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Aug. 16, 2011 - Rush Limbaugh Program
36:40
August 16, 2011, Tuesday, Hour #2
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Now, Snerdly, where did you see that?
And it was a crawl.
A crawl at the bottom of the screen.
Just a Chiron Grant, Chiron text graphic.
And what did it say?
Was there a question mark after it?
Well, I don't, I'm not seeing it.
Hang on here just a second.
It's something, you know, I get, no offense sturdily, but I get told so many things by so many people 15,000 times a day.
I can't find any of them.
Well, I'm not going to say anything about it until I hear it.
Because something like that, I don't want it coming back to me because there's a lot of people hoping and praying that that happens.
So Paul Ryan, Paul Ryan thinking of getting in for 2012.
The presidential race.
And some are saying Chris Christie is thinking about getting in now.
A lot of this stuff is up in the air.
I told you, folks, I told you if Rick Perry got in this thing, the whole thing would blow up.
The whole dynamic would change because that takes Romney out of being front runner.
That takes Romney out of being the lock.
So at any rate, great to have you with us.
Welcome back, Rush Limbaugh, the EIB Network.
I have a soundbite for you.
Just happened.
Well, not just happened.
It happened earlier this morning on Fox News Channel's America's Newsroom.
This is the, yeah, there it is.
Okay, Fox has got a picture of Christie up there.
Oh, it's Rasmussen talking about this.
So Rasmussen, maybe, well, I can't hear this.
I'm not going to tell people what I can't hear.
There are pictures up there of Ryan and Christie with Scott Rasmussen.
I don't know if he's just giving people polling data if they got in.
It doesn't mean that they're both thinking of getting in.
So be patient.
We'll know soon enough what those two guys are going to do.
But still, the dynamic, it's blowing up out there.
There's no question about it.
So earlier today, Fox, America's Newsroom Bill Hemmer spoke with a Republican strategerist, Brad Blakeman, who worked for W, about Obama's exchange yesterday with the Iowa Tea Party member Ryan Rhodes.
Bill Hemmer said, Brad, you think Obama was in the right here.
Explain that.
I do.
I think they came to the event to disrupt and to put the president in a gotcha situation.
To go there with a mission to embarrass the president and have a gotcha moment for your own political purposes, I don't think is respectful to the office of the president.
So here we have a Republican strategist, Brad Blakeman, criticizing Ryan Rhodes, a Tea Party guy, for positioning himself in a gotcha moment.
Now, we've played the sound bites.
You've seen it and heard it.
Ryan Rhodes showed up and wanted to know why the vice president was calling Tea Party people terrorists.
And Obama lied about it.
What is this?
Obama's supposed to be on a listening tour.
This is the, you know, this is the kind of attitude, folks, that got a shoe thrown at George W. Bush.
I have told you, I have warned you people several times about this.
The establishment, I don't care whether it's Republican or Democrat, do not like the Tea Party.
You know what?
The Tea Party is almost the equivalent of the moral majority back in the 80s.
The establishment Republicans hated them.
They were the social conservatives, the pro-lifers.
This is how Democrats get away.
They can run around and they can macaca Republicans.
Democrats can have professional saboteurs, go into Republican campaigns and do more than gotcha.
I mean, they can make things up, lie, totally disrupt.
And we say, well, yeah, this is politics as usual.
And we don't even come to our people's defense.
We didn't even come to George Allen's defense when that whole thing macaca happened.
But now here's a Republican strategist ripping into a Tea Party member for being rude to Obama.
So folks, this is an instructive moment.
I've warned you that the Tea Party is not looked upon in high regard by Republican or Democrat establishments.
Now, a lot of, I guess, people over at Fox think that ex-Bush staffers are conservatives, and some of them are, but not all of them.
As you well know, not all Republicans are conservatives.
So, and I guess if the Fox panel at the debate can ask gotcha questions, why are they the only ones allowed to?
And by the way, I'm not being critical of that.
You know, in a presidential debate, primary debate, I think no limits, no boundaries.
I mean, this is the big leagues.
You go for it.
You get into this race.
You want to be president of the United States.
You have to expect everything being thrown at you from the media.
