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March 23, 2009 - Rush Limbaugh Program
36:16
March 23, 2009, Monday, Hour #1
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Welcome to today's edition of the Rush 24-7 podcast.
Am I on air?
I didn't hear I didn't hear the theme.
I didn't hear the theme music.
I didn't hear the intro, didn't hear anything.
I'm uh it it's uh it's Barkside here.
Anyway, uh I didn't hear was the was it uh did I get the big build up from Johnny Donovan?
I can't hear a thing.
I can't even think of my uh earphones.
It's uh it's an amazing thing.
But uh America's Hagabad is away today, and this is your undocumented anchor band Mark Stein uh sitting in.
Uh sorry about that, very unprofessional of me.
Uh don't know why.
Can't can't can't hear a uh thing in in the uh in the headphones.
Uh but uh oh I've just heard uh I've just heard somebody on the other side of the glass take corporate responsibility for it.
Okay, so it wasn't me, folks.
The uh astoundingly amateurish uh intro was not me.
Uh and if it was uh all I all I want to say is uh look I'm really good when the teleprompter's on, but you you know, just sometimes sometimes the teleprompter just goes down and uh I'm not there.
Uh anyway, so the the amateurish introduction was uh was uh by uh Obama introduction.
Uh-uh-uh-uh-uh, as he likes to say.
Uh that's uh I think that's Carmen Miranda, isn't it?
Uh uh uh uh uh I like you very much uh well fan fantastic stuff.
Anyway, America's Hangaban Away uh and your undocumented anchor man sitting in uh and uh that that uh uh that's great.
Great, terrific to be here.
Uh from the foreign exchange student wing of the Limbaugh Institute of Advanced Conservative Uh Studies.
It's a uh it's a terrific exchange program.
Guys like me get to come and study at the uh Limbaugh Institute.
And in return, Nancy Pelosi gets to do a uh couple of semesters at the Danish Academy of Confiscatory Taxation.
And uh Chris Dodd gets to uh study at the County Galway uh College of Home Decor on the beautiful west coast of Ireland.
And uh Bernie Frank uh gets an uh gets an adult education course in advanced theatrical outrage at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts in London.
So it works out well for everyone.
Great to be with you at the start of another week of excellence in broadcasting.
El Rushbow will be back tomorrow with highly professional uh show openings.
Uh so don't worry about that.
Nothing much happening today, just another lousy uh trillion dollar bailout.
What is what what is it today?
Uh more toxic assets?
Uh I don't know.
Actually, our opening of the show today was a kind of a toxic asset.
Can we get a bailout for that?
Anyway, don't worry, whatever it is.
There'll be another trillion dollar expenditure uh uh along next uh next week.
Just another twelve zeros tossed on the Obama bonfire of uh of American wealth.
Uh anyway, if you if you heard Johnny Donovan's intro just now, uh which uh evidently I didn't, uh Johnny uh Johnny calls me a uh no, no, no, no, no.
Now they're offered now they're now they're offering to play it again.
That'll make me sound even more ridiculous.
The man who needs two intros.
That's like uh Obama with the two teleprompter.
Uh you know, he's gotta have teleprompters every angle, just in just in case he misses one.
I mean uh I don't need I don't need the intro again.
Johnny Donovan uh calls me a former disc jockey, which is true.
Uh like Rush, Rush is a former disc jockey.
And uh critics are always bringing this up.
Uh I get a lot of stuff uh fellow saying, uh quote, nobody takes these theories seriously other than a few fringe extremists like the uneducated, illiterate former disc jockey uh Mark Stein.
Well, we former disc jockeys are holding our own.
Uh did you see this coup in Madagascar the other day?
Uh the headline, the headline was great.
Former disc jockey Andrew Ragiolina sworn in as Madagascan president.
Uh the previous president has been deposed by a disc jockey.
This is the first time in history.
A disc jockey has deposed a president.
Uh quote, and uh, you know, who knows, as Madagascar goes today, Washington may go tomorrow.
