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Sept. 7, 2012 - Rush Limbaugh Program
37:07
September 7, 2012, Friday, Hour #2
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Well, you know, I tell you, I like the idea of Pete Wilson calling Clinton out.
I like the Republicans calling Clinton out.
And the unemployment numbers have given the Republicans an issue now to get energized on, and they're doing that.
But folks, I mean, you watch Bill Clinton, and a woman says to you, like she says to Alex Castellanos, God, Lee, you know what?
I watched Clinton last night, and I want to vote for Clinton, and I want to sleep with Clinton.
That is the actual war on women and an insult to their intelligence.
Here is a guy, when you boil it all down, who has mistreated women from interns to his wife, and the Democrat Party throws him up as somebody to fawn after and admire.
Live from the Southern Command in sunny South Florida, it's open line Friday.
And it isn't going to work.
Welcome back, folks.
Great to have you.
Open Line Friday.
We're going to get to the phones pretty quickly here, and you get to talk about whatever you want to talk about.
Yip, yip, yip, yip, yahoo!
Telephone number 800-282-2882, the email address, lrushbo at eibnet.com.
Early TV ratings for the speech last night.
This might be a saving grace for Obama.
NBC down 5% from 2008.
CBS down 31% from 2008.
And get this.
ABC News down 50%.
ABC News lost half their audience from 2008 to last night.
CBS lost 31% and NBC 5%.
So there's two ways to look at this.
One is B.P. King, thrill is gone.
The thrill is gone.
The other way to look at it is Obama skated because nobody saw this absolutely, sadly, tragically disappointing, way below expectation speech.
But we're taking care of that to an extent.
One other thing about Biden, I'd made a note here to mention.
You know, these guys are famous for their straw men.
Like Obama talking about all these people who say, we don't need any government.
I don't hear anybody ever saying that, for example.
But Biden said, don't bet against the American people.
Who is?
If not the Democrats, who bets against the American people?
Who is it that has less than high expectations of the American people to the Democrat Party?
By definition, the Democrat Party doesn't like self-reliance.
They don't like rugged individualism because people go that route.
They don't need Democrats anymore.
Don't need government.
Don't bet.
This was a cut at Romney and Ryan.
Biden somehow wanted people to believe that Romney and Ryan were betting against the American people.
If anybody's betting against the American people, it's this regime.
Just another element of last night's presentation that had me just buffaloed watching this stuff, trying to make sense of it.
I know what they're trying to do.
They're just heartstrings tugging at people's emotions.
Don't dare, don't dare tell the truth, but they couldn't escape it.
89 million Americans are not in the labor force.
89 million Americans who are capable of working are not.
119,000 fewer people employed in August than in July.
You might be hearing that 96,000 jobs are created.
That could very well be true.
They were expecting anywhere, depending on your experts, anywhere from 125 to 250,000 new jobs.
They got 96,000.
But a number that's not being widely reported is that 119,000 fewer people were employed in August than in July.
119,000 people lost their jobs while 96,000 people found jobs.
So what's the net?
It's a wash.
And they were full of this 4.5 million jobs created in the last four years under Obama.
The real number is 300,000.
Let's go to the audio soundbites and listen to the drive-bys actually crestfallen on this.
First up, Ali Velshi from CNN this morning, talking with Soledad O'Brien.
She said the key August jobs reports just into CNN.
Allie Velshi has the numbers for us.
Allie, what's it showing out there, buddy?
Not very good, Soledad.
We went into this report with President Obama 316,000 jobs short of being able to say that every job lost on his watch would be recovered.
If you take the 96,000 jobs we got this month for August, you add the revisions from the previous few months, he still has to make up 261,000 jobs over the next two months to get there.
This is not the hopeful number that the administration and frankly the country was looking for.
I would say that you would have to characterize this as the glass half empty, Soledad.
Stop and think of this now.
We went into this report with Obama 316,000 jobs short of being able to say that every job lost on his watch would have been recovered.
