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Jan. 21, 2008 - Rush Limbaugh Program
35:13
January 21, 2008, Monday, Hour #3
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Yes, and we are back, ladies and gentlemen.
Shall I say I'm back?
And we are back at the EIB Southern Command here in South Florida, Rush Limbaugh at the Limbaugh Institute for Advanced Conservative Studies, emitting vocal vibrations from coast to coast.
And I promise I'll do everything in my power.
Now what politicians say, I will do everything in my power to get to your phone calls in this hour.
We also have some audio soundbites.
I want to move into the Democrats in this hour and some of the contretemps happening between Obama and Mrs. Clinton.
It's getting really dirty out there.
I sense it isn't going to matter in the end, but it's nevertheless interesting to follow.
Here's the phone number, 800-282-2882, and the email address, lrushbo at EIBnet.com.
Now, had a woman on the phone in the last hour who wanted to, by the way, the sigh is not out of frustration with a woman.
I'm having to alter my breathing patterns in order to speak.
I am literally violating one of the cardinal rules of professional speakers, and that is I'm speaking right from my throat.
The correct way to speak is from the diaphragm.
You breathe diaphragmatically.
You inhale, take the breath in as deeply as you can, and the exhale when you speak is what gives the bass and the dulcet tones.
And if I do that, this is how I sound.
And I don't want to sound this way because I sound like I'm crying.
Well, I'm not crying.
So I'm having to speak from my throat in order to be heard.
Might be making matters worse, but that's nevertheless what I have to do here.
So longer than Air Travel that's breathing diaphragmatically.
Can't do that.
So I'm signing because breathing patterns are being interrupted here when I only breathe as deeply as my throat.
I was not sighing at frustration with the previous caller.
Okay.
Let me speak generally here.
Now, in order, because she wanted to know, well, you tell me what's conservative about Romney.
What is his record?
And of course, I've not said Romney.
She accused me of saying Romney is the only true conservative in the race.
I haven't said that because there isn't one.
But there are some in the race who are trying to destroy conservatism while saying they're conservative and they're trying to redefine it.
And I'm telling you, I'm not going to sit by and just shut up while that happens.
There are other people who are not conservative down the line, but they're not trying to destroy conservatism.
And they're certainly not trying to redefine it totally to fit them.
But there are those in the race who are.
So let me speak generally here.
In order to have a change of heart on issues or a real conversion, because every one of these guys has had a liberal position or more at some point in their past.
And they're all out there saying they've changed their minds.
Romney's changed his mind.
McCain says, well, I get it now, Limbaugh.
I get it.
I get an enforcement.
Give him to the Borties.
And then we'll make them legal.
Hatch that.
Hatchet.
And then, of course, Huckabee wants to bring them all in and give them health care and welfare and Medicare.
And now he wants to kick them all out.
So in order to have a genuine change of heart, a genuine conversion, you have to admit, at least I think you do, you have to admit that you were wrong about your prior view.
If you lead the effort, if you lead it, if you lead the effort to grant amnesty to illegal aliens and now claim that you didn't, how can you be believed when you say that you now believe in securing the border first?
I mean, you've got to go back and remember this.
And I understand a lot of people that I've talked to are McCain supporters.
I don't care about that.
I want to beat Hillary.
It's a war on terror or what have you.
And all this stuff is irrelevant to them.
But if you lead the effort, you not only lead the effort, you lead the effort to keep it quiet.
You lead the effort to make sure nobody knows what's going on in the amnesty bill.
And then when you say that the amnesty bill was an amnesty because we're going to collect a $5,000 fine from these people and we're going to try to register them all in one day, this is the bunch that couldn't even get Katrina right in five months.
And we're going to register all the illegals in one day.
This is puppycock, boulder dash, falter all.
It flummery.
So how am I supposed to sit here and accept that a real conversion has taken place if you lead the effort to grant amnesty to illegal aliens, now claim that you didn't do that?
Also, if you claim to be for the fair tax today, but you were a net tax increaser in the past, how can you be believed as actually wanting to eliminate the income tax and replace it with a national sales tax if you can't admit what your record was as governor?
If you have to say, in answer to the question, were you a net tax increaser?
