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Aug. 12, 2011 - Rush Limbaugh Program
36:55
August 12, 2011, Friday, Hour #1
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Welcome to today's edition of the Rush 24-7 podcast.
So, you people watching on the Ditto Cam, you know, where the heck is he?
Never seen that view before.
How are you?
We're in Los Angeles, ladies and gentlemen, for one day.
Rush Limbaugh, the Excellence in Broadcasting Network, on Friday.
Live from the left coast at our satellite studios in Los Angeles.
It's open line Friday.
Well, we're near Los Angeles.
We're not exactly in Los Angeles, but we're close enough to Los Angeles, and we are here for one day.
And I promise you folks, last time we were here that we'd have a ditto cam, and there it is.
You want to see it.
It looks like a security camera.
It probably is.
We probably took it off of some corner of the building here and brought it in just for today's use.
Anyway, great to be with you.
It's Open Line Friday, and you know what that means.
It's the greatest career risk known to be taken by an existing power figure in the media.
And basically, it's this.
We go to the phones, whatever you want to talk about, it's fair game.
The program is all yours.
Monday through Thursday, that's not the case.
You have to talk about things I care about Monday through Thursday, but on Friday, we sort of broom that.
And if I don't care about it, I'll fake it.
You might never even know.
Here's the thing.
Yeah, I do have to go to the phones.
Snerdly is.
What are you trying to get out of doing your job?
There is a lot to talk about, but I got to tell you, I don't know.
I may be coming down with something here or something.
I'm feeling fluish.
You know, the constant yawning and the watery eyes.
So you have to pull your load today, Snerdley.
You're going to have to answer some phone calls.
It's really tough gig.
He's trying to get out of answering phones.
For some reason, for some reason, Open Line Friday sends him for a loop.
I don't think it'd be easy.
Just say, hi, what do you want to talk about?
Okay, hang on.
I mean, that's what Open Line Friday is supposed to be.
No, I know.
I know if we do that, we just got to do some screening.
At any rate, ladies and consumers – no, no, I'll get to the debate.
Well, I'll tell you what I thought of the questions.
I saw, I went to a blog after the debate last night.
I can explain these questions.
Everybody is in my email and places I've gone can't understand the questions that the Fox panel asked.
People want to know what's going on.
I'll explain it to you.
I went to a blog post-debate, and I don't know what I might have been looking at a Twitter feed for all I know because I never go to Twitter, but it was just constantly moving.
And there were sterling over three or four references.
And I think media people on this thread, there were three or four references to quote how happy mainstream media people were with the questioning last night.
That may have been the purpose.
I have been told, I didn't hear this myself, of course, because I am in Los Angeles and this happened in Washington.
And I've been told that on our affiliate this morning, a WMAL in Washington, one of the reporters from the Washington Examiner, and I can't remember her name, was a guest.
And she said that that panel spent weeks going over every word of every question.
That every word of every question was planned.
And that the panel spent lots of time together.
What that tells me, and folks, you know me in television.
I have long ago ceased believing anything on television is real.
It's not.
Everything on television is produced, including so-called reality shows.
And I have been on one.
And I can tell you, everything, I don't care whether they call it reality or spontaneous, everything is produced.
If you see, for example, last night, one of the tactics was to throw at some of the candidates a quote and then another quote that seemed to be in contradiction of the first quote.
And you saw that on the screen.
You saw the quote, Chiron graphicked on the screen.
Means it's produced.
Means they were going to ask that question no matter what.
You watch a baseball game.
You tune into a football game.
How many times watching a football game does this happen to you?
Within the first two minutes, something will happen on the field.
You'll think, my God, somebody really got creamed or got hurt there or something happened.
There's a fight going on.
And they leave the field to do their pre-produced.
And the first 15 minutes here brought to you by the Toyota Selica.
Everything, or even not even to do a commercial, just to do the starting lineups.
Go away from the field, show you the starting lineups, forget what's happening in the game.