Uh Mr. Rajo Lena, a 34-year-old ex-disc jockey has suspended Parliament and set up two transitional bodies to run the Indian Ocean Island, uh unquote.
Now this is great news for uh power-crazed former disc jockeys.
I don't even know how he did it, because normally when you hear about these coups in these banana republics, you've got to be like a disaffected colonel in the armed forces to stage a coup.
Uh but now Disc Joggers are doing it, which I think I think is terrific.
Uh, and I wish this guy, uh President Rajiolina well.
He's uh he's a smooth talker, he doesn't need a teleprompter.
Uh in his first degree on uh state radio, he abolished Parliament and uh then did a traffic update and announced the winner of this week's competition.
Umfortunately, Washington does not support the coup in Madagascar.
The uh the Obama administration is cutting off all aid.
And uh human rights groups uh say this guy, Rajiolina has an appalling record.
Uh it's the Kathy Lee Gifford Christmas album.
Anyway, I'm just saying, don't provoke us former disc jockeys.
Uh, we're on the march.
Uh today, Antonarivo, and I think that's how you pronounce the uh Madagascar Capitol, and tomorrow Washington.
Uh so we may get into Madagascar politics in the course of today's show.
If you're an exiled Malagasy president for life, do feel free to call us uh 1-800-282-2882.
But of course, our main focus today will be on the sterling efforts of the Obama administration uh to bring the US economy in line with the Madagascar economy.
Uh he's doing a he's doing a fantastic job.
Um you may have seen the uh you may have seen the president doing his special Olympic shtick uh with Jay Leno on the Tonight Show last week.
Or you may have seen him uh yucking it up uh about the impending global meltdown with uh Steve Croft on Sixty Minutes last night.
Boy, that was pretty hilarious where he was just laughing at the way so much uh of America's wealth is just evaporating.
Because ha ha ha!
You gotta laugh.
This kind of stuff would get you down, eh?
Anyway, so he was like uh laughing it up on sixty minutes.
So you may have seen him doing that.
You may have seen him on the uh season finale of uh uh Dancing with the Stars, uh, doing the Lambarda with Cloris Leechman while simultaneously expressing his good wishes for the Iranian uh nuclear year.
Oh, I'm sorry, the Iranian New Year.
The Iranian uh nuclear year isn't for a couple of weeks yet.
Uh you may have seen uh President Obama guesting on uh Sesame Street uh uh duetting with Kamet the Frog on It Isn't Easy Being Green, a great performance.
You may have seen him reading the lottery numbers on South Dakota Megabucks.
Uh you may have seen him doing the Shamwell infomercial at uh two in the morning.
Uh uh you may have seen him on the security camera outside WZZZ A.M. in uh Dead Skunk Junction, banging on the door and offering to come in and read the farm prices.
But today, but today the EIB network is proud to present the world's first exclusive non-interview with President Obama.
In the next three hours, he will not be here.
He will not be here.
Uh you will not be able to hear him laughing.
You will not be able to hear him joking about the global economy, joking about Special Olympics, or anything else.
Uh he's he's not going to be laughing it up about the collapsing Dow, doing one-liners about the disabled.
It's not gonna be, it's not gonna be here.
If you're looking for the one stop shop for all your Obama personal non-appearance needs, this is it.
Now it's very rare in US broadcasting uh these days to find any airtime he's not hogging.
Uh, but the Rush Limbaugh show is it, at least until the new fairness doctrine kicks in, and then Rush, of course, will be sitting here like everyone else, slapping his thighs as uh as the president uh reveals how Tim Geitner's uh goofy incompetence always brings a smile to uh to all our faces.
Now, last week was an amazing week, an amazing week.
Uh President Obama compared AIG executives to suicide bombers.
His teleprompter went rogue on St. Patrick's Day and accidentally outsourced Obama's speech to the Irish Prime Minister, after which the President thanked himself uh for inviting himself to the White House.
Uh his office misspelt the name of the Brazilian president on his official visit.
Uh the British Prime Minister sits down at 10 Downing Street to watch the DVD of Psycho that the Obamas gave him.
Uh and uh have a think about that for a minute.
