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March 11, 2009 - Rush Limbaugh Program
37:01
March 11, 2009, Wednesday, Hour #2
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Greetings, my friends, and welcome back.
It's Rush Limbaugh, this the EIB Network.
And the Limbo Institute.
For advanced conservative studies.
Telephone number, you want to call us?
800-282-2882.
And the email address, Lrushbow at EIBNet.com.
You know the local paper here, the Palm Beach Post.
They've got, let me find it.
They've got a story here.
They're preoccupied here with two things.
They're preoccupied with the with the Democrat National Committee's Billboard campaign.
They've the Democrat National Committee has now finalized.
They've gotten into five potential winners of the slogan that they're going to put on the billboard in West Palm Beach aimed at me that they somehow want me to see.
And these five slogans, I don't have them in front of me, but they are weak.
I could have come up with something better, making fun of my own self than they have come up with.
It's just, it's it's hilarious.
The second story that they're obsessed with.
It may be months for stimulus cash to spur Florida road jobs.
Thousands of jobless Floridians hope the 1.3 billion in stimulus money coming to Florida for road projects might help get them out of the unemployment line and back to work and it will, but just how quickly nobody knows.
The most optimistic guest is uh mid to late summer, but that could be unlikely.
Given the bureaucratic labyrinth that locals that whoa whoa folks, do you realize how many Obama voters?
I'm not exaggerating here, I mean this.
And it's sad.
If I might be quite honest, it is sad.
Do you know how many people are really hurting because of this economy?
Who are really out there, their arms are extended, their hands are open, and they're wondering where's the stuff Obama promised them?
Where's the money?
Where's the kitchen?
Where are the McNuggets?
Where is it?
Where are the jobs?
And the Democrat National Committee is doing a contest on a billboard on me.
If if you people at DNC haven't decided yet, let me can I throw in my own suggestion here.
You got a billboard, it's gonna have my name on it, right?
Here's the slogan.
Now, granted it's more than ten words, they had a ten-word limit.
Your government spent three trillion dollars to help you.
You got a thirteen dollar raise.
Everybody happy?
Shut up.
Uh and that's just off the top of my head.
Ladies and gentlemen, teachable moment.
I'm gonna get to the war and the economy and all that here in just a second.
But a teachable moment comes from a town I lived in for ten years, Kansas City, Missouri.
Well, I actually live in Overland Park, but it's all part of the same metro area.
I had a great time there.
By the way, anybody who knew me in Kansas City for those ten years would say I was an abject failure.
I failed.
But those ten years of failure were among the most valuable that uh conditioned me, prepared me for what was to come later when I left Kansas City.
And I still stay in touch with the Kansas City Media, and I have a lot of friends that are still living in Kansas City that I'm in regular contact with, golf buddies and so forth.
And occasionally I still read the Kansas City Media, the local newspapers, the Kansas City Star.
And they have a columnist who has written things in the past that we've quoted favorably on this program.
Other things he's not been so favorably quoted on, but I like this man.
And I think he's really brilliant at times.
And I think he's very creative.
And in a clouded, clogged, overrun media community, Jason Winlock, still manages to write pieces that stand out.
And he's fearless.
And he has been fired from places like ESPN, which to me is a badge of honor.
He has been fired for his outspokenness.
Jason Whitlock has also taken his hand at hosting uh talk radio and sports.
Jason Whitlock has a column that ran Saturday in the Kansas City Star.
Now it's about the Kansas City Chiefs.
For those of you in Port St. Lucy and Rio Linda, that's the football team there.
They just hired a new general manager.
They got rid of King Carl Peterson.
And they just hired Scott Peoli from the New England Patriots.
And they just hired a new head coach from the Arizona Cardinals, the offensive coordinator Todd Haley.
Jason Whitlock.
Now stick with me on this because it's a teachable moment.
You'll be amazed at what I am going to read to you from Jason's piece.
The title, the collar, the headline to Jason's piece is It's okay to question Peoli and the Chiefs.
Now keep in mind as I go through this and read excerpts.
Football does not determine your tax rate.
Football has nothing to do with your individual liberty or freedom.
It might have a little to do with your pursuit of happiness if your team wins or if you like to root them on, this sort of thing.