Everything is produced.
And that debate last night was produced.
The only thing spontaneous in the debate last night, obviously, were the answers.
Now, you might say, okay, so what's wrong with that?
Well, I think the questioning ought to be spontaneous too.
The question ought to follow what's going on here.
Because what's the content of the debate?
What's the substance?
What's the point?
The candidates and what they're saying.
And, you know, this is a 30-second closing statements.
And I have to say something else.
You know, we got off the airplane and we high-tailed it to our fashionable hotel.
And I missed the first 40 minutes live.
And that didn't help either, by the way, because when I started watching, I said, my gosh, does nobody on this panel remember that we're running against Obama?
What is this business of these guys trying to tear each other up?
And then I figured out that's what Fox wants.
Fox wants these people to tear each other up.
And I said, why does Fox want these people to tear each other?
Because they want approval from the mainstream media.
Because that's what the mainstream media would do, is tear these people up or try to get them to.
But you never see this with Democrats in it.
You never see the Democrats pitted against these, nothing like this was.
So first 30 or 40 minutes live, I missed.
I didn't hear Romney until a replay later and some of the others going after Obama.
So what the heck am I watching?
And then that chime that they rang to signal it's time up, time out's home.
I ran to the door twice thinking it was room service.
That even ticked me off.
And we had ordered some room service.
I got up and I went to the door and I opened it.
Nobody's there.
I was like, well, what the hell?
So I went back, watched the debate again, and there's that stupid doorbell sounding.
So I went to the other door of the room and I opened it and there's nobody there.
Well, the kitchen door.
Yeah, the hotel room had two doors.
Have you never been in a hotel room and had two doors?
Well, I know most people haven't and most people won't if we don't get rid of Obama.
Most people never get in a hotel room with two doors if we don't get rid of Obama.
And that's the whole point of this last night.
And then I'm sorry, but this Ron Paul is going to destroy this party if they keep, this is nuts on parade.
The media loves this guy as nuts on parade.
They want the whole Republican Party to be identified with the kookiness of Ron Paul.
Hey, let Iron get nukes.
It's our fault anyway.
1979 happened because they weren't minding our own business.
That audience goes nuts.
Oh my gosh, what am I watching here?
And then Byron York's question to Michelle Bachman.
And now, now, Byron York's question to Michelle Bachman.
And she, now to be fair to Byron York, she has said this before.
She has talked about how the biblical role of women is to be submissive to husbands.
So she said it.
I don't know how recently.
It's not part of her campaign.
It's not partisan, but they found it.
She said it.
Okay, fair game.
Ask the question, will you be submissive to your husband as president?
Now, I guarantee you, I guarantee you that the favorite journalist of the mainstream media today is Byron York.
And I don't know if you've been watching Fox, but they've been replaying that quote all day.
They love it.
This is my point.
The stuff that was embarrassing, they like.
Now, Newt, Newt got on him for all the gotcha questions.
Turns out that the audience loved that.
I thought Newt looked defensive.
So my analysis here may not dovetail with yours, may not be parallel with yours.
And fine, we can talk about it.
Well, look, don't make me go any further.
We don't even have all the candidates in there, Snerdley.
I don't want to go too far analyzing this.
We haven't even gotten to the primaries.
What did I think about?
Okay, here's Huntsman.
Snerdley wants to know what I think about Huntsman.
Here's Huntsman.
Second debate.
He says, I'll get back to you my economic plan.
You get back to us?
I have an economic plan, and I'm not running for president.
What do you mean?
You'll get back to us on the economic.
Those weren't his words.
He said he didn't have it yet.
But he's working on it.
The economic plan, the answer to every question last night, get rid of Obama.
That's the answer to every question.
It should have been get rid of Obama.
Tell me, Michelle Bachman, will you be submissive to your husband?
I love my husband, and I'm here to get rid of Barack Obama.
We're here to save America.
We're here to revive the U.S. economy.
But I know these candidates, they think they've got to show the media respect.
