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June 9, 2014 - Rush Limbaugh Program
37:09
June 9, 2014, Monday, Hour #2
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Greetings, folks, and welcome back.
Great to have you, Rush Lindbaugh back in the saddle.
Here to once again execute assigned host duties flawlessly with zero mistakes.
Great to have you here.
The telephone number is 800 282-2882 and the email address L Rushbo at EIBNet.com.
Andy McCarthy, as you uh good friend of mine has a uh a book out uh called Faithless Execution.
And it's about the impeachment of Obama.
And in fact, wasn't it wasn't it said by some Democrat, I forget who, that if Obama does this again, or maybe it was some Republican who said it.
Was it Lindsay Grimm or something?
If he does after the Bergdolf, if he does this again, we're gonna impeach him.
I think we're drawing our own red lines.
And Andy in his book makes the point that we have long ago crossed the legal threshold for impeachment.
It's clear that the legal threshold has been met, but there is no political will to do it.
And without that, it's a waste of time if you don't have the political will.
Meaning if the Republican Party doesn't have the goads, and if the American people are not desirous of it, then it's just whistling into the wind.
It's uh something irrelevant.
Uh Paul Bedard, writing here at the Washington Examiner, despite anger in many quarters of the nation over the President's prisoner swap, Republicans are backing off impeachment threats because they fear that it would rally President Obama's Democrat base and kill the Republicans' chances to win the Senate.
And a top Republican aide said, yep, that's accurate.
The Democrats are divided on so many issues right now, there's no reason to give them a reason to rally, so there's no reason to do this.
And so it isn't it isn't going to happen.
But then that that leads to another area that's uh we had a caller in the last hour, who basically I think expressed the frustrations of many of you.
When did this nation get so stupid?
Was the crux of his question?
Has it been trending this way and nobody saw it and it just happened coincidentally to peak at the same time Obama was elected?
Or has Obama sponsored the stupidity, promoted it, spread it, and is taking advantage of it?
And there are others who are asking, is Obama just himself stupid?
Or I think the question has been asked, is he evil?
I'm not comfortable using that word.
Because it's not going to persuade anybody.
He doesn't come across as an evil guy, so using that word is not is not going to accomplish anything.
But another way of saying it is, is he just incompetent?
Is he really in over his head?
Or is he really, really smart and conniving and manipulative and knows exactly what he's doing.
And does it matter?
Why what is happening is happening.
Does the why it is happening mitigate in any way that it's happening?
Let's say Obama is stupid.
Does that make this any easier to take?
Not to me.
If it's by design, does it make it harder to take?
Only in the sense that people don't see that, if that's the case.
But more and more people are starting to ask the question, including Democrats, are starting to ask some this question.
And it's not a comfortable place for Obama's supporters to be to have to defend one of these Two premises.
He's either dumb, stupid, or he's really intending to do all of this.
I mean, you notice the left is not happy either.
They never are.
No matter how much of what they want they get, they're never thrilled and never I mean, they're just constantly agitated, constantly offended, constantly irritated, and if they're not, they have to act like they are in order to feel like they're normal.
Because that is their normal state.
So it on both sides, what you end up with is an extended misery felt by a lot of people.
And our last caller's question did you know the the real fear here.
I mean, Obama is a politician.
He comes and goes, uh hopefully.
But it's the people who elected the guy that really posed the problem.
If indeed, and it's there has been an effort to dumb down the population of this country, it's undeniable.
It's been a uh part of the policy playbook of the left.
It's right out of Sololinsky's rules for radicals.
Uh you know, make them dumb, make them stupid, make them dependent, and you own them.
And this is I remember how I can give you an example of of how this manifests itself.
You remember early on in Obama's first term, there was something going on in Detroit where they were passing out vouchers for free rental properties or some such thing.
It was it was a voucher to get you into a rental property free for a period of time.
And there were very few of these vouchers available.
And the millions that showed up, or the with the tens of thousands that showed up, vastly outnumbered the number of vouchers that were going to be distributed.
And radio reported our affiliate in Detroit, WJR, went out and talked to the people about why they were there, and then how they thought what was being made available to them was being made available.
Okay.
Well, who who's where where are we getting the money here for you to have a voucher to live rent-free in some building here and town?
Oh, I don't know.
From Obama.
Well, where did he get it?
Well, I don't know.
Obama's stash.
I mean, it was it was it was clear.
There was no citizenship on display.
There was no, I mean, it was depressing.
Now, had I been president, and I said this at the time, had I been president and I'd seen, I would have been mortified, and I would have done I I would have been embarrassed that I am presiding and leading a country populated by such stupid people.
Obama revels in it, takes advantage of it, and exploits it.
All of leftists do, all the Democrats do.
They have a perpetual view of average Americans that holds them in contempt.
By design, by definition, a Democrat has to think the average person is incompetent and incapable.
Has to.
Somebody self-reliant, self-sufficient poses a threat to your average ordinary Democrat.
So they're not at all troubled.
