All Episodes
Previous Next
May 25, 2011 - Rush Limbaugh Program
35:22
May 25, 2011, Wednesday, Hour #2
| Copy link to current segment

Time Text
Hiya, folks, and welcome back.
Already Wednesday, the fastest week in media.
Fastest three hours in media.
Great to have you with us.
I'm Rush Limboy, and this The Excellence in Broadcasting Network.
Our telephone number, 800 282-2882.
Email address, L Rushboard, EIBNet.com.
I did some research top there.
It is very true.
The traditional toast to her majesty is essentially to Her Majesty the Queen.
That's it.
And it happens to be when a band kicked in.
Now toasts to her Royal Majesty are by tradition brief.
And to the point they usually amount to little more than to Her Majesty the Queen.
So it wasn't the fault of the orchestra that they assumed Obama was finished.
And you have to ask yourself at least myself.
Who is writing Obama's toasts these days?
Is there anything more shop worn than to praise Britain by quoting the sceptered Isles speech from Shakespeare?
And I'm not even sure he was that familiar with it as he was reading it.
Getting all over Newt Gingrich here about his $500,000 bill at Tiffany.
Any similar questions about Michelle, my bell, and her wardrobe.
And her jewelry and who happens to maybe be paying for the last I checked, Newt was buying his own stuff.
At any rate, uh back to New York 26 here for just a second and to try to put things in perspective.
The Republicans won that seat in 2008 by six points.
When you combine the GOP and the phony Tea Party vote, they would have won this time by five points after the Democrats poured millions of dollars into this election.
Now here's what they're saying at politico.
And for the first time since November, the idea that Democrats might have a shot at winning back the House is no longer a laughing matter.
So you see, they are trying to reassure themselves that they are not in deep doo doo, and they are in deep doo doo.
Now that the New York election is safely stolen, the Obama people are claiming they were behind it.
From the politico, team Obama helped Hokel, that's her name, organizing for America, play the significant supporting role in efforts to amp turnout for Kathy Hochel.
And yes, okay, now that they've stolen the election, now the regime is saying, hey, we did it, we did it, we did it.
And I'm just I'll just reiterate this one more time before moving on.
If you are a Republican, and if you are going to seek reelection, you better be able to explain conservatism happily and with confidence, and you better not be afraid to do so.
You can't sit around and think the Democrat candidates are going to be voted against, and that you're going to be the beneficiary of that.
You can basically not ruffle any feathers.
You're going to have to ruffle the media feathers.
The media is going to get ruffled.
You can't.
You can't escape it.
And as another aside, for the Republican Party at large.
It is clear that they are scared to death of Paul Ryan's Medicare proposal.
They are scared to death of it.
Is there any leadership?
Is there anybody in the Republican Party willing to come out today publicly, loudly and proudly, and defend your own budget.
We can't do it all on talk radio.
And it's a great opportunity for some leadership to surface here.
It's a great opportunity for somebody.
You can see what the Democrats are thinking of this in the media and what they have at stake here.
The temptation, let it go.
It's you know, special election, odd, weird New York 26.
This is Rush, we don't even want to mention it.
People are going to forget about this by tomorrow.
No, they're not.
The media's not going to forget about it.
Narrative, the template uh being written.
Even as we uh as we speak.
Audio sound bites, as I mentioned in the previous hour.
The media doing everything he can to make excuses for poor Obama.
The Queen should have bailed him out.
The orchestra shouldn't have started.
He was poorly briefed by his staff today on CNN's newsroom.
Before Obama's address to the British Parliament, Wolf Blitzer spoke with Gloria Borger and Susan Malvo about Obama's upcoming address.
Blitzer says, I'd be interested if the president says anything at all about the death, the devastation of the tornadoes in Missouri and Oklahoma.
I don't know if it'd be appropriate.
Well, you know, Netanyahu did.
Netanyahu talked about it before Obama did.
But Obama finally did weigh in.
He said, Don't worry, I'll be there Sunday.
We're going to rebuild every house, we're going to rebuild every business.
Yeah, like we did in Haiti.
Well, like we did in the porculus and stimulus.
We're going to create all these jobs.
Yeah, they're not going to rebuild every building and they're going to rebuild every house.
And a hint for those of you in Joplin, we don't have the money.