They've got to answer the questions, or they're accused of all kinds of intemperateness and other things.
I watched the replay, by the way.
I did watch the 30 to 40 minutes that I missed.
Excuse me.
And I was a little bit happier because they did mention Obama, at least Romney did, and hammered him pretty good in the first 30 or 40 minutes.
But I think, you know, Fox is trying to prove its chops with their tough questions.
By that, I mean the gotcha back.
Anyway, like I said, a reporter from the Washington Times, the woman was on WMAL this morning.
Oh, yeah.
We loved it.
We thought she said, I think I was told that she said the fight between Polini and Bachman.
Oh, yeah, we loved it.
Oh, yeah, we thought that was great.
Oh, we're still talking about that.
I understand, folks, it's primary time, and I understand they're running against each other.
But believe me, aside from Ron Paul, neither of the people on that stage, none of them are the real problem that we face.
And I know we're going to get to Obama in due course.
It's just, he's so vulnerable right now.
He had, folks, Obama had a horrible day yesterday.
Obama's out there saying there's a problem with our politics.
No, the problem with our politics is you, Mr. President.
The problem with our country is you.
Problem with our economy is you.
Our politics is just fine.
Other than you are in charge of the White House, right?
That's the only thing wrong with it.
Well, the Democrats over in Congress as well.
Anyway, let me take a brief timeout.
The economic news today, consumer sentiment drops to the lowest level in 30 years.
And listen to this pull quote from Mr. Francis Reuters story.
It's got to be even worse than what Reuters says it is, given who they are.
Never before in the history of the surveys have so many consumers spontaneously mentioned negative aspects of the government's role in the economy.
This from Survey Director Richard Curtin in a statement.
U.S. consumer sentiment dropped to its lowest point in more than three decades in early August as fears of a stalled recovery gelled with despair over government policies.
The Thompson Reuters University of Michigan preliminary August reading on the overall index on consumer sentiment came in at 54.9%.
That's the lowest since May of 1980.
I mean, that's at the absolute worst point of Jimmy Carter and his regime.
And this, of course, is Jimmy Carter's second term.
No, I'm just telling you, I'm going to have to search my memory banks here.
Oh, look, who's on Fox?
Oh, there he is outside the ice cream stand.
Good old Ron Paul.
Yeah, that's what we need.
More of that.
I just, I'm trying to remember during the, and sternly, don't put any Ron Paul people up on the phone.
I'm really not, I'm not feeling all that hot.
I know I sound excellent and sound great, but I'm not feeling, and I don't want to talk to them.
But I'm just, I'm trying to remember here during the entire 2006 and 2008 presidential campaign, I never, I don't, I can't recall seeing the Democrats go after each other.
Not once.
And the media never tried to get them to go after each other.
Now, you go back and think of Hillary and Obama.
You think of that campaign.
You think of the debates.
And how often, how often did you see the media try?
In fact, it took Operation Chaos.
It took me and you in this audience to even keep Hillary in that campaign.
There was a good answer from almost every question last night.
I will undo everything Obama has put into place as I love my husband.
I will undo everything Obama has put into place.
Yes, I'll make sure that Iran doesn't get nukes.
Anyway, a little long.
I got to take a break.
We'll do it.
We'll come back and resume right after this.
The Libs, ladies and gentlemen, by the way, I'll rush back open line Friday from Los Angeles.
The Libs think that I won the debate last night.
Some Democrat strategerist named Robert Zimmerman was on CNN Live this morning with a co-host TJ Holmes.
And T.J. Holmes said, who won the debate last night, Bob?
And why?
Rush Limbaugh.
You cut right to it.
Here you had a panel of fairly, in fairness, people who've had accomplished personal lives.
They're all fairly literate people, yet they still stood with the extreme fringe and were captivated by them, supporting a position only 10 or 15% of the electorate support.
For example, the 10 to 1 ratio, not even supporting cuts 10 to 1 over raising revenues, a position that's out of the mainstream.
