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Jan. 19, 2012 - Rush Limbaugh Program
32:26
January 19, 2012, Thursday, Hour #3
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Let me just ask you people a quick, do you think the cable networks are not covering the newt story because they don't think it's newsworthy?
They're not covering it because they don't have the video yet.
ABC hasn't aired it.
ABC has issued one clip.
You wait till tomorrow.
After Nightline tonight, all day long, that interview with Mary Ann.
We're going to have beat them by a day.
You know, we have Open Line Friday.
I need to think that Thursdays are damned if you do, damned if you don't.
That's what today has turned out to be.
Damned if you do, damned if you don't, Thursday.
Welcome back, Rush Limbaugh and the EIB network.
Great to have you here.
They can't show ABC footage.
They can only show what ABC releases prior to the show airing.
MSNBC is showing excerpts.
Fox has showed excerpts, but that's it.
I also think that they don't want to give ABC any additional ratings boost tonight.
But you wait.
They will be all over this.
AP right now, GOP Field leaves South Carolina's religious right uninspired.
That's a story that the AP is running right now.
Anyway, great to have you back.
Rush Limbaugh, the EIB network, and the Limbaugh Institute for Advanced Conservative Studies.
I also got a note here from a friend.
I'm not going to mention a name.
You're not wrong, Rush, to attack ABC over this newt stuff, but it certainly seems you've written off Santorum's chances.
Maybe you're right.
Maybe he can't make it all the way, although I think he could.
But if you keep dismissing him, and we really are left with Romney too moderate and Newt too unpredictable, are those the only real choices we want?
And then I'm reminded of the news story that Iowa GOP switches stance and declares Santorum the winner.
I've not chosen anybody.
I'm not advocating anybody here precisely because of this stuff.
This is why I don't endorse anybody.
I have not spent this program defending Newt at the expense of Romney and Santorum.
To me, this is the news today.
There is a concerted effort by AB.
And if you think Santorum's not going to get his turn, you have to think again.
If Santorum ends up, in fact, I said, in the last hour, who was a friend of mine told me that it reminded me that he had predicted way, way back.
No, no.
A friend of mine who had talked to Santorum said Santorum told him by the end of the January, it was going to be Santorum and Romney.
Everybody else was going to have been either dropped out or forced out.
And it may well be that way.
I've got nothing against Santorum.
I spent a lot of the last hour including Santorum in the list of Republicans who are not responsible for anything that's gone wrong in this country.
And I have made it, I hope I have made it abundantly clear that what I don't want is Obama.
And I also believe, and I'm going to sit here and I've said this all along and I'm going to be consistent that I think any of them can beat Obama.
And I think what ABC's doing here proves it.
I think any of them can beat Obama.
I think if we're smart and if we go on offense, and that's asking a lot of the Republican Party, I think Obama can be beat.
I am not of the school that he can't be.
I don't have the say-so in who wins this nomination.
I don't have the ability, if I even wanted to try.
I don't have the ability to sweep this newt stuff under the rug and tell people to forget it.
They're going to do that on their own.
I have always respected the intelligence of those of you in this audience.
You make up your own minds.
You are your own thinkers.
This program validates what you believe.
I know we had a lot of liberals, former liberals that we persuaded here, but you're not mind-numbed robots.
There are some realities, though.
You go to Florida, Newt does not have any money.
And Santorum doesn't have any money.
Newt doesn't have any organization.
Florida, there are 10 media markets in Florida.
That means 10 places you've got to spend money in Florida.
And there are some realities in politics.
That you have to face.
Retail politics can work in tiny states like Iowa or South Carolina, but Florida is a different game.
Florida is two different time zones, for example.
There are a lot of people that you have to reach in Florida and a lot of different demographics.
It's not just God's waiting room all over the whole state.
I don't want anybody to get the idea from today's program that I am pro-Gingrich.
I think Gingrich had a great debate Monday night, and I think that debate is one of the reasons he's surging in South Carolina.
