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May 16, 2011 - Rush Limbaugh Program
36:44
May 16, 2011, Monday, Hour #2
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No, no, I'm here.
I was just reading pieceinslate.com where they're almost ready to have a wake or a funeral over the fact that the huckster said he's not going to run.
Huckabee, they're really, I mean, the left is really, really sad.
The title of this guy's piece, and you can just, I mean, my computer screen is wet with tears.
The end of compassionate conservatism.
Huckabee takes compassionate conservatism with him.
There is no more compassionate conservatism in the Republican side if Huckabee doesn't run.
And they're just sad about that.
They're just so sad.
Greetings and welcome back, folks.
Great to have you.
Rush Limbaugh, the EIB Network, and the Limbaugh Institute for Advanced Conservative Studies.
Let's go back to the previous caller we had, a liberal who said he wants me.
What?
Yeah, I'm going to get to the Bachmann business here.
Hang on.
Wants me to actually go out and name a candidate that I'm the leader, pick somebody conservative because this guy doesn't like the way Obama's moving.
There's a hardcore liberal.
I question how hardcore because he was really nice.
We had him on for a full minute.
Didn't call me a name once.
Could have fooled me.
If he hadn't said he was a liberal, I wouldn't have believed it.
But he wants me to pick the candidate because he's worried.
He's worried that Obama's moving too far to the right here.
He doesn't like the fact that Obama's going to go drill now.
He doesn't like that Obama's ratcheting up in Libya.
He doesn't like all the stuff that Obama's doing.
Yeah, Guantanamo's still open.
But you look at, for all that we say about our side, you have to say when Obama does his flip-flop on drilling for oil, you got to know the people on the left are going bonkers.
You just know they are.
And so the proposition was put forth that if I would name somebody this really rock rib conservative and that person would thus get the nomination.
And this would free Obama to go back to being full-fledged Marxist socialist and win with ease.
Now, well, well, but leave me out of it.
The point is here.
What's the point?
This guy's saying that Obama is going to lose by moving to the right.
He wants Obama to not even try to occupy the right because I will pick somebody who owns it.
Again, for all of you people on the left, the last thing Obama wants is to run against a real conservative.
Obama hopes to hell he gets a squishy, moderate, middle-of-the-road McCain type.
He wants somebody who is afraid to occupy conservative positions.
He wants a Republican who has been convinced that that is the wrong way to go.
Obama, they will do anything.
I'm telling you, they will do anything.
They will tell us what they fear.
They'll tell us who they fear.
They will do anything to keep a demonstrable, genuine conservative from getting the Republican nomination because they know that they will lose and lose big.
And Obama, you know, forget labels for a second here, you leftists.
Forget whether it's conservative or liberal for Obama to flip-flop on drilling for oil.
Why is he doing it?
You know, Obama does not want to be a conservative.
He isn't one.
But he does want to be re-elected.
I have postulated and theorized for the past week or so that the internal polling in the White House on Obama re-elect is disastrous.
I think Drill Baby Drill, his flip-flop on drilling, I think going after Bin Laden.
I think all of that is evidence of how bad it is inside the polling data, deep inside the internal polling of the White House on Obama's reelection.
I think it looks horrible.
There's no other explanation to look at.
This country, for all the talk in the media, for all of the pop culture, this country is not a center-left country.
It's not a liberal country.
It's not a socialist country.
If it were, folks, Obama would be proudly running on his record.
He would be promising 10% unemployment instead of trying to reduce it.
If Obama's proscriptions were the genuine solution to problems, he'd be doubling down and running on them instead of trying to make people think that he is for things he's not.
The real Barack Obama does not want to drill for oil.
But the real Barack Obama realizes he's got to say he's interested in it or will look at it if he has a chance of being re-elected.
If he is re-elected, it'll be easy within a day or two or a month or two to say, you know what?
I worked as hard as I could.
Look at me.
Redrill.
But I just can't.
Change his mind within a week after the election and throw it away.
His left and base would be extremely happy.
