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Oct. 24, 2008 - Rush Limbaugh Program
35:44
October 24, 2008, Friday, Hour #3
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Greetings, my friends, and welcome back.
Rush Limbaugh, broadcast excellence from the Limbaugh Institute for Advanced Conservative Studies.
Live from the Southern Command in sunny South Florida, it's Open Line Friday!
Yip, yep, yahoo.
Folks, the government's soon going to be giving money away to everybody.
It's just fabulous.
800-282-2882 is the phone number.
If you want to be on Open Line Friday, I am Rush Limbaugh, the all-knowing, all-caring, all-sensing, all-feeling, all-concerned, Maha Rushi.
And we go to the phones on Open Line Friday.
We turn the content of the program over to you.
800-282-2882.
One little thing that I wish to add, ladies and gentlemen, to this.
If you miss this, you're going to have to go to rushlimbaugh.com later this evening when we update the website to reflect the contents of today's program.
The first hour considered or contained a detailed explanation of plans that Democrats have to take your 401k away from you and give you the value of it before the market plunge and then put it into the Social Security Trust Fund.
And when you retire, and your 401k then will be invested, it's not your private retirement account anymore.
The government owns it, and they're going to guarantee you 3% growth every year by the purchase of, with the purchase of government bonds.
And therefore, you give up all of the tax deductibility.
You know, when you, let's say you earn whatever it is, just take $100,000 and you put whatever percentage of it into your IRA.
Then, of course, your adjustable gross income comes down.
And that's the, so you face a smaller tax payment while saving money.
And it's a government-sponsored deal, and everybody was happy with it.
They're going to take all of that away and put the money in the Social Security Trust Fund.
And then when you retire, you'll get one check that represents your Social Security and whatever your 401k has matured to at 3% a year in one check.
Now, one thing I forgot to mention here on this is that IRA contributions drive down adjusTedros income using my example.
You earn $100,000 and let's say you direct that $20,000 of it go to your IRA.
Whatever the maximum you can put away, for some plans, it's 30% max, SEPKEO's up to a certain floor, ceiling rather.
But let's say just for argument's sake, it's 20 grand.
So therefore, your adjustable gross income is reduced by $20,000.
So you're going to have a smaller tax payment.
Once they take that away from you, guess what?
Your tax rate's going to also go up because your adjusTedros income is not going to have your IRA deduction.
And guess what this is going to do?
It's going to push more people into Obama's new tax increase bracket.
It's going to push more people over the $250,000 a year magic number.
Now, right now, this is not an Obama proposal.
And I want to assure you that, make sure that you understand this is a Democrat Party proposal.
And they have been conducting hearings on this already and the appropriate committee in the House.
And this plan has been advanced by a professor that they brought in, and they're intrigued by it.
Democrats on the committee are intrigued by it.
In the meantime, we've also learned that Ted Kennedy on his sick bed has been working on national health care with lobbyists and senators from both parties.
And they're now willing to, they want to rush this through and, quote, do it for Ted.
The Ted Kennedy National Health Care Act in his honor.
And I predicted this would happen.
Here it is.
Who can oppose that if you're in Congress?
Who can after Ted Kennedy passes away?
Who in their right mind would oppose it?
So this is happening.
Your adjustable gross income is going to go up.
You might make it now into Obama's $250,000 or more tax bracket where you will get an increase.
And then Snerdley, so what are they going to do with the money that they're putting in there?
They're going to build roads and bridges and stuff.
Snerdley, come on, roads and bridges, new social programs.
They probably might build some infrastructure because there are going to be a lot of people out of work.
The government will hire them.
It's going to be FDR all over again.
The new new raw deal.
This is a great story from the Financial Times.
Financial Times reporter Edward Lewis has found another sign of trouble for the McCain campaign.
Quote, he's turning up the noses of the cocktail party circuit inside Washington, which is swelling with disaffected Republicans.