But there's no football team that can unilaterally enact a policy that will change your life, make you poorer, raise your taxes, or infringe upon your freedom.
Jason Whitlock begins his piece.
Wednesday afternoon on my drive on I-70 to watch a basketball game.
I pass the time listening to sports talk radio.
I find one of our local stations unlistenable, so you can assume which station and which show entertain me along the highway, and you can guess which host nearly made me drive off the highway.
The new Don Fortune, Don Fortune's still there.
Don Fortune is sports guy, sports TV anchor when I was in Kansas City in the uh in the mid-70s.
He's still there.
Don Fortune expressed his disinterest in needing access and information from Chiefs General Manager Scott Peoli.
Don Fortune and his trusty sidekick, Mad Jack Harry.
Jack Harry's still there.
I knew Jack Harry is a channel five in Kansas City when I was there.
Fortune, I think, was at Channel Nine, if I'm not mistaken.
Anyway, these two guys, Fortune and Jack Harry, they do a duo show.
And then Jason was listening to them.
And he wasn't liking what he was hearing because Fortune and Mad Jack Harry spent several minutes telling their listeners that we just have to trust the new general manager Scott Pioli implicitly.
We don't need to waste emotion or energy worrying whether Peoli, the new general manager, the chief, reveals himself or his plans or his players to the media.
Having worked in sports talk radio, I'm aware that discipline requires a dramatic and healthy loosening of journalistic standards, but basic common sense and backbone are allowed and occasionally encouraged when hosting a radio show.
Supporting the new regime does not equate to rejecting the primary role of the media.
Now, folks, Jason Whitlock is talking about a football team.
He's talking about a football general manager.
And two media people who said, I don't need to question him, I trust them.
I think I know what they're doing.
I don't need to have access to them.
I believe in what they're doing.
Whitlock's saying, You trust them.
You're a journalist.
You gotta get in there and ask them questions.
You gotta hold them accountable.
It's a football team.
It's our job, Jason Whitlock writes, to acquire information and pass it along to you.
Based on what we've seen from the Bill Belichick era in New England and our first two months with Peoli, gathering pertinent and enlightening information about the Chiefs is going to be rather difficult.
Do you see where I'm going with this, Snertley?
Do you do you have any folks?
The rest of you, did you see where I'm heading with this?
Jason Whitlock is aghast that the media is laying down, has no interest, is not curious, is blindly accepting whatever comes out of the Chiefs' front office.
He wants to dig and find out what they're trying to hide.
He's writing this about a football team.
A football team which cannot raise your taxes, a football team which cannot take away your freedom, a football team which cannot tell you what kind of car to drive.
I mean, they can rape you financially with ticket prices, but that's up to you if you want to pay it.
You at least get something value back.
Overall, we attempt to be a watchdog of those with power, writes Mr. Whitlock.
When we fail to play that role, generally speaking, terrible things happen.
The Iraq war is a worst-case scenario.
We trusted our president implicitly.
We led the cheers when he declared war on Iraq, and we declined to demand answers to difficult questions hundreds of billions of dollars later, and with our economy in collapse, we now blame poor minority homeowners for the fall of our society.
He's talking about football.
You laid down, led the cheers.
Have you forgotten the Democrat Party's role in trying to secure the defeat of the U.S. military in Iraq?
The media laid down for George W. Bush.
Jason, the media is laying down and has checked its professionalism at the door with Barack Obama.
The very demand, Jason, that you are making that local media hold a football team general manager accountable.
You don't even think to reference the national media holding a president accountable.
There's no curiosity.
There is blind acceptance of Barack Obama, Jason, right in front of your eyes.
They are their stenographers.
From Jonathan Alter to Chris Matthews to whoever, they're taking dictation from the White House, Jason.
They're taking dictation from Ram Emanuel.
They're taking dictation from James Carville.
They're taking dictation from Robert Gibbs.
They're taking dictation from Stan Greenberg.
They're taking dictation from the president of the United States.
And you're upset that the general manager of football team won't tell you what's going on with the draft.
I mean, I can understand, Jason, you write about sports, but you brought the Iraq war into this.
Unchallenged leaders, he says, are dictators.
And quickly turn unethical.
He's writing about football.
He's writing about Scott Pioli, because Scott Pioli comes from a dictatorial regime, the New England Patriots.
