All Episodes
Previous Next
Jan. 21, 2013 - Rush Limbaugh Program
36:40
January 21, 2013, Monday, Hour #1
| Copy link to current segment

Time Text
Welcome to today's edition of the Rush 24-7 podcast.
Yes, America's Anchorman is away, and this is your undocumented anchorman sitting in, Mark Stein, living in the shadows and loving it.
Breaking news, breaking news.
At this hour, the re-emaculation of Barack Obama is underway in Washington, D.C. Just moments ago, the President took the oath of office and solemnly swore to preserve, protect, and defend the executive orders he signed in the car on the way over.
He has now begun his inaugural address to his grateful subjects.
Minutes ago, just minutes ago, the president declared, quote, Today we continue a never-ending journey.
And that's just this speech.
Mike, can we hear some of the president's speech?
He's still speaking.
We cannot walk alone.
Oh, that's okay.
That's enough.
That's enough.
We cannot walk alone.
You heard it first here, folks.
The president said, we cannot walk alone.
We will bring you all the highlights of his speech as soon as we find one.
Let's see.
Let's have a bit more, Mike.
See if he's got another highlight coming up.
Our generation's task.
Oh, yes, it's now our generation's task.
Let's see if we can hit a cliche every time.
We'll never walk alone, and it's now our generation's task.
Wow.
Okay, as I promised, we'll bring you all the highlights just as soon as we can find.
We're combing the speech to find a highlight, and as soon as we find one, we will bring you it.
The Excellence in Broadcasting Network has spared no expense to bring you a ringside seat for all the coronation action.
So I'm coming to you live from Ice Station EIB in northern New Hampshire, just south of the Canadian border, where you get a terrific view of everything that's happening in Washington.
If you're fleeing the country, do drop in.
We're always glad to see you.
You can't miss us.
There's a big sign on the interstate, Last Rush Guest Host Before the Border.
From New Hampshire, it goes to Mike and HR at EIB in New York, and then over to California and up to the satellites and out to the world.
Although I get the vague feeling that some stations might have cut away to carry the first four hours of the inaugural address live, but they'll be back with us and begging for mercy after much more of this stuff.
If you can't find us at your normal spot on the dial, we are, I believe, on tape delay at WZZZ AM in Deadmoose Junction at 2 in the morning, so you can catch the show there.
But at any rate, you join us in mid-jubilation.
And I know some of you may have a distressingly partisan view of the festivities in Washington, and you may not be on board with all the jubilation.
So look at it this way.
Today marks the midpoint of the Obama presidency.
In other words, this is Hump Day.
It's all downhill from here.
The midpoint of the Obama presidency, at least until they repeal the 22nd Amendment, in which case we may be only a third of the way through the Obama presidency or a quarter or maybe a fifth.
But at the moment, this is officially Hump Day.
And I love all the pomp and pageantry of this occasion.
We're just moments away from Beyoncé singing the national anthem.
And I've got a bet about whether she's going to be doing it straight, you know, oh, say, can you see?
Or whether she'll be giving it the full Super Bowl halftime melismatic overload.
Oh, say can you see?
So I've got a bet on that for the maximum number of vowel sounds that Beyoncé can put in a one-syllable word from the national anthem.
So we're minutes away from finding out whether I've won that battle.
Chuck Schumer is the master of ceremonies.
He sounds like he's auditioning for Dancy with the Stars, actually, the way he's been doing.
Ladies and gentlemen, give it up for the Chief Justice of the United States.
And it may work.
I'd be glad.
I'd be glad if Chuck Tuber got the job at Dancer with the Stars.
But he did manage to slip in a couple of tax increases during his introduction of the Associate Justice Sonia Sotomayor.
So there is that.
The president looks very stylish this morning.
He's wearing coronation robes entirely made from food stamp debit cards stitched together by longtime American ally Hosni Mubarak in his prison cell and beautifully trimmed with Joe Biden's hair plugs.