We built roads.
It's a deflection.
Look at, I say this because the best we can do here, folks, is to try to measure the candidate's record and recent comments.
And you have to judge whether what they're saying today is expedient or serious.
Let's take abortion, for example, shall we?
Romney was pro-abortion.
Now says he was wrong.
Says he was for it when he ran for governor.
But he talks about the moment he changed his mind and why he changed his mind.
He doesn't claim to have been misunderstood.
He doesn't claim to say that he was pro-life.
He doesn't say, well, I never was pro-choice.
I have always been pro-choice.
He doesn't try to obfuscate or cloud his record.
He comes out and apologizes.
You have to judge whether that's a real conversion.
That's up to you as a voter.
But it's far easier to make that judgment when he says I made a mistake, was wrong.
Here's why and how and when I changed my mind.
And when he says, look, you're misunderstanding me.
He's not saying that.
The other candidates are saying, you misunderstood.
There was an amnesty.
It never was amnesty.
Quit writing about it.
Or what about the fact you're a net tax increase?
We built roads.
We built schools.
Just try to make the best judgment you can.
Here's the thing.
All of us who are steadfastly trying to maintain a conservative, genuine conservative identity of the Republican Party, we've been lectured to forget about Ronald Reagan.
And we have been lectured to forget about conservatism.
We're told it's time to rewrite things, to adopt some new, revolutionary, adaptive thinking that takes those principles and applies them to the issues of today.
Now, all of that, well, we're told of, you know, lectured to forget about Reagan, forget about conservatism, understand it's a new day, new role for government, new issues.
All of this is intended to ease the way for a McCain or a Huckabee.
Romney, Rudy, Thompson supporters don't talk this way for the most part.
Romney, Rudy, and Thompson people are not telling us to shut up.
They're not telling us that we're causing problems.
They try to argue that their guys are the best when comparing their records and speeches to a true conservative template.
Whether they're convincing or not is another thing, but that's what's going on.
Rudy, McCain, and Thompson are trying to say, we are going to continue the conservative tradition.
The other two guys say we need to rewrite it.
It's old hat.
You need to let go of it.
We've got new issues.
Another example.
Rudy does not claim to have been anything but pro-abortion.
He's not saying, well, yeah, I was pro-abortion, but, you know, I was a liberal in New York.
I had to be.
He's not even saying that.
He doesn't even run around to make excuses for it.
There's something admirable about that.
We've got others guys making excuses for their positions or telling us that we're misunderstanding their positions and that they never were what we think they are.
Rudy's not doing that.
But he says that he will appoint conservative judges to deal with the issue.
Agree or not, that's what he says.
We do the best we can here, folks.
There's no litmus test here that can get applied because none of these people would fit it all.
So we do the best we can in figuring these things out.
Then you have to ask yourself, okay, what can a president really do about abortion?
Can lead and change minds and hearts, try to reduce the number that take place, by the way, that's happening.
But legally, in terms of Roe versus Wade, there's only one thing a president can do, and that's appointment to the Supreme Court.
And Rudy says he's going to appoint guys that would do it.
McCain, now this is really a stark contrast, and I want you to listen to this.
McCain says, look, I'm pro-life.
I've always been pro-life.
You can't say that's not true.
That's always been the case.
I've always been pro-life.
Well, what did he do to advance his pro-life belief?
He joined liberal Democrats in filing a brief in the Supreme Court against the ability of the Wisconsin Right to Life Committee to run ads about life and abortion prior to an election.
This is above and beyond McCain Feingold.
He actually filed his own brief in the Supreme Court against the ability of a Wisconsin Right to Life Committee to run ads about life and abortion prior to an election.
I've always been pro-life, though, Limbo.
You can't say that's not true.
I'm not saying it's not true.
Where's the leadership on it?
It's one thing to say it.
Then you stand in a way of pro-life people trying to get their truth out in an election.
And then you tell us you're going to appoint judges that will take care of it?
We do the best we can, folks.
We look at what they say versus what they do, what they say they've said versus what they are saying.
We do the best we can.
Not forget the gang of 14.
It's another story into itself.
Senator McCain wants it both ways.
I'm pro-life.
Rudy doesn't.
