All Episodes
Previous Next
March 28, 2013 - Rush Limbaugh Program
37:25
March 28, 2013, Thursday, Hour #2
| Copy link to current segment

Time Text
Hey, we're back.
Great to have you here, folks.
The fastest three hours in media hosted by me, the elegant and eloquent, all knowing, all sensing, all feeling, all caring maharushi.
Here at 800 282-2882 if you want to be on the program and the email address is L Rushbo at EIBNet.com.
By the way, if you're on hold right now, please hang on.
I'm gonna I'm gonna start getting into calls in this half hour.
And we've got some good ones up there, and I'm just really asking all of you on hold to hang in there and be tough.
So last night, I'm engaged as I always am.
You know, life for me is show prep.
Everything that I do is potential.
Show prep.
Everything I do holds potential as content on this program.
Last night I was engaged specifically in show preps.
I'm sitting on the couch and I'm using the iPad last night.
I run across a story in the politico, and the headline got me.
It sucked me in there.
Headline is the SCOTUS ruling the GOP really wants.
Okay, now what did that tell me?
That told me that the Republicans actually want something here that nobody would believe that they want.
And it turned out that my interpretation was right.
Essentially, this story is sourced by two Republican consultants.
The names are not that familiar to me.
And what these consultants have told the political is that this issue is so potentially damaging to the Republicans because they're so out of it culturally.
Just get this issue.
Gay marriage, get it off the table.
And the fastest way to do that is for the Supreme Court to make gay marriage legal in all 50 states, and therefore the issue is gone.
It's not something the Democrats can criticize the Republicans for going into the 2014 elections, and let's just get it out of the way.
It doesn't matter anyway.
The economy is what matters.
I read this and I got into more detail, and my initial reaction to this was, well, okay, let's just let's just get rid of another issue.
Let's just give up another core belief.
Because we don't want to be criticized for holding it.
So let's just get rid of this core belief and move on to the next one.
And it reminded me this is exactly how the Republicans have behaved philosophically in all of these budget skirmishes.
From the end of the year fiscal cliff to the sequester to whatever it was.
The Republican leadership said, you know, let's let Obama have this, and we'll really take it to him on the sequester.
That's what they said on the fiscal cliff.
Then the sequester came.
Let's, you know, let's not fight this.
Let's let's let them have this, and we'll really take it to them on the continuing resolution at the end of March.
That's what really matters.
Remember that.
Well, we're coming up on the end of March continuing resolution.
I get gay m gay marriage is thrown in them in the mix, and the Republican leadership is, let's just put gays behind us.
And a lot of people saying, is that really where you want them?
Let me give you some details from the story.
Conservatives watching this week's gay marriage arguments at the Supreme Court are wondering if it'll happen again.
Unelected judges ignoring the will of legislatures and high-handedly imposing their own wishes on one of society's most divisive moral issues.
In political circles in Washington and elsewhere, a good number of these conservatives will also make a surprising confession.
They are strongly rooting for that outcome exactly.
Now, a good number of these conservatives, I found two of them as sources in this story.
Only two.
In a mostly hidden subtext of the gay marriage debate, comma.
a lot of Republicans, again, there are two mentioned.
A lot of Republicans would be thrilled with the most far-reaching court decision possible.
That's the only way they reckon to take the issue out of an electoral arena in which it is increasingly bringing them little but grief.
A mid-March Washington Post ABC News poll underscored the extent to which the GOP is at odds with the public on gay marriage.
58% of respondents said they support it.
64% said the issue of gay marriage should be decided for all states on the basis of the Constitution.
But the Republican Party and its evangelical core have not moved with the rest of the country, tying the GOP to a position that is anathema to the majority of younger, more educated, politically independent voters.
Precisely the voters the party needs to begin clearing out the wreckage of two consecutive presidential defeats.
And so you see, according to this, the Republican leadership thinks the best way to avoid losing elections is to let the Democrats win every controversial issue.
Because these Republicans were just going to get beat up.
And the longer the gay issue is on the table, the gay marriage issues on the table, the more they're going to call us bigots and homophobes and racists, and we can't go into an election being called out.