You have to expect some media be good, qualified, some be totally incompetent, some be just mean as they can be.
You have to expect that.
So, you know, the Fox panel asking gotcha questions, I don't have a problem with it.
But apparently, a citizen can't ask a president a question without it being a gotcha question in the eyes of the Republican establishment.
Why didn't Obama apologize for anything that might have been said about the Tea Party supporters?
He is president of the entire population, ostensibly.
His vice president did call the Tea Party members terrorists.
So did his Senate majority leader, Harry Reid.
The media, they were all out using the term holding a gun to their heads, hostage-taking, blah, blah, blah, holding the budget hostage, what have you.
The Tea Party people were terrorists.
You know, why didn't the president apologize for that?
Why didn't he apologize for his own language, for calling us the enemy, for calling us hostage-takers?
That'd have been the presidential thing to do.
But no, it wasn't going to happen.
ABC News the Note, Cedar Rapids Ayah, just hours after presidential candidate Rick Perry said that he would be the kind of president who would be passionate about America.
He suggested that President Obama may not share that sentiment.
I think you want a president who's passionate about America, that's in love with America, Perry said.
This is at the Iowa State Fair yesterday.
At a Republican Party event last night, a reporter asked Perry whether he was suggesting that Obama does not love America.
And Perry said, you need to ask him.
I mean, I'm saying you're a good reporter.
Go ask him.
Oh, I've got that soundbite.
Let me find that soundbite.
Well, I'm looking.
Here it is.
Number 13.
It's an unidentified reporter.
The Iowa State Fair.
The question.
When you said we need a president who loves America, were you suggesting the current president does not love America?
You need to ask him.
I'm saying you're a good reporter.
Go ask him.
Saying, I'm saying you're a good reporter.
You go ask him.
I'm saying you're a good reporter.
I'm saying you're a good reporter.
You go ask him.
The reporter says, hey, I'm asking the questions here.
Pat Cadell, soundbite number 10.
He's not happy.
He's on Hannity last night.
Cadell pollster for Jimmy Carter, and he's talking about the Democrat attacks on the Tea Party.
Hannity said the president himself has used quite incendiary language over the last number of years against conservatives, Republicans, Tea Party members.
We've been through racist, terrorist, all these comments have been made.
He's never stood up for the Tea Party.
I thought that the attack on the Tea Parties is a political libel in the sense that these are Americans, individuals who are concerned that their country is in decline and going under.
This attack on the American people is outrageous.
A problem for liberal government is, as a liberal, I will tell you, is proving that it works.
You cannot have failure and then tell people they want more.
I feel like this is Yogi Barrett.
For me, it's deja vu all over again.
I have lived this nightmare, which is no one has an economic answer.
His numbers are plummeting.
Jimmy Carter second term, Jimmy Carter's second term, and there you have Pat Caddell.
I have lived this nightmare when no one has an economic answer.
This attack on the American people is outrageous.
The problem for liberal government, as a liberal, I will tell you, is proving that it works.
No more honest words could have been spoken.
The biggest problem liberals have is proving that it works because it doesn't work.
That's why they're so ticked off all the time and miserable.
Obama epitomizes the failure of everything they hold dear.
Oh, gosh, Fox, this is wonderful.
This is absolutely so here.
Compare now Blakeman, the Republican staffer.
Rhodes was not respectful.
That was a gotcha moment, a personal moment for Ryan Rhodes, to Cadell saying this attack on the Tea Party is a political libel.
The attack on the American people is outrageous.
And he's right.
And that's what the Democrats have been doing, not only governing against the will of people, but attacking the people as, well, for what it's worth from a roll call source, Paul Ryan talked to Boehner about White House bid.
Representative Paul Ryan considering a run for president, but is likely to decide against it for the same reasons that it kept him out of the race at this point, or to this point, said a well-placed Wisconsin Republican operative this morning.
Quick time out.
We'll be back.
More of your phone calls when we get back.
I'm saying you're a good reporter.
Go ask him yourself.
I'm saying you're a good reporter.
Go ask him.
Okay, White Plains, New York, rich.
Glad you waited, sir.
You're next on the Rush Limbaugh program.
