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Jan. 29, 2008 - Rush Limbaugh Program
25:46
January 29, 2008, Tuesday, Hour #3
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Time Text
No, this is late-arriving show prep here, folks.
From a website called American Daily, and it's by Carol Devine Mullen.
Basically, it's another woman who's mad at me.
Carol joined the club.
I mean, it's just, it's the nature of my existence.
Who is Rush Limbaugh?
Why is he manipulating the GOP vote is the title of her piece.
It's another chick that's upset with me, and that's just my life.
Greetings, my friends, welcome to the Rush Limbaugh program here on the EIB Network, 800-282-2882, if you'd like to join us.
And the email address, LRushbaugh at EIBNet.com.
The Robert Birds have come home to roost for the Democrats.
Judson Berger, Fox News, one by one, angry liberals turn their back on Team Clinton.
It's sort of like battered women here.
They're finally getting the strength to leave the Clintons, and they'll be back in November.
Like lovers scorned, Bill Clinton's longtime liberal supporters are walking out on him, slamming a door behind him and rebuking the 42nd president for his unseemly behavior leading up to last weekend's South Carolina primary.
Robert B. Rice, former Clinton labor secretary, on his own personal blog.
Bill Clinton's ill-tempered and ill-founded attacks on Barack Obama are doing no credit to the former president, his legacy, or his wife's campaign, nor are they helping a Democrat Party.
Now, sadly, we're witnessing a smear campaign against Obama that employs some of the worst aspects of the old politics.
I'm sorry, former Secretary Rice, shh, shuh.
But I can't accept that you guys have just started figuring this out.
And the journalists, the drive-bys, where you people been all this time?
Takes Ted Kennedy and Robert B. Rice to inform you of the tactics of the Clintons?
It's unbelievable out there, ladies and gentlemen.
Just unbelievable.
But anyway, they're going to go be back.
These are the battered liberal syndrome.
They keep, you know, the bitten lips, the slaps upside ahead.
They'll be back in November.
They can't convince me otherwise.
All right, we have the audio, ladies and gentlemen.
We had a guy call from Jacksonville said he got a bunch of robo calls, and the one that really burned him was from the McCain camp saying that Romney wanted to take people's guns away from him, and he knew that wasn't the case.
The one I had heard about was the McCain campaign accusing Romney of being pro-abortion.
We have that robocall.
We have the audio of it.
We found it at the website of our flamethrower affiliate in West Palm Beach, WJNO.
It runs about 51 seconds.
The quality here is not good, but I told Cookie, I said, don't doctor the quality.
Don't dress this up.
I want people to hear this exactly as they would hear it when they answered the phone.
He cared deeply about traditional values protecting families.
And he's telling us about movement on the right time.
Ending abortion, preserving the safety of marriage, stopping the trash in the airways, and it takes the band gone from every corner of society.
These issues are forced to law being.
He has all these kids and he says more.
He supported abortion already there.
Even though it was a law-mending and taxpayer funding purport, he says he changed his mind, but he still hasn't changed the law.
He says he organizes Massachusetts with solder advocates for special rights to eating technology.
Now, it's something different.
Unfortunately, on issue after issue, hey, Romney speaks social issues service and school.
He thinks you can catch on.
Sorry, Mitt.
We know you aren't supposed to be a less important issue, and he are the conservative.
He said that's John McCain, 2008.
All right, so that's that's the robo call.
Now, were you able to understand?
I've got the transcript to follow it.
Were you able to understand it?
Now, okay.
You want me to read the transcript?
All right, I'll be.
Could you, what?
Oh, I'm sorry, the bars.
Let me turn the bars down.
There we go.
There we go.
Sorry about that for you, Ditto cameras.
It was inadvertent.
It was late arriving show prep.
Bars are down.
Camera's now on.
Could you tell it was a woman?
All right.
Okay.
Here's the transcript.
You answer the phone.
It's McCain Robocall.
I'm calling with an urgent Mitt Romney voter alert.
We care deeply about traditional values and protecting families, and we need somebody who will not, and even that is inaudible in the transcript, somebody who will not, inaudible in the White House, ending abortion, preserving the sanctity of marriage, trash on the airwaves, and attempts to ban God from every corner of society.
