Greetings to you, music lovers, thrill seekers, conversationalists all across the fruited plain.
Rush Limbaugh serving humanity as your highly trained broadcast specialist on Friday, live from the Southern Command in sunny South Florida.
It's open live Friday.
And here's a telephone number, 800-282-2882.
The email address, El Rushbo at EIBNet.com.
As you know, the rules Monday through Thursday, we only talk about things I care about.
But on Friday, we expand that to include things I don't care about.
We go to the phones.
We talk about whatever it is you want to talk about.
Our telephone number, again, 800-282-2882.
As I mentioned right before the break, I have gotten to know via email a couple of great friends in the U.S. military, the U.S. Air Force.
Take you back.
A very brief lead-in here.
It was, I forget, it has to be three years ago now, maybe four.
I walked home one day, got home one day, and there was a FedEx, and I opened the box, and it was an American flag and a Ziploc bag and a number of certificates validating that the flag had been flown on all those aircraft in the original invasion of Iraq in my honor.
Brought tears to my eyes.
The letter explaining this handwritten on a legal pad from Mark Hassara, who flew the DC-10 or the KC-10 tanker that refueled all these attack jets on the original bomb run.
And in the process of getting to know Colonel Hassara, he told me about his good friend Taz, Joseph Kahusiensky, who is all over the Middle East wreaking havoc on the enemy.
We last heard from Taz in an email when he threw the French refrigerator off the top of the Baghdad International Control Tower of Refrigerator Maiden, France.
It continued to fail.
And I've become email buddies with Taz, and he sent me an email.
He's been wanting to come on the program and describe for the American people the success they're having.
And so we have with us from somewhere, parts unknown in Iraq, Joseph Kahusiensky.
Welcome, Taz, to the program.
It's great to have you here.
Great to have you here.
Rush, it's an honor to speak with you.
Thank you.
Now, what is it, Taz, that you wanted to tell everybody?
I mean, let me say this.
The emails that I get from you are constantly describing victory.
You're describing great success in what you're doing.
Are you directly involved in the so-called surge with your Air Force guys?
Absolutely, Rush.
The Air Force has been surging to conduct our combat operations in Iraq and Afghanistan.
And we're doing one heck of a great job.
It's inspiring, Rush, to see the looks on these airmen and these soldiers' faces when you're out there with them, working with them every day.
And it's not just Americans.
It's the 33 Georgian Brigade out there in Iraq doing a great, just a great job.
And the Iraqi army themselves, I had personal experience with Rush.
If you see it on their faces, it's inspiring.
And some people may think, you know, we've been at this war for so long right now, people just want to throw in the towel and hang up their efforts and just go home.
But not so.
Victory is in the air.
These guys are working hard.
The airmen are flying every day, 24-7.
You name it.
You mentioned Slugo, my friend, my close personal friend.
We're out here, Rush.
We're taking it to the enemy, and it's an honor and a privilege to do this on behalf of the American people.
Are you able to watch daily newscasts from the United States?
Well, we get CNN and we get Fox and all those things.
Yeah, I don't personally watch them that much, Rush.
We're so busy keeping our nose to the grindstone in the fight.
But no, we're able to watch all those shows.
Yeah, we do.
But not as much as you'd think we would.
We're so busy just keeping at it.
Have you noticed?
Have you noticed, Taz?
Well, you haven't probably been able to watch enough to notice, but the Iraq war is not really being covered much on CNN or PMS NBC or ABC NBC CBS.
You really can't find a whole lot about the Iraq war going on on the news these days, and there's a simple reason for it.
You are succeeding.
You're having immense success.
The enemy is being shellacked, and they're retreating, and they're in many cases heading to Afghanistan or even Pakistan.
And it's noticeable.
I think I made a prediction not long ago: the Iraq war is not even going to be a feature of this presidential campaign, barring some other new event that comes up.
But I think the efforts by the American left in this country to secure defeat have themselves defeated, been defeated, and they're now into retreat.
So it's the stamina and the staying power of all of you people in uniform, knowing full well that too large a percentage of this country has been invested in your defeat, has been beaten back.
You guys really are a tribute to the best and brightest this country has.