And the dictator is mad Bill Bilichek.
And Jason's all worried that Pioli is in the mad dictator image of Belichick.
Unchallenged leaders are dictators and quickly turned unethical.
talking about a football team.
Uh...
It columnused me.
Because King Obama.
King Obama is in danger or in engaging in behavior that makes Scott Pioli and the dictatorial New England patriots.
The New England Patriots.
Jason, are you afraid the Chiefs might win and you won't know how they did it?
Because Peoli won't tell you.
Or Jason, do you want Pioli to fail?
Because he won't open up with you guys.
And he won't tell you how he's doing what he's doing.
And then he concludes the piece, writing now to the fans who read his piece, the Kansas City Star, it's in your best interest to demand better from us, meaning journalists.
Don't be fooled into believing we should go away or act as a propaganda machine for some newly elected popular in comparison general manager of a football team.
Now, by the way, he does throw Bush in an atlas.
Let me let me reread this sentence.
I missed this because it's parentheses.
It's in your best interest to demand better from us to his readers, he says here.
Don't be fooled into believing we should go away or act as a propaganda machine for some newly elected, popular in comparison to Peterson, former general manager, or George Bush, leader.
Jason, you're better than this.
To say that George W. Bush had a lap dog media to ignore a media that's not a lap this, I don't know how you would describe this media other than to say they are stenographers covering for Barack Obama.
But here's the point, the bottom line of this.
Now, I know Jason Whitlock is in sports, but he is...
Can you get how angry he is?
He's irritated at two of his brethren in sports talk radio said we don't need to question the Chiefs.
And that sets him off on 750 words.
We damn well gonna question the Chiefs.
He is exercised over a potential dictatorship in a football team.
But a similar scenario playing out in his country escapes him.
I'm just here to help Jason because you know I love you.
And by the way, Jason supported me uh in the Monday Night Football gig.
He he really did.
Because he thought it would help fat guys everywhere, and he's bigger than I am.
Back after this.
No, I'm just I'm just I can't stop laughing here to be worried about the dictatorial regime of the New England Patriots.
Well, welcome back, uh ladies and gentlemen.
L. Rushbow having more fun than a human being should be allowed to have.
People have been waiting patiently to be on this program, so we'll start in Naperville, Illinois.
This is Bill.
It's great to have you here, sir.
Hello.
Diddles Rush.
Thank you.
Um this discussion about you know you wanting the Obama um uh policies to fail brought to mind a lecture that I heard many years ago.
Uh I had the opportunity to hear Dr. Milton Friedman um in 19 either 1974 or 1975, he came to speak at uh Wabash College.
And I always have remembered this lecture, and I thought it was kind of appropriate.
And I I the theme of the lecture was all current government programs were bad, and all future ones are good.
And I thought, well, isn't that ironic?
Because all we're hearing from the Obama administration is everything out there is bad, but we're going to make it good.
And you look at all the policy pro programs and policies that they're putting forth, have been tried before, either domestically or in Europe.
And and people like Jim Kramer and Warren Buffett and Jack Welch all know this.
And I I just find it incredibly ironic that they've now come, you know, they've known this for some time.
In fact, Kramer, I I just sent you an email that I got a few minutes uh a few months ago.
He started November the 7th about Geitner.
And and for him to somehow have this revelation.
Wait, wait, wait.
He was all for Geitner on November 6th.
Oh, no, no, no, no, no.
He started complaining about Geitner November the 7th of last year.
Mad Jim Kramer did?
Yes.
Oh, wow.
I I think it's in your inbox.
I sent it to you.
I know you get a gazillion emails, but it'll say Jim Cra Kramer.
No, yours is flagged that stands out.
What's that?
Yeah.
and for these people to come along now and sit there and say, you know, if I know these pro old these programs failed fifty years ago or thirty years ago, you know, what makes them think that Barack Obama is somehow going to make them right?
This is a fascinating question.
Yeah, but you're asking I think y your question is actually two pronged.
Because the first question I would have is if every and Friedman's right, every current government program doesn't work, well, whose are they?
Sure.
Whose are they?
Now we can say, well, they're the United States Congress.
But the vast majority of the programs we're talking about that have failed are programs that were written by Democrats, the war on poverty, the Great Society, all of these things.