I think everybody had a great debate except Mitt.
Mitt was the weakest of the viable candidates on Monday night.
And I found it strange because he's been at this a long time.
Some answers by now should roll off his tongue smooth as glass, and they just still don't, especially when it comes time to defend himself.
I mentioned Daniel Henninger in the Wall Street Journal has a pretty good piece today, Bain Capital Saved America.
This column is a defense of Romney that's better than any defense Romney has made of himself so far.
And if I'll tell you, it's pretty unsettling that Romney has such a hard time defending himself and articulating his business achievements.
This column by Henneger, well, I mean, the headline says it all, Bain Capital Saved America.
Here's the open.
Not only did Bain Capital save America, but no matter what turn Mitt Romney's political career takes, Bain Capital may stand as the best of Romney's lifetime contributions to the nation's economic well-being, if only he would tell the story.
And it is unsettling that he has such a hard time defending himself and articulating his business achievements.
Maybe it's modesty.
That could very well be the case.
Some people, like I, some people do not, they just can't get comfortable with bragging.
But it comes off all too often in Romney's case as though he's embarrassed of capitalism.
But maybe he's just like a lot of people been cowed about defending it after having been bludgeoned for years by the media, a decade of greed and selfishness and all that.
But Henninger's piece points out that the decade of greed kept us from stagnating like Europe.
The decade of greed saved America's place as a leader of the world economy.
It led to a business renaissance.
Anybody who lived through the 1980s should remember that.
That's when Bain Capital started.
We saw a redesign of just about every consumer product on the market from scissors to lampshades.
It was an exciting time in the 80s.
And one of the most frustrating things for me has been ever since then to watch the history of the 1980s be rewritten as the decade of selfishness, the decade of greed triumphing over average ordinary people.
That economic rebound that took place in the 80s lasted all the way through the mid-90s until finally in Bill Clinton's second term, his policies took effect and started to slow down the Reagan boom.
This editorial from Daniel Henneger points out that Bain Capital, venture capital in general, played a pivotal role in the turnaround of the U.S. economy in the 1980s.
And I think, be quite honest with you, it's especially relevant now since Obama wrote in his first biography that he went into community organizing to roll back the Reagan Revolution to reverse the so-called decade of greed.
Obama has told us what his purpose is to reverse Reaganism and to destroy it and to replace it with big government to hell with the Constitution.
Obama's second autobiography, The Audacity of Hope, argues we need to become more socialist to deal with increasing globalization and unfairness of outcomes.
So the battle lines couldn't be any more clearly drawn.
Bain Capital helped to rescue America in the 1980s.
And we need a similar rescue again.
But Romney has to show that he's still willing and able to fight the battle.
Daniel Henneger, this is the second really important piece on Romney that Henninger has written.
The first one was last year where he pointed out that Romney is going to have to always be nudged to the right, that he won't get there on his own.
And I think that's true.
Biden had another stand-up Chuck moment.
Remember, Biden's in Missouri during the campaign, and there's a state legislator of Missouri sitting in the audience in a wheelchair.
And Biden's feeling his oats, and he's standing up there and they're honoring this guy.
His name's Chuck.
Biden says, Stand up, Chuck.
Let him see you.
Oh, boy.
Oh, God bless you, Chuck, when he sees he's in the wheelchair and can't get up.
Well, that's just, God love you, Chuck.
God bless you.
Oh, God bless me.
Oh, geez.
That's everybody stand up for Chuck.
So Joe Bitmey, another oops moment yesterday, was in San Francisco.
He told a crowd at a political fundraiser the Giants are on their way to the Super Bowl.
He got the San Francisco Giants confused with the New York Giants.
Giants are on their way to the Super Bowl in San Francisco.
It's a closed event in the city's financial district at the Bentley Reserve when he made the gaff, according to a White House pool report.
Here's Augusta Chronicle, the Augusta Chronicle.
