If you're a welfare recipient just getting out of bed and just turning on the radio, welcome to you too.
I am Rush Limbaugh meeting and surpassing all audience expectations every day from behind the Golden EIB nightwork microphone here at the Limbaugh Institute for Advanced Conservative Studies.
Great to have you with us.
Telephone number is 800-282-2882.
The email address is LRushbo at EIBnet.com.
This is just, this is hilarious.
I'll tell you, everything, practically everything in my stacks of stuff today is hilarious.
This is from the New York Daily News.
Olympic legend Michael Phelps will appear on boxes of Kellogg's Frosted Flakes, a cereal loaded with sugar.
This has drawn sharp criticism from health experts, worried about the message he'll be sending to children across America.
The message Michael Phelps is sending that here we go with the food Nazis.
Is there nothing, ladies and gentlemen, is there not one thing that will not cause this whining?
Food Nazis, mad as hell that eight-time gold medalist Michael Phelps, who eats 12,000 calories a day, didn't sign on to endorse something like cardboard fiber fit cereal or whatever.
I would not consider frosted flakes the food of an Olympian, said nutritionist Rebecca Solomon of Mount Sinai Medical Center.
I would rather see him promoting fiber one.
I would rather see him promoting oatmeal.
I would even rather see him promoting Cheerios.
The announcement that Phelps would grace the frosted flakes and corn flakes boxes instead of the traditional athlete's choice of wheaties left many perplexed.
Frosted Flakes has three times the amount of sugar as Wheaties and one-third the fiber.
The guy eats 12,000 calories a day and these clowns are worried about a box of frosted flakes sitting there.
You know what message Michael Phelps sends to people?
Get off your ass and work.
Get devoted to something and be your best.
That's the message Michael Phelps sends.
Brian, Brian just had a baby.
His wife just had a baby.
Are you offended now as a father that Michael Phelps is endorsing frosted flakes?
You think it's going to harm your kid?
Unbelievable.
It's just.
And these are the people that support Obama, folks.
By the way, hilarity never ends.
Trumpet fanfare.
It's time for an update.
Clarence Frogman Henry.
A tick-de-job.
A tick-de-job.
This, of course, from the Grooveyard of Forgotten Favorites.
Our official homeless update theme.
Here's Clarence as a frog.
Ain't got no home, Clarence Frogman Henry.
That's from 1956.
And from Channel 4 Denver, City of Denver been working to make sure everything is in tip-top shape for all the visitors coming to town for the Democrat National Convention.
And now a local hair salon is helping in that effort.
It seems to be a first.
They have given up on the idea of moving the homeless.
Remember, they're going to give them movie tickets.
They're going to give them bus tickets.
They're going to get them out of town.
I don't know why it matters, by the way, because the cameras never show us what's going on outside these venues anyway.
They swept the homeless off the streets in New York back in 1992.
It wasn't necessary.
The cameras are not out, so C-SPAN cameras are.
But anyway, they're going to clean them up now rather than move them.
That was the work of one salon, and the recipients didn't even seem to care if the Democrats are coming to town.
Sly's salon at 17th and Grant was offering free haircuts to the homeless earlier this week to give them haircuts and make them all spiffed up for the Democrat National Convention because they are part of our community as well, said Gandhia Gunson, a co-owner of Sly's salon.
What's insulting about it?
What?
Well, it's now they just want to clean them up out there snurdily.
I mean, it's not, you know, when the Democrats are someplace, their definition of diversity does not include filth and unkemptness.
Now, when the Democrats aren't anywhere around, like when these same people show up in libraries and stink the high hill, you're supposed to sit there and smell them because you made them that way.
But when the Democrats are coming up, when they do what?
Well, they can't, you can't wall them off because if you wall them off, you wall off the Democrats in the convention.
You put a wall up and it's going to attract the homeless.
They don't go to walls.
Walls are their protection sometimes.
You build a wall out there and the homeless is going to try to climb over it because everybody wants to know what's on the other side of the wall.
No, this is revolutionary.
Clean them up and give them haircuts at the Democrat National Convention.
Let them stay dirty until the Democrats come to town.
That's next week.
They'll go back to being dirty when the Democrats leave.
From Newsday, but this is actually an AP story.
Flag lover or America blamer.
Questions about patriotism often dog Democrat candidates.