Welfare, abject failures.
But you see, we're not allowed to look at them that way.
Just as back during the falling days of the Soviet Union, the American left said, you can't look at it as a failure.
We just haven't given it, it hadn't had its full shot, it hadn't had a full chance.
Just like war on poverty, you can't say it's a failure.
Uh besides our good intentions are what matter here, not the not the results.
That's why the question about why new programs, you ask about Buffett and these guys.
See, this my my I don't think they're that smart.
They are skilled and talented in making money, but they don't evidence common sense, or else their motivations are something other than what you and I understand.
Back to the phones, the breakdown and analysis of the uh theme started at the White House, picked up now by the slaves in the media that the economy is a wall, and that Obama's the general, and we have to support the general.
That's coming up in mere moments.
Steve in Long Island, great to have you here on the EIB network.
Hi.
Hey, hey, Russ, second time caller, love you show.
Thank you.
How are you doing?
Um I just wanted to talk to you about the uh the business travel industry.
Steve, can I ask you a question?
I just thought of this.
It will not take away from that which you wanted to speak about.
Oh.
Um you said the second time you've called the program.
Yes.
You like the program.
I love it.
Steve, why do you not hate me after the past week and a half?
Because I believe you to be always correct.
Most of the time, 99%.
You mean the smear campaign has had no impact on you?
Absolutely not.
Thank you.
I just I would think everybody would hate me by now, like they did Bush.
All right, go ahead.
Thank you.
Okay.
And there's a letter, the executives of ten major hotel chains sent to members of Congress.
I saw that letter.
Yeah.
Um I actually have it right in front of me, but uh the letter is basically scolding Congress for putting negative connotations on business travel and portraying it as excess.
And they're basically asking the government to tone down the rhetoric in the letter.
And I think it's kind of sad that it's taken a letter like this to inform these people that they're kind of destroying the travel industry intentionally or not.
Uh it it's sad that it's taken a letter like this to inv do you do you think members of Congress are unaware that they're destroying the travel industry?
Well, um, I mean, they might be aware of it, some of them might be.
How else do you explain this?
Yeah, well.
How else do you explain John Kerry standing up there and ridiculing any corporation which does traditional travel and entertainment to reward thank and build a customer base?
How do you how how do you say Barney Frank is ignorant does not know what he's doing?
When Barack Obama stands up there and says, the dates are taking a corporate jet in Las Vegas, those are over.
How do you how do you where is the benefit of the doubt on this?
They know exactly what they're doing.
This is class envy.
This is showing the little guy who's going to get nothing that the people they have been told to hate at the top of the ladder are going to get creamed.
And so the little guys who are going to get nothing but 13 bucks a week are supposed to be satisfied that Joe Rich CEO can't fly his jet to Vegas anymore.
Yeah, well, you know what's sad about this letter?
Yeah.
What's that?
This What's sad about, and I saw this letter, these hotel execs.
Bill Marriott's on there.
Somebody from Hyatt's on there.
Uh, which is amazing, because Hyatt is Penny Pritzker, which, you know, you can't tell when she's there and when Obama's not, because they're joined at the hip.
Um, but all Starwood, all these hotel chains.
What's sad?
What is sad is these guys write a letter and publish it in a paper begging the people who work for them to stop harming their business.
Uh, dear Congress, we think you're really hurting what we're doing here.
We really like you to roll back here.
Thomas is gonna say.
Where's where we what we need is the Cessna guy all over the place.
The guy runs Cessna, who ran full page ads to the business community saying, man up.
Don't let these people talk you and tell you out of your way of life.
Right.
All these letters of cowardice, this is what bugs me.
The day we we've got so many people big business people, supposed titans of industry, scared.
Right of people like Barney Frank.
That tells me Barney Frank's got way too much power.
John Kerry's got way too much power, that these people are wielding their power to intimidate citizens.
This is not how the Constitution was set up.
This is not how the framers envisioned this country.
Citizens were not supposed to write letters, sheepish letters.
Begging, begging relief from the paymasters in Washington.
This is not how we're supposed to exist here.
I mean, it's sort of upside down land, but uh I just I mean, I basically want to know when is Congress or Obama gonna experience their own collective, you know, ducoccus in the tank moment.
