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Feb. 28, 2013 - Rush Limbaugh Program
30:45
February 28, 2013, Thursday, Hour #3
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You know, our last caller had a really, really, really good point about the way it used to be, not that long ago in the media, and the way it is today, and what editors used to do versus what editors do today.
He was the guy that was talking about access.
There's only one area that I would disagree with what he said, and it's a minor thing.
And he said that in the old days the editors were the guys that really had the focus, and they're the ones that sent the reporters out.
They assigned them.
They're the ones with their eyes on the truth and to find out what's happening.
And I don't I think for as long as I've been alive, the media has always been about advancing left liberalism.
I think they've always been unbiased.
I don't care what they say.
And I think that they're uh the the business of putting together the news every day was always related to the agenda.
Whether they knew it or not, it was just the product of their education.
What they were convinced reality was was the liberal agenda.
And anything outside of that was not real.
It was the home of kooks and weirdos.
But what he said about the young crop of editors today, by the way, hi, welcome back.
El Rushbow here at 800-282-2882.
What he said about editors being just paranoid for access, he was dead on right about.
And it's true in any area of the news, be it the so-called entertainment news media.
You look at these programs like Entertainment Tonight or the e-entertainment channel or extra or whatever.
You never see them ripping.
Well, I take it, but there are rare exceptions.
If the entire industry decides to dump on somebody, they'll join in, such as a Mel Gibson.
But for the most part, when you watch these shows, every night, to take a chance at it, entertainment tonight, extra whatever.
They make the people they cover out to be the biggest heroes and heroines.
They are, we all know they're stars, but I mean they are built up and put on pedestals.
And where do these people go?
They go to all these red carpet things, the media people.
They go to red carpet, they go to the pre-party, the after party.
They are still the media when they're in there, but they're still in there.
And they're still rubbing elbows, and they've got pictures of themselves with Take Your Pick, actor or actress.
And all their friends think their jobs are really cool.
It is all about access.
In the sports media, look at, I have been there, and in this case, I know this.
I know it's true there.
The uh the the number of people in sports media who are groupies would stun you.
And it's about access.
And you and the and and he was so right on when he talked about access being the way newsmakers keep the media in line.
If they do anything that will put their access at risk.
Uh that's that's a no-no.
And that means they'll never be hypercritical, critical at all.
And I think it's really exaggerated with Obama, because that's the that's the biggest access you can get.
And it was with Clinton.
Now it's all still ideological.
And the same bunch didn't care about access to Bush other than being able to do the job.
But they didn't want to hang around Bush because to them Bush was a celebrity.
Clinton was, Obama is, Michelle Obama is, Hillary was.
Republican presidents are not, but they still want the access.
In one way is to get the goods to be able to come up with what these cheaters are really doing in the case of Republicans, or with Democrat presidents, it's just to be close to celebrity, close to their idols.
The guy was right on the money.
But it's not just the editors, it's the reporters, which puts this Woodward stuff in a little different light because Woodward is beyond that.
He's as is the He's AARP.
And by the way, I should say I've been keeping track of this at PJ Media.
And AARP is not happy with David Pluff's tweet about Woodward being too old to do his job well anymore.
They're not happy about it.
Nothing they can do about it, but they're not happy about it.
But Woodward is the first guy to actually draw blood from this regime in five years.
And that the regime doesn't like.
Now our old buddy Ron Fournier at the National Journal has a piece about this.
And he said, You people are being bamboozled if you think this is about threats.
You don't, you're being what the reason this story is important to you has nothing to do with threats.
A fight between the White House and journalistic legend Bob Woodward is a silly distraction to a major problem.
The failure of Obama and the Republicans to lead the country under a budget deadline.
Woodward Gate is a distraction.
The White House welcomed, even encouraged, as part of a PR strategy to emasculate the GOP.
And anybody else who challenges Obama.
This is Ron Fournier writing this guy.
Former lapdog.
It is a distraction that briefly enveloped my reporting last weekend when I essentially broke ties with a senior White House official.
Yes, I iced the source, and my only regret is I didn't sooner.
Didn't do it sooner.
I decided to share this encounter because it might shed light on the increasingly toxic relationship between media and government, which is why the Woodward flap matters outside the beltway.