We don't have the money.
I saw that.
Stennie Hoyer says we're not broke.
That's interesting.
1.6 trillion dollar deficit, 14 trillion national debt, up against the debt ceiling.
We're not broke.
You know what he the reason he's saying that's because we've got revenue coming in.
Tax revenue.
You can't possibly be broke if you've got billions and billions and billions of revenue coming in.
Broke means you have no income.
We've got income.
That's that's what he's saying.
He's making a uh technical point.
Here's Gloria Borger opining on whether or not it'd be appropriate for Obama to reference the victims in Joplin and now other places in the Midwest.
It's always a balancing act when a president travels abroad and something happens at home.
We know the president on Sunday is going to go to Missouri and going to visit families who have been affected by these terrible tornadoes, and the president has spoken about it from over there.
So when a president travels abroad, he cannot forget what is occurring at home.
And that's first and foremost.
And it's very difficult, Wolf.
You see these pictures, President Obama enjoying a barbecue with the Prime Minister and with veterans.
You see them playing paddle ball.
These are the kinds of images that uh really don't sit well when they're juxtaposed with uh people who have seen everything, their homes, their lives ravaged by these tornadoes, and it always is uh a difficult thing.
Oh, yeah.
Did they ever talk this way about Bush and Katrina?
A pointless rhetorical question, of course.
What Stenny Hoyer means sturdily when he says we're not broke, he's got we still have checks in our checkbook.
I can still write a check.
That means that I'm not broke.
That's how that's how they define it.
So those darn tornadoes are just ruining Obama's vacation.
You hear that?
I mean, that's that's what Malvo and Borger basically said.
Dorn tornadoes ruining our guy's vacation.
Jack Cafferty, however, the curmudgeon at CNN not buying this.
What message is conveyed by pictures of President Obama downing a pint of Guinness and laughing it up with the Irish people or playing ping pong with the British Prime Minister, while the people of Joplin, Missouri searched through the wreckage of their lives looking for dead family members.
We have already experienced the worst tornado outbreak in the last 50 years.
Meanwhile, we've airlifted the first family and that gang that travels with them to Europe.
For six days of hobnobbing with various heads of state, eating the finest foods, drinking the finest wines, while Mother Nature tears the heart out of innocent people's lives.
Remember Katrina and the pathetic response of the Bush administration to the other destruction of the city of New Orleans?
I can't help but think that voters remembered well Katrina when they stepped into the booth in 2008 and elected America's first African American president.
Wolf Blitzer was in a panic.
This happened on his show.
Cafferty saying this blitzer in a panic.
So uh Blitzer steps in here to try to uh save the day.
You know, Jack, he is gonna go there on Sunday after he returns from Europe.
I'm aware of that, Wolf.
Okay.
Thanks, Jack.
Oh.
You know, Jack, dial it back a little bit, old buddy.
He is going in there on Sunday after he returns.
I'm aware of that, Wolf.
Okay, thanks, Jack.
Just wanted you to know.
Tornado's trying to make Obama look bad, not just talk radio.
What's in store for tornadoes back after this?
Welcome back, Rush Limbaugh.
Half my brain tied behind my back just to make it fair.
Bremerton, Washington next.
And Jason, great to have you with us, sir.
Hi.
Hi, Rush.
Let me just add on a little bit to what you uh were saying earlier about uh uh the New York race.
Related to that race.
The reason that it was lost was and we will lose other races in the future, is the fact that Republicans have very few candidates or members of the House that can speak coherently about issues, or in this case, either the Ryan Medicare plan or the Ryan budget.
The Democrat scare machine is effective.
The Republican counter to that, which would be facts, isn't it they just back away with their tails stuck between their legs.
My proof is the fact that a majority of the members of Congress can't even speak to what the Ryan Medicare plan is, what it does, or what the Ryan budget does, and I could go on rebounding.
Well, wait a second, I need to ask you how you uh know.
I watch them on TV.
They sit there and look dumbfounded, go back to their talking points.
But you've seen over half the Republicans.
All they do is they stand behind Paul Ryan and look like little bottleheads.
No, I'm talking about the if you were to go and ask them what is in the plan, they would give you a deer in the headlights look.
No, I'm talking numbers.
You're you're saying that 150 Republicans in the House do not know, or 120 do not know.
