Jonathan Martin Politico does this story that the conservative intellectuals don't like this identity politics that Palin's playing.
That is victimology stuff.
The victimology.
May I ask you, what is her identity?
No, no, no, somebody tell me, what is, somebody asks you to tell them who Sarah Palin is.
What's her identity?
OK, yeah, she's she's in fact, if she were if she were playing upon identity politics, wouldn't if people really meant what they said, wouldn't the nags love this woman?
She got it all.
The only thing she did not do was have an abortion.
And that may be a big problem.
But she's got it all.
I mean, she is the epitome of having it all, in a way.
We were talking yesterday, ladies and gentlemen, again, about how the media and even some conservatives mocked Ronald Reagan.
They didn't like Ronald Reagan.
In fact, one of the nicest things that Reagan was called was an amiable dunce.
And that was by Tip O'Neill.
Well, ask yourself, is there anybody on the political scene today who has proved to be an amiable dunce?
Is there?
I give you Obama.
If there is a genuine amiable dunce, I mean, here's a guy playing golf every day, recording his NCAA picks for ESPN broadcast tomorrow.
If there is somebody walking and wandering through the motions here, and I would question even the amiability on this.
But let's not leave him out of it.
Now, there was, you know, I get internet spam out the wazoo.
Sometimes I have to really guard my temper because my friends send me this stuff.
Hey, Rush, will you see this?
And I've only seen a thousand copies of it by the time they send it to me.
So not only does it get cluttered in my email box from spammers, my friends send the stuff to me.
One of these things they sent was from February 27th called an open letter to Sarah Palin.
Sarah, you chose to keep and raise your Down syndrome child, and that's choice that the left and probably a lot of women hate to be reminded of what choice they might have to face in their own lives.
They don't want to be exposed to the sight of a competent, happy mother dealing with all the complexities of those circumstances.
Demonstrates an internal strength and solid moral compass that many of them can't bear to witness.
They suspect that in their own hearts they don't have that level of moral strength within them.
We know that Clinton's moral compass was prone to pointing toward the best female target in the room at the time.
Now this next paragraph, I really think is right.
We as a culture seem to be more in tune and sympathetic to weakness and moral failure.
Our culture today, we want to help weaklings all we can because it's not their fault.
And it's easier to watch someone as bad or weaker than ourselves.
We see it in all the Hollywood coverage of the failed icons of stage, screen, and TV who have all the advantages life offers repeatedly failing.
They use the proceeds of their profession to abuse themselves, control their entourage.
How many of these oddball papers in the supermarket checkout line exist purely on this appetite for details about failed lives?
The very fact that you, Sarah, are successfully dealing with your child, Trigg, while stiff-arming all of your political enemies that appear to be legion shows that you are very much feared by progressives.
And you have the right stuff for true conservatives.
You are more than qualified to fend off attacks by the progressives.
If you decide to run and are successful in a presidential campaign, it'll be because you're a straight shooter, unlike what we have now.
So the point is that this business here about her being a threat to people, in the conservative intellectual sense, I think she's a threat because she got where she is without seeking their counsel.
She has not sought their advice.
She doesn't pall around with them.
She has direct access to the Tea Party by virtue of her ideas.
They don't.
And I think trying to take her out is an attempt to take out the Tea Party as well.
To try to impugn her is to impugn the Tea Party as well.
But this business here of we want to help weaklings.
We're sympathetic to weakness and moral failure.
And this is true not just in the entertainment media.
This is true throughout the media.
I could give you a couple one-name examples, but I'm not going to revisit this at this time.
But this is, believe me, right on the money.
People who have failed, people who just don't quite measure up.
It's because of our country.
It's because of our culture.
It's because of some form of discrimination, some form of racism, bigotry, sexism, what have you.
So we identify with these victims.
That's what I don't get.
She doesn't play this card.
She doesn't play that kind of victimology card.
She doesn't portray herself as weak, like the others who do and get away with it.
Anyway, folks, welcome back, Rush Limbaugh.
This is the Excellence in Broadcasting Network.
We come to you from the Limbaugh Institute for Advanced Conservative Studies.
Telephone number, if you want to be on the program, 800-282-2882.
Let's go to audio soundbite number six.
We have here a media montage.
The worst case scenario if, if, if, possibly, maybe doomsday.