And yet we've been in a recovery since June of 2009.
What about 4.5 million jobs created?
They keep trumpeting that.
Here's Ali Velshi saying, well, they went into this report needing 316,000 jobs created just to get back to where they started.
And there's still 261,000 jobs short.
But it's so much worse than that.
It's really a crying shame what has happened to the labor market and the job market in this country.
For Obama to start making fun of tax cuts and all the real solutions to this problem.
Here's Ron Brownstein also on CNN.
Soledad O'Brien said, let's talk about the political implication of the unemployment news, which is what made that number so important.
What's the impact of this, Ronald?
This is not catastrophic enough to drop the bottom out from President Obama, but it's no tailwind behind him at all.
And it's just setting us up for grinding trench warfare.
So Ron, they're trying to cheer everybody up here, but he can't do it.
It's not catastrophic enough to dash Obama's hopes altogether.
It's just catastrophic.
But it's not catastrophic enough, just a little catastrophic.
Somewhat catastrophic, 10% catastrophic.
But it's not enough to derail Obama.
And here's Dana Bash, also at CNN.
It's a reminder of the history of this and that President Obama would be making history if he wins re-election in these economic times because, again, no president has won re-election with these kind of job numbers since FDR.
And remember, President Obama, once, maybe twice last night, harkened back to FDR talking about the need for patience, and that was not an accident.
But again, you go back four years ago, yes, we can.
And today, it's nobody could have.
Yes, we can.
Yes, we can.
Bill Clinton.
Nobody could have done it, except maybe me.
But that would be unfair of you to think of it that way.
Yes, we can.
It couldn't have been done.
From the convention, this report, members of the media have apparently been using fake names to buy official Obama gear and thus contribute to the Obama campaign.
Inside the Time Warner cable arena, during our travels around the arena, politickers spotted a souvenir stand in one of the press stands selling t-shirts and buttons, supporting Obama.
Democrats are hot bumper stickers, other official Obama merchandise.
The woman working at the souvenir stand told us that she hadn't been too busy during the day, but that business did pick up later in the day, then asked us whether we wanted to buy anything.
When we informed her that our status as a reporter means that we don't buy campaign gear, she suggested a strategery that other members of the media have been using to buy their Obama gear.
You ever thought about making up a fake name?
That's what the other guys have been doing.
Buying official merchandise at the Democrat National Committee means making a donation to the Obama campaign, an activity generally frowned upon for members of the media.
No, it's not.
It used to be, but it isn't now.
So they've been using fake names to contribute to the Obama campaign.
Okay, your phone calls after the break, as promised.
Yesterday, I should have listened to him.
Obama officials said, don't expect much in this speech tonight.
Forget exactly what they said.
It was, oh, it should be pragmatic.
It wasn't going to be magical.
That's what.
That's what they said.
Don't expect any magic.
It's going to be pragmatic.
I should have listened to them.
Today, they're saying, don't expect a big bounce out of the convention because the country's too divided.
There's too much partisanship.
There can't be a big bounce because everybody's made up their minds.
We shall see.
We also have done something.
It's amazing, by the way, when you hear it, how similar Obama's speech last night was to Jimmy Carter's in 1980.
It really is kind of stunning.
And we'll do an A-B side-by-side comparison of that, let you hear it.
But first, we start in Freedom, New Jersey.
Mark, great to have you.
You're up first on Open Line Friday.
Hi.
Well, mega one of the 89 million dittoes, Sir Rush.
Thank you, sir, very much.
Last night, I realized why, after listening to you this morning in the opening monologue, I realized why I love you so much.
Because evidently we felt the exact same way last night.
I sat down in the chair and I turned on Fox and I said, I'm going to watch this speech, even though I don't feel well.
I felt so poorly that I went and took three mailocks prior to the speech.
This is not a joke.
I am not overexaggerating.
I did literally do that.
And I sat there and I watched him walk out on stage to some of the oddest music, first off, that I've ever heard at a convention.
It was mellow.
