Welcome to today's edition of the Rush 24-7 podcast.
It was a teachable moment, although I think fewer and fewer people need to be taught.
So one day last week, the regime launches into John Boehner.
Obama's in Ohio launches into John Boehner.
A couple days later, the New York Times with a major, major hit piece on John Boehner.
And then the CBS uh Slay the Nation show yesterday with Bob Schiefer.
CBS obviously working with the Democrat Party, tried to get Boehner on the record for being against tax cuts for the so-called middle class.
The Democrats had already made commercials that they intended to roll out today attacking Boehner for what they thought he was going to say.
But he crossed them up.
What does it say, though, that CBS and the New York Times, the rest of the media work so closely with the Democrats campaign, not just with the Democrat Party, but now with the Democrat campaign.
And if you notice, we're about to now retitle the Bush tax cuts, they're going to be called the Obama tax cuts.
We are going to re-gift.
They'll be re-gifted as the Obama tax cuts.
Now keeping the uh keeping the Bush tax cuts on the middle class means very little if you raise taxes on small businesses and others who hire people in the middle class.
So once again, the supposed beneficiaries of all of this wonderful compassion, uh, the little guy gets shafted again.
Greetings, great to have you here.
Full week of broadcast excellence.
Oh Rushbow.
Uh after the opening weekend of the National Football League season, which sees Snerdley fit to be tied over the performance last night of the Dallas Cowboys.
He came in here beside himself this morning asking me how can that stuff happen.
And of course, he instinctively knew how it could happen.
He had all the answers, but he wanted to hear from me because I am the well-known noted expert on uh on all of that.
Well, if you didn't there's so many things wrong in Dallas based on so many presumptions that are uh are incorrect, but we'll we'll get to that in uh in due course.
I have a little chart here.
This has been put out by the uh associated press tax scenarios.
The most sweeping tax cuts in a generation due to expire at the end of the year.
Congress set to take up the issue this month if they do nothing.
Families at every income level face tax increases next year.
Now we've been told all along these Bush tax cuts were tax cuts for the rich.
Now, these numbers, I know numbers are sort of hard hard to follow on on radio, but 2011 income.
If you make between 40 and 50,000, about 13 million such taxpayers, they will have an increase of a thousand dollars, 923 bucks.
If you if you earn between 50 and 75,000, that's 24 million taxpayers.
Their taxes go up 1,100.
So what are we up to now?
Up to 36, almost 37 million taxpayers from 40,000 to 75 now.
Now let's go 75 to 100,000 income.
15 million taxpayers.
Their taxes go up about 1,800.
So we got uh 30 36, 51 million tax returns from 40,000 to 100,000.
Let's go to 100,000 to 200,000, 17 million tax returns, those people's taxes annually go up by 3600.
So where are we now that uh uh see uh uh see we're looking at uh 13 that'd be uh 30 36, 5051, 1667 uh million taxpayers.
I better write that down so I don't forget it, because I'm doing this manually in my head.
All right, now if we go from a hundred thousand or two hundred thousand to five hundred thousand, you got three point seven million.
So it puts us up to 70, let's say 71 million taxpayers, between 40,000 and um uh 500,000 a year.
500,000 to 1 million, we got uh 608,000.
Why?
Look at that.
Between 500,000 and 1,68,000, that takes us 71 to 71.8 million, and 1 million dollars and over 315,000 tax, why that takes us to 70, but let's say 74 million.
So from income 40,000 to 500,000 a year, 72 million taxpayers.
$500,000 to a million and over adds three million.
Uh and 500,000 and over adds just not even one million.
That's a small number of taxpayers.
Just and we're only gonna raise taxes on them.
Now, if if you are 200 to 500 grand a year, taxes are gonna go up $7,000 a year.
If you're 1 million and over, your taxes go up a minimum of $101,000.
Now I haven't even touched on the income of $10,000 to $20,000.
There's $24 million of those.
$20,000 to 30,000, $18 million of those.
$30,000 to $40,000, $50,000.
