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April 27, 2011 - Rush Limbaugh Program
33:53
April 27, 2011, Wednesday, Hour #2
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Your guiding light through times of trouble, confusion, tumult, chaos, forgeries, fakes, fraud, and even the good times.
Rush Limbaugh and the EIB network, where we have more fun than a human being should be allowed to have.
Here's the telephone number if you want to be on the program.
800-282-2882.
Email address LRushbow at EIBnet.com.
Folks, we really need to put all of this in perspective.
Obama never had a birth certificate problem.
He has a spending problem.
He has a redistribution of wealth problem.
He has a socialism problem.
There's a story today that Eric Holder has been investigating oil prices, gasoline prices.
It sounds something very disturbing.
These people are bordering on totalitarian authoritarianism.
They are going to use the law for the most awful purposes, as they are with health care, flouting the Constitution.
The birth certificate was a handy distraction for Obama, but even that got to be a problem for him.
And now what Obama would rather people go back to noticing is all of his other problems.
The wars, the debt, the lack of leadership.
And this conventional wisdom that he can't be beat, that we just should set our sights on the Senate and go from, where does this come from?
Where in the world?
Why?
How does it come that any presidential election is a loss?
Who thought that Obama could beat Hillary 19 months before the November 2008 elections?
Who thought that George H.W. Bush would lose in 1992?
Nobody.
Obama didn't even think he was going to win in 2008.
So Obama says we got to get rid of the silliness.
We got to move beyond this.
So he gets on a plane to tape the Ulfra show later today, then to fly back to New York for three fundraisers.
Well, yeah, I think he's got three stops.
And it's the third time this month that he has been fundraising.
If he didn't think he could be beat, why is he so worried about building up his war chest?
Other than that's the standard operating procedure.
Pete Wayner, friend of mine, worked with Karl Rove in the Bush White House, worked with Bill Bennett and Empower America, now posts at Commentary magazine.
And he posts today about the Trump business.
He says that Trump has been shown now to be even more of a clownish figure than we imagined.
Remember, Trump was saying on Monday in an interview with CNN's Anderson Cooper 19 that unnamed sources were telling him the original birth certificate didn't exist.
And he was now doubtful the president was born in the U.S. despite the overwhelming evidence Obama was born in Hawaii.
Yet Trump is interpreting the release of Obama's certificate as a triumph, which goes to show that even successful businessmen can live in alternative universes.
The other thing to notice is how Trump has in the last few days portrayed himself as a victim of an irresponsible media.
In his comments this morning, Trump went so far as to say that he's happy the White House released the president's birth certificate so the press can stop asking him questions about it.
This after Trump has spent the better part of the month obsessing on this issue, raising it in every forum imaginable.
One does not have to be naive about American politics to believe that it is a serious enterprise.
And here's that word again.
Serious.
A forum in which we debate and decide on matters of justice and what constitutes a good society.
Sometimes we do better than other times, but for the last few weeks, a buffoon was allowed to hijack political discourse in America and mainstream an issue that was once relegated to the fever swamps.
The public's view of politics and politicians was already at low ebb.
This whole Trump episode will make things even worse.
For those of us who care about politics and the ideas and philosophies informing politics, who believe that politics is, in the words of the Scottish novelist John Buchan, an honorable adventure, the last few weeks have been discouraging, to say the least.
So that's the Inside the Beltway view.
Somebody from Outside the Beltway has dared to enter the scene, and they don't like it.
They really don't like it.
Here's Krauthammer.
Now, remember, Trump called Krauthammer after Krauthammer said he wasn't serious.
Trump called him to discuss it with him.
Last night on the O'Reilly factor, the host Ted Baxter said to Krauthammer, look, he calls a lot of people.
He called me, said he didn't like the Al Sharpton thing.
He thought that was demeaning.
It was a cheap shot.
He's not Al Sharpton.
He has a record of achievement.
He's going to release his financial records.
It's going to show $7 billion net worth.
You know, he's saying, how can you compare me to Al Sharpton when I'm a proven businessman?
I know what I'm doing.
What do you say to this, Mr. Krauthammer?
I'm not comparing bank accounts.
I explain what I meant by that.
He's like Al Sharpton in the sense that he is slick, smooth, spouts provocative nonsense, operative word nonsense, which will distract any presidential debate.
And he says, oh, no, no, my real issues are OPEC, Iraq, oil, the Chinese, the economy.
I said, all right, let's talk about that.
Let's talk about your idea of seizing Libyan oil, seizing Iraqi oil, and demanding $1.2 trillion worth of oil.
That is a nutty idea.