Rudy's not denying he's pro-choice.
But he also says he hates abortion.
He'll do what he can to stop it, appointing judges.
McCain says he's pro-life.
Stands in the way of people who are pro-life trying to impact an election.
Wants it both ways.
Why did he file that brief?
Maybe to be consistent with McCain Feingold.
Who knows?
Why did he do it?
We do the best we can in sorting this stuff out.
As usual, half my brain tied behind my back.
Just to make it fair, we go back to the phones now.
And John in Jacksonville, thanks much for waiting.
I appreciate it, sir.
Okay, sir.
How are you doing today?
Just fine.
Thank you.
Yes, I was watching Good Morning America, and they had Obama on, and he was actually trying to defend himself against all these Clinton attacks.
And they, for some reason, these news BB people can't figure out what he's doing.
All he's doing is running interference for Hillary Clinton, the win Super Tuesday coming up.
I don't know why they can't figure that out.
Obama is running interference for.
No, no, no.
Bill Clinton is against Obama.
Obama was trying to defend himself against the Clinton attacks.
Well, you know, okay, we've got some sound bites in this.
I'm going to use your call out there, John, to get into these sound bites.
Now, I said, must have been last week, might have been the week before.
You know, these weeks are flying by here.
But I made the point that Obama is actually being ganged up on.
It's two against one out there.
You've got an ex-president and a sitting senator, and they're ganging up on the guy.
And they're telling lies about him.
And so, in fact, it was Monday, January 14th.
So it was actually a week ago.
And let's go back to the audio assembly.
Well, I don't want to hear this when my voice was good.
This is going to make me jealous of myself.
But let's play it.
Have you noticed it's Obama versus the Clintons?
Two against one.
Obama campaigning against both of the Clintons.
I wonder how well Mrs. Clinton would hold up if the shoe was on the other foot.
That is, if she had to run against an ex-president and a senator, I think she'd cry and complain about the unfairness.
Okay, so this morning on Good Morning America, it actually taped yesterday, co-post Robin Roberts interviewing Obama.
She said, Do you feel at times you're taking on two candidates at once?
Well, you know, there's no doubt that having President Clinton on the trail and attacking, spending most of his time attacking me, it can be a distraction during the course of the campaign.
But anybody who's heard my wife, Michelle, on the stump, knows that she's an incredible asset.
So I feel like it balances out.
And then Robin Roberts said, well, look, in a Newsweek article coming out this week, prominent Democrats are saying that what Clinton's doing is an inappropriate role, inappropriate role for a former president to take such an aggressive role.
A lot of prominent Democrats, including the swimmer, including Senator Kennedy, are telling Rah Emmanuel, too, are telling Clinton to pipe down.
Do you think, Senator Obama, that it's inappropriate, the role he's taken?
I completely understand him wanting to promote his wife's candidacy.
And Michelle is out there doing the same thing on my behalf.
I do think that there should be some standards of honesty in any political discourse.
That's part of the change that I want to bring about.
If you have something that just directly contradicts the facts and it's coming from a former president, I think that's a problem because people presume that a former president's going to have more credibility, and I think there are certain responsibilities that are carried with that.
Anything else that you want to set the record straight?
That he said one thing about you and you're now saying that's false.
President Clinton went in front of a large group, said that I had claimed that only Republicans had had any good ideas since 1980.
And then he added, I'm not making this up.
He was making it up and completely mischaracterizing my statement.
And beyond that, ladies and gentlemen, David, and I'm not sure how the guy pronounces his name, but Clinton is not going to go away.
He's not going to shut up.
He's going to keep limit.
It's what they do.
You're absolutely right about that, Limbaugh.
I lie and I lie better than anybody else because they believe what I say.
I can't do Clinton because I need to breathe diametically from Adequate to do Clinton.
I can do McCain.
Yeah, do me.
I need the attention.
Fine.
David Plouf, I don't know how to pronounce P-L-O-U-F-F-E.
That's one of Obama's guys.
In a sufficient succinct statement, Amendedure released quotation from his boss, Obama, said the Obama campaign was investigating more than 200 reports of irregularities in Nevada.