It was not uplifting.
It was nothing patriotic.
I was kind of sitting there going, what am I watching?
He didn't stride out on the floor.
He kind of meandered out onto the stage.
He did not look like his normal fiery self.
And I was concerned.
I must admit, I was concerned that if he hit a home run last night, it could have really changed the momentum of the election.
He didn't do it.
As a matter of fact, I think he lost the election on one line last night, and it's a line I hadn't heard you mention.
I was sitting there feeling ill to my stomach, and he said, I am the president.
And he stared right at the camera.
He snarled at the camera.
He snarled at the American people, and he said, basically, screw you guys.
I am the president.
And I thought, I jumped up out of my chair.
Now, you know, I remember that.
I didn't quite have that reaction, but I can understand yours.
The reaction I had was, duh.
Yeah, like we didn't know that.
I jumped up out of my chair, Rush, and I said, you just lost the election.
You don't throw that in the American people's face.
We already know we made a mistake last time.
I didn't vote for him last time.
I promise you that.
But those that did, that were already feeling poorly about their choice, he reinforced it to them.
Say, nana, nana, nan, you screwed up.
And I am the president.
I can see.
I can see your point.
It might have served him well not to remind us that he was president.
Grab Soundbite 4.
I decided moments ago not to play this, but now it might fit.
As it is interesting, this is Obama from the convention last night, and he did say, I'm the president.
I don't have the context here.
I can't remember it right off the top of my head, but he did say it.
But this was also a very curious thing to say.
You see, the election four years ago wasn't about me.
It was about you.
What?
My fellow citizens, you were the change.
If you turn away now, if you turn away now, if you buy into the cynicism that the change we fought for isn't possible, well, change will not happen.
This is stunning.
In 2008, he was the one.
In 2008, he was the Messiah.
In 2008, he was, oh, he was the one we were waiting for.
All of that.
He was the empty canvas on which you could paint any picture.
You could make Barack Obama anything you wanted him to be.
Four years later, it's on you.
Four years later, this debacle is all on you.
That election wasn't about me.
This is a phony attempt at humility, number one.
But number two, he's trying to label this audience with guilt.
It's up to them, us, if you will, To see to it that he has the opportunity to stay president.
I don't know.
I've found it.
Let's do a couple Obama-Carter comparisons.
Here's last night.
Similarities are striking here.
Barack Obama compared to Jimmy Carter in 1980.
Not quite carbon copies, but they are close.
Here's Obama trying to cast himself as FDR.
The truth is, it will take more than a few years for us to solve challenges that have built up over decades.
Stop the tape.
Stop.
Stop that.
Wait a minute now, because this is another thing.
All during this convention, I kept, and Captain and I looking at each other, said, didn't he say that if he hadn't turned this around three and a half years, he's a one-termer?
Yes, he did say that, Maud.
He said it.
He said it to a number of journalists.
We've had the tape.
Everybody's been airing it, by the way.
It's been all over Fox.
We've had the sound bite.
Three and a half years, if he doesn't get it done, it's a one-term proposition.
Now, and cue that to the top, Mike.
Now, it's going to take more than a few years to solve challenges built up over decades.
This guy hates Reagan, by the way.
Here's what he's trying to convince people: that the 30 years of conservatism, Reagan, from the 80s, the 30 years gave us what we're having now.
The 30 years of Reagan with an interruption for Bill Clinton.
Eight years of Clinton.
But 30 years of Reaganomics, conservative ideology gave us this economy, all this unemployment.
And he wants people to believe that, you know, I thought I could fix it in three and a half years.
It's going to take longer than that.
It's worse than I knew.
They didn't tell us how bad it was when I took office in 2009.
They didn't tell me how bad it was.
It's worse than anybody ever knew.
Bush lied.
He didn't tell me how bad it was.
We've just discovered how bad it was.
And it's going to take much longer than anybody thought to fix this.
That's where he's coming from.
That's his perspective.
Here's the bite again in total.
