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Jan. 20, 2009 - Rush Limbaugh Program
46:19
January 20, 2009, Tuesday, Hour #1
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Time Text
Welcome to today's edition of the Rush 24-7 podcast.
Are you prepared to take the oath, Senator?
I am.
I, Barack Hussein Obama, I, Barack Hussein Obama, do solemnly swear that I will execute the office of President to the United States faithfully.
That I will execute faithfully the president office of President of the United States and will, to the best of my ability, preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States.
Preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States.
So I hear what I thought I heard.
Congratulations, Mr. President.
There it is, folks.
There it is.
History in the making.
For the botched oak, it's the teleprompter when you really need it.
Proud teaming with people showed up overnight in their broken down Plymouths to be a part of history.
Military acts being committed in front of the new president.
Big guns are being fired.
But they are Democrat guns now, so it's okay.
That is the crowd you're hearing, not static.
Crowd about the same size the last time the Philadelphia Flyers won the Stanley Cup.
Thank you.
My fellow citizens, I stand here today humbled by the task before us.
grateful for the trust you've bestowed, mindful of the sacrifices borne by our ancestors.
I thank President Bush for his service to our nation.
Now get lost, as well as the generosity and cooperation he has shown throughout this transition.
44 Americans have now taken the presidential oath.
The words have been spoken during rising tides of prosperity and the still waters of peace.
Yet, every so often, the oath is taken amidst gathering clouds and raging storms.
It's a clear day in Washington.
At these moments, America has carried on not simply because of the skill or vision of those in high office, but because we, the people, have remained faithful to the ideals of our forebears and true to our founding documents.
We have.
So it has been, so it must be with this generation of Americans.
That's a tough one.
That we are in the midst of crisis is now well understood.
Our nation is at war against a far-reaching network of violence and hatred.
Really?
Our economy is badly weakened, a consequence of greed and irresponsibility on the part of some, but also our collective failure to make hard choices to prepare the nation for a new age.
Homes have been lost, jobs shed, businesses shuttered.
Our health care is too costly, our schools fail too many, and each day brings further evidence that the ways we use energy strengthen our adversaries and threaten our planet.
These are the indicators of crisis, subject to data and statistics.
Less measurable, but no less profound, is a sapping of confidence across our land.
A nagging fear that America's decline is inevitable, that the next generation must lower its sights.
That's what you've been telling us.
Today, I say to you that the challenges we face are real.
They are serious and they are many.
They will not be met easily or in a short span of time.
But know this, America, they will be met.
Lowering expectations.
We gather because we have chosen hope over fear.
Unity of purpose over conflict and discord.
On this day, we come to proclaim an end to the petty grievances and false promises, the recriminations and worn-out dogmas that for far too long have strangled our politics.
We remain a young nation, but in the words of Scripture, the time has come to set aside childish things.
The time has come to reaffirm our enduring spirit, to choose our better history, to carry forward that precious gift, that noble idea passed on from generation to generation, the God-given promise that all are equal, All are free and all deserve a chance to pursue their full measure of happiness.
In reaffirming the greatness of our nation, we understand that greatness is never a given.
It must be earned.
Our journey has never been one of shortcuts or settling for less.
It has not been the path for the faint-hearted, for those who prefer leisure over work or seek only the pleasures of riches and fame.
Rather, it has been the risk-takers, the doers, the makers of things, some celebrated, but more often men and women obscure in their labor, who have carried us up the long, rugged path towards prosperity and freedom.
For us, they packed up their few worldly possessions and traveled across oceans in search of a new life.
For us, they toiled in sweatshops and settled the West, endured the lash of the whip, and plowed the hard earth.
For us, they fought and died in places like Concord and Gettysburg, Normandy, and Quezon.
Time and again, these men and women struggled and sacrificed and worked till their hands were raw so that we might live a better life.
They saw America as bigger than the sum of our individual ambitions, greater than all the differences of birth or wealth or faction.
This is the journey we continue today.
We remain the most prosperous, powerful nation on earth.
Our workers are no less productive than when this crisis began.
Our minds are no less inventive, our goods and services no less needed than they were last week or last month or last year.
Our capacity remains undiminished.
