All Episodes
Previous Next
April 19, 2012 - Rush Limbaugh Program
36:37
April 19, 2012, Thursday, Hour #2
| Copy link to current segment

Time Text
From the EIB Northern Command, hour number two on this 19th day of April, Mark Davis with you today.
And tomorrow, Mary Mateline on Monday, rush back on Tuesday.
So I'm up here an hour or so before showtime, looking at stories, talking about stuff, and having a chat with Bo Snerdling, which every substitute host should do.
And every substitute host will do, trust me.
Oh, by the way, it was Bo's theory.
He was nearly sent into a conniption fit when I said that there was no Republican who could have beaten Obama in 08, so stop wringing our hands.
It was his theory that if America had paid attention that Romney could have beaten Obama.
Because if the economy's going into the toilet, who better than a strong economy guy to beat Obama?
Fair point.
Great point.
I, however, did not have enough faith in the American electorate of 2008.
We were all caught up in the rock star, all caught up in the eagerness to prove ourselves as a non-racist country by electing the first president of color, you know, and all of that.
How's that working out for everybody?
And all of that.
So that's, listen, I wish you would love to have a time tunnel to go back and put up various Republicans against Obama, see how it works out.
But anyway, the other thing that Bo said to me is, how would you like to have a chat with Ed Temperlake?
And I thought, well, that's so cool, because I remember in the waning years of Bill Clinton reading Year of the Rat, how Bill Clinton compromised U.S. Security for Chinese Cash.
And then not long after that, a few years later on, I read Red Dragon Rising, Communist China's Military Threat to America.
And more recently, there are other things that Ed's been doing.
He's been doing a lot of writing for human events, a lot of things of various types, a lot of defense familiarity from his post during the Reagan administration as the Director of Mobilization, Planning, and Requirements at the Department of Defense under Reagan.
That's a very heavy resume, a big business card.
Ed Temperlake, welcome to the Rush Limbaugh Show, sir.
How are you?
I'm great.
Hey, thank you so much for having me on.
It's my pleasure.
You have done some thinking, maybe even some writing, but Bo is telling me he was talking to you about some theorizing you have.
I wanted to get not specifically to this latest photograph of troops doing dreadful things to the remains of terrorists.
I mean, it's a familiar theme now, whether it's Abu Ghraib or whether it's some of the troops peeing on some remains, and now here they are.
I mean, I hate those.
And what I hate most of all is these tiny slivers of misbehavior casting a negative aspersion on one of the most noble fighting forces that has ever gone into battle.
And you've got some theorizing on what's been done psychologically to the troops, once through LBJ, once through Carter, and now once again, and sort of the psychological effects it can have.
Take that ball and run with it, and then we'll see where we go.
Yes, sir.
I was appointed to the Naval Academy by LBJ and took my commission in the Marine Corps.
I was very heartbroken to watch Johnson bring in people into the American military, Project 100,000, where they cat-force people without significant mental ability to really be in combat at a certain level, and also the draft.
And what happened is LBJ symbolically, after putting those individuals in the military, threw down his rifle and left an army in the field, 500,000.
Needless to say, for all my fellow Vietnam veterans and veterans who lived through those era, it was pretty bad.
And very bluntly, an awful lot of the nastiness came from individuals who shouldn't have been in the military.
There was drugs, fraggings, the litany of horrors was real.
So what happened is a few very courageous classmates and others stayed in, kept the flame burning because they swore an oath to the Constitution.
And then they bumped SmackDab into the Carter administration.
Now, LBJ did get a Silver Star flying in the Pacific as he went over there as a politician and got it.
My fellow Naval Academy alum, if you will, President Carter, did something similar but different.
He didn't bring in any bad eggs.
What he did is he just kind of cut back the forces to become hollow.
So the men and women who lived through those years tried to enforce good order and discipline, and they kept the faith, and then President Reagan came in, and we know the history there, the Cold War, tear down this wall.