Isn't that a weird gift for one head of government to give to another the DVD of Psycho?
Anyway, he sits down to watch it and discovers it doesn't work in British DVD players.
And then when the White House is asked to comment on this, the official spokesperson, quote, snickers.
Uh anyway, then the commander-in-chief decides to make wounded soldiers returning from the battlefield uh pay for treatment for injuries received in service of their country.
Then he goes and does the first ever presidential disabled joke on national TV.
I don't recall Taft or Chester Arthur uh ever doing special Olympic shtick on the Tonight Show.
And then he rounds it all off on uh sixty minutes, clutching his sides of the collapsing economy, to the point where Steve Croft asked the president if he's punch drunk.
This is an unprecedented this is an unprecedented uh week in American history and one seriously weird presidency.
Uh now Rush was in killer form uh on Friday talking about this, and we're gonna stick with some of the themes uh that uh he was talking about.
There were there's basically three takes on Obama pre-November.
Uh the first was that he was this post-partisan moderate centrist reach across the aisle type.
Uh the second is that he's not a moderate, he's a doctrinaire leftist, marinated in left-wing politics his entire adult life, uh, and entirely committed uh to a European-sized uh social welfare state in America.
And the third is that he's an incompetent.
He wasn't qualified to be president, he was qualified to be uh a low-level community organizer in Chicago.
Uh he could just about do that, but he's now way out of his league.
Uh let's examine those three options uh on the show today.
I think the first thing we can say is that the post-partisan moderate centrist thing is bunk.
We know that's we know that's over.
For all the Obamacons, uh the Metrocons, the sophisticons, uh like David Brooks at the New York Times, Christopher Buckley, these fellows who were saying they liked his temperament.
Temperament, by the way, that's basically the New York Times equivalent of when uh Tiger Beat starts raving about the Jonas brothers being totally cool.
You know, he that they say, wow, he is just totally cool.
Uh and that's how what it means when David Brooks starts raving and Christopher Buckley start raving about Obama's uh temperament.
Uh but we know that is we know that is bunk.
The one thing that is not on offer in America right now is a bipartisan, moderate, a centrist presidency.
So that leaves us with the the other two options.
Uh that he's not a moderate, he's this he's this doctrine leftist can uh committed to a massive expansion of government that would fundamentally change uh the relationship between the citizen and the state, and I think would push us to a a tipping point uh that would condemn us to the same fate as uh many of the European economies.
Uh and the third is that he's an ac uh is an incompetent, that the guy is no when he's off the prompter, everything he says is uh either wacky or or slightly unpleasant, like his uh special Olympics thing.
Uh Rush was talking on Friday that he's not cool.
He's not cool, he's actually a cold man.
And I think that's uh there's some evidence for that.
The the uh when you look at uh what he was uh what he was saying on the tonight show, uh it's interesting to me that every time he's off the prompter and he says something, it comes over as at minimum uh as thoughtless uh and and at bottom as actually rather sort of hard and cruel.
He's the opposite of Bill Clinton in that respect.
He he doesn't feel your pain, and he doesn't care that you know it.
He does not feel your pain.
That's why he's on with uh sixty minutes uh and laughing it up as the economy goes down.
He spent two months helping to vaporize uh American wealth, and he thinks it's a terrific laugh.
He thinks it's gallows humor.
You know, gallows humor is when you're on the gallows.
He's not on the gallows.
He's still got his driver, he's still got his plane, uh, he's still got his book deal, things are going fantastically for him.
Uh it's it's everybody else who's on the gallows, as their jobs are going, as their 401ks are going, as their ho home prices are heading south.
That ain't gallows humor.
Uh that's that's the uh that's the uh sheriff condemning the man to the gallows and and whooping it up and roaring with laughter as the guy is led out and taken up the scaffold.
That's what that's what was going on last night.
So we'll get into all that uh in the hours ahead, the fastest three hours on radio, Mark Stein sitting in for El Rushbow on the EIB network.
Hey, Mark Stein on the uh EIB network.
Uh great to be with you.
