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Sept. 7, 2011 - Rush Limbaugh Program
37:55
September 7, 2011, Wednesday, Hour #2
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So Obama didn't hear what Hoffa said.
He didn't hear it.
So if he didn't hear it, it didn't happen.
Sort of like the old question.
If a tree falls in a forest and nobody's there, does it make a sound?
Well, obviously it does.
When Hoffa speaks, but Obama doesn't hear it.
Did Obama did Hoffa say anything?
Yes, he did.
So Jay Carney said those weren't comments by the president.
He didn't hear it.
I don't have any comment beyond that.
Mr. Hoffa speaks for himself.
He speaks for the labor movement, Carney added during the afternoon press conference.
Then Dan Pfeiffer, the White House communications director, said that Obama was not going to be the speech police for the Democrat Party.
The only two happy to be the speech police for everybody else, but he's not going to be the speech police for the Republican Party.
I mean, here's Obama.
What was it, just nine months ago he goes out and delivers that great civility speech?
you At the event in Tucson after the shooting of Gabby Giffords.
And we've got to make everybody proud of us by the way we talk to each other and so forth.
Meanwhile, since then, we've been called terrorists, sons of bitches.
We've been accused of holding the nation hostage.
I mean, I can the list of names that we have been called and the way we racists, things that uh have been said to characterize us, is longer than I can recall.
So Obama's going to give his joint session speech to Congress tomorrow night.
I would think Obama would be afraid.
A lot of terrorists, hostage takers, sons of bitches, and barbarians at the gate in the audience.
That's who he's going to be speaking to.
We've been told we can go to hell by Maxine Waters.
And in light and still, in the midst of all this, we still have people on our side be very careful, you're going to send the independents running right back to the Democrats.
They don't like all this harsh rhetoric.
The independents don't like all this partisanship.
The independents don't like all this hard, heavy, insulting talk.
Right.
So we offer up a legitimate critique or criticism of Obama, and our side tells us, shou better not talk that way.
The independents are going to go running right to the Democrats.
Although the guys that are talking about racism and hostage takers and sons of bitches and telling us to go to hell and so forth, that's who the independents are going to go to.
Which takes me, ladies and gentlemen, I I always go back and forth on whether to mention things said about me.
Because it's inevitable that I will elevate whoever it is that's doing the talking about me.
So it's something I have to judge issue by issue, knowing full well that I can turn a nobody into a somebody by mentioning them.
And you don't want to do that.
But at the same time, if the nobody says something that offers an opportunity to make a point to millions of people, then you roll the dice on elevating the nobody into a somebody.
Now the nobody in this case is a nobody to you.
He is a somebody to the intellectual elite.
His name is Peter Berkowitz, and he's on the staff.
He's a thinker.
He has a he has a chair where he sits and thinks at the Hoover Institute, which is a conservative think tank at Stanford.
And he's out there with Victor Davis Hansen and Thomas Sowell and a lot of other bright people.
And he wrote a piece in a Wall Street Journal.
I think it was yesterday, The Myth of Conservative Purity.
Adam Smith, the founding fathers, Ronald Reagan practiced the art of wise compromise.
With the opening of the fall political season and tonight's Republican candidate debate, expect influential conservative voices to clamor for fellow conservatives to set aside half measures, eschew conciliation, and adhere to conservative principle in its pristine purity.
But what does fidelity to conservatism's core convictions mean?
Superstar radio talk show host Rush Limbaugh has, with characteristic bravado, championed a take no prisoners approach in late July, as the debt ceiling debate built to its climax.
He understandably exhorted House Speaker John Boehner to stand strong and rightly praise the Tea Party for putting country before party, but then Mr. Limbaugh went further.
Quote, winners do not compromise, he declared on air.
Winners do not compromise with themselves.
The winners who do compromise are winners who still do not believe in themselves as winners who still think of themselves as losers.
He accurately quoted me as saying that.