They do not know the issue front to back, left to right, up or down.
They can go to various talking points, but they don't know what the whole issue or what they support is.
They do not speak in a coherent manner.
Now uh where are you getting this?
It's my observation.
Your observation.
Um, I know that the Tea Party candidates all can.
That's why.
Well, there aren't very many of those.
Well, there's 59 of them.
I would like 59 Chris Christie's.
Well, look, I'm not here to throw cold water on anybody.
I understand there's a great uh deal of excitement for Governor Christie.
I'm just speaking from a being able to articulate what they are speaking about.
Well, if they can't the problem.
I I've just uh uh it's it's the clear route to victory.
Conservatism artfully spoken, passionately promoted, confidently expressed.
I'll tell you something, it's always um it's always easier to just make up lies like the Democrats do.
Rather than try to explain a complex piece of uh legislation, grab somebody twenty-six, have it standing by.
You know, ninety ninety-nine percent of the Democrat playbook is made up of scare tactics.
If you don't do X, then Y will happen, and usually it means you're deaf.
You're gonna die.
That's the Democrat playbook.
Just fill in the blanks and you and you've got your strategy.
They they never take the substance of anything on.
They just claim it's gonna kill you.
That's that's what the the Democrats and explaining facts is a little bit more complicated than that.
And sometimes if you're not very good at it, it can sound boring at the uh at the same time.
That that's why being able to articulate conservatism philosophically Is fundamental here.
Because that's fun.
That's uh and it's enlightening to a lot of people.
Now here's Dingy Harry, just to show you how the Democrats are making hay out of this today.
Uh this afternoon, he had a little press conference to talk about New York 26.
Last night the people of America resoundingly spoke in rejecting the Republican plan to end Medicare as we know it.
This is New York 26th district.
Now the question to my Republican colleagues is basically this.
It's very simple.
Will you listen to the American people?
Because their message could not be clear.
At least four decades.
Just six months ago, the congressional district went Republican by a three-to-one margin.
But it changed last night.
Why?
Because the number one, two, and free issue in that congressional district, as is all over the country is destroying Medicare as we know it.
Putting insurance companies between patients and their physicians.
Oh man, from the party that is destroying Medicare.
From the party that is destroying private sector health care comes Harry Reid lying through his teeth.
This is this is uh nothing could be further from the truth than what he said here.
New York's 26th district is being portrayed here as the American people.
And then Medicare reform, Paul Rand's budget was on the ballot.
The winning candidate, I'm gonna get blue in the face saying this.
The winning candidate criticized Obama and the Democrats for $500 billion in Medicare cuts.
The winning candidate.
You you might say that a conservative message did win.
It just wasn't articulated by the Republican.
The Democrat won by four points with a fraudulent Tea Party candidate in the race.
The Democrats did not even win the majority resounding vote, my rear end.
They didn't even win a majority in this.
It's why it's uh it's not time to panic.
Scott in Rockford, Illinois.
Great that you called, sir.
Welcome to the EIB network.
Hi, Rush.
Pleasure speaking with you.
Thank you.
Um I was curious what your thoughts was on why our vice president isn't taking over going down to Missouri when Obama's off doing whatever he's doing.
I have no idea.
Um I don't think Biden knows either.
I my guess is they uh probably don't trust sending him.
Yeah, that's true.
You know, what's he gonna say when he gets there?
I d I I really do think that uh they try to rein the guy in.
He's a walking gaff.
And he tries to make jokes, he tries to be funny.
This is not the place of the time uh for this kind of thing.
I I really think there's an effort to keep him sort of sequestered.
Yeah, I kind of believe that because I think he should be down there.
Well, he is not.
Uh I don't think the people of Joplin are saying, where's the vice president?
I don't think the people are joblin are running around, hey, I where's Joe Biden?
Gosh, I wish Joe Biden was here.
In addition to that, Obama's not going to allow himself to be upstaged on this.
He's gonna swoop in there on Sunday.
Superman, save the day, and Buffalo, New York.
This is near New York 26, by the way.
Great to have you on the program.
Thanks for taking my call.
I just wanted to say this about our election yesterday.
That election boiled down to this.
It was a vote to support the Obama agenda in Washington, or it was a vote basically against it and for our constitutional republic.