We wouldn't want to defend this.
Let's just let them have it.
The problem is that seems to be the working philosophy on everything.
Obamacare, well, we tried to repeal it.
We had a vote, but let them have it.
And the sequester and the fiscal cliff and the stimulus.
Whatever Obama economic policy.
And so the politico says that the only obvious way to square that political circle in the short term is through a sweeping Supreme Court decision.
One that strikes down DOMA and invalidates Prop 8.
So these two consultants told the politico what they prefer is the court strike down DOMA and make gay marriage the law of the land everywhere, and then we can move on.
So let's just agree to lose another issue and kick it down the road.
Now the simplest way, I think, to maximize this kind of thinking is to just say, you know what?
Since the public hates us so much, and they're always going to hate us, no matter what the issue is.
If we tell people what we think, they're going to hate us.
Let's just, for now, let's just let the Democrats have every election.
And then we'll we'll come back at them in like 2030.
When everybody's forgotten about this stuff.
I mean, that's the obvious.
Let's just do amnesty.
Let's go, let's let them have that.
And then we'll we'll come back to fight another day on taxes.
And let's, while we're at it, you know, let's let's stop fighting them on abortion.
Let's just, let's just let's just agree that it's not an issue anymore.
Because man, we really get beat up on that.
Cap and trade, exactly carbon tax, whatever, because man, we're just getting beat up here.
You realize we're not going to be able to raise money if this stuff keeps up.
Well, I don't think they'll say turn in all the guns.
That there is a line that they won't cross.
But again, I must point this is just two consultants in this story, and these two consultants are characterized by politico as speaking for the party.
And I doubt that they do.
But but nevertheless, the politico found them, or they found politico.
I don't know how this happened.
I do know that several Republicans do use the politico to um get their hopes and dreams in the public domain.
This would be a crushing defeat for voters and politicians, predominantly on the right, who believe marriage is exclusively between one man and one woman.
But to Republican consultants, get get this now.
Because this is the part that's believable.
But to Republican consultants, fearful of ending up on the wrong side of political history, such a ruling would be a liberation.
And there are two consultants who are the sources of the story.
So uh as far as they're concerned, um, they don't want to be on the wrong side of cultural history, so don't oppose this.
And then here's the theory.
It removes the issue from the Democrat playbook of fundraising scare tactics and political demagoguery and breaks their usual message dynamic of you're a beleaguered minority.
Let us protect you from the evil GOP.
Oh, and here's your absentee ballot.
And one of these consultants is a guy in Florida named Rick Wilson.
And that quote here is attributed to him.
That having the Supreme Court strike down DOMA and legalize gay marriage everywhere takes the issue away from the Democrats.
They can't run around and fundraise by calling us a bunch of bigots.
And it it it it's it'll stop the Democrats from running around telling people that you're a bunch of uh uh uh minorities that the Republicans don't like and they're trying to stick it to you, evil GOP.
We can remove this evil G O P from their playbook if if it's that this that's the fallacy here.
The Democrats are never gonna get rid of the evil GOP as a campaign tactic.
No matter what the GOP does.
Last I looked, it was the Republican Party that ended slavery.
We're still racist.
Jick Dick Cheney came in 2004, one of the early Republican supporters of gay marriage.
How is that working out for him in terms of the left stopping their assault on the guy?
It didn't.
Who was on the wrong side of cultural history in Rome?
The Caligula crowd, or those who were opposed.
In nineteen forty, who was on the wrong side of cultural history in Germany.
Rick Wilson continued, uh well, I didn't print the second page.
I didn't need it.
Democrats won't be as happy explaining to gay business owners why the Republicans are a bunch of reprobates if the issue becomes legal nationwide.
And there are other Republicans who are offering quotes on this.
And there's also a Republican Tea Party member, a guy named Main Waring, he's gay.
And he has a piece that I have here in my stack.
He's just opposed to gay marriage like you can't believe.
Anyway, I've got to take a little break here.
We'll come back.
I'm gonna start introducing your phone calls, not through with this, but other things uh will be thrown in a hopper as well.