And President Bush 41, who I worked for, inherited perhaps the best fighting force possible.
And Desert Storm was proof of that.
The greatest air campaign in the history of air campaigns was in the skies over Iraq.
And very bluntly, it would not have been possible except for the men and women who kept the faith.
We now have been in a cycle of 10 years of war, first from George Bush 43.
And a lot of politicians wanted to take on the military.
You alluded to it, by the way.
They took the Abu Gharab pictures and pushed it in our noses.
And people like the late Congressman Murtha really had a reaction to judgment on Haiditha, where he immediately had thrown the Marines, his beloved Marine Corps, which he served in under the bus.
And all of that was a political fight during the Bush presidency.
Then President Obama becomes president.
And what happens then is, you know, the people elected him.
That's our choice as a country.
To be fair, I'd put it in context.
If Barack Obama was a much younger man, couldn't get work in this economy, decided he wanted to join the Marine, I mean the military, I doubt if he'd get in because he admitted to cocaine use.
So in a lot of ways, the military is very strong, has a cadre of warriors.
Now what's happening is they're facing draconian budget cuts, kind of an aimless engagement on foreign policy.
We're out of Iraq.
We're on a downward slope out of Afghanistan, which I think is appropriate.
But they started the Libyan War, and the President of the United States made the famous statement that he's going to lead from behind.
So that was shocking.
So the bottom line is the military has been through three cycles with three presidents.
And I would argue that the inherent soundness, the integrity of the military, I was a commander.
I commanded Marine Fighter Squadron in the reserves.
The good order and discipline holds.
And there's one point I'd like to diverge on, which is there's going to be, and we're in the middle of this, and people who've been around a while know what feeding frenzies are, media, and the Secret Service military down in the Cartagena scandal, which is still blasting out at us.
They will be held accountable.
I worked with the Secret Service when I did the Desert Storm homecoming parade.
They were the consummate professionals.
We marched thousands of troops, Abrams tanks, airplanes over the President of the United States' head, and the Secret Service worked with us every moment of that evolution.
Well, this is one of the things that makes it so cool to have you on, because just the pure resume, the Marine fighter pilot, you've commanded people, you've done a lot of writing, a lot of analyzing, and just in those couple of minutes there of taking a look at Johnson versus Carter versus Obama, and then pivoting into the Secret Service and the military details down there.
Is there any common thread here in terms of what people in service to this country need and perhaps are not getting that increases the likelihood of really awkward moments of misbehavior like the ones we've seen?
Yes, sir.
Excellent question.
The one thing I would say is the military and the Secret Service will hold the people responsible and accountable, as well they should.
I mean, to have bad situational awareness in the heart of cartel country is insane.
But they did it.
Well, let's get the evidence before we condemn them all completely.
Because one thing I will say in defense, even though they will pay a terrible price and lose their careers, is, and this goes right to the heart of your question, in my personal belief, those men and women down there, if they're women, all in a moment when they supported the Constitution of the United States, raised their hands, were prepared to give their life for this country.
So there has to be some context in dealing with the American military.
Now, where does it get a signal from the top?
Well, it gets a signal from the top, and the troops know this, trust me.
I'm in favor of always keeping your ear to the troops.
And why am I doing that?
Because if the troops smell that various enforcement mechanisms that are bringing discipline to them are really politically correct driven, they will have very little tolerance for that.
And I don't know if they're there yet.
And I don't know if politically incorrect crimes are being vested on commanders and troop leaders.
There's a little bit of a hint of that.
I won't paint with a broad brush yet.
The other thing the troops will see is that they can read if the people who are leading them, and I don't mean the people in uniform, they're political leaders, believe in their mission, support their mission, and want them to succeed.
It's easy to say words.
It's very easy to posture.
But when your best friend is Bill Ayers, or not best friend, I overstated that.
I apologize.