The It was not stated that way.
I worked on the Jane Carwin campaign.
They gave us sheets of paper to read on the phone when we called somebody.
I finally just stopped saying that, and I finally started telling people.
This election boils down to either you're gonna put another vote in Washington, support Obama agenda, or you're gonna send somebody there who may actually bring forward a conservative vote.
Now, wait a second.
What did they have you saying?
They had us saying um, can we count on your support for Jane?
Or if people would ask us questions, then we would read bullet points off the um.
Okay, so let me get this straight.
You're on the phone bank and you're calling out and you're trying to get people to vote.
Get them to the polls.
That's it.
And uh number one in listeners, we count on your support for Jane.
Yes.
That's number one.
Yeah.
And then after that, it was up to them to ask questions before you would uh provide any substance.
Not me.
No, but I mean, I mean the instructions.
The instructions that you got.
Yeah.
If you had, if the person had questions, I would say, do you have any questions about this?
Because they would either say yes, you can count on support or no.
And I would say, have you got any questions?
And if they asked a question, I could go directly to the conservative point.
Okay, so you you didn't.
You went improv on everybody.
He said, let me tell you what this election's about.
Yeah.
You went off the page.
Yeah.
See, I told you, Snurgley.
That's it exactly right.
This is going to be another McCain in 2012.
If they put a candidate up there that sounds like a politician, acts like a politician, and does not come down and a conservative person who believes in what he's saying.
See, this is the mainstream Republican mindset, anti-conservative, afraid to articulate a conservative point of view.
Well, because I know who the uh I how do I always know these things?
I know.
I I just know what people stand for and what they're afraid of.
In this case, the Republicans are afraid of conservatism, so they're not going to have their vote bank people say anything about it.
All right.
I've spent some time here delving into and digging deep into this uh New York 26.
And I must issue you people an apology.
If I were Japanese, I would resign.
As a matter of honor.
Because I have committed a grave disservice by being entirely ignorant.
But I mean, I really did not know that this election was taking place.
I really didn't know.
I got to do a Herman Cain here.
He said he didn't know what the right of return was.
I did not know this election was taking place.
And I I apologize profusely and profoundly.
Well, it's my job, man, to know these things.
It's my uh it's not it's my business, Snurtley, to know these things.
And I was uh I just didn't know.
But nevertheless, nonetheless, I have now taken time to dig deep and delve into this, and it's clear what the mistakes were.
And I want to thank you, snurdley, for storming in here.
And I was having lunch and he didn't care.
I mean, he was fuming.
Spittle very nearly ended up on my desk.
Storming over when I I thought you were a caller.
Media was being unfair, media this, media that.
Snurdly was ready to cash it in.
Just quit.
All right, fine.
Forget Medicare reform.
Let it go broke and let people find out.
And a lot of his um anger was focused at the media, which I really have any patience for people mad at the media because it's like being mad at the sun for coming up.
I mean, it's who they are who they are, and they're not going to change.
And I know I hate arrogance and I hate liars and I hate people lying about me and all that, but it is what it is.
At some point, uh it can't be an excuse.
It had ways to work around it.
We win elections despite them, so it's possible to do, obviously.
In this case, whoever strategized this, you know, what r uh whoever strategized this blew it, and I leads me to another was not going to ingratiate me here with party apparatus, but you know, we we've got the political consultants on our side who think they know how to win races.
You know, they want a part of the Christine O'Donnell race.
And by the way, Christine O'Donnell did just as well as Meg Whitman did in California, percentage-wise.
You know, people at running Meg Whitman's race, they did just as badly as Christine O'Donnell.
I I kid you not.
She got she'll act just as badly as O'Donnell did.
Percentage basis.
Wasn't even close.
But of course you never hear it said that way.
But the consultants fight for the 20%.
The consultants fight for moderates.
There wasn't a conservatism in this message.
In fact, if this race had been nationalized rather than localized.
I think the consultants probably say, okay, here we got Jack Kemp's district.
We got we got a district goes Republican, so okay, we got that.
That's a check mark.
That's one of our strengths.
We don't need to do anything because we've got that.
So they focused on again going out and getting the 20% or whatever it is, 25% moderates, which means you de-emphasize conservatism.
This is my problem with consultancy.
