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Jan. 21, 2009 - Rush Limbaugh Program
33:37
January 21, 2009, Wednesday, Hour #3
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Hi, how are you?
Welcome back.
Great to have you with us, folks.
It's Rush Limbaugh and the Excellence in Broadcasting Network.
By the way, I got a quick, quick, can you tell that I have a cold?
You you can't, can you?
But I do.
Yesterday afternoon I got the tinglies in my right nostril.
I'm kidding not, kidding not here.
And I started getting the sneezes, and I started a little tired.
I immediately grabbed a Zycam tube, and every four hours since I have been using it and it is going away.
Now I I I've got it.
It did it didn't stop it, but it has limited the symptoms.
Because the way I felt when this by last night I went to bed at 10.30.
I never go to bed at 10.30.
I was zapped.
And uh I I got up today and uh I've well, 80% better.
And if you use ZyCam in Chicago, why were you do you think you were coming down with something?
So you used it as a preventative, then.
You just I'm talking to Dawn here.
Oh, this stuff is a godsend.
Because you know, if I if I if it didn't exist, I used to sit there and uh and live with this.
And uh you uh I mean, you people watching on the ditto cam see me have to blow my nose a couple times today, but this would have been horrible today were there no such thing as uh ZyCam.
Anyway, here's the phone number if you want to be on the program, 800 282-2882 email address L Rushbow at EIBNet.com.
Now you wouldn't believe what I just saw during the break here.
I was standing in Snurley's office or watching, we got all the networks on in there.
We're watching PMSNBC, and they do a videotaped recap of Obama signing his new executive orders.
Uh the one promising new ethics, his uh his staff, they're not there to improve their own lives.
They're not there to advance their own ideology, which is that's the biggest crock you could possibly hear.
They are there for both.
That's why they are in government.
That's why they wanted to win the election.
They believe in their ideology and they want to advance it, and of course they're trying to improve their lives.
Who doesn't?
But all this is designed to make you think they're tightening their belts.
And that's supposed to make you feel better, but it's not loosening your belt.
And then after announcing the pay freeze note, then he starts talking about the ethics and so forth, and uh his people aren't going to lobby.
And they cut from that to hearings of Timothy Geitner, who failed to pony up 34 or 42,000 on his taxes, and he's nominated to be Treasury Secretary.
And then they cut from that to hearings on Hillary Clinton, who's got more conflicts of interest than you could you couldn't stack them all up from here to the moon.
You'd have to go beyond the moon if you want to stack up all the conflicts of so it right right there.
While promising one thing, we cut to two nominees who just you give the lie to it all.
But do you think anybody's noticing this?
Oh, because it's it just isn't about this.
There was a third executive order, and I haven't I gotta be very careful with this.
It's about FOIA, the Freedom of Information Act.
And I have not had time, I probably shouldn't say anything about it, but I'm going to anyway, uh just because I am me.
But I he's done something with freedom of information.
The Freedom of Information Act allows journalists and average citizens to get their hands on certain government documents.
And what Obama did, I think, was establish um uh uh uh s uh he took away a layer here of protection.
This is what I'm confused about, and I'm not really certain, but it involves the attorney general.
You now, if you want uh uh Freedom of Information Act, if you have one of those requests, you have to go to the Justice Department, the Attorney General.
Now, when Bush assumed office in 2001, one of the first things he did was make it tougher for people to get Bill Clinton's records, for example, um, and have access to them, because as President Bush was trying to protect the executive branch.
Uh, this is what all responsible presidents do.
If I'm not mistaken, and I might well be.
what I'm afraid of is that what Obama did with this executive order is actually make it easier for the media to go get Bush documents.
Because you know Pelosi and some of the guys over in Congress are talking about war crimes, trials, and uh charges and so forth.
And I'm what I'm afraid of is that what Obama's done here is made the gathering of information for this kind of stuff, which is this is not America, this is not what America does.
We don't banana republic kind of stuff.
So, uh until I can confirm that's what's really happened here, I'm gonna say no more about it, but that's that was my early interpretation.
Now remember, I'm I'm watching all this while also hosting the program.
I can multitask, but I I just I'm not sure I saw this right or heard it right.
And if I did, I'll of course be the first to correct it.
