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Dec. 14, 2011 - Rush Limbaugh Program
32:03
December 14, 2011, Wednesday, Hour #3
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Greetings to you, music lovers, thrill seekers, conversationalists all across the fruited plane.
As the award-winning Thrill Pact, ever exciting, increasingly popular, growing by leaps and bounds, Rush Limbaugh program here on the Excellence in Broadcasting Network at the Limbaugh Institute for Advanced Conservative Studies.
Great to have you with us.
By the way, I meant to get to this yesterday, and it got buried under a bunch of stacks.
On Monday of this week, played a soundbite from one of the Sunday shows, John Meekum, who used to run Newsweek and is now at Random House.
And we played the soundbite, in which it sounded to me like Meekum was suggesting that the American people simply aren't smart enough to keep up with Obama.
And Meekum called HR and said, you got it wrong, and we demand a correction.
I said, well, I don't know about a correction, but I'll clarify.
I'll read what Meekum wrote.
He said, I'm writing because Limbaugh misunderstood something I said.
When I said that, oh, it was, I guess he was on Scarborough's Monday morning show.
He said, when I said the country wasn't commensurate with Obama's gifts, I was talking about how Obama views the world, not how the world really is.
It was, in fact, other outside outlets that picked up the remarks interpreted them to be an unflattering take on what I think the president's mindset may be in the storm of the job.
I'm writing because I'd appreciate some kind of clarification just for the record.
So Meekum is saying that when he wrote that the country wasn't commensurate with Obama's gifts, he was unflattering the president, being unflattering.
And then he said it's his thinking, the system, and really the country is not commensurate with his gifts.
What I meant to say was that Obama thinks the country is not commensurate with his gifts.
Well, regardless, I remember praising Meekum.
I said, look, if you want to get rid of the, if you want somebody else to be the Democrat nominee, this is how you do it.
He's a narcissist.
You tell him that he's bigger than the country.
He's far more talented than what this job has.
This job is chump change compared to his abilities and his talents and so forth.
Right before the power outage, we had a call.
And by the way, we're still unable to take calls.
I don't see anything up there.
Phone system is dead.
We still can't get it back.
Oh, okay.
Only one phone is worth it.
Okay, so basically we're unable to get any calls on the air because of the power failure.
When the power failure happened, what I was talking about was a caller said that Gingrich will mop Obama up during the debates.
And a lot of people, you know, I remember three weeks ago, maybe a month ago, talking about this very aspect.
And I remember Snerdley arguing with me about this whole notion how important the debates are.
And I know what drives this.
I can remember myself all during the Bush years, I'd run into people that would just constantly talk, tell me, and ask me why I could support somebody so stupid.
Bush is just so dumb, and he looks dumb.
It looks like deer in the headlight eyes when you've got a TV camera on him and so forth.
And a lot of people on our side got fed up with it.
Got fed up with the allegation that all of our candidates are stupid or they sound like Hayseed Hicks or what have you.
So none of that's ever attached to Clinton.
Clinton has a southern accent.
He talks like this.
Hey, good old boy, and all that kind of hit the astroturf into the back of the El Camino.
But nobody ever told anybody that Clinton was stupid.
But the charge was made against Bush.
The Bush White House never defended it.
So the attraction a lot of people have for Gingrich is they think that he will mop the floor with Obama in a debate.
And my only point is that I can understand this visceral desire to erase this notion that Obama is so smart when he's not, but that he sounds smart.
So we want just to get some real pleasure.
We want somebody that's smarter than Obama, sounds smarter than Obama, looks smarter than Obama, and wipes the floor with Obama, regardless what they're saying.
My only point is that on television, people don't remember what you say, they remember what they see.
And I learned this firsthand when I hosted my own immensely popular television show.
And I'll tell you, folks, critics, audience critics of a radio show to TV show, the criticisms are entirely different.
And it was an adjustment for me because I'm used to radio.
When I started my television show in 1992, I'd done nothing but radio.
And radio is a whole different ball of wax.
The way you connect with the audience on radio is much different than television because there aren't any pictures.
So you have to paint pictures.
Radio is the theater of the mind in any number of ways.
The way people listen to radio is much different than the way they watch television.
With television, you can sit there basically and use half of your sensory perception.
You can sit there and just get zoned out by what you see.
Sometimes people have television on the background.
They're not even listening or watching it.
They're just listening to it.
But when they do watch it, it's what they see.
I remember when I was starting this show, people said you're going to have to use video.
You're going to have to use video clips.
You just can't sit there and do a monologue for 20 minutes.