Now, look at folks, I'm going to admit here I'm not functioning at all soldiers, but I don't know what he's talking.
What 10 to 1 ratio, not even supporting cuts 10 to 1.
There must have been some question about cuts versus tax increases or some such thing.
And of course, these people are not going to support tax increases in a Republican primary.
It's not a fringe position.
Anyway, these people can't get me off the brain.
Here, Jonathan Alter.
He was on The Last Word, which I think is a show on MSNBC last night.
And he was talking about the candidates vowing not to raise taxes.
Now, this is what we need.
We need the left commenting on this.
This is how we're going to learn.
This is how our guys, Michelle Bachmann, this is how they're going to learn what to do to win the White House is listen to guys like this.
That moment that you identified when they all raised their hands, like those guys testifying before Congress, the tobacco company executives all raising their hands.
Remember that shot?
This was, I think, an iconic moment because what it indicated is that that is the only thing that the Republican Party stands for.
What they said by raising their hand was, we don't care how much deficit reduction you can get.
We don't care how close you get to balancing the budget.
If you raise taxes by one dime, we're against it.
That's not a very good position to take.
Well, except that it won't work.
All it does is take money out of the private sector.
If everybody's talking about the private sector is where growth needs to take place.
That's where jobs are.
Raising taxes simply takes money away from people, takes money out of the private sector, and what happens to it?
Grows the government.
Then what happens?
It gets redistributed to who?
Democrats by votes.
I mean, of course, Alder's going to favor tax increases.
That's what they're used for.
They're vote buying techniques.
But anyway, this is a clear illustration of the great divide.
There was a piece earlier on this program, either earlier this week or last week.
Somebody, and I don't remember who it is, but they finally came to a conclusion that I have had all along, and that is you can't compromise with these people.
This is not what this is about.
They are going to have to be defeated.
Who was it?
The two competing visions of the country.
I'm having a mental block on who wrote the piece, but they were right.
The two competing visions are so different that there isn't any room for compromise.
And raising taxes, when consumer confidence is at an all-time low, consumer sentiment dropping to the lowest level in three decades.
By the way, you're not going to get close to balance.
It was Eric Cantor.
No, no, no, no, no.
Was it Cantor?
Cantor, somebody on the floor of the House or Florida Senate.
It was Rubio.
It was Rubio who said it on the floor of the Senate.
That's exactly right.
And I was agreeing with him profoundly.
We'll be right back after this.
Don't go away.
All right, I just found out what the question was.
Brett Bayer asked all of the panelists a question.
Say you had a deal, a real spending cuts deal, 10 to 1, as Byron said, spending cuts to tax increases.
And he saw Gingrich already shaking his head.
He said, who on this stage would walk away from that deal?
Can you raise your hand if you feel so strongly about not raising taxes, you'd walk away on the 10 to 1 deal?
And I guess they all walked away on it.
They all walked away on the 10 to 1 deal.
It's a trick question.
Of course they're going to walk away from it.
Thank goodness they were all conscious enough to realize it's a trick question, even though it was coming from Fox.
All it takes, all it would have taken is for one of those candidates.
Yeah, 10 to 1, I'll go for tax.
And that's the headline.
That candidate's gone.
And they know it.
The media knows it, including the Fox media.
They know it.
If any Republican in the primary end, yep, I'll raise, because I don't care what the ratio is, 3 to 1, 5 to 1, 10 to 1, the spending cuts never happen.
They have never happened.
Look at the debt deal.
Am I shouting in there too loud?
Look at the debt deal.
$2.25 trillion, $2.4 trillion in new spending right now, immediately.
And the BAMSTer spends $259 billion of it in one day.
Spending cuts of about, what it turned out to be, $78 billion over 10 years.
The cuts never happen.
Would somebody point to me, the federal budget, and show me where we've ever had a cut?
I want to see where the federal budget's ever gotten smaller year to year.
Doesn't happen.