They're not at all troubled with a constant influx of lowly educated, poor, hopeless, helpless refugees.
They need a permanent underclass of dependent supporters.
But to you and I, we see this as an all-out assault on the on the fabric and the foundation of the country.
And we rightly ask ourselves, how long can the country survive with that increasing degree of detachment, Ignorance, stupidity, undergirding it.
And then you ask, well, wait a minute, is this really anything abnormal?
Or he's always been.
The uh the percentage of the population that's that's this way.
And people are concluding no that this is something different and unique.
And I think they're right.
I know we've been through circumstances like this before, and no desire whatsoever, apparently, anywhere in Washington to fix any of this.
Washington simply sees what is and finds ways to exploit it for its own growth and its own perpetuation rather than roll up the sleeves and be offended or frightened or shocked or insulted or whatever by it all and demand to fix it and reverse it.
And he and you begin to think, does anybody care whether we have a great country or not?
Anybody, do they care whether we have a great country or not?
And the current crop of people leading it never have thought it's great, have always believed that we've been pretenders to the superpower throne.
*Sigh*
So it's a I I uh our first caller, it's it it I think just typifies the fear and and the opinions of of uh well, I'll say many of us because I'll throw myself in with you on this.
I uh the way I look at it, what I ask myself, okay, we elected George Bush, George W. Bush twice.
How did that happen?
How did the same electorate in a matter of years lose half of its IQ?
And then being honest, you've got to go back and say, well, in 2000, we really didn't win the popular vote.
It was the Electoral College and the Florida aftermath.
And then in 2004, you gotta throw the fact in that uh Lurch just did not fire up a whole lot of people, and the left had not succeeded, the media by that time by 2004 had not yet succeeded in totally poisoning everybody's attitude toward Bush.
And I know Bush was no Reagan conservative, but he clearly, George W. Bush was in no way, shape, manner reform of the same frame of mind as Obama and his minions.
It just seems like such a stark contrast.
Seems like we should have had three or four elections between Bush before we got to Obama.
If we're headed in that direction.
But it just seemed to happen overnight, and I think I think people have been scratching their heads since 2008 about this, frankly.
Back after this, folks, don't go away.
Back to the phones to Salem, Oregon.
Jerry, great to have you on the program, sir.
Hello.
Oh, good morning, Mr. Limbaugh.
That's exactly right, sir.
Thank you for calling.
Uh you know, uh, this prisoner exchange thing.
The the saddest thing about war is that men die for their country.
And when you uh accede to ransom demand, you're just making a super slap in the face of every person who's died for this country.
And to me it's intolerable.
I don't understand why people aren't discussing the uh legal giving aid and comfort to the enemy.
You know, that that is treason.
And George Washington literally hung people for such a thing.
I I don't get it.
Well, I people are discussing it, but but what what do you what do you want who to do?
What do I want who to do?
Yeah, or who do you want to do what?
I would like to see the people of this country and the Republican leadership show a backbone and impeachment Would be letting Obama off easy.
And even if there's no political will, the right thing to do is the right thing to do.
Not because you win or lose, but because it is the right thing to do.
And impeaching him is the right thing to do.
Well, I can tell you right now that the Republicans are not going to do it.
The Republicans have got themselves convinced that they're going to win the Senate right now.
They're going to hold a House.
They've convinced themselves, hell, even Nate Silver says they're going to win the Senate.
It's tight what they think they're going to win the Senate.
They are literally paranoid of doing anything that they think might reassemble and re-invigorate the Obama base.
To them, it's it's about it's about winning, and it's about themselves getting control of the purse strings and reinserting themselves in uh in in power.
Now there's a there's a story by Ron Fournier, who has really, in in recent weeks, I don't know what the term is.
I was going to say dumping on Obama, but I guess it's it's it's as close to anything.
But his piece today is giving up on Obama.
I've had enough when Democrats quit on Obama, and it's not about Fournier, it's it's another Democrat talking to him who said that he's just had it.
This Bergdahl swipe, that's just the last straw, but not because of the swipe or the swap itself.
The tipping point for this person was how the White House mishandled its obligation to communicate effectively and honestly to Congress and the public.
Uh and more than that, Obama's team had failed once again to acknowledge its mistakes, preferring to cast blame and seek cover behind talking points and the parents.
So even though there is a credible bit of evidence that more and more oh, about the Fournier piece, one thing needs to be pointed out about even the Democrats in this piece who say that they have this is a tipping point.
They've finally they're they're they're moving away from Obama, they still go to great pains to say they like and respect him.
And so you have to temper all this.
So I I think you have to be it's very it's very seductive to see a story that says Democrats abandoning Obama.
They're not.
They're not going to abandon Obama, especially if it means Republicans winning anything.
There's about as fat a chance of that happening as the media converting and becoming supporters of conservatives and Republicans.
That isn't going to happen either.
The Democrats are not going to abandon Obama.
Why are they upset that he lied to that to them, he lies all the time?
Because in this case, the press didn't provide any cover.