If this happens, and if that happens, and if this happens, then it'll potentially be, all right, doomsday.
Dramatic stuff happening, the meltdown potentially, a worst case scenario.
If that happens, if a total nuclear meltdown happens, that pile of hot radioactive goo will burn through most everything around it.
If this goes further, you start looking at a meltdown.
If, if, if, if that's true, that's bad news.
If there's a major release of radiation, if the core melts down.
What is the worst case scenario?
What's the worst case scenario?
What is the worst case scenario?
What is the worst case scenario?
There is the Homer-Simpson effect.
Potentially 30 years of impact of this ecosystem.
Three-decade ripple effect.
The fires could be so hot that it would send radioactive particles across the Pacific.
The possible outcome is a three-mile island times three.
The nightmare scenario is Chernobyl times three.
What happened in northeastern Japan?
It's doomsday.
Yeah.
So this.
And now there's a run on potassium iodine sales.
U.S. drug stores report sudden increase in potassium iodine sales because of all this.
Soon there will be a shortage of potassium iodine because of the fervor, the fever pitch here.
Oh, this is all over the place.
You mean the iodine sales?
Oh, no.
This is all over the place.
Let me ask you a question, folks.
We go to the break here.
Just a question I want you to ponder.
Which is the bigger problem, Japan's reactors or our overreactors in the news media.
A special report from Reuters by Peter Henderson and Peter Henderson.
California will experience unthinkable damage when the next powerful quake strikes, probably within 30 years, even though the state prides itself on being on the leading edge of earthquake science.
Had me worried there for a minute.
But if a quake might not happen for another 30 years, we'll all be dead from global warming by then, anyway.
So what's the problem?
What's Reuters trying to suggest here?
We stop spending every red cent we have or can borrow on giveaways to buy votes for Democrat politicians.
What's the point?
Modern skyscrapers built in the state's now rigorous building codes might ride out the big jolt that experts say is all but inevitable, but the surviving buildings will tower over a carpet of rubble from older structures that have collapsed.
Hot desert winds could fan fires, could, could, that quakes inevitably cause overwhelming fire departments, even as ancient water pipelines burst.
Part of the lesson from the disaster that hit Japan on Friday is that no amount of preparation can fully protect a region like California that sits on top of fault lines.
Even so, critics fear that the state may have long skimped on retrofitting older buildings.
The question is not if, but when Southern California will be hit by a major quake, one so damaging that it will permanently change lives and livelihoods in the region.
This, according to a 2008 study in the U.S. Geological Survey, it predicted 2,000 deaths, $200 billion in damage from a 7.8 Southern California quake on the San Andreas Fault.
Could happen, could happen in 30 years.
In fact, even a smaller 7.2 quake would cause $30 billion in building damage, $10 billion more in additional costs.
If fires sweep the city, damage could rise by $4 billion.
So what's the point here of this story?
What is Reuters suggesting?
That we stop spending every red cent we have?
Is it not going to matter anyway?
Are they saying we just better prepare for this emergency in 30 years and stop spending every cent we have to make sure we save money for this eventual disaster?
No, of course not.
That's not the answer.
Printing money is the answer.
Which, by the way, folks, I should tell you, numerous Wall Street quote-unquote experts are predicting that the Japanese earthquake will eventually lead to quantitative easing 3, a new stimulus from the Federal Reserve to make up for the economic shortfall the world will experience because of the resulting falling output from Japan.
So Wall Street's expecting even more money to be printed in Washington.
More spending.
Mike in Peru, Indiana.
I'm glad you called, sir.
You're next in the Rush Limbaugh program.
Hi.
Hi, Rush.
This is quite an honor.
Thank you very much, sir.
Yeah, my dad passed away last year.
I would love to be able to talk to him, but this is right up there.
I was watching the news Friday when this disaster happened, and I heard one of the reporters look out over the devastation and say, oh, there's millions of dollars worth of damage here.
I kind of let that slide because I thought that's not even touching what I'm seeing here.
And then last night I was watching some more news and kind of looking at it and the pictures and things like that.
And this time they've upped it to it, will take tens of billions of dollars for Japan to rebuild.
Right.
And even at that number, I thought, that just doesn't even look like it would make a drop in the bucket to what they're going to go through.