That's what makes you unserious.
Look, Bill, that kind of talk is the stuff you expect at a guy at a bar at closing a time with slurred speech.
So Trump is the equivalent of a guy at the bar, last one there, after last call with slurred speech.
He's unserious.
He wants to make a claim on the oil in nations that we are liberating and that we have saved.
The end of the day here, the president of the United States has responded to a reality show star and called it silliness.
And a part of me couldn't agree more.
A pop culture icon, not an elected official, has forced the president's hand.
Not a journalist, not an elected official, but Big Hollywood.
Somebody from the entertainment media forced the president's hand, not one of our people.
Celebrity has trumped the president, his message.
The news of the day, well, I was just watching PMS NBC during the break, and Henry Mitchell, NBC News in Washington, was talking to their White House babe, Savannah Guthrie.
And they heard that when Obama announced his pressure today, he's going to be coming out and talking about the shift at the Pentagon and the CIA.
Petraeus is going to the CIA.
You want to talk about marginalizing somebody?
That's taking him out of the loop.
They're afraid of Petraeus being somebody's veep.
That's what they're afraid of.
So put Petraeus in the regime.
It's a loyal guy.
He goes there.
Gates has wanted out of defense for who knows how long.
Panetta doesn't like watching CNN, which is apparently what the director of central intelligence does these days.
Well, it's what he said.
They say he found out that we had gone into Egypt, there something had happened in Egypt because he saw it on CNN.
And I kind of agree with Panetta.
If my job was watching CNN all day, I'd want to change too.
So Panetta is being sent over to the Pentagon, Petrayus, the CIA.
That's what they thought Obama was going to come out and start talking about.
Instead, they were shocked that Obama came out to talk about the birth certificate thing.
They couldn't believe it.
And the reason is because they don't think it's been an issue from the get-go.
Why should Obama care?
Why should he respond to this?
Their view was: why elevate Trump here?
Now, it's important to point out: you know, you can, I have a modicum of experience with this, folks.
Presidents, even in a circumstance like this, should be so far above people like Trump.
I couldn't believe that first White House correspondence dinner when Clinton starts telling that joke about me, trying to portray me as a racist.
I mean, I understood his objective, but why even be concerned?
Flying into St. Louis on Air Force One in the early 90s, he's talking to the morning show team, complaining about me, that when their show finishes, and I'm going to have three hours uninterrupted without a truth detector.
This is the president of the United States complaining about me.
And at the time, James Carville was pulling what little hair he has left out.
And hey, Limbaugh, Limbaugh, not your problem.
Limbaught not run for office.
So it's, what are the similarities?
I think the similarities psychologically are that Clinton and Obama both have this characteristic.
They want to be loved.
Like, Clinton's the kind of guy could walk into a room of 100 people and would find the one person that doesn't like him and spend all night trying to change their mind rather than revel with the 99 people who do love him.
A lot of people like that.
But what a sad state of affairs.
The president of the United States calls a press conference to announce that he was born in the United States.
Mr. Transparency.
Here, the press is waiting for the latest ho-hum about shifts at the top at CIA and the Pentagon.
And Mr. Transparency is forced to submit a simple document that every American has.
Forced to address silliness by a reality television star.
On a day when Bernanke is talking to the press, Petraeus is being nominated to head the CIA.
Panetta is going over to the Pentagon.
Gasoline is unaffordable.
Fiscal policy is in shambles.
And he calls oppressor to talk about, yeah, I was born here.
Here's my birth certificate.
We've got to get the silliness out of the way.
You want to talk about silliness.
Obama just turned the White House communications into a circus.
If you ask me, we've got entertainment tonight at 9 a.m.
We got Access Hollywood at 9:30.
We got e-entertainment television at 10 a.m.
TMZ on steroids.
Country's going to hell in a handbasket.
Obama's responded to Trump more directly than he's responded to Paul Ryan or John Boehner.
The only thing that would have made Obama look more ridiculous today would be if he had made that statement at the press conference in front of those fake Greek columns that he used in Denver at his acceptance speech.
This is phony baloney, plastic banana, good time rock and roller shtick circus sideshow politics.
And it's fun to watch.
It is fun to watch.
Maybe the birth certificate controversy was cutting into Obama's fundraising.
Hell, I don't know.
But something made this happen today.
Something, and my common sense best guess is it has to be poll-driven.
And fundraising is what he's concentrating on at the moment.
Frankly, folks, if you want to, the two things about this that really shocked me the most.
One, that Obama was born at all.
I thought it was a miraculous conception.
And secondly, that his parents are actually mortals.
Those are the two things I've really had a tough time believing.