Trick question.
100% total trick question.
You got Jonathan Walter saying, well, this is a fringe, man.
Why, this is a real extreme.
Why, if these guys won't even take that kind of deal away, we're never going to get over it.
It's a trick question.
It was a designed question to get somebody to go against orthodoxy very quickly.
Look at PAYGO.
I mean, the real question should have been $10 in phony spending cuts for $1 in real tax, because that's what it was.
That's what it would be.
Any such deal would be phony spending cuts.
And you'd get the tax increases right now.
And you'd never get the cuts.
Particularly if it's one of these 10-year deals where the next Congress is not beholden to what this current Congress would do.
PAYGO is a law that Obama demanded.
It's a law the Democrats wanted.
And Pelosi's out there singing its praises.
And they ignore it completely.
They laugh about it.
They mock PAYGO now.
PAYGO is simply what it says.
If you're going to spend some money, you pay for it somehow.
You either cut something else or you raise tax, whatever you find a way to pay for it.
That's part of their big reform of Congress, 2007.
Ever, never once have they adhered to it.
It's nothing more than a marketing scheme, nothing more than a PR promise.
So not surprised whatsoever that nobody bought on that one or bit on that one.
Let's start on the phones where we're going to Belmont, North Carolina.
Irving, your first on Open Line Friday.
Nice to have you with us, sir.
Hello.
Well, greetings, Rush, from Palinista Hobbit and lifelong Russell Limbaugh fan.
Thank you very much, sir.
I say run, Sarah, run, because everything that that debate showed me is that other people just aren't ready for it.
They're committed to do what needs to be done.
Well, I don't know if Palin's going to get in or not.
The latest on Rick Perry is he's going to announce to me.
Apparently he's already told Major Garrett of Fox and somebody else.
So Perry, the governor of Texas, is going to announce tomorrow.
But that's got them all ticked off because the straw poll in Iowa is tomorrow.
And the straw poll in Iowa, folks, there's a lot of friction out there.
You need to know about this between the Huckster and Perry.
They go way back to their days when they were both governors.
And Huckabee was pretty upset that Rick Perry wouldn't endorse him in 2008.
And ever since then, there have been a little friction.
And Huckabee is going to go to Iowa for the straw poll, even though he's not running.
Huckabee has a lot of sway with the social voters in Iowa that make up a lot of the early Iowa caucus members and primary voters on the Republican side.
And Huckabee's out there trying to stir it up already by criticizing Perry for announcing in South Carolina.
South Carolina's next.
And what they're trying to do is say, yeah, look at this guy, Perry.
He doesn't even care about you here in Iowa.
You great conservatives in Iowa.
And look at how hard you work on your straw poll.
Why?
The straw poll, that's something Iowa Republicans work on.
Oh, yeah.
I mean, it's not safe.
They devote their lives to it for a year or two.
And to have Perry come in here and not show up.
So they're trying to stir up already some confidence.
There's a controversy about Perry not going to Iowa for the straw poll, but announcing the Mars, South Carolina, which is where the early reports say that he will announce.
Whether Palin gets in or not, I don't know.
The reason, you know, I didn't want to go too far in analyzing this person by person by person is because it's only debate number two.
And if you people will recall, after the first debate, I was jazzed because I was a little surprised.
Every candidate was articulating conservatism very well, proudly, with a lot of energy.
What was that, Snurdle?
You got to speak up.
Who?
Huntsman said he was a conservative.
Well, fine.
That's all going to get weeded out here.
All this is going to get weeded out as the primary process unfolds.
And who knows what Palin's going to do in terms of getting in or not?
A lot of it will depend on what happens to these current crop.
Like some, this is not me.
This is not me because I haven't had a time really to study it.
But just tell you what the conventional wisdom on the Republican side is that Palenti's finished after last day.
It was so bad that Palenti's old.
That's it.
That's it.
He's finished.
He blew it.
He went after Bachman, and Bachman gave it back to him, and that's it for him.