Gingrich takes lead in South Carolina.
And Rasmussen has Gingrich at 33, Romney at 31.
Ron Paul at 15%.
So there's a lot going on here, folks.
And the news of the day and the things that are passionate to me are what we discuss on the program.
And we're going to get back to your phone calls after this timeout.
And I know you're revved.
I can see on the list.
On Damned If You Do, Damned If You Don't, Thursday, sit tight.
Charles Largo, Florida.
Thank you for waiting.
Great to have you on the program, sir.
Hi, Rush.
Hi.
Rush, I've been listening to you since the 80s.
I was talking to a lady friend of mine and mentioned to her some things that I thought politically, and she told me, you sound just like Rush Limbaugh.
Wow, what?
Who's that?
And she told me, and I've been listening to you ever since.
What I'd like to know today, what's your take on this Klondike XL thing?
What is his motivation for?
First thing, I think, you know, Obama is running against a do-nothing Congress, right?
That's his – who is Mr. Do-Nothing?
Barack Obama is Mr. Do-Nothing.
We have a do-nothing, job-killing president.
The Keystone Pipeline is a no-brainer.
Let me tell you something, Charles.
There is even the Washington Post has an editorial today claiming they don't understand this, that it is a puzzling maneuver.
There's nothing puzzling about this.
Barack Obama has staked his fortunes to the so-called green energy industry.
Barack Obama hates the oil industry.
But more importantly, Barack Obama's base, his voter base, consists of environmentalist wackos.
He needs their support.
His reelection is not by any means guaranteed.
When you go into any reelection, you have to secure your base.
And in his case, the base includes wacko environmental extremists who literally hate anything progress-oriented in energy.
And they believe all this green energy garbage, wind, power, solar power, green this or green that.
They believe that oil is filthy.
They believe that oil is deadly.
Oil is polluting.
And there's too much profit in oil.
And people are too dependent on oil.
So Obama says, okay, I got to remain loyal to those people.
So no Keystone pipeline, no 20,000 new jobs, no expansion of our domestic oil supply and reduction in price, no cheaper gasoline.
If there was ever a man working against the will of the American people, it was ever a president who is working against the best interests of the United States of America.
I haven't seen one other than Barack Obama.
I think this is outrageous.
I think Obama's a Keystone cop.
If he weren't so seriously oriented toward transforming this country into something it's never been, I would say he's a joke.
How's this?
For a headline, the New York Times, rejecting Keystone Pipeline proposal, Obama blames House Republicans.
He did.
Isn't that a shock?
Obama would blame the Republicans.
Somehow Obama reminds me.
He reminds me this Italian cruise ship captain.
I tripped and I fell into the lifeboat.
Except the Republicans are always the one tripping Obama.
This is a Republican.
You know why it's a Republican problem?
You know why this is the Republicans' fault?
Because the Republicans only gave him 60 days to assess the risks.
And Obama said he needed more time.
But Obama doesn't care about you and me.
There's a politico headline, and that tells you what Obama wants.
The politico headline, Robert Redford, Obama stood up to big oil.
Robert Redford, actor, outspoken, environmentalist wacko, applauded Obama's decision to reject the Keystone Pipeline on Wednesday in a column in the Huffington Post.
So Robert Redford and his adoration is an objective for Barack Obama.
So a brainless Hollywood actor is who carries weight with Barack Obama.
I mean, it is absurd.
The Keystone pipeline.
Potentially 100,000 jobs down the road from a man who claims to be laser-focused on jobs.
If there was ever an illustration that the man does not tell the truth and that his objectives are not the furtherance of this nation's real interests, this is it.
Charles, thanks for the call.
Appreciate it.
Janet, Shiloh, Illinois, you're next on the EIB network.
Hi.
Hello, one of the last two men standing.
How are you?
I'm fine.
Thank you very much.
I appreciate that.
Yes.
Days like today that made me realize how much I love you.
Thank you.
