Welcome to today's edition of the Rush 24-7 podcast.
Yeah, I may have had a revelation on this.
Maybe not.
I'll run it by you people and you see if I'm full of it or not.
It's a short night.
It was a short night.
I went to bed out there, folks.
What was it?
Well, we had our annual, our first annual Christmas party with a highly underrated two-if-by-tea staff.
As opposed to we haven't had a Christmas party for the highly overrated EIB staff in a while.
So that was down in Bolka.
And I got back and I had to watch the debate, which I've been talking about that with a lot of friends this morning.
I feel really good about this debate last night.
There was a lot positive to take out of it.
And there were some problems in it.
But on balance, I'll explain as the program unfolds.
Anyway, I've got, folks, I'm just literally swamped.
I mean, it's the holidays.
He's at Christmas time, but a bunch of stuff have to do, have to do.
And there's a couple of things that I've been putting off until next week, just waiting.
I said, I can't put it off anymore.
So I woke up at 4.15, almost in a guilty sweat.
And I high-tailed it down to the computer and I sat there at three hours worth of stuff writing checks, actually.
And so here we are.
It's Friday.
Live from the Southern Command in sunny South Florida.
It's Open Line Friday.
Oh, yeah.
Here we are, Open Line Friday.
We're heading into a big, big weekend.
It's a big week in the National Football League.
Tom Brady versus Tim Tebow at 4.15 Sunday afternoon in Denver.
All kinds of stuff happening here today.
Christmas season heading into full swing.
And of course, Open Line Friday here on the Excellence at Broadcasting Network.
Telephone number if you want to be on the program today.
800-282-2882.
If you don't want to be on the program, don't call.
Email address, lrushbo at eibnet.com.
So much out there.
I can't tell you the number of emails I got from people as just disappointed as they can be.
Nikki Haley has endorsed Romney.
Now, the reason people are disappointed is because she's a Tea Party governor.
The Tea Party got Nikki Haley nominated elected.
What are you shaking your head negatively for them?
This is the point.
Well, all these governors and all these people in the party are looking at the VEP possibilities.
Number one.
Number two, folks, the Tea Party is going to have to eventually take over the Republican Party.
Right now, the Republican Party establishment, which of course says it doesn't exist, has certain rules and requirements if you want to advance in the Republican Party.
And one of them is when the establishment of GOP has picked their candidate, and they have, it's Romney.
And if you're going, if you're a Republican governor, you want to go places in the party, you better get on board with the party's choice.
She really, I don't misunderstand this.
Of course, she has a choice, but she really doesn't have a choice, given her aspirations.
It just means that we got a lot of work to do.
And as long as we're caught up, and we really have no choice because we're so overwhelmed.
As long as we're caught up in trying to stop Obama and stop the Democrats, we're not advancing anything.
This is a major, major point.
I've been thinking about this because I swerved into a profundity last week.
Nobody ever won anything defending it.
You have to be advancing.
And when you're defending, basically, what do you do?
You're trying to stop something.
By definition, when you're trying to stop something, you're not doing a U-turn.
You just got, you know, you're holding your hand up there and say, thwart, or whatever, stop.
And we've got to do the U-turn.
In addition to stopping, we've got to start pushing back.
And from our perspective, start moving forward.
And the Nikki Haley situation is a realization or an illustration of this.
She wants to be VEP, maybe.
I don't know.
She wants higher office in the Republican Party.
The Republican Party is still run by the Republican Party establishment, even though they deny their existence.
It is.
I hope Governor Christie doesn't get mad and call me again over this, but it's the same thing.
Why he's endorsing Romney.
That's the party's choice.
And if you're going to be in the party, it's just like I've told you.
When you are newly elected to Congress, when you're freshman, Republican or Democrat, leadership brings you in and they tell you, okay, here's the lay of the land.
You want to go places here?
You want to someday be a chairman of a committee?
You want to have help with your re-election?
Fine.
You'll vote the way we ask you to when we ask you to.
If you want to be a maverick and a rogue and go off on your own, you're more than willing to do that.
But we're not going to send any dull pineapple money to your way when you're living in New York.
We're not going to help advance your career.
It's just the way it works.
You can criticize it.
You say, that's not fair.
Of course it isn't, but nothing's fair.