He disagrees profoundly with this, by the way.
He thinks winners should compromise with losers.
We saw the results of such thinking, Limbaugh's thinking in November of 2010 when Christine O'Donnell was defeated by Chris Coons in Delaware in the race for Biden's vacated seat in Nevada Sharon Angle was defeated by Dingy Harry, who was returned to Washington to reclaim his position as Senate majority leader in both cases.
The Republican senatorial candidate was a Tea Party favorite who lost a very winnable election.
The notion of conservative purity is a myth, the great mission of American conservatism, securing the conditions under which liberty flourishes, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
Applying them to an evolving and elusive political landscape.
And he talks about William Buckley and Reagan.
And he goes on to talk about the importance of being moderate and being willing to compromise, particularly after winning.
Compromise can be and often is the path of least resistance, the province of the mealy mouth weak need in Lily Livered, yet when circumstances warranted they often will compromise will be the considered choice of the steely-eyed and stout hearted.
Clarity about principles is critical.
It enables one to spot the betrayal of core convictions.
But contrary to the partisans of purity in politics, winning and compromise are not antithetical.
Okay.
So basically what we have here is a piece on the myth of conservative purity and the wise art or the art of wise compromise.
And I thought about this.
This is what I would say.
Thank you.
To this anybody who would disagree with me with my concept that winners do not compromise.
It's the losers that should be compromising.
Particularly in politics.
But I get very impatient with all this talk of moderates and moderation.
Moderation is not a substantive belief.
This is my problem with moderates.
There isn't a core there.
Moderation is a tactic.
It's not a set of principles.
It is a tactic that says, regardless of the situation, regardless of events, my first impulse is to find a different way around.
I think moderation, per se, is illogical.
Because there are clearly times when it is self-destructive Or counterproductive.
For instance, moderation after we were attacked at Pearl Harbor would have been irrational.
Moderation against slavery would have been immoral.
How do you debate the issue of moderation if it has no core?
You wind up debating tactics.
But tactics without principle are pointless.
And this has always been my problem with moderates.
And I think that these moderates believe that they are more sophisticated or erudite or what?
They believe they happen to be smarter, wiser, more open minded, when in fact they have no anchor.
They exist to be seen as something rather than existing to be something.
What is the point of a tactic if there's no purpose to it?
I'm not a conservative because I embrace tactics.
I'm a conservative because I believe and embrace certain broad yet fundamental principles.
And just as I told the guy who called who wanted to do more than just sit around and think, young man, if we if we can convince and persuade more people to our views, our principles, our views.
We believe our society will be much better off for it.
The more converts we win, the better off this country is.
That's the whole point, and you don't do that with simple tactics and denying who you are for fear of offending somebody.
And as far as conservatives go, this is our history.
People fought the revolution, they risked their lives, they lost their lives not over something as pointless and elusive as moderation in pursuit of tactics.
They did so to found a nation like no other, built on principles that other nations had never embraced before.
So what exactly is it that we're supposed to be moderating?
This is the question that I have always had.
Whenever these moderates do, you need to moderate your tone.
What is it about conservatism that we're supposed to moderate?
Particularly in the face of the most radical and destructive administration in modern American history where the president has said he wants to fundamentally transform the nation, what does moderation look like?
Where am I supposed to moderate?
What am I supposed to moderate?
Are all these Republican candidates tonight at the debate?
Should they all be asking themselves who's willing to go further in compromising with the Democrats to show what?
To accomplish what isn't the purpose of this debate tonight, for one of these people to stand head and shoulders of everybody else in demonstrating he or she is the one who can beat Obama, not compromise with Obama or not moderate in such a way as to get along with Obama.
Moderating is caving, as far as I'm concerned.
Oscar Wilde said, Moderation is a fatal thing.
Nothing succeeds like excess.
Compromise is what got us in this mess.
Compromise, the desire to compromise.
I can work with the other side, I'm the guy, I'm the guy that can cross the aisle.