And I mentioned earlier in the program today, Juan Williams, who is at the Fox News Channel and has a terrific piece in the Wall Street Journal today.
Uh the headline and the subhead line of the piece are this Judge Obama on performance alone.
Let's not celebrate more ordinary speeches.
He too was one who thought that yesterday's speech was somewhat ordinary.
And there are a lot of people who have that view, others with a completely different view, of course, but it it was unremarkable in uh in a number of ways.
But I want to I want to read you a portion of Mr. Williams' column here.
He's black.
And that, of course, in our culture will give him a little bit more credibility than say if he were white, writing this.
About all 25% of the way through, he asks this question, but now that this moment has arrived, Obama's uh inauguration, there's a question.
How shall we judge our new leader?
If Obama's presidency is to represent the full power of the idea that black Americans are just like everybody else, fully human, fully capable of intellect, courage, and patriotism, then Barack Obama has to be subject to the same rough and tumble of political criticism experienced by other presidents.
To treat the first black president as if he is a fragile flower is certain to hobble him.
It is also to waste your tremendous opportunity for improving race relations by doing away with stereotypes and seeing the potential in all Americans.
Yet there is fear, especially among black people, that criticism of Obama or any of his failures might be twisted into evidence that people of color cannot effectively lead.
That amounts to wasting time and energy reacting to hateful stereotypes.
It's also uh also leads to treating all criticism of Obama, whether legitimate, wrong headed, or even mean spirited, as racist.
This is patronizing, he says.
Worse, it carries an implicit presumption of inferiority.
I want to stop there because I don't know that Mr. Williams knows how profound what he wrote is.
To not criticize Obama as a president, forget that he's black, forget that he's a man.
To not criticize him because he's black is patronizing.
And it carries an implicit presumption of inferiority.
I'm telling you that is profound because I maintain to you, and I've said this on several prior occasions in the 20-year history of this program that the Democrat Party and the American left indeed view African Americans as inferior.
Incapable of success without the help of the Democrat Party, without the help of government programs like quotas and affirmative action.
Now, in truth, liberals look at all people with contempt.
They look at all average Americans with contempt, think that they're stupid and incapable of handling the rigors of life on their own, but with the with African Americans, it's even more pervasive.
There is they feel sorry for them.
The American left feels sorry, be it because of the original sin of slavery or what have you that just the real racists in this society are our friends and the Democrat Party and on the left.
And now we've gotten a point here where Obama is too big to fail.
He's too big to fail.
Why?
Because he's too historic?
Why?
What's historic about him?
Color of his skin.
Typical way liberals look at people.
Typical way the way the drive-by media looks at people.
Yes skin color.
Yes.
And we've been so mean to these people in the past that we've we can't be critical now.
And you see it, folks, you see it in the hero worship, the idolatry of the media.
It's sickening.
It's dangerous as well.
And Ju Williams understands it.
Let me pick up where he left off.
It carries an implicit presumption of inferiority to not criticize Obama.
Every American president must be held to the highest standard.
No president of any color should be given a free pass for screw-ups, for lies or failure to keep a promise.
During the Democrat primaries and caucuses, candidate Obama often got affectionate, if not fawning treatment from the media.
Editors, news anchors, columnists, and commentators, both white and black, but especially those in the political left, too often acted as if they were in a hurry to claim their role in history as supporters of the first black president.
In the words of Reverend Joseph Lowry, say amen.
Amen.
Say amen.
Amen.
He is exactly right.
They, the drive-by media considered their role in this to be historic.
They wanted to be the ones to put him over the top.
They wanted to be central players and figures in this moment of history.
For example, if Mr. Obama or Mr. Obama was forced to give a speech on race as a result of revelations that he'd long attended a church led by a demagogue.
It was an ordinary speech.
At best it was successful at minimizing a political problem, yet some in the media equated it to the Gettysburg Address.
The importance of a proud adversarial press speaking truth about a powerful politician and offering impartial accounts of his actions was frequently and embarrassingly lost.
When Obama's opponents, such as the Clintons challenged his lack of experience or pointed out that he was not in the Senate, when he expressed early opposition to the Iraq war, they were depicted as petty, the Clintons were.
Bill Clinton got hit hard when he called Mr. Obama's claims to be a long-standing opponent of the Iraq War, the biggest fairy tale I've ever seen.