And he's carrying his royal scepter with which he personally stabbed out Osama bin Laden's eye after kicking down the door of his compound in Abbottabad.
And he's tossing.
Oh, this is oh, this is so moving.
This is moving.
He's tossing from the royal coach at his loyal subjects trillion-dollar platinum sovereigns minted at the U.S. Mint's new state-of-the-art facility in Shanghai.
Oh, that's very the coach itself, by the way, is being pulled by a team of eight geldings from the White House Press Corps with their beautifully beribboned tails in the air.
They're very, very cute.
It's very, very moving.
If you're wondering why they're geldings, that's because the president announced over the weekend that because of the continuing economic difficulties faced by Americans, he thought it was appropriate to reduce the number of balls at the inauguration this time.
1-800-282-2882 is the number to call to tell us how you feel about today's stirring events.
We want to stay positive and upbeat and bipartisan today.
So call us about your hopes and dreams for the next four years.
Hopes, dreams, fluffy marshmallows, ponies, unicorns.
That's what we're all about today.
1-800-282-2882.
Lamar Alexander, who, as you remember, is one of many failed Republican presidential candidates in the crowd today.
Lamar Alexander, as he pointed out just a few minutes ago in his introduction, in other countries they don't have this kind of thing.
Do you know how unusual it is around the world for a new presidential term to begin as an act of peaceful democratic renewal?
In Liberia, for example, President Charles Taylor began his term of office when his predecessor Samuel Doe's political opponents caught up with President Doe, tied him to a chair, sliced off his ears, and fed them to President Doe live on camera.
But the lads kept the best bits for themselves because they removed His Excellency's genitals and then fought over them in the belief that the powers and manhood of the person whose private parts you're eating are transferred to the eater, to the new leader.
I mean, imagine if it was like that in Washington and Barack Obama was up there triumphantly eating Mitt Romney's wedding tackle.
I mean, it just wouldn't be the same.
Although I do believe Harry Reid is having John Doehner's private parts as an hors d'oeuvre at the inauguration lunch.
Anyway, Chuck Schumer is speaking again.
Now, can we hear a bit of Chuck Schumer, old Chucky?
Please joy in welcoming artists as Kelly Clarkson.
Oh.
Team by the United States Marine Band.
Okay.
Here's Kaya Cubs, Kelly Clark.
Is she going to do my grown-up Christmas list?
I hope so.
What's she going to do?
My grown-up Christmas list?
Let's hear it for Kelly Clark.
Give it up, as Chuck Schumer says, for Kelly Clarkson.
That's up my grown-up Christmas list.
Beat the intro.
What song is this?
Let me see.
I know, my country tis of thee.
country tis of the high mid-term elections by the time we get to the vocal on this sweet land Okay, that's enough of that.
That's enough of that.
Have they changed the lyric?
I could swear, wasn't it?
It wasn't God Save Our Gracious Queen.
What's happened?
They changed the lyric or something on that.
Anyway, that's Kelly Clarkson.
We're moments away from Beyoncé, singing the national anthem and the ceremonial consumption of John Boehner's private parts by Harry Reid.
A lot of things to look forward to, but there are real important political developments going on today.
It's not just meaningless ceremonial.
There is important breaking news.
The president over the weekend said, I love Michelle Obama.
And to address the most significant event of this weekend, I love her bangs.
She looks good.
Michelle Obama has had new bangs made for the inauguration.
Joe Biden, by the way, has also had new bangs for the inauguration.
But in keeping with his gun control proposals, his maximum capacity is 10 bangs at a time.
That's the maximum you're allowed.
But Michelle Obama's new bangs are having spectacular impact.
They're the big takeaway for the inauguration.
It's her birthday on Thursday, and she's got these fabulous new bangs.
And that is going to be on the cover of every magazine.
That is going to be what's leading the news.
So we will talk about all the critical issues.