This idea here that conservatism is a loser, the notion that that's fallacy or folly because Obama is trying to angle so that he has perception of being anything but a liberal as we head here toward the presidential campaign.
It's fascinating to watch.
And it happens every time.
The left always has to move to the center at election time.
They didn't have to so much in 08 because they weren't challenged on the right.
Obama was not challenged on the right.
He was challenged from the middle.
He was challenged from somebody who really didn't even want to challenge him, per se, which is McCain.
Now, let's move to this whole notion here of what's happening inside the Republican field and the fact that opposition research is now being conducted on Michelle Bachman.
There is a little game.
I don't know if you've noticed this, but if you haven't noticed it, don't doubt me.
Part of my job is to notice things before you do and then tell you.
It's called a cutting edge.
I'm on it.
I own it.
There's a little game being played by the established Republican commentariat, what I call the inside the beltway conservative intelligentsia, or the Republican intellectual elite.
And it is aimed at muddling conservatism and discrediting, taking down, if you will, conservative Tea Party candidates in the Republican presidential primary process.
And it is the way to do it, by the way, is a page right out of the Democrat Left's playbook.
Now, last week, I mentioned and discussed at some length the argument that some were making that if conservatives demand candidates who are too pure, they can't win.
I don't know if you've seen that, but it's effervescing out there.
And it always does.
We can't win with a conservative that's too pure, that's too rock-ribbed, it's too rigid.
We need a conservative who understands that raising taxes now and then is a reasonable and sometimes intelligent thing to do.
We don't want the kind of purity that says never raise taxes.
We don't want the kind of purity that gives us the social issues.
We need Republicans who aren't as pure, who realize that sometimes you just have to stop talking about guns and abortion for the larger good of public policy.
Well, today in the Daily Caller, that's Chatsworth Osborne Jr.'s website, right?
Tucker Carlson.
There's a guy named Matt Lewis, and it's a takedown of Michelle Bachman in the Daily Caller.
In this case, it's not because she's too pure.
In her case, it's because she is too impure.
In other words, let's not support candidates who are unabashedly conservative because they can't win.
That's the advice.
Michelle can't win because she's too unabashedly conservative.
Palin can't win because she's too unabashedly conservative.
On the other hand, there are no unabashedly conservative candidates in the field when you get right down to it.
This is what happens when you try to analyze politics and write about it when you don't really understand conservatism and the Tea Party movement, and instead you get swept up in the Washington way and the mentality of gotcha.
See, this whole notion of purity, the assault on purity, is just another way of attacking mainstream conservatives.
But conservatism, I would say, speaking for myself, conservatism is not about purity.
It's about a philosophy.
People get sidetracked purity and all these other aspects, but conservatism is a philosophy.
And all conservatives do not agree on all things when it comes to every issue or policy.
However, there are fundamental and defining principles and views on life that do define and unite conservatives.
Now, let's look at Bachman.
Just a quick peek here at Michelle Bachman.
She is a favored target of establishment Washington.
Now, that doesn't come as a surprise to you, does it?
I mean, you know that she's a target.
You've seen it.
It might perplex you as to why.
At this stage of the game, look, I know we're in the Republican primaries and there are the battle is between ourselves now.
It's understandable.
But Establishment Washington, Bachman is a favorite target, and even to the point of talking about how she's too short or she's radical or what have you.
But in this case, in a daily caller piece, the attack on her is that she supported earmarks and ethanol.
So the argument here, this is the reverse purity argument.
The argument here is that she's not pure and therefore not pure enough for Tea Party activists.
This is an attempt to alert the Tea Party that Michelle Bachman's a fraud, that she's really not one of you.
She's out there trying to create support, command support from all you Tea Party people, but she's not one of you.
She's not pure.
She's voted for earmarks and ethanol.
Okay, well, what else?
Michelle Bachman has been a leading advocate for stripping $105 billion from Obamacare so that it cannot be implemented.
Michelle Bachman was one of the early conservative leaders, along with Steve King from Iowa, trying to make sure that Obamacare was defunded.
She heard the Tea Party.