But then the thought started to hit me that even if it's tens of billions or hundreds of billions, that's a fraction of the trillions that we're talking about, $1 trillion, $2 trillion, $14 trillion, whatever the number is, it's just, it's mind-boggling.
I guess I finally got a life lesson of how large a number a trillion is.
If you can rebuild a country with tens of billions, how far in debt are we that we could, we're this far behind the eight ball.
Yeah, well, whatever it takes to bring the number home to you, I'm glad it happened.
Yeah, it's just amazing.
It certainly is.
The debt number in this country, which is an announced $14 trillion, that's just, it's incomprehensible.
There's no way you can.
If watching Japan and the guesses as to how many billions, hundreds of billions it'll take to rebuild that part of the country that's been damaged brings it home to you, fine.
But look, look, there's help coming.
Capital is on the way.
$10 billion in serious savings in the latest continuing resolution.
Does anybody know how much it costs to rebuild after Hurricane Katrina?
Anybody have the number?
Snertly, they have started it.
I have been to New Orleans.
They have started rebuilding.
It's got to be several hundred billion, right?
Has to be.
I've been to New Orleans.
They've started rebuilding.
Don't start getting snarky on me like that.
When are they going to start rebuilding?
They have.
Chris in Indianapolis.
Great to have you on the program, sir.
Hello.
Great to be on the program.
You bet.
Thank you very much.
I need some of your wisdom.
I'm confused.
If at the top of the first hour, you played a clip, Diane Sawyer, I believe, about the recycling that's still going on in Japan.
I did.
You're right.
If these are the people that invented the Prius, have mastered public transportation recycling.
Why did Mother Earth, Gaia, if you will, hit them with this disaster?
Well, that's an interesting question.
Let's go back and grab Diane Sawyer.
Audio soundbite number nine.
This is her report on a shelter for refugees in Japan and how they're handling their waste management.
This is a shelter.
Some of these people here for days.
And look, it's recycling.
Organized for recycling.
Plastic, combustible barnables, canes.
Did I really hear this?
Did I really hear?
Diane Sawyer is in a refugee camp in Japan.
Play this again.
This is almost like a kindergarten teacher talking to the four-year-olds.
That is how old you are in kindergarten, right?
Five, five, four or five.
All right.
This is some of these people for days.
And look.
Look.
It's recycling.
Organized for recycling.
This is a shelter.
Some of these people here for days.
And look, it's recycling.
Organized for recycling.
Plastic, combustible burnable, canes.
Look at God.
She sounded like she saw her husband for the first time in six months there.
Oh, it's recycling.
Look.
Organized for reason.
These people are in the midst of earthquake devastation, and the credit they're getting is for recycling.
And our caller, Chris, with a great question.
The Japanese have done so much to save the planet.
He's right.
They've given us the Prius.
Even now, refugees are still recycling their garbage.
And yet, Gaia levels them.
Just wipes them out.
Wipes out their nuclear plants.
All kinds of radiation.
What kind of payback is this?
That is an excellent question.
They invented the Prius.
And in fact, where Gaia blew up is right where they make all these electric cars.
That's where the tsunami hit.
All those brand new electric cars sitting there on the lot.
I like the way this guy was thinking.
It's like Gea hit the Prius and Leaf place like they were in the crosshairs.
We can use that word.
It does.
What is Gaya trying to tell us here?
What is the mother of environmentalism trying to say with this hit?
Great observation out there, Chris.
Here's Tom in Naples, Florida.
You're next on the EIB network.
Hello.
Hey, Rush Limbaugh.
How you doing?
Fine, sir.
Thanks much.
Hey, I know I'm calling about, and I was trying to just add a little levity to today, but with my issue with I don't want Obama to pick Ohio State in his brackets because that's who I'm picking.
And I've already put mine in, so I'm not going to be able to see what he did.
But, you know, he already got the Olympics to Rio de Janeiro.
And while I was on hold, I heard you saying he's going to Rio.
Yeah, he is this weekend.
I'm thinking, what's with this?
You know, he beat Chicago, now he's going to Rio.
I don't understand that.
But I guess my big concern is that he's just going to destroy sports in America in total.
Wow.
He's a crummy golfer.
He might be a fair basketball player.
We know he can't pick a baseball team, and certainly the Packers would have to agree that he doesn't know what's going on with football.
He has a very questionable first pitch at baseball games.