The more trouble McCain campaign encounters, the more it highlights the cultural divide between the real America, the Republican candidate says he represents in the Washington cocktail party circuit that largely disdains that real America.
That circuit is swelling with disaffected Republicans.
Some complain McCain's selection of Palin, who appears to be Joe Six Pack, may have been dented by revelations this week.
She spent more than $100.
Now, this is absolute, palpable BS.
The last person on earth is a cocktail-swelling, white wine and brie-consuming Republican.
This $150,000 on her wardrobe, they say that that's forcing Republicans to give me the cocktail party circuit, Republicans.
We're talking about Republicans whose wives put that on the credit card every two weeks.
And they're out there trying to make the case here that this is why these people are abandoning McCain because of Palin.
I know this is what the moderates are going to say, but that just shows them to be even more snobbish than we thought they were.
If they're leaving the Republican Party like Weld and Colin Powell, good.
They're telling us who they really are finally.
They're telling us this big tent Republican stuff doesn't work.
Let them stay away.
They are not the future of the Republican Party, and they never were.
But it was turned over to them.
New York Times from yesterday, headline, a push for bailout money to help car buyers.
Michigan's congressional delegation is urging the Treasury Secretary and the Federal Reserve Chairman, because, of course, the Treasury Secretary now runs the country, to use their authority as part of the $700 billion bailout package to help more consumers obtain car loans, warning that the tightened credit markets were endangering millions of jobs.
John Dingell is leading the effort along with Fred Upton, a Republican.
In addition, two of Detroit's automakers, GM and Chrysler, are considering a merger to combine their cash reserves and cut costs.
So the seven, by the way, it's not a $750 billion bailout.
It's $850.
And then there's a $300 billion bailout before that.
There was $125 billion bailout before that.
We're up over a trillion dollars in bailouts now in Michigan.
By the way, I don't think we need to do this because the auto industry is going to cease to exist next year.
Remember, J.D. Power put out This survey that said the auto industry is going to collapse next year.
You better go buy your cars now.
Better go buy your car.
They say it's going to collapse.
This is BS, but I mean, everybody now wants their finger in the pie.
So we want to enable people to buy cars who can't afford them now, just like we wanted to do what?
Help people buy houses who couldn't afford them.
We gave Detroit $25 billion, right?
We gave the big three automakers $25 billion to help them retool for the future.
Good Lord, folks, we're not going to have anything left.
They're in the process of giving it all away.
And people wonder why the markets are tumbling.
The markets are based in reality.
The markets are not based in good feelings and good vibes and propaganda and so forth.
Let's go to the audio soundbites.
Maria Bartaromo yesterday, CNBC's closing bell gave her analysis of the market.
One of the reasons that this market bounced off of the bottom is there are rumors in the market, speculation that the race for the White House is getting tighter.
And one trader telling us just a moment ago that he thought that the reason that the market was so low was when Obama had the lead because he's going to raise taxes.
And then when things got tighter, things bounced off the bottom.
At some point, you have to believe this market starts trading on the White House.
Yes.
And then last night on your world with Neil Cavuto on the Fox News channel, spoke with Carl Rove.
Cavuto said, if we can take a peek at the big board, you see the numbers there.
Very volatile markets.
Play that out for me.
Markets predict the future.
Volatility may be people's concerns about what would happen if Barack Obama, who's had a lead in the polls and has been deemed by the media to be the likely next president of the United States, what would happen to their economy if he were to become president?
And we know that he wants to raise the capital gains tax, which will take some value out of the market.
We know he's in favor of raising taxes on the top 5%.
I think a lot of people who are invested in the market realize that if you have the anti-business attitude, it means American companies are becoming less competitive.
So, you know, it's the markets predict the future.
People invested in the market realize if you have an anti-business attitude, it means American companies are becoming less competitive.
The markets are doing what they're doing for a reason.
They really are.
You know, I mentioned yesterday when the program ended, Sterdley asked me if I was going to play golf.
