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June 4, 2009 - Rush Limbaugh Program
36:23
June 4, 2009, Thursday, Hour #1
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Welcome to today's edition of the Rush 24-7 podcast.
It is a strange headline.
I have to agree with you, Mr. Sturdley.
It's uh I admit I was surprised I don't even know about it until somebody sent me an email about it.
E.J. Dion Jr. in the Washington Post today, the most incredible thinking.
Uh headline of his story, Rush and Newt are winning.
His point is that I, L. Rushball with a 30% approval rating, am dragging the state-run media to the right.
E.J. Dion Jr. claims that I, along with Newt Gingrich, are moving the mainstream drive-by state-run media to the right.
And he's upset about it.
Didn't know why everybody amplifies my rants.
He can't figure it out.
Russian neuter winning.
Hey, greetings.
Great to have you here.
Rush Limbaugh and the EIB Network and the Limbaugh Institute for Advanced Conservative Studies, a full three hours of broadcast excellence just for you.
Straight ahead.
The telephone number if you want to be on the program, 800-282-2882, the email address.
L Rushbow at EIBNet.com.
We'll get to Obama's speech in Cairo in just a second, but there are a couple of other things out there.
Ladies and gentlemen that I wish to address first, because they're just they're mind-boggling.
I have here in my formerly nicotine-stained fingers.
An AP story.
And the headline of the AP story is amazing.
Jobless benefit rolls fall.
Initial claims up.
The number of Americans on the unemployment insurance roles fell slightly for the first time in 20 weeks.
Cheer, cheer, rah-ra.
Great news.
Thank you, Obama, is the implication.
While the tally of new jobless claims also dropped.
Wow!
Obama's fabulous!
The stimulus is working.
The state-controlled media is now doing what we predicted earlier in the week.
But now wait.
All of this is a myth.
The number of Americans on the unemployment insurance roles fell slightly.
The tally of new jobless claims also dipped.
There's a because if you if you read, you've got to go halfway down this story.
More than the average American will spend time on a news story.
To find this.
And the way it's written is classic.
The unemployment rate, meanwhile, will rise to 9.2% from 8.9% in April.
Now wait a second here.
With the lead is the number of Americans on the unemployment insurance rolls fell, and the tally of new claims also dipped.
Yes, more people are going to work.
No people are not going to work.
More people are out of work.
Unemployment rate 9.2%, up from 8.9%.
Do you realize this is 0.2% higher than they predicted?
And now they're saying it might be 10% by the end of next year.
We've lost over 2 million jobs this year.
Since January, 2 million jobs have been lost.
There is no way to calculate jobs saved.
That is a myth.
Some other highlights here of the story.
The total jobless benefit rolls fell by 15,000 to 6.7 million the first drop since early January.
Continuing claims had set record highs every week since the weekend in January 24th.
The continuing claims data lag.
Initial claims by one week, but still a number of initial claims remain stubbornly high above the 605,000 level reached five weeks ago, but that was the lowest level.
And they're doing they're working so hard.
They are twisting themselves into pretzels to take this continuing bad news and try to put a good light on it.
There's one thing missing here.
Now I'm sure you're wondering.
How in the hell can unemployment go up from 8.9% to 9.2%, while AP Obama reports that the number of Americans on unemployment insurance fell.
How can that be?
I'll tell you how.
And there's something that they always included when reporting unemployment numbers with George W. Bush that's not in this story, and it is this.
I have to paraphrase it because I remember reading this in all the Bush unemployment stories, but it was these figures do not include the numbers of people who've just given up trying to find a job.
Or who think it's not worth looking for a job.
That's how it's gone up.
They're not counting the people who've just given up.
They're not counting the people who may have left the unemployment roles but don't have a job.
Because the state-run media is doing everything it can here, ladies and gentlemen, to prop up a bad economy in the minds of people to make it look like Obama's plans are working.
And then we have another AP story.
U.S. retailers report May's sales decline, except at Walmart, by the way.
Walmart's sales are through the roof.
They've got a uh a big employee meeting in Arkansas coming up soon.