I mean, here they presented this guy as the Messiah, as the one, and those people aren't born.
They just descend from the heavens.
Yes, it's very true.
Very, very true, Sterling.
I'll say it again.
At the end of all of this, the most shocking thing I learned today is that Obama was actually born.
I'll tell you something else about this that's starting to grate on me, and that is this notion of seriousness and who is and who isn't.
I, for one, and I'm a lunch pail guy here, folks.
People don't understand this.
This job is a lunch pail job.
I don't, you know, I haven't had a power lunch in 25 years.
I don't, you know, you got to be here.
There's no being five minutes late.
There's no any of this.
It's, I'm just a person from the middle of the country.
Did I go to college or any of that stuff?
I'm as close to average American as you can get.
And this whole notion of Obama is a serious figure offends my sensibilities.
Why is he serious?
Because he can speak?
Because he has a university resume that's appealing or approved by people who define who's serious.
What about his intelligence?
How smart is this guy?
What does he know?
I don't believe if Barack Obama had a dream for a product to bring to, I don't think he had the slightest idea how to bring a product to marketplace.
I don't think he's got the slightest understanding.
He's got a lot of resentment for it, but I don't think he has the slightest understanding of how wealth is created.
He just resents it when it is.
The guy is single-handedly destroying the United States economy.
And we want to sit here and applaud because Obama's a serious component of our politics.
Serious?
That's just another word for elitist, if you ask me.
So somebody's serious and somebody's not serious, obviously not serious, is a crude, unsophisticated rube, not qualified to be a member of the ruling class.
So I guess in that context, I'm not serious.
I wouldn't be considered serious.
What makes Obama serious?
Well, look what he's done to our health care.
Exactly.
Look what he's done to our health care.
Well, it's a legitimate political argument, Russia, legitimate political view, socialism.
It deserves to be defeated for crying out loud, not applauded as legitimate.
It hurts people.
So here's Trump, a pop icon, dragging down the president to his level.
But he's not because Obama's a pop icon at the same time.
Here's a dirty little secret.
What was Obama with those staged black canvas little appearances with the Greek columns and all of that?
The first black president icon offered nothing but a weak song entitled Hope and Change.
We've got audio soundbites of the learned members of the ruling class admitting they don't know who he is.
They don't know what he stands for.
They don't know what books he's read.
Charlie Rose and Tom Brokaw.
And he gets elected.
He's a blank slate.
You can make him whatever you want him to be.
The magic negro, all of these things that other people created.
He's a pop icon.
But he does not have a successful reality show.
Well, maybe he does.
Probably could get sponsors for this, too.
Sure.
Sure.
No question, Obama responds to Trump more than Ryan.
That's his territory.
He wants no part of Paul Ryan.
When he did match up with Ryan, he was as empty as his lyrical campaign when they went into the details of Obamacare.
He wants no part of Paul Ryan.
He can't keep up with Paul Ryan, and he doesn't want to hear what Paul Ryan has to say.
What did Obama tell the GOP when they first met him early in his term?
They had a Republican and Democrat leadership up to the White House within the first couple of weeks.
They said, don't listen to Rush Limbaugh if you want to get anything done.
That's not how things get done here.
You don't listen to Rush Limbaugh.
So one of his first messages was to attack a pop icon like Rush Limbaugh.
Obama is a pop icon.
He's looked at as a pop icon, even by his supporters.
Trump and Obama, they're on the same level in so many ways.
The difference is Trump hasn't ruined the economy.
But Trump isn't serious.
I forget.
Trump's not serious.
How many jobs has he created?
Well, it's in the thousands.
How many is Obama destroyed?
But Obama's serious.
Obama is a genuine intellect.
Yeah, maybe Obama does have a reality show.
His writers aren't unionized either.
Yeah, I would love to see Obama's grades in economics.
I'd love to.
I can't.
The only way this guy's gets good grades in economics is if he's simply repeating the Marxist crap that he's been taught.
But if you get an A in Marxism, what does that mean?
Is that helpful?
Is that useful?
Hey, mom!
Hey, it's Brock on the phone.
Yeah, I got an A here at Harvard in Marxism.
Yeah, we're on the way.
Yeah, that's serious.
Yeah, and after that, we're going to look at Hegel and then Engels.
I'm going to have this Marx guy down, Pat, so if the day ever comes, I have a chance to ruin America again.
Ha!
If people love me, well, I'm doing it.
No, mom, I can't come home.
I got to work.
I'm being serious.
Serious.
A in Marxism.
A plus in socialism.
Yeah, let's see the grades.