If one of the people you take counsel from is Bill Ayers, who personally tried to blow me up in the Pentagon and is not apologetic about it, the troops tend to pay attention to people like that.
And is and don't we with that, and thank you for invoking that.
I was headed there anyway.
It's an odd dichotomy.
President Obama will indeed be able to tell voters, I did the Afghan surge.
He will be able to tell voters, I got Osama bin Laden.
There are things he'll be able to say that seem to have wrapped in parentheses, try to characterize me as a wimp militarily, and I'll put these things back in your face.
How does a Republican nominee like Romney, how do people seeking to analyze the Obama military, the Obama national security record, reconcile those things that he can properly point to versus the things that you're bringing to the table?
Oh, it's very easy.
It's very easy.
This team, who is very good, by the way, I mean, you know, I take nothing away from their political skill.
They took a page from Ronald Reagan's playbook and reversed it.
President Reagan, when I came in with him, he basically built up the military and challenged everybody.
Okay, you want your domestic programs?
You're going to have to cut the military.
I challenge you to do that.
And they didn't have the courage to do it because of the Cold War.
The Obama team coming in reversed the formula.
They plussed up the domestic side.
They tried to basically buy votes, throw money at their cronies, and then challenge the military.
Hey, if you want to build the military with the resources necessary, you darn well have to take on the domestic side of the equation.
And to be fair, the military has banded together so far.
They haven't fractured on this, but they're getting strangled with strategic drift and lack of resources because they were allowed to buy into or encouraged to buy into the fact that the debt slash deficit, however they tended to frame it in their words, was the number one national security equation point.
I would disagree.
As director of mobilization for Reagan, I would much more wish they would have said, no, nuke attack in the United States is our number one priority first and foremost.
Let's talk about everything below that threshold.
And that's where the onesies twosies on the Obama administration trying to cherry-pick success based on the great traditions of the military, Republican or Democrat, serving their country well, doing what they're ordered to do, will fall by the wayside if you make a strong case for the fact that President Obama is basically President Carter to the hollowing of the military with an avowed strategy of an Asia shift or an Asia pivot.
You can read about it, air sea battle, without the adequate forces for the Navy and air team.
If you read a recent poll, the American people are confused right now on the value of the Navy and Air Force mission.
So much so, I think it's 9% of Gallup poll that just was put in the post.
Well, we're a war-weary country, and that's sad, but the enemy, 500 years from now, is still going to be ready to go, gung-ho, ready to go generation after generation.
On my clock, America got war-weary in about three years.
I've got about a minute.
Ed, I've got about a minute.
I want to get to one thing.
Ed Temperlake with us.
And in fact, when I'm done, I want you to be able to tell us where people can go to find the best chunk of your writing.
We've done some little bibliography.
So get ready for that.
Last thing I want to, in view of what you brought to the table, I've got to know your thought about Robert Bales, the Army soldier who, you know, the story on him, snaps a twig, goes off, kills 16, 17 Afghan civilians.
Obviously horrifying.
He is placed against a narrative, against a tapestry.
And maybe this will be part of his defense.
Why, who wouldn't go crazy with the war these troops have been asked to fight?
The multiple deployments, the undefinable goals, et cetera, et cetera.
Does that hold a drop of water generally and specifically, what ought to happen to this guy?
Basically, I would rule out capital crime.
I mean, the man did commit gross, horrible murder, but you have to give a little bit of the mitigation of that to life in prison at Leavenworth.
And I've been out to Leavenworth, trust me.
I don't know if I'm saying any favors here, but he's got to be found guilty first, of course.
And he's innocent until proven guilty.
But no, he is the terrible exception to the rule of kids who have watched their friends get blown up, who have been in combat, who don't do ugly, nasty, horrible things in a moment act of revenge or insanity.
And trust me, war can do that to people.
War can drive people over the edge.
I'm not excusing his behavior, in fact.
But he's got to be found guilty, of course.