And uh it's important to point out that uh Walmart is not unionized.
And the uh the story crediting Walmart's success, it's just it's just because of the recession.
Just because their prices are low and people have to turn there because it's the only place they can afford to shop, but Walmart's trick will be holding on to these customers once the economy turns around.
I think Walmart's already demonstrated they have a huge customer base.
It grows and they hold on to it.
At any rate, U.S. retailers reported same store sales fell in May below expectations, as pressures like rising unemployment.
Well, wait a minute, AP, you just said unemployment's going down.
This is the problem with the state-run media.
Not everybody's on the same page.
One state-run media story says unemployment's going down, even though they quote the rate going up.
Uh, and this AP story makes no bones about the fact that unemployment is continuing to rise, which curtails consumer spending.
The question I have, U.S. retailers reported same store sales fell in May below expectations.
What were they expecting exactly?
In this economic climate, what were they expecting?
Notably Walmart stores, the world's largest retailer did not report results this month.
They did.
I have it here in the stack.
Walmart sales are up.
They got big meeting coming up.
So uh it's now here's the E.J. Dion Jr. column.
Washington Post today, Rush and Newt are winning.
A media environment that tilts to the right is obscuring what President Obama stands for.
Closing off political options that should be part of the public discussion.
Yes, you read that right.
If you doubt that there is a conservative inclination in the state-run media, consider which arguments you hear regularly and which ones you don't.
When Rush Limbaugh sneezes or Newt Gingrich tweets, their views ricochet from the internet to cable television and into the traditional state-controlled media.
It's remarkable how successful they are in setting what passes for the news agenda.
The power of the Limbaugh Gingrich Axis means that Obama is regularly cast as somewhere on the far left end of a truncated political spectrum.
He's the guy who nominates a racist to the Supreme Court, although Gingrich retreated from the word yesterday, wants to weaken America's defenses against terrorism, and is proposing a massive government takeover to private.
He's not proposing it, he's doing it, E.J. You EJ, your premise is wrong.
We're not turning state-controlled media to the right.
It's just that I, maybe Newt now and then we're the only ones saying what we say.
Everybody else in the state-controlled media is an echo chamber.
Whatever dictation you get from Axelrod or Gibbs, you're right.
But there's an alternative voice out there, and it stands out simply by virtue of its stark contrast and difference.
I mean, what would be so hard, EJ, about you realizing and reporting that Obama is taking over the private economy.
He's not proposing to.
He's doing it.
What would you call a guy who gave a speech?
Somebody counted it up the other day.
His speech assuring the country what was going to happen to General Motors after bankruptcy.
Thirty-four times he used the word I. He never He never said we're going to get legislation to get this done.
I, the president, the president, and the White House statement that came out.
The President has deemed the plan put forth by GM uh workable.
We've got a miniature dictator in waving here in his own mind.
And he is taking over the private sector.
E.J. Dion Jr. is alarmed.
Steve Forbes writing for his magazine recently went so far as to compare Obama's economic policies to those of Juan Peron's Argentina.
I'm just put this out, but I think I did that first, too.
Uh, when talking about industrial policy and automobiles, that did it's and and Forbes is right.
This is out of Juan Perone's Argentina, and the only room waiting on it for Michelle to become a Vita.
And Michelle has now weighed in on Soto Mayor.
And Victor Davis Hanson at National Review has a brilliant take on this.
He's easy he's he is also convinced that anger is what is inspiring and motivating the Obamas and the Sotomayor's of the world.
They are angry.
Even though she's been appointed Supreme Court, she's still mad at the way she was treated at Princeton.
Michelle is still mad the way she was treated at Princeton.
That was the subject of her thesis.
These people have chips on their shoulder, no matter how high they first lady of the United States, and she's still mad, President of the United States, he's still mad.
I don't doubt this at all.
In fact, I mentioned that to Sean Hannity in the second installment of the interview that will run tonight on the Hannity Show of the Fox News Channel's second installment at 9 o'clock.
By the way, thanks to all of you with the wonderfully nice email notes about that interview is very kind.
