It's Rush Limbaugh here on the cutting edge of societal evolution.
I, I alone, an America's anchorman, real anchorman, a truth detector, and a doctor of democracy.
All of that combined into one harmless, lovable fuzzball.
And our telephone number, if you want to be on the program, is 800-282-2882, the email address, lrushbo at eibnet.com.
I just got an interesting email, and it reminded me of something.
I don't know what it was, because it doesn't say, that spawned the question in the email.
The person wanted to know, Rush, why was Romney so disliked in 2008?
And it got me to think disliked by the candidates he was disliked.
I don't mean so much by voters.
There's a reason for that.
Back in 2008, Romney was the only guy, much as is the case this time around, who had his own independent money.
Romney's independently wealthy.
And people have forgotten, until this guy asked me this question.
I had two.
You know, we talk often about how Huckabee and McCain joined forces, but there was a reason for it.
Romney was out running a series of negative ads against every Republican, and a lot of them resented the heck out of it.
And he was doing it early in the Republican primary.
And there was a lot of it.
Giuliani hated it.
I mean, there were a number of Republicans back in 2008 who thought it was unnecessary and gratuitous.
And so Huckabee and McCain joined forces in West Virginia and a couple of other states.
I mean, there was a huge, in fact, you know what I say?
I have, like, Huckabee.
He's out there saying that I loved Meesome Romney back in 2008.
What's happened?
I would say, what happened to you?
You hated Romney in 2008.
You're lined up against Romney in 2008.
You and McCain did your best to take Romney out.
What's changed?
Governor, how come now Huckabee's a catch-meow?
And four years ago, you couldn't stand the prospect of him just because you're not running this time around?
I don't recall when you got out of the race in 2008, you lining up with Romney.
And all these people that tried to take Romney out 2008, now are in his camp.
This is simply party politics.
I had dinner the other night.
Well, a lovely group of people who still have a high school civics 101 version idea of politics.
They think it's all about ideas.
And these people have, I'll just mention these people have done a lot to help Nikki Haley.
They're very angry at her now.
They've done a lot to help Nikki Haley, Nikki Haley in South Carolina, the governor.
And these are Gingrich people.
And they were led to believe, they think, they were led to believe that Nikki Haley would be in there supporting Gingrich.
They were telling me, we just, we don't know what happened.
Nikki was so, and now she won't do that.
Don't blame her.
I mean, I tried to walk him through.
I said, what party is she a member of?
Well, she's a Republican.
Okay, right.
She's a governor, right?
Yes.
To whom do you think she is going to be loyal for her own career advancement?
She's going to do what the party wants.
It's no different, you know, freshman members of Congress are brought into the leadership, both parties.
Right after they're elected, it's part of their indoctrination.
Not indoctrination.
What's the party orientation?
So, okay, look, here's the way this works here.
You're a freshman and you're feeling your oats, but you're nothing unless we help you.
You don't get a committee chairmanship.
You don't get a subcommittee chairmanship.
You don't get a sub-subcommittee.
You get no campaign that says nothing unless you support us.
If we can count on your vote, leadership, then you'll go far here.
If you're going to stay independent of Maverick, then you're on your own and we're going to be working against you.
That's no different.
It's a business.
It's the way it works.
But so they were just sad that Nikki Haley endorsed Romney.
They thought Nikki Haley would come out and endorse Gingrich.
It's not the way party politics works.
So I just find it fascinating that Huckabee and McCain, you name it, from the 2008 roster, hated Romney.
They were doing everything they could to sabotage Romney.
Now, four years later, guess what?
They are loving themselves some Romney.
As the hucksters out there say, they're loving themselves some Romney.
Now, they want to, they're asking me, what happened to you?
You were all, yeah, well, there's no McCain in the race this time around.
Every race is different.
In 2008, Romney had an entirely different position among the candidates than he does now.
I haven't changed.
I'm still who I am.
My ideas, I'm consistent.
I don't change.
And by the way, I don't recall endorsing anybody in 2008.
And I think, you know, after McCain got the nomination, we did our best.
There wasn't a whole lot that could be done, but we gave it our best here.
But we did, snurdily.
We did after the nomination took place.
But I think the question is being, you know, it's only being asked half correctly.
If Huckabee wants to run around and say, oh, Rush, Rush, big flip-flopper, Rush, flip-flop.
No, you're flip-flopping.
Governor Romney was actually targeted by Governor Huckabee.