People aren't going to want to watch that.
On radio, there's no choice.
There is nothing to see.
But because of that, I've always found that radio listeners pay far greater attention.
If you've got a talented broadcaster, a highly trained broadcast specialist who understands radio, then you can create a connection that's unbreakable, magnetic, because the listener has to devote 100% of the hearing perception in order to get it.
A talk show, for example, will never be background, if it's any good.
But music radio will be elevator music, music.
You have a radio on music, you walk around doing other things.
Talk radio, you don't.
You are totally devoted to it.
On television, it's not the case.
It's an entirely different thing.
People remember what they see.
I can remember countless times doing what I thought was just a powerful, wonderful, really great, penetrating, unarguable monologue.
And I can, at the end of the program, and check email or just talk to people.
I was stunned how people didn't get that at all.
I thought it was okay and good, but they didn't see it nearly the way I did because I'm not, I wasn't concerned with what things looked like, but a television audience has no choice.
So I would literally get more comments on my ties than on what I had said.
There were a couple of exceptions.
Bill Clinton Ron Brown Memorial video, where he's walking along with this preacher from Pennsylvania, I forget it, Tony Campolo, walking along and they're laughing and they're telling jokes.
And Clinton spots the camera and in less than a full step starts faking crying.
And we ran it over and over and over again.
But then again, that was something visual.
And people remembered that and wanted and never got tired of seeing it.
Tony Campolo never got the joke.
He kept laughing and telling jokes while Clinton's wiping fake tears from his eyes.
I remember when I was in Sacramento, there was a local TV info babe, anchorette, who was hired to do a weekend talk show on KFBK.
Where's Karen something?
And she was stunned.
After just two weeks, she goes to the grocery store.
People that heard her on the radio would tell her how brilliant they thought she was or what the great points that she was.
They commented to her about what they heard her say.
And she had never gotten that television.
What she got was reactions to her wardrobe or her appearance, so forth.
So this is a long way of saying if you think that getting somebody that can out-debate Obama, and there, I don't know, may not be more than two, Obama may not do more than one.
I mean, it would be extraordinary if there were three of them.
But normally there's one or two, sometimes three, but Obama may not go for the full boat for this very reason.
It's going to depend on who the nominee is.
Look at Kennedy Nixon.
Look at the debate in 1960.
People that heard that debate on the radio thought it was a Nixon slam dunk.
People that watched that debate saw a sweaty, Nixon had sweat all over his lip, underneath his nose, looked nervous.
Whoever dressed him was black and white, he looked totally gray.
Kennedy with a darker suit, I believe, looked vibrant and so forth.
People that watched the debate, it wasn't even a contest.
But in most cases, in the age of television, the better-looking candidate always wins, regardless what they say.
There are exceptions, obviously, of course, to everything.
But I'm just suggesting, don't get caught up too much in this notion of supporting somebody because you think they might mop the floor with Obama in a debate.
I know you'd love to see it.
We all would.
But it's not that big a determining factor.
I got to take a break.
We got our phones back now, right?
Cool.
So we had our power outage about 40 minutes ago, and it looks like we've put everything back together.
Now, I'm going to put in some requisitions here for some UPSs.
I can't believe.
Well, I mean, individual UP.
I think the UPS, my computer needs to be on a UPS, for example.
Like it is at home.
Well, we have power outages home twice a week.
I mean, it happens here.
And I got a generator on, but I TV, my computer never go down.
UPS is the first thing in the line.
At any rate, a brief timeout, ladies and gentlemen.
Your highly trained broadcast specialist, El Rushball, back after this.
No, the league is concerned that somebody's going to get killed.
That's what this is.
Fuck, I'm having a conversation here with somebody that is not over as the commercial break ends.
Somebody asked me about the suspension of James Harrison of the Steelers.
First time that a player has been suspended for a tackle in a game since, I forget who it was that body slammed Jake McMahon of the Bears, but it was back in the 80s.
But I'm going to tell you something, folks, very briefly about this.
Maybe this probably should spend more time on this at some point, maybe on Open Line Friday.
But I visit a lot of football websites, as you know, and I have taken to reading some of the comments from readers of these websites.
And I am struck by a number of things.
A, the coarseness and the overall, what I think is this general cultural decline, manners.
It's just an endless parade of human debris on these things.
But there's also an endless parade of liberals on these things.
And this whole notion about helmet to helmet hits and the game's tour.
I'm going to tell you what's going to happen.
I'm going to make a prediction for you.
The league is going after this Harrison business and helmet to helmet hits because they are genuinely afraid somebody's going to get killed on the field.