Speaking of Bachman, by the way, the way she went after Palenti, I don't know how you ask her a question about being submissive to her husband or to men, but I do understand why the question was asked.
Great television productions and debate.
You're really going to have to do a technical.
You sound 100 miles away up there.
Who do I think won?
If I had to pick a Romney without question, there's no doubt Romney won.
That's not even close.
But that's not going to necessarily be the case as we go forward.
But last night, it was pretty cut and dried.
I mean, Romney.
Plus, I mean, when you know going in that Romney's got 10 times the money or twice the money that any of the other other than Huntsman have, you have to factor that in in who won and how successful the fundraising is going to be for others that were in the debate last night.
Vince in Elkgrove, Illinois.
Hi, great to have you on the EIB network on Open Line Friday.
Welcome.
Hey, Rush, how are you, man?
I'm excellent, sir.
Thank you.
Right on.
Hey, I was watching debate last night, and I was closing my eyes, and I was listening to Ron Paul.
I couldn't figure it out.
It was like I was listening to Dennis Kucinich, but I'd open my eyes and it was like I was watching Woody Allen.
You know, I think the guy, just out of his mind, you know, his platitudes on war and what he said about Iran, and I think anybody that sides with Barney Frank on any issue is just verifiably insane.
Yeah, well, did you notice, despite all that, how much airtime Ron Paul got?
Yes, I did.
Compared to San Torum, yeah, I thought it was very lopsided.
So why do you think that was?
Because the media is trying to pick our candidate again.
Well, no.
Well, yeah.
I mean, I don't know that this media last night's trying to pick the candidate.
I know what you mean.
The lib Democrat media certainly is.
But not that they were trying to pick the candidate.
It's that they were trying to do a good television show.
And depending on who you read today, some people think that debate was one of the most entertaining, greatest things they've ever seen in politics.
That's what some people I've read today think that this thing last night was absolutely stupendous.
Why?
It was the best we've ever seen.
And it's because they were entertained by it.
You've got to ask yourself, why?
Who in that debate was entertaining?
Well, I thought it was the candidate, Ron Paul, aka Dennis Kucinich.
But you think he was entertaining?
Oh, yeah, just because he's not.
Yeah.
But in a laugh with or laugh-at way.
Laugh-at way.
All right, we'll take a break and be back.
Don't go away.
So there's Obama.
There's Obama out there.
Goes to another battery factory.
He was campaigning on the taxpayer's dime at another battery factory.
I don't know, ladies and gentlemen, what Obama's got against Mother Earth that he wants us to poison the planet with so many damn batteries.
He's like, every policy he's got is going to need so many damn batteries, and there were no coal plants to charge him with.
He's going to sit there and pollute things.
Anyway, Obama said there's nothing wrong with our country.
There's something wrong with our politics.
And then, after he said that, he gets on Air Force One, flies to New York to the home of Harvey Weinstein and another $2 million fundraiser where Hollywood types paid $38,500 to attend.
Maybe that's what he meant.
Something wrong with our politics.
I doubt it.
But I think it's ironic as heck.
What he really means is, hey, you're not supposed to disagree with me.
I'm the Messiah.
Everything I want to do is supposed to happen.
What's wrong, David?
You can't figure it out.
Not supposed to be opposed.
They're not supposed to be people that get away with opposing him.
There's something wrong with our politics.
Fareed, let's see.
You know, let's go back to me, April 16th of 2008.
And this is, of course, during the presidential campaign.
This is fascinating the way this stuff actually manifests itself.
This week, for example, it was Richard Cohen discovering that Obama is cold, not cool.
And it was I, El Rushbo, who pointed that out all the way back in the 2008 campaign.
This guy doesn't strike me as cool.
I think this guy is cold.
He doesn't have a lot of feeling.
He doesn't have a lot of empathy.
And so now here's Cohen, two and a half years later, finally seeing it.
Another similar situation.
Listen to me, April 16th, 2008.