That's what got us in this mess.
Compromising with people who hold our views to be repugnant to them.
So what are we supposed to be moderating?
Particularly in the face of this regime.
Are we to fight?
Left wing principles that are foreign to this country and destructive to this nation's core?
With tactics based on moderating our principles?
Is that how we're supposed to do this?
We're supposed to moderate our principles in dealing with this.
We face an existential threat to our way of life.
That is what is represented by today's Democrat Party and its leader Barack Obama, an existential threat to our way of life.
It's why so many people are irritable.
It's why so many people are scared.
It's why so many people are angry.
It's why so many people are unsettled.
Our very way of life is under attack, and we're told we're supposed to moderate.
We had a landslide victory in November of 2010.
We're supposed to compromise after that.
What are we supposed to come from?
are we supposed to apologize for?
What are these moderates on our side want to be critical of people like me?
What do they have to offer?
They spend their time telling those of us who stand up, and you and the Tea Party, they spend their time telling those of us who stand up for our principles.
We invoke the founders.
We openly embrace, I guess, the embarrassing subjects of liberty and freedom.
They tell us to back off, to cool it, to find a middle way, a more moderate way.
All they're talking about is tactics.
Now the problem is that tactics in moderation without principle in the face of a destructive opponent are pointless.
They're useless.
They might make you, the moderate, feel better at the end of the day, but that's worth nothing.
I don't even see the logic in what's being proposed here.
Moderating.
He and others, Burkowitz Geier are they arguing for moderation as a tactic in essence, while we are arguing against the transformation of this country.
And we're offering principles and substantive alternatives to stop this destruction.
Wrong tactic.
The right tactic is to moderate.
Again, when somebody tells me to moderate what, I may listen.
I'll tell you something else that I'm growing a little weary of.
These people always cite two elections.
Christine O'Donnell losing and Sharon Angle losing.
And they say this, see, this was that's what that's what conservative purity will do for you.
Those elections were totally winnable, and now conservative purity is responsible for losing.
Well, how about Rubio versus Christ?
You want conservative purity, I'll give it to you.
Marco Rubio, who is someday going to be president of the United States?
How about Rand Paul versus the Republican moderate there in Kentucky, the Mitch McConnell guy?
Rand Paul, it's a little conservative purity there, and it won.
How about all moderates and liberal Republicans who lose?
And that list is too long to go through, but I can give you some names, McCain, Dole, on and on and on.
Republican moderates are guaranteed losers.
In eight out of ten elections are going to have.
Now, I I think that people who write pieces about moderation need to do a little bit more than Just sit back and be critical.
We need to know what it is these moderates think is worth fighting for.
Is it just winning elections with whoever can win so that the result may not even be productive?
These moderates need to tell us.
What are the principles that they believe that an individual or a nation should stand firm on?
Because so far, moderates don't do that.
That's why they are moderates.
They don't want to be tied down.
They want to be able to preach moderation because it gets them praise.
They keep bringing up the O'Donnell race.
It drives the GOP establishment and moderates nuts.
They think this proves their point about moderation.
What then of McCain, Dole, Ford as a long list of moderate losers?
What if Rubio, uh Rand Paul, Ron Johnson, Jim Dement, Alan West wouldn't be in Congress today, but for principled conservatives supporting them?
Sharon Angle lost by 4% in an election in Nevada with Dingy Harry in charge of it.
Who knows what really went on there?
And then of course they love to cite Goldwater losing.
That's that's their big one.
That Goldwater lost.
So what?
We should all become Rockefeller Republicans?
How about Reagan won?
You always want to conveniently forget that Reagan won.
I always want to go back and say Goldwater lost.
Anyway, this is the internecine battle going on in the Republican Party while we're trying to stop the destruction brought on by Obama.
you Thank you.
By the way, folks, the way I look at it, I already compromise far more than anybody else I know.
I tie half my brain behind my back every day just to make it fair.