Carson Palmer, a couple of years ago at a quarterback symposium, said the same thing.
But the league is genuinely worried that's going to happen.
These guys get bigger and faster.
The size of the field doesn't change.
And there's a lot of cultural stuff going on here as well.
And if that were to ever happen, somebody were to get killed and die in the game, not in the hospital later, to die in the game.
I'm going to make a prediction to you.
Even without that, it's not going to be long before the wusses, the new castrati in our society, are going to suggest that football be banned.
That tackle football.
No, I'm not kidding.
No, I'm dead serious.
Not next year or the year after that.
I'm just telling you, it's coming.
I see this.
It's just like when the SUV, back when the Sierra clubs that we've got to start targeting and get rid of the SUV, it's polluter.
Same thing here.
I'm convinced that there's going to be a bunch of do-gooders who are going to suggest banning the game as it's played because it is too dangerous.
If you just were trending in that direction everywhere else in our culture, and it's going to happen.
And once the proposal is made, and the league is falling right in line with this, by the way, I think the league is making that possible.
And when I read some of the comments, some of these blogs that I read, it's amazing what a bunch of sheeple there are regarding this.
25 years ago, this kind of stuff happened on the field.
It's just like everything else in our culture.
Nothing in the 50s, Leave It to Beaver was never as great and peaceful, painless, and idyllic as people's memories make it.
But there were things about the past that were worth preserving that aren't being preserved.
We have a genuine cultural rot taking place and an overtaking of our culture via chickification and a new castrator sort.
I'm just telling you, it's going to happen.
Somebody is going to propose banning football as it's played, whether that thing the league fears or not happens.
And it may even be a member of the media that suggests it.
If that happens, well, it'll be too late for ratings, but if that happens, that would change things in ways that people can't even imagine.
All right.
Look, grab a phone call here because we got our phones back.
Joyce in Pittsburgh.
Great to have you on the EIB network.
Hello.
Hello, and Steeler Dittos to you, too.
Thank you very much.
Something was bothering me listening to both yourself and other commentators talking about how the Republican Party is being warned against going after Obama.
We had that same problem in the 2008 election.
McCain wouldn't go after him, wouldn't attack Reverend Wright, wouldn't attack Bill Ayers.
Where did it get us?
Sarah Palin wanted to go after him with a heartbeat.
She was ready.
And where did it get us?
We need someone that's not afraid to go after him.
We need a Michelle Bachman or a Rick Santorum haven to Betsy.
I think with that kind of zealous reaction, bring them down.
Well, your complaint needs to be registered with the Republican establishment.
I mean, McCain wouldn't even say Obama's middle name.
I'm going to tell you, fear is the biggest killer that's out there.
And the Republican Party runs around in fear.
And they run around in a constant mode of defense.
And like I've been saying this week, nobody ever won anything defending it.
No, I mean, we've got to take it to him.
And that's the fact that McCain was going after.
Well, but look at you.
Remember, it was just last week where Yahoo News somehow got an invitation to a conference call the Republican National Committee was having with a polling group, I think the Torrance group, and they were seeking advice on how best to go after Obama.
And the Torrance group, the polling group, said, don't attack Obama personally.
He's personally very well liked.
In fact, people even feel sorry for him.
But where this really stems, where this really comes from, is the idea that every election is won by whichever party gets a majority of the precious undecideds, the independents.
Here's the rule of thumb: 40% of people who vote automatically vote Democrat.
40% of the people who vote automatically vote Republican.
So both parties figure by default they're going to have their base.
By default, they're basically going to vote for him.
They contest the 20%.
Now, the consultants who live, this is their life, they make their living advising candidates.
And they all sell themselves on the basis that they know how best to get a majority of the independents.
And so, year after year, cycle after cycle, candidates who turn over their campaigns to these experts, the consultants, believe it.
Romney said so.
Romney said it yesterday.
We played the soundbite.
Now, this is all fine and dandy, except if you don't shore up your base, if you don't get all of your assumed base, your 40%, then you can get all the independents and you are still up a tree.
And the fastest way to lose the Republican base is to insult them, to take them for granted, or to make it sound as though you really aren't one of them.
And I think there's a big danger here.
And the Republicans, you know, your specific complaint, your Republicans have been told over and over, they believe it, that criticizing Obama, the independents don't like it.
They hate it, and they're going to make tracks fast to the Democrat candidate.
And they believe it.
That's why McCain wouldn't criticize him.
It's maddening because it's so wrong.
But that's what they believe.
