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Nov. 14, 2012 - Rush Limbaugh Program
35:35
November 14, 2012, Wednesday, Hour #2
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Time Text
Okay, folks, look, I just checked the email here at the top of the air.
I'm not trying to be pessimistic.
I'm trying to be realistic.
I'm not trying to be negative about anything.
I just facing reality is what I do.
I am the mayor of Realville.
And I'm just telling you that the media is in the same mode that they've been in for the last four years.
Utter protection of Obama, utter promotion of Obama.
So McCain and the boys have a press conference announcing they want a select committee to look at a Benghazi.
And the press is hostile.
That should not be a surprise.
That's standard operating procedure.
The press is hostile to us.
The press is hostile to Republicans.
The press is hostile to anybody who does not fall in line with the Obama stated position on anything.
Four Americans dead in Benghazi doesn't matter because it doesn't matter to Obama.
And particularly if it could hurt Obama, it is not going to happen.
So if you're not the press because you want to, they ought to be as contentious with Obama as they are.
Yeah, they should, but they're not going to be.
They are his guaranteers.
They're his protectors.
This press conference coming up at the bottom of the hour, you know what it's going to be?
It's going to be a continuation of the war on women.
It's going to be a continuation of the campaign.
He's going to continue to bash Republicans.
He's going to make a couple of phony allusions to bipartisanship and so forth, but he's ramming it down everybody's throat now.
$1.6 trillion of tax increases, health care cutbacks, $340 billion.
And this is not to raise revenue and it's not to reduce the deficit.
It's to punish people.
It's to punish people for voting against him.
It's to punish people for not supporting him.
It's to punish people for being successful because that means somebody hasn't been.
Success in his world is not legitimate.
It results from cheating, chicanery, an unfair playing field, or what have you.
He's got free reign now.
Like he told Medvedev, hey, just tell Vlad, get re-elected.
I have a lot more flexibility.
He's got it now.
Anyway, great to have you back.
800-282-2882 if you want to be able to program the email address, lrushbow at EIBnet.com.
Last Saturday, there was a party out in Sacramento, California.
I was not able to go.
It was not that I wasn't allowed.
I, of course, was invited.
Had I gone, I would have been the star of the show, second star of the show, but I couldn't make it for a host of reasons.
But it was the 80th birthday party of a man who's been very important to me, particularly in my professional career, Stan Atkinson, who, when I arrived in Sacramento in 1984, was the 5 and 11 p.m. anchor for KCR TV3 Eyeball News.
It was the NBC affiliate, and I'm not kidding, they had 50 shares.
The other two stations could have signed off when Atkinson was on, and it wouldn't have made any difference.
I mean, it was just never seen anything like it.
And I remember when I got to town, the man who took me to Sacramento from Kansas City was a man named Norman Woodruff.
He lived in San Francisco, but he was a broadcast consultant.
And he was, well, let's put it, he was not conservative, but he didn't care.
His job was to consult for winning radio stations.
And he recognized in Kansas City that if somebody turned me loose, I might amount to something.
And so I never forget.
He called me.
I'd been fired in Kansas City.
He called me this 1984.
I've been on the beach for two weeks, and I've got nothing.
I'm thinking of getting out of radio because I had just gotten back into radio, having been with the baseball team for five years.
So I've been back in radio.
I got back in.
I lasted a year, got canned again.
So I'm thinking, gee, what am I going to do now?
I mean, I get this phone call from Woodruff.
How would you like to move to California and become a star?
Oh, whoa.
Where in California?
I am not going to tell you where until you tell me yes.
I said, well, that kind of tells me it's someplace not on the main path.
If it was LA or San Francisco, he would have said, how would you like to move to Los Angeles or San Francisco and become a star?
But he said, California.
I had no choice.
I had no option.
So I said, okay, Norman.
I like Norman.
I said, okay, I'll do it.
Where is it?
Sacramento.
And my heart literally sank.
Now, you got to understand there's nothing against Sacramento.
In our business, the ladder of success takes you to larger markets with each job.
And the larger market you're in, theoretically, the better chance.
None of this applies anymore.
But back in the 80s and all the decades prior to that, this is how you advance in this.
But now those rules no longer apply.
I mean, you don't even have to have an experience to be hired in the number one market now.