Rush will be uh back uh back tomorrow.
Uh today the big news today is uh the next phase of this uh TARP thing.
No big deal, just another trillion dollars uh for toxic assets.
Uh this this guy, Treasury Secretary, uh the Tim Geitner, he's like a toxic asset all of his own, isn't he?
Uh apparently the markets are up Because he announced this toxic asset plan, but he didn't do it on TV.
Every time he goes on TV, the market drops five hundred points.
So uh like another six press conferences, you're not gonna need to worry, there'sn't gonna be a Dow Jones Index.
We can all relax.
But this time he announced uh the plan, the big plan, from a secure location, and the markets liked it, because they didn't have to see him.
Uh he's he's like uh what's the guy the g the groundhog in Pennsylvania, Punxatory Phil?
Treasury Tim, he sticks his head up sticks his head up above ground, uh, and if he sees his shadow, the American economy knows it's in for another six years of winter.
But anyway, today he's uh done his thing from the secure location and the market seemed to like it.
This new plan to toss another gazillion dollars down the hole, it's going over great.
Here's what the New York Times said.
Uh quote, three chiefs of investment firms said in interviews that they were impressed with the terms of the program, which would have the government lend nearly ninety-five percent of the money for any investment.
It's not really like an investment, then, is it, if you're getting ninety-five percent of the money from the government?
Anyway, uh but they they said they remain reluctant to participate because of the potential for future regulation.
Quote, the deal is good, but it's not worth it if I buy myself into a retroactive tax or a congressional hearing, unquote, the chief executive of a major investment firm said, insisting on anonymity because he didn't want to seem at odds with the Treasury Department in the event that his firm ends up participating.
This is right, you know.
The deal is good, but it's not worth it if I'm buying myself into a retroactive tax or a congressional hearing.
Uh that's right.
What's what's the point of letting the government into your company if you're gonna get a ninety percent tax slapped on parts of your salary and you're gonna be hauled up and humiliated before Congress.
I gather uh three, I think it was three AIG executives resigned on Friday on grounds of personal security.
This is all weird stuff because essentially we own uh these companies, the American taxpayers own these companies, and yet we're driving down their reputation and driving away their talent.
Uh I said uh I said at the beginning of the show, I'm an undocumented American, you know, so I slip across the border early in the morning with everybody else, and uh after an hour or so I bang on the trunk of the car and they let me out and I take a cab to the EIB studios.
But a reader wrote to me the other day and he said, uh well, looks like we're finally gonna be getting that border fence.
It'll be to keep American businessmen from fleeing the country.
Sad but true.
It reminded me of uh something John Kerry said back in back in the 2004 campaign.
You remember he was always going on about Benedict Arnold CEOs.
We will repeal every single benefit, every single loophole, every single reward for any Benedict Arnold CEO that takes American jobs overseas and sticks you with the bill.
Uh and then he decided that wasn't what he meant.
And he told the Wall Street Journal that uh Benedict Arnold didn't mean somebody who takes jobs overseas.
Uh but he was he said he was referring to people who take advantage of these transactions for tax purposes and give up American citizenship.
He goes, that's a Benedict Arnold.
You give up your American citizenship, but you want to continue to do business.
I had no idea what he was on about.
You know, Benedict Arnold CEOs who give up American citizenship.
I mean, is that a bit is that a big problem?
Uh because of tax loopholes, there are thousands of CEOs who find it advantageous to take out a me uh Mexican s citizenship and then swim back to America and and work as undocumented executives.
I had no idea, even by John Kerry's standards, it sounded goofy.
But uh, you know, cometh the hour, cometh the man, and and now it makes uh perfect sense.
Uh th we're gonna have to build a b uh uh a border fence to prevent corporate executives fleeing the country, uh taking up Mexican citizenship, and then uh swimming back across the Rio Grande and working as undocumented executives, which is the only way you'll be able to avoid that uh that ninety percent uh tax uh that uh that Barney Frank wants to wants to stick you with.
Uh as uh as a squire magazine said many years ago, it's Frank's world, we just live in it, unfortunately.