The former president accurately said there was no difference in actual Senate votes on the war between his wife and Mr. Obama, but his comments were not treated by the press as legitimate hardball political fighting.
They were cast as possibly racist.
And this is what caused Clinton to say they played the race card on him.
This led to Saturday Night Live's mocking skit where the debate moderator was busy hammering the other Democrat nominees with tough questions while inquiring if Obama was comfortable and needed more water.
When fellow Democrats contending for the nomination rightly pointed out uh uh pointed to Obama's thin proposals for dealing with terrorism and extricating us from Iraq, they were drowned out by loud, if often vacuous shouts for change.
Yet in the general election campaign and during the transition period, Obama steadily moved to his former opponents' positions.
In fact, he approached Bush Cheney stands on immunity for telecom companies that cooperate in warrantless surveillance.
There's a dangerous trap being set here, writes Ron Juan Williams.
The same media people invested in boosting a black man to the White House as a matter of history have set very high expectations for him.
When he disappoints, as presidents and other human beings inevitably do, the backlash may be extreme.
This is where I differ.
I don't think there will be a backlash in the media.
I don't I think he's too big to fail Mr. Williams.
They've set it up this way because of their historic role in his historic election.
And then Juan Williams writes this.
Mr. Snerdley, listen to this.
Several seasons ago, when Philadelphia Eagles black quarterback Donovan McNabb was struggling, radio commentator L. Rushbow said the media wanted a black quarterback to do well, and gave Mr. McNabb a lot of credit for the performance of this team he didn't deserve.
Limbaugh's sin was saying out loud what others had said privately.
There's a lot more at stake now, and to allow criticism of Obama only behind closed doors, does no honor to the dreams and prayers of generations past.
That race be put aside and all people be judged honestly, openly, and on the basis of their performance, which is what Dr. King wanted, and Juan Williams fears we'll not get that with Obama.
We won't get a judgment based on honesty, openness, and the basis of his performance.
But rather, that'll his criticism will only be behind closed doors.
The Brocos and all the world might criticize him, never do so publicly.
Because he's black.
President Obama deserves no less than the standard of other presidents in treatment by the press.
Writes, Juan Williams, that's in the Wall Street Journal.
Actually, it ran uh yesterday.
Well, it's it's in today's paper.
It was posted 11 30 last night.
Juan Williams contributor, commentator at the Fox News Channel.
Back after this.
We go back to the phones now.
People have been waiting a long time, practically since the program began, such as Julie here from Green Bay.
Julie, do you mind if I uh you called two and a half hours ago, and people may not know why you're calling, and I need to set that up.
Would you mind if I reread that letter from the anal liberal teacher?
Oh no.
Don't tell me.
Don't tell me you Schlubs lost her in there.
When did you last tell her she was next?
When did you last tell her she was coming up?
130?
130?
Oh, darn it.
Julie's a teacher in Green Bay.
Julie is a conservative teacher, and she says they have to act underground.
Here's what she was calling about.
In case you missed the beginning of the program yesterday at a middle school in Green Bay, Wisconsin.
Apparently all the little types, the young skulls full of mush, the delicate little children, had been looking forward to the inauguration, the immaculation address of Obama.
The most momentous day of their lives.
And the teachers had no doubt prepped them for this great historic moment, and all of a sudden, when the address started, it was piped through the scruel public address system or 1,200 students in his scruel, and they whoever chose the station chose mine, and so my comments during the Immaculation Address were also heard by the students.
This prompted an angry letter to the station management by a teacher who is an art specialist.
Now, I don't know what an art specialist is.
I remember I had art teachers.
They taught me how to paste and use crayons, but I I don't remember an art specialist.
Anyway, here is the letter that the anal liberal teacher wrote to the station management.
Mr. Bader, my name is Anal Liberal Teacher, and I contacted you via phone message yesterday.
I just wanted to put into writing my complete and utter disappointment in your radio station's choices during President Obama's immaculation speech.
I understand that Rush Limbaugh built his career around his opinion and commentary, but thought that even he would have the decency to honor such a historical and momentous event in our country's history.
I'm a teacher in a middle school in Green Bay, Wisconsin.
