All Episodes
Previous Next
Jan. 9, 2009 - Rush Limbaugh Program
36:07
January 9, 2009, Friday, Hour #1
| Copy link to current segment

Time Text
Welcome to today's edition of The Rush 247 Podcast.
Folks, I have to tell you, so the drive-by media is slipping.
The drive-by media has.
I'm surprised.
Ladies and gentlemen, that the drive-by media is slipping up this badly.
You've heard about the new unemployment figure.
7.2%.
And they're trumpeting a number.
Unemployment 7.2%.
That's not the way it works anymore.
The president select Obama, the correct headline is Obama saves 93% of all jobs.
Live from the Southern Command in Sunny South Florida.
It's open line Friday.
Yes, sir, Rebob, my friends.
Great to have you here.
Open Line Friday, one of our all-time favorite days of the week.
As you know, Monday through Thursday, we uh sometimes take very, very few calls.
And when we do take calls, those calls a must.
Be devoted to things I'm interested in.
But on Friday, I throw all that out.
I broom it, as it were.
And when we go to the phones on Friday, whatever you want to talk about, the program content is yours at that moment.
So here's the telephone number, 800 282-2882, and the email address L Rushball at EIBNet.com.
Folks, I am conflicted.
And I I'm not often conflicted.
I I am conflicted about Obama.
This he had another press conference today to announce.
No, I'm being serious.
I am I'm being serious.
I'm I'm I'm conflicted here.
I uh uh let me see if I can express this in the way I intend to.
So I want to say it the way I'm thinking it.
Another press conference today to announce uh Panetta.
Leon Panetta.
Need the James Bond theme for that.
Panetta, Leon Panetta, isn't it?
James Bond.
Anyway, as the CIA chief.
And Panetta's up there saying he'll tell everything to Congress.
He won't keep any secrets.
That's not good in a spook.
Anyway, after all that, the press didn't care about Panetta.
They started peppering the Mutia with economic questions.
Here's my conflict.
Yesterday's speech, his economic speech yesterday, literally spooked me.
And it spooked me because, and this is the conflict.
On one hand, I don't I think that he is literally clueless and has no idea what he has put himself into here.
I th I'm reminded of the big election movie starring Robert Redford called a candidate.
And after they won, Redford said, okay, now what do we do?
The other side of the conflict is I am convinced that Obama is a radical extreme leftist who has like all radic he's like a flower child.
He has all these dreams, all of these visions of a utopia.
And of course, it's not possible.
So the conflict is, does he not really know what he's doing, or does he know what he's doing?
Because I was spooked yesterday.
That speech he gave yesterday, ladies and gentlemen, it spooked everybody.
It spooked the Democrats on Capitol Hill.
It spooked the markets.
It's like I said yesterday, we've gone inside of two weeks from the notion well, a little bit longer than that.
Let's give it two months.
Inside of two months, we've gone from a uh a nation of people that believe we have to have some discipline in the size of our government and our spending.
And uh to now the the mainstream thought is government spending and as fast as we can, and only government can solve the problem.
None of that is true.
The success of this depends on how fast we spend the government, uh spend money.
And then he he had this little press conference today where he's answering questions.
I uh I listened to this, and I don't know if I know if I'm sure that he knows what he's doing, even if he is a committed leftist, does he know what he's doing?
Does he know what he's gotten himself into?
His whole campaign was platitudes.
He's still speaking in platitudes, as though his very presence will make magic happen.
He says he's gonna meet with Iran, even though they're a big threat.
He's gonna have clandestine uh meetings with Hamas.
He's gonna do he's gonna do all of these things that he was chided for during the campaign uh for being ignorant or naive.
And so is he naive or is he devious?
Is he naive?
Or is he a wolf in sheep's clothing?
And the source of the conflict is that I know liberals, I know extreme leftists.
And I know that a lot of them are not grounded in reality.
They are grounded in emotion and visions and dreams of utopia.
And, you know, doctors, nurses, clean water, birds and the bees flying all around, sunshining every day, birds chirping and so.
I just whatever the I guess it really doesn't matter because it does seem that he is going to take us as far left as he can while appearing moderate.
Got a new term for liberal, by the way.
Pragmatic conservative.
That's how he describes himself now as a pragmatic conservative, which will appeal to people like David Brooks at the New York Times and several of our squishy so-called conservatives in our media.