I said, play golf, Snerdley.
I am busy.
I have important things to do.
I met with the Zycam guys.
Now, Zycam is an official sponsor here of the EIB network.
And the best thing about Zycam is the product works.
First moment you think you've got a cold, you get the product and you swap just barely inside of your nostrils.
You don't have to stick it up your nose, just barely inside your nostrils.
Hold your nose for five seconds.
Do it every four hours, and you'll either stop it, you'll arrest it, or you'll severely shorten it and limit the duration of the cold.
Now, I was asking these guys how their business is doing.
They're publicly traded.
How are you doing?
Their sales are through the roof.
They have continued to grow.
They're having a tremendous third and fourth quarter as well.
So there are businesses out there that are doing extremely well.
And guess what?
They told me that the what do you think?
They've surveyed Zycam buyers and they've asked them, have you recommended the product to others favorably?
What percentage do you think, Snerdley, have said, yes, we recommend Zycam to this, when they asked me, I said, it's got to be over 50%.
92%.
92%.
That's word of mouth.
You can't buy that.
92% of Zycam customers recommend it.
That's how I discovered it.
It was recommended to me by the flight attendant on EIB1.
So the stuff works.
Not all businesses are in the tank here, but they're all worried is the point.
We'll be back after this.
Stay with us.
Look at that.
John Elway, the Hall of Fame quarterback for the Denver Broncos, has endorsed McCain.
That's great news.
At least it didn't trickle away to Obama with the gutsy cocktails swilling inside the Beltway Georgetown cocktail party circuit Republicans.
To the phones we go.
This is Justin in Lexington, Kentucky.
Welcome, sir, to the EIB Network.
Hello.
Hello, Grand Pubah.
Very nice to talk with you again.
Thank you, sir.
The reason I'm calling is because early in your second hour, you were talking about good riddance to Colin Powell and to other rhinos, basically, Scott McClellan and whoever.
William Weld, Kenneth Edelman, all the people that urged us to support McCain told us McCain's the future of the party.
McCain's the guy that can get moderates.
McCain's the guy to get the independents.
And the very moderates and independents they said he could get have now fled to Obama.
My question is for you, in a hypothetical sense, if you could pick and choose what kind of conservatives and what kind of Republicans made up the Republican Party, would there be room for moderates, moderate conservatives, or even liberal Republicans, that sort of thing?
Would there be room for those?
Well, they can vote for us, but I don't want them in the party.
That's exactly how I feel.
You know, but the problem is, you've got to define something for me.
Would you define for me a moderate conservative?
A moderate conservative has got to be someone that is a fiscal conservative first and foremost.
Second, a moderate conservative is one that sides with the left on other issues, whether it's gun control or abortion rights or whatever.
That's an attachment to it.
He's not a conservative if he sides with a left.
Conservatism is what it is.
It doesn't need to be moderated, doesn't need to be redefined.
It doesn't need to be upgraded.
It's based on personal liberty, individual freedom, a small state that functions for the express purpose of defending and protecting the population.
The minute you start, the minute you say that conservatism includes people who are pro-choice, you've destroyed conservatism because conservatism stands for life, liberty, pursuit of happiness.
Without life, there is nothing else here.
And if we're going to sit around indiscriminately deciding who lives and who dies based on our own convenience, that's not conservative.
Conservative, individual liberty, the essence of innocence is a child in the womb who has no choice over what happens to it.
Sorry, if we don't stand up for that person, if the government doesn't, then nobody will.
And if we allow ourselves to get watered down by a bunch of people who are embarrassed over that position, they're not conservatives.
Now, I'm not saying if you're not this, be happy to vote for us.
I'm happy.
Go ahead and vote for us.
But this is what got us into trouble that we're into.
The reason that we're in this mess today is because we had to start making this tent big, watering down what conservatism is.
There's a blueprint out there, Justin, for how to win landslides.