It was highly unfortunate that when our school decided to broadcast his speech over the PA to our student population, administrators randomly selected Limbaugh's program.
My students were shocked, they were angered, and they were saddened by the interruption of what was a respectful event.
Truly the most momentous moment of their young lives.
We spent the morning preparing them for the event, explaining the significance of the day and what it meant for equality in our future.
Limbaugh could have and should have shown the respect the moment deserved.
I was proud of my students' conduct, proud of the respect they showed this moment in history.
I was proud of their outrage at Limbaugh in overstepping these boundaries.
Sadly, due to your radio programming, I was also disappointed, disappointed to have to be present, as my middle school students experienced ignorance and arrogance on such a public scale.
Following this day, Mr. Limbaugh has the next four years or longer to offer his opinion to anybody willing to listen.
For today, we were hoping to take part in a place of history without his commentary.
My students will not forget the choices he made, nor will I forget what your station chose to do on this day.
P.S. Please consider the environment before printing this email.
I was sent this email yesterday afternoon.
I then pre-printed it out 150 times.
And I have offered as of today, ladies and gentlemen, to go to this middle school in Green Bay and do a lecture on civics.
Whether it be in the art specialist class or in a general assembly.
And then I've offered to have a raffle and take some of these kids up an EIB one.
And while giving them a play and ride, explain economics to them.
They might actually learn something about their own country.
Talent.
On loan.
From God.
And now, ladies and gentlemen, we go back to the grooveyard of Forgotten Favorites.
A tune modernized, originally made popular by the great duo from New York, Steiman und Gardefunker.
Exclusive to the excellence in Broadcasting Network, Paul Shanklin, famous, well known white comedian as Barack Obama.
I am Barack.
I am the Messiah.
Shelley in Riverside, California.
Great to have you on the EIB network.
Hello.
Hey, Rush Alicious, how are you doing?
Oh, great, thank you.
Hey, sweetie, I've been listening to you for years, and I agree with most of you, uh, your your comments and opinions, but I think for this a bac uh or Obama thing, you've gone a little too far.
You sound like a petulant little boy who didn't get his way, and you know, I may not agree with with Obama's packages and what do you disagree with?
What do you disagree about Obama's package?
Well, I I you know, he scares me a little bit.
He um he seems like he's he's got the promises and the fixes for everything, which I don't think it's humanly possible.
However, the nation really needs some hope right now, and it needs to pull together.
It needs to clean up our corrupt government.
Bush didn't do that great a job.
God, I can't believe you.
I cannot believe you.
We got we got a corrupt government need to clean it up.
Timothy Geitner, Hillary Clinton?
Just to be Rom Emanuel, you want to clean it up?
I don't agree with the Clinton thing.
I don't agree with some of his choices, but I think we need to pull together as a nation right now, and he's our only thing.
Do you do you realize Shelley, do you realize how you sound?
No.
I don't agree with his choices.
I think he's making promises he can fix everything he can't we need to support him.
Well, I think we need to support.
Have you had an IQ test lately?
Oh maybe it's about a two.
Rush, seriously, I've I I feel kind of strongly about this normally.
Like I said, I don't disagree with you, and I don't disagree with you on a lot of issues, but um, but I think you gotta ease up a little bit, man, and and you know, give the nation a chance if if this guy screws up, he screws up.
But right now, I can't stop anything he's going to do.
What do you mean give the nation a chance?
I'm all about giving the nation a chance, but I can't stop anything this guy's gonna do, Shelley.
Oh no, sir.
And neither can you.
He can stop what I'm doing, Shelley, with a wave of his hand with his signature.
He can stop what I'm doing, Shelley.
I can't stop what he's doing.
My criticism, my criticism here is not aimed at him, it's aimed at people like you, and obviously I'm failing.
But that will only inspire me to be better at what I'm trying to do.
I am not going to wait for some government agency to come up with a plan to tell me how to better persuade you of what's right.
I'm gonna do it on my own.
I shall not quit.
I shall not listen.
I mean, this is this is you know why I'm I love you.
You're in the audience, I appreciate your being out there, but you have given me Every reason to continue doing what I'm doing.
Did you ever play soccer, Shelley?
You did?
I'm sorry, I didn't hear you.
Did you ever play soccer?
No, I'm I no, not at all.