Governor Huckabee actually took steps to take Governor Romney out.
Now he's loving himself some Romney.
The question is, I think it's for Governor Huckabee.
What's changed?
What's different?
Of course, nobody's asking the question but me.
But anyway, the reason for this is, bring you all this up, was this question I got from people, why is Romney so disliked?
And I think, you know, with all of this money that Romney has spent, that Romney hasn't, but his super PAC against Gingrich, it's a multi-million dollar attack on Gingrich.
And I think, I could be wrong, I think that may come back and haunt Romney because others have learned from him.
So people like, well, like people like Ron Paul now and a lot of the other candidates are now engaging in these scorched earth tactics.
Because when Romney did it against Newt, it worked.
So now, they're all, I mean, this is why, I think it's unfortunate.
It's come to this.
I don't like seeing any of this transpire.
But this is why Giuliani doesn't support Romney.
It's why Fred Thompson hasn't come out for him.
It's because they don't like the super PAC and spending all this money in scorched earth.
And they remember this what Romney also did in 2008.
Now, it's also fair to say, hey, this is politics.
This is what happens.
And money is the way this is.
And that's all true, too.
I'm not condemning Romney.
I'm just saying that you start this process, you demonstrate that it works, you're going to cause copycats.
And it's now starting to take place.
Several others who were dealt this way by Romney or Romney's PACs in 2008 are now starting to respond in kind.
The media keeps asking, for example, what's Newt's problem with these attacks?
I mean, this is politics.
What the hell does he expect?
And these are not attacks.
Newts engaged in self-defense.
Newt was wandering around minding his own business.
He got hit.
Finally, some people have sent him enough money that he can retaliate now.
It's not Newt that's doing the attacking.
It's Newt that's doing the defending.
And Romney took a chance.
It helped him in Iowa.
He was able to really cut Gingrich off at the knees in Iowa.
And he showed the others that it's okay to slam away that way.
So they're now slamming away.
Everybody's slamming away at everybody on the Republican side.
It's just once it starts and once it's shown to be effective, then here come the copycats.
And that is, and that, so Newt now is going after Romney on his Bain Capital business.
And I'd have to say, well, you might say that they're not defensive, but I don't know that Gingrich would be doing this had Romney not taken the steps he took in Iowa.
But what Newt, Newt's out there saying, this guy, he is not a conservative.
All he does is go in and take over companies and fire people.
Lays them off.
This isn't capitalism.
He's laying into Romney the way the Democrats are going to.
He's laying it.
Bain Capital is going to be the Halliburton of 2012 if Romney does indeed get the nomination.
Bain Capital, Romney's hedge fund investment firm, and they did.
They went over and they bought companies.
And in not very many cases, but in some, they downsized, let some people go, which is what happens.
You streamline.
One of the reasons a country company was for sale was that it was in bad shape.
You buy it.
You have to streamline it, make it more efficient.
That involves laying people off.
Now, Newt, rather, Romney, grabs somebody 34.
Romney, you have to tell me if he stepped in it here.
No, I know.
Newt's ad on Bain Capital looks like something a Democrat National Committee will put out.
And I think it's just like when I didn't like in 2000, when George W. Bush said he wasn't going to balance the budget on the backs of the poor.
No, he's talking about compassionate conservatism.
He's using the language of the left.
Dino, to get the moderates and the independents and so forth.
And Newt is using the language of the left in going after Romney and Bain Capital.
And that makes me uncomfortable too.
That's what I mean.
Once this stuff starts, Katie Barbadore.
So this morning in Nashua, New Hampshire, at a Chamber of Commerce breakfast meeting, Mitt Romney had a few words, and among those words that he spoke were these.
I want individuals to have their own insurance.
That means the insurance company will have an incentive to keep you healthy.
It also means that if you don't like what they do, you can fire them.
I like being able to fire people who provide services to me.
If someone doesn't give me the good service I need, I want to say, you know, that I'm going to go get somebody else.
Okay.
Now, there are, let's see, one, two, three, four, five, six, seven words here that are going to be, I like being able to fire people.
And picture, you can see the ad now, can't you?
A smiling Mitt Romney.
Biggest grin, biggest smile they can find.
Huge, right in the middle of the TV screen.
Underneath it, I like being able to fire people.
Newton will run an ad says, see, I told you so.
Anyway, Microsoft, as we move on, Microsoft has been granted a patent for a new GPS service that is called Avoid Ghetto.
