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Nov. 14, 2011 - Rush Limbaugh Program
31:41
November 14, 2011, Monday, Hour #3
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Well, there's all kinds of polls out there today, folks.
Bunch of new polls.
CNN has one out.
Public policy polling has one out.
In the CNN poll, Newt Gingrich has tied Romney.
In another poll, Gingrich is in second place.
Kane is dropping finally.
According to the polls, this is all the media trying to pick our candidate.
Don't think anything other than that.
That's still what's going on, but it's the latest.
I don't have the numbers.
I just tried to print the CBS poll, and it's 35 pages.
So I went through there and I tried to get the first page's actual text, and I thought I had, and I missed it by one.
So don't bother with it, Sterling.
I don't care.
They're tied.
Newt and Romney are tied.
I'll get the number here in just a second.
In the meantime, photographers, editors, and other staffers in Atlanta, New York, Washington, Los Angeles, Miami, CNN are being let go.
Oh, I should mention this.
You know, in the first hour, I mentioned that I saw Scott Pelley with the tete at Newt when Newt schooled him on this whole notion of swearing out warrants to kill American citizens.
And Pelly had no clue what had happened.
He thought that he outsmarted Newt.
Newt totally skunked him, but he didn't know it.
And at one point during the exchange, I described Pelley as having this grotesque, smug, know-it-all expression on his face.
And he did, but it's not what I remembered it to be.
I thought I remembered him leaning back in his chair with his mouth wide open and his eyes.
And I had people look for it for me, get a still shot.
And the shot that they found, his mouth is closed and still a smug look, but it just, now it's a small picture.
I imagine I was watching this on an eight-foot screen.
I imagine if I blew this small three-inch little picture that they sent me up to an eight-foot picture, then it would look like I remembered Pelley looking.
And a small picture didn't look that bad.
But on my big screen, it just looked horror-movie grotesque.
Yeah, it was overtly exciting.
And I've got a bunch of people have sent me the version of the picture.
I haven't printed it out yet.
I guess I should print it out, show you on the DittoCam, but it's not what I thought it was.
It also goes to show how memory can play tricks on you.
I distinctly remembered the mouth being wide open and Pelly leaning back.
This picture that they've sent me doesn't show that.
Now, I've not seen the streaming video that everybody is pulling the still shot from.
It very well could that I'm still right.
It is nobody knows what to look for, but I doubt that.
I think I've gotten too many of these things.
I could just, as I say, have seen this on an eight-foot screen and went, whoa, back off, dude.
So I'll find, I'll show you here.
I'll do that in the break, and I'll get the CNN numbers from the break also.
CBS News poll, since we're talking about polling, President Obama's ratings on the most important issue for his reelection, the economy have posted the weakest showing of his presidency, according to a poll released Friday by CBS News, 60%.
Six out of 10 voters said they disapprove of Obama's handling of the economy.
That's the highest disapproval on record.
Only 34% approve of the job that he is doing on the matter.
His overall approval ratings are just 43% with 47% disapproval.
Among Independents, only 39% are satisfied with Obama's performance.
76% of Democrats, 12% of Republicans approve of his job performance overall.
On foreign policy, Obama's rating is a little higher.
Big whoop here, two whole points, 43 to 45 points.
And just 9% of respondents approve of the job Congress is doing compared to 83.
I'll focus here on the independent numbers.
39.
Well, also the disapproval number at 60.
Obama's handling of the economy is at 60 disapproval, and the independent approval number is just 39%.
Again, I have to ask: you know, this is the independents.
That's where the political professionals go.
That's who they focus on.
That's where you think they tell their candidates that elections are won and lost.
39% are satisfied with Obama's performance.
There's not a question about Republicans in here.
So Obama has lost the independents all on his own.
He's lost them all on his own.
The CBS poll, by the way, we should point this out, did not oversample Democrats too much.
The sample breakdown is 31 Democrat, 29% Republican.
Normally, polling data oversamples Republicans by 4 to 6% and sometimes higher, with the Independents getting the vast majority of respondents.
The CBS poll doesn't do that.
But 39% of independents are satisfied.
That means they've abandoned Obama on their own.
And the Republicans, as you know, are scared to death to do anything because they have been told, and they mistakenly believe, that by being critical of Obama, they're going to send these precious independents running back to Obama.
Now, if the Independents have left Obama on their own, and I say that because there really isn't a Republican nominee yet, and therefore there isn't any official Republican policy yet, until we have a nominee, we don't have any official Republican policy.
We don't have a platform.
We don't have Republicans or conservatives running around with specific economic plans for the independents to compare.