And uh if you if you are one of these people, if you're one of these people who thinks that in a dispute between the political class and the business class, it's in your interest for the business class to fail.
You are gonna get a very tough lesson in the years ahead of what happens when you kill the wealth generating sector of this country.
It's this is a no brainer.
This is a no brainer.
If it's uh Barney Frank and Nancy Pelosi uh and Barack Obama on one side, and uh the fat cat corporate executives on the other side, let them have their nickel and dime bonuses.
It's better than giving the government the power uh to levy 90% tax rates targeted at effectively specific individuals.
And now Obama on sixty minutes says, Oh, no, uh never mind the uh never mind the uh the the particular individuals, we'd like to broaden it.
We'd like to broaden the 90% uh tax cuts.
All that more coming up on the EIB network.
Hey, great to be with you for the start of another week of excellence in broadcasting.
Rush will be back tomorrow.
Don't forget, you can uh check out everything at uh Rushlimbaugh.com, but he will be here live in person uh tomorrow and through the and through the rest of the week.
Outsourcing, outsourcing, it's out of control now.
The latest thing is that uh the federal government has outsourced condoms to the Chinese.
Apparently the Federal Government spends billions of dollars of your money uh on condoms.
Not for any Nancy Pelosi activity, but for apparently to uh carpet bomb Africa with.
Uh and uh they used to uh they used to uh buy American condoms uh made in Alabama.
Uh uh w where's the town in Alabama?
Uh well it's not uh I don't Southeastern Alabama.
Uh but uh this town in Southeastern Alabama, apparently the condom capital of uh North America.
Fant uh uh fantastic place.
I don't know where I've never been there.
I don't know, as you go in as you go into town, they got uh like a giant condom in the town square or whatever.
Uh but they uh but they're there they were the condom capital of uh the United States.
And now uh but the problem is here, they price themselves out of the market.
The government used to buy condoms from this company in Alabama, ALATEC, for five cents a condom.
The Chinese uh were selling them for two cents a condom, so now the federal government has outsourced the massive uh American condom budget uh uh to the Chinese.
So the Chinese co the Chinese communists now, the communists, the condom unists, are getting the benefits of American taxpayer dollars uh as we've outsourced uh the the U.S. Agency for International Development, which buys ten billion condoms a year.
Uh I don't know what that's I don't know whether that fluctuates from admitted.
Did they buy more in the Clinton era?
I don't know.
And then it kind of dips.
I don't know, but it's apparently ten billion condoms.
No other government, by the way, they say the United States is no longer a world leader.
No other government buys as many condoms as the United States.
Uh we are the world's uh number one uh sub uh uh supplier of government condoms, but they're now made in China.
Everything, everything is outsourced.
EIB network, Mark Stein City in for Rush.
Let's go to Carl in Jacksonville, Florida.
Carl, you're on the Rush Limbaugh show.
Hey, how are you doing, Mark?
I'm doing great.
How are you?
Okay.
I was I was listening to you talking about him laughing on uh sixty minutes.
Yeah.
I I think the reason why he was laughing is because he he he's amazed because he's getting away with this.
Um they keep they keep throwing smoke screens up and everybody just keeps following the smoke screens and uh he's getting away with it.
And now he feels comfortable and now he's just gonna keep going and uh it's gonna I don't know, I think he's gonna ruin things.
That's all I could say.
Yeah, I'm beginning I'm beginning to think that's true.
And if you think about it from his point of view, he's right.
The thing is he can sit there and laugh.
And and and what's anybody gonna do about it?
Because the the fact is the uh media who basically gave us this guy, he's their creation, he's their invention.
They told us what he was.
Uh they took this guy, nobody wanted to know him.
He'd he'd just be some obscure uh state politician in Springfield if he hadn't been anointed by the media and raised up as the new Messiah.
Uh and he knows that they're so invested in him uh that they cannot afford for him to fail.
And although a lot of these kind of big shot columnist at the New York Times are now bailing on him, Maureen Dowd and Thomas Friedman and Frank Rich are all saying, whoa, what's happening?