This is a story much akin to Obama going to the VFW and saying, by the way, I love my country.
Love it.
Lou.
It's again Obama telling McCain, you, you call me a patriot.
The political landscape is littered with Democrats whose campaigns have been hurt by questions about their patriotism.
Barack Obama wants to avoid the same fate.
Critics have questioned Obama's patriotism for months, whispering about why he didn't wear a flag pin on his lapel and contending he didn't put his hand over his heart during the Pledge of Allegiance.
McCain has asserted that Obama has placed his political self-interest out of his country's.
Behind all these claims and positions by Obama lies the ambition to be president, McCain said.
You know, this story, they write this story every two or four years because it's a legitimate question.
We live in two different worlds.
The Democrats live in a world of fakery, fraudulent phoniness.
We live in a world of reality.
For example, liberals will fall, did fall, hook, line, and sinker for the John Edwards story.
Those of us on the other side in politics saw a fraud from the get-go.
At the same time, the drive-bys and the libs and the Democrats have fallen for the Obama story.
And then a genuine story of war heroism in a prisoner of war camp in Vietnam is said by the Libs to be the fake one.
They support fakes.
They nominate fakes.
They promote and market fakes.
And they look at real stories and condemn them as fakes.
So Julie Pace at the AP has to agonize and wring her hands together and say, why do every election, why do questions arise about the patriotism of the Democrat?
Because the questions arise because of the things that Democrats say.
I mean, look, Julie, go back and listen to Dingy Harry.
Go back and listen to Obama.
Go back and listen to Pelosi happily, proudly, hopefully wish for defeat in Iraq.
Go back and listen to Mrs. Clinton redefine patriotism as being equal to ripping your president to shreds.
All you got to do is look at what these people say.
That's why the questions arise.
Again, it's all reality-based.
We'll be right back.
Much more straight ahead.
Hi, welcome back, Rush Limbaugh.
More fun.
Having more fun than a human being should be allowed to have.
One thing about these homeless people out in Denver who got their haircut, I mean, some of these people hadn't had a haircut in three or four months.
But did you hear, did you see the report?
Did you hear what some of these people actually said about the experience, some of these homeless people?
They said they felt better about themselves than they had in a long time because they looked good.
They gave them a little food, spiffed them up in a bunch of ways at this Sly's salon.
And they talked about how looking good was empowering.
One said she felt so good, she was going to go look for a job.
Now, how cheap was it to create that job?
Did it take massive government spending?
Did it take loads and loads of shopping carts?
All it took was a private sector initiative to give these people a haircut and clean them up a little bit.
And somebody said, damn, I look so good, I'm going to go get a job.
Which is the objective in removing people either from homelessness or poverty.
So if you just give these people baths and haircuts, just once a week, when you have to do it every day, just give them baths and haircuts once a week, and they'll feel so good about themselves.
They will go out there and they'll want to find work.
By the way, these Democrat babes are dropping like flies out there.
We learned, ladies and gentlemen, Diane Feinstein broke her ankle while walking at Tahoe on a political retreat.
She can't go to the convention.
She was going to lead the Hillary delegation.
She's going to lead the California delegation to the convention.
She can't go there.
Doctor told her not to fly.
And now Stephanie Tubbs, Stubbs, what is it?
Stubbs?
Stephanie Tubbs Jones of Cleveland.
She's in a hospital.
She was a big, big, big Hillary babe.
And then she saw the light in June and switched over to Obama.
Well, she's not going to be able to go to convention, it looks like.
Do you know what her ailment is?
I didn't.
On aneurysm.
Okay.
Yeah, it's aneurysm.
So anyway, the convention population is decreasing at the Democrat convention.
The phones we go, this is Rod Chapel Hill, North Carolina.
I appreciate your patience.
Welcome, sir.
Megha Dittos from the Land of the Tar Hills, Rush.
Thank you.
Hey, listen, your comments earlier about Barack's lack of substance have kind of got me thinking about the Barack Obama brand.
And I should say, I mean, I'm a professional marketing guy.
I've been in marketing for most of my career.
And there's two fundamental things that I think Barack is missing as a.
And the first is the people at PNG have taught us marketers that two moments of truth.
The first moment of truth is when you buy the product, and the second moment of truth is when you use the product.