More back to E.J. Dion Jr. here.
While the right wings rants get wall-to-wall airtime, you almost never hear from the sort of progressive members of Congress who were on uh an America's future panel on Tuesday.
Representative Jared Paulis of Colorado, Donna Edwards of Maryland, Raul Grijalva of Arizona, all said warm things about the President.
They're Democrats after all, but they also took issue with some of his policies.
As it happens, I'm closer than the progressive trio is to Obama's U in Afghanistan, but why are their voices, meaning these Democrat and Congress, have you ever heard of these people before I mentioned her names?
Why are their voices muffled when they raise legitimate concerns while Limbaugh's rants get amplified?
Poor E.J. Jesse just doesn't understand, even though he is a member of the state controlled media, he doesn't understand how it works.
See, for all the talk of a media love affair with Obama, there is a deep and largely unconscious conservative bias in the media's discussion of policy.
That is just uncomprehendable how anybody could view the state-run media today and conclude that it has an unconscious conservative bias.
Why?
Just because AJ, have you noticed when all these outlets that you decry use videotape or audio tape of me?
Have you noticed what they do with it?
They satirize it, they pound it, they criticize it, they loop the video, they try to make me look like the biggest buffoon on the face of the earth.
They are now running bulletins at NSNBC of uh of what I say.
But I here I am, CNN just announced the latest approval numbers.
I'm at 30%.
I have a 30% favorable rating, and yet I am dragging, according to E.J. Dion Jr., the state-controlled media to the right.
Welcome back, my friends.
Great to have you.
El Rush Ball, half my brain tied behind my back, just to make it fair.
Uh, here it is.
Uh look at who is actually saving jobs and uh creating them without a union.
Walmart stores has committed to add at least 22,000 jobs in the United States in 2009 to staff new or expanded stores.
The news is gonna boost investor confidence in the retail sector as the retailers have been hard hit by sliding consumer Spending.
Twenty-two thousand jobs at Walmart.
Without a single penny of bailout money, without any tarp money, without any stimulus money, and without a union.
It's the private sector.
Now we're gonna move on here to President Obama's speech in Cairo.
And I understand, ladies and gentlemen, I have studied the reaction to the speech.
Uh and part of my intense show prep today.
And I have detected maybe a consensus in all media quarters that this was a surprisingly good speech.
There's really not a whole lot here to criticize, and you better not criticize it.
If you criticize it, I he's a this is this speech.
I've somebody told me, and I'd hear this.
Somebody told me that somebody said that this speech is as important, is as powerful, was as important as Reagan's speech, Mr. Gorbachev teared down the wall.
Uh who said that?
Who?
Who?
Where?
Who said it's the equivalent of the I Have a Dream speech?
Well, anyway, it doesn't matter who said it, that's the general tenor.
The general tenor is a brilliant speech.
It's a better than we could have hoped for.
Don't criticize it.
It's only going to harm you if you criticize it.
So, with that in mind, let's play the first soundbite I have chosen to share with you from Obama's speech this morning at Cairo University.
This is near the end.
As a student of history, I also know civilization's debt to Islam.
It was Islam at places like Ulusana that carried the light of learning through so many centuries, paving the way for Europe's renaissance and enlightenment.
It was innovation in Muslim communities that developed the order of algebra, our magnetic compass and tools of navigation, our mastery of pens and printing, our understanding of how disease spreads and how it can be healed.
Islamic culture has given us majestic arches and soaring spires, timeless poetry and cherished music, elegant calligraphy, and places of peaceful contemplation.
And throughout history, Islam has demonstrated through words and deeds the possibilities of religious tolerance and racial equality.
Okay, I know we're not supposed to criticize Obama's speech here.
I know it's going way off the reservation here to do this.
But folks, that is outrageous.
This is simply outrageous.
It was absurd, in fact.
Let's see.
Where do we start here?
It was innovation in Muslim communities that developed the order of algebra.
No, the origins of algebra trace back to the ancient Babylonians.
They were not Muslims.
Algebra was primarily developed by the ancient Greeks.