So sit tight.
We'll be back and continue after this.
Ha, great to have you.
Rush Limbaugh back having more fun than a human being should be allowed to have them.
Let's go to the phones as promised.
We'll start Los Angeles.
And uh, Mark, thank you for calling.
It's great to have you here.
Hello.
Analog and digital videos, Rush.
Thank you, sir, very much.
Rush, about right before I called and turned on my radio like a good caller.
I was listening to your show on a clock radio.
I bought in 1985.
And my first exposure to you was actually on your syndicated TV show.
I remember you're wearing a Russian fur hat, and you were talking about Bill Clinton's trip to Moscow.
And at that time, that was the only news source where I could even hear that story.
And the only even way to contact you was either to call, you know, your 800 number on a landline, or I think you have like a ten digit copy served email address.
That's exactly right.
And I got copies from Justice so I could contact you.
And you could get transcripts on that site.
But now in this in this current environment, I can listen to you on iHeart Radio anywhere.
Um all the talk radio hosts are available to me constantly.
I can Twitter you, I can put things on Facebook.
Um there's so many different ways to to get exposure to your show or for feedback.
My question for you is based upon what you were talking about in the last hour about how the media landscape has changed for cable television, for broadcast television, and for print media.
How has all of this internet revolution changed the AM radio broadcast market for you and for your other talk radio hosts?
And is it different than um what's happening to broadcast and cable and print, or is it is it somehow the same?
Let me I'm not quite sure I understand the question.
You are you asking me why AM has not fractured and and uh been divided up into a bunch of smaller pieces the way uh the network newscasts uh uh the big three networks had it happen to them, or why uh the the entire cable universe has so many niche networks now instead of broad mass appeal networks?
Well, the entire landscape has changed.
I mean I you work for e entertainment, so I've worked in that type of uh entertainment media, and even right now I just posted on Facebook that I was waiting on hold to call talk to you, and I've already had like twelve comments, and I and I'm just getting on the air with you.
So it's kind of a broad view of your opinion as a professional broadcast specialist about how Twitter and Facebook and internet radio and podcasts and all the different technological.
Wait, but are you are you asking me why has that not killed AM radio?
Uh well, maybe, yes.
Why is it I can still get to I'm listening on an AM radio um right now.
Um you know, why hasn't it the fact that um people can listen to every other show not hurt your ratings?
Oh, okay, all right.
Why why have my ratings on radio not been cannibalized by the availability elsewhere?
Is that what you're saying?
Yeah, and and and also just kind of your your broader feedback on on, you know, now that people can Twitter you and and and there's so many different ways to reach you, and there's also so many different ways to hear your show.
I mean, I used to have to drive the.
Well, but are there really?
Are there really that many different ways to hear the show?
Now you can have somebody tweet something they just heard.
You might be able to go to a radio station website or my website uh uh or what have you to uh to get the program.
But in terms of the actual entire show, uh it isn't that fractured.
But the only thing it has would be streaming on on uh on the internet.
But you can't get the whole program on Twitter or on Facebook.
You just get snippets, which will, of course, if you're intrigued, direct you back to the source.
And I think that that probably is the answer.
If I understand your your question, I really think that the the ultimate answer to your question is content.
People will go wherever they have to to get the content that they want.
So if if what they want is on an AM radio station, that's where they'll go to get it.
If they have to string two tin cans together with a piece of string to get it, that's where they'll go if they want it.
I think content is king.
Uh and then uh there surprisingly a lot of broadcasters don't subscribe to that.
But I think it is the content.
I've had so many people tell me that they are shocked that AM radio still even exists.
With with um all the different listening options that why haven't you gone to FM in some markets we have?
But uh, why aren't you internet only?
Why aren't you this or that?
Why don't why don't you stream your program?
Why don't you put a camera in there and let everybody Watch your show on television.
And I've got a specific answer to that.
I do believe radio is to be listened to and not seen.
But I still think it boils down the content.
I don't think people, if they really like this show, the fact that it's on AM radio doesn't matter.
They'll go wherever it is if they want to listen to it.