A GPS device is used to find shortcuts and avoid traffic, but Microsoft's patent states that a route can be plotted for pedestrians and drivers to avoid an unsafe neighborhood or being in an open area that's subject to harsh temperatures.
It's been created for mobile phones.
The technology uses the latest crime statistics and weather data and includes them when calculating the route.
The patent was written in a combination of tech speak and legalese, was awarded earlier, well, actually last week to Microsoft.
And one section of the patent mentioned that advertisers can use the technology to navigate a user through a newly set up ad campaign.
So this is CBS Seattle story.
Microsoft patents avoid ghetto feature for GPS devices.
Now, let's imagine that Al Sharpton somehow ends up with this new navigation program.
And he wants to go somewhere.
He puts in the location.
And the Microsoft devices, here's how you avoid the ghetto to get there.
What do you think the Reverend Sharpton will do?
And it doesn't have to be Reverend Sharpton, in addition to avoiding it.
But what if it's his neighborhood?
I know it's not, but what if Reverend Sharpton someplace says, how do I get home from here?
And he says, well, here's how you get there, but this is where you avoid, and it's his neighborhood.
And I wonder now, does the Microsoft patent allow you to even go to Detroit?
Now, folks, to be fair, the Microsoft patent, Microsoft did not and does not call its invention the ghetto avoidance.
That's what CBS called it.
CBS Seattle, that's what they referred to it as.
Microsoft does not refer to it as the avoid ghetto GPS.
The news media has done that simply by looking, oh, keep you away from dangerous neighborhoods.
So the neighborhood has associated ghetto with that.
And that's just to be accurate.
And also, as you know, we love Detroit on this program, but we also love stereotypical humor.
And so I just couldn't resist.
Couldn't resist.
It's like somebody wanted me to say something about that app, the Microsoft app, that there's no way.
There's literally no way I would say it.
So we're practicing great restraint here.
I mean, there are countless opportunities here for ribald humor that we are exercising great restraint on.
Here's nerdly, I'll tell you.
I'll use the, I'll just turn on the cough button here so nobody can hear me.
Nobody, nobody.
If you tell it, that's where you want to go.
What the hell happened?
Now you know why I didn't say it so that everybody could hear me.
And of course, it's grossly unfair because why can't we hear it?
You're telling everybody another going nuts.
People want to hear it.
Trust me.
It's hysterical.
I know.
It's one of the greatest lines of all time that nobody will ever hear.
Dawn's in there just, whoa, thank God.
No, I don't think anybody was reading my lips.
And even if they were, they can't prove anything.
And no evidence to prove it.
Okay, William Daley, the chief of staff of the president.
He's the brother of Richard Daley in Chicago.
The son of Richard J. Daley, the deceased mayor of Chicago.
Richard Daley quitting as chief of staff.
I'm going to announce it at 3 o'clock this afternoon when this program is over.
The new chief of staff is some guy by the name of Jacob Liu, L-E-W.
And of course, the speculation now rampant that Michelle have any to do with this.
She didn't like Ron Emmanuel.
Ron Emmanuel wasn't radical enough for her.
And if Ron Emmanuel wasn't radical enough for her, I guarantee you Bill Daly wasn't radical enough for her.
So they got somebody in there, Jacob Liu, who is the budget director, is going to become the new chief of staff to Barack Hussein Obama.
Earlier in the program, in fact, in the first half hour of this program, I shared with you the latest BS from Gallup.
40% of Americans identify as independents, and more Americans identify as Democrats than as Republicans.
31% Democrat, 27% say they're Republican, 40% say they're independent, that according to Gallup.
However, Dick Morris citing the latest Rasmussen poll.
More than one in five Democrats, 21% of them, have abandoned the party since Obama was emaculated.
Most of them have become independents.
But still, identification with the Republican Party has also risen, not only since 2008, but since 2010.
Rasmussen, who tracks Voters' Party ID, self-described every month, shows that Democrat Party identification has dropped by eight points, or 21%, since Obama's election in November of 2008.
And yet Gallup is out saying that the number of people identifying themselves as Democrats is way up.
It isn't.
It's down.
Rasmussen said, most of them are becoming independents.
Now, what does that tell you?
Independence moderates, I have long suspected that they're just liberals who don't want to say that they're liberals.