They de-emphasize the strength.
They also de-emphasize the strength because they don't like it.
Conservative conservatism, Republican Party's got its it's got its enemies, as we have long discussed and well documented here.
But if this race had been nationalized, if the dirty tricks had been addressed, if the candidate had been able to articulate what Paul Ryan's budget is.
Would have been an entirely different story.
The and those are ifs that are relevant because those are things that could have changed.
Now, the Democrats had a phony Tea Party guy in there.
And it is important to say the Democrats did not win this with their ideas.
The Democrats did not win this with liberal ideas.
Liberal ideas were not in the ballot.
Liberal ideas did not triumph here.
The Democrats had to go in and lie and defraud and cheat.
They had to have a phony Tea Party guy to confuse voters.
Liberalism didn't win, and this is why I'm cautioning everybody not to be so down on the dumps about this.
Reasons to be alarmed, and this is continuing ongoing reluctance on the part of inside the beltway of establishment Republicans to go conservative is a problem.
Here's Harry Reid.
We just played the soundbite.
And of course he's going to say it, but let's examine it rationally.
He said that uh New York race proves the nation wants more Obama and Reed policies, wants more Obamacare, wants more liberalism.
Fine.
Senator Reed, where is your Medicare plan?
Where is your budget?
If the country wants more of what you have to offer, why don't you offer it?
The Democrats have yet to present a formal budget for this year.
And we're about this this year will perspire at the end of September.
They haven't presented a thing.
All they're doing is saying no.
And lying about what the Republican plans are.
I could go all civics 101 on you and say that the Republicans are the ones actually trying to tackle the problems.
And they are.
Just like Bush tried to tackle Social Security, and we know what happened.
He gave up on it because it was being demagogued to death.
But there's a reason.
I mean, they...
I was all for it, by the way.
I thought it was a bold step.
And what he was going to do was not that dramatic.
It was typical.
It was what the Democrats are saying it should be now.
And what the Republicans are saying we should do now in Medicare was phase in.
It wasn't one big bite.
But it still got demagogued all the hell.
Just like this is being demagoged all the hill.
So the question comes down to what do you do?
We got a problem that's breaking our bank.
It's going bankrupt, and we can't afford it for much longer.
Do we solve it?
Come up with a plan, take the plan out, and say, here's the plan, we've got to fix this.
Or do we not do that because that's making us too big a target to guarantee to lose?
So let's just forget it.
The theory being we have to win elections and we can't win elections by reforming entitlements.
Third rail, we're getting electrocuted, we're going to die.
We just have we can't do it.
If the party goes that way, you can kiss the Tea Party goodbye and say hello third party.
If a Republican Party bails on tackling these things, the Tea Party will just vanish as an element of the Republican Party.
It's hello third party, and that's you know, welcome back.
Obama.
Your guiding light, times of trouble, confusion, tumult, murkiness, lies, distortion, dirty tricks.
And even the good times.
Joplin, Missouri.
This is Dave.
Great to have you on the program, sir.
Hello.
Yeah, hello.
How are you?
Uh very well, sir.
How are you?
That's the question.
I I'm doing well compared to most people, really.
Uh me and my family, we were blessed.
We were on the north end of town and just got a small amount of wind damage.
The people that are downtown, they were the ones that really got hammered on.
We're told out here 75% of Joplin was leveled.
Uh I don't believe I'd call it 75%.
Um we've got FEMA in now.
They're estimating 8,000 structures.
Now they're calling each single apartment in an apartment building a structure, too.
So my guess would be somewhere bet around three thousand thirty, five hundred buildings, and probably a good thirty to fifty percent of the town got leveled.
Well, that's significant.
That's that's we've got to rebuild half a town.
I mean, that's major.
Yeah, yeah, it is major.
The uh tornado the path itself actually went right down the main one of the main east-west thoroughfares, and we've all seen the pictures.
We can't believe it.
We've seen we've seen the before after stills.
We have seen the uh uh video of of of the aftermath.
It's uh believe me.
People I mean, you don't see this kind of damage in uh in hurricanes.
It's it's it's just amazing.
Um I haven't seen anything quite like this ever.
I w I was fortunate enough where I was able to assist and help out by hauling water into uh Homestead after Andrew hit.