Back in just a second.
I am dead serious about this, Sturdley.
I read these blogs, and I'll tell you where we're headed here.
These people, the left, trying to take the risk out of everything.
That's where this is rooted.
Risk is just, it's too risky.
And playing football is going to end up being too risky.
They're doing studies on what players are like at age 40, 50, how many of them are dying and all this from probably head injuries.
But there's no scientific evidence that that's the reason, but they're all making these assumptions that playing football kills you 20 years earlier than your lifespan in the national football league.
I'm just telling you that these panty wastes who want to try to take the risk out of everything in life are going to focus on football at some point and they're going to try to get it banned.
Well, the players take the field knowing all this can happen.
They're willing to take the risk.
But now they're being told that they don't know what's good for them.
They're the last people that we should listen to.
They get their bell rung and they want to go back in.
They don't want to lose their jobs.
But no, we need independent neurologists on the sidelines that are not related to the team, not paid for.
We need independent neurologists on the sideline to make sure somebody hasn't suffered a concussion.
It can't go back in, can't be put back in by a coach that doesn't care if he injures a player for love.
All this kind of stuff.
I guarantee you, I've sensed this.
I know who I'm talking about.
I know who the liberals are.
I know how they want to control things and take the risk out of everything in life.
And under the premise that nobody will ever die.
Guaranteed.
Who's next?
Mark.
Oh, by the way, Mitt Romney.
I just sent the video clip up to Cookie.
Romney is sharpening his warning.
It's from the New York Times.
And in fact, the headline, Romney warns of nominating Zaney Gingrich.
Mitt Romney, sharpening his warning to Republicans about the consequences of nominating Newt Gingrich, declaring in an interview today, Zane is not what we need in the president.
Zaney is great in the campaign.
Zaney is great on talk radio.
Zaney is great in print.
It makes for fun reading, Romney told the New York Times.
In terms of a president, we need a leader, and a leader needs to be someone who can bring Americans together.
We don't need Zaney.
Zaney, yep, Zaney is great in a campaign.
Zaney is great on talk radio.
It's great in print, makes fun reading, but it's not good in a president.
We don't need Zaney in a president.
No, that's Romney.
And the New York Times, of course, gleeful to report this.
Mark in Pennington, New Jersey.
Welcome to the EIB Network.
Great to have you here, sir.
Hi.
Hey, Rush, how are you?
Very well.
Thanks very much.
Yeah, my point is, real quick, is that I'm the one who's supporting Newt right now, but I'm waiting for Rick Perry to show up.
Well, you know, a lot of people are.
It's been learned, discovered that Perry had back surgery not long before he entered the campaign and that it affected him in the debates.
That it was distracting.
He was in a lot of pain.
It's not Perry making a big deal out of this.
Somehow it's been, he's not offering it up as an excuse.
And it's not being widely reported at that point.
But there are a lot of people.
There are a lot of people.
And as I tell you, by the way, as this Newt and Romney thing disintegrates, and that's what's happening, it's deteriorating.
It is.
And we're learning all kinds of things.
Newt has, It came out today, and I'd forgotten this, that at one point had said wonderful things about Andy Stern in a book.
Andy Stern, S-E-I-U union leader, who wrote the piece in the Wall Street Journal a couple weeks ago on how great China is.
Newt Gingrich wrote praising the forward thinking of a guy like Andy, really, Andy Stern, just loved him.
Newt Gingrich did that, just like he sat on the couch with Pelosi.
Newt Gingrich wrote favor Andy Stern of the SEIU.
I'm not making it up.
Yeah, I've got it here in the stack somewhere.
And the yeah, yeah, absolutely did.
And so, but it now and we had the soundbite from Romney, but I'm not a partisan Republican.
I'm a moderate.
I guarantee you what's happened.
There are a lot of people who hope somebody like Rick Perry comes back alive or hoping that something happens at a Hawkeye Caucy that would launch Santorum or Bachman.
I guarantee you, this guy, there's a lot of people saying the same thing, either about one of the three.
And there's also a lot of fear that Ron Paul is going to come here doing a lot of fear he's going to win Iowa on the basis that he's out there saying he wants to cut a trillion dollars from the budget.
And people are ignoring the tinfoil hat foreign policy this guy is talking about.
They're ignoring that for now.
So my only, but this is nowhere near over.
I know the polls make it look like it's a two-man race, but it isn't yet.
We have not had a single vote cast.
It was in Newt's book, Real Chance for our change from the world that fails to the world that works.
Gingrich praised Andy Stern.
It was what the date of the book is.