The form there is not particularly manly.
Yeah, I was going to say masculine, but manly.
Same difference.
Yeah, same difference.
Hey, but anyway, I'd like you to elaborate.
I was thinking, what are we going to have, like the Chevy Volt 500 at NASCAR?
What's this guy going to do to sports in general?
I'm not a big NASCAR fan, but I know a lot of friends.
Look, I don't want to put the fear of God in you out there.
You don't have an NFL team in Naples, but wait till they call on this guy to fix the NFL labor problem.
Well, they're in Marco right now discussing it.
I know.
That's where the players are, right?
The players in Marco Island.
And the owners are meeting in New Orleans, snurdily, just so you know.
The NFL owners are in New Orleans.
The players are at Marco Island, which is not a cheap place to go to meet, by the way.
But wait.
Wait till they bring Obama in to solve the NFL problem.
It will happen, by the way.
You know, folks, the second worst thing you can do is ignore the nuclear news.
That's the second worst thing you can do.
The worst thing you can do is follow it.
We're kind of in a dilemma here.
So many pundits are asking pretentious questions.
So-called experts are giving pretentious answers.
So many panic buttons are being pressed.
So many what-ifs.
I mean, you just heard the story of 30-year quake in California might happen.
Could this, this could happen, that might happen.
Oh, all hell could break loose, maybe.
What if the wind shifts?
What if the wind doesn't shift?
And I don't want to make light of it, but let me put this in perspective.
And I'm serious about this.
How, if you've got a nuclear disaster in Japan, how do you reassure people who live in abject fear of the thought of secondhand smoke?
How in the world do you reassure them?
I mean, here you've got a culture which has created an entire industry off of the fear of secondhand cigarette, cigar, pipe smoke, or whatever.
And they're living in the you got you got people who have been turned into activists who think being around secondhand cigarette smoke is going to kill them.
How do you reassure those people when you're talking about nuclear fallout?
My point is, we are constantly bedeviled with fear of everything, and fear kills.
We fear dirty air, dirty water.
We feared Y2K.
Some fear the end of the world in 2012.
Some people fear coconut oil.
It's easy to incite panic among such people.
It's simple.
You've got people scared to death of secondhand smoke and you hit them with this never-ending disaster of nuclear fallout.
So we don't have any idea how this is going to turn out.
We don't have any ability to control it.
So let's consider the extremes.
Worst case, it could end up long-term problem, much like Hiroshima or Nagasaki, that we will survive.
Or best case, nuclear energy's passed two rigorous tests.
A 9.0 earthquake and a historic tsunami, and civilization survives.
Will anybody, at the end of the day, look at anything about this as being positive?
No.
Even if there are positive things to glean, and there always are, by the way.
All right, back to the phones.
Here is Angela in Dumfries, Virginia.
Nice to have you on the program.
Hi.
Thanks for taking my call, Rush.
Mega Dittos.
Thank you.
I want to say, well, I guess I shouldn't say mega dittos with what I'm going to say.
I really wish you would stop acting as if everyone who doesn't support Sarah Palin has somehow or another been convinced by liberals that she's not worthy to run.
Sarah Palin and I have a lot in common.
We're the same age.
We both have five children.
And I wouldn't support her for president.
I'm a conservative mother, and I simply don't believe that she should, she did some things during the campaign in 2008 that I, as a mother, would never do.
Fine and dandy.
Five children.
Okay, but wait a minute.
I'm not going to stay with Mitt Romney.
Wait a second.
A lot of people act like that.
Mitt Romney, if you don't support him, it's because that he's a Mormon.
Because he has five sons and not one serves in the military.
So stop acting as if someone doesn't want to support Sarah Palin.
All right, hold it just a second.
Just a second.
First place, I didn't say that people like you don't like her because of the liberals.
Oh, okay.
Number two, what makes you do?
That's what it sounds like.
Well, I'm sorry.
Mitch Daniels and Alan West any day.
And I'll support that ticket.
But the people that you all keep pushing, Mitt Romney, Gingrich, Palin, those five hired names.
Wait a second here.
Now you're starting to make me suspicious, madam.
I haven't pushed anybody.
I've talked about how weak the field is.
And even on Fox News, the same names, same people.
We're sick and tired of that.
I am not on Fox News.
Establishment Republican is the problem.