Don't let downers and losers and embittered, bitter clingers tell you that the important issues are the Second Amendment or drowning in multi-trillion dollar debt or the golfer Phil Mickelson deciding that he's going to give up golf because he doesn't want to pay a 62% tax rate, which is what he'd have to pay in California.
Don't think about taxes.
Don't think about drowning in multi-trillion dollar debt.
Don't think about what happens to you if you're rescued by Algerian special forces.
Don't think about any of that downer stuff.
The real important critical takeaway of this glorious day is that Michelle Obama has the most spectacular new bangs.
And that's what we're celebrating.
That's what we're celebrating today, Michelle Obama's spectacular new bangs.
Can we hear any more?
Can we hear any more?
What's going on at the moment?
Oh, that's great.
Unfortunately, we missed Kelly Clarkson's song.
How did that happen?
Honestly, anyone would think we timed it that way deliberately.
That's a round of.
Let's have some more from Chuck Schubert.
He's my favorite so far.
Let's see.
I think is he going to pull the old Simon Cowell?
Our next distinguished guest is the poet Richard Blanco.
Oh, no.
Okay, that's enough, Mike.
That's enough, Mike.
I've got the text of his poem, by the way.
It's, I believe that children know our future.
Teach them well and let them lead the way.
Show them all the beauty they possess inside.
It's profound and moving stuff.
But we can't, unfortunately, we got to cut away for the ceremonial poem.
Mark Stein in for Rush.
Rush, I don't know for what reason, but Rush decided to take this day off.
He'll be back here live tomorrow, but in this, in the meantime, doing the jobs that Americans won't do, like filling in for Rush on Inauguration Day.
It's your Undocumented Anchorman, Mark Stein, back with more of the Excellence in Broadcasting Network right after this.
Mark Stein in for us on Coronation Day in Washington.
Hey, hey, Mike, let's hear some more.
That poet guy is going long.
His poem still.
Time, stitching another wound or uniform, the first brushstroke on a portrait, or the last floor on the Freedom Tower, jutting into the sky that yields to our resilience.
One sky, toward which we sometimes lift our eyes, tired from work.
Yeah, someday we can relate to that.
One sky toward which we live.
The poet, the poet guy, is going long.
The thing's overrunning now.
Obama was a model of concision compared to the poem guy who was supposed to, as Mike was saying, there was a young man from Nantucket and would be out of there in five lines.
And the guy is now just the whole thing, the whole lunch will be late and everything.
The whole thing's running long now.
Chuck Schumer's going to give him the hook if he's not off there.
But he's still carrying on the poem guy.
We're covering live the inauguration.
They spared no expense.
I'm up here in northern New Hampshire with the telescope.
I have a great view of what's going on in Washington.
People have been...
People have...
Let's hear some more of this poem.
People are having.
One moon.
Okay, we're with you that.
We agree.
In the bipartisan spirit, I agree.
One moon.
That's right.
Okay, there's one moon.
What else has he got to say, Michael?
Let's hear some more.
Hope.
A new constellation.
Oh, no.
Waiting for us.
He's out.
He's lost it.
He's out in space.
Okay.
He's floating around Uranus somewhere.
I don't know.
I don't know what he's.
I don't know.
He's still speaking.
Okay.
Oh, no.
Oh, no.
The poem got the hook.
We didn't get to hear the last six verses of the official presidential poem.
And now, here we go.
Here is Chuck Schumer, Master of Ceremonies again.
Let's hear it for Chuck.
Ladies and gentlemen, it is now my privilege to introduce Reverend Dr. Louise Lyon to deliver the benediction.
Okay, we'll come back to this a bit later, because I thought we were going to go to Beyonce singing the national anthem, because I've got a bet on that as to whether she's going to do it straight or she's going to do the big malismatic overload.
Now, we've already had some analysis of the presidential inaugural address, and it says this: that it was at an eighth grade reading level.
It was specifically the fourth lowest level of any state of the union since 1934.