The only thing I would say about him is don't typecast the military on his behavior.
And also, I would rule the death penalty off the table because PTSD and these guys have been out constantly in war for years.
And, okay, you know, life in prison at Leavenworth.
We're not going to coddle or excuse what he's done, but if justice has meaning, there are mitigating circumstances.
All right, well, listen, give me the Ed.
I'm going to give you a hand to handle a case of programming.
And they will, by the way.
Oh, I'm sure they will.
The military will handle this.
Oh, you know they will.
Quick, the Ed Temperlake place to go for people that want to stay in touch with you and read things you've got.
We have a website called SLDForum.com.
I'll repeat it again one more time.
SLDForum.com.
What's that standard?
That's where I write on national security.
I got to ask, what's the SLD stand for?
I'm sorry, sir.
What does the SLD stand for?
Second line of defense.
First line are the guys in the trenches.
The second line are the people who think about how to help them.
SLDForum.com, correct?
Yes, sir.
Very good.
Ed, it's a pleasure to meet you.
Thank you so much.
I appreciate it.
It's nice to meet you.
Thank you for the opportunity.
All righty, my pleasure.
Okay, anything in there you want to chew on?
We've got a bunch of calls from stuff we've already done, some how to get behind Romney, how to help him, various things.
If you don't mind me adding another topic a layer, time short because I ran a little long there.
At some point in today's show, and it might as well be now, I'm going to bat for my friend, Ted Nugent.
Back in a moment.
Mark Davison for Rush.
I always draw attention to the Ted Nugent bumps when Mike is kind enough to play them because on the list of stuff that I just can't believe about my life, up there, way high is sitting in this room right now.
But also up there is the day, I don't know, 11, 12 years ago, because Ted Nugent was like looking for property in Texas and calls me.
It's like, what?
I mean, I'm driving around listening to Stranglehold and Free-for-All and Cat Scratch, you know, and on my 8-track in my 76 Buick Century in Camp Springs, Maryland.
And years later, Ted is calling me to say he likes the show I do.
Pinch me, pinch me.
So I've been proud to call this man a friend for more than a decade.
So it's easy to suggest that because he is a friend of mine, friends defend friends.
Sometimes friends over-defend friends when they don't deserve to be defended.
But this is not one of those times.
This is not one of those times.
Here's the simple truth about what's going on with Ted Nugent in the absurdity and the ridiculousness of a week in which, in which he is actually being interviewed by the Secret Service.
Really?
The Secret Service?
Well, clearly they've run out of lunatics who actually are a threat to the president.
And they have the ability to waste their time on a conversation with Ted, whose worst sin is a very colorful way of putting things.
A fifth grader gets this.
A fifth grader gets this.
Ted's at the NRA convention.
And listen, if you've seen Ted in concert, your ears are probably still ringing.
But if you've heard Ted on a show, my show in Texas or somebody else's, then you know Ted is, well, a certain way, has a certain colorful, over-the-top way of putting things.
He is not Charles Krauthammer.
He is not Bill Crystal.
He is not, you know, Rush Limbaugh.
I mean, he makes Levin look tame, okay?
This is the kind of state.
I love me some Levin.
All right.
And so at an NRA convention, he's talking about the importance of November, talking about how if we lose, we're all going to be a suburb of Indonesia or something like this.
And then says, this November, we are Braveheart.
We are Braveheart.
We got to ride in and chop their heads off.
Do I need to describe the concept of metaphor to people?
Do I need to school people on what metaphor is?
Anyone stupid enough to take this literally, anyone moronic enough to presume that this must pose an actual bodily physical threat to Barack Obama or anyone near him.
I mean, there's not enough time left in this segment to talk about how truly, profoundly stupid that is.
You know, and here's the bottom line.
Here is the bottom line.
Ted Nugent can put something colorfully in a way that Mitt Romney would not say, in a way that I would not say.