By the way, an alternative headline for this unemployment number, if the media doesn't want to say Obama saves 93% of the jobs, they can at least do a headline that says Obama's plans distracted by 7.2% unemployment.
7.2% unemployment is just an unfortunate distraction.
Let's go to some of the audio sound bites from today to try to try to illustrate this.
This morning, from his transition headquarters.
Here is a portion of his opening remarks.
The unemployment rate is now well over 7%.
In addition, we have 3.4 million people who want full-time work but are only able to get part-time work.
Clearly, the situation is dire.
It is deteriorating, and it demands urgent and immediate action.
We have been taking urgent and immediate action since October.
The same kind of action that he is advocating now.
And since we started taking this action, look at what has happened.
It has gotten dire.
The very prescription he is offering is leading to these dire circumstances.
The economy is stimulated by average Americans going about their business.
The economy is grown by people engaging in commerce, working.
It is not grown by what we are doing with stimuluses and bailouts and so forth, or stimuli and bailouts, as we have demonstrated over the past three months, if, ladies and gentlemen, bailouts and stimulus were the only way, as he said yesterday, government is the only entity that can stop this and fix this.
We should already be on the road to being fixed because government has done everything it can.
Going to spend another trillion?
Fine, spend another trillion.
At some point it becomes meaningless.
It's meaningless now in terms of recovery.
Its real meaning is the destructive nature of what we are doing and what he plans.
And that's what's spooking me.
What he's going to do is literally destructive and I don't know that he knows it.
On the other hand, I know he's a committed extreme leftist and I think maybe he does know it and that's the game.
But I have a tough time believing that somebody would actually knowingly take such destructive steps as president of the United States.
And then I look to history and it's been done before.
By Franklin Delmar Roosevelt, who happens to be a role model for this bunch, including including Obama.
So I'm I'm conflicted here.
But regardless, it doesn't matter.
Whether he knows what he's doing or not, it ain't good what he's going to do.
And that's the bottom line.
Compounding the problem.
Well, well, I'm getting to that in just a second.
Compounding this problem.
Folks, I'm going to depress you.
I don't want to do this.
The Senate Republicans just completed a retreat.
I had a spy at the retreat.
Here is what my spy sent me last night.
Frustrated Senate staffers say that the Senate Republican retreat that just finished was demoralizing for the best of the Republican senators.
Republican senators were told to moderate, to not be too extreme, to not be critical of the new administration, to remember the need for Northeastern Republican survival.
The Republican senators were told don't be too controversial, don't be extreme, moderate, and remember the need for the survival of Northeastern Republicans.
There is no leadership there.
There is no everybody's cowed.
Everybody's cowering in corners.
Everybody is afraid.
I'm talking about when I say everybody, elected officials on our side.
And then we're it was a retreat at the retreat.
And then and then we're now we're now we compound that with the notion that it appears the mantra from our side is we want him to succeed.
No, ladies and gentlemen, we don't want this can't succeed, is the problem.
His plan cannot succeed in the objective that's being advanced.
That's fixing the economy, getting us out of recession, preventing depression, getting people back to work.
It can't do that.
It's never been done.
If it works this time, it will be the first time in human history.
We don't want this to succeed because succeed means failure.
Success means failure.
If this works, the only way it can work is to cause more damage and to sit around while there is a golden political opportunity here to re-establish the identity and the differences.
The Republican Party to this crowd that's now running the show and why they got nothing to lose.
They can't stop anything anyway, so why be afraid to criticize it?
So fear uh has taken over our side.
Now back to the Obama press conference today.
CBS TV reporter Chip Reed says, President elect Obama, your staff has talked about a high end of about $800 billion, something like that.
They say if that's true and if 40% of its tax cuts that don't have the bang for the buck that spending has, it's not big enough.
Paul Krugman today said that it falls far short of what they're going to need to put America back to work.
How do you respond to those points?
Well, look, uh there are some people who uh have said that it's not big enough.
There are others who say it's too big.
Well, the the uh as I said before, Democrats or Republicans, we welcome good ideas.
This is not an intellectual exercise, and there's no pride of authorship.
Stop the tape.
This is exactly what it is.
Stop the tape.
It's exactly recue it.