They're not just academic.
We all know that he went to Harvard, Columbia, Harvard Law School.
Supposed to be enough for us not to worry.
He had no real life experience.
He's supposed to cover for real life experience.
Doesn't kind of work that way, does it?
Ladies and gentlemen, Jacob Tapper, all good buddy at ABC News, has pointed out that Obama lied in his press conference today when he claimed that he decided to release the birth certificate because it was the top story in the news two weeks ago.
It turns out that according to the Columbia screw of journalism, they track these things.
It's not true.
Two weeks ago, the economy was far and away the dominant story.
The birth certificate story came in in fourth place.
It's not been the top story out there.
But, I mean, what's fourth place and first place?
What's the, not Columbia, isn't it Pew Journalism Research People?
The Pew Center.
Not Columbia.
Calumet, Oklahoma.
This is Daniel or Danielle.
Was it Daniel?
Daniel, welcome to the program.
Hi.
Testing.
One, two, three.
Anybody from Calumet, Oklahoma there?
Must be gone.
Tornado.
Saginaw, Michigan.
Jeffrey, welcome to the program.
Great to have you here.
Hi, Rush.
This is Jeff.
I want to say mega Dittos.
I've been listening to you since Sacramento, California.
I live in Michigan now, but it's because of you that people like me who used to be Teamster Democrats are now strong Republicans.
Thank you very much, sir.
Your courageous.
There's two things I wanted to tell you.
In 1774, John Adams wrote General Horatio Gates, he said, if we finally fail in this great and glorious contest, it'll be bewildering, by bewildering ourselves in groping for the middle ground.
And I think that John Adams hit the nail on the head.
We can't be milquetoast rhino-Republicans.
We have to think for whatever.
And being serious in all this is just a euphemism for being moderate and non-confrontational and reaching for the middle ground.
Exactly right.
My second point was that Obama's pretty easy to beat.
He's painted himself into a corner, and we have an arsenal to use against him, but we have to hold his feet to the fire and make him take ownership for his behavior.
The first thing I would do, and I think this is really important, remembering that he's just a demagogic ideologue, is to insist that Congress restore the $500 billion back to Medicare that he, in his infinite wisdom, took and assigned to Medicaid.
And by doing that, my hunch is that he would veto it, but that's okay because that would infuriate about 99% of all senior citizens.
Now, the other thing he could do is say, okay, let's go along with it, try to appease them, and he would infuriate his base.
Either way, we win.
And even if he does sign it into law, it's still our bill, and we can make him take ownership and take that all the way to November, saying, hey, this is...
And it's a win-win for us, no matter what.
This is our bill.
We came up with this, and you just signed it.
It's not yours.
You may have a point here because the polling data suggests that the elderly are among the largest supporters of the Ryan plan.
Absolutely.
And there you have it.
But by having Congress to restore that money to Medicare where it came from, it would make all of us heroes.
Now, if he signs the bill, yeah, okay, but he'll really anger his base.
Well, it would also highlight the fact that he cut it.
Exactly.
Exactly.
He can't win.
That's my point.
He's easy to beat.
He is a demagogic ideologue.
It's what he's always been.
It's what he'll always be.
You can beat that easy, but you if we can't let me tell you something for me, it just boils down to something this simple.
If we can't beat socialist Marxist policies, then we may as well check it out anyway.
What the heck, folks?
Where is the smart money?
Who are these people that say we can't beat these policies?
You know, if running against Obama makes them nervous, and I can understand how members of the ruling class would be uncomfortable going against such a well-spoken, I mean, if you want the quintessential,
perfect model of an Ivy League grad, Obama's it, the cool demeanor, the arrogant condescension in his manner of speaking, his his articulation, good.
Yeah, if that's what impresses you, and if it also intimidates you into going, because you really don't want to destroy those kind of personalities because that's what you admire.
You admire well-spoken Ivy League types, and then to go after Obama, that would be like going after all of us who aspire to the same things.
Okay, you don't want to go after Obama personally, fine.
Can't you find it in yourself to oppose the destruction of the U.S. economy?
Can you find it somewhere in yourselves to stand up for the creation of private sector jobs?
Can you, if you don't want to go after Obama personally, can you see the danger in Obama policies which are destroying the futures of people in this country not yet conceived, much less born?
Yeah, you may not want to go after Obama because he's just so perfect for crying out loud.
Where is it written these policies can't be beaten?
If you're going to tell me the policies can't be beaten because of Obama, the personality, then I don't want to hear one more thing about how Trump is a pop culture icon and not serious, because that's what you're telling me.
