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Oct. 15, 2013 - Rush Limbaugh Program
36:46
October 15, 2013, Tuesday, Hour #2
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And greetings to you, my friends.
Welcome back.
Great to have you, Rush Limbaugh, all week in Los Angeles, here at the EIB Western Outpost.
It's a couple super secret things going on, but for the most part, just a change of scenery.
I'm here.
We're here because we can.
And we like it here.
Get in, get it, get out.
Telephone number is the same, 800 282-2882, the email address, L Rushbow at EIBNet.com.
Now, I want to pick up with this uh the Pat Buchanan piece on the Goldwater Rockefeller Redux.
Because Buchanan's point here is that the Republicans only did what was morally right.
They ran for office.
They got elected on the notion, doing everything they could to stop the implementation of Obamacare.
Two or three of them, when they got there, actually did what they were elected to do.
And they did it in a persuasive, charismatic enough way to drag the party with them, and the party hates them.
Because the party is made up of the we can't win Republican establishment.
And by the way, that we can't win notion, I think you'd agree with me.
It seems to be prevalent not just on this issue, but on practically everything.
Seems we can't win on amnesty.
We can't win on immigration, we can't win on Obamacare, we can't win on the stimulus.
We can't win.
So what do we do?
We come up with alternatives of Democrat ideas that basically incorporate the basic idea, but then we try to do it our own touch.
Smarter or what have you.
Rather than presenting a genuine alternative, or rather than just saying no.
We're not gonna nationalize health care.
No, we're not gonna grant automatic citizenship to twelve or twenty million illegal people in the country, no matter what.
We're just not gonna do it.
But that's not what they do.
The we can't win chorus sits around in caves and tries to limit the damage.
Now, Buchanan's point here is that the Republicans that led this fight are doing something honorable, and therefore there is a payoff.
There's a potential payoff.
He's going back in Republican history to find it.
He goes back to the Goldwater era, 1964.
The Republican convention in San Francisco that year was at the Cow Palace, and at that convention, liberal Republicans demanded that Goldwater rewrite the platform just to show you none of this stuff is new.
Just to show you that the Republican Party's never really been full-fledged conservative.
It's always been this established rhino or moderate group that is really part of the Washington established, and they were content to be losers.
Amiable losers.
And everybody got along.
And they won a couple things here and there, and they win the White House now and then, and they'd get temporary control of the budget, which was cool.
But Goldwater, Reagan, hell with those guys, they're gonna upset the Apple cart.
So at the Cow Palace Convention, when Goldwater is clearly going to get the nomination, the liberals demanded a rewrite the platform to equate the John Burt Society with the Communist Party and the Klan.
Um demanding all of these concessions from Goldwater.
Goldwater rejected it.
And in rejecting it is when Goldwater said extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice.
And so all the liberal Republicans abandoned Goldwater.
But one man stood by him.
The two-time loser, Richard Nixon.
This is an addition to Reagan, but for Buchanan's historical purposes or he focused on Nixon.
One man stood by Goldwater, Richard Nixon, who hadn't won a race in his own right since 1950.
Nixon campaigned for Goldwater and the party longer and harder than Goldwater himself did.
Nixon was a party man.
Goldwater was the nominee.
Now what became of all these people?
This is the history lesson.
What happened to all these liberal Republicans that told Goldwater to take a hike?
What happened to all these liberal Republicans who told Goldwater, look at you can't be who you are, and then you gotta you gotta moderate.
You gotta become more liberal.
What happened to everybody here?
Bill Scranton, he was one of the liberal Republicans, Pennsylvania.
He packed it in in 1966, having done nothing.
George Romney trounced in 1968 by Nixon with Goldwater's supporters at his side.
George Romney got shellacked by Richard Nixon for the nomination, 1968.
The people remembered Nixon helping Goldwater four years prior.
That was in New Hampshire.
Romney quit the race two weeks before the returns came in.
Nelson Rockefeller, who had spent a career calling Nixon a loser, lacked what it took to challenge Nixon in any of the contested primaries.
Rockefeller tried to stop Reagan.
1976, Kansas City.
Lest we forget one other national Republican spoke up for Goldwater and conservatism and that 64 humiliation, and that was Ronald Reagan.