It's exactly what it is.
It's an intellectual exercise.
It's a presentation at law school.
It is a presentation of the Harvard Business School.
It's designed to show how smart the guy is.
It's designed to show how well spoken, how open-minded.
Well, we can do this or we can do that.
A lot of people had good ideas.
We don't care who gets the credit.
None of this is true.
He doesn't care who gets the credit.
Ha ha ha.
That is big time BS in a brown paper bag.
Forget the B. Big time S in a brown paper.
He doesn't care who gets the credit.
Here, listen, I will listen to it in toto now.
Well, look, uh there are some people who uh have said that it's not big enough.
There are others who say it's too big.
Yeah.
Well, the uh as I said before, Democrats or Republicans, we welcome good ideas.
This is not an intellectual exercise, and there's no pride of authorship.
If Paul Krugman has a good idea in terms of how to spend money efficiently and effectively to jumpstart the economy, then we're gonna do it.
If somebody has an idea for a tax cut that is better than a tax cut we've proposed, we will embrace it.
If you can show me that something's gonna work, I will welcome it.
If it works better than something I've proposed, I'll welcome it.
I I look at trying to be respectful here.
I don't believe a word of it.
I don't believe a word of it.
In the first place, there is no one who has an idea That will work, that equals targeted spending of money to grow the federal economy.
The U.S. government is not the United States economy.
They are trying to turn it into that, but it isn't that, and it will not work.
Paul Krugman, I don't care who they, there is nobody that has any idea.
If this were the way, the Soviet Union would have beat us in the Cold War.
If this were the way Cuba could wipe us out tomorrow, if this were the way Mexico would not need to send half its population here.
If this were the way Kim Jong-il would be running the United Nations.
If this were the way, the Chicoms wouldn't care what's going on in Tibet.
He's not that there is a tax cut recipe that works.
There are two of them.
One's the Bush tax cuts, the other is the Reagan tax cuts.
And do you think either has a hell of a chance of being part of his ultimate plan of action?
Pelosi already and Varney Frank are already demanding that he repeal the Bush tax cuts now, not wait till 2010 when they expire.
Now he's just made himself sound here like he doesn't know what he's doing.
Well, somebody's got a better idea than I've got.
Well, listen to it.
Somebody got a better idea.
We'll listen to it.
We don't care about pride of ownership or authorship.
This is spooky.
This is the voice of total inexperience.
This is the voice of somebody who is genuinely clueless, who yet is a committed leftist.
*crash*
His inconsistency, his lack of specifics, his flowery lingo that says nothing.
I I'm telling you, folks, it's it's dangerous.
We have one more soundbite from uh Price President or President select Obama's press conference this morning.
Chip Reed of CBS News and the Presidents Elect had this little exchange.
You said earlier you're gonna own and refine the package.
Are you open to substantially increasing the size of it as it's being described, the spending portion on Capitol Hill?
You know, uh I think that there are going to be a lot of different opinions out there.
We're gonna take all of them in.
And uh at the end of the day, we're gonna have a package that Congress passes and I sign.
All right, he continues to offer literally no specifics.
Now, folks, I think I have I got a guess.
I have a guess.
I have a surmise at what's really going on here.
He hasn't announced any specifics.
Yesterday, the drive-by media had long story AP.
They didn't question it, they just pointed out for all the stuff he's saying about his stimulus plan, there are no specifics, there are no details.
In this press conference today, it was more flowery, platitudinous, uh flower child sort of lingo, and this question and answer here with the with Chip Reed, were you gonna spend more?
Well, we're gonna talk to people.
What I think, this is just a wild guess.
What I think is that Obama wants to move this country as far left as he can as fast as he can, but he, while doing it, wants to be perceived as a centrist.
He's gonna let the people who write the legislation take the hit for this.
He's going to let Democrats in the House and the Senate be tagged with the socialist label or the extremist label or the transfer of will people.
He's gonna sign it.
There's there has to be a reason why he's not being specific here.
All during the campaign, he said he had a plan to get us out of this.
And he's been talking about his plan, but he will not tell us what the plan is other than we gotta do it now, and it's gotta be big.
Well, yeah, he's thrown some things in about infrastructure and uh and all of that, but still, uh, ladies and gentlemen, there's this this is this is not cool, and and this is also not cool.