It proved the old point.
You could confiscate.
You could confiscate, not just tax.
You could confiscate all income over a million dollars in this country.
You could run the country for a day or two.
If that's all class envy, it's all smoke and mirrors, and now they're trying to say that Boehner is against tax cuts for the middle class.
They expected Boehner to totally oppose any uh tax cuts if it didn't include the rich.
And they already had commercials produced ready to go, but he crossed them up on that out there.
And so now he's getting hit from the Republican side for not having the fortitude to go all or nothing.
Let's go to the audio sound bites and listen to a little bit of this.
Face the nation yesterday, Bob Schiefer, in a setup.
Schiefer and the Democrat campaign had already spoken.
Here's how we're gonna go after Boehner.
They take the lead of the New York Times.
You know Boehner's had a relationship with lobbyists.
Really, yeah.
John Boehner, a Republican member of Congress, has relationships with lobbyists.
Yeah, what's really scandal-plagued Boehner is out there.
I mean, it was a full-fledged hit piece.
It hasn't um it hasn't gotten a whole lot of traction, but the whole thing is coordinated.
From the White House on down to Democrat campaigns to CBS and the New York Times, which they're already united in their in their polling unit.
So here's Bob Schiefer's trumped-up question.
You um you're saying you would vote for the middle class tax cuts if that's all you can get.
This is not what Schaefer wanted to hear.
Scheefer's question was you mean if you don't get tax cuts for the rich, you're gonna oppose tax cuts for the middle class, too?
Is that that's what they were hoping that Boehner would say.
He didn't say that.
Here's his answer.
That's what we can get done, but I I think that's bad policy.
I don't think that's gonna help our economy.
And I think the other thing that has to happen is that we've got to cut spending.
If we cut spending, we will help our economy.
We will send signals to the markets, we will send signals to the business community, the Washington's attempting to get us fiscal house in order.
That's why the two things that I called on the president uh to do this week uh was to extend all of the current tax rates, and uh let's do a spending bill this month, not after the election.
So they took one thing there uh that that he would go along, go along with it, but he would not support tax cuts for the rich to try to get him in trouble with the Republicans when their original effort was to get him in trouble with the whole country.
Now, all these tax cut numbers, and it's hard to follow on the radio, I know.
So that's why I summed it up.
You could confiscate all income of over a million dollars.
Just take it, a 100% tax rate on all income over a million, you run the country for a couple days.
Uh it hasn't changed.
The vast majority of income in this country is middle class income.
And yet, while all those numbers are fascinatingly interesting, uh One of the main focal points of face the nation yesterday was that Boehner smokes.
Boehner smokes cigarettes.
Now so does Obama, but we don't hear much about that anymore.
But Boehner smokes cigarettes.
Yeah, and Bob Schiefer on the case.
Mr. Boehner, I'm gonna ask you this question because I'm not objective about it.
I'm a cancer survivor.
I used to be a heavy smoker.
Do you still smoke?
I do.
You have taken $340,000 from the tobacco industry.
They've been the largest contributor to your political campaigns over the year.
How do you square that with the fact that uh cigarette smoking is the leading cause of preventable deaths in this country?
435,000 people uh their deaths are linked to cancer.
That's one in five.
How do you how do you justify that in your own mind?
Bob, uh, tobacco is a legal product in America.
And the American people have a right uh to decide for themselves whether they want to partake or not.
Yeah, and it's gonna remain illegal because of the tax revenue that is generated by its sale.
Now, uh Boehner's answer, I kind of like the hey, it's my life, it's my business.
If I want to smoke, screw you.
It's a legal product.
But have you ever heard them go after Obama on this?
The oh the the what when it comes to Obama and his smoking, oh, oh, he's really trying hard to quit.
Oh, he doesn't smoke in front of the kids.
Oh, he's got so much pressure on him, but he knows, he knows his man.
He's trying to give them up.
He'll still smoke 450,000 people dead every by the way.
This reminds me, I'm going back and forth on whether I ought to mention the car company.