I ride horses.
Have you ever had blunt trauma to the head?
No, no blunt trauma.
I am blonde, however.
You might, you know, sometimes I think you might want to ask a family member, some of the victims are the last to know about these things.
Something may have happened because it's I mean you just given me every reason in the world not to support the guy and yet telling me I should for the sake of the country.
Put yourself in my position here, trying to be reasonable here with this.
Uh well.
I'm glad you called.
All this is quite illustrative.
Uh see who's next.
Beth in Eureka, California.
Hi, Beth.
Great to have you on the EIB network.
Hi, Rush.
I appreciate you taking my phone call.
Listen, I wanted to tap into the teacher.
Uh writing the letter and and emailing and and calling whatever she did.
I don't understand how if she could take the initiative to do that to you and blame you single-handedly for ruining her school moment.
Then why couldn't she go and stop this when the moment was happening?
She could have gotten the kids involved, more teachers.
What it how is it that it was your fault for doing this?
An excellent question.
That is an excellent question.
She could have gone to the principal and said, change the station.
Why do you she didn't do that?
She blames it on me.
And she also blames it on the station for carrying me.
There have to be other stations in Green Bay that were carrying the ceremony yesterday.
They could have switched to.
Sure.
They could have turned on TV.
And if it had turned on TV, they would have heard the liberals going.
See, this is the thing.
I hope this teacher now finally understands what it's like for the rest of us to have to watch the left wing media in this country 24-7.
What we're watching it so far.
You're right.
She she could have gone to the principal's office, or if she really she could, she could have herded the kids in her art specialty class out into the hall.
She could have said, kids, we're not listening to this.
Uh we'll get a tape of it and we'll do it do it later.
You're right.
Those are those are very uh valid and intriguing questions.
Well, she needs to focus on her own actions.
I'm not appreciative of her name as a teacher behind such an act.
I mean, she single-handedly ruined her her school's mo no memorable moment.
So that's it's not that I ruined the most memorable moment in their lives, it's that this was it.
It's that this was the most m can you what vacant lives these poor kids must have if this was the most memorable moment in their lives.
No, they have not brothers and sisters that have been born.
Have they ever experienced Christmas morning, for example?
Have they ever been to a Packers game?
Sure.
Have they maybe met Brett Farbe?
I mean, for crying out loud.
This was the most memorable moment in their lives.
Well, if the kids were crying rush, don't you think that a responsible teacher would take action and stop them from crying?
No, wait, wait, that's a different class.
Oh, okay.
It's a different class.
Some different class, I think, in either different school, same school that kids were supposedly crying.
I frankly, based on experience, guided by intelligence.
I think probably the only person really upset about this was the teacher, and she's laying it all off on the kids.
And if this is gonna make kids cry.
I don't know.
We'd have to go with We would have to go back and listen to the tape.
I didn't say that much really during the speech.
It's a good point.
Snurley raised a good point.
Well, what did I do that made him cry?
I yawned a couple times.
Uh when he said that the stormclads are gathering, I pointed out that it was a clear day in Washington.
Uh what um I don't know what.
Well, I but when the oath was botched, I I pointed it out, but but I mean.
I'm sure I said a couple of the things.
I I don't I don't recall.
Might have pointed out the speech bad.
But that was afterwards.
I don't know.
The whole thing.
No, it probably were upset at the poem.
I love the poem.
I love the poem.
I love the poet.
I love the poem.
There's a story about the poet today.
And somebody analyzing the poet, uh, Elizabeth Alexander said her big mistake was not let anybody know when it was over.
Because no nobody knew when to applaud.
I wouldn't have known when it was over.
It made no sense at the end.
It made no sense at the beginning.
The car is on the road.
And in the back of this car, two child safety seats.
If there aren't two child safety seats, but there are two children, that car and its driver are in violation of the law, and they will be found.
Either before they get where the car on the road is going or after the car gets where it's going.
And if it gets there before it was scheduled to, it's speeding and wasting precious fuel and polluting our planet.
I could I could do 30, I could do that poem.
I could do it differently every time I did it, and I could go for 20 minutes without writing a single word.
By the way, Senator McCain's on the Senate floor calling for the Clinton confirmation.
Senator McCain's saying that the Republican Party must drop partisan demands.