Angela.
Even though Sarah Palin is an establishment, I wouldn't vote for her for my own reasons.
What did I tell you, folks?
My theory is being proven big time right here.
What?
Whoa, you missed that.
You've heard all this other stuff I haven't said.
What is it?
And you missed what I did say.
I apologize.
What?
I never, I'm not pushing anybody.
In fact, I don't see how you can lump Mitch Daniels with Alan West.
But that's another subject.
What I want to know is...
Well, that's how I see...
See?
Now, how I think you, because you can't understand it, that's how I see it.
I think that.
Would you stop being contentious?
I have not insulted you once here.
I haven't said that you believe something because somebody made you feel it at all.
Okay.
I'm just having fun, Rush.
I like being on the campaign.
And I want you to tell me what did Sarah Palin do during the campaign that you didn't like?
Well, it was more than once whenever she was doing a speech or something and she had her children at the end and, you know, the families come out.
Yeah.
And she would walk away with her handlers or whoever they were.
And her little girl, her little girl in a crowd of strangers, a mother, my instinct, and I was waiting for her to do it.
I so wanted her to just reach her hand back and take her daughter's hand.
She never did that.
Now, that may seem small to a lot of people, but I am a mother of five girls, and I would have never done it.
That made me think, I mean, just a motherly instinct just wasn't there.
We got to make a note to hire you again.
You're one of the best paid actors that we've ever had on this.
I don't believe you're saying that.
I am not.
That is not true.
I mean, everyone who's listening to me in Dumfries, Virginia, knows that I work with the Prince William County Republican Party.
I am a true conservative.
All right.
I'm not disputing it.
I'm going to tell you something here.
Most women complain.
I'm just telling you the truth here.
Most women complain that Sarah Palin is trotting around her down syndrome, baby, like an accessory, and it makes them feel guilty, and they don't like it.
Now, you're saying she's abandoning the kids in these things.
I guarantee you.
Well, I'm not saying, I just think that it takes a lot of time to do what she does.
It really does.
It takes a lot of time.
But is this really why you wouldn't vote for it?
This is not even an issue thing.
Is this why you're not?
I can't see how she can be an effective mother.
And again, I am a conservative mother.
I choose to stay home with my children.
That's just something that we believe.
Our country is not so desperate for leadership that we should take women away from their children at that point in their lives.
You got to be kidding.
Now you're telling me that you wouldn't support her for president because she'd have to abandon her kids and it'd be a bad mother.
Well, I'm just saying that there's other people that I would support.
I would not support her simply because I don't think that she did.
Oh, yeah.
She didn't.
Now we get to.
That I felt just was, I couldn't support her.
Okay, so Sarah Palin's not allowed to go to work.
Because she's got five kids and she's not allowed to go to work.
She can work if she choose to.
No, not if it's president because you're not.
You're not going to vote for her because that's irresponsible.
And you think that she's not meeting her motherhood requirements if she goes to work.
If the conservatives put Sarah Palin up against Barack Obama, I would vote for Sarah Palin.
I certainly would.
But it would not, it would be like it would be the same thing in 2008 having to vote for McCain as far as I'm concerned.
Oh, good Lord.
Angela, now I know you're putting me on.
Everyone has their reasons.
You're just trying to send me into orbit here.
I know what you're doing now.
Same thing.
Five sons.
No one serves.
I wouldn't vote for him either.
Would you get off of this wrong?
When's the last time I pumped Romney or Gingrich or any of these people you're talking about?
I'm just hoping that the people out there hear what I'm saying.
I wouldn't vote for them.
We got it.
For that reason.
We got it.
But you haven't given me a sensible reason yet.
You've given me all this.
Okay, well, it may not be sensible to a lot of people, Rush, but that's my reason.
Well, you're okay.
And it's not because of liberals.
See, but it has nothing to do with issues.
And this is my theorem.
It's got nothing to do with issues.
It all has to do with emotion or women stuff.
Okay, well, whatever.
That's my reason, Rush.
Sorry to disappoint you, but that's my reason.
You're not disappointing me.
You're just a sexist.
Am I?
Well, that could be it, too.
A little bit of sexism going on here, but that's fine.
Everybody has boundaries and allows some of that stuff to happen.
Well, thanks for allowing me to talk.
Who would you vote for in the Republican field?