We currently have reports of over 200 separate incidences or incidents of trouble at caucus sites, including doors being closed up to 30 minutes early, registration forms running out so people were turned away, ID being requested and checked in a non-uniform fashion.
This, in addition to the Clinton campaign's efforts to confuse voters and call into question the at-large caucus sites anyway, it's breaking out all over the place between Obama and the Clintons.
And I think, to Obama's credit, he doesn't sound like he's whining about it.
And he seems to be fending it off.
And I think he's just trying to put the impression out, get the impression out of the people that this is what's happening.
Now, Clinton himself claims to have seen voter intimidation while Chelsea was standing by.
Yesterday when Chelsea and I were going through one of the hotels here, someone was going along behind us saying, well, if you vote for Hillary, we've got to give you a job assignment that keeps you from going to the caucus.
And I haven't seen tactics like that in decades in America.
Oh, come on.
Haven't seen.
You authored tactics like that last week.
Haven't seen tactics like this in America.
What did he say in decades?
Yeah, and that's if it really happened in the first place.
After all, it is Clinton saying he saw it.
You know, I'm just trying to visualize here somebody walking behind two Clintons.
Somebody walking behind Bill Clinton and Chelsea Clinton would say out loud that your job is endangered if you vote for Hillary Clinton.
I'm just having trouble visualizing this.
Here's Clinton walking through what strip club was he in.
I understand he had a stripper vote, you know, sort of wrapped up for Hillary.
So here's Clinton.
He's walking through the casino where wherever he's walking through the caucus, some idiot standing right behind him is going to say in a loud enough voice, hey, your job at the union, you vote for Hillary and your job's endangered.
Somebody's going to say that with Clinton right there.
I just don't buy it, folks.
I just don't buy it.
And by the way, speaking of Clinton, here's some, Mr. Obama, we like you here at the EIB network and we want to help you.
And here's something you might raise.
This is a question next time you do an interview.
And you might say it exactly this way.
We're close to it.
If the former president, Bill Clinton, cannot control himself during the course of a campaign, imagine how out of control he's going to be back in the White House.
And I'm not talking about the sexual stuff, but the setting of policy and interfering with governing generally.
Let's say that Hillary proposes her massive economic plan.
Discussed here in the New York Times for Clinton, government as economic prod.
And the whole basis of her economic plan, income inequality and get even with them is them.
And here's what she said.
I want to get back to the appropriate balance of power between government and the market.
The appropriate balance of power between the government and the market.
You know what that means.
So Hillary gets elected and she's trying to implement this massive economic plan, which is going to freeze foreclosures for 90 days.
She's going to freeze interest rates for 90 days.
And let's add in, she's going to freeze stock prices for 90 days.
I mean, if she can freeze foreclosures and freeze interest rates, why not stop the stock market spindle?
I mean, head and down, why just put a floor on it, say no stock's going to go below X price?
Well, Rush, she can't do that.
Well, why could she stop the suspend interest rates for 90 days or foreclosures?
So let's say she implements plan, and some people up on Capitol Hill don't like it.
Is Bill Clinton going to be running around all over the place?
Yes.
Trashing the people?
Now, the truth may lie elsewhere.
The truth may be that that could backfire.
The Democrats really want Bill back in the White House.
Hillary's just the vehicle, the transition, the diving board, the what have you.
Regardless, he'll be back in the White House, but he's not going to be allowed to do anything officially.
Stuff is, we just do the best we can, folks.
We just analyze this stuff.
We just do the best.
Have you seen there's a story, Times Online, UK Times, Sunday Times.
Women turn on traitor Oprah Winfrey for backing Barack Obama.
Yeah, America's favorite television presenter, which is what they call hosts in the UK, is paying a painful price for her intervention in a U.S. presidential campaign.
The Oprah has been dubbed a traitor by some of her female fans for supporting Barack Obama instead of Hillary Clinton.
Winfrey's website, oprah.com, has been flooded with a barrage of abuse since she joined Obama on a tour of Iowa, New Hampshire, and South Carolina in mid-December.
I haven't seen them.
People tell me her ratings are down a little bit too.
You know, it could well be that there's some Republican viewers who watch her show who don't appreciate this either.
