy, but they got jobbed on that call, that pass interference call where they picked up the flag.
Anyway, a friend of mine sends me a note, he’s watching all the pregame stuff and the sideline reporters, and he says, “Would it be sexist in America today for me to simply say, ‘I don’t like female sports reporters’?” And I wrote back, “You’re damn right it would be sexist, particularly if you had a microphone and a radio show when you said it.”
He said, “But I don’t mean it sexist. Football’s a man’s game. I want to hear male sports reporters talking about it. I think of these women reporters as groupies.”
And I said, “Well, you better understand it’s 2015 now. You can’t say stuff like that. I mean, you can say it, but you are gonna be accused of being sexist.”
He said, “But I’m not. I love women. I got nothing against women. I fantasize about women, but I just — and I’m not a sexist. I just don’t like female sports reporters.”
And I said, “Sir,” and I went on to explain this Idris Elba thing. James Bond’s white. He’s a fictional character created by Ian Fleming. He’s white. Now they want to turn the character into a black Brit, and I made the comment, “I know this is probably gonna be portrayed as racist, but that’s not who James Bond is.”
And what everybody who talked about the this, I read the transcript, what everybody who talked about t it in the media forgot to point out and comment on, I said, “Okay, in the movie, The Life and Times of Barack Obama, let’s cast Mel Gibson as Barack Obama. And let’s see how that flies. Or The Life and Times of Oprah Winfrey, let’s cast Gwyneth Paltrow, and let’s see how that flies.” None of them mentioned that I said that. Anyway, I’ve got the sound bites, folks.
I’ve got so much to do here and most of the fun stuff, most of the exciting stuff is cultural. It really has nothing to do with politics. Now, we’ve got this poll of all kinds of Republicans and what they think about Boehner and the leadership and what they want the Republican Party to do, and there’s really nothing in it that we don’t know. But we’ll go through that as the program unfolds today before your very eyes and ears.
We’ve got some people challenging Boehner. Louie Gohmert, our buddy, wants to run for Speaker. He was on Fox today, and they said, “Why? You don’t have a chance. Why are you doing this?” How many people told Obama he didn’t have a chance and he went for it anyway? We don’t know ’til they cast the votes whether anybody has a chance.
But it’s all about getting rid of Boehner as Speaker, which a majority of Republicans outside Washington want to do. It’s not the first time, and every effort that has been made prior to this has failed. They say they’ve got 25 out of 29 votes to at least veto Boehner, if not elect somebody in his place. But they had that before and it fell apart. It caved at the moment of truth.
Mitch McConnell, did you see this? “New Senate Majority LeaderÂ’s Main Goal for GOP: DonÂ’t be Scary.” What is that? Is that kind of like we need to do compassionate conservatism? Don’t be scary? You know what that means. We gotta shut up Ted Cruz. “Mitch McConnell has an unusual admonition for the new Republican majority as it takes over the Senate this week: DonÂ’t be ‘scary.'” Why don’t we just acknowledge that we are what the Democrats and the media say about us and then let’s announce that we are on a mission here to change who we are because who we are is exactly what they say we are.
What is this, don’t be scary? We just won a landslide! We just won a huge landslide victory and these guys are already starting off in a defensive posture with, it seems, the never-ending quest of convincing the Drive-Bys that we are not the way they think of us. And our buddy Bob Schieffer, Jurassic Park, Face the Nation yesterday, Bob Schieffer says you’re not seeing the Republicans make any effort here. He’s not seeing it. He not seeing any effort on the part of the Republicans to go out and get black votes, get Hispanic votes. And what old Bob doesn’t understand is that in the real world, we’re not trying to. The African-American vote is 93% Democrat, and we don’t want ’em voting that way.
We want to change their minds about things. What old Bob means is we better become like Democrats if we ever hope to win again. We just won a landslide and the meme is still we’ve gotta become like Democrats if we really want to win. So we’ve gotta go out and we have to get the African-American vote, we have to get the Hispanic vote. Now, in Bob’s world, how do we do that? Well, we talk about big government. We talk about giving away things. We talk about the enemies they face and we’re gonna get even. But that’s not who we are.
Who we are is convincing people that that’s the wrong thing path. Who we are is convincing people, trying to persuade people of conservatism. But Bob Schieffer’s never gonna understand that, and so an effort to appeal to blacks and Hispanics, anybody, any voter, on the basis of conservatism, is never gonna be understood as reaching out to the black community. The only way you can reach out to the black community, the only way you can reach out to any liberal constituency is to reach out to them as liberal. If you don’t do that then you’re not reaching out to ’em. And that’s of course not what we’re about. What we’re about is persuading and changing people’s minds.