This uh this kind of uh strange uh narcissistic incompetent wasn't the kind of guy we thought uh we thought we were we were supposed to be getting after uh after the hated Bush.
Uh in effect, uh in the end, they'll st they'll stick with him because if he fails, they fail with him too.
So they're not gonna they can't afford for this guy to uh to to uh to be a failure.
Uh thanks.
Thanks for your call uh your call, Carl, he's laughing, says Carl in Jacksonville, because he knows he's getting away with it.
It is one very weird interview, this sixty minutes interview.
It's strange to see a man talking.
I mean, it's weird.
It's like uh Doctor Evil in Austin Powers, cackling as he's plotting to destroy the world.
It's like the Dow will be down to three thousand by the end of the week.
He metaphorically had a uh had a Victorian mustache he was twirling while he was uh doing all that cackling.
Very, very weird.
Uh I don't know what I don't know what that's about, but uh if you haven't seen that sixty minutes interview, go and look go and look for it.
And the bit where Steve Croft asks, Are you are you punch drug is priceless?
Then the next interview, uh he'll be asking whether he'd like to see a doctor.
Uh it's uh it's uh it's a weird uh and slightly strange uh strange thing.
Let's take another call.
Let's go to Chris in uh Lee's Summit, Missouri.
Chris, you are on the Rush Limbaugh Show.
Oh, it's an honor, Mr. Stein.
I'm a subscriber to National Review and uh your last uh article in there, the USA was uh really really quite good.
Yeah, right.
That's uh that's about uh you that's actually quite an important point, you know.
We talk about America being the most powerful uh nation on the planet.
How is it then that every single bad Canadian and European idea comes to the United States, like socialized health care, confiscatory taxation uh and all that, and yet no good American idea like the First Amendment or the Second Amendment ever goes uh north of the 49th parallel or over to continental Europe.
The traffic is all.
I can't explain that, but I know that you're you're uh Canadian's uh the best export uh to the United States.
But listen, the the thing about uh Obama, he went on the Leno show last week, and everybody made a big deal about that special Olympics comment that he made, which I thought was off the hand it's not such a big deal to me, but um you know, if a conservative would have made it, it would have been a much bigger deal, of course.
But the the comment that really upset me was, you know, he talked about this uh dog that he was supposed to get and he chuckled it off and said, Oh, that was a campaign promise.
Ha ha ha.
Well, you know, he lied about Iraq bringing the troops home, closing Gidmo, and the lobbyists in his administration.
And when he said those things during the campaign, we all knew he was lying.
We all knew that he wasn't gonna follow through with that stuff.
And that that that uh that glibness, that that flippancy, that that hubris of his is just it it really upsets me.
Yeah, you are right, because uh he basically di did this uh slogan, change you can believe in.
And then what happened?
Uh he complained that uh American warplanes were bombing these uh innocent Pakistani villages.
In fact, he stepped up the unmanned uh raids uh over the Pakistani tribal land since then.
He's kept.
You know you're right.
And you know, why is it that Jay Leno gives him the toughest question from a journalist that he's had about this ninety percent taxes that Congress was gonna do on the AIG people.
And he actually asked that question in a somewhat serious fashion, and no other journalist in in the mainstream media has bothered to to give him such a tough question.
No, well they're still they're still invested uh in him.
And they and the upscale guys, the guys who thought they'd uh made enough for a comfortable retirement, your Frank Richard and Maureen Dowd's uh your David Brooks's uh and so forth, the big shot guys at the New York Times, they're horrified because they're seeing their their wealth just sort of vanishing before their eyes.
But if you're like you're like some salaried guy on one of these flailing American uh newspapers, you're still a little bit in love with him.
So w when they're in the press room, it's still oh look at me, look at me.
Please let me ask a question of you, your majesty.
Oh, you're so they're the most handsome princess.
Well, they ought to be embarrassed that somebody like Jay Leno, who doesn't know anything about politics, can ask a tougher question of the president on his show.
Yeah, yeah.
And but I t I tell you there's a reason.
There's a reason for that uh, too.