They're abandoning Obama on their own, which tells me that if we come up with the right specific, we can cause even more independents to flee Obama.
But we better not be defensive, better not act afraid to speak up for ourselves.
That's what usually happens.
We are afraid to speak up for ourselves for fear of sending the independents back to Obama.
But if they are abandoning him on the economy on their own, it means they disapprove without any alternative.
Well, there is an alternative, but it's an unspecified one.
And this is the same circumstance, by the way, as it was in the midterm elections in 2010.
The independents abandoned the Democrat Party in the midterms and they voted Republican.
And there wasn't really anything about the Republicans to vote for other than they weren't Obama.
So I think it's clear, and it ought to be judged with confidence by the Republicans.
The independents and a lot of people, 60% disapproval overall, people do not want Obamaomics.
It's nowhere near a majority.
The media, Obama represent a genuine minority of thinking on pretty much policy after policy after policy.
There's no reason to be timid here.
You can take that 39% Approval that Obama has among independents, you can turn that into 35.
You could turn it into 30% with the right policy proposals and differentials.
I think it's as always been.
It's a gold mine.
We have a gold mine.
I talked to Trump about this.
Interviewed Trump last week for the next issue of the Limbaugh Letter.
We talked about the budget deal, the debt ceiling.
Remember how we were all saying here that it was Boehner who had Obama on the ropes.
It was Obama who was looking at having to cave.
And Trump was of that belief too.
And he is still of the belief that it's the Democrats and Obama who can be made to be put on the ropes here with the right message, the right kind of campaign that basically a strong America.
Here's Obama talking about today or yesterday, whenever he mentioned this in Hawaii, that we've gone lazy, that we're not doing everything we can.
We just take for granted people are going to come here.
This is the man that's put the obstacles in the way to anybody doing business in this country.
Be they new arrivals or be they native citizens.
He wants to run around and talk about the last 20 years, by the way.
That's key.
He's throwing Clinton in there.
Not just George W. Bush.
The last 20 years, yeah, we've gotten kind of lazy.
Yeah, we've gotten kind of fat, dumb, and happy.
Speak for yourself, sir.
A lot of people are working very hard right now to keep their heads above water.
Hi, we are back.
Rush Limbaugh, the EIB network, the Limbaugh Institute for Advanced Conservative Studies.
All right.
I have, if you're watching on the dental cam at rushlimbaugh.com, and you can only do that if you're a hacker or if you are a member at Rush 24-7.
I've got the picture, and I really am embarrassed to admit this is not how I remember Pelly looking.
I've zoomed in as tight as I can.
This is during the debate with Newt, and Newt has just answered the first phase of the question, and Pelley says, but that was extrajudicial.
That was not the rule of law.
And my memory of this is Kelly or Pelley with his mouth wide open and leaning backwards in the chair.
But apparently it didn't happen.
Now, again, I saw this on an eight-foot screen, so maybe it just looked that way, and it went by pretty quickly.
But he looked smug.
He looked full of himself when he thought he had nailed Newt, but he hadn't nailed Newt.
Newt ended up explaining things to him.
This is in a discussion earlier today about how these people in the media, really folks, don't even know what conservatism is in general or issue to issue.
They just, they have no clue.
They think they do.
They're not curious about it.
And they just treat it as some sort of insane abnormality in people.
Don't even know, like Dan Lothium today or yesterday when I had a question for Obama about torture.
What was that, number nine?
Sound by number?
Grab something by number 90.
I think it was.
Yeah, grab sound by number 9.
I play this.
This is Dan Lothian at CNN.
It was a press conference last night in Honolulu asking Obama a question.
Last night at the Republican debate, some of the hopefuls, they hope to get your job, they defended the practice of waterboarding, which is a practice that you banned in 2009.
Herman Kaine said, quote, I don't see that as torture.
Michelle Bachman said that it's, quote, very effective.
So I'm wondering if you think that they're uninformed, out of touch, or irresponsible.
Now, that question is just a stark illustration of media bias.
you think that they're uninformed, out of touch, irresponsible.
I don't know that this idiot actually knows that Obama's own CIA director credited waterboarding with producing the information of the whereabouts of Osama bin Laden so that Obama could go kill him.
It was waterboarding that produced all of the information Khalid Sheikh Mohammed on the 9-11 hit, who was behind it, and future attacks.
It has been acknowledged by everybody involved with it to have worked.
Mr. Lothian obviously doesn't know that, and he's in the news business.
He doesn't know that Obama's own CIA director praised it.
He said it was necessary.
It was worthwhile.
Oh, he just got to ask your question.
These people, idiots, stupid, uninformed, or are they just irresponsible?