I don't know about that.
I don't I don't think it's toxic.
I think that these two sides love each other too much.
Maybe a stretch to say he loves them, but he appreciates the fact that they're in his back pocket.
Or that they have them there.
But at any rate, on Saturday, White House Press Secretary Jay Carney accused Woodward of being willfully wrong on a story holding the White House accountable for its part in the sequestration.
Carney isn't the first press secretary to criticize a reporter.
Presidential aides do it all the time.
Fournier writes that he had angered the White House because he promised a person anonymity.
Going back to my first political beat covering Clinton's administration, Arkansas, later in Washington, I've had a practice that's fairly common in journalism.
A handful of sources I deal with regularly are granted blanket anonymity.
Anytime we communicate, they know I'm prepared to report the information at will, and that I won't attribute it to them.
He says, anyway, his point here is that this Woodward flap is a distraction that the White House is encouraging as part of a PR strategy to emasculate the Republicans and anybody else that challenges Obama, and that it is a distraction briefly enveloping his reporting last week when he broke ties with a senior White House official, meaning he now identifies him.
Now Fournier's close here.
This is about emasculating the GOP.
This is about making sure the GOP gets blamed for everything.
And see, that's where Woodward went off the reservation.
That's what I think everybody's missing.
Everybody thinks that Sperling is mad at Woodward for writing that the regime is moving the goalposts, meaning making it impossible for there to be a deal, which the White House does not want.
And I think what they're really mad about is that Woodward is Is telling everybody that the sequester was Obama's idea.
That's what undercuts the regime.
The regime's whole premise is based on making people think this is a Republican idea.
And here is Mr. Watergate emeritus, Mr. Beyond Reproach, Mr. Credibility, Bob Woodward saying, no, no, no.
The president came up with this idea and he's written it two or three times.
The public blames the Republicans.
It's been a successful campaign.
That's why they're mad at Woodward.
There's Woodwards out there saying it's not the Republicans, it's Obama who did this.
In one sense, folks, this is rather serious.
We've been kind of dealing with it in the typical low information voter way here today, but in one sense, this is serious.
Because it is a grand strategy, and it is all part of making sure that Obama doesn't get blamed for anything.
It's all part of Obama's grand strategy to never have an agreement.
When Fournier writes here that it's a distraction to a major problem, the failure of Obama and the White House to lead the Obama is not interested in an agreement with the Republicans ever.
That would undercut the entire modus operandi.
Because when he comes to an agreement on anything, that means his name is on it.
That means whatever happens after that is tied to him in part.
And that's what he does not want now.
Because what's ahead of us is more disaster.
That's got to be seen as the Republicans' fault and theirs alone.
That's the strategy.
Well, the immediate thing it's about is the continuing resolution fight at the end of March.
The next thing it's about is 2014 midterms.
And then the next thing it's about is eliminating the Republican Party as a viable opponent.
That's the agenda here.
And that's why there isn't going to be any agreement with the Republicans on fixing anything.
No, I haven't forgotten a Frank Luntz stuff.
I don't actually want to listen to it.
It is depressing.
Well, we're going to do it.
Frank Luntz had a focus group, and he played excerpts of it on CBS this morning today.
And you're going to hear this is low information voters disguised as voters, independents, moderates, whoever.
And they they still view Obama as the guy trying to fix the broken system.
It's all the Republicans' fault.
It's the Republicans' fault.
It's the Republicans who are the cook the crooks.
So it's working.
Lunz tells his focus group, he says, give me a word to describe Congress.
Liars.
Snakes.
Correct.
Narcissistic corrupt.
Yeah, corrupt.
Hypocrites.
Quadmire.
Scatterbrained.
Shysters.
Frank Lunt's focus group.
One word to describe Congress.
Okay?
That means give me a word to describe the Republicans.
That's what that means.
Next soundbite.
Lunch says, well, what do you want from them?
You said you want resolution.
What do you want?
I'll cut congressional salary.
Yes.
Cutting out the facts.
Define fat.
It's a surplus of crap.
Pardon my language.
As a middle class American, I feel I have my hands tied behind my back, living paycheck to paycheck, day by day, unable to stimulate the economy.