You made me laugh.
I mean, you opened the show.
Brilliant.
Just brilliant.
And I think you've got a real ⁇ I actually think Newt Gingrich can get more independence than anyone else ranks, which is revelation.
He's got it.
Well, it remains to be seen.
Remember, this stuff is a resume enhancement.
I mean, Bill Clinton, open marriage with Hillary.
Exactly.
Democrats thought the greatest thing on earth.
I mean, this is wonderful.
They didn't even think it was that big a deal that he's having an affair with an intern.
I know.
And let's face it, the independents are frightened of our social issues.
Well, Newt's a guy they cannot be so frightened of.
You know, but I called about Romney.
You've been asking rhetorically, what is it about Romney?
Why isn't he getting more than 25% of the vote?
And I wanted to take a stab at it.
Go ahead.
Figuratively.
I believe that he did not get the message of Scott Brown's election, which is surprising because he's the guy that gave us Scott Brown.
And by that, I mean, Scott ran on a single message, and he won Ted Kennedy's seat in Massachusetts.
We must never forget this by promising to be the vote against Obamacare.
And then he won it.
The Democrats tried to not seat him.
Remember all the shenanigans?
They seated him.
He voted against it, and they still got Obamacare by shoving it down our throats against our will on a single party vote.
The Democrats didn't get the message of Scott Brown, and they got wiped out in November, that next November.
Mitt is saying he can work with the other side.
We don't want that.
Exactly, exactly, exactly.
And that's the consultants.
That's the consultants advising him to do that.
Moments ago, ladies and gentlemen, I told you that Newt had a stage event with a cast of characters out there.
We now have the audio from that event.
We have two sound bites.
And it was Newt, apparently, as America's grandfather.
Here's the first of the two bites.
Robert, come on over.
This is our grandson, and we always check in with him and his sister.
She couldn't get off because she actually has ballet the next couple of days.
But Robert is, you're playing hooky.
This is an educational field trip for Robert.
And I'm thrilled, and he's very good at chess, and he thinks deeply, and he gives me key advice, which is mostly to keep it shorter and clearer.
And one more bite.
Baggie, his elder sister, who's 12, is my other advisor, and her basic role is to make sure I smile often enough because I'm too intense, apparently.
And so she counts my smiles in every debate.
I check in with both of them, and their advice has been pretty steady all the way through.
This is their mother, Jackie Cushman, and my daughter.
This is my sister, Susan, and we're looking for, I have another sister, I think, here somewhere, Robbie, but I don't know where she is right now.
And this is my brother, Randy.
So that was in Waterboro, South Carolina.
It was a campaign event.
I think it was the first, maybe the second appearance that Newt had made today since the ABC story had hit.
So he does.
He keeps track of everybody.
Newt, America's grandfather.
And the grandkids are advisors.
So that was one of his ways of dealing with it.
NBC Marist poll.
Are you sitting down?
NBC Marist poll says that 64% of Americans believe that candidates attack each other in campaigns.
I'm not kidding.
That is a news headline.
NBC Marist poll, 64% of Americans believe that candidates attack each other.
I don't know what the other 36% think.
I have no clue.
They probably watch Dana Perino and say they wish they didn't happen.
I'm just kidding.
I'm just saying because Dana Perino is on Fox right now talking about the timing of the interview with Gingrich X.
I don't hear what she's saying.
Speaking of Dana Perino, we got somebody 16 and 17.
This is first one.
Last night, the five.
The five people on Fox at 5 p.m. in the afternoon.
Dana Perino is on that show.
Bob Beckle's on that show.
Greg Gutfeld is on that show.
Angela Tarantula is on that show.
Let's see who else does what?
Kimberly Guilfoyle is on that show.
And Eric Bowling.
I guess there's six.
So they rotate them.
But there's only five at one time because it's called the five, the five at five.
So last night, I get, and they rotate who gets to be host.