Is basically what he means.
Trying to suck up to Obama that Obama even knew he was trying to suffer.
It was a little embarrassing.
Who's next?
Jack in Melrose, Wisconsin.
Hi, welcome to the EIB Network.
Great to have you here.
Hello.
Hi.
Hello.
Thanks for taking my call, Rush.
Yes, sir.
And I wanted to get your take on why the Republican establishment and the liberal news media aren't digging up dirt on Mitt Romney like they do on some of the others.
Well, I think the Democrats think he's going to be the nominee.
They're waiting to release whatever dirt they've got until after he's got the nomination when the Republicans can't do anything about it.
The Republicans, if there is any dirt on Romney, and I should preface, but if there is any, I don't know that there is sufficient dirt to hurt Romney.
The only guy that's ever tried to use some is Perry.
As far as if the dirt exists and the Republicans haven't used it, they're not, I don't know, they haven't chimed in on the Herman Kane thing either.
That's all the media thing.
The Republicans are not into self-immolation right now.
I don't think they've formed a circular firing squad.
New York Peace had a hit piece on Romney.
Bill Keller's got a piece on Romney.
Bill Keller is out there.
He's the former editor, not just the columnist.
Bill Keller is out there saying Romney is the only guy that can beat Obama, which they can all beat Obama.
But they're trying to pick Romney.
Keller's piece saying, see, the people in the mainstream media know that the Republicans crave their approval.
The people in the mainstream media know that the Republicans think they're the smartest and the wisest.
So the mainstream people, people like the media, people like Keller, I guarantee you it works this way.
He'll do a story saying Romney can beat Obama.
The purpose of that story is to nudge the Republicans toward nominating Romney because the truth is the regime wants to run against Romney.
But the Republicans won't see it that way.
The establishment types will see it as Romney's the only guy.
In fact, David Brooks, he of Obama's crease in his pants as his qualifier to be president, David Brooks was on the news hour with Jim O'Lara on Friday night on PBS.
And David Brooks, he of the Republican establishment said, I still basically think there's just one real candidate, and that's Mitt Romney.
But suppose there were two, he said.
Suppose Jeb Bush had decided to get into the race.
Everybody said, oh, you can't do it.
You're Jeb Bush.
Your last name's Bush.
But if Jeb Bush were in the race right now, I think he'd be the frontrunner, even regardless of the name, says David Brooks.
A Jeb Bush candidacy, according to Brooks, would satisfy the serious establishment types and the more conservative types at the same time.
According to Brooks, Jeb Bush would unify the Tea Party and the establishment types in the Republican Party.
And then Brooks goes on to say, So it's one of the things that interests me is what happens if Mitt Romney stumbles.
Then where does the party go?
Because really there's option A and no option B, practically.
And so that would just create a crisis in the party.
And then you really would see people rallying around somebody who's not in the race right now.
So David Brooks, speaking for the establishment, say it's Romney or bust.
And if it's Romney, he gets a nomination and something happens to Romney that the Republican establishment is going to go try to find somebody to replace him that did not run, that's not running for president now.
In fact, Brooks's quote on television Friday night in Washington, D.C. was, if Romney falters, the entire Washington establishment goes into conniption fits.
I mention this only because you've got CNN, sorry, New York Times pushing Romney now, Bill Keller, pushing Romney.
Romney's the only guy that can beat Obama.
Here's David Brooks.
There's only one real candidate.
That's Mitt Romney.
But Brooks goes farther.
He said, what if something happens at Romney?
It's a shame that they don't have Jeb Bush running.
Oh, my God.
If it's not Romney and something happens, we're going to have to go outside, find somebody, an immediate replacement.
Because if Romney falters, the entire Washington establishment goes into conniption fits.
And I think we can take that to the bank.
I think that Brooks probably does speak for the so-called Republican inside the Beltway Washington establishment.
We'll be back.
Sit tight, my friends.
Don't go anywhere.
Your guiding light through times of trouble, confusion, murkiness, tumult, chaos.
And yes, even the good times.
Here's Maggie in Homer, Alaska.
Maggie, welcome to the EIB network.
Hello.
Hey, good morning, Rush.
Hi.
I genuinely genuine.
Thank you, Mary My.
I appreciate that.
I do it literally.
I will probably be able to get back up.
So we'll save that for another time.
Hey, you know what?
When I first thought about a person to run against Obama, my ideal person was a man of color, an erudite, patriotic man of color, okay?
And that's what Herman Cain is.
In so many ways, he's the antithesis of Obama.
See, get this, picture this.
To me, Kane is Superman.
Obama is Mighty Mouse.
You know?