These issues are core to our being.
Mitt Romney seems to think he can fool us.
He supported abortion on demand, even wrote a law mandating taxpayer funding for abortions.
He says he changed his mind, but he still hasn't changed the law.
He told gay organizers in Massachusetts he'd be a stronger advocate for abortion rights, gay rights, and even Ted Kennedy.
Now, that's something different.
Unfortunately, on issue after issue, Mitt Romney has treated special issues voters as fools, thinking they won't catch on.
Sorry, Mitt.
We know you aren't trustworthy on the most important issues, and you aren't a conservative.
Paid for by John McCain, 2008.
Now, that's pretty sleazy.
That is pretty sleazy.
The quality, obviously, very poor.
And for all of McCain's complaining about the dirty tricks against him, if this is genuine, it looks like the McCain campaign is exactly what George Will said that it is today, an echo, a mirror image of the Clintons.
So it would be interesting to know if this McCain authorized campaign activity.
I wanted you to hear this because this is what I've been hearing is going and going around.
We found the audio of it.
Now, here's this column by the latest chick who's mad at me, Carol Devine Molin from American Daily.
And let me check something here.
American Daily created in 2002 by Justin Heiser to provide news and commentary from the conservative side of things.
The American Daily now operated by Move Off LLC.
The core value of American Daily is a contributing columnist, and we provide them with the timely support and encourage more.
Okay, so it's a conservative site.
Carol Devine Mullen.
Let's see if this is identified here.
I mean, if there's a signature, there's not.
Title of piece, who is Rush Limbaugh and why is he manipulating the GOP vote?
For years, I've been a fan of talk radio personality Rush Limbaugh, a harmless, lovable fuzzball, and I've always enjoyed his humor and commentary.
But recently, something's changed.
He's crossed a line.
Limbaugh is now actively manipulating the Republican electorate in ways that are unacceptable for an entertainer or even a self-styled ideologue and opinion shaper.
Rush regularly underscores that he's a movement conservative, not a Republican partisan.
That's fine.
But then he has the chutzpah to engage in heavy-handed tactics that are meant to skew the outcome of the Republican election process.
Sometimes I feel like he's morphing into a right-wing propaganda minister of the airwaves as he mercilessly beats on some candidates and gives others that he likes a free ride.
Rush is on a strange power trip.
As a both proud Reaganite Republican and conservative who operated at a grassroots, I really take umbrage at what he's doing.
The Republican Party is my party and the party of millions of other rank and file who love the GOP.
Who the heck's Limbaugh?
This is a guy who probably didn't even cast his first vote until he was 35.
Bombastic Limbaugh's even taking recent pot shots at Republican stalwart Newt Gingrich.
It's time for El Rushbo to chill out.
By the way, Carol, I should tell you those so-called pot shots at Newt.
I simply.
Now, yes, I'm a tribal propaganda minister chief.
I am a tribal propaganda minister chief leading a herd, but it seems I'm having trouble corralling the herd because the herd is off my tribal reservation.
By the way, Carol, I should tell you the confre temp with Mr. Newt was over comments he made on the Stephanopoulos show about how the Reagan era is over.
And he came on the program.
We talked about it.
I saw him.
I was at dinner with him Saturday night.
And he said, you know, I thought about that, what you said to me all week, and you're right.
It was the wrong way to say it.
A Reagan era is not over because Reagan era was conservatism.
And we had a good long talk about this.
So I wasn't even going to mention this, but I got another woman angry at me.
And I said, time to defend myself against a charge, and I will do so.
True, Rush Limbaugh is among the most influential conservative voices on the scene today.
That makes it all the more disconcerting that Limbaugh is being patently irresponsible by spewing over-the-top rhetoric that could very well depress the Republican vote in a general election and thereby help elect a Democrat become the next president of this great nation.
This is not a matter of free speech.
What?
It's not a matter of free speech.
This person is a conservative, and this is not a matter of free speech?
Of course the conservative poobah can make any...
You see, this woman claims to have loved me.
