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Dec. 5, 2008 - Rush Limbaugh Program
34:37
December 5, 2008, Friday, Hour #1
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Welcome to today's edition of The Rush 24-7 podcast.
Folks, I've I finally figured it out here.
We're all in a sitcom.
This is a sitcom.
It's a giant sitcom.
God is writing this sitcom.
And we are going to be laughing our way all the way through the Obama Reed Pelosi depression.
And that's all we can do.
Live from the Southern Command in sunny South Florida.
It's open line Friday.
And great to be with you.
Ladies and gentlemen, Open Mind Friday, the rules.
By the way, still battling the ravages of this yucky virus.
And a virus that is well, that's a some kind of infection of virus.
I don't know what it is.
Antibiotics.
Don't touch it.
Nothing touches it.
Other than the passage of time and patience.
Anyway, open Mind Friday.
Whatever you wish to talk about, that's the rule.
We go to the phones, and the program is yours.
Telephone number is 800-282-2882, the email address L Rushmow at EIB net.com.
Folks, I am not kidding you.
I have got every story in the stack.
Every story makes me laugh.
The problem is I can't laugh.
Because I go into coughing spasms.
But I want to laugh.
I mean, there's even a story.
I don't know.
Poor guy takes his girlfriend out to propose.
They got some place in Oregon called Proposal Rock.
And this poor guy takes his girlfriend out there to propose to her.
She's tiny little Filipino, 410 or 41.
Let me just read the story.
I mean, it doesn't make any sense.
I'm I'm Oh, and Putin.
Putin says he wants to hang this uh Shosh Kashvili guy, the Georgian by the testicles.
The French magazine, La Nouvelle Observature, reported last month that Vladimir Putin of the KGB told the French president Sarkozy that he would hang.
The Georgian leader Mikhail Sakashvili by the testicles.
The remark came following a conversation with Jesse Jackson.
Who wanted to do the same thing to Barack Obama.
Here it is from Niscowin, Oregon.
A romantic marriage proposal on the left coast.
Turned deadly for the bride to be.
When a write.
When a wave swept her out to sea.
Now picture this.
See?
They're laughing in there.
It's a horrible story.
It's tragic.
And everybody's laughing.
This is sitcom today.
Scott Knapper had taken the 22-year-old lethal Al Fork to uh proposal rock near some beach.
Popped a question at a place that got its name from couples ready to marry.
Love param.
A lot of people go to proposal rock.
What'd you say?
No, no, leafilled, not lethal.
L see not cold, whatever this is, not a cold.
You know, I wish it was a cold.
Everybody has been ragging on me.
Everybody.
I guess Zycam didn't work right.
I guess that if this were a cold, I would not have missed because the first when I when I first got the slightest bit of discomfort on this, which was Saturday, with a whole family in town, I started swabbing with the Zycom stuff.
And I figured I got this, and it just kept getting worse and worse and worse and worse and worse.
And then it actually is an infection.
There's a way you can tell.
I won't gross you out, but there's a way to say to get some antibiotics.
Zycam, not going to touch this stuff because it's not a cold.
This is flu bronchitis or what have you.
Zycom works.
I just all these people.
He even my friend.
ICAM didn't work.
You forget to take the nope, I didn't forget to take it.
It's just Zycam does the work against the flu.
Anyway, what's it?
Oh, yeah.
Her name is not lethal, it's Lee Phil.
You can take down the sign, Brian.
Lee Phil L E A F I L. Don't forget now, she's the woman swept out to sea.
So this Leafl Alfork and Scott Naper have been dating since they met on the internet in 2005.
But Al Fork had arrived in Oregon on a visa from the Philippines just three days before the fateful trip to Proposal Rock.
Knapper said that the tide had receded around Proposal Rock on Saturday when the couple began to walk toward Proposal Rock.
The tide began to recede.
Okay.
He planned to propose and give her the ring that he carried in his pocket about 10 feet from the rock.
A three-foot wave suddenly came toward them.
And this guy says I turned into it to keep from getting pulled under it.
By the time a three-foot, how does a three-foot wave drag you under?
I turned into it to keep from getting pulled under it.