Say it again.
In the current Republican field, who would you vote for?
Mitch Daniels.
He's got kids.
Well, his kids have a mother.
Okay.
So it's okay for a father to have all kinds of kids and abandon them and leave them.
No, he wouldn't be abandoning them.
A mother.
That's right.
I'm a traditionalist Rush, and I think a lot of conservatives are.
Well, Sarah Palin's kids have a father.
If that's a father, what does that have to do with being a mother?
Because he's a father.
The strange thing about what you're saying is that she's, I think, she's balancing all this quite well.
I don't agree with that.
Well, what evidence?
You know what?
I really don't.
I don't want to get into this Sarah Palin bashing.
Oh, now it's a good time to say it.
I've done enough of that.
At the end of the phone call.
I'm not going to get into it for the other reasons that I think because I like her enough to not go there.
All right.
Point out to me one of her kids.
It's an abject ne'er-do-well failure.
I don't want to go there, Rush.
I really don't.
Okay.
You don't have to.
Okay, thanks.
You're a woman.
I appreciate the call.
All right, thanks, Rush.
Bye.
All right, Angela.
It was.
That's Angela and Bumfrees, Dumfries, Dumfries.
Is that right?
Dumfreys, Virginia.
And we, you do have her number, right?
You got a number?
Okay, well, call her agent.
We'll be back.
Yeah, I was really struck here by Angela.
Was that her name?
Yeah, Angela.
Mitch Daniels and Alan West.
I, folks, Mitch Daniels is the one candidate out there saying the Republicans are going to have to abandon social issues to win.
There's a piece today.
Is it today?
Yesterday.
National Review by Michael Cannon, Daniels and Obamacare.
Listen to what this guy writes.
Indiana Governor Mitch Daniels policy director Lauren Mills, Grayson Marie Turner of the Galen Institute, and Bob Goldberg of the Center for Medicine in the Public Interest take exception to my article, Mitch Daniels Obamacare Problem.
In brief, these three believe that Daniel's expansion of government-run health care is a conservative triumph.
I can't believe we're even having this conversation.
To recap, the Healthy Indiana Plan, which Daniel signed into law 2007, bears the following similarities to Obamacare.
And there are six of them.
So we have a guy writing at National Review.
I don't know how he got published here, by the way, claiming that Mitch Daniels' health care plan in Indiana has a lot of similarities to Obamacare.
And he can't believe that we're even having the conversation that says Daniels' health care plan is conservative when there are so many similarities to Obamacare.
Now, clearly, I don't know if you know much about Alan West, but there's no common ground here.
I mean, they're both Republicans, but that's about it when it comes to Alan West and Mitch Daniel.
Well, I think there's fiscal discipline things that they probably have in common, but they're really, the way she said it, you wouldn't say of all the people running your two favorite, if you're looking at policy, are Mitch Daniels and Alan West.
Now, if you're looking at other things, you never know.
Could well be.
John in Cheshire, Connecticut.
One minute, but I wanted to get to you.
Hello, sir.
Hey, Rush, how you doing?
You know, we used to have a saying in a factory I worked in, and one of the most productive factories, and it was the longer you're in the presence of a problem, the less likely you are to solve it.
And, you know, when I look at Speaker Boehner, that's kind of what comes to mind.
Really, the way I view it is the guy's been on the job now for four months.
Really, November 2nd, that's when we should have hit the ground running.
And that's what the Democrats do.
Obama, after the presidential election, man, you know, decisions left and right were being turned over to him.
And so we're four months into it now.
And, you know, I'm just starting to get the feeling that this man is not up to the job.
And, you know, at what point, you know, do we start to look to fix our own backyard again?
I mean, people complain about, you know, Holder and, you know, we have the joke going on with Clapper and all this.
But, you know, in our own backyard, if this guy's not up to the task, maybe he should just ought to consider stepping aside.
Well, I understand what you're saying, but he doesn't think he's not up to the task.
So he's not going to resign.
I doubt that he thinks he's not up to the task.
Anyway, John, thanks much.
I appreciate your call.
I just have no time.
I've got to get out of here right now.
It seems to me, all this hating going on on Sarah Palin, that for whatever reason, there are a lot of people who just don't like the idea of a strong woman.
Isn't that what we heard in explaining the criticism of Hillary?