That's it.
I can see that.
Yeah.
And John Kerry was actually Mighty Mouse, if you want to.
That's how we characterize Kerry.
Yeah, he has a look of Mighty Mouse at the cape.
Yeah.
So are you still hanging in with Herman Cain?
Absolutely.
You know, at the worst, he flirted with some women.
Oh, my.
You know, what man doesn't do that occasionally?
You know, that is an excellent question.
Liberal guys do not do it.
Oh, please.
Come on.
I'm telling you.
You got to look at Kennedy, Dodd, these people, they do more than flirt.
I'm talking about the true feminist guys out there.
I know you want to dispute me, but how else do you explain their reaction to what this is?
They think this isn't.
Because, Rush, they have to take him out because he is their biggest threat.
See, you remember the old adage, fight fire with fire?
Yeah.
Cain is fighting fire with fire because he's a man of color.
That's very, very important.
It really is.
Well, I do.
I think it's a lot of honor votes that, you know, people, a lot of people voted for Obama because he's black in some respects, some regards.
Those people can come over without any feelings of guilt or anything else, you know, or minorities, right?
I see you're thinking on this.
I see you're thinking.
You're thinking is that the same people that voted out of guilt want to do so again.
Don't, no, don't want to do so again.
Can vote for a man who's actually patriotic, is erudite.
He really cares about this country, and he connects with people unlike Obama.
Obama is crass, disdainful.
He really does not care about us.
And it shows, are those pictures of him with his feet on all the furniture and the presidential desk?
Are those real?
They're real, yeah.
That makes me sick.
Isn't that just disdainful to you and crass?
Yeah.
But Clinton showed up there in sweaty gym shorts.
It's just who the Democrats are.
There's no real reverence for the.
Oh, my gosh.
And you know another thing?
If Obama had integrity right now, he'd be telling all those occupied Wall Street people to clean up their mess and go home.
No, no, they're all he's claimed them.
He owns the occupied people.
It's Acorn.
It's Code Pink.
It's all these people.
It's all his people organizing this.
Of course, I realize that, Rush, but now it's come to a point where it's dangerous.
It's filthy.
I mean, we're getting into, you know, murder and drugs.
That's right.
And, you know, that's not good for him or anybody else.
They think that whatever happens out of it, they're going to be able to blame it on Republicans because they're blaming the economy on Republicans.
They're blaming Republican inaction.
They're blaming Bush.
They're going to blame the people who do these despicable acts out of frustration, in frustration at the Republicans.
That's their whole gambit here.
Yeah, I get that.
That's why there's not going to be a deal at the so-called super committee.
Blame that on the Republicans.
That's it earlier.
Look, that's all they've got.
They can't run on Obama's record.
There isn't anything.
Exactly.
No good record for sure.
No.
Yeah, very good.
Well, you know what?
For Kane, whatever in the picture, I thought about who was our best chance to take it away from Obama, Obama, excuse me.
And it was.
All right, let me ask you a question about this now.
Sure.
Maggie, does it not matter what Herman Kane's issue positions are?
You just think he's an erudite black guy and that's what's going on.
Absolutely it matters.
And it's unfortunate that he doesn't have more political, you know.
Did you see the debate Saturday night?
I did not.
That's one of the first ones I did not get to see.
You're probably better off.
Critical?
It was all on foreign policy.
He's better.
Oh, yeah.
Oh, Obama.
No, nobody else saw it either.
So it's just no big deal.
Yeah.
No big deal.
Well, I just feel like that's why they're so adamant about.
Well, I think, I think yeah, they've got an uppity black here.
Uh, who's who is daring to step off the plantation, like like Clarence Thomas did, and represents a clear and present danger to the, to the Democrat Party.
There's no question that that's a part of that.
I mean, you get to the point where they're not saying that Kane's double-breasted suits exude harassment.
His double-breasted suits just exude, uh uh power and authority and imposing himself on people.
That double-breasted suits, that's what that means.
Yeah, let's.
What's the question?
Does foreign policy really matter anymore?
Okay.
The question is, does foreign policy matter anymore?
Or is it just debate ritual to run questions and buy candidates about foreign policy?
You mean with the voters?
Obviously doesn't.
I think it does.
Yeah, I think it does.
There's no question it does.
I think it does and I think Obama got a pass on it.
But actually he didn't.
Obama was an empty suit that was filled out by a bunch of pap from the media about.
Remember Obama was going to make the rest of the world love us and then mattered to people.