And so I and so my contention is that Barack has done a great job of preparing himself for the first moment of truth, but is setting target consumers up for disappointment during the second moment of truth.
Why is that?
Why, if people, because I look, I appreciate the analogy, and I actually think that early on people were eager as hell to buy the Obama product.
Fewer and fewer people are now.
And is that because they're not prepared to use it after they buy it?
Well, I would say that all great brands have to deliver both rational and emotional benefits.
And my contention is that Barack is nailing the emotional benefits, but has not defined the rational benefits well enough.
And the best way to give a consumer an unsatisfying experience is not to deliver on the rational.
And so I think that's where he's failing.
You know, I think you're right on the money.
I think you are.
I've got a story here in my Obama stack.
It's from the AmericanThinker.com.
It's by a guy named J.D. Dunn.
He's a consulting editor of the American Thinker, and I've quoted his work before.
He's got a piece today that says Obama's just a flake.
And the American people have begun to see it.
Just let me read to you a real short paragraph here.
The chief characteristic of a flake is that he makes choices that are impossible to either understand or explain.
These are not the errors of the poor dope who can't grasp the essentials of a situation, or the neurotic who ruins things out of compulsion, or the man suffering chronic bad luck.
The fake has a genius for discovering solutions at perfect right angles to the ordinary world.
It's as if he's the product of a totally different evolutionary chain in a universe where the laws are slightly but distinctly at variance to ours.
When given a choice between left and right, the flake goes up, if not through the eighth dimension.
And although there's plenty of rationalization, there's never a logical reason for any of it.
After a while, people stop asking.
So the kind of dovetails here, the rational.
You say people are missing the rational, or he's not presenting the rational to people.
Yeah.
And Mr. Tellia, I would say he's not delivering the rational.
And clearly there are consumers out there who will always be activally and behaviorally loyal to a brand, no matter what happens.
But for the vast majority of people who are not blindly behaviorally loyal, I think that's going to be the downfall of the campaign.
Well, but it already is, isn't it?
Early on, if you go back, we just have to go back a couple months.
He had a 15-point lead.
Right, right.
At that point, would you say he was closing the deal on both the rational and emotional?
I would say the emotional basically just trumped the rational.
And it was presented in such a way that I think consumers were willing to give him the benefit of the doubt.
But I think as we get closer, I think your point that the polls are starting to matter, the closer we get, I think folks are taking a harder look at them.
And again, for the consumers who aren't behaviorally loyal, and I would call those the undecided or the swing voters, I think that's what you're trying to, I think that's what we're starting to see is that they're deciding that he isn't delivering on the rational.
Yeah, which means he's not real.
Right, exactly.
Right.
All right.
Well, Bob, Rod, I appreciate that very much.
If you just tuned in, Rod is a marketing executive from Chapel Hill was giving us a marketing analysis of Obama's problems.
Now, yesterday, ladies and gentlemen, I previewed for you the L.A. Times Bloomberg poll on Obama.
It is out.
And what the poll has found here, the upshots, McCain has begun rallying dispirited Republicans to his campaign, while Obama has made scant progress building new support, leaving the presidential race statistically tied.
The survey highlights Obama's vulnerability on the question of his readiness to lead the nation.
Less than half the registered voters polled think the first-time senator has the right experience to be president, while 80% believe that McCain does.
Less than half think the man-child is qualified.
Dovetails exactly with what Rod just told us.
The rational.
Obama's not able to close on the rational.
The poll also illustrates some racial undercurrents that confront Obama.
9% of voters say they would feel uncomfortable voting for a black candidate.
Most voters say that they know people who feel that way.
About one in six say the country is not ready to elect a black president.
See what this is.
I can spot this in 10 miles away, folks.
This is the old, hey, you know, I'm not a racist, but damn if my neighbor or father or my brother-in-law, my co-worker is.
Frankly, this is higher than is being reflected in the polls.
I think this is more than 9%.
If Obama doesn't have a 10-point lead going into the last week, it's over.
Hey, folks, I'll get back to this L.A. Times poll here in just a second, because there's still big news in it, but Vladimir Putin, and who can blame him?
Vladimir Putin just said that Russia's response to our defensive missile shield in Poland will go beyond diplomacy.
Vladimir Putin said, you put those missiles in there, and I'm going to do something other than talk.