So Angela Tarantula was the host yesterday, and she was speaking with Beckle about conservatism in me.
And they played a bite where I said, we conservatives do not see black and white, male, female, gay straight.
When we look at people, we see potential.
We want the best for everybody.
We know what's holding them back.
It's government.
They played that bite.
And then Angela Tarantula and Beckle had this conversation.
To Rush's point, Rush actually says that government's holding people back.
I actually think it's government telling people that it's okay to sit on your butts and we'll give you checks at all.
No, I don't think that's what the government says.
Because it's good for the economy.
We liberals made a terrible mistake going back 30 years ago.
We made a dependent society because we thought we were doing the right thing.
We had things like public housing and we had welfare payments and all that bred dependency.
And it was our responsibility.
We did it for the right reasons.
We need to change that.
But the way you change it is not to say that it's an opportunity society alone that's going to do it.
It's going to require some government intervention.
That's our point.
All right.
But it's Andrea Tarantula, not Angela.
Now, wait, I know, but yeah, he just, yeah, but he did say they were wrong, but he didn't.
This is why it's going to take me to translate this.
Don't try to do this at home.
He didn't say what you think he just said there.
He didn't say he didn't say what you think he said.
Now, just calm down in there.
Snurdly's blowing a gasket.
It's not Angela Tarantula.
It's Andrea.
And I've been calling her Angela, and I'm sorry.
Now, let's review what Beckel said.
We liberals made a terrible mistake.
Forget what follows.
He then said, we did it for the right reasons.
So don't look at the results.
Examine our intentions.
As I always say, don't judge the results.
Judge our intentions and then let us fix it with more government.
He says, we did it for the right reasons.
We need to change the reasons.
But the way you change it is require some government intervention.
So he admits that the government got too big and made people too dependent.
And now it's going to be more government to change that.
How does that work?
How does more government equal less government?
We liberals made a terrible...
I know you want...
Beckel deserves credit for this.
I'm not trying to deny the credit for it, but he is also trying to paper over the results with the good intentions.
We did it for the right reasons.
See, that's what I reject that.
The reasons that they did this are the exact reasons they achieved.
They wanted, maybe not Beckel, but the Lyndon Baines-Johnson crowd back then the situation.
They wanted the dependency.
It equaled power.
It equaled votes.
They couched it in good intentions.
They couched it in compassion.
But they ended up creating dependency, stifling individuality, stifling creativity, robbing people of their basic identity and humanity.
Made them wards of the state, turned them into perpetually voting Democrats.
Now, 30 years afterwards, you admit the mistake, but that it was all done for the right reasons.
We still have bigger hearts than you do.
We still have nicer hearts than you do.
We've got better hearts than you do.
And we need to change it.
But the way you change it, it's not to come along with some opportunity society.
Really?
Why not?
What's wrong with an opportunity society?
What's wrong with getting government out of people's lives?
What's wrong with inspiring people to do more for themselves?
That's all an opportunity society is.
It's going to require some government intervention.
Well, if it's going to require government intervention, the one guy we know who's not going to do government intervention right to fix it is Barack Obama, because he's doubled down on the number of dependents.
He has doubled down on the whole dependency class in this country.
CNN is reporting that Romney has called Centorum and conceded Iowa.
Now, that's a classy thing to do since the results really aren't official or even slightly cleared.
I mean, they got eight, what is it, precincts that they don't know where the votes are.
And they said they're not even going to bother trying to find them.
So everybody just agreed this is the way it is.
So Romney, classy move, okay, I'm going to concede.
You want it.
So what we're faced with now here is Centorum in Iowa, Romney in New Hampshire, which is predictable.
And here comes South Carolina.
Now, Bob Beckle, they're going to misunderstand this next comment at the five.
And I'm sure Dana Perino is going to think it's a bit harsh.
But Joseph Stalin thought he saved the USSR, too.
He did.
Gorbachev, Gorbachev, they thought they're saving everything.
These guys are the destroyers.