The truth is, it will take more than a few years for us to solve challenges that have built up over decades.
It'll require common effort and shared responsibility and the kind of bold, persistent experimentation that Franklin Roosevelt pursued during the only crisis worse than this one.
FDR's experimentation, that's a whole other subject.
Here's Jimmy Carter saying the same thing almost.
We have a memory of Franklin Roosevelt 40 years ago when he said that there are times in our history when concern over our personal lives are overshadowed by our concern over what will happen to the country we have known.
This is such a time.
And I can tell you that the choice to be made this year can transform our own personal lives and the life of our country as well.
It's amazing.
How do we ever elect that guy?
When I hear that, how in the heck did anybody ever vote for that?
But anyway, you see the similarities and there are more.
We'll be back.
That's it.
When Obama said that he was the president, the context was he was saying he had changed from 2008.
I've changed.
2008.
I'm the president.
Which, I guess, was a way of complaining that he couldn't run against himself Because he's running a campaign as though he's not the president, not the incumbent.
Now, Snerdley just shared with me a theory that, frankly, I think is a bit of a stretch.
Snerdley thinks that all this talk, for example, last soundbite that we played where Obama said the election four years ago wasn't about me, it was about you.
Snerdley thinks that that was an attempt to get back some of the fallout from you didn't bill it.
You, you didn't.
You had nothing to do with that.
You didn't make that happen.
Snerdley thinks you were the change.
You elected me.
You were the change.
Snerdley thinks that that's Obama trying to make amends.
I don't think that's it at all.
With all due respect to Snerdley, I think Obama is saying the onus for getting me back in the White House is on you.
I think Obama said it's your responsibility.
I did the stimulus for you.
I did Obamacare for you.
I stuck my neck out for you.
I did everything for you.
And now it's up to you.
I think the onus is on you to get him back in the Oval Office and keep his little on Air Force One.
What do you mean?
That is, it's totally megalomaniacal.
That's what he is.
Let's do another Jimmy Carter comparison, shall we?
And I, as you listen to these tapes of Carter, it's 1980.
What is that?
30 years.
Yes, 30 years ago.
I can't.
I always thought Carter was a hick.
I never understood it, but it really is.
Somebody talk to me.
Did we make it?
Okay.
Yeah, do it again.
Okay, folks, I'm sorry.
I've said something twice here about Jimmy Carter that the staff thinks that it'd be better if you didn't hear it.
So we bleeped myself.
Yeah, just called him a hayseed.
This is essentially all it was, but anyway, we do another side-by-side comparison.
Here's Obama, and the theme of the speech: referendum on their record is not an option.
It's a choice between two futures.
Obama's record's not on the ballot.
No, no, no, no.
What we have is a choice between two futures.
The choice you face won't just be between two candidates or two parties.
It will be a choice between two different paths for America.
A choice between two fundamentally different visions for the future.
And one of those visions we've already been living for the past three and a half years, but you're not supposed to think of that.
What's going to be different?
If Obama has another four years, it's going to be more misery, more debacle, more disaster, more crumbling.
Here's Jimmy Carter, August 15th, 1980, at the Democrat convention that year.
This election is a stark choice between two men, two parties, two sharply different pictures of what America is and what the world is.
But it's more than that.
It's a choice between two futures.
This is uncanny.
This is, I mean, I knew it was liberal boilerplate.
What did I tell you in the first hour?
I knew it was liberal boilerplate.
I knew it was liberal playbook, 50-year-old stuff.
This is uncanny.
Of all the people you want to go out and copy, it's like Paul Ryan said.
If we fired Jimmy Carter, why would we rehire Barack Obama?
Play these two again.
Seven and eight are the soundbites.
Go with Obama first.
The choice you face won't just be between two candidates or two parties.
It will be a choice between two different paths for America.
A choice between two fundamentally different visions for the future.
And Jimmy Carter.
This election is a stark choice between two men, two parties, two sharply different pictures of what America is and what the world is.
But it's more than that.