But Sacramento was a bit of a letdown because it was just a small market compared to Kansas City.
It was a larger market.
Didn't have a baseball team.
The basketball, Kansas City basketball team was going to move there.
But I had no choice.
I went out and I went through the interview process and drove up to Lake Tahoe and they showed me a great time.
And it turned out a lovely, lovely place.
And as you know, I mean, I lived there for three and a half, four years, and it was probably the first time in my entire professional life that I had experienced any success at all.
Everywhere I had been, I had failed.
But the failures all mattered.
They all led to something better.
And I never lost my confidence or the reality of the vision that I had that I was going to succeed, even though, like everybody, I was told by the experts I didn't have what it took, that I should go into sales or some such thing.
So, anyway, I get out there and start surveying the market to try to learn about it.
And that's when I learned that there isn't, it's two weeks before the 1984 presidential election, and I'm listening to all the radio stations, and there's not one political show on the air.
There's news, but there isn't an opinion political show.
They're doing carrot cake recipes for the holidays and this kind of stuff.
Sewage problems and how are we going to pay for it.
That kind of stuff was on the radio.
So, well, there's a gold mine of opportunity here.
And Woodruff, I was replacing Morton Downey Jr., who had been fired for telling an ethnic joke for which he refused to apologize, an ethnic joke about a member of the town council, city council.
And they said to me, We will back you no matter what, whatever you, as long as you believe it.
And if you're going to go into radio and just say outrageous things that you don't believe just to rile people up, you will not last.
That's not only here, but not in this business.
You really believe it.
You can make a case for it.
Go for it.
So it's what happened.
The Norman took me under his wing upon my arrival.
And every night he took me to the restaurant that Stan Atkinson dined in every, because he wanted me to see how a star comported himself.
He wanted me to see how a star was reacted to by people.
Norman's word for star was what he meant by that successful media person.
And Atkinson ate at a different place every night.
It was almost the giant question of the day is where would Stan Atkinson be seen for dinner tonight after the 5 o'clock news, before the 11 o'clock news.
And Norman had worked out Atkinson's routine.
He knew before Atkinson knew where he was going to go.
So, for example, we would go to the Alhambra Fuel and Transportation, no longer there.
And we would sit off the main entrance so we could watch what happened without really being seen or noticed.
And Atkinson would walk in and Woodruff would say, Now, I want you to pay careful attention to what this man does, how he comports himself.
Watch what happens.
So I'm saying, I'm going along with this because I'm halfway laughing at it under my breath.
But I watched, and Atkinson walked in and stopped at every table, knew everybody.
Everybody knew him.
He had a personal comment for everybody.
The word aloof did not apply.
There was no, I'm here, look at me.
There was no demanding the best table.
There was no whatever.
But it was clearly a show.
Stan was putting on a show by virtue of his arrival.
I mean, he literally owned the town.
And I guess I was there for six months or a year before I actually met him.
And I met him at the Alhambra Feed and Fuel Health Club.
I'd been roped into doing commercials, some health club, which meant I had to go in there and pretend to work out.
That's right.
I forget the name of this health club, but it was right near the Alhambra Feed and Fuel Restaurant.
So I had to go in there and avail myself of the amenities of the health club.
And I'm in the men's locker room and I'm getting dressed, getting ready to leave.
And Atkinson comes out of the shower, stark, raving nude.
And I looked at him above the waist only.
And I said, you're Stan Atkinson.
And he knew who I was.
He knew who I was.
And he let me know that I was not nude.
What are you crazy?
I was not nude.
But he knew who I was.
And he then started complimenting me.
Now, you have to understand, folks, this was huge to me.
I mean, this, in terms of broadcasting the career, the characteristics of success and all that, that was huge for him to know who I was and to be a fan and so forth.
And we struck up a great, great friendship at that point.
And being under his wing was, I think, a very important, relevant aspect of my overall Success in Sacramento, which was so meaningful to me because it was the first time.
This 1984, and I had started in this business in 1966.
So this is, it's almost 18 years of doing this before I knew what success felt like.
And it was out there.
And it was, I met so many friends out there, and I had actually planted roots in the community for the first time anywhere outside of where I grew up.