CNN to the extent that we can believe this, because CNN is running phony doctored pictures from Hamas on its website.
By the way, they were called on that by the blog Little Green Footballs, so they pulled a phony video that Hamas staged for them.
They pulled it off the story, but this the text of the story remains the same.
So we can't trust CNN.
However, they have a poll out that says 56% of the American people are for the stimulus.
Which tells me nothing because I don't think the 56% have the slightest clue what it is.
John Zogby has a poll out that says the majority of Americans want somebody to do something.
That's not a good sign.
In the old days of America, if you needed something done, you did it yourself.
And I've even said this, and I've gotten a lot of email from people.
Frankly, it's been quite distressing.
Rush, easy for you to say, go out and help yourself.
Easy for you to say, but it's bad out here.
What are we going to do?
I understand it's bad.
I understand unemployment numbers.
I understand we're at 7.2%.
I'm as a man of action, I just I just don't understand sitting around waiting for somebody.
My whole life, when I have waited for somebody else to do something, I've waited and I've waited.
And even when the person I was waiting on to do something did it, wasn't satisfactory.
And I learned over the course of my life, you know, the old adage you want it done right, do it yourself.
There's truth in that.
But it's not just if you want it done right.
You do it yourself.
If you want it done, you do it yourself.
This notion of sitting around waiting for somebody to do something is what got us into this circumstance now.
After all these years of class envy and the Democrats growing government and putting more and more people on the federal dole one way or the other, more and more people sitting around waiting for something.
In a country that was not built by people waiting on anything.
By the way, the layoff numbers, you know how many of the 500,000 or so are media?
Let's see 28,083.
And about 22,000 of them have been hired by the government so far.
And we're back, Rush Limbaugh.
Open line Friday.
We'll get to your phone calls, sir.
In Mira uh, ladies and gentlemen in mere moments, great to have you here.
Again, the telephone number is 800-282-2882.
Uh clandestine meetings with Hamas, the Obama administration letting it out that that might happen.
There are also reports today that Obama, even though he said Iran poses a great threat to the United States, that he might meet with them.
Now remember during the campaign, Obama and look at folks, here's the way to answer this, or the way the way to look at it.
I I think he is in so over his head that it scares me.
I don't think he has the slightest clue.
I do believe he is possessed with an enormous ego and arrogance that is conflicting with his awareness that he doesn't have the slightest.
Why is he all over the board from day to day answering the same questions?
He doesn't have the answers to the questions yet.
Certainly not so that they are programmed in his memory that he can call them up by default.
It's scary.
And here, they're letting it out that they're going to talk to Iran even after he said that Iran is the um greatest threat to the United States.
Remember during the campaign, you say I will talk to him about preconditions.
What's wrong with talking to them?
Well, guess what?
The mullahs heard about this, and they have established preconditions before they'll talk to Obama.
Iran's vice president has set two preconditions for talks with Obama.
Those preconditions are as long as the U.S. has forces in the Middle East, i.e.
Iraq, and as long as the U.S. continues its support for Israel, talks between the Iran people and the United States is off the agenda.
Now, that's what the Iranians are saying.
They're putting preconditions on talks.
After the Messiah goes out there in a campaign, sir, talk to them, no preconditions.
Now they're the ones putting preconditions on the United States.
So this is just its rank.
Amateurism.
And then there's this.
This whole Burris, Roland Burris situation.
Yesterday morning in Washington, Obama held a press conference.
An unidentified reporter said, What about Roland Burris?
Would you like to see him seated in your seat?
That is a Senate matter.
But I know Brolin Burris, obviously he's uh from my home state.
Uh I think he's a fine public servant.
If he gets seated, then I'm going to work with Roland Burris just like I work with all the other senators to make sure that uh the people of Illinois and the people of the country are served.
Well, there's a there's a big problem with this, though.
It has now been reported, and I am yeah, here it is.
Uh uh Obama pressured Harry Reed into uh pressured Reed to seat Burris.
The trouble so well, that's another next story, but uh yeah, the it appeared that Obama pressured Reed to seat Burris.
Uh Obama, in all likelihood, did not tell the truth about leaving Burris up to the Senate.
Now Burris may have committed a little perjury in his test, not a big deal, but he had said he had never spoken with anybody about the seat, but he did back in July.