And later, the English.
Our magnetic compass, tools of navigation.
Islam gave us these?
No.
Recent research suggests that the compass may have been discovered by Central Americans, but if they didn't do it, the Chinese are then its discoverers.
In either case, be it the Chinese or the Central Americans, the compass was discovered centuries before the advent of Islam.
Now, what am I supposed to am I not supposed to say this stuff?
Um, let's see.
Uh uh, let's see.
Uh our mastery of pens and printing.
Has anybody ever heard of Gutenberg?
I didn't know Gutenberg was a Muslim.
Uh, our understanding of how disease spreads and how it can be healed.
We have, are there are there Nobel Prizes for Medicine awarded to Muslims I have missed?
Islamic culture has given us majestic arches and soaring spires.
Well, sorry, folks, but arches and spires predate the arrival of Islam by centuries.
I mean, come on, folks, the arches.
Anyone heard of Rome.
He also talked about the great gift, timeless poetry and cherished music.
The only problem there is that music and musical instruments, especially, are forbidden in most Islamic traditions.
And it should be unnecessary to have to note Islam's religious tolerance has been demonstrated.
Okay, I'm take it away.
And greetings to your welcome back, uh, Rush Limbaugh here behind the Golden EIB microphone on the EIB network.
Ladies and gentlemen, I know that the uh the state-run media and uh and several people on uh on our side of the aisle are cautioning uh and counseling uh uh patience and restraint in the criticism of the Obama speech.
Uh that of course I ignore conventional wisdom, I resist the tug of popular sentiment.
But I tell you this if President Obama can give a speech like this about all of the quote unquote contributions to humanity from the ancient Muslim world, then take heart, my friends.
Be optimistic, because it may be that someday Barack Obama can give one speech about America and all of our accomplishments too.
I'd say it's unlikely, but it's possible, because the old adage, something that has happened can more easily happen again, and something that has not happened.
So it has happened.
Obama has found a way, even though it was a bit exaggerated, being restrained here to praise all of the ancient contributions of Islam.
It means, ladies and gentlemen, that before he leaves office he might.
It's a long shot, but he might also give a speech that documents all of America's contributions and accomplishments to civilization.
The uh traditional wisdom here is conventional wisdom is that uh that's his gutsy speech go over there.
Do what he did.
Uh my buddy Eric Erickson at redstate.com has a post here too uh reacting to this particular passage in Obama's speech.
Around the world, the Jewish people were persecuted for centuries.
Antisemitism in Europe culminated in an unprecedented Holocaust.
Six million Jews were killed, more than the entire Jewish population of Israel today.
Obama did say that, and that's gonna make Ahmadineizad mad because Ahmadini's, despite the fact Obama's cleared him to go ahead with nuclear power, is trying to say that it never happened.
But then he said this.
After acknowledging the Holocaust, Obama said, on the other hand, it is also undeniable that the Palestinian people, Muslims and Christians, have suffered in pursuit of a homeland.
For more than 60 years, they have endured the pain of dislocation.
Many wavelength refugee camps in the West Bank Gaza and neighboring lands for a life of peace and security that they have never been able to lead.
They endure the daily humiliations, large and small.
So what we have here, we have had the moral equivalence of 60 years of the Palestinians without a homeland to the Holocaust.
And we're supposed to sit by and react with restraint and understanding to this.
As Eric points out, the American Heritage Dictionary notes that the idiom, on the one hand, on the other hand, which is a famous...
That Obama does this, it That is used to construct an argument that says there are two sides of an issue.
So there are two sides to the Holocaust.
This is new.
There are two sides to the Holocaust.
Yes, I will admit graciously, six million Jews were slaughtered, but on the other hand, the Palestinians have been wandering aimlessly, seeking a home for 60 years in the desert.
I have to ask how is what happened to the Jews the same thing as what is happening to the Palestinians.
I'm sorry, those of you out there who don't want the speech criticized, but I have to ask this, because I'm a student of history and I deal with reality, and I want to know.
What where is the similarity here?
Have six million Palestinians been slaughtered in camps that I didn't hear about?