That uh that uh if you at a certain level Jay Leno understands that this is disastrous.
It's disastrous for his industry, uh it's disastrous for the vitality of American life.
If i once you accept uh that Congress can basically just identify groups of people they dislike and levy punitive taxes on them, then you're in Banana Republic territory.
That's Banana Republic territory.
And uh and good for Jay Leno uh for seeing that.
Thanks uh thanks a lot uh for your call uh Chris he's you know Chris is right that dog uh when he goes uh yeah I said I was gonna get a dog but hey that's just another brokered campaign promise what's the big deal who can keep track of the bull this guy is actually he he know he's laughing at us he knows that uh essentially he suckered the media into succoring the American public.
Why should he care about whether he lets us in on the scam now it does make so difference to him he's there.
Uh thanks thanks for your call, Chris lots more straight ahead.
This is Mark Stein sitting in for Rush on the EIB network.
Mark Stein sitting in for Rush on the EIB network.
Great to be with you at the start of another week of excellence in broadcasting.
Do you remember do you remember the what it was they used to say about uh Barack Obama he was uh he was the most brilliant orator.
Do you remember when he gave that speech about uh about racism that he could no more disown the Reverend Jeremiah Wright than he could disown his own grandmother and then ten minutes later he disowned Jeremiah Wright and whatever it was two weeks later he disowned his own grandmother or whatever it he was a supposedly the brilliant orator.
People said this is the greatest American speech they started teaching it in classrooms.
They said this guy is the greatest orator uh since uh Abraham Lincoln since Churchill since uh Henry V atincourt since uh since Socrates this guy is the greatest orator.
Uh there's a Yahoo News report now on uh what's it called?
A gaffe a minute.
I love this.
The reporter goes, the reporter's talking about how Obama isn't amazingly enough, amazingly enough, along with all the broken promises about his dog and rendition and Gitmo and overflights to Pakistan and all the rest, along with all the other broken promises, it turns out he's not actually that great a speaker.
And I like the way this reporter has smoothly segued in the space of moments from hailing this guy...
as the best orator since Socrates to now saying but in a way quote it's heartening to hear our politicians stumble over words, mangle syntax and make inappropriate jokes.
It shows politicians are human too sometimes unquote.
That's Yahoo uh that's a Yahoo News Today how come they never wrote that uh during eight years of the Bush presidency.
Now at last now at last we've got a bumbling lovable inarticulate president we can all get behind.
It's uh it's you it humanizes him.
Sure he was this smooth, cool uh super sophisticated dude all on the campaign trail but now he's j we can see he's just a bumble bumbling stumble bum inarticulate oaf like the rest of us oh that's heartling that is that is terrific news.
Uh let's go to Ed in uh Omaha, Nebraska and uh Ed, you're on the Rush Limbaugh Show.
Good to talk with you.
Mark it's very good to talk to you.
America Alone is a fine book.
Thanks thanks very much Ed But I had to take exception to your previous caller because uh well the reason I called is that my wife and I have a special needs uh 19-year-old daughter and she's cognitively challenged and she has epilepsy and she's also a member of the Special Olympics bowling team.
Right.
Now her average is about thirty eight and she tries her best and this is the best she can do.
So my question to you and all your listeners is this what kind of a man would use her as the butt of a joke on a national channel television show?
Well, Keith Olbermann at MSNBC actually attempted to give an answer to that.
He said on the evening this was broadcast, he goes, now there is one danger in this kind of environment, and that's in that in a relaxed, comfortable atmosphere.
That was the word he used in this, I think it was comfortable environment, something like that.
And what he was implying basically is that impeccably progressive liberal men, when they get too relaxed and too comfortable, find it somehow it's entirely natural, as you say, to make jokes about people with special needs.
This is the exact, this is the point, Mark.
In other words, what we saw there was a window on this man's soul.
I mean, he is relaxed and he is comfortable and he tells us who he really is.
But my question, what kind of a man would demean those of us who are perhaps least capable of defending themselves, this supposed champion of tolerance and diversity, to tell a joke like this at the expense of...
of these dear people.