High concept as a business term in Hollywood refers to fiction movies.
It's a storyline.
High concept number two.
An African American gets a shot to be the first black president.
He's well-spoken.
He's smart.
He's able to unite us all.
He's able to fulfill all of our needs.
He's able to bring us together and restore our prestige around the world.
Remember, this is not about reality.
We're talking a Hollywood movie here.
We're talking high concept, which is about fiction.
It's a storyline.
Right.
And that's what we were presented by the media when they gave us Obama.
High concept, a storyline, fiction.
And by the way, Creative Writing Class 101, what do they teach you there?
All drama is conflict.
And no matter what, you have to gin up conflict.
So if you're writing a debate, and believe me, that debate had writers last night.
Oh, come on, Rush.
What do you mean?
There's a debate.
Yep, there were writers.
That debate had writers.
The writers were the journalists writing their questions, and no matter what the hell happened, they were going to ask those questions.
So the thing was produced.
And it was produced with the express purpose of creating conflict rather than letting it naturally happen.
If we'd actually let these people debate, we wouldn't have to hit them with, you said, he said, what do you think of that?
No, we have to produce it so we can keep it within our 30-second segments, make sure that this fits and that fits, make sure we get it all in.
Lincoln and Douglas could no more have a debate today on American television than Peter Pan could have a child.
All right, now.
Anyway, I don't want to get too far away from.
I just got through explaining April 16, 2008, about high concept and fiction, how the media gave us this storyline of Obama.
I want you to listen now that they've finally come to this realization on the left.
Last night on the Charlie Rose show, he's still trying to figure out what George Will told him on Monday.
He has Fareed Zakaria on last night.
They're discussing Obama's leadership.
This is the version of the American presidency you get from Aaron Sorkin in The American President.
The president gets up, makes this incredibly moving speech, which is, of course, deeply liberal.
The entire country cheers, and all of a sudden, all the problems that he encounters are waved aside.
The idea that if Barack Obama were to give a speech on gun control, suddenly he would be able to, you know, wave aside the Second Amendment and the settled convictions of a large percentage of Americans, is we would recognize nonsense.
See?
Well, now, guess what?
There's Fareed Zakaria telling Charlie Rose, who may figure this out next Wednesday, that this is an Aaron Sorkin movie.
The Obama presidency is an Aaron Sorkin movie.
High concept.
See, this is what I mean when I tell you that you are on the cutting edge.
These guys think that they are brilliant.
It had taken them two and a half years to figure this out, or at least to admit it.
But it was patently obvious to me what was going on.
I know it sounds braggadocious, but I don't mean to be sounding braggadocious.
It's important to me that people understand the phoniness and the artificial that most everything on television has become, including the presidency.
Including the president.
It's all artificial.
It's all ginned up.
High concept, another way of explaining or describing high concept is something to be described in a sentence or two.
Very, very short.
Brevity is the soul of wit.
It's a bumper sticker.
High concept is a bumper sticker.
I think, is it 53-20 or 54-20?
What time is it?
Somebody tell me.
53 or 50?
Is it 53?
I've got 40 seconds here.
Okay.
Well, I'm going to take a break anyway since I'm mentally ready to take the break, and I'll make it up when we come back.
I want to repeat this Reuters story detail again, folks, because it's relevant, worthwhile, and it may mean something.
I hope it does.
Consumer sentiment drops the lowest level in three decades.
U.S. consumer sentiment dropped to the lowest point in more than 30 years in early August as fears of a stalled recovery gelled with despair over government policies.
And there's this statement from the director of the survey, whose name is Richard Curtin.
He said, never before in the history of the surveys, meaning theirs, this is Reuters, University of Michigan, never before in the history of the surveys have so many consumers spontaneously mentioned negative aspects of the government's role.
I hope that's legit.
I hope that holds.
I hope that means that people are finally beginning to realize that government is not where to turn when faced with consequences such as those that we're in now.
Government must get itself out of the way.
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