And I'm also convinced a lot of people say that they're independents because they're sophisticated enough to know that the media thinks they're God, that they are the ones who elect people, the great undecided, the great independents, the voters that everybody fights over, who wouldn't want to be in that group, who wouldn't want to be pandered to.
Back to the phones.
Hazel in Brooklyn, welcome to the EIB network.
Great to have you here.
Hi, Rush.
Hi.
Okay, the reason that I'm calling is I think that it plays too much into Obama's hands to equate RomneyCare with Obamacare.
I think it's Obama's way of depressing Republican turnout if Romney's a nominee, that Republicans think it's the same thing.
But RomneyCare was never about death panels or bureaucrats in Washington making decisions or saying, well, I'm not going to give your mother any treatment.
She's just going to get a pain pill.
To me, Obamacare is like a kinder, gentler Auschwitz.
It selects people who are useless mouths and then just lets them die on the vine.
What did you say?
Kinder, gentler what?
Auschwitz.
Yeah, where Auschwitz.
Yeah, I just did.
I wasn't quite sure that that's what you actually said, that Obamacare is a kinder, gentler Auschwitz.
That was a death camp.
Right.
Because I think Obamacare uses rationing.
And the people who are deemed, quote, useless mouths, as the Nazis deemed people who could not work for the German greater good, will be gently allowed to die rather than...
Well, there was nothing gentle about it.
No, the people who Obama selects will be gently allowed to die through palliative care and hospice and pain meds, but we won't expend the resources to treat them.
Right.
Here's the problem that RomneyCare presents, Romney.
And I'm convinced that this is one of the reasons why Obama wants to run against Romney.
Two of Romney's advisors actually helped the Democrats write Obamacare.
And they are out there saying that RomneyCare is the model.
And the primary element that is common to both is the individual mandate, the requirement that people buy health insurance.
Well, I agree that that's common, but I don't think that there would be as much vehement lack of support against Obamacare were it not for what distinguishes Obamacare from RomneyCare.
If it weren't for death panels and rationing and bureaucrats making decisions and taking doctors and patients out of the decision-making process, I don't think Obamacare would be unpopular.
And the advisors who are saying it's the same thing are doing so probably to promote Obama.
We don't know what their motivation is or what their registration is.
Wait, who?
We don't know who's.
The people who are saying, well, RomneyCare is the model for Obamacare.
Yeah, we do.
Well, we don't know that they're not pro-Obama.
Oh, we know that they are pro-Obama.
Right.
So they could say anything.
Anybody who's pro-Obama could say whatever he wants as long as it depresses Republican turnout and depresses Republican voters and promotes Obama.
But it's not that they're making it up.
I mean, the mandate's there.
Well, the mandate is.
And it's in Massachusetts not working.
They're in debt.
It didn't work as everybody thought it would work.
Well, I think basically people are looking for solutions to health insurance issues.
And the problem is that nobody wants to look at the real solution, which is the government is the problem.
More people than you realize look at it that way.
And hopefully one of them will be president, and we can end this atrocity before too many of us are put to our kinder and gentler deaths.
That, of course, the bottom line.
Yes.
If it isn't repealed, boy, life in this country is never going to be the same.
But, you know, you have a caller who's in the insurance business from Atlanta.
Oh, yeah.
And she talks about medical tourism.
And I think that's exactly what will happen.
Yep.
That anybody who can afford it will be going to Thailand or Costa Rica.
Thomas will be practicing there.
And what is Obama going to do?
Say, well, I'm cutting off all diplomatic relations with Costa Rica because people are going there to be treated.
No, he's going to find a way to tax you or deny you your exit visa or whatever.
They'll find ways to make sure you can't.
Well, maybe we'll find a way.
Do you have a Swiss bank account that you thought nobody would ever know about?
Luckily not.
It would really be.
Let me tell you something.
The regime has sued every Swiss banker, a number of them, and the Swiss banks are caving.
And I guarantee you, health providers in Costa Rica, New Zealand, wherever would also cave if big bad Uncle Sam comes raining down on them.
That's why this has got to be, it has to be repealed.
All right, Hazel, I appreciate the call.
Very much so.
We got a brief time out.
We'll be back.
We will continue in mere moments.
Don't go away.
We are back, Rush Limbaugh, and a brand new week of broadcast excellence and a sterling start to it here.
As we have been on a roll here, what were you saying, Sterdley?
We've been a roll here.
Well, actually, 23 years we've been on a roll, but I mean, we have been nailing it here for the last three months, day in and day out.