I mean, I even testified before the city council on whether or not it made sense for the Kansas City Kings to relocate there because I had worked for the Kansas City Royals.
So the town council of Sacramento thought I knew something about professional sport, which I did, which I did.
It was just a great experience.
Anyway, Stan's 80th birthday was recently.
They had a big bash for him on Saturday.
And by the way, he didn't look at day over 60, if even that.
And so I just wanted to wish him happy birthday here and say thanks again for everything he did for me and express my regrets that I couldn't be there.
Because, you know, folks, all this stuff happening around us that occupies our minds, when you strip all that away, when you think about the things in your life, you think back, the nostalgic things that make you happy or have fond memories, it's always about the relationships you have with people you love.
It's not the things you acquire or the places that you've been necessarily, but it's really about people that you've known.
You've had great relationships with that have meant something to you.
Stan's one of those people for me.
So it's a little drawn out way, but I just want to say happy birthday.
Happy 80th.
I'm sorry I couldn't be there.
We'll take a brief time.
I'll come back to Bashing Obama after this.
Sarah Palin has a fascinating post on her Facebook page.
Who's running the country?
Victor Davis Hansen had a post at National Review Online that echoes much of what I said yesterday and have been saying for a while about our pop culture overtaking every institution and tradition in this country.
I'll get to those in due course, but people have been waiting here for an hour and a half.
I want to grab some calls.
We'll start Kansas City.
And it's Karen.
Great to have you on the EIB network.
Hello.
Hi, Rush.
This is such an honor.
I can't tell you.
I'm really nervous because I've always wanted to talk to you.
So thank you so much.
You bet.
I'm glad you're here.
First, I want to tell you that I did order some more Diet Blueberry and Raspberry Tea yesterday.
I just love it.
Thank you.
Thank you very much.
We keep getting feedback from people who are tasting it for the first time, who say how good it is.
And it is.
That's the best thing about the tea is it is really good.
I'm glad you like it.
I do.
I do.
And my second point is that I agree with you 100%.
I don't think we're watching this Betraya situation unfold.
I think it already unfolded and is done, and you're exactly right.
And it's happening the way you describe.
And to me, it's so obvious.
Obviously, the administration knew, and Mark Levin, who, for those who don't know, worked in the Reagan administration for an attorney general, he said absolutely the president would know.
He would know right away if there were this kind of security breach.
Well, yeah, last night on Greta, Alberto Gonzalez, a former attorney general for Bush 43, said if something like this had happened in their administration, if the CIA director was having an affair and even exact details, he would have told Bush instantly.
You can't leave the president hanging and unknowing and ignorant.
And this bunch didn't either.
There's no way Obama didn't know about that.
What they did was put this in their pocket for later use when they needed it.
And we don't know what those reasons are, but we know who they are, these people.
We know the kind of people they are.
There's no question they needed it now for some reason.
Well, and now that the FBI has conveniently found classified documents in Paula Broadwell's house, so this kind of information is coming out, and there's no way to me that Petraeus would testify if they didn't already know the outcome.
So my prediction, just personally watching this, the details come out, is that in exchange, there will be no charges, perhaps no dishonorable discharge.
They may even keep him from being the fall guy.
They could put a lid on all the dirty laundry that could come out.
And it wouldn't surprise me if after all this is cleared, it will become, as you said, a private matter.
Nothing to see here, no security breach.
All of that's entirely possible.
I want to walk you through what she's speculating on.
Here we've got McCain, Lindsay Gramnesty, Kelly Ayat asking for a select committee to look into Benghazi.
You and I all know that it was not a video.
It has been admitted to by enough people at upper levels of our government.
We know that this was an al-Qaeda attack.
We know that the White House Situation Room knew at the moment it was happening what it was.
Bottom line is, we know that everybody in this administration who for two weeks or for two days or even to the present is blaming Benghazi on spontaneous eruption of protests and a video, we know that that's not true.
You know that.
Here you've got these people asking for a select committee to look into it.
We have General Petraeus, CIA director.
On September 13th or 14th, whenever he testified that it was a video, that it was spontaneous.
Now Petraeus has had to resign.
Details of the affair.
And she's right.
They found classified documents at Broadbeam's house.
I don't know what.
I can't believe the FBI's...
Actually, I can believe the FBI is releasing that.