Now, this, ladies and gentlemen, is a moment of truth.
Imagine President Obama versus President McCain.
You just signed a deal with the Polish to put 10 interceptor bases, or an interceptor base with 10 interceptor missiles in Poland to protect them against attacks from people like the Russians.
Vladimir Putin, fresh off a total stomping of Georgia that nobody did anything to stop, now says, you put those missiles here, and our response is going to be much more than just diplomacy.
What does Obama do?
Well, he comes from the school of William Ayers and Jeremiah Wright, who have taught him that America is usually to blame for these kinds of stalemates.
My guess is that Obama would fold.
My guess is Obama would cancel the missile shield in Poland.
That's what the conflict resolution studies would teach one to do.
Would McCain fold on something like this?
You know what Putin's trying to do here.
We have had things in our hemisphere where we've said, you don't come into our hemisphere as Monroe Doctrine.
You don't come in here and you don't mess with our 48.
You don't mess with our neighbors.
Well, Putin, it's the same thing.
Hey, look at this is my part of the world, and we're going to build it back up with a Russian dynamo again.
And we're going to be very proud of ourselves.
And you're not going to put any missiles in here.
And so it's a moment of truth here.
For the Messiah, a Russian national anthem behind Vladimir Putin there.
Quickly, L.A. Times poll.
More striking, however, is the drop in Obama's favorable rating.
Obama's favorable rating has slid from 59% to 48% since June.
At the same time, his negative rating has risen from 27 to 35%.
The bulk of that shift stems from Republicans souring on Obama amid ferocious attacks on the Democrat by McCain and his allies.
That's it.
See, they're Democrats.
The drive-bys are just so upset with these so-called ferocious attacks.
These have been benign.
Even the Britney Spears Paris-Hilton ad was funny.
It was benign.
Obama's patriotism not being attacked in an ad.
McCain's just out there saying he's putting his own personal political ambition ahead of the country's.
You know, it's just, it's just, we can't hit the girl.
I don't care how far feminism takes you.
You can't hit the girl and you can't criticize the little black man child.
You just can't do it because it's just not right.
It's not fair.
He's such a victim.
Back to the audio soundbites.
The drive-bys yesterday driven to a tizzy over my warning shot, as they called it, to McCain, not to put a pro-choicer on the ticket.
Last night's CNN situation room, Wolf Blitzer, talked to Republican strategerist Kevin Madden.
He said, you heard Tom Ridge, Rush Limbaugh, a lot of the conservative Republicans, they wouldn't be happy.
Can Senator McCain go against that base and pick somebody who supports abortion?
Rush Limbaugh speaks to a lot of the fears that many grassroots conservatives have that such a pick would really cause a stampede at the convention.
It would essentially take us away from a major part of our identity as Republicans, which is that as a party that protects the sanctity of life.
So I really think that if you're going to make this an election about first securing your base and then going after those independents that are going to help you get to that 51%, it's very problematic.
And Donna Brazile was also on this show.
Blitzer said there's been speculation, even the man who was the vice presidential running mate of Gore in 2000, Lieberman, now a major supporter of Senator McCain, and he supports abortion rights.
But there's talk that he could be a potential running mate for McCain.
You think Tom Ridge is a problem to Russ Limbaugh?
Just add Joe Lieberman to the brew.
But there have been some major Republicans out there who like Joe Lieberman a lot.
Well, because they think Joe Lieberman can go back and attack the Democrats.
But Joe Lieberman is also pro-gay rights.
He's also pro-civil rights.
And that runs counter to some of the Republican messages.
Yeah, see, this is this.
The Republicans are opposed to civil rights.
She is crafty.
Donna, you're very good, but you can't get it past us here at the EIB network.
You know as well as I do, Donna, that the Civil Rights Act of 1964 would not have passed without a larger majority of Republican senators voting for it.
The turnaround on this whole civil rights thing, all of the old segregationists, all the governors beating up poor black people were Democrats.
From Lester Maddox to George Wallace, Bull Connor with the fire hose and the dogs was a Democrat.
Now, Madden, who you just heard from, did not like what Brazil said.
Republicans feel very strongly about civil rights.
There are many Republicans out there that are on the forefront of that issue.
There's one reason why that Republicans don't believe in Joe Lieberman, because he used to be a Democrat, and he practically still is on all the social policies, the economic policies that we care about.