I know, sadly, a number of Republican women who watch that show are totally sucked in by it, don't understand what's happening to them when they watch it.
They just swoon over it, but now she's out there stumping for Obama.
She's going political.
By the way, see, this is the thing.
She's always been political.
Just the people watching didn't really know it.
It was subtle.
Anyway, back to the phone.
Jim in Kansas City, Missouri.
I'm glad you called sir.
Welcome to the EIB Network.
Hi, Rush.
Thanks for taking my call.
Yes, sir.
Earlier, you had mentioned that when the time comes, you're going to announce or get behind somebody.
And I was just wondering what's your selection criteria for one, for picking a candidate and two for how you decide when that time is that you're going to announce.
I'm more interested in how you pick a candidate.
Because especially this year with there's really not a true conservative.
How do you narrow it down?
That's an excellent point.
I don't have a timeframe just to address that first.
I don't have a timeframe.
And I also can see possibly not supporting a Republican nominee.
And I never thought that I would say that in my life.
Right.
But Rush, but Rush, what about Hillary?
By the way, the side not aimed at you, Jim.
This stuff is very tough.
Well, maybe open it up two different years where we do have.
I mean, say you have two good conservatives.
How would you go through a selection process?
I know a lot of people, they say, well, if he's pro-abortion and if he's this and this.
I was just wondering what's yours.
I went through this in great detail mere moments ago.
Right.
In a situation like this where you don't have a genuine down-the-list conservative, you have to look at variables and you have to look at things.
So it's easier for me to support a Romney than a McCain, for example, because I believe his conversion is genuine.
And he's not lying about past position.
He's not trying to tell people that they're wrong when they assess his past positions.
He explains why he changed his mind and what it was that caused him to change his mind.
And so I don't want to go through that whole list again, but that's pretty much how I would do it.
And if you're a subscriber to my website, it'll be up when we update the site this afternoon to reflect the contents of the program.
But this is really difficult.
But depending, there are a couple people.
I can't take these endorsement calls because I'm just wondering what's your how you go about and decide.
I mean, do you look at, you know, just are they wanting to cut taxes only?
I mean, is that your top?
What's your top five things that you look at on a candidate for top five?
Top five right off the top of my head, not in any particular order.
Limited government.
Get government out of people's way.
Number two, belief in the system that it's people who make the country work, not government.
Number three, don't give me a laundry list of policies without a philosophical underpinning that explains the policies.
Number four, don't tell me that government is the agent of change and that you are going to lead the go.
My brand of conservatism is based on individual entrepreneurism, rugged self-individualism, telling people that they're the ones that make the country work.
I think this is borne out by history, and people respond to it.
And then fifth, after all of those things that I would define as conservative, which includes the belief that people can triumph over the obstacles in their lives, that they're not incompetent, they're not incapable, that they're not stupid.
The fifth thing is, is there any leadership on any of this?
No.
If somebody starts exuding leadership, I'm going to tell you the race would be over.
Nobody's exuding any leadership in this primary right now at all.
What we're getting is a recitation of policies.
We're getting a defense of past positions which aren't conservative, that run from, you're misunderstanding me.
I never said it.
It wasn't amnesty.
To people who, you know, were pro-choice, changed their mind.
They're pro-life.
You had people who said that they're now for fair tax and net tax increase.
If somebody starts exhibiting leading, if there were, even with this roster, if one of them had any kind of leadership persona, the race would already be more well-defined than it is now.
I think the one thing that's absent in all of this is take-charge leadership, born of confidence and a desire to lead the country forward according to the vision the candidate has.
And right now, the frontrunners want it because it's their turn.
We tried that in 1996 with Bob Dole.
And now they're running the same scenario with McCain.
You know what recommends McCain to so many people?
He got cheated in 2000.
He was cheated.
And we owe him.
We owe him that bull bleep.
We've been down this road owing people.
We've been down this road.
It's their turn.
And that's not what does it for me.
So I guess in speaking aloud here and answering your question, the answers, show me some leadership here, and you're going to go a long way to impressing me.
Not that matters.
My friends, I'm going to repeat this one more time.
I've said this countless times, but people wondering when, how, who I am going to endorse.
Please get away from that.