There's a blueprint for how you do it.
And it does not include expanding the tent.
Now, Reagan got Reagan Democrats, but he moved them to the Republican Party, moved them to the right.
He didn't go get them by pretending to be one of them.
That's a very good point.
Let me ask you this question, Justin.
Imagine you're Harry Reid, you're Nancy Pelosi.
Or imagine that you're Obama, and you're hosting this show.
And somebody calls you and says, by the way, would moderate liberals be allowed in our party?
And will you say, well, what's a moderate liberal?
Oh, yeah, liberal, but I'm pro-life.
No, we don't even want you speaking at our convention.
Right.
We either are what we are or we're not.
The dirty little secret, Justin, the vast majority of the people in this country live their lives as conservatives.
And given conservative leadership, they respond to it in droves, landslide droves.
One reason that that difference is there is because Democrats and liberals specifically have a lot easier time in public of espousing their views regardless of what other people think.
Right, because they don't have to worry about dignity.
Right, that's exactly right.
They don't have to worry about J.R. Ewing said, once you get rid of the ethics and dignity, the rest is easy.
You know, they've gotten away for so long as being the caring party.
They're the party that cares about the downtrodden.
They've destroyed.
They have created the downtrodden.
Liberalism has created the downtrodden and the unhappy and the miserable.
And then the liberals set themselves up as their champions.
Say, only we can fix them because only we care.
They don't care.
They loathe them.
There is contempt, by the way, for these little people.
Real compassion.
Now, we've got, by the way, we have to do a far better job of PR.
I'm not denying this.
Real compassion is conservatism.
Real compassion cares for the individual.
Real conservatism wants every individual to be the best he or she can be, with nobody standing in the way.
Let a person use what their God-given talents are combined with their ambition and their energy and their desire and their dreams and get out of their way.
We want people to amount to the most they want to be and can be.
But for those who have a legitimate problem, they have some sort of problem that prevents them.
We are all for taking care of those people.
But we do not want to take normal, healthy Americans and turn them into wards of the state, turn them into dependents.
We do not want to look at them with arrogant condescension.
We don't look at them and say, you're worthless.
You're stupid.
You're not part of the smart group.
You can't get anywhere without that.
We don't look at people that way.
We look at people with respect, hope.
You talk about hope.
We hope for this country.
You're the best damn country it can be, and you need the best damn individuals for that to happen.
Conservatism is about the individual.
Liberalism doesn't care about the individual.
This is simple.
We just have to tell a story better.
Now, this is a fascinating little story, ladies and gentlemen, from today from CNBC.com.
Regulators hunt for signs of market manipulation.
U.S. regulators are taking a closer look at unprecedented volatility in stock markets near the close of trading, hunting for any signs of manipulation.
It is something we're looking at, said Brendan Nendola, spokesman for the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority.
Every time I read a story, there's some new group I never heard of that's got regulatory power over people.
My God, folks, it's just they're like cockroaches out there.
I never heard of this bunch.
The Financial Industry Regulatory Authority.
Maybe that's the umbrella group for all the other regulation groups I have heard of.
Anyway, Yeisis, we're really taking an extra close look at it in the light of the volatility we've seen in the market in recent weeks.
FINRA, that's the new, that's the acronym for the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority, typically looks at a market on close activity, which are orders executed as near to the end of the exchange day as possible.
In eight of the first 12 trading days in October, the range of the Dow Jones Industrial Average has been greater than 500 points.
The overall uncertainty about the future direction of stocks is being reflected in Wall Street's fear gauge, which surged to an unprecedented reading of 81.17 a week ago.
I never heard of this either.
The fear gauge.
Now, don't misunderstand.
Look, I will admit that I am a financial industry neophyte.
But it doesn't matter for the financial industry, the health industry, the toaster industry.
I don't care what it is.
The phone, there is some bureaucracy or some group that I never heard of that's out there affecting policy, usually under cover of darkness behind closed doors.