Nixon and Reagan would go on to win four of the next five Republican nominations in presidential elections.
In the one convention Reagan lost 1976, Kansas City, as the price of its support for Gerald Ford demanded that Rockefeller be dumped as vice president.
Buchanan's point here is that the equivalence of the modern day we can't win chorus in the Republican establishment.
Years from now aren't going to win anything either.
Who's going to support them on the basis of what?
And why?
What have they done?
But cave.
What have they done?
But castigate, criticize, and try to destroy their own, who are only doing, and I'm talking about Cruz and Lee and then Rubio, some of the others, they're only doing what they were elected to do.
They're simply fulfilling their campaign commitments.
Nixon's fortunes are evidence here to Buchanan that these people are going to be okay down the road in the Republican Party.
They're going to be rewarded for this.
And he thinks doubly so once the general public finds out what an absolute disaster Obamacare is.
And it is a worse disaster than anybody knows.
There's a great piece by Mark Thiesson today that I have in the stack coming up.
So America is at a turning point.
And the Republican caucus, and I've have it on good authority this morning, is comprised of people who believe the last 15 days has killed the party for the next two elections.
They just think we'll never win.
And when America disagrees with Obamacare.
Eventually it embraced LBJ's great society.
It embraced all that.
Republicans need to stand up.
Current polls, corporate Republicans be damned.
If the right is right, time will prove it, as it did long ago.
That I didn't hear you.
What was that?
Mm-hmm.
Well, Mr. Snerdley, the official program observer, has asked me in bouncing off this Republican attitude of we can't win, which seems to be common.
He said Democrats, even when they lose, act like they won.
And he wants me to explain it.
It's psychology.
The Democrats believe they're the chosen people.
The Democrats believe that they are the they are born to power even when they're denied it in elections.
And when they are denied it in elections, they make everybody responsible for it in their view pay a price.
So that's why they seek to destroy impugnised what have you, all of their opponents.
They do that anyway.
But after a loss, they really go big because power running the country is their birthright.
The psychological belief that they have.
And they don't think that the people want this.
In their view, the people are too stupid to know what they want.
So you don't listen to the vote doesn't matter.
When the vote goes against the Democrats, that's just evidence of how stupid and uh misled the poor public has been.
Polls don't stop them.
There's never anything wrong with them.
I don't let's reduce this to personal relations.
Do you know anybody like that?
I have.
I've been fired by five or six of them.
Do you know anybody who believes that no matter what?
They are, I don't want to say right.
It's not, it's it's far more than that.
It's a it's a it's they're they're pathological liars, they're self-deceivers.
Uh they they they concoct a phony world in which to live.
And that's the that is the Democrat Party at large.
The Republicans, and it's that that I think it requires a profound confidence, by the way, that it also can't be denied.
Much of that confidence comes from the fact they own the media and they own the pop culture.
They know they're not going to get ripped to shreds for what they do or say.
They know that they're not going to be held to any standard whatsoever.
They know that in any fight, the media, the powers of persuasion are always going to be on their side.
The Republicans know just the opposite.
And they spend their lives cowering in the corners, waiting for the next assault from whoever the Democrat leadership is or the media or what have you.
And that's what those of us outside the beltway don't understand.
Why put up with that?
Why, after all these years, why not actually fight this stuff on a moral basis, on a what's right basis, on a being honest to your constituents' basis, what have you.
Now, I mentioned a piece in power line earlier.
I don't mention uh power line much, but here's a piece by Stephen Hayward assessing the government shut down the long view.
And the reason I'm sharing this with you, because it dovetails with my own theory on this.
And you know what my theory is that we're not losing.
It is Obama that's having all kinds of trouble.
I don't I'm not under any illusions here.
I have a much broader definition of winning and losing.
The Republicans are aiming at a defeat, but I don't think that that is happening to them, if left to its own devices.
They're securing it for themselves almost because they want it.
Conventional wisdom right now is that the government shutdown ranks somewhere between a debacle and a catastrophe for Republicans.
And their abject surrender is expected before too much longer.
But Hayward says, I'm not so sure.
While I thought the shutdown was a dubious and unwise tactic, I think taking a longer view may cast a different light on the scene.