And everybody freaks out in 14 languages, conniption fits, nervous breakdowns, yet Jeremiah Wright can be Barack Obama's actual pastor and engage in actual, literal hate-mongering, and everybody blows that off.
The double standard lives, and you're only starting to see the beginning of it.
Mark Davis in for Rush back in a moment.
And you're also listening to every Ted Nugent bumper that Mike Mamone has.
Little free-for-all, little dog-eat-dog.
Can Motor City Madhouse be far behind?
All right, all right, all right, all right.
If the subject is Ted, the music might as well be Ted.
And I mentioned his having moved.
He's very much in Bush 43's Western White House down near Crawford, Texas, most of the time.
But our next call, appropriately enough, is to the land that he called home for a long time and where a whole lot of his corporate operations at TedNugent.com are frequently found.
And that is in Jackson, Michigan.
Hey, John, how are you?
Mark Davis, InfoRush.
What's up?
I just wanted to comment about Ted Nugent.
I know he's a colorful person.
I know he's quite colorful as words, but, you know, he's a brother to Michigan.
He helps support everything.
And then they basically, if they're messing with Nugent, they're messing with Michigan.
Precisely true.
And I think, and I know that Ted needs some explaining for people who are unfamiliar with him, but for people who are familiar with him to somehow say that his very edgy and often over-the-top way of phrasing things, that it's meant to be taken literally.
And it's kind of like having a campaign staffer say this at a Kiwanis club.
That's just stupid.
He always gets taken way out of context.
And I've always believed a lot of the stuff he says.
I don't agree with everything, but he's just been a great supporter of Michigan, helping out with different events that he helped set up.
And I've always enjoyed any of the shows he's ever put on over here in Michigan.
Well, listen, I know he appreciates it, and I do too.
And thanks.
And in fact, let me wrap this up.
And we got 14 other things we got to get to here.
And maybe in a broad sense, I'm glad to tackle this topically as far as when candidates have to, when they are forced to disavow certain things that some people say.
And again, I will bring up the Jeremiah Wright double standard all day long.
For how many years did Barack Obama sit in the seats of an America-hating, poisonous, hate-mongering pastor?
And for how many years did he absorb that and call this man a friend?
And that bounces off him and has no effect, and that is downplayed?
While now those same people who downplayed that are trying to attach some very colorful Ted Nugent rhetoric to Mitt Romney as if Romney put it in his Tampa acceptance speech?
Come on.
Come on.
So I'm going to make everybody the following deal because again, consistency is always my goal.
So if Neil Young or John Mellenkamp or Young Jeezy happens to roll out with some really edgy stuff about Romney, I'll make you the following deal.
I'm prepared not to care.
And I'm prepared to not bother President Obama with ridiculous calls for him to disavow what some listen, I will never be the shut up and sing person.
I mean, Laura Ingram had a great book by that title.
I'm never going to say that.
I know what people mean by it.
They usually talk about people on the left, you know, Bruce Springsteen, Mellencamp, whatever.
Listen, I just want to hear Small Town or the river, you know, and leave your politics out of it.
And it's funny, every time my own callers bring this to me in shows I've done in Texas, I always say, okay, all right.
If you're going to say shut up and sing to Natalie Maines, the Dixie Chicks, if you're going to say shut up and sing to Springsteen or Mellencamp or Neil Young, you realize that means you have to say it to Ted Nugent, too.
And the silence is telling.
So the principle I follow is: if you're in the musical world, the Hollywood world, whatever, tell us everything you believe.
I'm fine with it.
I'll either accept it or reject it.
Pay attention or not.
Think you're a genius or think you're an idiot.
And get on with my life.
All righty, let's get on with our calls.
1-800-282-2882.
We are in Minneapolis.
John.
Hi, Mark Davis, Infor Rush.
How are you?
Hey, Mark.
I'm doing well.
Hey.
Hey, I wanted to talk to you about Obama and getting him out because I really think we need to do that.