By the time he turned to find Al Fork, who's only 411 and 93 pounds, she'd been caught by the receding water.
She was 30 feet away, being swept away by this receding wave.
The 45-year-old guy tore off his jacket to get rid of any extra weight.
And when he looked up again, she was gone.
He said, "It's the last I saw of her." This is a tragic story.
But I'm trying to picture this.
I live on a beach.
I see waves like this all the time and do not drag people.
Well, I'm sure she couldn't swim.
Obviously, she couldn't swim.
I'm talking about how I do not know.
I cannot envision how you're on the shore.
And a three-foot wave comes up, ma'am, and takes you if you can see it coming.
Also, uh ladies, we have a lot of sound bites today to get me through the uh the remaining uh days of the hacking cough here, but the president of Gulf Oil.
The president of Gulf Oil came out yesterday and said, He sees possibility in 2009, gasoline being one dollar a gallon.
And so, what is happening on Capitol Hill?
Our brilliant central planners who are now taking over the auto industry, are conditioning the bailout bridge loan or what have you on how many electric cars these people are going to build.
While we're looking at one dollar a gallon gasoline.
Central planning is dictating these these little three car makers what they can sell.
The markets are telling them something completely different.
But because the car makers are broke, they go along with the plan, even though they all know this is a sure loser.
And I've got a great story.
It just cleared the um just cleared the printer.
America's other auto industry.
It's a story of the Christian science monitor.
The U.S. auto industry is throwing bolts, but here in Georgia's Chattahoochee Valley, a South Korean car company is building a massive new manufacturing plant along the new Kia Parkway, replacing abandoned textile mills.
The recently opened Korean barbecue house now vis for customers with Rogers Pitt Cooked barbecue.
And in an indication of just how welcome Kia's non-union jobs are, some 43,000 people applied for 2,600 positions with starting wages at $17 an hour as the plant gears up to turn down its first car, Kia.
Next November.
The expansion of this other auto industry, one that's foreign-owned, non-union, and based largely in the South, stands in stark contrast to this week's dire reports from America's own Big Three, whose CEOs laid out plans for a dramatic downsizing before traveling to Washington to please.
Oh, this is another thing.
I could not stop laughing.
I'm flying, I'm going to go up to Washington last night to do a speech for the Hillsdale College people.
And uh and I I was flying up there and I saw I did not know this.
But until I read about it today, I saw Car Eleven and Sander Levin, they are Michigan senator and congressman respectively, riding in the back seat of a Volt.
A Chevrolet Volt.
Now, what happened?
Rick Wagner, who is the CEO of General Motors, drove there in a Malibu.
Rather than fly on the corporate jet.
Now, while people weren't looking, he had a Volt shipped in.
Because a Volt is not ready yet.
A Volt could not make the trip.
They haven't got a battery big enough yet, I don't think.
I mean, it's not doodle 210, the Volt.
It's not doodle.
It's a plug-in electric car.
So he had it shipped in because he wanted it arrive at the hearing in the vault.
Because that's, you know, is it PR PR show, PR play?
And I saw these two Congress and the Senator in the backseat.
And it just made me laugh.
Everything's a sitcom.
These two old buffoons, socialist libs, in the backseat of a Chevrolet vault, driving it went about 10 feet.
They drove it, and they're smiling like little kids at the Dodge car display at the county fair.
And I thought, what is this?
What have we come to here?
We've got everything's PR, everything is image.
And these guys show up, drive 10 feet in the backseat of the vault.
By the way, I wish General Motors all look in the world with a vault.
Don't misunderstand.
I'm just I just uh everything is just amusing me here.
Anyway, let me finish this story.
Christian Science Monitor.
Two-thirds of foreign imports are in fact built in the U.S. in non-union shops, where it costs at least $2,000 less in labor to build every car.
The point of the story is there is a thriving automobile industry in this country right now.
And it's taking place in the South.
It's happening in Joja, it's happening to Alabama, Mississippi.
Uh and all of these companies are owned by foreigners.
But they employ Americans.
I mean, two-thirds of the foreign imports are built in the United States.
And they're doing it, and the answer and the secret is one of the big secrets is right out in the open, and the drive-bys are now writing about it.