Hey, Rush, how are you?
Good.
Thank you, sir.
I've been hearing reports that it wasn't actually Vice President Bite Me that compared the Tea Party to Nazis, but somebody's standing next to him.
I don't know if you heard that, but, you know, regardless, Obama has acknowledged that that rhetoric did come from, you know, Obama, from Bite Me's camp there.
Well, it wasn't just Bite Me.
It was Harry Reid.
It was a bunch of people in the media, the Democrats.
They were all using the word terrorists and holding a country hostage in this country.
It was so bad that quite a lot of people spoke up about.
This is going beyond the pale now.
Well, you asked earlier, you said that he should come out and speak to this.
Obama should, and he has.
He came out and he called once again to tone down the rhetoric.
And, of course, he was referencing the comparison of the Tea Party to the Nazi Party.
And he said, well, look, he says, you know, people call me a socialist.
You know, memo to the president, you are a socialist.
Yeah, and a proud one.
A proud one.
Well, okay, first he tells Joe the plumber, you know, to spread the wealth.
Then he jams through, you know, socialized health care against 70% of Americans' wishes.
And right now, he's telling everybody we got to tax the crap out of the rich.
Now, you know, Rush, I don't know what your definition of socialism is.
You know, I know what mine is, but it seems like Obama seems to have a different one.
Well, he's even more than a socialist, but he's a proud one.
You know, that's why I say running around acting like he's got hurt feelings for being called a socialist.
He believes in it.
This is exactly as you've said.
He believes in it.
By the way, we need to dig out of our archives Obama calling the GOP hostage takers over the tax cut compromise.
And that happened.
I think that was last December, you know, during the special.
Yeah, it was a continued resolution during the lame duck.
He called the GOP hostage takers over a tax cut compromise.
And he's also said that crazies claim Obamacare will take away our freedom.
Of course, we don't.
How can he say that?
If we don't buy health insurance, they can put us in jail.
That's taking away my freedom, if you ask me.
And Pelosi said she saw nothing wrong with that.
I think, frankly, folks, if I may be bluntly outspoken, I think socialist is almost too nice a thing to call Obama.
Don't tell anybody I said that, but I think socialist is almost too nice a thing.
Call him.
Here's the hostage-taker quote.
I got it right here.
He said, it's tempting not to negotiate with hostage takers unless the hostage gets harmed.
Obama said at his Tuesday press conference.
In this case, the hostage was the American people.
It's December 7th, 2010.
Here's John in Chino Hills, California.
Great to have you on the EIB network, sir.
Howdy.
I'm doing well, Rush.
How are you doing?
Very well.
Thank you, my friend.
My history is a little foggy.
Maybe you can help me with this.
Obama claims he's a victim of circumstances around the world.
Wasn't President Bush involved in a thing called Katrina and a thing called 9-11?
Yeah, yeah.
And did.
That's quite a string of bad luck.
Yeah.
And didn't our friend Obama also want to end these wars we're in?
He voted against them.
Yeah.
And if I'm not right, if I, again, my history may be a little weak, but didn't he also vote against raising the debt ceiling?
Yeah, he did.
He absolutely did.
Back in 2006, you're absolutely right about that, John.
You're absolutely right about that.
Look, the bloom's off the rose here.
What we know is that Obama is nothing.
There's not one thing about him that is true that was said about him by media handlers and image makers and all that stuff during the 2008 campaign.
He's not a politician we've never seen before.
He's not somebody come along that never trod the earth before.
He's just a typical liberal left-wing hack.
Pure and simple.
And the bloom's off the rose.
And that's, you know, I don't want to mention the other names, but folks, look, when you live a lie or you allow a lie to be constructed about you and then you willingly participate in it, you're going to end up dying by it.
You're going to get caught.
It's, I can think of two prominent names, and I'm not going to mention them because I don't want to focus attention on them.
But when you have handlers that manufacture an image for you as Mr. Perfect husband, as Mr. Perfect this, Mr. Perfect that, Mr. Perfect Father, Messiah-like politician, whatever.
It's all a lie.
It's eventually going to be exposed.
And then you're naked.