I'm watching the National Football League yesterday.
Do you see this?
Do you see the one with the polar bear?
Well, what I'll tell you what upset me about the ad is not so much since it's a Nissan ad.
I may as well mention it.
Nissan obviously puts this ad together thinking that this is a way to sell a whole bunch of cars.
Now, I hope that they are wrong.
I hope every whoever's doing their market research is biased to the hilt and is misleading.
If you didn't see the commercial, it is pathetic.
Al Gore could have written a thing.
It starts out with a poor little polar bear barely surviving on a tiny little what is supposed to be melting glacier, which is common ordinary practice, an ice floe.
The polar bear can swim 60 miles.
They go out there and they cool off on these things, sit in the sun on them.
Then it shows a distant glacier that the small little puddle broken off from, and then the polar bear swims and swims and swims and swims, and finally gets to the iceberg and keeps keeps keeps going,
keeps going, keeps going through neighborhoods, goes all the way down to America from the North Pole, all the way to America, and finally, finally finds a driveway where there is an electric car, sneaks up on the owner who was about to get in it, and gives the owner a hug.
The polar bear with tears in its eyes gives the the frightened owner of the Nissan a hug.
For supposedly doing something to save the polar bear.
The whole thing is just a fraud.
It is 100% hope.
Now they're entitled to do it.
They got market research, obviously that says this is a way to sell the electric car.
Sell it with guilt.
Sell it to these Nimrods who think like this idiot who uh took hostages at the uh at the Discovery Network building.
But man, I thought we were past this.
I guarantee I no, I can't guarantee you.
But it has to be that somewhere in this advertising chain, either at the agency, or somewhere at the creative in the automobile company is somebody who wants to get their political views in Nissan's advertising.
And as as convinced executives at Nissan, this is a way to sell the car.
In the midst of all of this being exposed as a hoax, all of these photos showing stranded polar bears...
Also to be photoshopped and uh and misrepresented.
I don't know what made me think of this with uh John Boehner smoking a heavy it's a whole it's it's the whole thing with CBS and the New York Times ganging up on Boehner uh in collaboration with the White House to advance a leftist agenda.
In Delaware, an amazing thing is happening in Delaware.
Christine O'Donnell is three points ahead of Mike Castle.
Mike Castle is the Taylor, I was at a dinner party Saturday night of a lot of people.
Must have been we're sitting at a circular table, must have been 14 or 15 people.
And the host went around the uh the table saying, one being we're in great shape, ten means the end of America.
Where would you put America on a scale of one to ten?
Ten being finished, one being Fat City.
And the host said, and he gave a very famous name, somebody he respects, thinks that we're at an eight.
The table seemed shocked.
So people around the table explaining where they thought the country was.
And of course it came to me.
And I said, uh eight, six, whatever, not to point to me right now.
I mean, if it were eight, I'd probably hang it up and go to New Zealand.
You know what I always say here.
I said the thing that concerns me the most is that we are, the Republicans are blowing the single greatest opportunity we have ever had to blow liberalism out of the water forever, and to establish a party that can roll back big government, intrusive government, and fix this once and for all.
I don't know why we don't learn from the 80s.
I don't know why people do not learn that liberalism fails and is misery every time it's tried.
And uh somebody brought up the Delaware Delaware race, and I said, Well, you know, um, I have no brief for Christine O'Donnell, but I'm just gonna tell you a Senate full of Mike Castles is not gonna get us anywhere.
It's gonna get a bunch of Republicans, their chairmanships on the committee, but it's not gonna do anything to reverse Obamaism.
Not one thing.
It's not gonna, if if if that's if that's our majority with a bunch of Mike Castles there, we're in trouble.
I was the only one at the table who thought this.
Yeah, and this is a table of Republican cons.
I was the only one, well, at least the only one who was willing to say it.
Some people did chime in later to one degree or um or another.
Uh some were Northeast Republicans, yeah.
Some are Northeast Republicans.
But I uh look, I this is this is don't misunderstand.
I'm just gonna put feathers in my cap.