I beg your pardon, this is the, this is, yeah, this is, oh no, this was last year's State of the Union.
I thought we were going to get a comprehension guide for the, I thought they'd already done it.
But no, this is the University of Minnesota's smart politics blog that has graded every speech.
For example, his 2011 address was an 8.1.
He went up to an 8.8 for his 2010 State of the Union address, and he went down to an 8.4 for his 2012 State of the Union, which was the fourth lowest of any State of the Union since 1934.
They break these things down by the number of words they average per sentence.
His inaugural address in 2009 was also at an eighth grade compared to Abraham Lincoln's, which was just shy of 11th grade, which was also the same with FDR's For Freedom speech.
So, what we're interested in here is finding whether we can actually identify, he may be the first president to go below an eighth-grade reading comprehension on his speeches, because this one is certainly keeping it in the vague and general sense.
So, we're going to try and see if we can get a definitive reading on the speech.
But he actually finished that, he wrapped up the speech early.
It's a first time he kept it.
I think he started early because Chuck Schumer's been running a tight ship on this, and he wrapped it up early.
And so, the takeaway from the coronation festivities so far is that we are continuing a never-ending journey.
And certainly, the poem we just heard selected highlights from accorded with that.
And I believe that as soon as we have heard the national anthem now from Beyoncé, the whole thing wraps up and they all go to lunch.
And that is out, it is it over and out.
But we are in the beginning of the we are on hump day in the Obama presidency, halfway house.
It is all downhill from here.
And I would be interested, by the way, in hearing your thoughts on what the United States is likely to be like in 2016.
New York Post yesterday, John Podhoritz, was writing about how if Obama ends his presidency in 2016, successful and popular, he will be the most consequential president since FDR.
And he will have shifted permanently the direction of this nation.
The old stuff about how this is basically a right-of-center nation and everything will no longer apply.
It will be a left-of-center nation, it will be indistinguishable in its view of government from most European nations.
And he will have, he will, simply by that fact, he will have completed the great project of liberalism through the 20th century, from Woodrow Wilson to FDR to LBJ and now to Obama.
And that is not a small thing.
So, in other words, if you think if what will count in the next four years is the point at which ordinary people, the low-information voters, as Russia likes to call them, turn against the president.
If he ends his presidency discredited and unpopular, as George W. Bush did, then that will be very different from if he ends it as a successful, popular president and basically one who has shifted this country permanently and irreversibly.
Let's go back to Chuck Schumer.
Here's Chuck Schumer winding up the thing.
Accompanied by the U.S. Marine Band.
Here's Beyonce.
Sing the national anthem.
Please remain at your place while the presidential party exits the platform.
Okay, here's Beyonce to sing the national anthem of the United States of America.
Let's see if we can get to the first word before we go to break.
Can you see by the non-turn?
Oh, that wasn't too bad.
Lots more on the Rush Limbaugh show still to come.
Oh, Beyonce, Beyonce, doing the Star Spangled Banner and bringing to an end the coronation, for the moment, the coronation festivities of President Obama.
I was disappointed.
I was hoping we were going to have like the full Christina Aguillera at the Super Bowl, where you get, you know, the Ave is like a 13-syllable word.
So I was disappointed.
Kelly Clarkson goes through to the next round of inaugural Idol, and that will be the same time next Monday.
So look for that on this fine station.
President Obama has taken the oath of office, pledging solemnly swearing to uphold the executive orders that he signs.
And he has now gone for lunch.
There will be, of course, many inaugural balls tonight, although fewer inaugural balls.
He decided that because of the economic situation, it would be appropriate for America to have less balls, fewer balls this time around.
So America, you may find that there aren't as many balls as there were.
But if you still haven't picked out yet which ball to go to, American inaugural ball prices have been slashed by 50%.
Everything must go.
The inaugural ball ticket prices have been cut by up to 50%.
So you could get a great bargain.