The FBI is releasing all kinds of stuff now that they used to never talk about, but they're making it all public.
So in all of this, Petraeus goes and testifies either tomorrow or Friday or whenever it is.
He's not going to commit perjury.
He's not going to disagree with himself.
He's not going to say that what he said back then.
I don't even think he'll say, I was misinformed.
I've done my own investigation now.
And what'll happen, he'll come out, he'll confirm what he said.
That will leak.
It will leak, even though it's behind closed doors.
It will leak purposefully.
And what will the news be?
The director of the CIA, in closed-door testimony, once again confirmed that the root cause of the violence in Benghazi was a spontaneous protest that led or was the result of an offensive video.
And we're going to be pulling our hair out.
Everyone knows it isn't true.
But they'll have the testimony of the former CIA director, even though he's maybe discredited in some people's eyes.
It's just hard to conceive.
It's hard to conceive that they would let Petraeus come testify if he is going to say things that contradict Obama and Susan Rice and whoever else.
We'll wait and see how this turns out.
But I think you ought to brace yourself for the fact that it's another dispute that the Democrats will win.
Yeah, I just, I can't help laughing at what I'm looking at.
We got this presidential press conference, which we are not going to jip.
I don't know how many of our local affiliates will preempt us to carry it because it's Obama's first White House presser in eight months.
But I've got it up here.
And every network has their White House correspondent all lined up in front of the presidential podium, and they're all doing their live shots, talking to their network anchors, all telling their audiences what's coming up in the presidential press.
There's F. Chuck Todd.
There was Jessica Yellen.
There was Jonathan Carl.
I mean, they're right.
They're two feet apart from each other.
It just, it looks like such overkill.
You could do what they were doing with one camera and one reporter.
Anyway, back to the phones we go.
Mary in Napa, California, great to have you on the EIB network.
Hi.
Hi.
Don't sound so excited.
It was good talking to you.
I was just calling.
It's been on my mind for a couple of weeks now.
Why hasn't anybody mentioned anything about the 30 people who survived the attack in Menghazi?
We have two outrageous heroes that laid their lives down for these people.
Now, I know they're government employees, so they're probably asked to stand down on speaking up.
But I know there's somebody, Rush, that's out there in your audience that knows one of these 30 people that can have them take a stand and speak out on the benefits that they reap because of two men died on their behalf.
So you, if I understand this right, you think that some of the survivors should be coming forward and explaining what really happened there.
Yes, I do.
I think it's their right.
I mean, you look at what our founding fathers put on the line.
They put everything on the line.
These people are worried about their jobs.
No, they have a job because these men saved their lives.
Yeah, that's all true.
It's all true.
It's also true that they are still alive.
Right.
They got out of there alive.
And they'd like to stay that way.
And they would probably like to keep their jobs.
It's a tough economy.
Well, you know what?
I'm sure our founding fathers did too.
Can I ask you a question?
Can I, seriously now?
No, no, no.
Mary, I want you to listen to me.
I want to take you back to the eight years of Bill Clinton.
Can you recall, in all of that mess, can you recall one member of that administration ever, even today, coming forward and telling the truth about anything that happened there?
No, I think they died around him.
Well, no, no, no, I'm talking about people still alive.
What I'm...
What I'm telling you is, as a matter of ideological commitment and loyalty, they do not turn on each other.
They circle the wagons on each other.
The survivors at Benghazi have only one interest, and that is protecting Obama.
That's who they work for.
Or protecting Hillary.
Yeah, I don't look at this as turning on their party.
I look at this as standing up for two men that put their life on the line.
You can't, I think you can separate the two.
And I think that we need to get the character back in our country where people take a stand and they take a chance that they're going to lose all things.
That's what these two men did.
Well, then, let me add, why haven't they then?
If you think it's quite normal, if you think it's natural to think that some of these people would come forward thanking the people that saved them and then telling the truth, why haven't they?
I don't think it's normal, but one thing that we blot in this country, Rush, is accountability and ownership.
And I think that they need to own up to what they have now because of these two men.
And I think they need to be accountable to what happened.
Look, I'm really not trying to be a downer here.
What I really think is that they know, whoever you're talking about, they know that we exist.
And to them, that means we would like to hold Obama accountable for an absolute disastrous foreign policy.