That's just the way it works.
So the Tea Party needs to become the quote-unquote establishment.
Now, I have to tell you, I actually don't talk to people.
I am.
You know, I email and sometimes I text.
Of course, with my new iPhone, I don't even text.
I iMessage.
In fact, if you don't have an iPhone, you're not going to know what I'm talking about.
They got a new program on the iPhone called iMessage, and it looks just like SMS, except it's not SMS.
It's Apple's own program.
You're not going through a phone company.
No.
It's new in iOS 5.
You're not going through a phone company.
You're going through Apple servers, Apple's network, sometimes phone to phone.
And you know it if the text boxes are blue.
You're on iMessage.
If it's green, then you're going through AT ⁇ T or whatever your phone company SMS is.
And it's gotten a point now if I'm texting somebody and their bubbles are green, screw it.
You know, they're old-fashioned.
They're not up with iMessage.
They're still using text, so I don't talk to them.
My point is, I don't talk to anybody, but I have been IMing and emailing back and forth a bunch of friends today.
And we've been talking about the debate and some other things.
I have to tell you something.
We're all immersed.
Inescapably so, because we pay attention to the media.
Note, I didn't say pay attention to the news because there isn't any news anymore.
Well, when you are immersed in the media, you are, by definition, immersed in pessimism.
And you are immersed in negativity.
I'm sure that you recall my, well, not complaining or whining because I don't do that, but I have let it be known that it's bothered me.
I've been surrounded so much negativism.
I can't seem to escape it.
That's for those of you in Rio Linda.
So that debate last night, I have to tell you, I ended up, I had positive vibes throughout this debate last night.
And I know that some of the candidates had bad moments.
And at the same time, they had stellar moments.
But last night, I think it's the best debate that there has been from all perspectives.
The moderators, the talent, i.e. the candidates, they were all up.
They were all alive.
They were all present.
They were all aware.
They all had, I mean, even, you know, Michelle Bachman, Michelle Bachman made Ron Paul illustrate that he's wearing a tinfoil hat when it comes to American foreign policy.
It was out there for everybody to see now.
She did a fabulous job.
I think every one of these people handled their questions for the most part well.
Others, on other occasions, there's some, they got caught.
There's not much they could do.
They did their best, but there were some periods of time where various candidate was weak here, weak there.
Like Neet Newt was a little weak on the Freddie Mac assault.
And Mitt was in trouble when Chris Wallace and Santorum dragged him through the flip-flops and the whole thing on abortion in Massachusetts.
But even in the weak moments, I even, I thought Romney had a great night.
I thought Romney had a great night.
My friends are unhappy with me saying that.
But I thought on balance, even Romney had his stellar moments last night.
And I came away once in a whole point of this is I came away.
It's not a two-man race.
It's a four-person race.
It is.
It's a four-person.
And I came away more confident than ever that whoever it is of these four, not only can they win, but they're going to be able to hold their own and then some against the bamster in the debates, which I know that many people on our side are, they're either paranoid about or they are salivating over.
They're either paranoid that our people are going to be looking like idiots against Obama, or they're salivating over the fact that we're going to have somebody that's going to finally look smart, sound articulate, and erudite, and take that Obama advantage away.
Well, everybody's assuming it's Mitt and Newt.
Okay.
True, let's start a two-man race.
But now I think you throw Perry in there and you throw, I think Bachman's back.
Yes, sir, I do.
I think Perry, and don't be surprised if I turn out to be right about this.
But the overall point, whether it's a two-man race or a four-man race, the point that I really want to make here is that I got the sense from watching this last night.
And I see polling that Obama's at 43% in his re-elect number now.
43% in his re-elect.
I just have a more ebullient feeling about Those four people I mentioned and their odds of not only bearing up well, holding up well, but even triumphing over Obama in debates.
For example, I'm sure many people after watching this last night say, oh my gosh, look at what just happened.
We just exposed Newt as being weak as he could be on Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac.
Well, I gotta tell you something.
So's Obama.
Obama doesn't want to go there.
So if Newt's the nominee, don't worry, Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, whatever.
Obama doesn't want to go there.
And if Obama doesn't want to go there, the media is not going to take them there in the debates.
Obama wants no part of Fannie or Freddie.