We're going to be playing defense here for 25 years.
Kennedy and his buds making health care policy on his sick bed.
Do it for Ted will be the rallying call.
Anyway, there's been material turnarounds in the last 15 to 30 minutes of trading over a couple of trading sessions, and there's been no fundamental reason for it, said Keith Wertz, chief investment officer of Fifth Third Asset Management in Cincinnati.
Now, there's another one.
I drive around here, and there's some banks here called Fifth Third Bank, and they weren't here when I got here in 1997.
Where does that come from?
Fifth Third of what?
Fifth Third.
You know, I could have Googled it.
I could, I just haven't done it because I drive by, what is this?
Well, it's a bank, and they're in Cincinnati.
Fifth Third Asset Management.
Anyway, he said, Keith Wurtz of this Fifth Third said, there's something unexplainable going on.
The wild swings are leading to speculation that something's going on.
Perhaps investigations into these erratic moves may take place if they haven't already.
The SEC declined to provide details on any specific investigations.
The Commission's always monitoring the markets for abusive manipulative activity, said an SEC spokesman.
But there's something unexplainable going on here.
All of this irrationality, nobody understands.
As I said at the beginning of the program, normally the world markets follow us, right?
Well, we were up yesterday.
We were up, what, 152, 172, whatever it was.
All of a sudden, the world markets are just plunging.
Japan, Germany, 10% down.
Panic ensues all over the place.
Our after-hours trading down 550 overnight.
They had to shut it down because it reached the bottom where they automatically shut it down.
I think a 6% loss.
What do we know?
We're down 311 now.
Now, this happened in the world on its own.
We were up yesterday.
Maybe it's Greenspan.
Maybe it's Greenspan going, yeah, the markets didn't work.
You got the former Fed chairman telling the world, yeah, for the first time in my life, markets didn't work.
The rest of the world says, oh my God, markets didn't work.
Well, let's get out of them.
It is inexplicable.
By the way, you people in New York who are voters, doesn't matter.
You may as well not vote on anything ever again.
Your vote literally doesn't matter.
The New York City Council yesterday voted in favor of a bill that would extend term limits, allowing Mayor Bloomberg to run for a third term.
The vote was 29 in favor, 22 against.
He got protested, and all that when he was running out to his SUV, people were throwing things and yelling at him and so forth.
Their votes don't count.
Yeah, it's just, you know, 89% of the poll, by the way, said voters, not the council, should decide term limits.
But what'd the council say?
In such times of instability, we need stability.
Brody keeps talking about the 2012 or 2010 midterms.
Yeah, 2010.
It's going to be so bad we can't afford an election.
We can't afford to change horses in the middle of the stream.
We need the stability of disaster and incompetence brought into the 2008 elections.
This is Randy in Myrtle Creek, Myrtle Creek, Oregon.
There's a Myrtle Creek in Oregon.
Welcome, Randy.
Nice to have you with us.
Hello, Rush.
Longtime student of Advanced Conservative Studies.
Thank you, sir.
Hey, you've been talking about Obama campaign accusing McCain of cutting Medicare, but nobody has pointed out that in the last debate, Obama came right out and said he was going to cut Medicare.
Obama said he came out.
Obama said he was going to cut Medicare.
Yeah.
He was talking about looking at programs that aren't working.
For example, Medicare is getting billions of dollars.
No, wait, wait, wait a minute, What he meant was not Medicare.
He meant Bush's new entitlement, the Medicare Part B, the free prescription drug thing.
They want to wipe Bush's thing out because they claim it's not, even though it is.
Well, that's not what it sounded like to me.
It sounded like he was looking at, because he was looking at, wanting to look at programs that aren't working.
Look at it.
For example, Medicare.
Look it.
Yeah, Medicare means it, because we need more money in Medicare.
Stay calm.
El Rushmo, stay calm.
Look, let me try it this way, Randy.
And I appreciate your calling and pointing this out.