Well, thanks, Rush.
It's an honor to hear you say that.
It's inspiring, like I said before, to see these folks out here doing the work every day.
And I'm humbled by their hard work, by their courage.
A lot of these guys have left their families behind to fight this war, and the families back home are paying a big price for us being out here.
But we're in the fight for freedom.
We can see victory on the faces of the people in Iraq and Afghanistan.
And we're keeping at it, Rush.
From my perspective, it's working, but we need to keep at it.
Absolutely.
How many tours?
How many tours have you done in Iraq?
Well, this is my third tour in the Middle East.
My first tour was back in Desert Storm.
I flew F-15 fighters way back then.
And how long has it been since you had leave and were back home in the United States?
The last time I was back in the United States was in July of this past year, Rush.
For how long?
Just under a month.
I went back home for a month for some family reasons, and I'm back.
I haven't been back since, but time flies when you're out here, and I miss my family like we all do, and we think about them often.
But we need to win this fight, and that's why I'm here and all the other airmen that work beside me.
Where is your family?
When you go home here in the United States, Taz, where do you go?
I live in Virginia, Rush.
Northern or Southern?
Does it matter?
Southern?
Virginia Tech fan.
Okay, get it out there.
I'm a Virginia Tech fan, even though I graduated from the University of Kansas way back when.
But, yeah, we're from the Norfolk area, right by the Navy base, the Marine Corps base, Little Creek, and First Fighter Wing at Langley.
Well, Taz, look, it's great to finally talk to you.
And Every time we get a call here from a member of the military serving overseas in whatever theater, I try to make it a point to tell you how much awe and appreciation there is from the majority of the American people for what you've volunteered to do.
And it's great that the audience here in this program can hear your devotion and your enthusiasm to the cause because that in itself is inspirational and infectious.
When are you going to get home?
Do you have any idea?
I should be home fairly soon, Rush.
I can't really tell you the exact date.
My wife knows when I'm coming home.
That's all that matters right now.
But we're out here fighting for freedom.
It's a tough fight.
It's a good fight.
You know, America, I think you've heard this once before, we're the land of the free because of the brave.
And we're at it.
We're keeping at it, Rush.
And thanks so much for supporting our troops and our airmen, soldiers, Marines out here every day out on point.
It's a tough job, but it's well worth the effort.
Taz, it's an honor to know people like you, and it's even bigger honor to be able to support you.
God bless you.
All the best and a safe trip home, sir.
Thanks, Rush.
It's been an honor talking to you.
Take care.
Joe Katuziansky from somewhere, parts unknown, in the Air Force, in Iraq, taking it to the enemy.
It's back to the phones on Open Line Friday, Rush Limbaugh to Belleville, Michigan.
This is Samantha.
Great to have you on the program.
Hello.
Hi, Arush.
Thanks for taking my call.
You bet.
You know how you say that reading the New York Times makes you want to puke?
Well, these people calling you, giving you a hard time, makes me want to puke as well.
I totally get what you are telling us as far as Huckabee in the primary election.
I get what you've been saying.
You have been so clear.
You have told us where you're coming from, what you think, and you are showing us listeners total respect by letting us decide for ourselves.
These people who are calling you, they must be purposefully not getting it, which proves yet another one of your points, that the response is to criticize you and to not deal with the substance of your comments.
So I just, I got so sick of it, I had to call you and encourage you and let you know you are doing great and that I absolutely love you for it.
Do I sound, well, thank you, by the way, at first.
Do I sound depressed?
No, I just think that you sound like you're getting a lot of calls, and not that you're getting defensive, you're just like you conceded to the last caller who was giving you a hard time that you would consider what he said.
And I don't think you need to consider what he said.
You're such a gentleman, but really, it's totally okay to stick to your guns and be consistent.
Yeah, but you know, here's the thing about that guy's call.
This is a fine line for somebody like me.
People need leadership.
One of my mantras.
They want leadership.
And do a lot of these people.
I am their leader.
And they think that I am a wall on leadership because I don't come out and endorse a candidate.
And because I don't come out and go through the candidates' particulars and suggest this is good, this is bad.