Unions.
Here's the deal.
$17 an hour is what these people are going to work for at the Kia factory here in uh in the Chattahoochee Valley.
$28 is what your average UAW worker makes.
So you get $28 an hour for the average UAW worker for the big three or the big two and a half, and 17 to 18 bucks an hour for the non-union people.
Now, as Charles Krauthammer pointed out yesterday, what's happening here, because I don't care what you've heard from um what's this guy's name, Weddlefinger?
The Gettelfinger, the UAW guy.
He's up there with the big three.
He's up there.
Whatever you've heard about concessions, there aren't any.
Oh, and the big question was asked this morning by some lib Gwyn something or a member of Congress.
She said the big three asked the big three, hey, wouldn't it really help you all if the government took over your legacy health care costs?
Okay, there it is, folks.
Finally, it was right out in the open out there where we all know this is headed anyway.
But Crowdhammer pointed out, look, the people in this country who are making 17, 18 bucks an hour on average, are being asked to bail out the people making 28 bucks an hour.
The union people that work the United Auto workers.
It's all about, you know, being able to competitively stay in the uh in the business.
And Chris Dodge, I mean, you got to give him credit, got credit where credit's due.
He asked a smart question yesterday.
He says, regardless of what we do here, everything hinges on getting people into dealerships and buying your product, right?
It does.
No matter what these clowns do up there.
Anyway, I got to take a brief uh brief time out here later.
Oh, unemployment benefits.
The president came out today, and we're going to extend unemployment benefits.
He officially used the recession word, big job losses unexpected.
They said, why why are these unexpected?
Obama told us.
Obama told us uh not long ago we're going to lose millions of jobs before we create millions more or save millions more, what have you.
Anyway, understand the need for this unemployment compensation uh extension.
I do.
But folks, a little tough love here.
Uh it is this kind of thing that is going to over time destroy a lot of people's initiative.
It's a it's a delicate balance here, but a lot of times in dire circumstances, people get creative, get ambitious because of need.
And I can't I keep I keep hearing people say, well, the Great Depression, it can't happen again.
I mean, we've got the safeguards built in there, it can't happen again.
And I got that got me to think, well, why did the Great Depression happen?
If we can prevent a Great Depression by simply expanding unemployment benefits and bailing out banks and printing money here and do why didn't we do that in the Great Depression?
Why didn't FDR just do that?
Why do we go through all those years of pain and some ingenuity 25% unemployment?
Why did we do that?
I mean, the safeguards are obviously very easy.
So we're never we're not going to have another Great Depression, eh?
We're just, well, if if the more people that lose jobs that we continue to pay, the fewer people, I guarantee you down the road, are going to be inspired to want to go back to work.
And that's the downside of all this, and that sadly, uh, ladies and gentlemen, is one of the hoped for results by many liberal Democrats in Washington today.
We'll be right back.
Folks, do you remember back in the mid-90s?
He had a newspaper story from the Associated Press, which said that lying was actually quite healthy for us.
Uh lying spared people's feelings being hurt.
Lying kept our social fabric intact because telling the truth too often to too many people would just cause civil unrest.
Uh and we couldn't have that.
And this was in the midst of perhaps the most dishonest president we've ever had, Bill Clinton.
Well, live science.
Our research suggests that people may not need to worry too much about power corrupting Barack Obama.
His newfound power might enable the change he desires rather than that power changing him.
So in 1995, lying was healthy in 2008, all of a sudden, power does not corrupt.
Barney Frank, ladies and gentlemen, not happy that the Messiah is not asserting himself.
And frankly, I can see that Barney may have a point because if Obama had already asserted himself and told Bush, get out of the way, we got problems here to fix.
The poor woman may not have drowned at proposal rock because he might have been able to already lower the sea level enough so that the rip tides would not have been so severe.
Here's Barney Frank yesterday in Washington at a consumer advocates event.
Here's the problem.
Um Secretary Treasury's waiting here from the Obama people and the Obama people are waiting.
And again, I'm a great fan of the president, but I I think it's probably the case that he's gonna have to be more assertive than he's been.
And I know what he says is, well, we only have one president at a time.