Yeah, half balls half off.
Same number of balls, but just at half price.
Balls half off.
That sounds like, for some reason, that sounds like Ben and Jerry's ice cream flavor to me.
I don't know why.
Don't know what I'm thinking of.
The balls that are taking place in Washington tonight, if you still haven't decided which ball to go to, the National Association of Minority Government Contractors inaugural gala.
They're having one.
The National Bar Association is having an inaugural ball.
The men will all be decked out in their most expensive suits.
So you'll enjoy that one.
The Dream Moving Forward inaugural gala.
Patty LaBelle is.
Oh, now, Patty LaBelle.
If Patty LaBelle had done the Star Spangled banner, you'd have had the full melismatic overload on OSA, can you see?
So we got Patty LaBelle, the Black McDonald's Operators Association inaugural ball.
That's at the City Club of Washington.
The Baltimore, Washington Black McDonald's Owner Operator Association inaugural ball.
Tickets are $250.
I don't know whether...
Are they half price now?
Wow, that's a lot of big Macs.
Yeah, you get breakfast with that.
$250.
That includes the sausage and egg McMuffy.
That's a happy meal.
There's like a Barack Obama toy in there, I think.
And then the Muslim inaugural gala.
That's at Eastern Markets North Hall, the Muslim inaugural gala.
I believe that's Bring Your Own Bottle, though, that one.
The Muslim inaugural gala.
So there's lots of the Out for Equality inaugural ball at the Mayflower with Cindy Lauper.
So there's all kinds of, and tickets are half price off because for some reason, nobody's picking up.
It's not exactly sellout capacity this.
So if you haven't yet, if you're thinking, I don't know whether I'm going to go to an inaugural ball, give it another couple of hours and prices will be 75% off.
So by the time these guys are out of lunch, you'll be able to get 80% off off the tickets.
And they'll be papering the room, as they say on Broadway.
So we will bring you expert analysis of the important developments from today's inaugural festivities.
The big story, of course, is that the president loves the First Lady's new bangs.
The First Lady has had some new bangs to celebrate her 49th birthday.
And President Obama has given the new First Lady's the First Lady's new coiffure his mark of presidential approval.
So this is why you need to listen to the Rush Limbaugh Show, because this is the most important breaking news story of the day.
This is what they're going to be leading with on the ABC News, CBS, NBC, CNN.
The President loves Michelle Obama's new bangs.
John Kerry has, Senator Kerry has issued, who's the incoming Secretary of State, has said that he's already well familiar with scary bangs because he served in Vietnam.
So that's the official John Kerry response to the First Lady's new haircut.
The President gave a speech and he said, We, the people, declare today that the most evident of truths, that all of us are created equal, is the star that guides us still, just as it guided our forebears through Seneca Falls and Selma and Stonewall.
So a little bit, the speechy write-y guys are working a little bit overtime on the old alliteration there, just as it guided our forebears through Seneca Falls and Selma and Stonewall.
Decisions are upon us, he said, and we cannot afford today.
We cannot afford delay.
We cannot afford today, today, today, today, today.
For now, decisions are upon us, and we cannot afford delay.
We cannot mistake absolutism for principle, or substitute spectacle for politics, or treat name-calling as reason debate.
We must act, knowing that our work will be imperfect.
We must act, knowing that today's victories will be only partial, and that it will be up to those who stand here in four years and forty years and four hundred years.
Okay, we get the idea.
Anyway, he said he's going to get to the policy stuff in the State of the Union.
And in fairness to the President, this is one of his shorter speeches.
Because the thing actually, if the poet guy, the guy who was talking about the sun and the moon and the new constellations, if the poet guy hadn't overrun, this thing would have actually wrapped up early, which is not something you can say often about a Barack Obama event.
So we'll be delving into all the analysis of the presidential inauguration.
But news goes on.
News does not stop simply because the president has taken the oath of office.
So we're also covering the other top stories.