But our time of standing pat, of protecting narrow interests and putting off unpleasant decisions, that time has surely passed.
Starting today, we must pick ourselves up, dust ourselves off, and begin again the work of remaking America.
Everywhere we look, there is work to be done.
The state of our economy calls for action, bold and swift, and we will act not only to create new jobs but to lay a new foundation for growth.
We will build the roads and bridges, the electric grids and digital lines that feed our commerce and bind us together.
We will restore science to its rightful place and wield technology's wonders to raise health care's quality and lower its cost.
We will harness the sun and the winds and the soil to fuel our cars and run our factories.
And we will transform our schools and colleges and universities to meet the demands of a new age.
All this we can do.
All this we will do.
Now, there are some who question the scale of our ambitions, who suggest that our system cannot tolerate too many big plans.
Their memories are short, for they have forgotten what this country has already done, what free men and women can achieve when imagination is joined to common purpose and necessity to courage.
What the cynics fail to understand is that the ground has shifted beneath them, that the stale political arguments that have consumed us for so long no longer apply.
The question we ask today is not whether our government is too big or too small, but whether it works, whether it helps families find jobs at a decent wage, care they can afford, a retirement that is dignified.
Where the answer is yes, we intend to move forward.
Where the answer is no, programs will end.
And those of us who manage the public's dollars will be held to account to spend wisely, reform bad habits, and do our business in the light of day, because only then can we restore the vital trust between a people and their government.
Nor is the question before us whether the market is a force for good or ill.
Its power to generate wealth and expand freedom is unmatched.
But this crisis has reminded us that without a watchful eye, the market can spin out of control.
The nation cannot prosper long when it favors only the prosperous.
The success of our economy has always depended not just on the size of our gross domestic product, but on the reach of our prosperity, on the ability to extend opportunity to every willing heart.
Not out of charity, but because it is the surest route to our common good.
I'm stunned here, folks.
As for our common defense, we reject as false the choice between our safety and our ideals.
Our founding fathers, our founding fathers, faced with perils that we can scarcely imagine, drafted a charter to assure the rule of law and the rights of man, a charter expanded by the blood of generations.
Those ideals still light the world, and we will not give them up for expedience's sake.
The crowd is puzzled here.
To all the other peoples and governments who are watching today, from the grandest capitals to the small village where my father was born, know that America is a friend of each nation and every man, woman, and child who seeks a future of peace and dignity, And we are ready to lead once more.
They're cheering the platitudes, the specifics they don't understand, they don't like.
It's a campaign speech, it sounds like a recall that earlier generations faced down fascism and communism not just with missiles and tanks, but with the sturdy alliances and enduring convictions.
They understood that our power alone cannot protect us, nor does it entitle us to do as we please.
Instead, they knew that our power grows through its prudent use.
Our security emanates from the justice of our cause, the force of our example, the tempering qualities of humility and restraint.
What?
We are the keepers of this legacy.
Guided by these principles once more, we can meet those new threats that demand even greater effort, even greater cooperation and understanding between nations.
We will begin to responsibly leave Iraq to its people and forge a hard-earned peace in Afghanistan.
With old friends and former foes, we will work tirelessly to lessen the nuclear threat and roll back the specter of a warming planet.
We will not apologize for our way of life, nor will we waver in its defense.
And for those who seek to advance their aims by inducing terror and slaughtering innocence, we say to you now that our spirit is stronger and cannot be broken.
You cannot outlast us, and we will defeat you.
Sounds like George W. Bush.
For we know that our patchwork heritage is a strength, not a weakness.
We are a nation of Christians and Muslims, Jews and Hindus, and non-believers, groups.
We are shaped by every language and culture, drawn from every end of this earth.
And because we have tasted the bitter swill of civil war and segregation and emerged from that dark chapter stronger and more united, we cannot help but believe that the old hatreds shall someday pass, that the lines of tribes shall soon dissolve, that as the world grows smaller, our common humanity shall reveal itself and that America must play its role in ushering in a new era of peace.
To the Muslim world, we seek a new way forward based on mutual interest and mutual respect.
To those leaders around the globe who seek to sow conflict or blame their society's ills on the West, know that your people will judge you on what you can build, not what you destroy.