My problem is at a time of great crisis with mortgage foreclosures and autos.
He says we only have one president at a time.
I am afraid that overstates the number of presidents we have.
And I think we have got to uh I think we have got to uh he he's he's got to remedy that situation.
So um you could look at this one of two ways.
You know, Democrats are already starting to crack up here.
Uh, but you do you can't deny the fact here that Barney just ripped Obama and demanded that um that the Messiah end up being more assertive.
Now, also point that I made last night in my speech, all this bipartisan stuff, look where it got us.
All this talk about I can work with Democrats, I can cross the aisle, I can get deals done with I never hear Democrats talk about wanting to work with us.
I never hear them run for re-election and say, boy, I can really work with those Republicans.
Listen to Barney Frank yesterday at the same event talk about this.
I know people tell us in principle to be nonpartisan, but the fact is on the lot of these issues, regulation, etc., there are big differences between the parties.
It is a great mistake to assume that parties are irrelevant to this process.
And that's why uh my one difference with the President Direct about whom I am very enthusiastic is when he talked about being postpartisan and having lived with this very right wing Republican group that runs the House most of the time.
The notion of trying to deal with them as if we could be postpartisan gives me postpartisan depression.
Now, the guy comes up some funny lines, but he's telling the truth.
He doesn't want any bipartisanship.
He's out to defeat Republicans.
We're the ones that seem to want to get along and look where it gets us.
We'll be back after this.
Stay with us.
It is open line Friday, and uh, I don't want to keep people waiting uh as long as we normally do, Monday through Thursday to go to the phone.
So we'll start in uh in Howlbridge, or is it Wall?
Is that a W or an H. Walbridge, Ohio, Yvonne, great to have you on the EIB network.
Hello.
Hi, Vrot.
You bet.
Um, I saw your interview last night with Barbara Walters, and I tell you, you did prove that you were a tolerant person when she asked the question about the recession, and you choose not to be.
That was brilliant.
I think you put her in her place on that.
And she thought she was really gonna get you with this aging Hillary.
And um I just thought you handled yourself very well, and I wish it could have been a longer one.
Well, I appreciate that.
You know, one of the reasons that I took your call first is that uh a lot of people have been emailing about the Barbara Walters special last night and the uh and a lot of people have have uh, you know, what what what did they leave on the floor?
What did they edit out?
You know, that that kind of thing.
Um it's you know, uh w one of the reasons that I and by the way, Yvonne, thanks thanks much for the uh for the call.
One of the reasons, ladies and gentlemen, that I am not enthusiastic about television, is that it drives me nuts getting feedback every time I'm on television.
When I had my own show, I would go home, I'd check the email, whatever, and nobody was ever satisfied.
Everybody always had a complaint.
I never get complaints about this radio show.
I never have people say, what you should have said was, and why did you let them ask that?
You just should have thrown him right back in their face.
I keep I and I just said, what's the point?
What's the point?
Because nobody is ever satisfied with television.
Because all that matters is how you look.
It doesn't, and nothing else matters.
Nobody remembers what anybody ever says on television.
I give you Obama.
It's how you look, it's how you come off.
Now, this this little thing with Barbara Walters, we did this at the Ritz Carlton Hotel on a um, it was a Wednesday afternoon after the program.
And walked in there.
We were I HR, how long we were over there about an hour and a half.
Well, we were an hour and a half of taping.
Well, there was some downtime.
Uh Sat in the chair for an hour and a half, and the and we knew this.
We knew that it was going to be edited down to a two and a half to uh to three minute segment.
There was one comment that I remember getting it was of checking some of the emails on the airplane last night coming home.
And um one person said, Well, it looks like you weren't ready when she started.
And this that was a correct comment.
This is the first time that this has ever happened to me in an interview.
We were sitting there, and they were doing the lighting and just chatting, and you you just know because the way she was conducting herself that cameras weren't rolling.
I mean, a TV professional like Barbara Walters is not doing the things she was doing when the cameras are rolling.
Plus the idol chit chat was about you know personal lives.
Last time we'd say this stuff.
And out of the blue, after sitting there for 10 minutes, out of the blue came this question about my contract.
With no uh usually what you hear is a cameraman say, speed, we're ready to go.