Financially speaking, he's the worst president we've ever had.
Constitutionally, he's by far the worst.
And, you know, I think that Romney has really got to start appealing to independents because I myself am an independent.
I talk to a lot of people about politics.
I read the blogs.
I just talk a lot.
And I don't really know anyone that's excited about Romney.
I mean, I look at his past, his liberal, very liberal past.
I see him flip-flopping a lot.
He's made a lot of comments that portray him as very out of touch with the average American.
And I'm just disappointed that the GOP is pushing so hard for this guy who seems barely different than Obama in the first place.
Okay, okay, but I've got him.
Alarm, alarm, red alert, red alert, red alert.
I was going to ask you, what is it you've heard from Romney that really truly does make him seem out of touch?
So there's question number one.
But before we get to, I want you to answer that.
We've got some time here, too, so we're good.
But the other thing is, please, please, don't anybody tell me that Romney is really kind of like Obama?
Is he not conservative enough for some of us?
Yes.
Are there some views he's held that makes us wonder about his core values?
Yes.
What Romney is, is not conservative enough for some.
All right.
Is he conservative?
Of course he is.
To roll out with his crazy notion, well, he's really just sort of kind of, even with Romney care on its worst day, Mitt Romney is not, quote unquote, kind of like Obama.
Please stop saying that.
His presidency would be 1,000 times better than Obama's.
Now, Santorum would be 2,000 times better, but, you know, that's water under the bridge.
Now, but let's go to the out-of-touch thing because this is what the Democrats are going to go nuts with.
He's out of touch.
He's a rich guy.
He's an evil rich guy.
What have you, or your supporter, or at least a presumptive supporter is a Republican?
What have you felt coming off of Romney that makes you really think that he is out of touch?
Because I really don't think he is.
So I'm asking.
Well, what I know is that I've seen a lot of his, I've watched himself speak a lot of comments about whether he was for an issue and then later he's against it.
And he's done this on a lot.
It makes me feel like I can't trust anything he says.
All right, well, that's not out of touch.
That's inconsistent, which is probably worse.
So you wonder if he is a weather vein.
You wonder if he tests the wind and feels certain ways at certain times.
This is something he's going to have to make us feel comfortable about.
This is something he's going to have to make us feel comfortable about by coming forward with the sound, the flavor, the tone of someone who has core values, conservative core values, actually believes them, knows how to relate them, and make us believe that he will adhere to them once he is in the presidency.
Because it's easy to say anything, as he's demonstrated.
Completely, completely.
Hey, thanks.
I appreciate it a lot.
All right, the gentleman brings up the extremely important task of winning over the independent vote.
This makes my blood run cold if it goes a certain way.
But first of all, does he have to win over the independent vote?
Of course he does.
Now, there's a way to do that and a way not to do that.
How about if I tell you what both of those are next?
Mark Davis in for Rush on the EIB Network.
It is the Thursday Rush Limbaugh Show.
I'm Mark Davis up at the EIB Northern Command, New York City.
Holy cow.
Here today, here tomorrow.
Mary Madeline in for Rush on Monday.
That'll be nothing but great.
And rush back on Tuesday.
Okay, winning over the independents.
Must we do that?
Yes, we must.
How do we do it?
Reagan did it.
How can Romney do it?
Hopefully the same way.
Not by moving toward the middle.
No, no, no.
Do not win over independence by moving toward the middle.
Win over independence by moving the middle toward you.
Now, how do you do that?
I believe there are two main themes.
I'll spit them out quickly now and maybe go into them in some more detail in the next hour.
Craig Shirley, who's written a bunch about Reagan, is with us at the top of the next hour.
Well, we'll run it by him and then we'll talk about all of this because we will be invoking Reagan for the rest of all of our lives and our children's lives and with good reason.
It's good that if we're going to do that, that we actually understand what he did and how he did it and how to best replicate it if that's possible.