First of all, like the sequester, have the majority of Americans notice the effects of the shutdown beyond what the media has been screaming about.
The bullying tactics of forcibly shutting off public spaces like the World War II memorial on the mall have surely inflicted damage on Obama.
You see, that's what I believe.
But the Republicans in Washington are incapable of knowing it.
Because that's their world.
But I I think closing the mall to World War II vets and barricading them out of there and an opening the place for illegals to basically go in and rip the country.
I don't think Obama wins that at all.
I think it actively hurts the Democrats.
It's just that you're not going to see any evidence of it because the media isn't going to tell you, and there isn't going to be a poll on it.
You have to have faith, as I still do in the American people to believe that.
I believe the polls, majority of people don't want Obamacare.
The majority of people don't like Obama's policies.
They don't like Obama's policies.
They just don't associate him with them.
That's all it is.
But they do associate him with the shutdown.
They do associate him with what's happening in the mall and the illegals versus the World War II vets.
Anyway, Hayward goes on to post a couple of uh charts here.
Now, charts are worthless on the radio.
They're they're worthless as breasts on a boar hog.
I mean, they're just worthless.
And I can't show them to you on the ditto cam.
It's it's uh too small.
But they happen to be the only source for the data here, so I've got to use them.
These are charts representing research done by Carolyn Bowman and Andrew Rugg.
R U G G maybe Rogue.
And they have sampled public opinion on a number of things.
And they have concluded that public confidence in Washington is at lows, not seen since the 1970s.
And we know what happened at the end of that decade.
The 70s began with Watergate and ended with Jimmy Carter.
And that's again, this is the historical perspective that is worth noting.
Public confidence in Washington is at lows not seen since the 70s.
And it's not just due to the Republicans.
The last chart here is a real stunner.
The question on this uh chart, these days, what kind of impact do you think the government has on most people's lives?
Sixty-four percent negative impact.
17% positive impact, 13%, not much impact.
64%.
Now, again, in the historical perspective, I believe this.
I believe a majority of Americans, for whatever reason, don't like what's going on in Washington at all.
And it's not exclusive to the Republicans.
Folks, the country isn't working.
Jobs aren't being created.
Careers are vanishing, vanishing.
College graduates have nothing to do.
Degrees are worthless, and they've got all this debt.
Nobody's getting raises.
Obamacare is kicking in, and it's an absolute disaster.
I'm telling you that it is not a panacea.
It's not utopia, it's not happiness.
There isn't a whole lot of joy out there.
And you got 64% think the government is having a negative impact on people.
I'm sorry, the last five years of the d of the government are owned by the Democrats.
And that's why it is important for there to be loud, outspoken, uplifting Republican opposition to what is happening.
And that's the value of what Cruz and Lee have been doing.
For some reason, this is not seen by the Republican establishment.
Somebody in the party has to stand up and speak out against what's going on because this is not right.
This is not good for America.
This is not traditionally America.
is not what this country's been.
A couple of Buchanan's column and this thing that Hayward posted in your normal common sense, intelligence guided by experience, you have to believe that the people standing up opposing this are going to eventually be seen as having cared, as being brave and having It may not happen for a couple three years, or who knows when.
But it's an honorable thing that they've been doing.
And all of the beltway is missing it.
As they miss most everything.
And now I'm going to take a brief time out.
We'll come back.
I still I've only scratched 10% of the show prep here.
That means we're still loaded, but I got to get your phone calls, and we'll start on that right after this, so don't go away.
Grab a quick phone call.
Here we have Zach, 20 years old in college in Lancaster, Pennsylvania.
Hi, Zach.
I'm glad you called.
Hey, Rush, how are you doing?
Very well.
Thank you, sir.
Hey, Rush.
I just uh I really felt compelled to call today.
Uh, you know, like you just said, I'm 20 years old, I'm a college student, and uh I'm really angry, Rush.
I'm really angry.
Uh I want to tell you why I'm angry, and uh that'll leave me up to my question uh I have for you.
I think yesterday I really reached my boiling point when I was watching the news, I was watching my local news, and uh I saw Obama he was uh preparing sandwiches for the homeless uh at a soup kitchen or something like that.