No matter where you go, everybody knows that you were a fraud or that you willingly participated in the making of yourself as a fraud.
And narcissists, large ego people are susceptible to this.
By the way, John and Chino Hills, Bush also inherited a recession when he first took office.
So Obama, this is another thing to whine and moan and complain about all the bad luck.
Arab Spring.
The Arab Spring is one of the...
Don't forget he tried to take credit for that as a movement that was being made in his own image.
Half my brain tied behind my back, just to make it fair.
Rush Limbaugh, the reason God invented radio.
Scott Rasmussen, new poll out, Republican primary.
Are you ready?
Rick Perry, 29%.
Mitt Romney, 18%.
Michelle Bachman, 13%.
So this is, I guess, you have the first and latest Rasmussen reports, National Telephone Survey, likely Republican primary voters taken Monday night.
Rick Perry, 29.
Romney at 18%, Michelle Bachmann, 13%.
Yeah.
So, we have a montage here.
Ladies and gentlemen, this all took place during the lame duck period in December of 2010, last year.
The voices that you will hear.
Senior White House Advisor David Axelrod.
Democrat Allison Schwartz, Pennsylvania, Chris Matthews, Erica Payne, something called the Agenda Project.
Senator Debbie Stabenow, Democrat Michigan, Wolf Blitzer, Senator Claire McCaskill, Missouri, Dylan Rattigan, MSNBC, Loretta Sanchez, Democrat California, Senator Chuck Yu Schumer,
Democrat New York, Representative Eddie Bernice Johnson, Democrat Texas, formerly of CNN client number nine, Elliot Spitzer, former Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Senator Bernie Sanders, Vermont, Representative and partisan political hack Chris Van Holland, Democrat Maryland, Senator Bob Menendez, Democrat New Jersey,
and President Obama talking about Republicans and the extension of the Bush tax rates.
Now they want to hold those middle-class tax cuts hostage.
Republicans are holding these middle-class tax cuts hostage.
Holding hostage the unemployment benefits.
Hold that hostage in order to keep tax breaks going.
They're willing to hold tax cuts for middle-class families hostage.
Holding the Senate hostage.
Will they hold the middle class hostage?
The GOP is holding key legislation hostage.
We're held hostage over here.
Hold it hostage.
Hold it hostage.
Extension of these taxes have been held hostage.
We are being held hostage.
Every one of us, we are hostages being held hostage.
Those initiatives are being held hostage.
Republicans are holding hostage.
Republicans were holding middle class taxes hostage.
You allowed yourself to be held hostage.
Do you negotiate with terrorists?
It's tempting not to negotiate with hostage takers unless the hostage gets harmed.
In this case, the hostage was the American people, and I was not willing to see them get harmed.
So Ryan Rhodes, and this is last December, within recent weeks, many of these same people were calling Tea Party members terrorists.
And Obama himself, tempting not to negotiate with hostage takers lest the hostage gets harmed in this case.
So Ryan Rhodes shows up yesterday and says, look, your vice president's out there calling us terrorists and so forth.
No, no, no, no, no.
Never happened.
Never happened.
But it did.
Joe in Ocean Isle Beach, North Carolina.
Hi, and welcome to the Rush Limbaugh program.
Yes, good afternoon, Rush.
So glad to speak to you.
Thank you, sir.
As the founder of a grassroots groups group here in Brunswick County, I'm here to tell you we are fed up with those who criticize Tea Party people.
And that includes especially those who are supposed to be on our side.
I listened last night to a member of George Bush's administration, Dana Perino, criticizing Rhodes because he embarrassed the president.
The man is holding a town hall, and I put that in quotes, a town hall meeting, but it's only supposed to be with favorable questions.
If he can't really handle a tough question from the opposition, maybe he should just stick to the teleprompter.
Because town hall meetings are supposed to be a give and take.
And I listened to him hem and whore through the questioning by Mr. Rhodes last night.
And he doesn't know how to handle a give and take.
If it's not staged, if it's not scripted, if it's not put on paper for him to have the answer ready for a question, he can't do it.
Yeah, I don't think it's been, I don't think it's been part of his life.
I think he's not had to deal with criticism much whole life.