Um I helped out a little bit in western Kansas here and there on a couple of tornadoes.
I've seen the pictures of Tuscaloosa, but I'll gotta admit I've never seen a six-mile track through a town like this before, ever.
Well, uh all's not lost.
The president's uh coming in someday.
Oh, yeah, I think that'll be interesting.
That's kind of why I call it wonder if we can get a Republican in for a counterpoint.
You ever thought about changing the name of the city to New Orleans?
Hey, that's a good thought.
Uh course you've already you you you get it a lot of attention that way, but you've I mean they're still I'm told fifteen hundred people are still unaccounted for in Joplin.
From the reports I'm getting over our local radio, that's about right.
What's the population of Joplin?
The population of Joplin's about 49,000.
And we do have around 1,500 still that's unaccounted for.
Uh I think it's just amazing the death polls only 122 after seeing the damage.
Um the rescue efforts are still going on.
They'll probably go on for another day or two.
They're starting to uh get ready to switch into the cleanup, though, and I'm sure they'll find more then.
But for the most part, it looks like everybody's doing pretty good all things considered.
That's amazing.
Listen, do you hear that?
I I uh everybody's doing good all things considered.
That's uh that's where I'm from, folks.
That's that heartland attitude.
Attitude that makes the country work.
All things considered, everybody's doing okay.
Everybody's doing pretty good.
Reminds me of the Donner Party.
The Donner Party on their way into California, they couldn't get to the casinos.
There weren't any.
The Sierra Nevada.
They resorted at cannibalism.
They got stuck in bad winter snow and so forth, and they found uh diary.
Well, journals.
And the reference, the reference to the weather was it's an unusually cold winter.
And that was it.
That was it.
The reality of it was what it was.
They faced it.
Cannibalism was required to stay alive.
It was an unusually cold winter.
Here these guys in Joplist said.
Well, all things considered, everybody's doing pretty good.
That amazes me.
Appreciate the call, Dave.
Scott in Billings, Montana, your next EIB network.
Hello, sir.
Thanks, Rush.
Mega Diddle.
I'm here in Yellowstone County.
I don't think it was made the national news in any way, but we're we're underwater here.
And just rain and run off from snowmelt and so on.
And it's it's not typical, it's unusual.
And our county disaster uh director was on TV last night, and I'm paraphrasing here, but he essentially said uh help yourself, help your neighbors, help old people, and that was it.
There was no promise of help from him or the feds or anybody else.
He wasn't talking about looting, was he?
Well, no, no.
No, help yourself.
No, not in that regard.
No, he was just saying, take care of your own business.
No, there's no looting in Montana.
You'll end up on the wrong end of a barrel in that deal, so just quite the contrast, and obviously Joplin's a completely different issue here, but just no one's looking for the government.
No one's saying, hey, where's the president?
Or where's Biden, or where's anybody else?
It's cover your own tail and help your neighbor.
Well, I know.
Self-reliance.
Self-reliance, damn right.
And you gotta know there are people in this audience smirking at that.
Oh, yeah, easy for you to say.
Well, it is.
I appreciate it.
Uh, who's next?
Where are we where are we headed next?
We we got uh this is uh not enough time.
Not enough time to be fair with another caller, and uh I don't see anybody up there I want to be unfair with.
So um, I mean I can easily take call.
I can say this you got 30 seconds.
But no, I don't like the idea of letting Medicare collapse.
I think it's already happening.
The idea that Medicare solvents a joke anyway.
Medicare is already busted, doctors are walking away from it, doctors are leaving it.
The whole the whole Medicare Medicaid system is is it's a joke now.
It's it's not solvent.
It is it is not healthy.
But to sit here and say, okay, let's just do an atlas shrugged on it, if you mean it in the same way.
Let's let the Democrats win the election.
Let's let the American people find out how bad it is with Democrats.
I'm sorry, they're finding out.
But no, I I'm I've we've rallied around this fix.
You can't just abandon it after doing that.
You just can't.
You got no credibility whatsoever if you do that.
I know you want to say, okay, senior citizens fine.
You're on your own.
That's what you want to say.
I understand that.
We'll be back.
One of the co founders of PayPal is offering 24 talented students 100,000 not to attend college.
Peter Thiel.
Give people a hundred grand not to go to college.
▲
Export Selection