And and what and what you're saying is right, that it's the assumptions behind the joke that are revealing that in fact uh that in fact uh he kicks loose, he he's relaxed, he's off the teleprompter, and as you say, you get a glimpse of who this man really is.
And this was Rush's point on Friday.
Uh one of the critics of this joke in the Chicago Tribune, a columnist in the Chicago Tribune, was writing, uh I believe that uh President Obama is a kind, compassionate person who doesn't uh who doesn't harbor uh bad thoughts about uh special needs children or people in the Special Olympics or whatever.
Uh but there's no evidence for that.
Basically, people have projected uh onto Obama what they think he is.
And and a lot of the evidence when he's off the teleprompter or when he's uh when he's just calling women sweetie, when he's doing his Nancy Reagan cracks, uh when he's doing his special Olympics jokes, is that actually this is a this is a uh an rather unlikable, arrogant man who uh con who looks down on everybody other than him.
Thanks, uh thanks for your call, Ed in Omaha, and uh certainly appreciate uh hearing from you.
Uh Mark Stein on the on the Rush uh Limbaugh Show.
You know, um we were talking about this business uh this tonight show appearance.
I agree with Rush, actually, that uh th that there's something unbecoming about a president who who uh only shines in a kind of popular culture environment.
Uh Christopher Hitchins has uh has a line that uh politics is showbiz for ugly people.
And and there's a lot of truth in that.
That that in a sense that's the that's there's supposed to be a difference.
A politician should not be entirely effective uh in a pop culture environment.
Uh and there's something slightly off about uh Obama complaining.
He was complaining for the uh the other day that uh people were criticizing him.
And he's going, oh, it's like American Idol and everybody's Simon Cowell.
Well, you're the American Idol president.
You basically uh ran and won uh as a kind of presidential idol contest.
And you're now like, you're now in the situation uh of these uh uh of these American Idol winners who then uh go on, they win the competition and they make their first C D and uh fifteen of the sixteen tracks are lousy, and you realize that that the guy actually, uh aside from uh winning the uh uh presidential idol contest hasn't got the uh sustaining talent uh to go the the difference, but the the the distance.
But the idea of complaining that everybody is being Simon Cowell, uh when you're gonna run around uh doing your March Madness, uh and uh doing your March Madness picks, going on the tonight show, when you're basically living as a pop culture president, don't then come on and tell us, oh, you know, everyone's uh being like Simon Cow to you.
You put yourself in in in that league.
This is uh Mark Stein sitting in for a rush on the EIB network.
Lots more straight ahead.
Mark Stein for Rush on the EIB Network.
El Rushbow will be will be back tomorrow.
Uh we were talking about the way uh this is going with uh the the uh Obama devotees uh jump and jump in ship.
Uh thirty days in it was all the Obama cons, the uh guys who thought he was gonna be Mr. Moderate Centrist in it.
Uh now sixty days in, we got the New York Times guys jumping off.
Uh my favorite is Michael Wolf, Michael Wolf of Vanity Fair.
And his he's he he's written this thing.
Barack Obama is a terrible bore, which is a very uh vanity fair way of uh uh looking at it.
It sounds like Gore Vidal uh pronouncing on Barack Obama.
But the the opening line is, Sheesh, the guy is Jimmy Carter.
You know, I d I it's not often I come to the defense of Jimmy Carter.
Uh but look at it this way.
This is March.
This is March twenty-third.
Uh sixty days in.
Sixty days in.
There's been th there hasn't been a president like presidency beginning like this uh in living memory.
Uh it's unfair to Jimmy Carter.
Jimmy Carter should be suing for defamation over comparisons like this.
Because if you go back to March 1977, e even Jimmy Carter wasn't Jimmy Carter then.
I mean, Jimmy Carter took longer to become Jimmy Carter than Barack Obama's taking to become Jimmy Carter.
This is unprecedented.
Uh this is unprecedented.
We'll be talking about that at Lots more uh straight ahead in the fastest three hours on radio.
Uh two hours still to go.
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