Uh and they asked the guy, are you ready, ready to start?
Now they get this right out of blue.
Here came this this uh question about about the contract.
Now I, a highly trained broadcast specialist, was momentarily caught off guard by it, but I I got right up to speed and I realized what had happened in a flash.
And no, I have no regrets.
She what they edited out of that answer was uh she I think I don't remember what actually aired last night, but she asked me, are you worth it?
Did that air last night?
Was that part?
Okay, and I said, Yeah.
In a recession.
Uh was that one of the promos?
Okay.
And I said, Is she said in a recession?
And I said, Yes.
I said I just choose not to participate.
I said, and then this I know this didn't air.
I said, all it is is a percentage of what I generate.
And I went on to describe how it works in a very brief uh brief uh uh manner.
Then the next question, which they didn't use any of because the whole premise was wrong, uh, was about my addiction to painkillers.
They had to totally scrub all of that because the question was wrong.
And I don't want to, you know.
She she shall I just it it's it's it's on the floor, so let's leave it on the floor.
But it was the the premise of the question was just dead wrong.
And I somebody sent me a note today, what do you wish would have aired that didn't that?
I I would have because the way I dealt with the faulty premise question was the highlight.
It caused them to stop tape.
It was the highlight of the interview, and I knew it would never air because, you know, the uh she doesn't want to be wrong, and whoever researched it for her, used one source to research the question.
She went with it, and they eventually had to stop tape because there wasn't it wasn't one aspect of the question, premise of the question that had any accuracy to it at all, so it would have made no sense for her to air.
But aside from that, folks, it was friendly.
We were yucking it up and having a good time.
Uh and I what I think I thought the way they edited it last night was was superb.
There was I I watched some of the other parts of the show, and I didn't see correct me if I'm wrong here because I might have missed somebody, but I didn't see very many of these other so-called fascinating people laughing big time with Barbara Walters like I was.
I mean, I was a couple times she just cracked me up, and I the question cracked me up or whatever.
I thought, all told the way it was edited, it was fine, had a good time doing it.
The uh there were there was nothing really confrontational about it.
Uh she she you when you when I'm known as I am in the media for who I am, and you accept an invitation to go on a show like this, you know what you're getting into.
And I know that I'm gonna get into a place where I'm gonna have to defend my existence.
But I I was, you know, or were or was not, did you say?
Yeah, I want I oh I was challenged throughout the whole thing was a challenge.
The whole thing, okay, prove why you're this, prove why you're not that.
And everybody how come you do these things with people gonna treat you this well, I don't know, folks.
Roll the dice, decide to do them uh on a case by case basis most of the time.
I choose not to do it.
But uh I've been on her show before, I've been on this show 1993.
Uh she invited me to her home in the mid 90s uh to uh have dinner with Margaret Thatcher and asked me to do the toast.
So there's no real animosity between us.
And uh walked out of there uh uh I enjoyed it and had a had a good time.
Uh even and I even enjoyed the the premise of some of her questions being wrong.
Because they were I mean it was smackdown.
Uh now what are you grimacing at, Snerdly?
What are you?
Well, see I don't know that she did it on purpose.
I sturdily's upset how I can tolerate these people uh d doing these faulty premise questions.
I think her research people.
Uh you know, she's doing ten of these.
You myself it's ultimately her responsibility.
She's got people she trusts, just like I trust you guys.
Well, I know you don't get it wrong, but we know that they do.
I walked in there knowing fully well expecting for this stuff to be asked and having it to be wrong because of the stuff that's been set.
Uh they s snerdily's yellowly, they've had it in for she's had it, they've had it in for you for ten years.
They've all got it in for me.
Whenever you're at the top, everybody's gunning for you.
1993 all over again, sturdley.
We got Obama in there.
Why do you think she made me one of the top ten most fascinating?
You know, I finally saw a promo.
She thinks I'm set up for a career resurgence.
She thinks I went away and had nothing happen to me for the last eight years because Bush has been in the White House.
Now I'm ready for a career resurgence.
Because Obama's there.
You know, plus the uh the new contract, which she was uh fascinated by.
I could I you know I could have thrown back, well, wait a minute, Barbara.