Because they're Palestinians, because they're Arabs.
The Palestinians, if they are to be pitied at all, it is for how they have been used by Arab states, predominantly the oil-rich states, the Saddams of the world, the Saudi Arabians, uh, to keep Arab populations up in arms and angry at Israel.
The Palestinians are not wanted by the Jordanians.
They are not wanted by the Saudi Arabians.
They're not wanted in the United Arab Emirates.
The Palestinians, the Arab world is content for them to wander aimlessly in the world because they know they have a pliant media that will blame Israel for it.
What President Obama did today is unconscionable.
To draw a moral equivalence between the slaughter of six million Jews and a political circumstance in Palestine that's largely brought on by Palestinian leaders.
The Palestinians, these six million Jews that were slaughtered were not terrorists.
They were innocent, the essence of innocent citizens.
The PLO, Yasser Arafat Hamas, whatever you want to call them, Hezbollah.
They spawned terrorism in their own country and in Israel.
They have harmed themselves with their own efforts here to wipe Israel off the map.
The Jews were not trying to wipe Germany off the map.
The moral equivalence here is striking.
I do not consider this to be or have been a gutsy speech.
He did not go there.
You know what would have been a gutsy speech?
I knew it wasn't going to happen.
A gutsy speech would have been had Obama gone there and outlined the long list of horrors committed by the militant wing of Islam against their fellow men.
Didn't do that.
He papered over it and established a moral equivalence for it.
Nor did he outline the long list of interventions by our country to save Muslims throughout the world.
Afghanistan, the Mujahidan, that we gave Stinger missiles that beat the Soviet Red Army.
Muslims, Kosovo, Muslims.
We have joined forces with Muslims against their oppressors, five or six different places in the world.
Obama did not outline our interventions on behalf of Muslims around the world.
To me, through Israel over the cliff, he acknowledged the Holocaust, some kind of major accomplishment on his part.
But we stand against the unleashing of another Holocaust, against anybody, Jewish people or otherwise.
Meanwhile, if there were another Holocaust, if Israel were to be wiped off the map, you would have the same standing ovations in the Arab world that happened after 9-11 happened here.
So my question, and I is a serious Question.
Can somebody tell me what is Barack Obama's plan for defending this nation, defending our allies.
Can you think of one has he articulated as President of the United States in his defense speeches, his foreign policy speeches, a plan to defend the nation.
He hasn't, and that is the problem.
It's as though he believes he can end all strife and end all words with his or all wars with his words.
Remember, he told Harry Reid he has a gift.
He has a gift.
He believes that he has this incredible power.
And he believes also that the rest of the world recognizes it and acknowledges it.
Israel's in deep trouble, and they know it.
Israel is on her own.
And they know it.
Brief time out.
We'll be back.
We'll continue.
I know, folks, I'm I'm trying to go easy here, because I know that the orders have come from on high, not to be critical or even analytical of the speech, because we're to take it as a whole.
It was a wonderful, wonderful thing.
It was equivalent to Ronald Reagan, Mr. Gorbachev tear down the wall.
I know that's conventional wisdom, but as I say, I, El Rushball, have always resisted the tug of conventional wisdom of popular sentiment.
And when I hear what I hear, and when I know a lot of it is made up, untrue.
Sorry, I have to point it out.
Mr. Snerdley just asked me what what do I think the reaction of the uh of the country club blue blood moderate Republicans will be to this speech.
That's easy.
That's easy.
Here's what here's what you look for.
Within 24 hours, the moderate Republican types we're talking about will find their way to the nearest cameras and microphones, and they will have big smiles on their faces and almost tears in their eyes.
And they will be so happy that finally the United States has been returned to the lofty position of honest broker in the region, meaning an honest broker for Middle East peace.
That will be what they have said, or what they say will have been the uh major accomplishment of the of the Obama speech.
Now just a prediction, but I I'm pretty good on these predictions.
Let's listen to another soundbite from Obama's speech in Cairo today.
Let's see.
Well, I don't need to set this up, just listen to it.