I don't know what I would give up because I think I'm giving up everything already.
I can't spend like I used to.
What more can I give up?
Health care and education and welfare can cut.
What about all these expensive wars that we're still paying for?
Why are we so spread out in the wood?
You all make me depressed.
Why is Luntz depressed?
Take a stab, Mr. Snertley.
Why does Lunch say at the end it's him saying you all make me depressed?
Why is he depressed?
You don't know.
He's listening to the people who elect the president, and he's listening to a bunch of people who haven't the slightest idea why things are going wrong.
They know things are going wrong.
They haven't the slightest idea.
Wars.
We gotta we're still too spread out with all these wars?
That's Obama language from 2008.
Okay, so then Lunz says, this is your chance.
If you could speak to every member of the House, the Senate, the president, what would you tell them right now in two sentences or less how they should act, how they should behave for the rest of this year.
They need to start making a huge reform in our government, or else there might be a revolution on the way.
That's pretty strong.
They're gonna pay.
They're gonna pay as well as we are.
We live in our household on a budget.
So should you stop the political posturing, and everybody has to give up something on each side.
I think they need to take a walk in individuals' lives and see what's really going on in life, and not physically just hearing it and thinking they can fix it on paper.
What happened to the land of opportunity?
Everybody here feels like that's not America anymore.
Get us back to living the American dream.
Get us back there.
By the way, you need to know none of these people hold Obama responsible for any of this.
This is all aimed at Congress.
None of them.
And Lunch claims he goes out and finds these cross sections of the population that represents a majority of the way people think in the country.
That's what he claims he puts together here.
So here's uh here's Luntz.
Charlie Rose says the end of this is okay.
So if a member of Congress was listening to this, Frank, what would you say that they should uh say or do?
They had better stop with the excuses and start with the action.
And there's such frustration, such anger.
Charlie, it's getting harder and harder to do these focus groups because if you really listen to them, it is that painful.
Congress has to find a way to negotiate with the president, and quite frankly, the White House has to find a way to give with Congress.
Okay, now bottom line here, and I don't really know, because I didn't see this, all I've got the soundbites.
I don't know what what Lunt's actually put together here.
I don't know the the the makeup of this group, but it is clear from whoever they are that they assign all these problems to a distant, unfeeling, inattentive Congress.
And you shouldn't be surprised.
That's the Obama strategy, folks.
That's why this is why there's never going to be an agreement to anything.
Obama doesn't want to be included in the people who are on these sound bites blaming the government.
He is always going to be seen as the guy trying to fix it.
And he can't do that if he comes to any kind of a compromise with the Republicans.
Because anything they would compromise on isn't going to fix anything.
And There isn't any area of compromise anyway.
There is no overlap in commonality in what Obama wants and what the Republicans want.
But the point here is that this just evidence of how Obama is pulling this off.
I gotta take a brief time out.
More of your phone calls are coming up right after this.
Don't go away.
The uh Frank Lunch focus group was twenty-two people have voted for Obama and 22 people that voted for Romney.
As the and as such, it was uh supposedly bipartisan focus group.
Twenty-two voted for Obama, twenty-two voted for Romney.
Now, uh folks, uh you might get mad at me for playing this uh because I can imagine your reaction.
Okay, well, now what?
What do we do?
Uh my purpose here, I I'm still in the process here of informing people what's going on.
We all know the answer to this.
The answer to this is conservatism.
The answer to this is a conservative leader who can articulate it, who believes it, doesn't need notes, and there are Potentials.
There's Rubio, there's Ted Cruz.
But right now, the the uh I I'm all I'm I'm playing these sound bites is uh as a means of illustrating to you that the theories I have about this administration and how they're working it are accurate.
Not because I want I want attaboys and and praise.
I want you to be informed.
I want people to know what's going on.
This I want I want you to know how you're being misled, lied to, spun, particularly on all of this bipartisanship.
I I want more than anything for people to understand, because once we all understand, we we all have the uh the the role here or the responsibility of changing this and reversing this with the American people, with our fellow citizens.
And the more you know, the more equipped you're gonna be to deal with people in your neighborhood, wherever you see wherever you run into people.