Well, CSC.
ban.
She claimed to have been...
Now, look, we've got virtual virulent hatred.
The poo-bah?
The conservative poo-bah can make any public pronouncements that he wishes, but by the same token, words have meaning and impact.
And given the high stakes in this election, it's difficult to see how Limbaugh is being properly circumspect.
Yes, Rush, it's your right to say anything you want.
It's my prerogative to register my deep displeasure.
I'm in the awkward position of having to defend McCain and Huckabee against Limbaugh's rants, despite the fact I'm going to be voting for neither of these contenders in the primaries.
Okay, Limbaugh recently stated, what I said was that I, for the first time on this program, I can see possibly not voting for the Republican nominee on another occasion.
Limbaugh was even more vociferous as he espoused, I'm here to tell you, if either of these two guys, McCain or Huckabee gets a nomination, is going to destroy the party.
He's going to change it forever, be the end of it.
A lot of people aren't going to vote.
You watch.
Well, what happens if either McCain or Huckabee survives Limbaugh's onslaught and becomes the candidate?
That's a distinct possibility for McCain who's polling well, battling with Romney.
Rush holds sway among conservative Republicans.
And if he persists in his attacks against McCain, some conservatives will refuse to vote Republican in the general, blah, blah, blah.
Sadly, get this.
Get this next one.
Sadly, Chief Wagga Wagga El Rushbo of the El Conservo tribe is being both supercilious and short-sighted as he leads the pack against McCain and Huckabee.
For Limbaugh, these two contenders must be quashed at all costs, utilizing his talk show power pulpit to inflict devastating attacks.
Limbaugh stridency begs the question at this juncture who is really having a deleterious effect on the party.
Limbaugh is acting like a petulant child, desperately attempting to get his way, even if it means overstepping his bounds and inflicting nasty, targeted assaults upon Republican hopefuls.
And please, I'm not buying El Rushbo's bogus claim there isn't a whiff of difference between McCain and Hillary or Huckabee and Hillary.
It's Rush consensus that they're all the same.
If either McCain or Huckabee became the candidate, Rush would rather let the next presidency play out under the Democrat watch.
Watch.
Never said that that's that's right.
I never said that definitely.
But what I did say was, if there's no difference between a Republican nominee and a Democrat nominee, if they're both liberals, then the country's going to go to hell, if I think, in my estimation, let it go to hell under the Democrats like it did under Jimmy Carter.
I said it took Jimmy Carter to give us a Reagan.
Anyway, this is, again, this is Carol Devine Mullen of American Daily, the latest woman angry at me.
And I've now been, I mean, anointed, I guess, as a tribal propaganda minister chief who is the irresponsible vote-suppressing poo-bah, out of bounds, a petulant child off the Wagga Wagga, El Conservo tribe reservation.
Before we get to the next slated chapter of the program, Mr. Broadcast Engineer, I just noticed a phone call that I want to take.
But that next chapter in the program is a response to Carol Devine Mullen of American Daily, who's upset.
She wants me to chill out.
I'm influencing too much of the Republican vote.
It's not wise when I'm hurting the Republican Party.
And I have, she may have a point.
What I want to do is we have a special, I want to get her back in a fold.
You know, she's mad at me.
I don't want her to be mad at me.
We'll have some things coming up to perhaps acknowledge her point and try to make amends so that she's not so upset.
But in the meantime, Melissa in Egan, Minnesota.
Hi, welcome to the program.
Hi, Rush.
Melissa, first-time caller.
How are you?
Fine.
Thanks very much.
Yeah, thanks for having me here.
First, I'm glad you had a commercial break before you brought me in because I got a boy, Carol.
Hello.
Rush talks about issues.
This is not a cult of personality.
Rush doesn't have it in for, you know, McCain just because he didn't pick his name out of a hat.
Thank you.
We people who are conservatives are concerned about actual issues.
This is not a Democratic squabble where it's, you know, what nasty tricks can we pull out of the bag or cult of personality or who's what gender or race.
We are actually taking time to discuss what differentiates what candidates are.
Exactly right.
That's not what we're supposed to be talking about.