As long as there are people like us, the people in the regime are not going to help us.
They're not, if that means circling the wagons around Obama, circling the wagons around what happened at Benghazi, towing the company line, that's what they're going to do.
I cannot, I cannot overemphasize to you the partisan divide, the literal partisan divide's not even the word, but it'll suffice that exists here.
You're looking at people with honor and integrity doing the right thing.
They think they are.
Doing the right thing is protecting Obama from us, protecting Obama from the Republicans.
That is doing the right thing.
That's loyalty.
The mission, the loyalty, the reason for existence is to protect Obama.
It's not anything about the country.
Now, this may be a bit of an exaggeration, and I don't mean it as a blanket application to everything, but so far, eight years of Bill Clinton, this has been the modus operandi.
Four years of Barack Obama, this has been the modus operandi.
And we see it happen each and every day.
Mary, I'm glad you called.
This is Lynn in Cheyenne, Wyoming.
It's great to have you on the EIB network.
Hi, Mr. Limbaugh.
Just want to say it is a pleasure to finally get on to speak to you.
Glad you got through.
Thank you.
I have been listening to you for over 20 years.
A friend of mine in Alaska brought me on and told me a little bit about you.
And I just wanted to let you know that as of November 6th, 2012, I am the first black conservative Republican elected into our House of Representatives.
And I have to say, a lot of it is due to being a student of your advanced conservative studies.
I am.
I'm so gratified.
So you are the first black conservative elected to the State House of Wyoming?
Conservative Republican, yes, sir.
And I'm really proud of it.
Despite the lackluster, bittersweet win on the 6th, I've been wanting to just let you know that listening to you and researching what you're saying and reading on my own and prayer made me want to get up off the couch and give it a whirl.
We tried for, this is my second chance trying, and we won with 72% of the vote.
72% of the vote?
Yes, sir.
Way to go.
Thank you very much.
And that's for standing up with my conservative values and letting people know from the get-go that I am conservative and not trying to hide it or keep it in the background.
It was awesome.
I'd say, God bless you.
You realize what you're in for?
I'm the one that put a plug-in for your tea.
I had a party a while back.
It was a Bill of Rights party, and one of my friends brought over your raspberry tea.
And I thought, oh, my goodness, he spent a lot of money.
He brought this tea over.
And as soon as he left the party, and just so you know, some of the guests took some of the tea with them.
When they left, we looked up online to price your tea.
And I tell you, your tea is cheaper than Snapple, and I think the raspberry is the best.
Well, I love the raspberry too, but I tell you the blueberry is close second.
When you open the bottle of the blueberry, you get the aroma.
You think you're smelling the batter for blueberry muffins.
I mean, with, of course, the hint of tea.
But it is cheaper to snapple, but you had a factor in shipping costs.
There's no.
But that's not.
You had a Bill of Rights party?
Yes, sir.
What do you do at a Bill of Rights party?
Who did you invite and who showed up?
Well, I invited my conservative friends, and they all came.
A legislator's husband came, and just conservative friends, and we just talk about issues that are important to us.
And when I had my Constitution party, I had the Constitution playing the audio playing in the background, and we just talk about politics and religion, and it's just an awesome time.
My goodness.
My goodness.
That just see, folks, in pockets out there, this stuff is happening.
And, you know, she's happy to talk about it.
It's not like she's doing this behind closed doors, hoping nobody noticed.
Anyway, that's fabulous.
Lynn, congratulations.
We're honored here to hear from you.
Thank you.
Thank you so much.
By the way, you haven't been sworn in yet, right?
No, sir.
That will be in January.
Okay, so you don't have any limits on what you can accept gift-wise yet, right?
No, sir.
Right.
Okay.
Well, I've got so much stuff back there in my prize closet.
What do you need?
You need an iPhone 5?
You need an iPad?
I don't have any of those things.
I think it's awesome.
You don't have any of those things?
No.
Okay, which do you want?
A little slider phone.
My husband and I always go for the cheapest phone.
So, well, I wouldn't know what to do.
You want to try an iPhone 5?
Sir, I guess.
I don't know.
It'd be awesome.
Are you happy with the phone that you've got?
No, sir.
It's pretty bad.