They don't have that freedom.
To those to those who claim to power through corruption and deceit and the silencing of dissent, know that you are on the wrong side of history, but that we will extend a hand if you are willing to unclench your fist.
To the people of poor nations, we pledge to work alongside you to make your farms flourish and let clean waters flow, to nourish starved bodies and feed hungry minds.
And to those nations like ours that enjoy relative plenty, we say we can no longer afford indifference to the suffering outside our borders, nor can we consume the world's resources without regard to effect.
Please.
For the world has changed, and we must change with it.
As we consider the road that unfolds before us, we will remember with humble gratitude those brave Americans who at this very hour patrol far-off deserts and distant mountains.
They have something to tell us, just as the fallen heroes who lie in Arlington whisper through the ages.
We honor them not only because they are the guardians of our liberty, but because they embody the spirit of service, a willingness to find meaning in something greater than themselves.
And yet, at this moment, a moment that will define a generation, it is precisely this spirit that must inhabit us all for as much as government can do and must do.
It is ultimately the faith and determination of the American people upon which this nation relies.
It is the kindness to take in a stranger when the levees break.
The selflessness of workers who would rather cut their hours than see a friend lose their job, which sees us through our darkest hours.
It is the firefighters' courage to storm a stairway filled with smoke, but also a parent's willingness to nurture a child that finally decides our fate.
When the levees break, our challenges may be new.
The instruments with which we meet them may be new.
But those values upon which our success depends-honesty and hard work, courage and fair play, tolerance and curiosity, loyalty and patriotism-these things are old.
These things are true.
They have been the quiet force of progress throughout our history.
You can hear a pin drop.
What is demanded then is a return to these troops.
What is required of us now is a new era of responsibility.
Oh, goody.
A recognition on the part of every American that we have duties to ourselves, our nation, and the world.
Duties that we do not grudgingly accept, but rather seize gladly, firm in the knowledge that there is nothing so satisfying to the spirit, so defining of our character, than giving our all to a difficult task.
This is the price and the promise of citizenship.
This is the source of our confidence, the knowledge that God calls on us to shape an uncertain destiny.
This is the meaning of our liberty and our creed, why men and women and children of every race and every faith can join in celebration across this magnificent mall, and why a man whose father, less than 60 years ago, might not have been served in a local restaurant, can now stand before you to take a most sacred oath with proud.
Someone comes alive this day with remembrance of who we are and how far we have traveled In the year of America's birth, in the coldest of months, a small band of patriots huddled by dying campfires on the shores of an icy river.
The Capitol was abandoned.
The enemy was advancing.
The snow was stained with blood.
At a moment when the outcome of our revolution was most in doubt, the father of our nation ordered these words be read to the people.
Let it be told to the future world that in the depth of winter, when nothing but hope and virtue could survive, that the city and the country, alarmed at one common danger, came forth to meet it.
America, in the face of our common dangers, in this winter of our hardship, let us remember these timeless words.
With hope and virtue, let us brave once more the icy currents and endure what storms may come.
Let it be said by our children's children that when we were tested, we refused to let this journey end.
That we did not turn back, nor did we falter.
And with eyes fixed on the horizon and God's grace upon us, we carried forth that great gift of freedom and delivered it safely to future generations.
He quoted.
Thank you.
God bless you.
And God bless the United States of America.
He quoted a slave owner in there.
Well, I'm just saying, I'm waiting for the guy with the chisel.
We'll start chiseling these words into the marble somewhere.
I just don't know which words are going to get chiseled.
I think a lot of his voters say, what's this deal here?
era of responsibility.
See, all the problems are supposed to be over now.
Yeah, the applause should still be going on given the hype of all this.
I have the distinct pleasure of introducing an American poet, Elizabeth Alexander.
The river, the rock, and the tree.
Praise, song, for the day.
Each day we go about our business, walking past each other, catching each other's eyes or not.
Not in New York.
About to speak or speaking.
You don't make eye contact in New York.
All about us is noise.
All about us is noise and bramble, thorn and din.
Each one of our ancestors on our tongues.
Where's Puff Daddy?