Sometimes multiple intensity nails per day.
Everybody's talking about it, too.
Here's Gene, Harvard, Illinois.
Great to have you on the program.
Welcome.
Megatroy Paulomato and Tim Tebo Dittos.
They can be friends even if they're on opposite teams.
Yes, they all worked together yesterday, didn't they?
Yeah.
I'm not here to argue with you.
I know my job is to make the host look good.
You're not here to argue with me?
No.
Sometimes that does make me look good, though, when people try it.
In the first hour, you talked about the White House part, the press hid, and just brought to mind many years ago CNN's Eason Jordan, Why I Lied.
Oh, yeah.
Yeah, he said that they covered Saddam's extravagant parties, but they wouldn't cover the atrocities because they wanted to maintain access.
Now we have the press hiding their extravagant parties and what he's doing to the country in order to maintain access.
Yeah, but that's I look.
I really don't want to nitpick with you except on a literalist.
And the press does not need to ignore Obama's Mad Hatter party in order to have access.
They've got access.
They're stenographers.
They're part of the steno pool.
The reason that they didn't report the party is so that Obama wouldn't get hurt by it.
Not that they wouldn't get hurt.
Wow, true.
All right.
Now, Eason Jordan, you're right.
Eason Jordan hid the atrocities of Saddam Hussein because he wanted to keep the Bureau open.
And he admitted it.
He proudly admitted this.
It was either in the Wall Street Journal or New York Times, he wrote a column that they willingly looked with a closed eye, a blinded eye, or looked the other way with Saddam atrocities and did not report them because they didn't want their bureau shut down.
If their bureau was shut down, they wouldn't be able to report the news out of Iraq.
But Eason Jordan was telling us, we're not reporting the news out of Iraq.
We're not reporting the news out of Iraq so that we will continue to be able to not report the news out of Iraq.
Because if we tell you what's going on here, they'll shut down our bureau and then we won't be able to not tell you what we know is going on here.
He wrote the piece as though he deserved a pat on the back for it.
That it was a brilliant piece of management skill.
Looking for credit for it.
I was dumbfounded.
It's the same look at the same reason the White House press corps covers up these things.
You know, the real question is, what are they covering up?
What atrocities in the White House are going on that we're not hearing about for the same reason?
Actually, not the same reason.
It's that the press doesn't want to get Obama in trouble.
Folks, it is safe to say, it's very accurate to say, that domestically in this country, conservatives, conservative Republicans, are the biggest enemy the Democrats have.
Bigger than al-Qaeda, bigger than the Taliban, bigger than Iran, bigger than any foreign enemy.
The Democrat Party, the regime, the media, looks at their domestic political opposition as the biggest enemy they have, the biggest threat.
And in a way, it kind of makes sense.
I mean, we are the only thing standing in the way of their absolute power.
They don't look at the Iranians as trying to stop them.
They don't look at the Taliban as trying to stop them.
They look at us as trying to stop them.
And they are part of the Obama agenda advancement team.
Our media is all a bunch of Baghdad Bobs.
You remember Baghdad Bob?
Baghdad Bob.
I loved Baghdad, Bob.
Baghdad Bob was on television denying that our troops were in Iraq as the statue was falling.
As the Saddam statue was being pulled down, Baghdad Bob was saying, no, the American troops are not here and they're nowhere near here.
We're looking and we don't see them.
They have not crossed the border, the American troops.
And not only that, if they try, they won't get past us.
I mean, while we were there, it was a joke.
It was one of the funniest international laughs that anybody had ever had, and Baghdad Bob was dead serious about it.
And that's who our media is.
We have a Baghdad Bob media trying to deny everything we see and keep hidden everything we don't see.
Pure and simple.
Unions continue to receive the overwhelming majority of waivers from Obamacare.
There was a document dumped Friday afternoon.
Labor unions representing 543,000 workers received waivers from Obama's signature legislation since last June.
You cannot make it up.
Make rules for everybody else, but not for yourself.
Now, if Obamacare is so wonderful, if it's so great, why aren't the unions dying to jump on the bandwagon?
Why do they have to get waivers?
And there's also a story.
I didn't have time to get to this today.
Maybe tomorrow.
It's a story in the Huffing and Puffington Post that they've observed all these mistresses of various people in the last year.
This woman writing a story is amazed at how unattractive the mistresses are and what that means.