But what he said was, Andy Stern, the head of the Service Employees International Union, is the union leader who probably best understands the challenge of the world market and the need to make American union members productive in the face of world competition.
Sadly, he is a distinct minority among union leaders.
Newt wrote that about Andy Stern, who is a communist.
Newt wrote in his book, this is a classic.
Say, classic, it's like Romney saying, oh, yeah, world's getting warmer.
And oh, yeah, I believe people are responsible for it.
That's what I mean.
Maybe disintegrating or deteriorating is the wrong term to describe what's happening.
But both these guys, Romney and Newt, are being flushed out in the course of the campaign here.
That's why I said yesterday, Santorum, Bachmann, Perry are all out there.
And a lot of people are hoping that one of them, second chance, catches fire.
It was the same book where Newt said that FDR was one of the greatest American presidents.
Now, one thing about this Andy Stern business: Newt's aides have made it clear that Newt now realizes he got the wrong impression about Stern and that he disagrees with him very strongly.
Now, that's what they're saying.
Newt didn't realize he just got fooled.
He was got the wrong impression about Stern.
Stern could have lied to him totally when they met.
But it's still a problem.
I know it's still a problem.
Why you sit on the couch of Pelosi?
This is a problem that Newt always has.
And it's this book.
The book came out in 2009.
It's this book that he said FDR was the greatest president of the 20th century.
And Reagan was president in the 20th century.
Ronald Reagan was also president of the 20th century.
But he says, FDR, the greatest president, maybe ever.
I'm not sure of the characterization, certainly the 20th century.
So, and then Mitt's out there doing here.
We got the Mitt quote.
We got it rolling.
We got the audio now.
This is the interview in the New York Times where Mitt's talking about Zaney.
Zani is not what we need in a president.
Zaney is great in a campaign.
It's great on talk radio.
It's great in the print.
It makes for fun reading.
But in terms of a president, we need a leader.
And a leader needs to be someone who can bring Americans together.
Yeah.
So there you have Zaney, great on talk radio.
A swipe there, wouldn't you say?
A little swipe it talk.
A little swipe at print.
I think he threw the print in just so he wasn't being accused of focusing only on talk radio.
Here's Randy Dallas.
Randy, great to have you on the EIB Network, sir.
Hello.
Thank you, Rush.
Longtime listener.
I actually started listening to you when I was riding around to my granddad.
Thank you, sir.
We just moved to Dallas.
My wife had looked for a job for probably seven months and finally a job opened up.
Probably no thanks to Obama, but just looking at the candidates that we have today, I mean, I'm 30, 32 years old.
I feel like, you know, Romney is kind of like the counselor that you can never, you know, you can never get an answer and it's always your fault.
And, you know, he seems like he's doing it for the better of you and not for the better of the country, is the way he comes off to me.
And then we have Gingrich that he just seems like he's, you know, whatever way, like he takes his finger out and licks it and waits for the breeze to determine his answer.
You think Newt's a populist?
That's, I mean, at first, when I first watched the debates, I really liked Gingrich.
You know, he had an answer for everything.
But then the more research I've done, the more it looks like it, it really depends on which way the wind's blowing that day.
It depends on which way he goes.
Oh, yeah.
Well, you're describing a populist.
Well, Nick describes him as Zaney.
I want to know, by the way, who on talk radio is Zaney?
Who is he talking about?
Who is Zaney on talk radio?
Clowns are Zaney.
Anyway, I'm a little surprised at this.
I got an email from a couple of them, actually.
What do you mean, blueberry tea?
Whoever heard of that?
That's the point.
That's the point.
We have something that is totally unique here.
And it is incredible.
Wait, you have to taste it.
I'm surprised that some people think blueberry and tea is a weird combo.
You won't when you taste this.
Oh, day antioxidants.
That's for the new castrati to worry about.
I'm just look at this.
Look at the bottle there.
I mean, it just, and it's always filled with, I'm showing it on the ditto cam here.
But folks, I'm telling you, you will not believe this.
I'm genuinely excited about it.
I genuinely can't wait for people to get this, taste it, and have feedback on it.
You open, you unscrew the top, the aroma.
You think blueberry muffin batter is in this box.
It is just indescribably fantastic.
You'll see.
I am not.
I got an idea.
I am not jamming or ripping on Newt.
I am simply saying what's out there.
People, folks, this is why I don't endorse people early.
By the way, just heard the news that the Seattle school system might bring back junk food.
They say they have to because they're losing so much money.
I'll have more details on this tomorrow.
We got a lot to do.
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