She heard everybody was taking it very seriously.
We must not allow this thing to become law, or we must repeal it or defund it.
Okay, here's $105 billion put in there stealthway by Pelosi.
She identified it.
She wanted to strip it out of there.
She's a leading opponent of the continuing resolution theory of funding government.
She steadfastly stood up and opposed the House leadership on funding the government two weeks at a time.
She's a leading opponent of amnesty for illegal immigrants.
She's a solid conservative on national security and defense.
She's a leading activist for the Tea Party, and she's a major speaker at numerous Tea Party events.
Now, all of that distinguishes her quite a lot from most of the candidates who are seeking the Republican nomination for president or planning to.
However, because she supported some earmarks and ethanol, she is said now by non-conservatives not to be pure enough for conservatives who are demanding purity.
And in another piece, they'll say demanding purity is a bad thing.
But right now, she's not pure enough.
Nobody can be everything to everybody.
On the big stuff, Michelle Bachman has flying colors when it comes to being defined as a conservative.
It's a stretch.
It would be an incredible stretch to try to say that she's not a conservative.
I think we've talked about earmarks, ethanol, those two things.
Considering everything else we face, that's jump change.
But if you want to focus on those two things, trying to say she's impure, that's what's doing now.
That's what's underway.
People on our side.
I got to take a break here, my friends, that time just gets away from me.
We'll be back and continue right after this.
Don't go away.
Okay, let me finish with this Bachman business here, and I want to get to your phone calls.
Now, so she's not pure enough in the daily call today because she has supported earmarks, and she's supported ethanol.
So you Tea Party people are supposed to think from that, she's not qualified.
She's not pure.
She strays from the course.
Virtually all the other candidates who are running or who are planning on running and who have served in public office have supported ethanol and earmarks, whether at the federal, state, or local levels of government.
In fact, some say you can't win in Iowa unless you do support ethanol.
For example, I've had my own run-in with people on earmarks.
I have never been one to base my entire view of a politician on whether or not they supported earmarks because it's not that much money.
I understand the moral aspect, and I understand that earmarks open up the opportunity for blackmail and this guy.
I understand all the arguments about them.
We know McCain, hardly a purist, McCain made earmarks the centerpiece of a failed presidential campaign.
It just ain't that big a deal.
It certainly is not enough to disqualify somebody from being pure.
James Inhoff, Oklahoma, one of the leading conservatives in the Senate, he insists that earmarks are actually a more responsive way to reach the voters, respond to the voters, the will of the people, than leaving such decisions to unelected bureaucrats.
He wants to spend the money.
He says, look, this earmark money is going to be spent.
Rather, the elected representatives of the people do it than some faceless bureaucrat at some agency or some president.
That's his view.
My point is not to defend earmarks.
As is the case with everything else, put everything in perspective.
We are sinking in red ink.
Most of it to do with entitlements.
Much of it to do with Obama's massive spending on domestic programs.
Earmarks in that scene play a minor role in the big scheme of things, just in terms of dollar amounts.
The point is, Michelle Bachman fights the big budget items more relentlessly than most people do, which is why she's being attacked.
Michelle Bachman focuses on the stuff that really matters in terms of dollars and cents.
And that's why she's under assault now.
Ethanol, I mean, it's just a subsidy.
I oppose all of these subsidies where the government's trying to set national policy in one industry or another.
And I think conservatives have something to explain when they support it and so forth.
But it doesn't mean that Bachman is not pure enough to be a good conservative, which is what they're trying to say about her now.
No, I'm just using today's attack on Bachman, and it is, it's in the Daily Caller.
Just using today's attack on Bachman as an example of the way the game is played in Washington, tear down conservatives, the kind of superficial approach to governing and philosophy that too many people have.
These are dangerous times for the country.
I really, if you, people ask me all the time, Rush, how can there be such divisions within the Republican Party over this?
And I think I've got the answer.
You know, you and I, folks, let's be honest, we look at Obamaism and we see a threat to the nation.
We see this indebtedness, the uncontrolled spending.