See, I have a different view.
I watched that debate, and this was the third debate.
And in the first debate as well, whoever moderated that also asked this stupid, irrelevant, useless question.
And the question goes like this.
Well, Senators Obama and McCain, the bailout money and the economic crisis that we're facing and the new government spending that we're facing, clearly you're going to have to scale back some of your plans and your programs.
What will you say tonight that you will be willing to cut in light of it.
It's such a bogus question, especially to ask of a socialist.
What are you going to cut?
What program?
Well, we may have to wait a while to implement this.
It's a stupid inside-the-beltway question, and it's designed to be a trap for McCain.
A question like that is always a trap for the Republican because the trap for the Republican, Republican.
McCain says he's going to cut X. You didn't hear anything in the news the next day about McCain or Obama going to cut Medicare, did you?
McCain's got ads running against him right now by Obama saying he's going to cut Medicare.
It's a fat out why.
But that's why these debates are of, by, and for the media.
What are you going to cut?
That's a total setup question, a total trap.
I turned it off.
I said, give me Rick Warren.
You know, give me a real candidates forum out there with somebody that doesn't ask these pre-programmed, out-of-the-playbook questions.
A Dubai, love that word, by the way, Dubai, Portsdale, Dubai radio station fired a South African drivetime disc jockey for mocking religion and impersonating God on the air.
The show's management said Wednesday.
The Arabian Radio Network said in a statement that Reven John had been let go over a sketch Monday on Virgin Radio Dubai in which he quoted an article about a U.S. court throwing out a lawsuit against God.
And that's true.
Some loco weed in Nebraska somewhere or Kansas sued God.
And the court said, well, we can't really go forward with this because there's no way to serve him, meaning the subpoena.
So this guy acted out some shtick here, playing God, reacting to it, and a Dubai bunch fired him.
And I, you know, just like this teacher that we mentioned at the top of the program, ladies and gentlemen, if you didn't hear about this, there was a teacher in Eastlake somewhere.
It doesn't say East Lake somewhere, who was on paid leave now.
He's a history teacher at North High School in East Lake somewhere.
After airing a tape that had three seconds of pornography in his classroom on Wednesday, Dean Morrison is the teacher, and he had been fast-forwarding between two history channel segments that he was showing the students when his class of about 20 upperclassmen got a glimpse of a woman giving a guy a Lewinsky.
And after class, the teacher reported the mistake, the blip to the principal.
Parents are notified he's on paid leave now.
He should have just said he was teaching the history of the Clinton years, and he would have been hailed.
And he would still have the job, and he would probably be up for an award for innovative new techniques for instructing people on the teenage years.
Likewise, this DJ, Revenge, over in Dubai, if he just said he was impersonating Obama when he was accused of impersonating God, then he'd be standing a little bit better now, might even still have his job.
Hi, welcome back.
It's Rush Limbaugh here, Open Line Friday, the Cutting Edge, Societal Evolution, Washington Post.
Republicans are happier than Democrats.
Conservatives are happier than liberals.
Big national survey, liberals, Democrats, miserable.
Conservative Republicans are happy.
I'm looking for this.
I got to share with you some of this Charles Krauthammer piece today that I had it here on the top of the stack and somehow it got because everything's just floating here all over the place.
By the Wall Street Journal, today, ladies and gentlemen, just now, the U.S. Treasury Department's considering taking equity stakes in insurance companies.
A sign of how the government's $700 billion program has become a potential piggy bank for a range of troubled ends.
Folks, something's not right here.
This just is just not right.
The Treasury Secretary has been placed in sole charge of all this bailout money.
We're buying up insurance companies.
We're buying up banks.
We're bailing out auto industry.
There's something not right about this.
Something, and they're investigating all this inexplicable activity.
I'm telling you, there's something going on.
It could be that it's the October surprise.
Could be that it is the single best October surprise that we have ever seen.