Just like Chris Dodd wouldn't want any part of it if he were the nominee or Kerry, John Kerry Surge of Vietnam, the haughty Johnny, he wouldn't want any part of Fannie Mae or Freddie Mac either.
Obama took more from Feddie Mac, Freddie Mac or Fannie Mae than anybody else is why he doesn't want to go there.
So they can sit there and they can take about Newton his 1.6 million.
That's chump change compared to what Obama and every other Democrat got out of that place.
Michelle Obama, Obama, sorry, sorry, Michelle Bachman, strong as she could be, stood up there and said definitely, I am a serious candidate.
Perry was much better last night.
Perry was cogent, laughing, smiling, energetic.
Santorum was solid.
Paul came off like the crazy uncle in the basement that everybody has in their family.
I just, I don't know.
We'll get into detail.
And I sent Cookie just some generic examples in the debate that I wanted to play these soundbites for you to go over all this with you, which we will do.
I know that the Convention of Wisdom is here, that Romney has the best shut, very good shut.
But Santorum, I've got to throw him in there too.
Maybe, I don't know if you could say it's a five-man race, but he was great last night.
Perry was great last night.
Bachman was great.
My point is, this race is anything but over.
There has not been a single vote cast yet.
And once it is over, I'm confident that any of the candidates, four-man race, even if it's five, can beat Obama.
We're going to beat this guy, folks.
That's what I came away with last night.
We are going to beat this guy.
And we are going to have a reasonably good president in the process.
I really think that that can happen here.
I really do.
And I think it's just step one.
As I've suggested, we need to do more than just stand up and say stop to the left.
We have to do more than just try to defend.
We have to start doing U-turn on some of this stuff.
So also, did you notice, ladies and gentlemen, out of the blue, the White House and the Democrats gave up on their millionaire surtex.
Did you notice that?
Did you notice that one year ago they gave up on it too?
Almost at the same time.
I think that when it comes right down to it, they're never actually going to go to the mat demanding a tax increase on the rich in this economy.
But I think they're going to try to get as much mileage out of talking about one and demanding one and ripping into the rich and exploiting class envy just for the sake of re-election, just like Obama is putting his re-election first over the Keystone Pipeline.
I think they think they can get just as much mileage out of the verbiage blaming the rich, demanding a tax increase on them without actually doing it.
Anyway, Rolf Blitzer, shocked and stunned, by the way, that Obama's giving up on taxing the millionaires.
Twice in one year, Obama has given.
I got to take a break, but we'll be back.
Half my brain tied behind my back, just to make it fair.
It's Rush Limbaugh, the EIB Network, the Limbaugh Institute for Advanced Conservative Studies.
Listen to this.
Grab audio soundbite number 24.
This is Wolf Blitzer.
Last night, CNN, Situation Room, really feeling sold out.
Really feeling like he has been thrown overboard.
The president is letting go of a goal that's near and dear to so many Democrats' hearts.
Let's go straight to our White House correspondent, Dan Lothian.
That's right.
And what he's letting go of is the fact that millionaires, he's always believed, should bear a heavier burden.
Yeah, but no, for the second time in one year, Obama has punted on a tax increase for the rich.
For the second time, not just Obama.
The Democrats have backed away from a tax increase on the rich.
You can hear old wolf here of president letting go of a goal that's near and dear to so many of our Democrats' hearts.
By the way, if you haven't heard this, you have to hear this.
This is Jerry Sandusky.
You know who Jerry Sandusky is?
Wendy, you know who Jerry Sandusky?
He's got a new lawyer out there.
The first lawyer, I guess, was thought to be a little over the top, letting Sandusky talk to too many people.
They got a new lawyer.
The guy's name is Carl Rominger or Rominger.
I'm not sure his name pronounced.
And this is what Sandusky's new lawyer says about why Sandusky may have been taking showers with boys.
Teaching a person to shower at the age of 12 or 14 would sound strange to some people, but actually, people who work with Trouble Youth will tell you that there are a lot of juvenile delinquents or people who are dependent who have to be taught basic life skills like how to put soap on their body.
So Sandusky was teaching these boys to laugh her up, to soap it up.
They didn't know how to shower.
And a lawyer continued.
I was answering: what are plausible reasons that you could think of?