I have actually been doing that.
If anybody listens regularly, they shouldn't really be having a tough time figuring out who I like and who I don't like.
Totally.
But nevertheless, maybe that kind of subtlety is not powerful enough to get through.
You know, you might, you might, let's look at the Huckabee voter.
The Huckabee voter in New Hampshire was largely evangelical.
Many more than anybody thought showed up.
Most of them were female.
Most of them were rural.
Now, the question is, did they show up of their own volition or were they told to?
Were they told to in church?
Were they told to by campaign activists?
Or did Huckabee just leave it up to them to find him at the ballot box or at the caucuses, rather?
And my guess is that they were pretty much told to.
Nothing, again, I don't mean this as a put-down, but it's a fine line.
I just have always shirked.
I've never been comfortable sitting here telling people what to do.
I don't mind telling them what to think or helping them understand what I think, but telling people what to do has been anathema to me.
Well, absolutely.
And you, again, you have been so consistent about that.
And that's one of the reasons why I do listen to you.
And I listen to the podcast all the time.
And I even repeat it over and over again because I have to remember what you're telling us because it's so easy to forget if I listen to the mainstream media.
The thing about these Iowa voters, I have a really hard time relating because you know what?
I'm an evangelical Christian.
I'm a woman.
I don't know that I would describe myself as being in a rural place.
I live between Detroit and Ann Arbor, God help me.
But I do not relate to those evangelicals.
I use my brain.
They are voting out of emotion.
And I don't get it.
Michael Huckabee, he actually bothers me more than Hillary Clinton.
He drives me crazy because he is the emotional stereotype of what an evangelical Christian is.
And that is not me.
I'm emotional right now, but that's because I'm so upset about this vote and upset about how you've been treated.
Well, you're right about the emotional attachment, and those things are hard to break.
And I've learned a long time ago you can't.
You cannot separate people from their emotional attachments with anything other than competing emotion.
You can't do it with, say, ideas.
You can't do it intellectually.
At any rate, keep learning these lessons, even though we're here in our 20th broadcast year.
Appreciate the call very much, Samantha.
Thanks so much.
David in Atlanta, you're next on the EIB network, sir.
Hello.
Hi, Rush.
Thank you very much, sir.
You bet.
Mega Dittos.
Thank you.
This thing with Huckabee, I think a large part of support for Huckabee is coming not just because he's a Christian, but I think that plays into it in that the things he's actually done which fit Christian values, concerns.
But I think a lot of it is frustration with family values voters over the GOP having treated Christian conservatives like you have rightly brought out that the Democrats have been treating blacks for years.
That is making the other side the boogeyman, but not really dealing with our core concerns and doing anything about things like right to life and avoiding a governmental stamp of approval on things like homosexuality.
Gay sex marriage or gay marriage, this kind of thing.
And to me, that's definitely not.
Let's go through some of these things, though.
Look at Terry Shaivo.
A lot of Republicans stuck their neck out on that and they got whacked.
How can the Christian right say that the Republicans abandoned him on Terry Shivo?
From Jeb Bush to Tom DeLay to President Bush, and they got whacked for it.
There have been Republicans who have proposed same-sex marriage amendment.
They have been ridiculed and whacked for it.
And you might think they didn't really mean it, and you might have a point, but at least they proposed it, and they held some votes on it.
There have been people out there who have been fighting this embryonic stem cell movement, and a lot of them got whacked.
So I'm not so sure that it's true to say that you're being taken for granted, and the efforts, the things you believe in, have seen no efforts expended on them.
I think they have.
In terms of right to life, there's really not a whole lot a president can do about that.
I didn't appoint judges to the U.S. Supreme Court.
And I think that actually there's been a whole lot of movement in that area.
I think abortions are becoming less and less frequent, and there's more stigma attached to them now.
When I started this program in 1988, 88 at abortion, it wasn't quite a badge of honor, but I mean, it was an achievement.
And the feminists own the argument here.
It's an illness.
This is a sign of liberation.
It's a sign of women controlling their own lives and their own bodies.
It's getting rid of subjugation.
It's getting rid of oppression.