It's a choice between two futures.
It's a choice between two futures.
He didn't, no, not sutures.
He said two futures.
Unreal.
Sometimes I even pause to admire myself.
I said in the first hour, and I didn't know Cookie had put these soundbites together.
I had not heard these before the program started.
I told Catherine last night this is liberal boilerplate.
There's nothing innovative in this speech.
There's nothing new here.
This is old, old, old.
It's standard liberal playbook stuff.
Let's do it again.
Same 30-year-old playbook.
Here's Obama claiming he put us on a path to energy independence from the evil oil companies with all of his alternative energy.
You can choose the path where we control more of our own energy.
Today, the United States of America is less dependent on foreign oil than at any time in the last two decades.
Wait a minute.
Stop.
Hold it.
I just can't let this stuff go by.
Now, we'll play the whole bite and we'll play Jimmy Carpenter.
can't let this go by.
Today, the U.S. is less dependent on foreign.
This guy has shut down drilling and production in the Gulf of Mexico.
He has not authorized the Keystone Pipeline.
Now, we've got an oil boom going in North Dakota, but we're having to make up the oil from somewhere because he's standing in the way of domestic production.
He's not permitting it.
So this is an out-and-out lie.
Okay, keep going.
You can choose the path where we control more of our own energy.
Today, the United States of America is less dependent on foreign oil than at any time in the last two decades.
So now you have a choice between a strategy that reverses this progress or one that builds on it.
What we've opened millions of new acres for oil and gas exploration in the last three years and more.
But unlike my opponent, I will not let oil come in.
Stop, stop, stop, stop.
All the dance didn't give me time to breathe.
Hutch just called, said, stop singing.
The thrill is gone.
If you're going to do it, just play B.B. King.
Don't sing it.
This is a weird.
Every commercial break, I go to the email, and there's 30 people telling me what I should have said or how I could have said what I did say better.
And then a Hutch piling on, don't try to be B.B. King.
We have a choice, a strategy that reverses this progress.
What progress?
Folks, seriously, There's no progress anywhere.
Not as a nation.
We're not experiencing progress.
These people don't like progress.
What do you think environmental wackoism is?
It's opposition to progress.
It is an opposition to modernizing things.
It's an opportunity to improving standards of living.
Environmental wackoism is opposed to progress.
Gasoline was $1.75 when this guy took office.
It's close to $4 a gallon now.
I guess to a live, that is progress.
That means we're losing, using less of it.
But that's how convoluted they are.
They won't be happy till we're paying $5 a gallon, like they do in Europe.
We've opened millions of new acres for oil and gas exploration.
They may have made leases available, but they're not approving them.
And then he said, I will not let oil companies write this country's energy plan or endanger our coastlines or collect an this is liberal boilerplate.
I mean, I've grown up hearing about how the big oil companies are obscenely profiting and they're destroying the coastline and they're wrecking the environment and corporate welfare and the tax breaks they don't deserve.
And if they write the energy plan, that was the big thing Cheney brought the oil companies in, remember, and let them write the energy plan.
Folks, I'm here to tell you I would love Rex Tillerson of Exxon being in charge of our energy program much more than Barack Obama or any of his little statist, socialist Trotskyites running in here and trying to so-called improve our energy situation because there's not a damned one of them that has the slightest idea what they're doing.
A bunch of professorial theoreticians from the faculty lounge at Harvard thinking they've got all the answers.
Barack Obama and his pals could not produce a drop of gasoline if this country depended on it.
There's not a one of them that would know what to do.
Every one of Barack Obama's energy buddies goes bankrupt.
Hello, Solyndro.
By the way, one-year anniversary of them going bankrupt, I think, was yesterday.
Okay, so I don't need to play this again.
You've got it.
It's fresh in your mind.
Choose the path where we control more of our energy.
We're producing all this wonderful oil, but the oil companies suck.
Here's Jimmy Carter, August 15th, 1980 Democrat Convention.