Someone is stitching up a hem, darning a hole in a uniform, patching a tire, repairing the things in need of repair.
Someone is trying to make music somewhere with a pair of wooden spoons on an oil drum, with cello, boombox, harmonica, voice.
A woman and her son wait for the bus.
A farmer considers the changing sky.
A teacher says, take out your pencils.
Begin.
We encounter each other in words.
Words spiny or smooth, whispered or declaimed.
Words to consider, reconsider.
We cross dirt roads and highways that mark the will of someone and then others who said, I need to see what's on the other side.
I know there's something better down the road.
We need to find a place where we are safe.
We walk into that which we cannot yet see.
Maybe she knows.
Say it plain.
Which case?
That many have died for this day.
The chicken of the egg.
Sing the names of the dead who brought us here, who laid the train tracks, raised the bridges that are broken.
Picked the cotton and the lettuce, built brick by brick the glittering edifices they would then keep clean and work inside of.
Never enter for struggle.
Praise song for the day.
Praise song for every hand-lettered sign, the figuring it out at kitchen tables.
Some live by love thy neighbor as thyself.
Others by first do no harm or take no more than you need.
What if the mightiest word is love?
Love beyond marital, filial, national.
What?
Love that casts a widening pool of light.
Love with no need to preempt grievance.
In today's sharp sparkle, this winter air.
Anything can be made, any sentence begun.
On the brink, on the brim, on the cusp.
Praise song for walking forward in that light.
Still waiting for a rhyme here.
And now it's my privilege to introduce the Reverend Dr. Joseph E. Lowry to deliver the benediction.
I don't think the crowd knew the poem was over.
Guard of our weary, guard of our silent tears.
Thou who has brought us thus far along the way.
Thou who has by thy might led us into the light, keep us forever in the path, we pray.
Lest our feet stray from the places our God where we met thee, lest our heart drunk with the wine of the world, we forget thee.
Shadowed beneath thy hand, may we forever stand, true to thee, oh God, and true to our native land.
We truly give thanks for the glorious experience we've shared this day.
We pray now, Lord, for your blessing upon thy servant Barack Obama, the 44th President of these United States, his family, and his administration.
He has come to this high office at a low moment in the national and indeed the global fiscal climate.
But because we know you got the whole world in your hand, we pray for not only our nation, but for the community of nations.
Our faith does not shrink, though pressed by the flood of mortal ills.
For we know that, Lord, you're able and you're willing to work through faithful leadership to restore stability, mend our brokenness, heal our wounds, and deliver us from the exploitation of the poor or the least of these, and from favoritism toward the rich, the elite of these.
We thank you for the empowering of thy servant, our 44th President, to inspire our nation to believe that, yes, we can work together to achieve a more perfect union.
And while we have sown the seeds of greed, the wind of greed and corruption, and even as we reap the whirlwind of social and economic disruption, we seek forgiveness and we come in the spirit of unity and solidarity to commit our support to our President by our willingness to make sacrifices to respect your creation,
to turn to each other and not on each other.
And now, Lord, in the complex arena of human relations, help us to make choices on the side of love, not hate.
On the side of inclusion, not exclusion.
Tolerance, not intolerance.
And as we leave this mountaintop, help us to hold on to the spirit of fellowship and the oneness of our family.
Let us take that power back to our homes, our workplaces, our churches, our temples, our mosques, wherever we seek your will.
Bless President Barack, First Lady Michelle, look over our little angelic Sasha and Malia.
We go now to walk together, children, pledging that we won't get weary in the difficult days ahead.
We know you will not leave us alone with your hands of power and your heart of love.
Help us then now, Lord, to work for that day when nations shall not lift up sword against nation, when tanks will be beaten into tractors, when every man and every woman shall sit under his or her own vine and fig tree, and none shall be afraid.
Remember when justice will roll down like waters and righteousness as a mighty stream.
Lord, in the memory of all the saints who from their labors rest, and in the joy of a new beginning, we ask you to help us work for that day when black will not be asked to get back.
This is a prayer.
When brown can stick around, when yellow will be mellow, when the red man can get ahead, man, and when white will embrace what is right.
Let all those who do justice and love mercy say amen.
When white will embrace what is right...
Of course I'm offended.