And it might be that it is so good that we have no idea what the hell they're going to do to improve on this four years from now.
This may be the single most powerful, influential, best October surprise we've ever had.
Except I don't know how you roll this one back.
Once the government starts owning everything, as it does, including your pensions, including your 401ks, do you realize what's happening right before your very eyes?
I got a note the other day, by the way.
North Carolina mistress went on a trip, missed her Renai tankless water heater.
She's been spoiled by it.
No matter where she goes in her house, she turns on the hot water.
Bamo, there, for as long as she wants it.
Whether the dishwasher's running, whether the washer and dryer is running, doesn't matter.
And this is common.
This happens to people who invest in the Renaissance tankless water heater.
Saves money, of course, replaces your water tank.
You're not heating water that you don't use.
And it can save you a whole lot of money down the road.
There's a website, foreverhotwater.com.
And you go there, it'll calculate for you based on how big your house is and the size of Renai Tankless Water Heater that you will need.
Joe the Plumber could put one in that you'll save.
But the problem is you get spoiled with it.
Water lasts as long as you want.
It's there instantly.
And when you leave home, you're faced with this old-fashioned Model T situation where, hell, you hear, sometimes it can take 30, 40 seconds before hot water starts pouring out of the faucet.
You do get spoiled by Charles Krauthammer with a great endorsement of McCain today.
Contrarian that I am, I am voting for John McCain.
I'm not talking about the bucking the polls of the media consensus that it's over before it's over.
I'm talking about bucking the rush of wet-fingered conservatives leaping to Obama before they're left out in the cold without a single state dinner for the next four years.
I stand to thwart the rush of conservative ship jumpers of every stripe.
Ken Edelman, Colin Powell, Christopher Buckley, Christopher Hitchens.
And I yell, stop.
I shall have no part of this motley crew.
I will go down with the McCain ship.
I'd rather lose an election than lose my bearings.
First, I will have no truck with the phony case ginned up to rationalize voting for the most liberal, inexperienced presidential nominee in living memory.
The erratic temperament issue, for example, as if McCain's risky and unsuccessful, but in no way irrational attempt to tactically maneuver his way through the economic tsunami that came crashing down a month ago renders unfit for office a man who demonstrated the most admirable equanimity and courage in the face of unimaginable pressures as a prisoner of war and who later steadily navigated innumerable challenges and setbacks, not the least of which was the collapse of his campaign just a year ago.
McCain the erratic is a cheap Obama talking point.
The 40-year record testifies to McCain the stalwart.
Nor will I countenance the dirty campaign pretense.
The double standard here is stunning.
Obama ran a scurrilous Spanish-language ad falsely associating McCain with anti-Hispanic slurs.
Another ad falsely claimed that McCain supports cutting Social Security benefits in half.
And for months, Democrats insisted that McCain sought 100 years of war in Iraq.
The case for McCain is straightforward.
The financial crisis has made us forget or just blindly deny how dangerous the world out there is.
We have a generations-long struggle with Islamic jihadism, an apopoliptic, soon-to-be-nuclear Iran and nuclear-armed Pakistan in danger of fragmentation.
Who do you want answering that phone at 3 a.m.?
A man who's been cramming on these issues for the past year, who's never had to make an executive decision affecting so much as a city, let alone the world?
A foreign policy novice, instinctively inclined to the flabbiest, most vaporous multilateralism, and who refers to the most deliberate act of war since Pearl Harbor as the tragedy of 9-11, a term more appropriate for a bus accident.
Today's economic crisis, like every other in our history, will in time pass, but the barbarians will still be at the gates.
Whom do you want on the parapet?
I'm for the guy who can tell the lion from the lamb.
I'm for McCain.
Charles Krauthammer today.
We'll be back after this.
Have a great weekend, folks.
We're headed to Pittsburgh for the Steelers and the New York Giants on Sunday afternoon.
Be back late Sunday, so Monday ought to be a giddy show.
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