I consider it part of my responsibility as president of the United States to fight against negative stereotypes of Islam wherever they appear.
Just as Muslims do not fit a crude stereotype, America is not the crude stereotype of a self-interested empire.
Given our interdependence, any world order that elevates one nation or group of people over another will inevitably fail.
All right, now what do you think is the most important line in that sound bite, Mr. Snerdley as a student here?
What's the no, that's not the most important line.
That's an interesting thing.
I mean, uh I'm I'm sure many Americans uh find it interesting that uh a president of the United States considers it his responsibility to fight against the negative stereotypes of Islam wherever they appear.
But the most interesting line in that bite to me is the last sentence.
Any world order that elevates one nation or group of people over another will inevitably fail.
Now there is a foundational reason.
He's offering a foundational reason for the redistribution of wealth, not just within a country, but around the world.
That is, hello, United Nations.
This is a call for the end of sovereignty.
Somebody would have to mandate this.
And this that line, any world order that elevates one nation or group of people over another will inevitably fail.
Ladies, we all know the concept of American exceptionalism.
Nobody appointed us.
This has been my point for years.
We are no different DNA-wise than any other human beings on the planet.
No central authority appointed us a world superpower.
It happened.
We created it ourselves.
We did it with the distinct features that we in America were born to as a result of our Constitution and our declaration of independence.
Nobody elevated us.
There was no world order which said the United States is elevated as a group above any other nation.
And I don't know that anybody in the United States looks at ourselves that way.
We don't look at ourselves as better than anybody else.
We look at ourselves as an outpost of freedom.
The rest of the world wants to join us, emulate many places they want to tear us apart, too.
But this whole notion here that any world order that elevates one is of bye-bye American exceptionalism and hell all world order.
Somebody has got to come in and cut somebody down to size.
And that somebody is us.
Now I firmly believe that Barack Obama has as part of his agenda to cut this nation down to size, and I believe one of the reasons for it, aside from whatever ideological beliefs he has, is that he's angry.
This is a mad guy.
He hung around people who were mad all of his life.
His wife is angry all the time.
Sonia Sotomayor is angry.
She's angry at what she thinks was a life of disadvantage.
Because she was Latina.
That line, that that just line scares me.
Any world order that elevates one nation or group of people over another will inevitably fail.
Freedom will elevate people above tyranny.
Nobody assigns it, it just happens.
American exceptionalism now fails to exist.
And in Obama's mind, American exceptionalism was unjust and immoral anyway.
The fact is that free markets, opportunity for everybody, capitalism, competition, liberty, the rule of law, and not men, inevitably succeed.
Trying to force some kind of result, some kind of world order will inevitably fail.
And I see this last line in this speech as a call for a world order.
And when you have a world order where nobody's elevated above anybody else, either from nations to nation or person to person, what do you have?
What do you have?
When everybody's the same, in terms of outcome, what do you have?
You have socialism.
You have socialism and you have fascism, and you and you have the president of the United States discussing here the concept of a world order that would bring about that kind of sameness because it's immoral to elevate like we had nothing to do with our greatness.
Somebody appointed us, somebody anointed us, somebody elevated.
No, it just happened.
But now we're going to get cut down the thighs, and everybody's going to be the same because that's fair.
And this is the crux of the problem with Marxists, collectivists, authoritarians.
They lay out a flawed premise that everybody seems to applaud.
Oh, that sounds so wonderful.
Nobody bet anybody else.
Yes, we're all the same, we're all equal, but that flawed premise that a bunch of non-critical thinkers thus embrace allows the authoritarian to control human beings and their lives, supposedly for their own good, for their own welfare, and for fairness for everybody else in the world.
We all must sacrifice, do you see?
We all now the guy talking about how we all must sacrifice is the master.
He gets what we sacrifice.
He gets to control what we sacrifice.
This is a guarantee of worldwide misery with Obama and people like him benefiting from the so-called sacrifice he hopes to be able to impose to cut us down to size.
Gonna get to your phone calls early in the next hour, but wait till you hear the next example of Obama moral equivalence on women's rights.
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