If you're telling me we can't beat Obama because of his personality, then we're not even talking about serious politics here.
We're talking about high school clickism.
I don't understand it.
Intellectually, I don't understand this rigmarole that this agenda, that this track record is untouchable.
This could force me to go insane.
To make me believe this, sit me down and make people explain this to me in a way that I should agree with it is patently absurd.
And don't for a minute think that some of the opposition to Trump is simply basically, he's not from Washington.
He doesn't quite fit the mold.
I mean, folks, look, don't doubt me on this.
If you have, if you're a columnist of the New York Times and you actually write that you are mesmerized by the crease in some politician's slacks, and then you say he's going to be elected president, he's going to be a damn good one.
I submit you are a fool, a shallow bupkus, and you want to be taken seriously above all else.
The essence of pop culture icon, the essence of idolatry, the essence of Star Screwer is to say, I love the crease in his pants.
He's going to be a great president.
That's asinine.
That's insultingly unintelligent.
And it's, it's just, as Dawn would say, it's very sad.
But that's David Brooks of the New York Times, creasing his pants.
He was mesmerized by it, struck by it.
Going to be a great president.
And Trump is not serious.
David Brooks, that's serious.
Yeah, folks, I'll tell you, I'm deeply fascinated by this whole notion of what's smart and what's serious.
And I think all this talk of serious is just, that's the new word replacing gravitas is what it is.
But, you know, Dan Jenkins once wrote that if baseball was half as complicated as the baseball writers make it sound, the average player couldn't play it.
He wasn't smart enough to.
And I've often thought the same thing about football.
If football were as complicated as all of these analysts make it seem, believe me, the average player couldn't figure it out.
The average player could not memorize and understand the playbook.
If it's that complicated.
Now, follow me on this.
Here's the thing.
If Obama is so smart, isn't two and a half years enough time to figure out it isn't working?
That is if his intentions are honorable, if he really wants a growing economy, if he really wants new jobs.
Isn't two and a half years of this ridiculousness enough to show that it's not the right way to do it?
Isn't two and a half years enough time to realize that you're on the wrong path?
Hint, this is why some of us believe all this is on purpose.
There's no indication of smartness in anything he tries to do.
He doubles down on his failures.
Now, speaking of Obama's academic record, he attended Harvard Law School at the height of something it was promoting, an education technique or theory.
It was called critical legal studies.
Critical legal studies was in its ascendancy at Harvard Law when Obama was there.
You can look it up.
Just Google Critical Legal Studies.
It is out and out Marxism.
In a nutshell, critical legal studies claims that law is just politics by other means.
It is a way for the rich to keep the poor working man down and deny him opportunities for prosperity.
That is what Obama was taught at Harvard.
And based on what he believes and is doing, it looks to me like he probably did get good grades.
Look it up if you want.
Critical legal studies.
Law is just politics by other means.
You could even turn it around.
Politics is just law by other means.
But I mean, look at what they do.
What has happened?
You can't get your accomplishments done in the legislative body.
You put judges that are going to write law on your court system.
When Obama proposes taxes on millionaires and billionaires and says the starting point's $200,000 a year, what he is doing is establishing a tax policy on millions and millions of small businesses, the express purpose of which is to prevent them from acquiring wealth.
Their wealth is what is being taxed.
Millionaires, genuine millionaires and billionaires, they don't have income.
They don't have wage income.
They pay capital gains rates, 15% or what have you.
They're not, you know, the 36% rate, the 39% rate.
They may have a salary of $100,000 that their sub-S pays them or what have you, but their wealth is not being taxed.
There is no wealth tax in America yet, but there's an income tax.
And when you want to start taxing people at 200, 250 grand at 40%, small business people.
And what you're saying is, you're going to get rich over my dead body.
You're going to acquire wealth over my dead body.
It's a way for the truly rich to keep everybody else serfs.
That's what Obama was taught, critical legal studies at Harvard.
Remember, I've told you when I was in Sacramento in 1985 in Playboy magazine, William F. Buckley Jr. had a long article entitled Redefining Smart.
How do you gauge it anymore?
He says, there's so much knowledge that's been charted.
It's impossible to know everything.
And he actually went back and found the name of somebody for whom it was possible in that era in human history where it was possible to know everything that was known.
And those days, of course, are long gone.
Anyway, I got another brief but profitable timeout, which we will take and be back.
By the way, John Boehner has said that he is not wedded to the Paul Ryan Medicare idea in the budget.
Any number of ideas.
He likes it.
He likes Ryan.
It's a great plan, but he's open to a lot of different ideas.
All right, the fastest three hours is zipping by here today, folks.
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