There are kids that age that have hygiene problems and need to be taught hygiene.
Yeah, what are we talking about?
You're 12 or 14 years old.
Don't know the proper way to take a shower.
So Sandusky, that's what he might have been doing.
He's teaching him to take a shower.
Now, folks, I played high school football for one year, and I was the manager of the high school basketball team.
The coaches, I'll just tell you, even junior high, PE class, the coaches instructed us on the proper way to take a shower, but they didn't come in and show us.
They got nowhere near us in the shower room.
But they told us what to do.
Unbelievable.
Open Line Friday.
Great to have you here, Rush Limbaugh.
And since it's Open Line Friday, let's grab a call.
And I want to get this early because it is in direct response, something that's been discussed already.
It's Chris, Greenville, South Carolina.
Great to have you, sir, on the program.
Hi.
Oh, good afternoon, Mr. Limbaugh.
How are you?
Very well, sir.
Thanks.
I'd like, one, I'd like to officially raise your percentages of being right to well past 99.6, maybe 99.8, possibly.
Wow.
Thank you very much.
I need to send you out to Sullivan Group.
I'm having to file an appeal with those people.
Well, I listen to you all the time, and I enjoy your show.
As a matter of fact, my wife, who's not as politically involved as I am, just thinks you've got a great sense of humor.
So I enjoy you very much here.
Very perceptive woman.
Yes, she is, as a matter of fact.
But I was listening to your program when you opened, and you made some statements about Nikki Haley just recently endorsing Mitt Romney.
Yeah, in fact, in fact, we've got, I want to play the soundbite.
We've got it here.
Mike Woodson is number 32.
We have the soundbite.
Here is, this will not take away from your valuable time.
I understand.
As a caller, Chris, this is Nikki Haley.
This is this morning on Fox and Friends.
What I want is someone who is not part of the chaos that is Washington.
What I wanted was someone who knew what it was like to turn broken companies around, someone who had proven results by improving a failed Olympics that ended up being a great success story, and someone that knows what it's like to make a decision and lead, not just make a vote.
And Mitt Romney is that person.
And I think now more than ever, we need someone that has the leadership to deal with a broken Washington in a way that we can get things done.
And as governor of Massachusetts, you know, what we saw is he balanced his budget and he cut taxes 19 times with an 85% controlled Democrat legislature.
That says a lot, and it's something that we need from a good conservative governor at this time.
Okay, that's Nikki Haley endorsing Mitt Romney.
Okay, it's your callback.
Well, I'll have to say if there's something broken, I believe right now it might be the Haley administration here in South Carolina.
She garnered a great deal of support from the Tea Party people here in the state.
Chris, would you do me a favor?
If you're not, would you move the phone microphone closer to your mouth?
Oh, okay.
That's much better.
Thank you.
I knew it wasn't me.
Well, no, I don't think it could ever be you, Rush.
But I've grown somewhat disappointed in her administration and some of the things that some of the actions she's taken.
And I feel you're right.
I have to give you that all the time.
You're 98% of the time correct in your statements.
And if anything's happened here, I believe the Republican establishment has co-opted Miss Haley, our governor.
I do not see her actions as being what I thought they would be when I cast my vote for her.
Is this not the first thing she's done this disappointed you as governor?
No, it's not.
No, they recently, she early on passed legislation having to do with illegal aliens here in the state.
But I downloaded the entire legislation and read it thoroughly.
And it really does nothing for the illegals about the illegals in our state.
I was disappointed with that.
Let me tell you, did she run as a Republican or was she on the ticket as a Tea Party candidate?
She ran as a Republican.
All right.
Now, see, this is key.
And I'm not trying to do anything here other than explain the business side of this and to give you an illustration, which you know, of what the task at hand is.
She ran as a Republican.
There's no question the Tea Party was instrumental and she sought their help.
She cultivated their support.
She unquestionably took their financial contributions and support.
But the election's over, she won as a Republican.
She has, obviously, perspirations to advance higher in the Republican Party.
Now, next time you hear anybody tell you there isn't a Republican establishment, just look at this instance here with Nikki Haley.
If she wants to be vice president, if she wants to be in somebody's cabinet someday, she's going to have to do what the Republicans want her to do.