It's not that way anymore.
There's a stigma attached to it.
My friend Pete Wayner did a piece on how the culture is actually improving.
Teen sex declining, teen pregnancy declining, drug use declining.
The only measurable factor, cultural indicator that is not showing success is education, divorce.
Even our math and test scores are getting better.
They're getting better relative to our own baselines.
They're not improving so much against other countries, but they're getting better.
The cultural news is actually improving.
This is my point.
It's much better out there than people think.
And yet this obsession with dealing with the worst aspects of things and the pessimism, the doom and gloom, it's just, it honestly frustrates me.
Well, there is one aspect in which I myself fall prey to the doom and gloom, and that is something that I think is I will admit that there are some times when Republicans have stood up for family values issues, and I'm grateful for that.
But I think there's one that's very insidious, and I don't think we talk about it enough or are working quite hard enough against it for fear of being called hateful, and that is on the homosexual agenda.
Because to me, it's the ultimate in federalism.
I think that the left is actively working at destroying the family so that children are controlled by the state.
And I think that governmental stamp of approval on some sort of homosexual union is one of the biggest steps in destroying that.
Well, you know, I got to hang on.
Hang on through the break.
I want to say some things to you.
Little Michael Jackson, bump music here in the midst of a cultural rot discussion on the EIB network and Open Line Friday back to David in Atlanta.
All right, well, we left off with you.
I think we finally got to the nub of it.
You have a great fear that there is a movement by the militant and activist homosexual or gay community to destroy the family so as to redefine normal to include their behavior, correct?
Yes.
And you think that there is not enough of a bulwark among people that you have voted for to stop this.
Right.
As a matter of fact, one of the candidates that I'd like for president, other than Huckabee, that's my one real beef with him is that he was against a marriage amendment.
Against the same-sex marriage amendment.
Thompson, unless I was told incorrectly.
Thompson.
I'm not sure on that.
But let me ask you specifically here.
I mean, I know that there are a lot of people that have similar fears or theories about this, but there have been efforts recently in the United States Congress, led by Barney Frank, to include gay behavior in hate crimes legislation.
I don't know if you're familiar with it.
Yes.
Well, it went down the tubes, and it went down the tubes because of Republicans.
It did not pass, and the president was going to veto it.
That was a bulwark.
Now, see, this is one of the one of the problems I've got here with what you're saying is, is that I can show you where you think nothing's being done to preserve or support your agenda is in fact being done, and quite a lot of progress, in fact, is being made.
Now, you may not know it because of your news sources, and you may watch television, you may watch movies where the things that you disapprove of are glorified, and so you think no progress is being made.
And you look at these things in movies and television as a sign that the onslaught's continuing for the mind and heart of the American people.
And I think you're right.
I think in a lot of cases, the left tries to numb those of us in the opposition and just say, you know what, they're never going to go away.
We may as well just let them have what they want because we're tired of fighting it.
You want people to continue to fight it.
My next question for you is, what has Governor Huckabee said about the gay crisis that you describe that makes you think he's going to do something about it?
Well, that he actually is promoting to do federally what they have done in Arkansas, which is to have an amendment that defines marriage as a union between a man and a woman.
Now, I agree, you're right, as you pointed out, that there are things that Republicans are doing to work against that.
But as you also said, they're not really high-profile things to people who don't, for instance, people who don't take the time to listen to you most of the time.
So I guess what I was trying to say that part of the point I was getting to is I don't think the support for Huckabee is as far away from issues as you seem to think, that it is a lot, a lot of it is issue-based.
One of the things that frustrates me about him, though, is that as primarily a populist, his conservative solutions seem to, a lot of the time, be buried in the middle of speeches where I wish he'd be putting them out front.
You're talking about Huckabee.
Right.
Well, who knows?
That may happen as time goes on down the road.
I mean, he's going to be, a lot of things are going to change now.
Obama as the frontrunner is going to get more scrutiny.
It's just the nature of the beast.
And so is Huckabee coming out of Iowa with a lot more momentum now.
Not enough to win New Hampshire, but enough to take to South Carolina.
But he's going to get a lot more attention now in a way that only happens to people that win, including in surprise wins in presidential primaries.