And the what I think it's important for people to understand that why it is that after four years in office, the president of the United States is still not considered responsible for anything that's happening when his policies are exactly why what's happening is happening.
I want you to know why he is escaping blame.
I want you to know how he's doing it.
And so the the Lunz Focus Group to me is an excellent validation of what I have been telling you.
So you can hear it in people's own words, not just from my mouth, so that you can know that how Obama's actually pulling this off and what that means for the future as well.
Hi, welcome back.
Great to have you, Rush Limbaugh, having more fun than a human being, should be allowed to have.
Here, let me give you an example, folks.
And remember, these low information people in his lunch focus group, here's what we're up against.
You and I know what we need to fix this.
We need to defeat liberalism.
This it's not a matter of getting along with it, it's not a matter coming to agreement with them, it's not a matter of bipartisanship.
There isn't any commonality.
Now, these people in the lunch focus group, I don't know how representative they are of the people of the country, and and we only have what Lunch says about that.
You got 22 Obama voters, 22 Romney voters.
But are they typical?
Who knows?
But of this group at any rate, they don't understand the concept of beating liberalism.
That they they're not ideological.
These people are out living their lives, they can't live anymore paycheck to paycheck.
The economy is crumbling all around them, and they don't blame Obama.
They don't blame liberalism.
And if we're gonna make any headway, that's going to have to change.
The reason these people's lives are crumbling is not because Congress and the White House aren't getting along.
It's because liberalism is winning.
It's because Obama is successful, but he's not seen that way.
Obama's seen as fighting all of this.
These people think Obama's trying to fix it, and Congress is standing in his way.
And until these people can be made to look at things through prisms of ideology, until these people understand that it is liberalism that's responsible for their plight, we're not going to make any headway.
And sadly, the Republican Party doesn't think that way.
The Republican Party doesn't want to think ideologically.
They want to try to position the Republican Party as better than the Democrat Party.
They don't want to go to liberal versus conservative.
And frankly, until that happens, we don't have a chance a chance at turning this around.
But that's what's going to have to happen.
These people in this focus group, to the extent that they represent average Americans, meaning just cross-section, until they understand why they're unhappy, Till they understand why they're miserable.
It's easy.
They've been told it's Congress's fault.
Now let's go to the soundbites of the White House press briefing here this afternoon.
Jay Carney got a question from Jessica Yellen.
President said last night, all of a sudden, Jay, that this is not a fiscal cliff anymore.
It's kind of like a tumble down.
Here, grab soundbite number nine.
Broadcast engineer is gonna go nuts.
Grab number nine, this is what she's referring to, asking a question.
Jay Carney, if Obama's been singing these songs of utter panic disaster, Armageddon for the past month, but last night said this.
This is not a cliff, uh, but it is a tumble downward.
You know, it's conceivable that in the first week, the first two weeks, first three weeks, first month.
Uh, a lot of people may not notice uh the full impact of the sequester.
But this is going to be a big hit on the economy.
Oh, give it a cold feet out there.
It's not going to even be noticeable now.
And so a CNN Info Babe asks Kearney about this.
Is he concerned that you guys overstated this, Jay?
It's our responsibility to be upfront about the fact that you cannot responsibly cut $85 billion out of the budget in seven months without having in the way that the law has designed, without having dramatic effects on, you know, the defense industry and civilian defense workers, on our national security readiness, on teachers, uh, on kids in head start.
That's just a fact.
What the president said last night is that what other people have said is that this will be a rolling impact, an effect that will build and build and build.
No, Jay, it's not what he said.
What he said is it's so damned inconsequential you're not going to be able to see it.
That's what he said, because it's CYA time.
Up until yesterday it's been Armageddon.
It's the end of everything as we know it.
But it isn't gonna be.
So he had to basically say to people, you know, you might not even see it for a month.
$85 billion.
A, it isn't eighty-five billion again.
In terms of defense, it's twenty-two in the next seven months, toward the end of the year.
Next question, Jessica Yellen said to Jay Carney's CNN.
So when Gene Sperling told Bob Woodward that he might regret his reporting, what was intended by that, Jay?