If you are a mid-level sales manager for the XYZ widget company and you want to someday be in the executive suite, you are damn well going to do what the XYZ executive suite people tell you to do.
Well, I'm, but no, but Snerdley says I didn't, but I created my own executive suite.
See, I did not try to take over anybody else's.
That's not realistic.
We're not going to create a new party.
You don't even want to try to do that.
That's wilderness time.
This is the Republican Party, something that's going to have to be fought for and taken over by the Tea Party.
It's going to be an active political objective and process.
I don't mean bloody.
It's just going to have to be something that happens within the realm of politics.
Folks, I'm not defending her by any stretch.
I'm just trying to explain for those of you who think that she's been disloyal.
She's a Republican and she's chosen a path that many of them choose.
And when it comes time for re-election, if one of these Republicans is elected president, and if she is not chosen to be VEEP, if she's not chosen to be in the cabinet, if she remains governor, when she runs for re-election, she's going to retrace her steps.
She'll go back out to the Tea Party again.
It'll happen all over.
It will.
She knows how she won.
She knows what it took for her to win.
I'm probably thinking that she doesn't even think that this is a betrayal because she thinks the Tea Party and the Republican Party are closely aligned.
And, well, and yeah, Christine O'Donnell, too.
And Christine O'Donnell needs a job.
And Christine O'Donnell has she learned if she's going to go anywhere, she's going to have to do it.
If she's going to go anywhere in the Republican Party, she's going to have to get Karl Roe and Mike Murphy on her side.
She can't go anywhere if they're opposed to her.
It is what it is.
No, no, I'm not saying you sit here and take it.
I'm just saying it illustrates the task at hand.
There are moderate tyranny.
Christine O'Donnell gives a little moderate tyranny, not full-fledged tyranny.
The Democrats do that.
But I don't fuck.
I'm not.
Look, for some reason here, maybe it's because I had, what, 45 minutes sleep or whatever.
I am in a good mood.
I felt good after the debate, and I'm not going to let anybody, I'm not going to let anybody sour my mood today, certainly not Nikki Haley.
But if you're upset and if you're feeling betrayed, I hear you.
I understand totally.
It's because I do understand it that I'm not so much bothered by it.
I mean, not to the point of feeling abandoned.
And I don't have a...
In fact, when people leave me alone, I actually celebrate.
Something very important to remember here, ladies and gentlemen.
The Tea Party isn't a party yet.
Tea Party doesn't have a convention.
It doesn't have a leader.
The Tea Party is in no position to hand out favors.
The Tea Party cannot hand out patronage yet.
I mean, it's a huge disadvantage compared to the GOP elite, the GOP establishment.
They don't have any patronage.
There's nothing that they can offer in the traditional political sense.
Now, our caller from South Carolina said that Nikki Haley disappointed him because something she's doing on the illegal immigration.
Well, last I looked, Eric Holder is suing South Carolina because of its stand on the illegal immigration.
So if the Attorney General, if Obama's Attorney General is suing her, then I have to think that she's doing something right.
The caller specifically mentioned being let down by Nikki Haley's immigration law.
But yet Eric Fast and Furious Holder is out there suing her.
So I don't know that it's necessarily bad.
You know, the long knives are out for Newt.
I mean, everybody knows this.
Everybody's looking at this.
We saw it to one degree or another yesterday, last night of the debate.
We've seen it in various publications.
And I, you know, most people, most average citizens, people who pay attention to politics around election time and shortly after the election, see what's going to happen.
Most people's recollection of Newt Gingrich is not that he had anything to do with Freddie Mac, Fannie Mae.
They don't know that.
I mean, they're hearing about it now.
They don't know what he did.
They don't have, I mean, they remember the TV commercial with Pelosi to scratch their head over that.
But what most people associate Newt Gingrich with is the takeover of Congress for the first time in 40 years by the Republicans.
Most people associate Newt Gingrich with winning Congress for the first time in 40 years over the Democrats.
Some might remember him for the Contract with America.
A lot of people remember Newt Gingrich as somebody who was the Speaker of the House when there were balanced budgets.
So a lot of people, their scant memory of Newt is good stuff, good conservative stuff.
So they're looking, what's going on here?
What does everybody hate Gingrich for?
Why is everybody out trying to take Newt out?