Do you live where you can get ATT cellular service?
Sir, Verizon is what we can get out of it.
Oh, I don't have any Verizon phones.
Okay, so it can't be that.
So I'll tell you what.
How about a Retina MacBook Pro 15-inch laptop?
That's the ticket.
That's the thing for you.
Hang on, Lynn.
We'll get the address to ship the thing out to you tomorrow.
You'll have it then.
Really great.
Thank you so much for the tea plug, but for running, for running and for winning and being so optimistic about it.
We'll be right back, folks.
Do not go away.
It's just a campaign speech.
I just listened to a little bit of a press conference, and it's nothing more than a campaign speech.
It's nothing more than the perpetual campaign.
Basically, what the president just said is that I'm going to raise taxes on the top 2%, and that's going to fix pretty much everything.
I'm going to raise taxes, and I'm going to take away some loophole deductions, and that takes the edge away from the cliff.
That pretty much sets us up.
And he said, you shouldn't be surprised.
Governor Romney said all he wanted to do is cut taxes for people.
And I said, I want a balanced approach, which included raises taxes on the rich, and that's what we're going to do.
He said, more people agree with me on this than even voted for me.
So that's what we're going to do here.
You know, he didn't say these words, but he has before he said, I want them.
They said the two options of the tax code.
Either go over the fiscal cliff or extend only the Bush tax rates for people below $250,000.
And the problem with, well, it's not a problem.
There's no problem for these guys, but they keep saying the Bush tax rates apply to the rich only.
And we're going to find out the Bush tax rates apply to everybody.
And Obama wants to leave them in place for everybody but the top 2%.
And doing that, doing that, and maybe a little discussion on the discretionary spending side, not much, but just doing that will take us off the fiscal cliff.
That will start the ball rolling to deficit reduction.
And that's it.
He said, we just can't afford to extend these Bush tax rates for the rich.
If we take those back, then we're on the way.
Exactly what I said in the campaign.
So it's just a campaign speech.
I'm sure he's blamed Bush for something by now or will before it's all over.
And there'll be war on women stuff.
He might even relate to saving Big Bird.
Hell, who knows?
Here's John in Crofton, Maryland.
I'm glad you waited, sir.
Hi.
Hello.
Yeah.
Hi, John.
How are you?
Yeah, you know, I'm probably your most frequent caller.
I've been listening to you for over 20 years.
And I am pissed at you.
I sent you an email yesterday, and I kind of got the impression that you were giving Petraeus a way out for him not to tell the truth.
I think it's so critical now, especially with all these other things that Obama's going to stick to us as far as the fiscal cliff and everything else, loss of freedom.
You know, this guy's still a national hero.
I mean, he's been in the uniform for, what, almost 40 years, to almost twice the amount of time you've been on the air, and you're not even waiting another day or two.
You don't even know what day he's going to testify.
He's probably going to be Friday.
And you're making it easy for him to go up there and just give the same story he gave before.
We know it's not true.
It's not perjury because intervening, he went to Benghazi and he investigated the thing himself.
Now, everybody knows what the story is.
And if a national hero doesn't go to bat for the rest of the country, we're lost.
And you're telling everybody, yo, the president's invincible.
Nobody's going to win.
Look at Clinton.
My God, he screwed so many people, and nobody ever came forward on him.
So you can't beat these people.
My God, how defeated can you be?
You're not American when you act that way.
I'm just telling reading the tea leaves.
I'm using my intelligence.
I want to know what the tea leaves say.
I'm using my intelligence guided by.
You just said it.
Nobody ever dropped a dime on Clinton.
You said it.
I was repeating what you said.
Who cares about Clinton?
Did anybody ever drop the dime on Clinton?
I don't care.
It matters.
That's why you should care.
It's instructive.
Folks, I want to help you out here.
There's an Obama press conference going on, and it's been going on about 25 minutes.
I want to tell you basically what he said.
There will be tax increases for the rich, and I can't really discuss that.
It's an ongoing investigation.
And we're going to raise taxes on the rich, and I'm not going to use dynamic scoring.
I'm not going to go for that.
We're going to raise taxes on the rich.
I'm not going to have some poor family in the nursing home have the deficit come down on their shoulders.
And there's an ongoing investigation.
And that's it.
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