We know what it means for liberty, freedom, children, grandchildren.
We are really afraid that the very structure of the country is under a purposeful assault.
I don't think that many of the inside the Beltway Republicans, the Republican establishment people, think that's the case at all.
I think that's the reason for the big divide.
It's no different than, okay, LBJ was president.
He gave us a great society a whole bunch of spending.
We took over and we spent some too, but not nearly as much.
And it's just the normal cycle of things.
Democrats are on the show right now.
And the objective is to get back in charge of spending the money.
I think that's where the establishment Republicans are.
They're trying to get back in charge of spending the money.
They don't see, they don't believe the country is threatened as founded.
They drive around.
They go to Denver.
They don't see the strip mall that's there ceasing to exist.
They don't see the destruction of the country taking place.
They just don't see it.
They don't think anything needs nowhere near that dire.
Yeah, we got to get a handle on our spending.
It's a little out of control.
We've got to do something here on the debt.
Yeah, we got to solve health care, but no, no, no, no, no.
This is not about turning this place into the Soviet Union or any of that.
I think that's the divide.
That's my guess anyway.
And that's what it is as a guess.
Okay, back to the phones.
Bridget, Springfield, Missouri.
Thank you for waiting.
You're up next on the EIB network.
Hi.
Hi, Rush.
It's an honor to speak with you.
Thank you very much.
I am a Newt Gingrich supporter, so let's state that up front.
I think he gets it.
He gets the things you just said.
He has actually called Obama a socialist.
He speaks of him as a radical left-wing president with policies that endanger this country, not just the economy, but national security.
It's as though Iran and North Korea are off Obama's radar screen.
He's not even thinking about them.
As to these comments that Newton made over the weekend, I wish he'd talked to me first.
I wish he hadn't said this stuff, but I don't think it's as bad as people are making it out.
All right.
So you still support Newton?
Yes.
You do.
Okay.
Well, to each his own.
That's fine.
You don't think that he has preferably stepped in it?
Oh, well, yeah, he's definitely stepped in it, but I still support him.
I mean, everyone makes mistakes.
I used to believe in global warming for a little while, and then I was cured of it.
You helped cure me of it.
Another point that helped cure me of it was I remembered that back in the 70s, people were talking about an ice age.
I haven't seen an ice age yet.
Have you?
Well, I've seen closer to an ice age than I have global warming.
I agree.
In this last winter.
What you said about the sunspots convinced me that was all just ridiculous.
Well, what's important is to realize that whether it is global warming or an ice age, it's all still BS.
Those are nothing more than tried and trude liberal tricks.
It's all part of the game of alarm, frighten, scare.
They're trying it now with the debt limit.
They tried it with the continuing resolution.
They used it on the economy.
We needed TARP.
We needed all this stuff.
We do this stuff really quickly.
Now it's the death ceiling that everybody is in a panic over, and there's no reason to panic in terms of the country dissolving into itself and ceasing to exist.
But that's just the way they play the game.
It's all oriented toward creating a set of circumstances so dire that you alone, as an individual, cannot matter.
You can't fix it.
All you can do is help.
But Washington, the smartest people around government, they have to fix it with your support.
You have to agree to have your taxes raised.
I don't care whether it's a debt limit or global warming or flooding.
You have to agree to have your taxes raised.
You have to agree to have your lifestyle downsized, whatever the issue.
And they ladle guilt upon guilt upon guilt in their attempt to get you to go along with it.
Most people's lives don't mean anything in their own minds.
Most people want to be somebody.
Most people want to matter.
Why do you think everybody does all this social media stuff?
Everybody wants fame.
Everybody wants to be noticed.
Everybody wants to be known.
Everybody wants to be famous for a while.
Everybody wants to matter.
You come along and you say, you know what?
You can save the planet.
Go buy an electric car.
You can save the planet.
Support a tax increase on those rich clowns so we can build windmills.
And wow, what a great way to give your life meaning.
Why, you're saving the planet.
And it's all trichonology.
This is Glenn in Durham, North Carolina.