Nobody engages in any greater compromise than I do.
And why should we believe that the Democrats want a compromise with us, sons of bitches anyway?
Where is the evidence they want to compromise with us?
They don't want to compromise with us.
One more thing.
What would these moderates have said when the delegates from the colonies met in Philadelphia to debate the Declaration of Independence?
What if moderates had been running that show?
Would they have even been there?
You know, those those delegates were considered radicals, purists?
I guess we call them purists today.
Would they have cautioned against fighting the Brits?
Would they have urged removing references to God in the document?
Would they have said we need to appeal to independence to Tories and the like would they have said?
What would they have said at the founding of the country, at the declaration of our independence?
What would the moderates have said?
They had to be defeated.
And they were defeated.
Oh no, I know.
We've always had moderates.
I wanted to reconcile with King George.
I wanted to reconcile with everybody.
Thank you.
After the war was won and after the Constitutional Convention, when a debate at the ratifying conventions in the states ensued over what became the Bill of Rights, the first Ten Amendments.
What would our moderates have said then?
Oh, no, no, no, we don't want a Tenth Amendment.
We don't want an all-powerful central government.
No, we do want an all-power.
No, we don't want that 10th Amendment.
We've got to make sure we have an all-powerful central government.
Would they have said we don't believe in states' authority?
So don't offend the big government types?
Would they have said get rid of the second amendment and the right to bear arms?
What would our so-called moderates have said?
I don't know, folks, because moderates don't have a core.
I'm not trying to be insulting here.
That just happens.
I'm just being honest.
Moderates are tacticians.
Strategists.
But they don't have a cord.
We live in a society now where the federal government is involved in everything.
Our treasury is broke.
Entitlements are breaking us.
An inexperienced man-child president is destroying us.
Business is under attack.
Freedom and liberty are under attack right in front of our eyes.
And we're being told to embrace moderation.
All because I said winners don't compromise.
Particularly winners don't compromise with themselves.
And let's not forget the context of that.
That was during the great debt ceiling debate when Obama wasn't proposing any idea.
When the Democrats haven't proposed a budget.
So we go up there, we'd present an idea, he'd say nope.
So we'd negotiate with ourselves and come up with a new plan.
We were the winners.
We held the cards.
And we were compromising with ourselves.
Well, Obama got to play the role of the Grand Wizard.
Okay, the wizard of smarts, whatever, you know, I didn't mean to talk about Robert Bird there.
But at any rate, folks, that that I I did, you know, I always debate, you know, how far to go in responding to some of this stuff, but but this one was uh what was made the order because this is not the time.
I don't know what what is there, what is there to compromise with Obama on right now?
No, no, I mean serious.
Can't we okay?
You want to compromise with Obama and tax increases.
We want to compromise with Obama on stimulus spending.
We want to compromise with Obama.
No, as far as I'm concerned, we don't want any of that to happen.
We don't want any more tax increases, and we don't want any more stimulus spending under the guise of creating jobs.
We do not want any more job creation as it's defined by Obama.
Because the last time I looked, there weren't any jobs being created.
It was zero in August.
Now, what the hell is there to compromise with there?
What?
Am I or you, the Tea Party, what are we supposed to moderate?
Our language?
Our we're the ones that are supposed to compromise our language, moderate our tone?
Or these independents are gonna run in droves back to the Democrats.
It's a James Hoffa Jr. is a magnet to the independence?
Is that what we're to believe?
James Hoffa Jr. and this Trumka guy, they are magnets if we're not careful.
Why, independents are gonna flock to the likes of James Hoffa Jr. and Trumpka.
Sorry, I don't buy it.
I want to go back.
I want to finish these sound bites with Lutz.
Let's see, what did I do with you?
This is this is Lutz blasting Hoff and Obama.
He just got through saying in the first bite here was on MSNBC the yesterday afternoon that Hoffer really didn't mean it.