He's always been a golden child for whatever reason.
Let me ask you a question.
Joe, you're out there, you're a grassroots organizer.
When you hear Dana Perino say what she said last night, or Brad Blakeman, why do you think they're single?
They're on Fox.
What point are they trying to make?
I don't know.
I don't know what prompts them to do things like that.
It puzzles me.
And it goes back to even four years ago or three years ago when McCain was running.
And I had called you once before on it on the day that John McCain criticized the Republican Party here in North Carolina because they were running an ad about the Reverend Wright.
Oh, yeah, remember that.
And I was furious at that because I'm thinking to myself, these are the issues.
Why are you begging off of these things and dancing around them?
These are the things that people are supposed to hear.
And the questions that Rhodes asked yesterday are precisely the questions that this man has to be made to answer.
And to have him stand up in front of a teleprompter and wait.
Yeah, we just lost Joe.
He's obviously on a cell phone out there, or somebody zapped his phone line.
You never know.
I'll answer the question.
I think that these moderate Republicans think that they're appealing to independence.
I really think, folks, that there's a collection of people who really believe this notion that the left has established, by the way, that any criticism of the president is going to drive independence away and toward the president.
And we can't be personal.
We can't be critical.
We've got to stay focused on the issues, which is what, by the way, Ryan Rhodes was focused on.
But they believe this notion that any confrontation is bad for the Republicans.
They live with the notion.
I think they believe the idea that people think Republicans are extremists, racist, sexist, bigots, homophobes.
And so we've got to be mild, tempered, and so forth.
Show total respect that this is how we're going to win voters to our side rather than do it on issues.
But, man, I was not surprised, but I'm just disappointed when I hear this.
29-year-old guy's the future of the party.
He's a grassroots organizer.
He's out there.
He's Ryan Rhodes I'm talking about.
He is in his own way with what little he has trying to defeat Barack Obama, which is what the Republican Party should be in business of doing.
Here's a guy out there in the dirt.
The grassroots.
He is down at the base level.
And he gets ripped by elders in the Republican Party for being disrespectful.
I don't know.
I just think it's I understand it totally.
I just think it's very unfortunate.
I don't know where this stuff comes from.
Well, I do.
I just said it.
It doesn't make any sense.
But it certainly is unwarranted.
Our side ought to try being halfway as critical of Obama as they are of our own people.
We might make some headway against the guy.
Okay, back to the phones.
We go to Dallas.
Randy, great to have you on the EIB network, sir.
Hello.
Thank you, Rush.
You bet.
The comment that Bill Clinton made regarding Rick Perry.
Let's play that comment.
Before you comment on the comment, let's play the comment.
Grab audio summit number 20.
I think this is probably what you mean.
This is former President Clinton keynote address at the International Association of Firefighters Symposium.
And he's talking about Rick Perry.
I got to take a look.
I watched Governor Ferret announce for president.
He's a good-looking rascal.
And he's said, you know, I'm going to Washington to make sure that the federal government stays as far away from you as possible while I ride on Air Force One in that Marine One helicopter and go to Camp David and travel around the world and have a big time.
I mean, this is crazy.
What the?
Okay, that's the comment.
What do you want to say about it?
Well, when Rick Perry became governor after George W. Bush went to the White House, he had been in office less than six months and he sold, by executive order, sold the Texas governor's plane and abandoned the program.
We don't have a jet for our service to the governor of the state of Texas even yet.
I think they contract with private parties or something.
They probably charter one when they need one.
So the governor of Texas doesn't even have a state plane.
No.
Well, besides that, didn't Clinton fly around on Air Force One and go to Camp David and Marine One and do a whole lot of things in the Oval Office aside from being president?
Yes.
This is a non-sequitur.
A president can make sure that the federal government's as far away from us as possible.
Air Force One got nothing to do with it.
Right.
Obama's setting records flying around on Air Force One and Marine One.
Sure, but I'm just saying that Rick Perry, his record shows that he has little regard for such things.
And Texas was in good shape when George W. Bush went to the White House.
We weren't in economic stress or anything.
Well, you're still not, really, I mean, compared to the rest of the country.
Right.