It was before pay or play came up, he did let it be known to somebody on Blogo staff that he wanted the seat back last summer, when he said he hadn't done that.
So Obama says hey, it's a Senate matter, but he might have he just because he wanted this, he wanted this ended.
Seat Burris, get this over with.
My immaculate inauguration is just around the corner.
I can't stand all these distractions.
You get it done.
Well, ladies and gentlemen, we have a huge problem that has developed.
I myself predicted this on Monday or Tuesday when all of this falderall fall out fell out of Burris and Dingy Harry changing his mind on the dime and saying, we'll seat him.
Remember, it was Senate rules first.
Then it was up to the Secretary of State in Illinois, Jesse White, had to authorize it and sign off on it.
And then the court had to do this and do that, and then and I listen to Dingy Harry, and everybody go, okay, this is Saul Burroughs will be seated.
And I said, not so fast.
This sounds like everybody has left themselves a couple or three outs here to get rid of this guy.
Because the bottom line is you know it and I know it.
There is nobody in the power reaches of Illinois or Washington that want Roland Burris anywhere near the United States Senate or the drinking fountains or the bathrooms.
Dingy Harry doesn't want him there.
Obama doesn't want him there except to get rid of the distraction.
And they punted this down the road until Illinois had to come up with the right procedures.
Now, before we give you the latest news on this, a couple sound bites from Burris himself yesterday in Springfield.
He testified before the Illinois House impeachment committee hearing.
Jim Durkin, Republican State House, and Roland Burris had this exchange.
At any time were you directly or indirectly aware of a quid pro quo with the governor for the appointment of this vacant Senate seat.
No, sir.
Prior to his arrested, do you have any conversations with the governor about your desire to be appointed to the seat?
No.
See, this is under oath, and it's been learned that he did send out a feeler last summer.
Um, however, uh Blogo Senate appointee Roland Burris testifying again, had this exchange with uh Democ Democrat Mary Flowers in the Illinois State House.
He came to my home and we exchanged pleasantries, and then he said uh the governor um would be interested, uh would like to appoint you to the vacant Senate seat.
No quick pro quo, none of that.
Absolutely, positively not.
I would not participate in anybody's quid pro quo.
I've been in government for 20 years and never participated in anybody's quid pro quo.
But he did let it be known that he wanted the seats.
Uh, this is provided a little bit of problem.
They're the big problem, ladies and gentlemen.
So sad.
In a dramatic display of anger and solidarity over a political scandal that's made Illinois a national laughing stock.
Lawmakers today voted 114 to one to impeach Blogo.
First time in the state's history that this has happened.
What's not being mentioned, at least I haven't seen it anywhere.
Now that he has this whole the impeachment vote has been taken.
The Secretary of State, Jesse White doesn't have to sign any authorization sending Burris to the Senate.
Now that Blogos impeded, the vote has taken place, they can wait and get who they want there or go through the city, go to the Senate or whatever.
So last Tuesday, I told you.
And it appears that the process for Roland Burris has really slowed down.
Climb is getting tougher.
You slow down the higher you go.
Oxygen gets thinner.
Nowhere else to go.
Ha, welcome back.
El Rush Ball, the excellence in broadcasting network, Colin Powell.
Colin Powell had us at a press conference today.
It was a uh it was supposed to go at 12 15.
It might have gone, I think it went a little later than that.
But per the Obama transition office, did you know that that uh Powell was part of transition team?
I didn't either, but apparently is General Powell, this is from ABC News, General Powell and the presidential inaugural committee, will hold a press conference at the Mayflower Hotel this afternoon about President elect Obama's call to national service.
No, no, no, no.
Sturdly, don't roll your eyes.
Who predicted this?
On Monday, when the news came out that Obama wanted to create or save three million jobs, 80% of them in the private sector, that meant 20% of the public sector, that's 600,000.
I said, where are you going to get 600,000 federal employees just like that one way is the draft?
National Service Obama's call to national colon Powell.
Four star General Republican, telling the Republicans they've got to stop listening to me while he crosses the island and endorses Obama.
Somali pirates.
These guys are actually terrorists, but just for the sake of this discussion, do you remember...
When they hijacked that huge Saudi Arabian super tanker, biggest ship hijacking in a world.
Something like a hundred million dollars worth of oil in there.