So we'll see how it all shakes out.
It's still very early.
Only one state, and they haven't even voted a caucus.
Only one state.
So there's a lot left to happen here.
And we're going to be keeping a sharp eye on it.
Look, I'm glad you called, David.
Thanks.
Very much appreciate it.
Jim in Camaro, California.
Hi, and I'm glad you waited, sir.
Hey, thank you, Russ, for taking my call.
I appreciate it.
I'm a longtime conservative, and I kind of support Fred Thompson, and I don't mind Mitt Romney, but I really firmly believe that Mike Huckabee is a religious bigot.
Right, rightfully so.
I think that he is.
He's been really helpful.
Oh, no, that's really helpful.
Okay, how is Huckabee a religious bigot?
Well, I have friends that are Mormon or Church of Jesus Christ Latter-day Saints friends.
And when an evangelical, you know, that I'm not, is asked whether or not he believes that someone is a Christian or not, and he can't simply come out with a straight answer and say yes or no.
No, my religion doesn't believe in that they are, or yes, that my religion does.
then he simply becomes an insignificant racial religious bigot towards other religions and you mean when he went like in the New York Times magazine interview when he said, well, don't Mormons believe that Jesus and Lucifer were brothers?
Is that what the kind of thing you mean?
No, not just that.
That, but also when he's asked directly whether they're Christian or not, and simply won't take a stand or won't say that they are, or won't say that his religion doesn't believe that they are.
And doesn't cross that threshold because it's just simply a nod and a wink to his religious.
All I'll say about that is he knows his audience.
Yes.
He knows his.
Look at, I have, I have, we've discussed Mormonism on this program, and after I gave my analysis of Romney's speech on religion and the founding of this country, I was inundated.
I don't tell you people everything that happens here, but I was inundated with email from people who said that they were a Christian right or evangelicals or whatever, and they were chiding me for being fooled because they believe that Romney's religion is a cult.
This is serious divide.
I mean, there's literally no question about this.
There is a serious divide in the religions, particularly on the right.
The left doesn't really care about it.
It's just one of the multiple arguments based on ideas and beliefs that exist on the Republican side of the aisle right now.
But I think Governor Huckabee, other than one comment about Jesus and Lucifer being brothers, I think he's tried to come back from that or back off of that and suggest that religion ought not be a factor in the race.
But there's no way it's not going to be.
There simply isn't.
Well, was Huckabee saying he's the Christian leader?
I know his ad said he's the Christian leader.
I know, and he stands in front of the fish symbol, the ichthys, and the cross that wasn't a cross, that was the bookshelf and so forth.
But he knows his audience.
I mean, he's connected to them.
I mean, this is something that I wish more politicians had the ability to connect.
I really do.
I'm tired of politicians talking over people, at people.
You've got to give him credit for this.
He has managed to connect to his audience.
And just like, you know, the drive-bys cannot separate you all from me because the drive-bys did not make me who I am.
There's nobody that's going to be able to separate Huckabee from his audience, from his voters.
That's going to have to happen on their own volition.
I've learned this long ago.
You can't talk emotional ties away.
You can't, you know, take it to individual man and woman who love each other, but one of them gets really mad.
You can't go in there and say to one of them, your husband is a jerk.
She can say it, but you can't.
You go in and tell somebody your husband's to get mad at you, even though you may be right about it.
Who knows?
And vice versa.
So these are very, very, very delicate things.
And I'm telling you, when you call here and you say, Huckabee's a religious bigot, you're just cementing the ties between his supporters because you're insulting both of them.
And they're not going to sit around and take being insulted like that.
Pure and simple.
Gene in San Mateo, California.
Nice to have you on the EIB Network.
First time caller.
Yes, sir.
Long time listener.
I'd like to see you tell us on a regular basis and in non-emotional terms the difference between a conservative and a populist.
I think especially since Huckabee got elected in Iowa, I think it's important that people know not just what a populist is.
I know that you say that.
You say, well, he speaks to the individual and wants to solve the individual's problems, and I'm going to bring government to do that.
But I think if you could characterize a populist in terms of what they would do in government, what do they back?