And I was with a few of my friends and I started grumbling a bit when I just came onto the television, and they're all like, Well, what you know, they're used to me uh being a little more into politics and you know paying attention to this type of thing, then they used to be like what why does this make you angry?
Zach, what hold it right there?
I misjudged the clock by a minute.
I've can you hold on to the break to finish?
Yeah, sure.
Good, good, great.
I'm glad to my band here.
Hold on, we'll be right back.
Hold your thought right there.
Okay, we're back.
We got Zach here in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, and you left off.
You were watching local news with some friends.
You saw Obama at the soup kitchen.
And um you see your friends are are used to you being a little bit more into politics and paying attention to that kind of stuff than than they used to be.
Um and they asked you why you they asked you why you got mad at at what you saw.
Why why did you get mad?
Well, there are a couple reasons, Rush.
Uh, you know, number one, as you know, uh you have informed me, you know, people don't listen to you may not know this because you know the mainstream media won't really tell you, but you have the Republicans genuinely interested in you know, coming to terms with Obama, trying to come up with some civil vi bipartisanship, and um it's it's not working, you know.
We're not hearing that in the mainstream media.
So why isn't he in the trenches trying to figure this out, trying to sort this out?
And also, you know, it just it just made so much sense.
You know, this is where he is, he's trying to look really good to the liberals.
Um here he is in the soup kitchen.
I'm telling you Russia, I'm surprised he's not on vacation right now, honestly.
But this leads me to my question.
You know, it's not working.
We we're trying to do this.
We've we've tried to pass, you know, various things.
We tried to open up parks, we tried to open up national museums, we try to open up things that, you know, right now aren't considered non essential, but they might be a little more essential than you know, people think.
Uh, but you know, Rush, are we gonna have to blink, you know, with the the debt ceiling approaching and uh everything.
Are we gonna have to blink or Republicans gonna have to blink?
Right now we're not really winning the fight.
I mean I I think they're I think there's a little bit there's people are starting to realize kind of what's going on, but Zach, what do you not enough?
What do you want them to do?
What would I like them to do?
Yeah, what do you want the you want the Republicans to blink and end this so that the shutdown ends and the bleeding stops?
Well, I don't know, Rush.
I mean, it's it's really unfair because like I said, you have the Republicans genuinely interested.
Like I said, civil bipartisanship, we're trying to come to terms with them, but uh they won't let anything pass.
Like you keep saying, it's instilled in us.
They're trying to inflict pain, we know that, but the mainstream media does not depict these things.
You you don't see you don't see these things.
We've tried to pass numerous things.
Obama, unless we embrace his complete plan, nothing will be passed.
It's I I don't know what I'd like them to do, Rush, because uh we the uh when I say we, you know, the GOP, uh the Republicans, they're depicted as monsters pretty much right now.
I don't know if you've ever looked at Obama's Twitter.
They're all tweets signed by him.
They need to be signed before they're tweeted, but they say things like, you know, let me t now now I'm you know I'm glad you mentioned Twitter.
Do you know that supposedly uh nineteen Midian followers of Obama's Twitter page, and it's been learned that the vast majority of them are fake.
They don't exist.
Is that right?
Yep.
Zach, um I hear it in your voice.
You are twenty years old, you're a Republican conservative, and you just you can't take much more Of this.
You can't take much more of this criticism of this impugning of the lying mischaracterization of the Republicans.
You don't see them ever winning.
You don't see what this is worth, because in all of their efforts, what you call civil bipartisanship, which is what the media tells them the people want, so they try it.
It's rejected.
Then nothing they can do.
So they might as well just cut the bleeding and end the bad press.
The bad press isn't going to end.
You're 20.
Ronald Reagan got this kind of press.
Barry Goldwater got this kind of every Republican who has succeeded, George W. Bush got this kind of press.
Every six Sarah Palin, every successful Republican got this kind of press.
I'll tell you what bothers me.
When Palin was chosen to be the vice president, great acceptance speech at the convention and a good first speech there with McCain, wherever it was in Indianapolis, someplace in Indiana.
And immediately the Democrats started and the media started making fun of her, and they talked about what an idiot she was, made up things that she never said.
She never said that she was an expert on foreign policy because she could see Russia from her house in Alaska.
She never said it.