All right, let me go through the highlights in the poll, because somebody said to me — and I don’t like this. I actually really don’t like this. But somebody said to me this whole Boehner thing and this Republican leadership thing, I mean, until you weigh in on it, a lot of people aren’t gonna know what to think and how to act and maybe even how to vote. And I asked Snerdley, I said, “Do you think that’s really true? I mean, am I an entertainer today or am I the titular head of the party today, which is it?”
“Well, you’ve gotta understand, whether you like it or not, there are people waiting to see what you think about this.” Okay. So this massive poll, three days worth of data released. What I’ve tried to do here is cull it down to its bare essence, to the genuine real highlights. And here we go. And this, by the way, is the poll that was supervised by Pat Caddell. It was conducted by EMC Research. It’s called the People’s Poll. And, as I say, here are the basic highlights.
Oh. One more thing on this Idris Elba business. Every one of these media people claim that the only reason I said it was to be talked about. Not everyone, but a lot of them said, “Well, you know, Rush Limbaugh, he pulled off another brilliant masterstroke. Here he is on vacation and who are we talking about? Him.” That’s not why I mentioned it. It’s not why I mention anything. I don’t have to make an effort to be talked about. I get talked about no matter what. I hate to think what would happen if I ever tried to get talked about.
They plug everybody into the personality cookie cutouts that they themselves live in. I don’t say what I say here to get noticed. That’s already happened, like 25 years ago. I really say what I believe. It’s so hard for people to accept it. Anyway, back to the poll, which I really don’t care about because whatever — well, I don’t want to be pessimistic about this. Not yet. I’ll wait until there’s justification for it.
“Almost 90% of Republican voters think the country’s headed in the wrong direction.” Knew that. Exactly on par. “Ninety-one percent of Republican voters say that political leaders are more interested in holding onto their power than doing what’s right for the country.” Yep. Ditto. “Seventy percent of Republican voters say that they hear news of the economic recovery, but their own personal finances have not improved significantly.” That’s an excellent point.
I said that I literally tuned out while I was gone, but there were two things I heard, and one of them was how happy everybody is. I happened to glance at the Drudge Report either Christmas Day or the day after, whenever it was, it was close to that, and it was a story about how everybody is just in a great mood. I said, “When did this happen?” It was like it was overnight, everybody’s in a great mood.
And the second thing I saw was the economy is growing at this 5% rate. By the way, do you know how that happened, folks? Do you know what the bulk of the economic growth — I mean, what is the economy? The economy is consumer spending, essentially, consumer spending and consumption, commerce. You know what the majority of spending was in the fourth quarter was people spending money on Obamacare, mandated by law. The vast majority of our economic growth — this was made public by Tyler Durden at — I forget the website. It’s off the top of my head. Well-known business website. Over half of the spending in this country in the fourth quarter was you and me and everybody else spending money on health care.
Do you think that was by choice? I mean, that’s not like going out and buying a flat screen. That’s not like going out and buying a new car. That’s because you have to or because you’re scared to death you’re gonna get a disease and die, or because you’re gonna get sick and not have the money to get treated for it. And other people are afraid if they don’t they’ll be thrown in jail or be fined or what have you. Well, some economic growth, when over half of it is essentially required by the government?
But, anyway, everybody was said to be in a great mood. And polls are polls, and I think largely they’re made to shape public opinion rather than reflect it. But I decided, well, if everybody’s in a good mood, then I’m gonna be. I have every reason in the world to be. If all I care about is things personal to me, I have every reason in the world to be ecstatic, if the only thing that matters is things personal. Oh, by the way, folks, I told Snerdley, you know what? I’ve always told you — I’ll get back to the poll in a minute. I really don’t care about it, which is why I’m diverting from it as often as I can.
I’ve always said that I love getting older. I have, because I always saw older people as happier than I was when I was young. It’s because they had more freedom. They had more economic power. They were richer, they were wealthier, they were more successful. And all of my life, every year, every new year was better than the one prior to it. It was always the case. When I was 15, I wanted to be 20. When I was 20, I wanted to be 30. When I was 35, I wanted to be 40.
I wanted to have all that behind me. I wanted to get where I knew I was headed. But now, ladies and gentlemen, for the first time, for the first time it just hit me driving in to work today. It just hit me. You know, I’m gonna have a birthday coming up here in a week. Not saying that so anybody will do anything about it. Oops. I just saw the clock. That means…