And in that sense, the content has to be continually better than whatever else is out there as an option.
And so that's now also.
Okay, go ahead.
Now that I've maybe I'm still not answering your question, and if I'm not, it's because I still don't quite understand what it is.
Well, also, when I go on to iHeartRadio, I can listen to your show, but I also have the choice of any other number of talk radio hosts all across the country that I can listen to.
Right.
And rather than just saying, well, there's you know, 2 A.M. stations in my market that I can get right where I am now, I have to listen to their programming.
So you why can't people just say, oh, I'm gonna go to listen to um to Air America?
I don't even know if they're still even on.
Well, but the reason they didn't is because it wasn't any good.
Yeah.
It was available everywhere.
They were giving it away, but it wasn't any good.
People didn't want to listen to it.
The uh the Air America people totally misunderstood why this program and the others like it are uh are successful.
But it it boils down to content and where people can best get it.
Okay, uh still trying to figure out what that guy's question was, and I've got people telling me what he really meant.
Is is it is it somebody just said to me that what he was asking was with all of these other media options, why is this old fashioned AM radio still even around?
Is that what he was saying?
Well, uh again the that the the the same answer content.
Because there's something on it people want to listen to.
Pure and simple, that's why it's relevant.
AM radio has something there that people want, and so they'll go there to listen to it.
Content, content, content.
Content is king.
Just like cash is king.
Ask them about that in Cyprus.
Content, content, content, content.
Marshall McCluin, remember him?
He said the medium is the message.
The message is the message.
In my world, the message is the message.
If it were simply about modernity, AM would not exist.
Because it's not modern.
There's nothing hip about AM.
In terms of audio quality, you can do much better.
Uh, in terms of reception, you can do much better.
Well, I think I think television is probably maybe seen as less hip or less modern by kids that know how to stream video on their on their uh i devices, yeah.
Because that's on demand.
That's you watch if you can find it, you watch what you want when you watch.
You be why do you think Netflix is kicking butt?
Why do you think when I pulled my little stunt last week that Netflix was going to raise prices so as to the no longer subsidize people that didn't have the money for it?
Or they were gonna raise prices to pay for people who couldn't.
It caused uh you didn't know this, but it caused for the five minutes that I let it hang out there, it c it it ticked people off like you can't believe.
Apple, iTunes, a dollar ninety-nine cents to buy a high definition episode of a TV show that aired last night.
It's become one of their biggest profit centers, buying for a buck ninety-nine a high definition TV show that you could have watched last night for nothing.
There are no ads on it.
You watch it in 42 minutes.
It's going game.
Movies, the same thing.
There's a massive, massive media transformation out there that that's that's taking place.
Uh but you know, do I what?
Sometimes I do.
Sometimes I watch Netflix on the iPad.
If I If I don't want to look, if if I'm sitting on the sofa and I don't want to get up and walk five feet to get my TV remote, I'll watch it on the iPad.
So you know what I've done?
I got a program on my iPad that turns on the TV.
I've got essentially I've got a remote control, a crestron app for my TV sets in every room of the house on my iPad.
So depends on how intimate I want.
If if in fact the reason for me, the reason I choose to watch it on an iPad is because I can hear it better.
And I don't need to turn the captioning on as much with that speaker real close to the uh to my implant.
Now this this the media landscape is um is is fascinating.
I'm I'm doing an interview.
We're in our 25th year here on this program, and for some that that's significant in terms of anniversary, what is silver is your 25th.
So trade publication submitted some questions.
I agreed to do the interview, and they submitted their questions via email.
And I answered for email.
And one of the questions was, and I found this literally fascinating.
This publication has been around at least 20 years, if not longer.
This is not a criticism.
I don't want anybody, I'm not even going to tell you who it is.
It doesn't matter.
It's a trade magazine.
You'll never see it.
Just people in radio read it.
How come you don't do personal appearances and television shows and books to also connect with your audience?
I wrote back, but I have.
I've been there, done that.
I did that long ago.
I wrote two books.
I sold a combo 10 million copies in hardcover.
I did three years of 49 weekends a year of speeches.