Great to have you on the EIB Network, sir.
Hello.
Thanks, Rush.
Mr. Gingrich is about Mr. Gingrich.
I mean, he's done commercials for and with Hillary Clinton.
He's done a commercial with Nancy Pelosi.
And Mr. Gingrich is simply about Mr. Gingrich.
That's all he cares about.
He wants his 15 minutes of fame.
And now I understand, Rush, why you don't have guests on your show because you would have to actually defend this poor slob.
Mr. Gingrich deserves no attention from any of us conservatives.
Hold it a minute.
Wait a minute now.
Why would I have to defend him if I had him?
I mean, you're half right in why I don't want to have guests, but there are other reasons besides that one that are more relevant.
So why would I have to accept what any guest says?
Well, I guess I'm referring to the colleague of yours that comes after you generally in the afternoon who's been propping up this poor slob for a long time.
And, you know, so it's not you, Rush.
It's just other talk show hosts, one in particular that has made a career out of propping up this poor slob new band.
Wait a second.
You are intent here on referring to Gingrich as a poor slob.
It's about 10 times you've done it here.
You want 11?
No, I think we get it.
I think we get it.
All right.
Well, look, Glenn, there's no doubting where you are.
I would have been nice to him.
I'm nice to people.
Guests.
I just, folks, I don't care what anybody else thinks is the reason I don't have guests.
I just, I cannot sit here and act like I don't know what's going on until somebody on this program tells me.
I just, I cannot, I've got, well, I have a, No, I don't know everything.
But it's not in me here to start acting deferential when I'm as informed about the subject matter as any guest I would have is.
Open mind Friday is enough.
Once a week, once a week, and those lovely people are not even professionals.
All right, who's next?
Where am I going?
Lucina, EKV, Texas.
Hello, and welcome to the EIB Network.
Hi.
Hey, Raj, how are you?
Very well.
Great.
Well, I have a theory about why I think Newt attacked Paul Ryan's Medicare plan, and I think it's really an attack on Paul Ryan.
And the reason I say that is that if you think of one person who we conservatives might really flock to, if he would change his mind and run for president, I think Paul Ryan would be so hard to beat.
And I think that Newt is getting to the desperate stage where enough is being asked about his personal life and his background, that he thinks that he has to take a swing at somebody who might possibly come out and whip him.
And I think that that could be Paul Ryan.
Well, this is fascinating to listen to all this.
Well, no, it's fascinating to sit here and listen to you and Glenn and the other guy who used the word slob 10 times.
It's fascinating to listen, because I know Newt.
It's fascinating for me to listen to you.
It's not a cut.
Please don't misunderstand.
You don't know him as I do.
And it's just fascinating to listen to people evolve theories about why he's doing something here.
I would disagree with you that this is rooted in a fear of Paul Ryan.
You probably also think he might be a little jealous that Ryan's getting all of this great publicity with his plan.
That might be bothering Newt.
Would I be right there that you're a little jealous too?
Or that Newt might be a little jealous?
No, I don't think.
I think Newt at heart, just from having watched him for so many years, he loves this country and he thinks that he would be the best president that could be elected.
And he thinks that he would do the best job of anyone out there.
Having said that, he's a fighter.
And if he feels like someone is potentially in his way and he really should be the president, I do think that he would act ahead and early and try to take the legs out from under someone who might be getting too much traction with the conservative base.
And I really do feel that Paul Ryan is one of those people that has kind of that Reagan quality.
If he looked into the camera and talked to the American people about making hard choices, I think people would follow him.
I don't know if he has that connection.
Look, in practical terms now, there's only one thing that's wrong with that.
And that is this.
Paul Ryan is not one of Newt's opponents.
Paul Ryan is not running.
So there's no reason in an electoral sense to take Paul Ryan out.
Ryan's not going to get drafted.
Ryan does not want to be president.
He's not one of these people, I think, that said, not his time, not ready yet.
There are other people, however, who are running.
And they are in Newt's way, if he wants it.