Uh if he thought about it, he would have probably regrets it, but that's wrong.
Hoffett did reaffirm that he meant it.
Uh and was just talking about how the economy works and so forth, the doofuses over at MSNBC.
So the next question uh was was from a Republican strategist Susan Del Perchio.
I don't know how she pronounces it.
When we hear all this rhetoric, Mr. Lutz, we we have to put it aside to find solutions.
What do you think can be done to really bridge the relationship between a union and a manufacturer, for example?
We arguably in some cases had too much union power and too much union wealth, and that was certainly one of the factors that triggered the bankruptcy of two of the three American automobile companies.
Not the main cause, but it was a cause.
Since then, however, you look at the Detroit 3, for instance, uh Ford General Motors and Chrysler have both added thousands and thousands of jobs uh since emerging from Chapter 11.
You know, cases of General Motors, added shift, opened plants, hired new UAW workers, and so forth.
So certainly the part of industry that I'm in is neither anti-union nor anti-worker.
And in fact, quite the contrary.
But he does say that too much union power and too much union wealth was certainly one of the factors, and by that he means the unfunded pensions and health care after uh after retirement.
Finally, um Democrat strategist Karen Finney said to Lutz.
Now you're seeing both public sector and private sector employees seeing their pensions and those promises that were made in the pension basically decimated.
Why shouldn't people feel like there's a war on them?
Look, um certainly the pay raises in the in the government sector are far outpacing uh pay raises in the private sector.
What's happened is if you ask me who's under attack, I would say the private enterprise economy is under attack, under attack or threat of higher taxation, higher regulation, higher corporate taxes, higher income taxes for high wage orders.
She was trying to say that uh high corporate profits as high as they are, lots of saying income taxes for high wage orders.
Let's uh is is he's right.
The real war in this country is on the private sector.
It's being waged against the private sector.
He said it.
And when you when you say that the average pay for private public sector workers twice what it is for a private sector worker, who pays the public sector worker?
The government?
Yeah, oh yeah, government.
No, you do.
Your taxes pay them and their unfunded pensions and health care.
When they retire after working twenty years, and then get eighty percent.
By the way, Ford just announced that they're building a billion-dollar plant in India.
And can you blame them if they wanted to build a plant in South Carolina, the Obama regime would sue them.
Because it's a non-union state.
Look what happened to Boeing.
Don't tell me there's not a private sector war going on.
be right back.
Thank you.
It's L. Rushbo.
And the Limboy Institute for advanced ideological purity.
And we go to Baton Rouge, Louisiana is Tina.
Great to have you, Tina, on the program.
Thank you for waiting.
Hi.
Hey, Russ.
Proud conservative Tea Party FOB.
Tina.
I wanted to remind you, um, the first half-hour break you mentioned, you know, just get out of our way.
Well, I remember when you read an article that were there was a businessman sitting next to a professor on a plane, and the guy just let the businessman talk, and he basically just spouted off exactly what you were saying.
And my husband's a brown um a small business owner.
I talk to people every day in my community that are business owners, and if it's the regulations and get off our back, it's the same darn thing.
And then that that professor ended up being, you know, writing an article, and you read some of it.
Do you recall that?
Yes, I do.
I just don't remember the uh I don't remember the professor's name.
I don't either.
But he was from an Ivy League school, and he was surprised.
Yeah, shocked.
Yeah, I think that's a good thing.
He was shocked.
Right.
It was he was shocked that uh that uh that uh uh businessman would actually look at Washington that way.
Exactly.
And this guy was from an Ivy League, and he taught, I believe, economics.
Yeah.
Oh no, I know.
I I I remember it everything but the professor's name.
I remember talking about because here was an economics professor who was illiterate.
Yeah.
When it came to real world economics.
Exactly.
Well, Tina, you're a proud Tea Party SOB, and I'm great to have you in this audience.
Thanks, Radford.
All right.
We'll move on.