Well, I would love to see the day that you all select Joe Lieberman.
be here defending joe living in values and while you're sitting there defending rutch limbaugh's i love it folks it is I can't tell you.
I wish, I just wish my mom and dad were alive.
They would not believe this.
Tweaking the drive-bys and the Democrat Party every day.
Let's stick with CNN.
Campbell Brown speaking to their legal analyst there, Jeffrey Toobin.
She said, what do you make of the Lieberman, whether it's real or not, trial balloon?
It's clearly being floated.
It is.
But, you know, I think this picking a pro-choice running mate is very realistic.
The pro-life movement, frankly, have been a bunch of patsies.
They always talk about how they're going to leave the party.
They always talk about how they are outraged that Roe v. Wade is never overturned.
But they never go anywhere.
They are not going to sit home.
Looking at Barack Obama or John McCain, they are going to vote for John McCain no matter what.
I don't buy that.
Jeffrey Toobin, another non-member of the pro-life community, another non-member of the conservative Republican community, telling us what we are and are not going to do.
And he hasn't a clue.
We are aliens to these people.
I'm not going to go through all this again.
You heard it yesterday.
You've heard it enough.
The choice alone would cause so many of us to question everything else McCain has said about appointing the right kind of judges.
It goes right to who McCain is.
It's just that, plus, doing so would destroy the Republican Party.
And by the way, Ronald Brownstein, you got to give him a little credit here.
Ronald Brownstein went out and did a little research and found out these unity tickets never succeed.
When a president of one party picks a VEEP from another, it hasn't happened.
It hasn't been in a long time, but it doesn't work.
It hasn't worked when it's been tried.
Because all these people mistake what the American people supposedly want.
And it ain't a bunch of people compromising their principles to get along with the other side.
That's not what the American people want.
Now, David Rodam Gergen, he's all upset on CNN.
Things McCain might listen to me.
Campbell Brown said, Rush Limbaugh said if McCain campaign choose a pro-choice candidate, they will effectively destroy the Republican Party and push the conservative movement to the bleachers.
Would it really be that bad, David Rodham Gergen?
It won't be that bad, but it points out the dilemma that John McCain may be creating for himself.
And that is that Tom Ridge and Joe Lieberman would both be very striking choices and would appeal probably a great deal to independents and indeed many, many moderate Republicans.
But by flipping these options right here at the last minute, it does raise the specter that if he does not go that way, if he does not go for a pro-choice candidate, if he goes for a pro-life candidate, that in effect he will have allowed the Rush Limbaughs of the world to veto what he might otherwise have wanted to do.
So I'm a little surprised they're making this quite as public as they are.
Tennies don't like me vetoing what McCain intends to do.
And Mark Halperin was on the program again last night, and Campbell Brown said, is this all a smokescreen, all this talk about Ridge and Lieberman?
I think that Tom Ridge and Joe Lieberman are people John McCain would love to serve with in the White House.
Right.
But I think he's headed towards picking Mitt Romney.
Mitt Romney is pro-life now, but he has been pro-choice.
And I think what these consultations are meant to do is to give conservatives a little bit of a scare.
So when he picks Mitt Romney, people say, oh, at least we've got a pro-life guy.
We got a guy who is currently pro-life.
I love the way this is being analyzed.
I don't think that's what's going on here at all.
What I know about Romney is that Huckabee's out there trying to destroy him in the evangelical community.
That's what I know is going on.
I know that Romney would be an excellent choice as vice president.
One, I would support it, but I'm not going to say that because I take that back because then people are going to think that I'm leading McCain around on a chain and a leash and I'm not.
Drive-by is all concerned that McCain's going to do what I want.
Now, let's see.
The notion that they're playing a game here to get all of us, oh, my God.
Oh, no.
Lieberman?
Ridge?
The choice is Romney.
They go, all right.
I don't think that's what's going to happen.
I think.
I think that there are two factions in the McCain camp.
One is the Rhinos, and there's a bunch of them, and they're led by Lindsey Graham.
And I think that bunch would love to just shake.
I think Lindsey Graham is so angry at Republicans and conservatives, he wants to ram things down our throats.
And that's what picking a choice like Lieberman would do.