Yes, it is.
We're not supposed to be talking party loyalty.
We're not supposed to be talking electability in November per se.
We're supposed to be talking about issues.
And the one thing that people can say, I'm off the reservation or whatever, but I have not strayed.
I am consistent.
Whenever I find liberalism and it seeks power, I'm going to oppose it.
Yes, that's exactly right.
And for her to come on and throw a tantrum, you can't tell me what to think, that's the first thing she says.
And second of all, she is closetly, in my opinion, concerned about electability.
And she doesn't want you disenfranchising, shall we say, or turning off the most conservative members of our party for fear that the Republicans won't get in in the fall.
So she's got the same argument that a couple of your previous callers and previous hours have said, that you got to go with the electoral, you know, they're not saying it.
They look for excuses.
Well, he's more conservative.
Well, the pro-life.
But really what it comes down to is they're scared and they want the electable.
You know what?
You can make your guy electable if you just open your mouth.
But that's not why I called.
Oh, that's.
You just got me going with Carol.
But, you know, I just got a little theory rush, and I got to tell you, my history with you started not so well.
I went to a university.
And, you know, there we were told in the late 80s that Limbaugh was just somebody that doesn't, he's not our people, and he's somebody to be laughed at.
So I didn't, I thought I was a liberal for a very long time.
And then about 2001, I turned on talk radio and never went back.
Thank you.
And so I've been listening to you kind of full-time-ish about a month here.
And one thing I have learned in the last six years is that talk radio teaches you, if you listen to the right people, how to analyze the media that you are confronted with on a daily basis.
Thank you.
The important thing are not the facts.
Facts I can get out there on the blogs.
I can review congressional records.
I can look at votes.
But to learn how to analyze the media.
So this is why you think that I am the media foil where McCain's concerned?
Precisely.
I think that they need.
The media aren't sure yet where to go with a conservative.
You know, there's the theory, oh, well, the New York Times wants McCain because they think he's the most Melissa.
Melissa, hang on.
I'm going to have to rudely interrupt you.
We're losing you on the cell phone, but you said something here that I have to step in and correct.
You said the media aren't sure yet where to go with conservatives.
Yes, they are.
They want to destroy conservatives.
The media, liberals, Democrats, it's all the same.
They want to relegate conservatism to irrelevancy, to permanent, vast minority status.
Why else do you think they are endorsing Senator McCain?
Why else were they getting so excited about Governor Huckabee?
The reason, and I've made this point over and over again, and this is not about the cult of personality.
It's not about any personal animus against either of these guys, but they are not conservatives.
And the best way to tell that is that the drive-by media loves these people.
Do you think they actually want conservatives to nominate somebody that can beat Democrats?
No, they want us to nominate somebody they can beat.
I'm just trying to ring the warning buzzers here.
I just got a note from the North Carolina mistress.
You're actually going to try to make a woman not mad at you?
That's a first.
Yes, I am going to try to make a woman not mad at me.
This is Carol Devine Mullen, who wrote, who is Rush Limbaugh?
Why is he manipulating a GOP vote?
Basically, he wants me to shut up and chill out.
She may have a point.
And so, ladies and gentlemen, I am going to shut up.
For the next series of moments, parodies, musical diddies, and other things will take over this program because this woman's a conservative.
If I'm starting to make those kind of people mad at me, I may have to rethink how I go about.
I'm not saying anything.
I'm doing the program another way.
Shing it, shing it, shit, shing it.
Hi, this is Rush Limbaugh.
I've been accused of speaking too much on my program.
So, by conservative women, got to get back in their good graces by speaking less.
I have so many good ideas for the American people, but I've been asked to shut up, so I'm shutting up.
By the way, to spread the thing around, Arlo Guthrie has just endorsed Ron Paul.
Did he say LGBT winners?
Did they sing that in that junk?
Did they sing that?
There are other news items out there today.
This is from Bloomberg.
California lawmakers said that they have to contend with the state's growing budget crisis before they reconsider Governor Schwarzenegger's plan to provide health insurance to everybody in the state.