There are no doubt reasons.
I think, to be quite honest with you, one of the reasons is because back, remember what's everybody mad at Newt about?
They're mad at him from the 90s.
If you really get down and dirty and listen to these people, a lot of the people talking about Newt in negative ways are talking about how poor a speaker he was or how disappointing he was as a leader or how egotistical he was.
But whatever, it's all primarily criticism from when he was speaker.
Back in the night, after he won is the point.
After he won is when Newt was losing, but putting up a brilliant fight.
And when he was doing those special orders in the 80s, he and his buddies, the Conservative Opportunity Society, were the only ones giving speeches late at night in the floor of the house.
Everybody else had gone home.
These things are all over C-SPAN.
He's defending Reagan against every onslaught.
He's standing up for supply.
So this is the Newt that people remember.
And everybody loved Newt when he was leading the charge as a member of the minority.
It's when Newt won that all of these criticisms of Newt began to fly.
And I'm not saying that the critics who know him well are wrong, but I do think that when it comes to the elites, the political class, the establishment, or whatever, I think in large part that the hit on Newt is largely because at that time he was a conservative.
I cannot emphasize loudly enough or often enough just how frightened and opposed the Republican establishment is of conservatism and of conservatives.
I've explained to you why.
And the reasons run the gamut.
But one is they think the conservatives will lose the elections, despite, I know the evidence is to the contrary, but they still, formative experience is the Goldwater landslide.
And then, of course, conservatives are also made up of people that embarrass the elites.
They have southern accents and they're pro-life and they go to church and they talk loudly about that.
It's embarrassing.
They look at them as a bunch of Tim Tebows that can't play the game.
In a sense, the elites look at conservatives, a bunch of Tim Tebos that really, when you get down to it, can't play the game.
All they can talk about is God.
That's a threat.
Because what does Tebow do?
Tebow shows you your shortcomings.
Tebow illustrates your shortcomings.
But if you're matched up against a failure, you look great.
So people forget taking back the House of Representatives after 40 years.
Ladies and gentlemen, that is a massive undertaking.
That is not insignificant.
And holding it all the way through 2006.
And I submit to you, I dare say this is one of the reasons why Newt is hated.
Not the commercial with Pelosi.
That's why we on the conservative side don't like him.
The stuff that he does like, that's what makes us mad.
The commercial with Pelosi and the runaround talking about the right-wing social engineering that was Paul Ryan's Medicare plan.
But what ticks off the establishment is that Newt was conservative back then.
And the more conservative he sounds, like, and he did last, I'm going to get to these debate soundbites in the second hour.
The more conservative he sounds, the longer the knives get and the angrier his opponents get.
Telling you, it is conservatism which sends the establishment of either or both parties into orbit, and so the notion that Newt is unelectable.
Remember the worst?
The establishment's still telling us, even i'm telling you, is this a three or four person race?
Now the establishment's telling it's a one-person race.
They are convinced that Romney's the only guy that can win.
They're worried he can't get the nomination, but they will.
They will rejoice in telling you that Newt can't win.
They tell you Newt is unelectable but Romney, in their view, is easily elected.
He's the.
He can't be nominated, but he's easily elected.
Figure that out, figure it out.
They say yeah, they're scratching their heads.
This guy, I don't know he's, it really can't be.
John Fedorist, NEW YORK POST, said this this week, Romney is unnominable, but yet you figure this out for me, Romney unnominatable, but he's the only guy that can beat Obama.
That's outcome-based education.
That is, two plus two equals five, but that's what we are getting.
I don't think and this is not a criticism of Romney, it's simply a different way of looking at Newt.
I don't think taking over the House OF Representatives from the Democrats after 40 years of Democrat control is something that Mitt Romney could do or would even try to do.
but you heard cheney cheney said he wouldn't he he and newt got elected to congress at the same year and uh cheney got there and they're getting their feet wet and cheney laughs about it he said newt arrived With the goal of taking the place over.
What was it?
76 or 78?
Anyway, brief timeout here, ladies and gentlemen, as the fastest three hours of media are just zipping.
But Faith, you're already, I know you are, you're already starting to get sad that this show is almost over because it's only got two hours to go, but it's sort of like you love a massage, but the minute it starts, you start regretting it's going to end.