He actually said that?
It was a prayer.
Please rise for the singing of our national anthem by the United States Navy Sea Chanters Chorus.
Following the anthem, please remain in place while the presidential party exits the platform.
Thank you very much.
The crowd's already leaving, folks.
You see by the dice, what's so fast gleaming, whose broad stripes and bright stars we stream.
On the roads and fruit through the night that our flight was still there.
Oh, save us that stars fangled and payless or the land of the free and the hope.
Remember, ladies and gentlemen, an empty barrel makes the most noise.
I love this stars and stripes forever.
We'll stick with this.
As the crowd, no doubt, wondering what just happened.
I am
Rush Limbaugh, ladies and gentlemen.
Great to have you with us as I and many Americans now embrace what is right.
The 44th President of the United States, Barack Hussein Obama, now inaugurated, and the crowd is dispersing.
The crowd began to disperse, ladies and gentlemen, before the Reverend Lowry finished his speech slash prayer, which went almost as long as President Obama's acceptance speech.
We're going to go to a quick commercial timeout here.
We'll come back, get to your phone calls quickly.
I know people want to weigh in on their thoughts.
800-282-2882 is the number.
If you want to be on the program, the email address today is lrushbo at eibnet.com.
I'll give you my thoughts when we come back, and I want to hear yours as well.
But the first thought I have is that they overhyped this.
It did not, I mean, the audience didn't know the applause lines.
It started a bad, I think the classical music thing did fine for a certain group, but it set the tone here.
The whole thing was a downer here today.
And yet all the hype had led us to believe that new era of responsibility, call to action, America's great.
And so all those things were said, but not with a whole lot of believability because we essentially got another campaign speech here, which I'm not surprised about because I think that the Obama campaign will continue as governing, just like the Clinton administration was a constant campaign, so I think will this be.
But there's plenty of time here to discuss this.
We will have audio sound bites of the speech.
We'll chop it up, try to determine which words will be chiseled into stone from this speech.
And we'll be eagerly awaiting drive-by commentary from the various media outlets who had led the public to believe this would be one of the greatest inaugural addresses ever.
I'm still trying to figure out, and maybe you can help me what he said.
I heard it.
I listened.
But I don't know quite what he said here other than what he has said throughout the campaign.
I do know that Ann Compton of ABC News reported that the sun glistened off Obama's lapel pen.
But I think it fell flat.
The crowd's dispersing rapidly.
Healthcare plan finally figured it out.
He's going to heal us one person at a time just by touching us.
These are just my initial reactions.
More coming right after this.
Stay with us.
Okay, the prayer by the Reverend Joseph Lowry, ladies and gentlemen, far more memorable than the inaugural address by President Obama.
It just is.
I mean, here's it.
If you want to itch, if you want to chisel some words in stone, the brown can stick around when yellow will be mellow, when the red man can get ahead, get ahead man, and when white would embrace what is right.
These are memorable lines.
I think what happened was with Obama, he tried to say too much.
He made too many references to history, too many attempts at memorable lines, and there are no memorable lines from the speech now.
It was not a great speech, and everybody knows it.
However, that will not be the consensus opinion.
The consensus opinion will be that it was a fabulous speech, that it was far-reaching and very lofty and all of this.
I read just now during the commercial break, somebody just posited a thought.
I'm not sure even where it happened yet because I just got a chance to parse it, but might be at National Review Online.
Oh, this is a great speech.
It was a speech McCain could have given.
It was a speech that Colin Powell could have given, I think it said.
So I thought it was clunky.
The audience didn't know when to applaud.
It was a combination.
It was contradictory, too.
There were parts of that speech I really loved where he thought he was talking about Ronald Reagan or sounding like Ronald Reagan.
And then, of course, it ended up with the usual campaign rhetoric.
And the speech was, I think, while it tried to be uplifting and inspiring, it sounded somewhat hopeless.
Like, we've got big problems, and it's going to be a long time before we fix them.
And I know what's going on with that.
That is the downplaying of expectations so that when the recovery does happen and it doesn't get as bad as everybody's telling us it's going to get, then they can say that they arrested the recession before it got really bad and give themselves some credit for it.