Uh it's gonna happen when, you know.
What what now see I'm a literalist?
When you when I hear you say when is Congress or Obama gonna experience their deconquest in the tank moment, understand Dukakis had no clue he looked like an idiot.
He did, and the Republican Party is the one that made him look like an idiot by putting a picture out.
So these guys are getting exactly what they want, and until somebody is willing to make them look like Dukakis in the tank, the American people are not gonna see them that way because they don't.
You know, we can't we can't sit here.
This is pardon me for getting worked up on this, but but when is Congress gonna realize it's doing X?
When is CO They know what is this about?
Who are liberals?
This is what they do.
This is why I don't want them to succeed.
When are they gonna figure out their mistakes?
They're gonna get away with as much as they can until they are defeated and in the minority.
But their objective is to see to it they're never defeated again.
Why do you think Acorn's getting all this money?
Why do you think Obama's re-election machine is getting all this money starting in 2010?
Federal money going to campaign coffers for Democrats in the guise of a stimulus bill.
When is Congress going to realize?
When's Obama going to realize?
That's that's the mockery.
That's that that's the joke of Warren Buffett and Andy Grove and Jack Welch.
Gee, I hope the president backs off.
Gee, I hope the president understands.
Gee, I you hope the president under We hope you will wake up and understand who it is you elected.
We hope the president will change.
Um, I wonder how many Venezuelans are hoping Hugo Chavez changes.
Well, you know it's not that many.
You know what is approval numbers are around 60, 70 percent.
You know why he controls the media?
There are Burging Saddam levels.
There are food shortages, energy shortages, a typical socialist country, more and more people living in poverty.
He's taking from the producers and distributing it, keeping a lot for himself, but he controls the media.
Every day the media message is how great Chavez is, how compassionate, how wonderful, how he wants the best for everybody.
He's the protector, he's the guardian.
People's lives are ruined, his approvals are in the 70s.
He owns the media.
And we ask, when's Obama gonna realize that policies are hurting the travel business?
When's Obama gonna realize that he's hurting the investor class?
When's Obama gonna realize that he's choking off an economic recovery by raising taxes?
When's Obama gonna realize?
I people need to come to grips with the fact that long before Barack Obama announced his run for the presidency, he had formulated plans to do exactly what the hell he is doing right now.
Ladies and gentlemen, I, as you know, have um dabbled in the stock market in my life, not nearly to the degree today that I have in the past.
One of the things that I was told when I first got into the market was don't play emotions.
Like don't choose a football team because you like the uniform.
Don't choose a stock because you like the logo.
Um try to be as dispassionate about investing as you can.
Any investment, you see the more emotional you get, the bigger problem you're gonna have getting out of it when it tanks.
If you start personalizing a stock or a company, then you're gonna be in trouble.
It's good advice.
Because when the thing that you have this emotional investment in goes on a downward trend, you have to be able to have no feelings to easily let it go and do the right thing.
Well, these business people, the Buffett's and the Andy Groves, and the Jack Welches, I don't know what their political persuasions are.
I'm assuming that they've been lifelong Democrats.
I'm also assuming that in the cases of people I'm talking about the really hyper wealthy, that they are equivalent to the Kennedy family.
You'll note the Kennedy family is never criticized as being greedy or wealthy or unfairly rich, because the Kennedy family spends all of its public time spouting liberalism, talking about compassion, and they spread a lot of compassion around with other people's money.
And so the Kennedy family gets away with uh are they they are they are exempt.
They are excused from the normal characterizations of the rich.
And I would presume that that's the motivation of people like Bill Gates and Warren Buffett and uh other hyper-rich.
They're already targets, so they cultivate a public image of, well, we're Democrats, we support Democrats.
Of course, Buffett was out there with Schwarzenegger.
When Schwarzenegger was sounding good at the beginning of his campaign to fix California when he was running for governor.
But regardless, I think, regardless of their political persuasions, I think these business titans have made an emotional investment in Obama.
I think a lot of Obama's voters have made an emotional investment, not an intellectually based investment, and they have no clue when to dump him.
You make an emotional investment, and it's tough to let go of it.
Because an emotional investment, you are investing yourself, not just your expertise.
You're giving whoever you're emotionally investing with part of yourself, and it's hard to break up.