See, Snerdley was in there.
Man, man, what a milestone.
They just admitted it.
They just admitted it.
And asked to be the ones to fix it with more of what made it wrong in the first place.
Okay, who's next?
Remington in Charleston, South Carolina.
Hi, Remington.
Thank you for waiting.
Appreciate your patience.
Thank you, Russ.
Big fan of your sale.
Glad you could take my call.
I have one quick question for you.
Do you think someone who is worth hundreds of millions of dollars, has up to 25 million invested in the Cayman Islands, made his living bankrupt in corporations, really represents the bulk of Americans?
Well, do I think that anybody who earns $500,000 a year represents most Americans?
Well, I mean, they certainly represent slightly more than someone who's not going there.
This is a trap you are laying for the host, and a novice, inexperienced host would fall for it.
But I don't even accept your premise.
What is your premise about this?
That Romney doesn't represent the bulk of America because he's invested $25 million in the Caymans?
Well, I mean, most Americans that I know of and talk to every day don't have the ability to offshore millions of funds in secret bank accounts.
They're not secret.
They're not secret, and they're not shelters, and they're not illegal.
Investing in these things in the Caymans, and the ABC story even admits it is no different than Warren Buffett investing in netjets.
Most Americans can't invest in netjets either.
Most Americans can't invest significantly in ABC and have control over it.
Most Americans are not going to be paid $7 billion by Disney for an animated computer company like Steve Jobs was.
But Steve Jobs, I think, has far more relatability to far more Americans than a lot of other people who only make $50,000.
Do you want to be governed by a bunch of people who make $75,000 a year?
Well, I mean, you look at as far as you were talking about earlier in your program, made a really good point mentioning that Wall Street Journal editorial about the greed age in the 1980s being so significant.
What was so significant about that greed age was that it widened the income gap between the top 0.01% and everybody else for an entire generation.
Well, the top 1% has not more than 60% of approved either.
That is another myth that has been going around for 30 years.
The income gap actually hasn't been widening, and the people in the top 1% move in and out of it.
It's not the same 1%.
It sounds like an Occupy guy.
Sounds like an Occupy guy.
You know, I tell you what, if you're really, I don't know what makes you happy, Remington, I don't know what makes you happy.
Maybe a name change.
But if that won't do it, why don't you try to become Romney?
Why don't you try to get in on this action?
You are an American.
What good is it doing you to sit around and resent all this stuff?
How's that making you happy?
If you want to sit around with a bunch of people in their own excrement spreading disease and so forth and thinking you're making a difference, I'm telling you, you're not.
Not in a positive way.
There's a glorious country out there with gobs and gobs of opportunity for you.
You too could have $25 million in the Caymans if you get off your duff and give it a shot.
It's possible in this country.
And if you don't want to put it in the Caymans, invest it wherever you want.
Green energy.
Go broke, but you can do it.
You know what?
We need more Romneys.
I bet that last caller, the Occupy guy, Remington, but he had any problem with the Kennedy money.
You think he had any problem with the money that Kennedy's got?
You think he got any problem the Clintons are earning the money they're earning or Obama?
But we, you got to think guys like Remington.
They call here, they succinctly read all the Obama campaign talking points against Romney.
$25 million in the Caymans.
You think that represents a bulk of Americans?
What's the bulk of it?
Should we all be earning $50,000 a year?
Is that what we want in our leaders?
We had that with Obama.
If that, then somebody writes his two books and they take off and he goes to the White House and that's his path to wealth.
At least the Republicans, except for Santorum, if they win, it's a pay cut.
In closing, let me describe for you the most important income gap.
As an example, the income gap for Mark Zuckerberg, his income before Facebook, his income after Facebook.
How about that income gap?
And that's what we want proportionately for everybody.
That kind of income gap, growth from nothing to something.
Think about that.
We'll see you tomorrow from damned if you do, damned if you don't, Thursday to Open Line Friday.
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