The battle to secure American energy future has been fully and finally joined.
Americans have cooperated with dramatic results.
We've reversed decades of dangerous and growing dependence on foreign oil.
We are now importing 20% less oil.
That is 1.5 million barrels of oil every day less than the day I took office.
This is what they propose: to destroy the windfall profits tax and to unleash the oil companies and let them solve the energy problem for us.
It's the same thing.
It's unreal.
It's the same thing 30 years apart.
It's the same speech.
I am twice, three times a stymied now as to why Obama did this last night.
Not only did he phone it in, not only was his heart not in it, not only was it a bad speech and no nourishment, no beef, it was a carbon copy of Jimmy Carter.
You notice how all these Democrats talk out of both sides of their mouths?
They all say that we have reduced our dependence on foreign oil when it's time to run for office for election.
But every other time, we're importing more.
We're getting worse.
And the oil companies are soaking us and they're ripping us off.
But at election time, they all tell us that we're depending less because of what they've done.
We ought not be importing any oil anymore if all these Democrats were as successful as they tell us they have been.
Okay, ladies and gentlemen, welcome back.
El Rushbo, have my brain tied behind my back just to make it fair, yada, yada, yada.
I naturally was right.
Snurdley, of course, was wrong.
We have dug up an email from Obama to his supporters, a fundraising email.
And the email says, the fact is that solving this problem is up to you.
We are losing this air war right now.
This was an ad or a pitch for campaign contributions because Romney was outraising them.
And so they sent an appeal out to all the people on their mailing list.
The fact is, solving this problem is up to you.
We are losing this air war right now.
So this is, if I lose, it's your fault.
Obama said, the hope, hell, it ain't on me anymore.
If you have hope, it better be in you.
I've been at this three and a half years, and I don't know what I'm doing, and it hadn't worked, and so it's up to you now.
It's up to you to save my job because I am worth it.
That was the speech last night.
Okay, one more comparison.
Obama to Carter, the weight of a failed presidency has taught both of them what to do if only you give them another chance.
That's they've failed, but they know now what to do if you just give them another chance.
Obama first.
Times have changed, and so have I. I'm no longer just a candidate.
I'm the president.
I know what it means to send young Americans into battle.
For I've held in my arms the mothers and fathers of those who didn't return.
I've shared the pain of families who've lost their homes and the frustration of workers who've lost their jobs.
While I'm very proud of what we've achieved together, I'm far more mindful of my own failings, knowing exactly what Lincoln meant when he said, I have been driven to my knees many times by the overwhelming conviction that I had no place else to go.
Here's Jimmy Carter.
Let me talk for a moment about what that job is like and what I've learned from it.
I've learned that only the most complex and difficult tasks come before me in the Oval Office.
No easy answers are found there because no easy questions come down.
I've learned that for a president, experience is the best guide for the right decision.
I'm wiser tonight than I was four years ago.
And I have learned that the presidency is a place of compassion.
My own heart is burdened for the troubled Americans, the poor and the jobless and the afflicted.
They've become part of me.
Just sitting here in stunned disbelief, Barack Obama, He could have channeled FDR.
He could have gone back and tried to copy something JFK had said or RFK.
If he's going to go back to the past and seek inspiration, if he's going to go back in time, he's going to go back to the liberal playbook, if he's going to go back to the Democrat Party failed ideas of the past.
If he's going to go back to the boilerplate, why pick Jimmy Carter if you want to win?
Why pick Jimmy Carter?
Little did I know, and I'm always aware when I'm right, I never doubt it, but little did I know how right I was when I warned the people of America that an Obama presidency would end up being nothing more than the second term Jimmy Carter never had.
It is the fastest three hours in media.
And I honestly cannot believe it.
Two of them are already completed.
Over in the can and on the way over to Limbaugh Broadcast Museum.
Mitt Romney said that the August Jobs report last night's all that, but this morning is the hangover.
Do you realize Mitt Romney as a Mormon has never had a hangover?
Just a little observation.
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