That's not the point here.
Uh it it's just that uh the in a lot of places Republican victory is all that matters.
No matter who the Republican is.
And now the the Republicans and the and the some official Republicans are actually in a panic over the fact that this Christine O'Donnell woman is leading Castle by three points.
Anyway, uh a little long here, quick timeout, lots to do on the program today.
We'll get to it right after this.
Now I'm gonna go back to this Nissan ad for just a second.
Because there's something really, really, really dangerously wrong about the Nissan ad.
My friends, don't ever try to hug a polar bear.
You will die.
A polar bear will rip your hair.
If a polar bear shows up in your driveway, run for the hills or don't leave your house.
Do not go out there and let it hug you.
Uh headline, polar bear attacks woman in Berlin Zoo.
April 11, 2009, a polar bear attacked a woman at Berlin Zoo Friday after she climbed a fence and jumped into its habitat during feeding time.
She wanted to show the polar bear that she felt sorry for it, that she understood and supported efforts to make its habitat safer.
No doubt inspired by other lunatics in the environmental fringe like Algore.
So not only is the Nissan ad Russia, you really don't want any Nissan advertising in the I you gotta call them the way you see them, folks.
Would you be saying this if Nissan were a sponsor?
I don't deal in ifs.
Bottom line is, I'm just telling you that there's no such thing as a polar bear's habitat being threatened by the kind of car you drive.
And but the thing is, a polar bear's not going to ever hug you.
A polar bear is a predator and will rip your head off.
Each and every time you give it a chance to.
Yeah, it's little kids watching this stuff.
I mean, you never know.
They're very impressionable, as are, as we've seen these nutcases inspired by the likes of Al Gore.
They go out there and they take hostages, take over entire buildings of TV networks.
By the way, Schiefer wasn't through with Boehner on this uh uh smoking business.
You know, Boehner said, Well, look, it's a legal product.
People have a right to do with whatever they want.
Schiefer was not satisfied.
Well, I mean, they they have a right to shoot themselves if they choose to, but I mean, uh, shouldn't we do something to try to encourage them not to?
I mean, do you think that's a good example?
Well, listen, uh, I I wish I didn't have this bad habit.
It is a bad habit.
Uh, you've had it, you've dealt with it, but it's something that I choose to do.
Uh, and uh, you know, at some point, maybe I'll decide I've had enough of it.
Well, I mean, if if you should become speaker, uh, you could set a good example for the country by uh saying I I'm gonna try to stop smoking.
Maybe you'll get the president.
I understand he smokes too.
Hey, Winston face the nation has officially become a debate now.
Over morality.
Can you imagine Bob Schiefer, a far-left fringe news guy attempting to impose his morality on Baehnard.
Bahner said, I like it.
I like smoking cigarettes.
By the way, you know, these electronic cigarettes here, they're trying to put them out of put them out of business because there's no tax revenue raised.
When you go out, I mean, not the exorbitant taxes that are placed on uh on tobacco.
Anyway, brief time out, time flying already, Monday, back after this.
On the cutting edge of societal evolution, El Rushbo serving humanity simply by showing up, you know, John Boehner and uh a lot of smokers are actually funding children's health care programs.
You know, I've I have made this point throughout the whole period of time that there have been a tax on smoking.
At some point, you know, we keep raising taxes on tobacco products, and the money is going to what?
It's going to things that people consider very seriously important.
Children's health care plans, education, and what have you.
So what if we were really serious about eliminating smoking?
What happens if we have a 100% successful campaign to get everybody quit smoking?
Do you realize the number of government programs would be funded with zero?
You'd be stunned.
Now, nicotine is the most addictive drug on the planet.
Nobody has a pleasant first experience with it.
Unlike most other drugs.
I mean, you've ever seen somebody take their first inhale of a cigarette, they have a coughing spasm, and they vow never to ever do it again.
Just like somebody who gets drunk and throws up, they vow never ever to do it again, and within minutes they're back at it.
Well, it's the same thing with people that smoke cigarettes that get started.