And I have did 40.
I did four years of a syndicated TV show before there was cable.
I've been there done that.
I said, What your question should be is why do I not have to do that in order to still have the largest audience there is.
That's the question for somebody that really is.
Why do I not have to do TV every night?
Why do I not have to constantly have a book out there?
That to me is the question.
But I didn't answer it because I wasn't asked.
Here is this guy, Doug Mainwaring.
I mentioned earlier, Doug Mainwaring, co-founder of the National Capital Tea Party Patriots.
And this article appeared in the publicdiscourse.com, and basically the headline says it all.
I'm gay and I oppose gay marriage.
His piece is essentially saying marriage is about kids, period.
That's the reason the institution exists.
We should tremble at and fear the notion of undoing it.
And again, Doug Mainwaring, who is gay, co-founder of the National Capital Tea Party Patriots, not the National Gay Capital Tea Party.
His his um homosexuality is not apparently the number one thing about him he wants people to know.
It's the fact that he is the co-founder of the National Capital Tea Party Patriots.
That's what he wants people to know.
Now, grab audio somebody 26.
Apparently, uh Greta Van Sustran last night on her show asked Carl Rove about this theory that the politico has today that the best thing for the Republican Party would be for the Supreme Court to strike down Doma.
Now, here's our question to Carl Rove.
You know what I think would be the best thing strategically for the Republican Party, Carl?
Supreme Court in these two cases, very broad decisions, and just basically ends the discussion, so that the Republican Party isn't debating gay marriage in 2014 and 2016.
Here's what Rove said.
I think there's a lot of uh a lot of wisdom in that.
I also think, though, that if the court makes a broad decision and overreaches, uh, we could have the same situation that we've had with abortion, where people say, look, I don't like the court dictating uh the outcome.
I'd rather leave it to the people and to the their elected representatives.
Okay.
So Carl said, well, I think there's a lot of wisdom in that, getting the issue off the table.
It's not a new tactic, by the way.
It just seems to be the go-to tactic for Republicans lately.
But he's also right.
This this if if the Supreme Court decides this, this isn't gonna settle anything.
It it's it's it's gonna, it's gonna keep this culture royal because it's gonna it is gonna be like abortion, where nine lawyers in black robes have decided what is and what isn't instead of the people in the Democratic process.
I mentioned that early on.
But I want to take you back, folks, because do you remember just two years ago?
Obama and Hillary, by the way, were both dead set against gay marriage.
You remember and not just Obama and Hillary, but practically every Democrat running for office.
There were exceptions, uh Democrats in the Bay Area, Seattle, uh, New York and Boston, but they were the exception.
The Democrat Party, but particularly Obama and Hillary made it clear.
They didn't just issue little statements, they made speeches about their opposition to gay marriage.
And then something happened.
Obama reversed himself.
Do you remember when he did this?
And do you remember why?
Yeah, Biden did it.
Biden went out there and committed the Obama regime to gay marriage.
And why?
Do you remember why?
Because this they were they were in the in the beginning of the crucial part of the campaign against Romney.
And the gay money was not in play.
And there's a lot of gay money on the Democratia, the activist homosexual lobby contributes big bucks.
And almost always to the Democrat Party, but they were on the sidelines.
I'll never forget this.
That money had not been committed, and the campaign was starting to worry about it.
Because they were holding the Democrat Party hostage to this issue.
Remember, just two years ago, folks, to get elected in this country, you had to oppose gay marriage.
Democrat, Republican, it didn't matter.
And then the the uh the activist gays on the Democrat side withheld their money, and publicly so.
And that's when Biden went over the edge.
That's when Biden committed the Democrat Party to gay marriage.
Obama had no choice but them to follow.
And as soon, as soon as Obama did his 180 on it, a tsunami of campaign donations from gay activists began flowing in.
And at the time, I was saying that Obama's change of position is not gonna make any difference whatsoever because he can't change the law by himself.
I'll never forget this.
Uh, here's the gay the gay lobby sitting on the left, sitting on the sideline.
Obama hasn't done anything.
He hasn't talked about it, and all they wanted to hear was Obama saying it.