Michelle Obama, for example, it's not yet known, the fashion designer who has designed her ball for the inaugural, the official inaugural ball.
I'm not talking about the whatever that one is, Minority Government Contractors Association inaugural ball.
I don't know whether she's going to that one, but the official inaugural ball, it is not yet known who will be designing Michelle Obama's dress for that.
So we will try.
We've got our investigative reporters working on that, and we will try to find out just as soon as we can.
I mentioned Phil Mickelson, the golfer, who's hinted that at moving away from California, perhaps the United States, and maybe even away from golf as he seeks to escape punitive tax rates.
You remember a lot of fellas doing this around the world.
Gerard Depadieux, the great Gallic actress, actor, not actress, the great Gallic actor who romanced, what was it, Meg Ryan in Green Card, all those years ago.
When the French introduced the 75% tax rate, he moved to Belgium.
Phil Mickelson resides in California, and he does not want to pay 62% on his taxes, which is what he'll be saying if he'll be paying if he continues to be a successful golfer living in California.
62% tax rate.
That's with the changes at the federal level and California's changes in tax rates.
And by the way, this is a question that people need to ask more often of people like Chuck Schumer.
Chuck Schumer's just said that he thinks passing a Senate budget would be an excellent opportunity to slip in a couple of extra tax increases.
And the question for Chuck Schumer is, what is the appropriate marginal rate of tax?
Now, Phil Mickelson doesn't want to pay 62%.
Gerard Departure doesn't want to pay 75%.
What is the appropriate level of taxation that the rich should pay?
Is it 62%?
Is it 75%?
Is it 80%?
Is it 83%?
What tax rate is a fair level of taxation for the most successful members in our society?
What is it that they should be paying?
We'll talk about that, and we'll talk about all the other developments from today's exciting coronation festivities when the Rush Limbaugh Show continues on this station in just a moment.
Hey, Mark Stein for Rush on Coronation Day.
Let's go to Diane in Aiken, South Carolina.
Diane, you're live on the Rush Limbaugh Show.
Hello, Mr. Stein.
It's very nice to talk to you.
I was listening to you earlier, and you wanted to know what all of us were going to do for the inauguration.
And I did not intend, never intended to watch it, but I did find out that it is National Squirrel Appreciation Day.
National Squirrel Appreciation.
So this is nationwide.
It's not just South Carolina squirrel.
Oh, no, it is national.
I looked it up.
I didn't believe it, but I looked it up and I thought, oh, what a wonderful way to celebrate this day watching squirrels bury nuts.
Right.
Well, I believe that that squirrel in South Carolina, I think that squirrel in your yard in South Carolina, he has got almost as many nuts as MSNBC's primetime lineup.
So that's what I don't know what we're saying down here.
Okay, so you're watching.
You're watching it.
Well, in some ways, I don't know why, but it's somehow appropriate that when President Obama says there's fewer balls in Washington, it's good to know there's a squirrel hoarding nuts in South Carolina.
It all evens out.
It's one of those reverse chaos theory types of things.
But I did not know, Diane, that it was National Squirrel Appreciation Day.
I did wonder why Joe Biden was wearing that dead pelt on his head.
And now I know that it's, of course, it's a gray squirrel.
He shot with a fewer than 10 bang capacity weapon in Aiken, South Carolina.
Thank you for your call.
National Squirrel Appreciation.
Well, I don't know what all the others are going, but we are certainly going to go big on the National Squirrel Appreciation Day here on the Excellence in Broadcasting Network.
Thank you for your call, Diane.
Let us go to Tim in Astoria, Oregon.
Tim, in Oregon.
Yeah, I thought it was Astoria, Oregon.
What's the town in Oregon?
Oh, I'm right, Tim.
Hey, great to have you with us.
I'm dealing with the technologically primitive system.
The delirious coverage of the inaugural festivities has overloaded our call screen and left us working in primitive fashion.
I appreciate the levity this morning.