Plus the guy's the president, it's access to power, it's I mean, how do you just how do you you just oh he's destroying the economy?
He's a great-looking family.
Oh, he's a guy who looks so good, an occasional cigarette, but still, oh, he sounds so smart, he's wrecking the economy, but I can't let go because ah, I love the guy.
Oh.
So they have to tiptoe around it and write these little pieces.
Gee, I hope the president realizes that.
Gee, I hope the president can realize that we need to end this chaos.
Gee, I hope some of the president's advisers.
Uh, well.
So whatever, whatever their charts are telling them, their personal wealth charts, their own portfolios, whatever their head's telling them, their heart is saying, I can't have go of the guy.
He's a president.
I supported him.
I had high hopes.
Gee, maybe he'll change.
They sound like disgruntled women in relationships.
Why won't the guy change?
Gee, I hope.
Can you imagine Wilma Flintstone saying, gee, I hope Fred learns someday to stop drinking too much.
Just leaving it alone.
You know, Wilma Flynn Stone's gonna be hiding the booze or whatever.
So this is what we're dealing with so deeply emotionally invested in Obama.
It's gonna take something big to shake them out of their love and devotion to that investment, and to get them to start having what they know is happening to become the dominant thought guiding their behavior.
And at some point, you stimulus to by there are.
I had a story right here.
And I haven't had a chance to print this out.
I just got it.
I don't even know where it's from.
If somebody can tell me where KHQ TV is, I can tell you where this is from.
You ever heard of watch it, you know, watch it be Port St. Lucy.
I know they don't have a TV station up there.
Anyway, the headline, a backlash against Obama's budget.
Business is marshaling its forces.
The target is the aggressive domestic agenda laid out in the first budget.
Private health insurance are mobilizing real estate agents want to quash it.
Multinationals are up in arms, small business owners, and they are.
I've got a small business owners are putting out some statistics about the devastate the trade group that represents them.
Putting out some Spokane, Washington, thank you.
The stories from Spokane, Washington.
The small business guys, their trade group is putting out statistics today of just how Mouse damage.
Now there are these undercurrents.
There is this effervescence out there.
And in addition to these professional large and small businesses, independent of Jack Welch and Andy Grove and uh and Warren Buffett, in addition to the mom and pop small business people that make the country work, you've got individuals who voted for the guy, who, folks, we know this to be true, who literally expected their gasoline tanks to never be empty by now.
And they expected whatever.
I mean, Obama was gonna make sure there were two pickles on the big Mac, not one.
They painted their own can oh, and Obama encouraged this.
They painted their own canvas.
It was a blank slate.
So there is a there's a there's a whole underneath the surface, the bubbles is starting to reach the surface now.
And we can roll this back.
We can stop some of this.
I know, got the porculus bill, and that's big, but some of it doesn't go into effect for a couple years or longer.
Well now I get this omnibus budget, and I I know that well for welfare reform is gone.
That was part of the stimulus package, by the way.
Welfare reform is gone.
The states now get more money for welfare per case they sign up.
I'm not saying what hasn't happened is devastating, but it doesn't have to be permanent.
So, and I'll tell you another reason I'm positive, folks.
For all this attempt to demonize me that the Democrats are engaging in, with all these ads they're running, they are spreading my message to new areas and pockets of America.
And since I am happy with everything I say, and since I mean everything I say, and since I believe everything I say to be accurate and correct, I'm happy that it's being heard by an increasingly large percentage of Americans.
There's opportunity there.
So yeah, I'm Frustrated by when's Obama gonna change?
When's he gonna realize?
There's a lot of emotional investment here, the historical nature of his presidency, candidacy, and uh and all that.
But at some point, all this is gonna fail.
And before the failure, there are gonna be a lot of smart people who realize we're failing, and it's gonna be big unless something's done about it.
Gotta take a timeout.
We'll be back and to continue after this.
By the way, folks, um, there was a monologue that I did in the second hour yesterday on the separation of powers, why we do not have a king, how the founding fathers put together a system of checks and balances, separation of powers that saw to it that a president would fail if he deserved to.
That monologue has been requested to be repeated.
We're gonna repeat it tomorrow and Friday at the top of the second hour, both days, Jason Lewis, guest hosting the next two days, uh out of popular demand.
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