So the guy who was so get the guy who was so concerned about conflicts and ethics, he doesn't care about them now.
Senator McKinnon, this is the guy who ran on dirty system.
And we're gonna clean it up and we're gonna.
I did.
I predict, I predicted that McCain's gonna be the shepherd for Republican votes for Obama to get him 60 seats.
Damn straight up predicted debt.
There's no there's no question it's gonna happen.
By the way, this this woman that called well uh Shelley from where was she calling from, El Snerdbow?
Riverside, California.
There's you notice we've had three of these calls here today.
And there is, I think they're all seminar callers.
Yeah, you don't think so.
All right, Snurdly says they're not seminar callers, but it's something going on out here.
You see, there's a there's a mantra that has evolved.
We are deranged.
We are petulant, we're childish when we speak against Obama and his policies.
Meanwhile, she smacks Bush while telling me to pull together behind behind Obama.
So, you know, they it's it's it's amazing to me.
I'm now into my 21st year, and people still think they can trick the host.
Maybe some hosts.
But not me.
Go ahead, folks.
Admit it you can.
You are addicted to this show.
On second thought, I don't think these callers are seminar callers.
I think rather what's going on out there is just like elected republics.
I think you're scared to death.
Come on, Rush.
Come on, Rush.
Don't talk this oh, I have people listening all the time.
Don't please, can you just call it for until he screws up?
I mean, they hate us already.
We can't be criticizing him now.
Please please calm down.
Don't.
So they these callers are afraid that uh my criticism of Obama or my not even criticism, I'm just doing analysis here.
Will uh somehow uh reflect on them as listeners of the program that they will then be criticized and have bad things said about them.
And of course, nobody wants to have bad things said about them except me.
I set out purposely to tweak those every day, at least four times a day, who I know are gonna say bad things of them.
I happen to enjoy it.
And it's gotten to be so easy, I can do it by not even saying anything.
I can do it, I can hijack an event by not even being there.
Even if I wanted to stop tweaking them, I couldn't.
The fact that I'm alive makes it happen.
Here's Stratus uh in Laurel, Montana.
Nice to have you, sir.
Welcome.
Russ, can you hear me with this listening device?
Yeah, I do hear you.
Oh, good.
Um Rush, I I I'm honored that you would that I finally got on.
I never called the floor.
My battery's really low.
I hope I make it.
Um can you still hear me?
Yeah, is your cell phone or are you a robot?
No, I'm on a cell phone.
Okay, and I'm in my shop work, and I'm a I'm a small business owner too.
Oh, okay.
Let me preface the woman in in Discovery Bay, which I happen to used to live by there.
I would recommend that she learns to start farming because that's what it's going to take to survive, probably through this time.
Um organic, because all you need is manure for organic.
You can put feces in your food and sell it to anybody with a name organic on it.
That's a great idea.
Being the all-knowing that I know you are, I have a question.
What happens if you don't pay taxes?
Well, you might ask Wesley Snipes.
Well, Capone.
Exactly.
If you don't pay your taxes, the uh the you'll get letters and then eventually they'll throw you in jail.
Unless you're Timothy Geitner, and then it's a common mistake.
And you'll become treasury secretary.
And I and I highly recommend that everybody investigate in the uh the Federal Reserve and the uh the fiat currency versus the gold standard.
And I and I would also recommend that I mean if you don't, nobody in the world has the right to take private property from anybody, but if you don't pay your taxes and you refuse to do that, well, but they do no they detection is called imminent domain.
It's been expanded beyond what its original purposes was, but um they do.
And and besides, look at private property, that's a concept that's not going to exist much longer, and it's all governments anyway.
The sooner you all get your mind right about this, the easier it's all gonna be.
A reminder tonight and tomorrow night, Fox News Channel Sean Hannity show, nine o'clock Eastern.
A interview that we did yesterday morning, right here in this studio.
We started at 10 o'clock, and it was before Obama's speech.
So nothing uh in the interview about Obama's speech.
And it went about 30 minutes.
You'll air it in two parts tonight and tomorrow night.
And as I said, folks, I I I do not like myself on TV, and so I don't do television.
I don't watch myself on TV.
So you'll have to watch it and uh tell me what you think because I will get nowhere near it.
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