It would be a responsible thing to ask that question in the context of the full email, since we know what the full email said, where Gene Sperling was incredibly respectful, referred to Mr. Woodward as his friend, and apologized for raising his voice.
I think you cannot read those emails and come away with the impression that Gene was threatening anybody.
The point that Gene was making is a point that I've made and others have made, and the president has made.
This is really important policy, and one thing that is absolutely irrefutable is that the president from day one of signing the Budget Control Act has been absolutely clear that in dealing with deficit reduction going forward, he believed we had to have balance.
You'd have to have your head in the sand not to know that.
Bob Woodward has his head in the sand.
Bob Woodward's head was in the sand.
By the way, it took 18 minutes to get to this question today.
Had a Republican administration threatened Bob Woodward, it would have been the first and only question that Carney was asked.
So then, Ed Henry of Fox News said, when you were just telling Jessica the tone of that email from Sperling, it was respectful?
Well, last night on Twitter, David Plouffe put out a tweet, basically comparing Woodward to an aging baseball player who's lost his talent.
The tweet belittled Woodward.
Do you think that's respectful, Jay?
Is that something the White House also supports?
There was an accusation that Gene had been threatening, and that's hard to believe.
Gene has been working on these issues all his life.
He is very passionate about them.
Uh he works twenty hours a day, often on behalf of the American people and this president to try to advance uh an economic agenda uh that uh helps uh Americans, average Americans.
Absolute dream.
And he'll continue to do that.
Look, I have enormous respect for uh the work that Bob Woodward is famous for.
You know, we had a factual disagreement uh that I think, you know, we stand by.
We stand by the pluff tweet.
Woodward is an aging dinosaur in any good anymore, and his head's in the sand.
I used to respect the stuff he did in the last century back during the founding.
Woodward was really good back in the 1800s, Ed, but no more.
He's lost it.
And by the way, Sperling, this guy works twenty hours a day on the economy trying to improve the American people's economic lives.
Sperling yelled at Woodward for a half an hour.
After that email was sent.
Sperling was yelling at Woodward, according to Woodward.
I guarantee before Carney became the White House press secretary, I guarantee you that Woodward was one of his heroes.
I guarantee.
Well, I know he's got a job to do now.
He's he's got to get up there and defend uh defend Obama.
By the way, Ron Fournier, that piece where he said he's being misguided by this.
Let me read to you how Ron Fournier ended his piece about this Woodward business.
Listen to this.
This can't be what Obama wants.
Oh no.
Obama must not know how thin skinned and close-minded his staff can be to criticism.
So not only Woodward, no, but Ron Fournier, boy, Obama, he this can't be what he wants.
He can't.
He doesn't want his guys threatening reporters.
This can't possibly be what he ought to look into how thin skinned some of his staff is.
The thin skin is Obama, who has led a charmed protected life, and if it's anybody can't deal with any criticism, it's Obama.
I'm sorry.
It's the way it is.
We'll be back.
Peggy in the uh Oro Valley, Arizona.
Great to have you on the program.
Hi.
Hey, longtime listener and third-time caller rush.
Thank you very much.
Um heard an interview with Paul Babu, the sheriff from Pinell County, where the releases were of the undocumented well, the illegal immigrants.
And he said they were given no notice.
Ice just showed up.
And uh he was in touch with some of the other sheriffs in Arizona, and none of them had any uh ice people show up and take any, but apparently there were about 300 that were released over the weekend, and there's no documentation of who is taken, where they are, they're just uh whole gaming.
Well, of course, no, they'll they'll never be back.
And this was decided last week before the sequester.
Obama's flooding the zone, folks.
Five or six thousand, maybe eight thousand illegals have been released from jail from detention.
By the way, Maxine Waters said today that uh the sequester will cost 170 million jobs.
Maxine Waters, 170 million jobs.
There are only 140 million jobs in the country, folks.
So there.
The Pima County Sheriff, Sheriff Babbo said that uh the ICE people did not keep track.
You know, where these released prisoners were, which sort of puts the lie to the ICE spokesperson's uh claim that uh the release detainees are carefully supervised.
Nobody knows where they're going.
They're just gone.
Folks will see you tomorrow.
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