Remember what their original ransom was?
What was it?
What was their original ransom?
Their original ransom demand, I think was in the five to seven million dollar range, and I chastised them.
And I said, come on, you gotta go for at least ten percent.
You got a hundred million dollars worth of oil.
They upped it to ten million.
Remember?
Well, they have just made a deal.
This is from MSNBC and their news service, Somali Pirates freed a Saudi super tanker for a $3 million ransom today, said an associate of the gang.
They gave it up for three million.
The capture of the serious star and its 100 million dollar cargo of crude in November drew attention to a surge in piracy off Somalia.
They seized it out there, they held it, and the Saudis wouldn't come up with the five mil.
They wouldn't come up with the 10 mil, so the pirates negotiated it down to three mil.
Now we got 100 million dollars worth of oil back on the market, which will further depress oil prices.
These pirates are disappointing me.
Three million bucks as a ransom, they've probably already spent that on the girls that they hired, the girls that they married, the houses that they built, the booze That they bought.
Remember the stories about how they were swaggering around there?
As the kings of the jungle here attracting all the bling and the beautiful babes and so forth.
Three mil?
They're probably in debt.
They probably need a bailout number where one time they should have been capable of buying Citibank.
Three million.
This, I mean, it's it's it's it's I guess it's worldwide disaster for everybody out there.
Mike, as we go to the phones in Fort Wayne, Indiana, your first today on Open Line Friday.
Great to have you here, sir.
Hi, Rush.
What a great honor.
Thank you.
Uh pressure's on.
First call of the day.
Hey, I just wanted to comment on Obama's trillion dollar stimulus package, and kind of baffles me why it's called a stimulus package.
Uh it's a huge spending program.
But yet you ask why people support it.
Well, they're thinking of their six hundred dollar stimulus checks that people got or their twelve hundred dollar checks.
And I think that's why people will support it because it sounds like, you know, the checks in the mail.
Well, I I there that may be an element of it, and I'll grant you that, but there's a far larger, more dangerous, depressing reason.
And that is that there are people out there just want somebody to do something.
And they have they really believe that spending this kind of money will bring back the economy.
We'll take the stock market back to 13 to 15,000.
We'll get their jobs back.
Uh imagine where we would be with all this if the price of gasoline was still four dollars a gallon.
You throw that into this mix.
Well, folks, the price of gas may not get up to four bucks a gallon, but but a whole lot of other things are going to get up there as a result of this.
You talk about inflationary or deflationary, whichever one happens here, but this happens to be inflationary when you start printing money like this.
No, the sad thing is too many people just want something done, and they do, they do believe there's magic waiting to happen.
And like I've been saying all week, you know, the way to win elections is not to win arguments, sadly to say.
If winning arguments won elections, I would be president for the past 20 years.
Giving the people what they want, finding a way to say, and this is where the education of the American people is crucial.
This is where getting hold of the pop culture and getting rid of the of the stranglehold the left has on it.
What people think matters and when they want something, and you have the best way of telling them you're going to give it to them, they'll vote for you.
At least a majority will.
Not every American, not but a majority will.
We've just seen it happen.
We see it now in these in these polls.
I mean, the dirty little secret here is that the people who make this country work.
Let me try this a different way.
I don't care whether it's AIG, I don't care whether it's Lehman Brothers.
I don't care who it is.
I don't care if it's the mom and pop widget company on Main Street in Oshkosh.
If they're bankrupt and losing money, that's bad business and they should fail.
You don't bail out failed enterprises.
And you certainly don't do it by taking money from the people who are succeeding.
And that's exactly what we are doing.
We're going to bail out failed small businesses, large businesses, failed banks, and we're going to do it in part by taking money from people who are successful.
If anybody needs to be stimulated during a recession, it's the people who are succeeding so that they can succeed more.
We're doing the exact opposite.
We are rewarding bad decisions.
We are rewarding failure.
We're propping up losers.
It will not work.
Okay, you've all heard about the unemployment news.
Layoffs in the United States up 59% since 2007.
1.22 million job cuts last year in 2008.
However, in the latest unemployment report, ladies and gentlemen, do you realize that there were sectors of the U.S. economy where employment went up?
You know what the sectors are?
Education, health care, government.
Those sectors went up.
▲
Export Selection