That is accepting the notion that whoever I endorse is put over the top.
And, you know, you guys, you were demonstrating out there that you're going to make up your own minds.
And I frankly like that.
I mean, I participate here in hopefully informing, educating, and you do back and forth, we do together.
But you're not minding them robots.
It's this endorsement business.
Can I be brutally honest?
If I had this magical power to get everybody I supported elected, we wouldn't have had Clinton.
You know, people like me who do what I do, we've got to be realistic about what this is.
It's a radio show that has an identity and a mission and a purpose, but it's not to get people elected.
It's an ancillary thing, but that's not why I'm doing this.
If I really want to get one guy over another elected, and I'd quit this and I'd become the guy's operative and dirty tricks guy and whatever else it took to win.
I'm not trying to diminish my role.
Don't misunderstand.
I'm the one who has this in perspective.
Now, you ask, on the one hand, you want me to endorse somebody and I say no.
Then you think I have when I haven't, and I get hell on the phones from people who think I've endorsed somebody.
I haven't.
Now, you want to know why I haven't endorsed anybody.
Screw the word endorsement.
You know why I'm not coming out and say, I support this guy more than the other in those exact words?
It's because I can't control these people.
Let me give you a hypothetical.
Let's say that long ago I said, folks, I have surveyed the scene.
And there's only one guy in this race that's worth supporting.
And that man is Fred Thompson.
All right.
So I say that.
Fred runs along with his current position in the polls and then decides to get out.
And what if Fred decides to endorse McCain or throw his support?
It's entirely possible.
Where does that leave me?
I'm not going to put myself in this position.
Tie your life to a politician or link yourself to a politician.
When you endorse one, you've got to defend everything they say.
Otherwise, you've got to cancel the endorsement.
what the hell and when you have a roster where there's no genuine yeah this is like i'm telling you this is going to come down to who we dislike the least It's what it's going to boil down to.
That's not necessarily good, but it is what it is.
But I can't say I support candidate X weeks out and the campaign unfolds and have these guys put me in a bad situation.
Because I guarantee you, if I were to say, this is a candidate X, you know what, folks, I've decided today I support candidate X. Candidate X is not going to call me and say, what do I need to keep doing to keep your support?
Candidate X is going to assume I will maintain support, whatever he does, because he's just gotten it publicly.
And I'm not going to put myself in that position.
So if I can't come to you and honestly say I support one of these guys over the other, I'm not going to do it.
Now, I can come to you and say I see real red flags with this guy, real red flags with that guy.
I'll tell you that.
But always up front and honestly, based on what?
Conservatism.
Because it wins.
Anyway, I squeeze in one more call here before we have to go.
Who is it?
Mike in Buffalo Grove, Illinois.
Hi.
Hey, Rush, thanks for taking the call.
Some hot tea and rye whiskey in the same cup will help your throat.
In the meantime, I wanted to weigh in on the issue you spoke a little bit ago about the evangelical influence in the Republican Party.
And in my opinion, the need to excise the evangelicals from the Republican Party because I really do believe that they're hurting the cause.
And this is where my thought process is, that the Republican core value is to empower the individual.
And that the evangelicals, with their social agenda, seem to me to be empowering government just as much as the far left on the Democrats are all who are no letting the kids get abortions without time out.
I've got a minute.
I can't speak very fast.
You're raising a good point.
I want to address it.
I've heard this lament that social conservatives, they believe in big governments as much as liberals do.
Then, boy, you know it.
They want the government to stop abortions.
First place, Republican Party would be nowhere without them.
That's why I hate to see what's going on here in the curtain.
But number two, founding documents.
Declaration.
We are all endowed by our Creator with certain inalienable rights among them life, liberty, pursuit of happiness.
When a political party is doing its best to see to it that every abortion possible happens, there's only one agency empowered by our founding documents to stand up for life.
That's the government.
That's considered a proper use of the government to stand for life and liberty, the pursuit of happiness.
That's not oppression, sir.
Well, another exciting excursion into broadcast excellence in the can.
And we'll do our best.
Ladies and gentlemen, get back here tomorrow.
From this point forward, I say nothing for 21 hours.
We'll see what happens.
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