It's a very addictive drug.
So totally wiping it out would defund.
I I've I've I've said in a half-serious way numerous times, smokers deserve medals.
Because they are risking their own lives for the children.
They're funding children's health programs.
And of course, that that impeccable logic is met with the usual derision.
But stop and think if we were ever really successful and ask yourself if government really does want to eliminate smoking.
The product remains legal.
It's a cash cow for every cash cow for lawyers, it's a cash cow for states, it is a cash cow for federal governments and agencies.
There's no way they're gonna ever make tobacco illegal.
So when moralists like Bob Schiefer come along, they gain a lot of credit for compassion by suggesting We do everything we can to make people stop smoking, but the people that are putting taxes on cigarettes and making all these anti-smoking cigarette PSAs are not really serious about it.
If they were, we'd ban the product just as we've banned other things we don't want people to do, and we start chasing people who do it.
There was a lot less anger out there when people smoked.
I I I um I'll tell you something.
I've recently discovered these electronic cigarettes.
I occasionally puff one here with a ditto cam on, and I get people, I can't believe you've succumbed.
I thought you quit cigarettes.
Oh no, what have you done?
It's just they're electronic.
There's no tobacco in these things.
Purely electronic.
Here, you watching on the ditto cam now, this is an apple-flavored electronic cigarette.
What are you smirking at, Dawn?
I have a little story here.
Inside this green, what looks like the filter, that's where the nicotine is in a liquid.
There's an atomizer in there, and the long part that looks like the cigarette itself is a battery.
And when you start sucking on this thing, the atomizer creates water vapor.
It looks like smoke.
It's fun.
You know what I love to do?
I love whipping one of these things out in an elevator.
Folk, you know me.
I love irritating the status quo.
I love irritating the politically correct.
At a bar, it is really fun to whip one of these things out.
It doesn't take long before the manager comes up, uh Mr. Limbaugh, there's some complaints.
We really have a no-sming policy here at such and such bar.
I said, Well, it's not, it's not a cigarette here.
Look, and I demonstrate it.
Now, here, let me blow this in your face.
So I suck on the thing, I blow it in their face, and it actually, ooh, that does smell kind of like vanilla, or it smells kind of like chocolate or apple.
And they smile and they go away, and then it happens more often than not.
The guy comes back and says, Mr. Limbo, you're still upsetting people.
Why?
Well, it looks like you're smoking a cigarette and it's making them uncomfortable.
Well, why?
It's not hurting them.
I know, but would you please just not do it?
Smoking's not allowed.
I'm not smoking.
I'm water vaporing.
It's no different if you put a vaporizer with Vic's vapor rub in it here on your bar.
Oh, Mr. Limbo, it's uh we understand, but some of our.
And so I look around, who are these nattering naybobs, and I can spot them in an instant.
I can spot the people looking at me, shooting daggers at me.
I know who they are, and you know what they're upset about.
What do you think they're upset about, Brian?
They're upset that I'm enjoying it.
They are upset that I'm having a good time with the fact that there are no carcinogens, the fact that there's no odor, the fact that there's nothing offensive about it other than the way it looks to them, doesn't matter to them.
They still want to wait in there and stop me from doing it.
Now, let's say, by the way, guess who's trying to put these people out of business?
There's a bunch of different manufacturers and sellers of the electronic cigarette.
And the big pharmaceuticals are lining up against them.
The uh the FDA is now going to conduct hearings on on this of whether or not it's um feasible, whether it's healthy.
They're gonna try to find some health concerns here with water vapor.
But it's all because they're cheaper than cigarettes.
With the taxes on cigarettes now, they're cheaper than cigars.
They're cheaper than nicerette gum.
They're cheaper than the patch, depending on how you use them, but there's no tobacco tax on them.
And so you see, my my whole point with this is this is a for somebody trying to quit smoking, the electronic cigarettes a good way to do it.
And they don't really want that.
Because there's no tax revenue with these things.