They really believed the world hated us, that the media had convinced people that the world hated us because of Bush and Obama was going to change all that, in addition to lowering the sea levels and all that other stuff.
so Maggie I'm glad you called I appreciate it I really do appreciate your thoughts on it
let's have a couple more soundbites from the Republican debate on Saturday night was on primarily was on voting well it's the here is Rick Perry and Scott Pelley with an exchange Perry with his line about the Department of Energy Governor Perry you advocate the elimination of the Department of Energy if you eliminate the Department of Energy you remembered it
I've had some time to think about it, sir.
Me too. Thank you.
Yes, everybody's laughing about it, including Perry, which is only helpful.
But Perry did have a good idea.
It's going to it's.
If people had seen this.
It played well with foreign policy.
He's got an idea here on on foreign aid, Pelley said, Governor Perry, why is Pakistan playing it?
Oh, this is good, this is I forgot it.
Pelly with this this this, look on his face, Governor Perry, why is Pakistan playing a double game, saying that it supports the United States one moment, then supporting terrorists who are killing American troops the next.
What's going on there?
And you'll hear.
Perry doesn't get anywhere near it.
He doesn't even come close to answer the question and he gives his answer here, which will play for you, and Pelly comes back after the answer, which you won't hear here.
But okay okay, fine and dandy, but why are they playing a double game?
And Perry doesn't answer it again.
He goes back and repeats this, the foreign aid budget in my administration for every country is going to start at zero, Zero dollars.
And then we'll have a conversation.
Then we'll have a conversation in this country about whether or not a penny of our taxpayer dollars needs to go into those countries.
And Pakistan is clearly sending us messages, Mitt.
It's clearly sending us messages that they don't deserve our foreign aid that we're getting because they're not being honest with us.
Yeah, so but then Perry, that was his answers basically, and Pelley came back.
Well, what about the double game?
And Perry doubled it.
I'm just telling you that nobody gets foreign aid as zero.
Everybody starts at zero.
Even Israel is going to start at zero.
And that's right.
Now there's a special case.
They'll be in there.
They'll be right back in there.
But everybody starts at zero.
Now, I have to tell you, folks, long ago, back in the 90s, we here at the EIB came up with our own foreign policy position.
And that is we got two lists.
We have the excrement list and the good list.
And if you are on the good list, everything's fine.
You love us.
You say good things about us.
You appreciate us.
So we continue to give you foreign aid.
But if you rip us to shreds, if you criticize us, if you undermine us, we pull the money away from you, and you don't get back on the good list for five years of good behavior.
Now, Perry didn't take it that far, but his idea is similar here to our idea at the EIB network.
Here is Brooks in Tuscaloosa, Alabama.
Great to have you on the EIB network, sir.
Hello.
I am stoked, Rush.
I haven't talked to you since I started my degree in college, and now I'm driving back today.
Got to hear your whole show.
So you made my day by getting me on.
Thank you very much, sir.
Appreciate that.
Well, I have a quick question about economics and the debate and the election going on.
And then I was just curious to ask you something about Steve Jobs because you got me interested in him.
But the question about the economic thing is, do you think if there was a real bad turn in our economy over the next year that this would help Obama by scaring people back to him just to keep the status quo?
Or would it help Romney?
Or would it help maybe somebody who's not doing very well on the polls now?
Would it help Romney, Obama, or somebody else?
No, it would hurt Obama, and that'd be the only factor you'd need to know as to whom it would help specifically.
By the time if there's another dip, we're going to be close to a Republican nominee.
It'll help whoever that is.
An economy slips further into an abyss is not going to help Obama.
They're going to try to play it your way.
I mean, they'll try to say, look, it's worse than we thought, and it's going to take us a little longer than we thought.
But the last thing we want to do is change horses in the middle stream because, look, we're just now starting to show progress here in unemployment.
No matter how bad the news is, they will say that there are signs of success.
And they'll find some area of the economy where they can say their stimulus package is working, and they'll go that we can't change horses in the middle of the stream.
And Rush, before I go, can I ask you about Steve Jobs?
Okay.
I saw someone saying the other day that they thought now that he had passed away that Apple would be a little more open with their, this person called it paranoia about keeping a closed system on everything and being all locked down because Steve Jobs evidently, I started reading his biography after you represented it, and he was a little paranoid about that.
Do you think they'll open the slope?
It's too soon to tell.
Too soon.
I really don't know yet.
It's just impossible to know what the new CEO is going to want to do to put his stamp on the company.
Way too soon to tell.
It's an interesting question, though, I'll grant you.
When the Iranians get the nuke, you will see all kinds of voters concerned about foreign policy.
Yes, foreign policy will still matter when it comes to elections.
And have a wonderful day, folks.
Back at it tomorrow.
Don't miss it.
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