Tina Fay said that, portraying her.
It became as though in the media, Palin said it.
And I I'd run into Republicans who said we got to let her go.
We just we gotta we gotta throw her overboard.
She's killing us.
And I got infuriated, Zach.
I literally, at a dinner party I hosted, walked out.
I got so infuriated at the seeming ease that so-called Republicans had with letting the Democrats pick our winners and losers, letting the Democrats pick our nominee, letting the Democrats and the media pick who among us are gonna be our leaders.
And of course, they're always gonna pick, and they're always gonna get rid of people that they're afraid of.
But what bothered me was that it was the media saying this stuff about Palin, and these people, if the media's saying it, we got a dumper.
And I just I reject that totally.
I I if if the media is ripping into somebody, I want to keep them.
The media is trying to destroy Ted Cruz, I want to keep him.
There's a reason for it.
I think what's happening, and I've spent a lot of time in the first hour of the program, what's happening here is that I mean, I think everybody at the end of the day thinks that Obama is gonna win this.
But it is how the Republicans comport themselves in this that determines whether they really win it or lose it in the long term, because there's a lot of politics to come after this.
There are a lot of elections to come after this.
There are a lot of policies to come after this.
There are a lot of things that we're gonna want to oppose again.
Obamacare is going to be seen as an as an absolute disaster by people once it gets into its full implementation cycle.
It's gonna be an absolute disaster.
And I think, you know, their Republicans speaking up now, Zach, are doing what they were elected to do.
And I think that they're gonna be rewarded down the line for standing up for what Republicans believe and doing their level best to stop this.
There's not a Republican in office who ran supporting Obamacare.
Not one of them voted for it.
Every one of them ripped it at some point.
Every one of them criticized.
The vast majority promised in election campaigns to do everything they could to defund it or to repeal it or whatever.
But when the time came, very few of them stood up.
Those people do not have bright futures in the Republican Party.
I would I would I would fight if I were you, if I had the ability to persuade you, I would tell you to fight this notion to let the media dictate what you think Republican policy ought to be.
That's what's happening now, and that's why you're mad.
The Republicans are essentially trying to limit the damage in the media.
They've been doing it my whole life.
What they're trying to do is eliminate the damage or mitigate it and stop the bleeding, and all it does is encourage more of this kind of treatment.
It's not, it's not going to stop it.
If Obama gets everything he wants in this case.
Do you think all of a sudden the Republicans are going to be loved?
You think the American people are going to say, yeah, I like these Republicans now.
Yeah, they uh they're very civil, very uh I like the bipartisanship in caving and agreeing with Obama.
That's not the case.
The vast majority of the people, despite the election results, do not want Obamacare, do not like what's happening to the country, and it's worth fighting for.
And I just I cringe when I hear people want to throw everything overboard because the media killing us.
And it always will be the case.
And it's also true, the media doesn't always win.
Zach, the media's job is to depress you.
The media's job is to dispirit you.
The media's job is to make you think that what you want can never happen.
Because it's racist, sexist, extremist, not in the mainstream, uh it it it it homophobic and all those things.
They want you to think the way you're thinking.
And if we're ever going to get out of this cycle, it's going to be because people refuse to let the media pick our nominees, pick our leaders, let the media get away with destroying various Republicans.
That's got to stop.
And until that does, what you're seeing isn't going to change.
So buck up.
Hang in there.
You're twenty.
You're gonna be needed.
You are needed now.
Quick time out, folks, we'll be back after this.
And we will stick with the phones.
Raleigh, North Carolina, this is Donna.
Great to have you on the program.
Hi.
Hi, Russ.
It's an honor to speak with you.
Thank you much.
Thank you so much for everything you do.
Um, I have two questions.
One, um, I I was just wondering if don't you have like a uh direct line to these guys like like Bahner and these guys that you could call and tell him what you just told Zach, you know, to buck up, stand strong, you know, hang in there, use your power, don't abuse the power, but use your power and and just stay in there, you know.
You're you're doing the right thing and and just help to um I don't know, the give them the moral support um that they need uh for some reason.
Um and then secondly, I'm just curious on Obamacare.
I thought that was created for people that didn't have insurance that couldn't afford insurance.