This is Craig in Atlanta, another Proud Tea Party SOB.
Welcome to the EIB network.
Thank you, sir.
This is a real honor.
I'm going to circle this date on my calendar speaking.
Thank you very much, sir.
I wanted to tell you that I feel uh what has happened is the formula for the Democrats has been thrown up real loose.
They don't know what to do with the Tea Party.
And it has really caused problems.
I mean, you talking about moderates.
Well, the line has been drawn in the sand, and they're trying to bend that line now.
And they're having a real problem, and I think November is a big, big problem, but they just don't know what to do.
And I have a feeling what's going to happen is the ticket for the Democrat ticket is going to change.
Biden, if if Obama won another four years, there's no way Biden could carry that progressive flag, the statism on.
Hillary could.
And I feel that Biden is going to step down, be forced out or whatever, and Hillary's going to jump in that because they've got to enliven the base.
The base is dead for them.
And Hillary would put a little life in that.
And she could carry that progressive on.
And I feel this has been done.
This was done before Obama became president in 2008.
That there was a deal made and said, hey, you run the first eight years, and then Hillary will take up the next eight years.
Really?
And and I feel that the Well, I'll tell you what.
It's an interesting theory that they're going to dump, bite me, and put Hillary in there as Obama's running.
It's not going to matter because whoever it is is going to lose.
Thank you.
Either Sarah Palin is going to beat him or Mitt Romney's going to beat him, or Rick Perry's going to beat him, but they're going to lose.
I don't care what tricks they play, I don't care who they put in a ticket.
Yeah, I know I said yesterday it's too early for uh everybody's too early to think that Obama can't pull some rabbit out of his hat to try to change his fortunes.
Yeah, just if it's it you remember now the theory from yesterday was a Victor Davis Hansen piece.
What if Obama all of a sudden comes out for tax cuts, corporate tax cuts, less regular?
What if, for example, Obama tomorrow, in his speech, gives an amnesty period on all the trillions of dollars that foreign companies are being uh are keeping overseas?
What if he allows the repatriation of that money tax-free, for example?
What that that would be, as far as we're concerned, a good economic move.
And it would just literally tick off his base like you can't believe.
It would irritate that mean corporations, that's like showing Dracula the cross.
They hate him.
Well, what if he does that?
What if he does that?
That is going to inspire.
It's it's gonna it's gonna motivate some businesses.
They're gonna be able to repatriate that cash that they're keeping overseas because they don't want it taxed at U.S. rates if they're able if there's an amnesty period to bring it back.
Uh who knows.
I d uh as far as Hillary is concerned.
I look at her.
She tired.
I just think I'm not that doesn't mean anything.
I just I just think I think Hillary's tired.
By the way, the professor that uh Tina was talking about Stephen Carter.
And it was uh May twenty seventh.
Economic stagnation explained at 30,000 feet was the uh was his column.
And I've got the uh link to it at Rush Limbaugh.com.
Coco, why don't you go put that up there in the orange banner right now so people can uh refamiliarize themselves with it?
Because I'm pretty sure the date was May 27th.
And it was uh Yale, Professor Stephen Carter.
Economic stagnation explained at 30,000 feet.
Uh see.
I don't know.
I I uh but their tricks.
You know, to I've always said if the election were today, yeah, he's landslideable.
The election were held today, Obama loses in a landslide.
And look, even if Chuck Todd's pollsters are concerned about it.
I mean, even they know.
Well, another exciting hour of broadcast excellence is in the can.
Yeah, one more exciting hour to go.
Fastest uh three hours in media.
Uh we've got plenty of other things left to uh discuss, and I want to get to more of your phone calls as uh uh as well of uh Howard Feynman uh admitting here that uh nobody's expecting Obama's speech to result in anything.
Howard Feynman, yeah, we've got audio.
He's not nobody's really expecting Obama's speech to result in anything.
I don't know if that's a sandbag or if that's what they uh they really mean.
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