Clinton's comment doesn't make any sense.
No, I agree.
It literally doesn't make it unless you look at it from the standpoint that Clinton's jealous.
Hey, hey, hey, you know, that's he's a I watch Governor Perry now.
He's a good-looking rascal.
Hey, hey good-looking rascal.
Yeah, I wish my hair were still black like that.
Oh, wow.
I think Clinton's jealous.
Pure and simple.
Meanwhile, Obama's on a bus.
Not even Air Force One, still trying to cram government down our throats.
Doesn't matter where the president is.
It's all about his policies.
That's one of the biggest non-sequiturs I can remember coming out of Clinton's mouth.
Scott Fairfield, Connecticut.
Welcome, sir.
Great to have you with us.
Hello, Rush.
That's a longtime listener and the first time caller.
Thank you.
Great to have you here.
Well, I've been thinking about this listening tour that Obama is on.
And don't you think it could probably or should be renamed like his super duper deflective selective listening tour?
Something.
Yeah, I mean, we've been playing around with a whole bunch of different bus tour names.
It's not a corporate jet tour, the Shovel Ready Express, the STIMU bus, the Porky Bus.
Oh, yeah, I got ideas coming out of my head here at moveon.org.
Oh, wait, that's taken.
Now, I think what's funny is, you know, Obama's taking this condescending tone and proclaiming that it sounds like we don't want to listen.
That's the exact opposite, actually.
I think the American people want to listen.
I think we want to listen to this guy's impressive resume that he's amassed in 2.5 short years.
Well, actually, I think people are tired of listening.
He doesn't say anything new.
He doesn't say it a particularly dynamic way anymore.
There's no magnetism or dynamism to it.
It's the same old woe-is me stuff now.
Well, he certainly doesn't answer questions in the real questions, which lends itself to the selective, deflective listening tour.
He doesn't answer questions as to why the quadrupling the debt has done in two years, failed policies that have not reduced unemployment.
No, it's made it worse.
Everything he's done has made it worse.
And he said he's not even 70% there yet.
That's what's frightening about it.
But I don't know.
Either there's just we could spend all day chronicling the hypocrisy.
By the way, folks in Wisconsin today, now I want to mention this.
That's right.
Even the Washington Post, folks.
Even the Washington Post is saying Obama's speeches on this tour are the same old, same old.
Look.
Look.
What happened yesterday?
There's Obama at his first appearance.
And it's so dull and boring that MSNBC cuts out of it.
They keep the video of Obama speaking, cut over to F. Chuck Todd talking to Andrea Mitchell about, I don't even remember what.
But it's same old, same old.
There's no here's the Washington Post.
Obama, who arrived in a special black armored hearse, didn't announce any new ideas, but he repeated calls for pairing measures to tame the deficit with efforts to boost the economy.
Obama kicks off Midwest bus tour with harsh words on the economy, Washington Post.
You know, talk about his experience.
He's never had a good record, not as a state senator, not as a U.S. senator, not as president.
I got one of these email things.
You know, I probably am the king of spam receivers.
Here I am, probably the most informed man in America, and yet there are people out there who think I don't know things.
And they send me, hey, Rush, you're going to see this.
And of course, I've only seen it a thousand times and knew it before I received the first one.
And you probably have seen this one going around.
This one is, where are all of Obama's former girlfriends?
It's a takeoff on the where are all of the students Obama taught who claim to have been inspired by him when he taught law at the University of Chicago.
Where are all of the former classmates of Obama who can tell wonderful stories about their experience with Obama on campus or in the classroom?
And they are interesting because those people haven't surfaced.
There aren't any ex-girlfriends that have admitted it.
Students that have been inspired by Obama as a professor, they haven't come forth.
Media hasn't dug them up.
So it is interesting from the standpoint that the guy has not been vetted yet.
Look what they're trying to do to Michelle Bachman, what they're planning on doing to Perry and so forth.
Well, guys, I got to tell you about the Wisconsin recall race.
This is two Democrats that are up today.
Now, I know I didn't talk about the Republican version of this last week, but I'm debating whether or not to talk about the Democrat version, which is happening today.
I'll think about it.
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