The Senate Health Committee yesterday voted to block, get this now, the Senate Health Committee of all places, California voted to block a universal health insurance bill supported by Schwarzenegger because they don't have the money for it.
I don't mean to be yelling.
Sorry about that.
And get this.
Unbelievable, especially from the Associated Press.
The slug line on this story is luxury squeeze.
It's hard to feel sorry for well-heeled shoppers whose idea of tough economic times is passing on a $1,000 Burberry raincoat or that $300 limo ride while the working poor skimp on vegetables and take the bus.
But economists say that recent signs of cutting back by the affluent could hurt the economy and deliver even more pain to lower income workers who are dependent on their business and fat tips.
Nathan Warren, a limousine driver, knows this firsthand.
He has seen his monthly wages drop by 40% to about $1,800 since late last year.
His worksheet at the Classy Ride Limousine Service was reduced to three days from five amid slow business.
I have to struggle again by, said the limo driver.
I'm pinching pennies.
I'm eating more cereal.
I'm not buying clothing.
Cutbacks by the wealthy have a ripple effect across all consumer spending, said Michael Namiro, chief economist, the International Council of Shopping Centers.
That's because American households at the top 20% by income, those making at least 150 Gs a year, account for about 40% of overall consumer spending, which makes up two-thirds of economic activity.
Why?
Why?
Wait, wait, wait, wait, ripple effect.
You mean when the affluent and the wealthy stop buying, it hurts people lower down the scale?
So you got, you got, follow me on this here, folks.
You got the wealthy and you got the affluent up here, and they spend.
And when they spend, that spending sort of trickles down to others below them.
So there is a trickle-down effect.
A trickle-down effect.
So when you give tax relief, tax cuts to upper-income workers, they spend more and there's a trickle down.
Does this woman who wrote this, Annie Innocenzio, want to keep her job?
She has just done a story under the guise of feeling sorry for the poor and the middle class who have to eat cereal and go without new clothes because the rich are not spending.
She had just validated regonomics, the trickle-down aspect.
So, you know, the rich can't win.
If they make too much money, it's not fair.
If they don't spend what they make, everybody suffers.
Women in minorities, hardest hit.
This needs to be framed and put in the Smithsonian, in the museum.
You know, you get this museum in this is incredible.
Recent signs of cutting back by the affluent could hurt the economy and deliver even more pain to lower income workers who are dependent on their business.
A limo driver is this but one example.
Brian Pryor Lake, Minnesota.
Welcome to the program, sir.
Thanks for taking my call, Rush.
Megadiddles from the land of 10,000 lakes.
Thank you, sir.
Great to have you here on the program.
Kind of a coincidence that Egan Minnesota was on right before, but there you go.
And I want to echo one thing the previous caller said.
It is a relief to have access to people like you and Jason Lewis here in Minnesota, considering we live in a state that's still like Finn Volk Paul Wellstone at time.
My question is on an article that I read last week in the journal about Edwards being a potential kingmaker.
And specifically, the author indicated that if he can round up 200 to 300 delegates, that he can basically determine who's going to be the DNC rep. And, you know, what are your thoughts?
Is that true?
And if that's the case, how does it really work?
Well, what everybody's forgetting here is the superdelegates.
The superdelegates are people that don't have to, in any state, who are elected officials or party officials, and they can abandon the way the voters in their states go.
They can do whatever they want to do.
And this has always been thought to be the Clintons' ace in the hole because the Clintons are the machine candidate.
And all of these party officials and superdelegates, but that's what was interesting about Ted Kennedy yesterday.
Ted Kennedy would be a superdelegate, and Ted Kennedy said, screw it, I'm going for Obama.
And that signaled that a number of other superdelegates could follow suit and follow him.
So I don't know if 200 or 300 delegates would be enough for the Brett girl to broker that convention.
I don't know if he can hang in that long.
We'll have to see how he does on Super Tuesday.
But it's possible both these conventions could be deciding factors in the nominee.
We'll just have to wait and see.
Another exciting excursion into broadcast excellence in the can, ladies and gentlemen.
And tomorrow, already Wednesday, we'll be back, fired up, revved up, ready to go.
Can't wait.
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