So I think the distancing himself here, the taking issue with Ryan, you know, folks, it could be something as innocuous as bad staff, a staff error.
It could be But I was right in the first instance that Newt's seeking a niche or a niche, trying to go where nobody else is for whatever reason, attracting independents and so forth.
Regardless the reason, you'd have to say that as we sit here and speak now, it isn't working.
It's got a lot of more people.
I mean, a lot of people inside the Republican establishment have come out.
full-throated opposition to what Newt said, which may also be an objective, by the way.
Time will tell where all of this is headed.
As it is right now, most people looking at it with raised eyebrows, cocked heads, this doesn't make any sense.
Ryan's not running.
Everybody's rallying around his idea.
We got to do something about it.
We'll see.
I got to take a break a little long in this segment.
Sit tight, my good buddies.
Back with more after this.
Rebecca Rushbaud, a cutting edge of societal evolution.
I know a lot of people who think that Newt's comment on Ryan is purely jealousy.
I know a lot of people think that.
Ryan is credited with being the thinker of the moment, a great thinker of the day, good policy guy.
And Newt views that as his role.
Some people say, I got an email.
Rush, it doesn't matter if Ryan's running or not.
Newt doesn't like anybody talked up as smart.
So there are a lot, the opinions run the gamut out there.
I think, at the end of the day, most people don't care why Newt said it.
It's just enough that he did.
And they're scratching their heads.
This makes no sense.
Everybody is rallying around this.
And to be the lone wolf tearing it down cannot possibly be helpful to him.
How does this help Newt?
People asking themselves, how is Newt helping himself doing this?
And nobody can come up with that answer.
Nobody can see how it is helpful for Newt.
And that, ladies and gentlemen, that is the genuine question here.
Sarasota, Florida, Dean, welcome to the EIB Network.
Great to have you here.
Hey, how are you doing, Rush?
Very good, sir.
Thank you.
Hey, thanks for taking my call.
You know, I've been a longtime listener, and I agree with you most of the time.
But you've told the people something that's just not actually correct.
And I was kind of wanting to correct you on that, if I could.
You've continually stated that state workers are all unionized.
And here in Florida, it's just not true.
We only are not unionized, but our pay doesn't even come close to what people in the private sector get for the same type jobs that we do.
There are no private sector.
Well, now you have to tell the police and the firemen here in Palm Beach that because they're unionized.
No, sir.
I'm speaking about the Department of Transportation personally.
I don't know anything about the United States.
Well, you said there aren't.
Well, you said not everybody.
There are unionized.
Okay.
There are some.
Sorry, Frank.
Okay, let me change it this way.
Where there are unionized state workers, their existence is to further a money laundering operation so that a portion of what they earn paid by taxpayers ends up as campaign donations to the Democrat Party.
And that is absolutely probably correct.
Well, then we've come to a common ground here.
Yes, sir, we have.
But the thing is, you know, you keep lumping us in with some of these other people that, you know, we're just not unionized and we're not getting the benefits and the things that these people apparently must be receiving.
And I just think it's kind of, you know, just wanted to set the record straight and let, you know, let everybody know that that's just not the case.
Are you not all?
Are you sad about this?
Would you prefer to be unionized?
No, sir.
Okay.
So you don't want to rape fellow citizens?
No, I just want to work for a fair, you know, fair day's work for a fair day's pay.
Yeah.
No, me too.
Me too.
Okay.
But, you know, other than that, I mean, what it's done, though, is it's shined a light on us to make us look like the bad guy.
And actually, here in Florida, we're due to get about a 3% cut in pay here with this new budget that's come out.
All right.
Dean, thanks for the call.
Thank you, sir.
Appreciate it.
See how agreeable we can be?
This is how Newt and Ryan ought to do it.
Back after this.
All right, from what I can tell, and this is a cursory search, you understand, in a limited amount of time, it does seem like the Florida Department of Transportation was unionized up until 2009.
The Florida legislature did away with the union as of 2009, but that's fairly recent over the past couple years.
Anyway, I can't believe it.
The time's going.
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