You want to talk about how much you make?
I I could have done that, but that's not that's um it just it didn't occur to me at the time.
You know, I was I walk in there, be a nice guy, be who I am, and so forth, and the bottom line is, folks, that um it was harmless.
She ended up being charmed, and uh I don't think there was anybody more fascinating on that show last night than me anyway.
So what everything is a sitcom.
We are living in a sitcom.
A Reuters story from Seattle real estate agent Jeffrey Dolfinger was making a routine occupancy check on a foreclosed home near Poughkeepsie, New York.
Why is this dateline Seattle?
Ah, hell, who cares?
This guy was checking on a home, a foreclose home in Poughkeepsie.
I challenge you, Obama voters to spell Poughkeepsie.
At any rate, he made a heart-wrenching discovery while checking on his foreclosed home.
Two bedraggled cockateels nearly starved to death.
Exotic birds are falling prey to the foreclosure crisis as well.
It's a little known side effect of the foreclosure crisis.
Exotic birds abandoned or dropped at shelters because their owners cannot move into an apartment or a relative's home with the sometimes noisy creatures.
It's just hate it when this stuff happens.
And that this cameras and cell phones, yes.
Backpack, no.
If you're planning on going to the inaugural ceremony of the Messiah, be forewarned.
You cannot take a backpack, you cannot carry a sign.
Umbrellas, strollers, and thermoses are forbidden.
I will be praying for rain that day since umbrellas have been banned.
Barney Frick, I'm watching TV this morning and I'm doing show prep, and I see Barney up there.
So what's he doing now?
And this is what he said.
All of us remember in school, the teachers we hated most were the teachers who said if one person misbehaved, the whole class would get extra homework.
I don't want to give the whole country extra homework because automobile executive in the past misbehaved.
Yeah, a lot of mistakes were made.
The auto companies made mistakes, unions made mistakes, politicians made mistakes.
Really?
The media hasn't always distinguished itself, although you're not supposed to say that.
The consequence of all those mistakes is that the country is to some extent held hostage.
We need to free the country.
The focal point is not to punish those who made the mistakes.
It is to prevent further damage to the country...
And it's in that context that this committee will proceed.
*sad noise* Talking to the auto execs this morning, uh, Barney Frank.
Our old buddy Paul Shanklin there with the vocal portrayal of Barney Frank and Banking Queen.
Tom Brokaw, not happy, by the way, with Barney Frank.
We early in the program uh uh Barney Frank uh expressed exasperation with Obama for not being more assertive on the Today Show today.
Meredith Vieira asked Brokaw about what Barney Frank had said.
Well, Barney Fark's not the president, and uh Barack Obama is, and uh this is something that he feels very strongly about, and you see in his appointments already and keeping Bob Gates of the defense secretary, putting Jim Jones in as a national security advisor, that he does want to give the country not just the impression, but the reality that he is determined to try to close this polarized gap that we've had in Washington.
Which Barney Frank does not want closed, and uh uh little uh trade secret here, folks, don't tell anybody's just keep us between us.
Obama doesn't want to close it either.
This is gonna be we are being stealthed with these appointments.
We're putting out all these so-called moderates Clinton people, but I'm telling you, hard leftists are gonna run this country uh for Barack Obama.
Let's let's not forget uh Tom Brokaw is not sure himself, even about uh Barack Obama.
I don't know what Barack Obama's worldview is.
No, I don't know how he really sees where China is.
We don't know a lot about Barack Obama and the universe of his thinking about foreign policy.
I don't really know it.
And do we know anything about the people who are advising them?
You know, it's an interesting question.
He is principally known through his autobiography and through very aspirational speeches.
I don't know what books he's read.
What do we know about the heroes of Barack Obama?
There's a lot about him we don't know.
Right.
But now I guess Brokaw knows everything he needs to know because of the uh appointments.
But I'm gonna tell you he's got he's got Hillary Clinton over there, so she's gonna become the face of whatever happens in the Iraq War.
But this administration is going to be exactly what we told you.
It's gonna be as extreme leftist in the things that they do and try to do behind the scenes as we've ever had.
First hour, open line Friday in the can.
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