What do they want to happen?
What would they oppose and so forth?
And how a populist can be so very different from a conservative.
I think that would be very helpful.
And over and over for people who only listen occasionally.
A whole host of differences between the two.
Well, it's this.
This has been quite instructive today.
Let me try to say it this way.
Folks, I am not here to write campaign brochures for these candidates.
I'm not writing talking points for or against any of these candidates or voter guides.
If you have listened to this show for any period of time, you know full well where I stand on the issues.
You need to match them up with the candidate's view, candidate's record.
There are times I feel compelled to go further.
During those times, I will, but I don't want to turn this into a candidate forum.
This is not what we do here.
Also, I'm not really crazy about turning the program into a dictionary.
But I will endeavor to explain populism when we come back.
Welcome back to Open Line Friday and the dictionary portion of the program, ladies and gentlemen.
The word populist.
What is populism?
What is a populist?
The dictionary definition is often, as in the case of dictionary definitions today of liberal and conservative, it is not helpful.
But the dictionary definition of populist is a member or adherent of a political party seeking to represent the interests of ordinary people.
A person who holds or who is concerned with the views of ordinary people.
The root here is, well, there was a populist party.
It was formed in 1891.
And at the time, the populist party advocated the interests of labor and farmers, the free coinage of silver, and a graduated income tax along with government control of monopolies.
Now, here's the modern interpretation of populist as I use it today is not complimentary.
A populist in this sense of seeking to represent the interests of ordinary people, this is what people who employ populism want the ordinary people to think, that they are one of them, in fact, that they are from them, that they understand the ordinary and that the ordinary are being shafted and the ordinary are being creamed, the ordinary are being ignored, and so the populist comes along and says,
not only am I for you, I'm of you.
And I am going to go to Washington and I'm going to make sure that we ordinary people kick butt.
And we're going to kick butt of the elite.
So we're going to kick butt of the establishment.
We're going to do this and we're going to do that.
Most of them who do this are already from the establishment.
They're elected governors.
They're senators or what have you.
So it becomes a technique to relate to people on an emotional basis with a false promise.
And that is that any one individual can solve all the problems of the ordinary.
The ordinary would love their problems to be solved.
I myself, not a member of the ordinary in my own definition, would love for my problems to be solved.
But I'll tell you, damn what, there is not a single politician on the face of the earth can solve one problem I've got.
Now, I have complaints as well as problems.
I don't like high taxation.
That is something an elected official can do about, but with a realistic proposal.
But I mean, I got problems with my cat.
I got problems with doors that don't fit.
I got problems with ants running around portions of the house, but I fix it.
I don't wait for some politician to say, I too have ants.
I have had ants.
I've had doors that don't fit.
And it's the corporation that cuts the limber and makes the wood that's grewing your wood.
We're going to get even with that big, evil timber industry for making you have to deal with a wood piece that doesn't fit.
Or we're going to get even with the carpenter who cut it or the house, the contractor who made it or what have you.
It is simply not possible, ladies and gentlemen, for a single individual to solve the problems of the ordinary.
First, can we define ordinary?
Is the ordinary average?
What's the average?
How many of you think of yourselves as ordinary?
I hope not too many.
I hope you all think of yourselves as special.
All of us Americans are special.
Not because of anything different about us, DNA or any of that.
We're special because of our opportunity and because of our freedom.
We're special because what those two things, opportunity and freedom, allow us to do with our lives.
But there simply is no one man or woman who can appeal to everybody who's quote-unquote ordinary and solve their problems, but he can sure make them think so.
And for the ordinary to think that their problems can be solved, what must they do?
They must turn over the solution of their problems to the person who seeks to fix them.
And in the process, they lose their freedom and they lose their individuality and all else that goes with that.
And so the populist is actually a big government person in disguise.
The populist is somebody who wants to grow government to take problem solving and sadness and all these things out of your daily life and replace them with whatever government can do so you will become John Edwards is a populist.
For example, Mrs. Clinton is a populist.
We'll be back.
I'm going to feature that recent dictionary definition of populism prominently at rushlimbaugh.com when we update the site tonight.