It's helping us get through it.
What I was wondering is, is there, I'll be looking for an end to the never-ending journey.
I don't know when I listen to him today, it just stomach-churning to listen to because he's talking about, he said that our founders, you know, made a great declaration, but then we found out, you know, poor people needed help, and we found out that, you know, we've got to have roads and stuff like that.
And, you know, we've got to have health care and things like that.
And so we remade ourselves.
I mean, that's paraphrasing, that's really how he started out his speech.
And what I'm wondering is we know that.
We know that centralized government, more spending, more debt is the liberal agenda.
We know that.
But what I'm looking for this next four years is an alternative because we didn't have an alternative this last time.
I mean, they're basically saying yes to all of those things, just that we'll do less of it.
Yeah, I mean, there's basically two theories here: that you can go over the cliff full throttle, which is the Democrat model, or you can go over the cliff in third gear.
And it doesn't actually make any difference on your never-ending journey, as the president put it.
You still come to rest at the bottom of the abyss.
So it doesn't really make any difference.
And you're right that the Republicans, the Republican nominee specifically, chose to play small ball, that he simply chose to offer a very narrow vision focused on the temporary state of the economy as opposed to the bigger fundamental issues.
And his clever advisors, his handsomely remunerated consultants, all told him that was the thing to do in order not to scare a select sliver of approved swing voters in southern Ohio and Florida and New Hampshire and a couple of other states.
And it didn't work.
And so the lesson, if you want to change the direction of this never-ending journey, Tim, I think the Milton Friedman lesson is always the most important.
You change the minds of the people.
You make it difficult.
You don't wait to elect the right people to office.
You create conditions whereby the wrong people are forced to do the right thing.
That's what happened in Canada during the 90s when it had a solid liberal government.
The Conservative Party was destroyed.
They were reduced to two seats in Parliament, wiped out.
But nevertheless, the Liberal Party wound up actually paying down the national debt because the mood in the country was such that in essence they couldn't afford to let anybody get to their right and do that.
And you have to, and at some point, I mean, I know that's setting the bar pretty low.
If only we could get American Republicans to show the same rectitude as Canadian liberals, that's setting the bar about as low as you can go.
But it demonstrates the most important point, that in the end, the people are the break on this.
And Obama has made a bet that the people will go along with government health care.
Once you get people used to this spending, then the next step, which will follow, which is getting them used to the taxation to support it, will follow naturally.
And the way to end, to go back to your point, Tim, the way to stop this never-ending journey, the way to pull off on one of the exit ramps and go over the bridge and come back and heading back on the journey in the direction of sanity is to change the disposition of the people.
We've got to get better at this.
One thing that's actually quite cunning in that inaugural address, which was bland, unmemorable pap, but he did that thing that liberals do very well, which is they yoke the founders of this nation, the founders of a republic of limited government and self-reliant citizens, and somehow make it sound as if all those, if all these guys were around today, they'd be in favor of Medicare and Obamacare and big government as far as the eye can see.
And the idea that Madison and Washington and Jefferson, under any circumstances, would be sitting around in Washington today thinking about how to expand the food stamp program is completely ridiculous.
But he did that same job that Democrats do very well of yoking the founders of this nation to the argument for big government.
And we've got to have an argument that actually skewers that and drives a dagger through it and points it out for the absurdity it is.
Because we're not going to have a president.
We're not going to have a Republican Senate.
We've got a Republican House, although whether we'll even have that in 2014, who knows?
So the thing to do is to start with 300 million people and create the conditions where they cannot pull this stuff.
Got to go, Tim.
Thank you for your call.
More in a moment.
National Squirrel Appreciation Day in the United States.
It's also hump day for the Obama presidency.
It's all downhill from here.
We will keep you up to date with everything that's happening.
Katy Perry is going to be performing at the official inaugural ball later today.
I believe she'll be singing I Kissed a Republican and I liked it.
▲
Export Selection