I guarantee you, if they if they find a way to attach equivalent taxes equal to tobacco taxes to the electronic cigarette, everybody be fine with it, I guarantee you.
Um I don't know if uh Indian reservations are in the uh in the e-cigarette market or not, because they don't charge any sales taxes.
They don't have to charge sales tickets on their cigarettes.
I don't I don't know.
I don't know if you can buy an e-cigular reservation or not.
I've not I'm not actually tried.
I just I just find all this moralizing, all this proselytizing, all this I'm better than you stuff.
There was an interesting story over the weekend on a blog.
I wish I could remember who wrote it.
I don't have it at the top of my head here.
But it was um is a conservative blogger attempting to tell people why Sarah Palin is hated by Republicans.
We all know why Democrats hate her and liberals.
But why do certain Republicans hate her?
In fact, why does everybody hate her?
Why do people not like Sharon Angle?
Why do people not like Christine O'Donnell?
And this blogger's theory, which I think has a lot of potential, is that it's about status.
That if somebody from the wrong group happens to succeed, happens to rise to the top, then it threatens the membership of people who are really unqualified to be in the ruling class.
This guy, this guy had a theory that one of the reasons for racism all the way back to the early days of this country up until the mid-60s was a status thing.
He said if you look, most of the racists in this country were poor, um, rural, white, and they just they they didn't want to be considered at the lowest rung of the status letter.
And uh always making sure there was somebody beneath them on the status letter was important to them.
Now, first I've heard of this analysis when I first read it.
Well, this may be worth thinking about.
You you when you when you look at it with the Sharon Angle business or the Sarah Palin business or not a Christine O'Donnell, and you look at the Republicans who are opposing these new conservative candidates and doing so with passion, and you say, okay, they would prefer to have somebody like Mike Castle elected, who is I mean, not even as good as McCain.
Well, what what good is that gonna do the conservative movement?
These are supposedly conservative people who are out trashing conservative candidates in favor of the professional, more so-called moderate Republicans like Castle and like Chris Chase and so forth.
What is what does that get us?
And this blogger's theory is that, well, some of these people who are ripping into Angle and ripping into Christine O'Donnell are really insecure about their own status in the ruling class, and they want to remain in it,
and they see what the power brokers of the ruling class are doing, and that is opposing the Palins, the O'Donnells, the uh the George Demoses, all these Tea Party people, and they're taking their lead from that.
Don't want to lose their status in the ruling class.
And I the reason why it's interesting to me is on the surface, it is hard to understand.
Okay, here are conservative candidates.
We have to acknowledge every candidate's gonna have some baggage, personal and otherwise.
But if you have a moderate rhino republican versus a conservative Republican, and both have baggage, I mean, it's unreal to think that the Rhino Republicans clean and pure as the wind-driven snow.
Uh why all of a sudden do we now want the rhinos after all these years and years and years of somewhat unity on the conservative side, saying rhinos are not good for the party, not good for the country.
So this guy's theory on status intrigued me.
I'm still examining it, still looking into it.
I'll find the blog.
I'll I'll read his exact words to you.
Let me take a break here.
We'll come back and also get into some of your phone calls soon.
Rush Linbaugh at 800-282-2882.
You know that's right.
You go to a ballpark, you only wear in public, somebody lights up a joint, nobody says a word.
Nobody says a word Because nobody wants to be thought of as a narc.
But you let somebody light up a cigarette and 49,000 people will have a conniption fit.
It's true.
It's true, not one person will care about a joint.
They may, can you believe how smoking a joint over it, but nobody will call the authorities.
Let somebody light up a Marlboro on all hellbreaks.
Have you seen these direct TV commercials?
These direct TV commercials are fabulous.
This is where the cops are allowed to taser people.
The one I saw yesterday, a waitress, there's some guys in her diner who are just enjoying the hell out of themselves.
They're watching direct TV.
They're watching the NFL Sunday ticket on their iPads and their mobile devices at their table.
And they're just having the greatest time, and they're enjoying themselves, and the waitress at this place just can't stand it.
That they're enjoying themselves.