And there are a lot of Republicans that, you know, just they want to get rid of the evangelical community.
They're embarrassed by it.
But then there's the other side, and I don't think those people are the ones making up the choice here or helping McCain choose.
I think the other side knows full well this would be suicidal for McCain's presidential prospects.
There are places you could put Tom Ridge in your administration.
Tom Ridge, you know, he came up with a color-coded alert system after 9-11.
Homeland Security.
Lieberman, plenty of places for these good friends of McCain to serve by the side.
But vice president would be the wrong place for it.
One more bite here.
Again, from CNN, this morning, the co-host John Roberts interviewed former Hillary Clinton press secretary Lisa Caputo.
And he said, Rush Limbaugh came out, warned him against picking Lieberman because of his pro-choice stance.
Would you like to see him reach out across the aisle?
I think a selection of Joe Lieberman would be an absolutely bold choice.
Lieberman, now an independent, would signal that McCain is going for those K swing voters in this election who are the independents.
I think Tom Ridge would present a problem for McCain.
Rush Limbaugh, as you said, has indicated he'd mount a campaign, and that would really be a signal that he's not going to cater to the far-right wing of his party.
I did not say I was going to mount a campaign.
Anyway, they all think that I would mount a campaign.
Well, I'm just going to address that.
Here's the thing: why would Lieberman be bold?
I understood.
Let me take a break here.
I'll tell you why Lieberman would be bold.
And at the same time, I will tell you why it would not be bold for Obama to pick a Republican.
Back after this.
All right, we're back.
Having more fun than a human being should be allowed to have.
By the way, grab audio soundbite.
Let's see here.
Okay, number 17, and we're going to follow that with number 28.
Here's Obama yesterday in Raleigh, North Carolina campaign event.
I don't intend to lose this election.
John McCain doesn't know what he's up against right now.
I don't intend to lose this election.
He can talk all he wants about Brittany and Paris, but I don't have time for that mess.
I think he's coming unraveled.
I think he's coming unglued.
Here's McCain this afternoon in Las Cruces, New Mexico.
Yesterday, Senator Obama got a little testy on this issue.
He said, I'm questioning his patriotism.
Let me be very clear.
I am not questioning his patriotism.
I am questioning his judgment.
I am questioning his judgment.
Play 17 again.
Play cut 17.
This is amazing here.
This sounds as undisciplined as anything Obama said other than the stuttering.
I don't intend to lose this election.
John McCain doesn't know what he's up against right now.
I don't intend to lose this election.
He can talk all he wants about Brittany and Paris, but I don't have time for that mess.
I think, Senator, you don't know what you are up against.
What you are up against, Senator, is your past.
Steve Gilbert, Sweetness and Light blog, asking a very relevant question.
Just how many wives did Obama's father have?
So far, we've been able to count up three.
He was a bigamist.
Was married to Obama's mother when he hadn't divorced his first wife.
The mother of this George Bongyang Obama that they found in the hut in Kenya.
J-A-E-L is her name, and there's no mention of her in either of Obama's books.
So there may be a fourth wife that Barack Obama Sr. had.
As Steve Gilbert says, Obama is making Bill Clinton's life look stable.
Now, this bold business, folks, it's just, it's just like, have you ever heard any mavericks in the Democrat Party?
You haven't.
They're not celebrated.
They're run out of the party, such as Lieberman, such as Zell Miller.
So why is it all the drive-bys now just all excited as they can be about a bold choice that McCain could make?
And it would be Lieberman.
Why that would be bold?
And they say it'd be bold because it would get the moderates.
Hey, drive-bys, we are not fools.
McCain's already got whatever moderates he's going to get by being who he is.
We don't need somebody in the second spot of the ticket to be an echo of McCain in that way.
Now, it might be bold if we had, say, a conservative at the top of the ticket.
I mean, a full-blown down-the-line conservative choosing that.
Now, that might be bold to go get the moderates to be stupid as well.
Either way, you make this out.
It's stupid, but you drive-bys.
Yes.
You drive-bys want this mistake, so McCain will lose.
You want McCain to pick.
Why wouldn't it be bold, for example, for Obama to say, go pick Bobby Jindal?
Would you think that's bold?
They would have a fit.
They would start panicking out there, and they would do something seriously about taking a nomination away from Obama if he chose a Republican running mate.