It is politics, which is often public relations.
Here is that historic moment with Barack Obama taking the oath of office administered by the Chief Justice John Roberts.
I, Barack Obama.
I solemnly swear.
I, Barack f ⁇ Obama, do solemnly swear that I will execute the office of president to the United States faithfully.
That I will execute faithfully the president, office or president of the United States.
I'm the president of the United States faithfully.
And will, to the best of my ability, preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States.
Preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States.
So help you, God.
So help me, God.
Congratulations, Mr. President.
So it was a botched oath of office, ladies and gentlemen, as you just heard.
Plus, we bleeped out his middle name, which was done during the campaign.
Don't know how many people that voted for him today found out what his middle name is for the first time.
Let's go straight to the phones and get some reaction from people.
Fort Wayne, Indiana, Bruce, you're first.
Great to have you with us, sir.
Hello.
Hello, Rush.
That was the most broad and imprecise inaugural I've ever heard.
But there was one precise moment mentioned.
Wait, Did you say broad and plotting?
Imprecise.
Imprecise.
He seemed to go everyplace.
It sounded like something from Sesame Street.
It sounded like for infants.
It went on and on.
But he mentioned for the cynics, you know, for the people that disagreed with him.
I'm paraphrasing, that the ground would shake beneath their feet.
It seemed to be the most specific moment garnered at conservative people that disagree.
Not the George Will crowd, mind you, but those maybe not invited to cocktail parties on D.C.
Yeah, well, it did have a sort of the whole day here has had sort of a Walmart on the day after Christmas sort of look to it, sort of an appeal.
I just, as I say, I think he tried to say too much.
He tried to put too many memorable lines in, and as such, there aren't any.
There really aren't any.
The crowd didn't know when to applaud, applaud the there was, you could have heard a pin drop.
I mean, it was, I think it was a the crowd, if you were to interview them honestly, it was, it had to be a letdown.
The expectations were so much higher.
The hype was so high.
This was supposed to be an inaugural address unlike any we've ever heard.
The words were to be chiseled in stone, and the prayer by Joseph Lowry ends up being more memorable than the inaugural address.
And of course, the poem.
Good grief, folks.
The poem was a highlight of the day for me was the poem.
I didn't notice one rhyme in the poem, but we had boombox and so forth in the poem.
You know, the last poet we had up there was Maya Angelou.
She talked about dinosaur feces in her poem.
Today we got boomboxes in there.
I mean, it was, it was, it was all of these were just breathtaking moments, but I can't, the CNN, by the way, showed the crowd dispersing before the events were over and even during some of Obama's speech.
You know, and the question arose, why is the crowd leaving?
Anyway, I got to take a brief time out here.
We'll do that, be back, and wrap up the hour right after this.
President Bush now and former President Bush on Marine One, heading on to Andrews Air Force Base, where he will greet members of his staff in the hangar out there, then board the jet and head to Midland, Texas.
Now, he has purchased a house in Dallas.
You know, he's never seen the house that his wife bought.
He's never seen it, seen pictures of it.
But he's going to go to Midland, Texas first and eventually end up in his new home in Dallas.
Ladies and gentlemen, so let's see.
We're going to squeeze another call in here before we have to go to the top of the R break.
Mike Parkersburg, West Virginia, great to have you here, sir.
Hello.
Thank you, Rush, for taking my call.
The reason I was calling is, you know, one of the things on the left that really infuriates me and a lot of other Americans, I'm sure, is the shoving of political correctness down our throats and the fact that we can't ever speak our minds really and say what we think because of political correctness.
But yet, in the speech that was, well, or the benediction that was given, I mean, just the racial stuff at the end was ridiculous.
And being a white person, for him to say, it's time for white to do what is right.
Like, we don't do what is right every day in our lives as our average Americans anyway.
Well, you know, that little litany, that's to me, that and the poet are the most memorable things of the day today.
But what you're right, when Joseph Lowry went through this, the brown can stick around, and that's not being critical of the brown, when yellow will be mellow, when the red man can get a head man, and when white would embrace what's right, the only group of Americans that got criticized during the inaugural festivities today were white Americans who largely made Barack Obama president of the United States.
We'll be back.
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