Two ways, two themes that can win over independence.
Because you realize there are millions of people who voted for Obama.
He just went nuts with independence.
Independent vote went crazy for Obama in 2008.
And a whole lot of those people now realize they screwed up.
There are a whole lot of independent voters who have buyers' remorse and who realize that they messed up.
Our candidates' job is to gently, civilly, constructively, but firmly inform them that there's a better way for them this time.
And the way to do that, I believe, is with two concepts.
Number one, the concept of failure.
Who can't get failure?
It's kind of an apolitical concept.
You've either succeeded or you haven't.
Is this a failed presidency?
There are a lot of people who would say that it is, and a lot of them are Democrats, and a lot of them are moderates, and a lot of them are independents.
Say, you know what?
His presidency worked?
Have these people been competent?
Do these people seem to know what they're doing?
Do they seem to have their finger on the pulse of anything?
Many, many Americans say no.
But here's one that has more of a bit of a conservative flavor, but something that a lot of people across the political spectrum will believe in, and that is lost liberty.
Lost liberty.
Freedoms you should have that you already don't have because of these people and other freedoms you will lose if you allow them to keep hold of the reins of power.
The right to make certain decisions about your health care, the cars you drive, the light bulbs you screw into sockets.
Little things mean a lot.
The degree to which these people are willing and eager to have government make decisions for you that you should make for yourself.
You don't have to be a conservative American.
You don't have to be a Republican American.
You just have to kind of be a human with a brainstem to appreciate a couple of concepts.
Avoiding failure and losing liberty.
You want to avoid failure and you don't want to lose liberty.
And if Romney can hit those concepts hard, that's a way to win a lot of independence back.
All righty, we are in Westfield, New Jersey.
Denise, hi, Mark Davis in for Rush.
How are you?
Okay, hi, Mark.
You know, I don't understand the caller saying Romney's not good enough.
He's not conservative enough.
I'm not excited.
Do you people want four more years of Obama?
You got to be kidding me.
Well, that takes me.
He's Romney Wisen.
He'll have no precious.
Look at the hot mic incident with Medvedev in Russia.
And I care about Israel.
And Israel's got a big problem if Obama's given four more years.
Tell me.
In fact, Mitt Romney is good friends with Net Tanyahu since the 7th.
You bet.
You bet.
Great for Israel.
Okay, here's Smith.
Okay, Denise, stand by two seconds.
I love you.
Here's the thing.
And I think you embody a lot of the Romney support.
I believe that.
Tell me if I'm wrong.
You think he's the only Republican that can beat him.
Am I right?
Schmidt, you know, forget the Olympics and Bank Capital.
Just by being one-term governor in Passachusetts is 10 times more than Obama's ready option.
Come on, people.
You want four more years of this man.
No, no, indeed so.
And you've described exactly the logic that needs to be brought to bear now.
Now, what bugged me a little bit about the Romney heads a month, two months, three months, four months ago is they were giving me that.
You know, I'd bring up how much I loved Santorum.
Newton people would bring up how much they love Newton.
Lord knows the Ron Paul people were always there, and they always will be.
And people said, well, wait a minute.
Don't you want to win?
Don't you want to win?
I would not have backed Santorum.
I would not have been willing to walk through fire for that man if I didn't think that he could beat Obama.
In fact, this was the only thing that kept me from being as enthused about Newt as everybody.
A ton of my friends love Newt.
I love Newt.
As I said last hour, I love Newt more now.
The debates, the campaign he's run, just the joys of watching him on the trail.
It's been great.
It's been fantastic.
And it's been a reminder of how just organically valuable he is to conservatism.
But with fairly or unfairly sky-high negatives, and this is totally fair, and I love the man.
In fact, he's kind of like me.
It's a reason why I'd be a troublesome candidate.
Just the ADD all over the place, lack of discipline, lack of focus.
Do you know how robotic and down the line and stay-on-message you've got to be?