So she puts dirty dishwater into a pitcher of ice tea and then stirs it up with her fingers and uh and takes it over and serves them.
Of course, they're clueless, but this is her way.
That's a TV spot.
This is her way of getting evil with people having a good time, because they're watching her favorite football teams wherever they want.
Because they have DirecTV Sunday ticket.
And I think the reason I think that ad is good is because it illustrates that there are just some people, liberals in this country, do not want anybody to enjoy themselves.
Nobody's gonna have a good time.
Not when there's so much suffering out there, and not when there's so much economic turmoil and angst.
And people having a good time, especially people who may not be suffering from economic angst.
I mean, obviously, if you can afford the NFL Sunday ticket on your mobile device to go to a go to a diner when the football games are on, watch with your buddies at a restaurant rather than have to go to the stadium.
Sure, a lot of people are going to be mad at you.
So kudos to DirecTV for putting that in the ad.
Nissan ad, in my estimation, misses the uh this is the I don't think the kid's even going to fall for it anymore.
Anyway, here's this blog, it's the Chicago Boys, B O Y Z, Palin and the Left's status anxiety.
The left's obsession with Sarah Palin's one of the most interesting political and social phenomena of our time.
The degree and volume of venom directed at her staggers the imagination.
It's unprecedented in recent times, especially for somebody who does not currently hold office.
This comment on a hit and run thread provides a common example.
You jest, but on my drive home last night I listened to a couple NPR disembodied voices opining as to how Sarah Palin was different, even in today's polarized environment because she demonizes the opposition.
The irony was particularly palpable because the roundtable discussion about how evil Palin is was the lead-in to an interview with the author of a behind-the-scenes book on Palin that promised to promises to expose her as the evil, manipulative monster that she really is, and was immediately preceded by a blurb that the creepy reporter who moved in next door to her had moved out.
Now, leftists, that that's the comment the guy heard, leftists try to rationalize the hatred by claiming that Palin's an extremist, but that's easily disproved by comparing where she stands in various issues versus how many Americans hold the same views.
Moreover, if she truly were an extremist, she wouldn't be a threat because she would have no base, but she does, no electoral base.
No, the best explanation for the left's bizarre palin obsession is status anxiety.
Status anxiety occurs when a person believes that their position in a real or imagined social hierarchy is threatened.
Leftists react emotionally to Palin because of the threat she poses to their own individual sense of status.
All their other arguments are just put forth to rationalize that emotional reaction.
In short, it's not the ideas she puts forth, but that somebody like her is significant at all.
And this guy goes on to say this is the same kind of thing that may be happening out there in the uh upper tiers of conservative intellectualism, which you'll find the same attitudes about Palin as you'll find on the left.
You'll find the same attitudes about uh this Christine O'Donnell uh woman in Delaware, Sharon Angle, uh, or the guy in Alaska that beat Murkowski.
Leftism at its heart holds that a small percentage of humans have a vastly superior understanding of everything compared to ordinary people.
The point of leftism is to empower these superior individuals to impose their superior understanding upon society by the force of the state.
Leftists must be viewed by themselves and others as superior human beings if they are to have a claim to power and status.
And then along comes somebody who does not fit their mold, who is more popular, makes more sense, has a bigger electoral base than they do, and there you have the threat.
It gets back to Mr. Code Villa, ruling class versus country class.
It gets back to the high school clique versus the people not in it.
Essentially, we never get out of high school.
The problem is that the people in the cliques, the minority, the elites, the superiorists, now have a stranglehold on the country.
Quick time out.
Back with much more.
You know, it's kind of fascinating to me.
John Boehner smokes.
Bob Schaeffer knew that.
Bob She, did you know that Boehner smokes?
Did you know it?
You ever seen him smoke?
How did you know it?
Well, you've seen him snarkly, but point is Bob Schiefer did not know that the Justice Department had dropped the case against a new Black Panthers.
That was not on his radar.
He did not know that white defendants, or black defendants are not going to be pursued by the Obama Justice Department.