So if they couldn't afford it before, how are they supposed to afford it now when you just hear people say time and time again that it's more than what they're paying?
Well, that's why they are delaying aspects of the implementation so that people don't learn that.
It was sold as two things.
The first one you got right, it was sold as insurance for the 30 million that are not covered, and it was sold as cheaper premiums and wider access to actual health care for the middle class.
The truth of the matter is that young, healthy average inch c income middle-aged people's premiums are going to skyrocket because it is those people who are going to be paying the freight for the seasoned citizens and their health care who do not have the money to contribute or any of that.
That's how it is to be paid for by a healthy middle class with average earnings, their premiums are going to skyrocket.
That's why the implementation of this is uh is being delayed, is to keep that from happening.
That's that's really what that's that There's some people even, Donna, who are theorizing that these glitches at Obamacare at the website are not real, that they're programmed in just to keep the truth from being realized by people until a little bit more time has gone by.
But is it's it it's this cra it's just so uh it's uh it's just surreal, what we're living in right now, and it's just so hard to believe that this is happening.
It's like how does this happen to us?
You know, it's the best country in the world.
Um, you know, you Obama's got the most prestigious job that there is, and uh it's just so abused and squandered and you know how it happens, that's that's a that's a scary answer.
You know how it happens is a scary answer.
There are many different explanations for it.
You know, how how does how does Obama win?
How do the Democrats win when and and one of the reasons is this is not what people voted for Obama expected.
There are a number of people have voted for Obama because they thought it were gonna end racism in America.
A number of people voted for Obama because they would say about themselves that they weren't racist.
But there were no policy reasons to vote for Obama.
Obama was a uh an it, you know, whatever him wanted to be.
You're gonna end bak bickering and arguing Obama's great unifier Obama.
This is that it it's it's been a giant sham or scam, if you will, and it's continued to be.
I mean, nobody even knows who the man is.
He hadn't even been vetted like normal candidates are.
And the racial component of all this cannot be ignored in uh in explaining it.
Obama's well aware of that, and that's why he's making these big grabs, knowing that he's not going to be criticized by people because they're afraid to.
Well, it's a big painful level.
We've got a lot of people.
Look at 90 million Americans.
I love to put it this way, because I think it's the proper perspective.
Ninety million Americans are not working, Donna, but they're eating.
What what does that mean?
That's ten New York cities.
Over ten New York cities are not working, but they're eating, which means somebody's buying their sustenance.
And that somebody is somebody else is the government.
They are eating.
They've got their phones, they've got their flat screens, and and they're in there.
And some people are perfectly satisfied with that.
Others think that that's their entitlement as an American to have that provided for them.
Because so many other people have more.
It's only fair I should have a little given to me by people who've got more than I do.
Uh but 90 million Americans not working, and they're all eating, and there's a lot of people in the country that vote for Santa Claus.
There's a lot of reasons.
There's a lot of explanation.
Now, as to whether or not I have a direct line.
You know, I guess it is a popular perception that I do.
And I don't.
I guess it's a popular perception that I can get anybody on the phone I want and give them what for.
And I don't know.
Uh folks, in in in one sense, that's not I don't it's not who I am.
I can't explain I I don't even think about calling these people.
Um I might be able to get through if I wanted to, but um I think I'm no different than the way they'd react anybody else.
Yes or yes or three bags full and hang up.
Uh they hear what I say every day here on the on the on the uh radio.
They know what I say when I say it.
I just um uh I've never I've I've I I have never even tried uh pick up the phone for this purpose to call somebody and say, what the hell are you doing?
Let me tell you what you ought to be doing.
I've had some ask.
I'll just I've had a few over the years ask, and that's all they do is ask.
And I've answered and I've told them what they ought to do, and not since the mid nineties has anybody ever acted on it.
But see, folks, I've I don't sit here with my ego doesn't say they need to do what I think they should do because I'm I I I don't take it personally when they reject it.
I gotta take a break here on this little clock.
Be right back, folks.
Do not go, I'm not banking out of this, I'm not finished.
Okay, time zipping by here, and I still have lots to squeeze in here, my friends.
So we'll take a brief obscene profit break here at the top of the hour and be back revved up and ready to go for the next one.
In uh we'll be back before you know it.
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