I don't mean, you know, robotic in personality.
I mean, if you follow a successful, if you go to the last few successful presidential campaigns and follow them day in, day out, month in, month out, you will see them delivering the same speech 47 times in a row.
And you know what happens?
They win.
If you have a guy whose brain is so big that he just wants to talk about the 1920s on one occasion and talk about a moon base on the next, and then, you know, and then talk about various things about, you know, what's going on at the local zoo and what I was doing in 1993 and then lean six Sigma and you know,
I mean, the things that make Newt a fascinating man, the things that make Newt an incredibly valuable conservative are the things that might have made him a really difficult candidate, a snake bit candidate.
So it's not criticism.
There are tons of people who I think are geniuses, who I love and who I know love America, who might not be the best candidates in the world.
And that was my problem with Newt.
So anyway, the Romney people were giving us for months and months and months.
Romney's the only guy that can win.
I never, ever believed that.
However, you know what that observation is right now?
Completely and totally irrelevant.
He is going to be the nominee.
It is time to unite behind him.
The lady we just had on is right.
Every bit of logic she has ever used in her support of Governor Romney is logic we should now embrace.
Now, that doesn't mean that everything that Romney has done is fine and great.
He doesn't need some fine-tuning because heaven knows he does.
And I hope that he is surrounded by people who will help him develop the lingo, if nothing else.
Someone once said that it was like somebody gave Romney a Rosetta Stone set of tapes or something.
He's learning how to speak conservatively and it's still kind of pidgin conservative, so to speak.
I'm severely conservative.
Sometimes he phrases things in ways that are just painfully clumsy.
He has to get better at that.
And you know what?
I think you will.
Because if anything, I think the man is a quick study.
And again, if he is 68% conservative and Santorum was 84% conservative and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
I mean, of course, I want the more conservative guy.
What's the old edict?
The most conservative candidate who can win.
Well, I think Santorum could have won.
He's not going to be the nominee.
So I'm not going to waste time wringing my hands over that.
I'm going to get behind the guy who is going to be the nominee, see if I can be of help.
And we should, all of us, all of us who long for President Obama to begin a lengthy and healthy time in private life in the private sector in January of 2013, all of us need to get on board and quit the sniping and quit the griping and see what we can do to help this man because our hopes lie with him.
Mark Davis in for Rush.
Be right back.
Our couple of final minutes of this second hour of the Rush Limbaugh Show.
Mark Davis in for Rush.
One more hour to go.
But our final couple of minutes are given over to Buddy who joins us from Anchorage, Alaska.
Hey, buddy, Mark Davison for Rush.
How are you?
I'm doing great, Mr. Davis.
How are you today?
Super, thanks.
I wanted to comment a little bit about Ted Nugent's comments, in particular, Mitt Rodney being asked to give his opinion one way or another about him.
And I want to harken back, if I could, to some comments that I think you'll remember.
I know a lot of conservatives remember that Alec Baldwin made on the Conan O'Brien show about Henry Hyde when he called and said basically that we should go down and stone him and go to his house and stone his wife.
Stone him to death.
Exactly right.
And I don't remember the outcry on that.
In fact, I don't even remember the media asking the current president at the time, Mr. Clinton, what his thoughts were or to denounce that or to speak openly and publicly about that.
And my point is, it seems that only when people who call themselves conservatives make comments about liberals do the media speak up and ask for others to condemn those comments.
Completely right.
Now, here's the thing.
That was 1998, the Clinton impeachment.
And to be, again, the consistency I spoke of before, you've got a great point.
You're totally right to bring up the double standard.
But I don't want to bother Bill Clinton about disavowing some stupid thing that Alec Baldwin says.
And I don't want to bother Mitt Romney about something over the top that Ted says.
What I do want to do is if you've got a hate-mongering pastor in whose church you've sat for 20 years, do I want to take those questions to you?
Yes, I do.
▲
Export Selection