They weren't even demanding Obama do anything about it because he couldn't.
All they wanted was somebody powerful to come out in favor of the issue.
And when Obama did it, that money started flowing in like a tsunami.
And I made the point that his ch and this is this is key here, that his change of position really didn't make any difference because Obama can't change the law by himself.
And that's being illustrated here.
It's It's up to the Supreme Court.
Obama cannot do it.
He can come out in favor of it.
He can send his solicitor general up there to argue for it, but he can't do it.
Nor can he be held responsible.
But but his change of position on this was strictly about tapping the gay wealth that is so big for the Democrat Party.
I mean meaning it's not sincere.
This was strictly a financial move that Obama made.
Now, the reason I bring this up is because this political article says that if we just get this issue off the table, let the Democrats have it, then it eliminates the fundraising obstacles.
Because the Democrats can't run around and say this or say that.
And that couldn't be more wrong.
All Obama had to do was champion gay marriage before the Supreme Court, and that money just came rolling in, and all he's got to do to keep that money rolling in is still come out in favor of it.
And he's always going to say, no matter what the Republicans do, that they're opposed to it.
Put another way, how does the Republican Party get any credit if the Supreme Court legalizes it?
And my question to these consultants is how do you benefit from this?
How do you, in a, in a positive, active way benefit?
You can't claim credit for it.
The Supreme Court did it.
So the perception's always going to be that you oppose it, no matter what the court does.
My my only point here is that giving the issue to the Democrats is not going to change the fundraising any.
And letting the court or hoping that the court grants or makes gay marriage legal nationwide, that's not going to change anything.
The money is still going to pour into the Democrats.
What are these consultants going to say?
Supreme Court legalizes gay marriage nationwide.
What the Republicans going to run around and applaud it, say, oh, yeah, we were supporting this.
We hope this happened.
Is that what they can't claim any credit for it?
They can't claim to be on the side of it.
It's just I don't know, folks.
I uh it makes me think they don't know their business.
And of course, I'm not in their business, and I have to always say that as a qualifier.
They may know much more than I do about it.
Um getting votes a lot different than getting an audience.
Be the first to admit that.
Now, I know there are just two consultants in this story, but there were 75 Republicans that signed on to the Amicus Brief.
So it's it's not just two.
There were 75 Republicans that did urge the court to make it legal.
Gotta take a quick break.
I really do.
And by the way, folks, oh uh Biden was not a a uh uh rogue player when he went out there and committed the regime to gay marriage.
He was a stalking horse.
Biden goes out there and basically says that the regime is for gay marriage.
He that that was he was he was what what are they it was a trial balloon.
They wanted to gauge what the reaction would be for Obama if Biden goes out there and ostensibly speaking for the regime, comes out in favor of gay marriage.
Nothing happened, so Obama said, cool, cool.
So I'm for it, and here came all the money.
And he's gonna continue to get the money because he came out for it from the gay activists.
That money's never gonna go to the Republicans, no matter what the Supreme Court does.
They're never gonna get that.
I'm gonna tell you something, folks.
If if the Republican Party bases its principles and vision on what kids in college or recent college graduates think, after they've been indoctrinated by left-wing teachers and professors, then they're gonna have a big problem, the Republicans are.
This notion that you win the youth vote by endorsing whatever the youth support is like parents running their households based on what their kids demand.
Parents can't do that, and neither can a party.
Maturation, experience, knowledge gained outside a classroom all combine to turn people away from leftist professors.
You have to have principles rock solid that you stand for that people can gravitate toward after you constantly explain them and make them available.
But you can't, just like you can't get the Hispanic vote by all of a sudden say, you know what?
We're for amnesty.
It's not gonna work.
You can't make your kids love you by doing stuff like that.
You can only hope to buy them.
And what good is that?
Because that doesn't last, and then you have to keep buying them after that.
It's a disaster.
Let me tell you what a Republicans are gonna win if they do, and it's gonna be on the economy.
And that's what needs not be forgotten here.
All this other stuff is passing, social stuff, and it's is what it is.
▲
Export Selection