So the lie is exposed.
They have to react to it.
Nobody's out there saying, oh, Obama didn't lie, oh, Obama didn't do anything wrong.
So they have to have to go on record as disapproving of this.
If anything, it is indicative of where the Democrats still think the country's bread and butter is.
And it's not extreme liberalism.
I mean, if you've got a Democrat who is even with an election coming up, you've got an elected Democrat who thinks there are points to be gained or ground to be gained by distancing himself from Obama, what are you saying?
You're saying this country's not gone yet.
It's not what we're I still maintain we're being governed or ruled, if you will, by a really small minority.
And they're just little bits of evidence here and there that uh that prove it.
Here's uh here's Mike in Colorado Springs.
You're next, glad you waited, sir.
Welcome to the program.
Hi.
Uh yeah, thank you, Rush.
Uh, it's an honor and a privilege to talk with you.
I appreciate that.
Thank you.
Uh and I would like to uh point out uh one more of uh you know about a billion examples of of hypocrisy coming out of the administration.
If they're encouraging uh these people to come across the border uh illegally or uh undocumentedly, uh there's uh a couple of things that are a couple points about this.
Number one, uh the amount of risk that people are taking to do so.
I mean, they're dealing with coyotes and human traffic traffickers.
Right.
Uh they're probably dealing with drug cartels.
Um these are not uh you know, bright upstanding people that work in the in the embassy.
Um and second of all, if uh if uh uh these countries like Mexico or others with uh dismal records on human rights, it's it's really more or less encouraging that them to do, continue their their policies instead of you know being uh having people point out to them that uh that they're doing something wrong.
Uh who's doing something wrong?
Well, if uh if you have an administration that says, hey, you you're you're violating human rights in your country.
Uh you know, there's a there's a force behind that.
Um the United States can, you know, take action against that, whether it's you know, it's sanctions or or just you know, using the bullet culpa to to uh word whip them and and uh into trying to make a difference, um encouraging people within their own country to say, hey, uh you you should be living at a better standard.
You think wait a minute.
I I don't I want to sound it's you think the Obama administration can do that.
Oh no, they can well they wouldn't, but I'm saying they they they can't do it now.
That that's total uh total hypocrisy, uh uh them being unable to bring any point.
Well hypocrisy never stopped them from doing anything, but they're not gonna do it because they don't think we've got the moral authority to tell anybody else about human rights because we violate them so much.
Carson City, Nevada next.
Uh Dan, thank you, sir, for calling.
Nice to have you with us.
Hello.
Rush, thank you very much.
It's a real pleasure and an honor to be on your program and to speak with you.
I've listened to your program for a very long time.
My kids are reading your books, and I just uh I just stand in awe of everything you've done and the importance of the role you've played for our country.
Well, I've really I here I'm thinking I'm uh not doing nearly a good enough show today for you people and you you call and say that.
So I I appreciate you.
Thank you very much.
Sure thing.
Um something you said in the last segment really resonated with me, and for all the times I've tried to call before, I I've always gotten a busy signal, but I stuck with it and I got through.
Well, it must be that you were meant to get through.
It must be that what you're going to say was meant to be said.
Okay.
Well, I got a couple of things I'd like to say.
I'm not sure either one of them's particularly profound, but with regard to Obama succeeding Bush and and how it seems like such a reaction by the electorate and how it seemed like there should have been a number of things intervening between the two.
I I look at it differently.
I think that Obama was only possible because of Bush, and he was a reaction to Bush.
And I mean Obama used Bush's actions to invalidate Hillary's um run in 2008.
And I I think I think as strong as the reaction was to get for Obama to get in there, uh that that would not have been possible um but for the feeling among so many people that that Bush's president presidency had been such a failure.
And and I voted for Bush twice, without regret, uh even as I sit here now.
But you know, I I do think that um need to ask you a question.
Sure.
Um not a cop-out question.
Not a cop-out question.
I'm just d all during the eight years of Bush.
Uh let's talk at the second term of Bush.
All the while that the media is trying to destroy Bush, lying about the economy, trying to tell people we're in a recession when we're not.
Doing the body counts coming out of Iraq.
D do you realize, and I made the point then in a training mission for D-Day, we lost more airmen than the total number of soldiers lost in Iraq during the total number of years we were there.
In one training mission.
And I kept making this point, and yet it it it it didn't it didn't resonate.
My the my point is that I I voted for Bush twice.
I did not think that his presidency was failed, not in the way the media was portraying it.
I mean, there are things I wish he would have done differently that have been more conservative and so forth.
Uh but but the idea I uh was Bush's presidency a failed presidency, or did the media succeed in defining it as such helped by Bush not fighting back, not returning fire, not correcting any of the uh uh things that were being said uh about him.
I mean, it it's a moot point now, but in trying to assess public opinion about it, I think it's relevant.
No, I think you're I think it's totally fair to say, and I'd go one further and say that if you know the media treated Obama the same way they treated Bush, Obama would likely have been run out of town by now.
I mean, it's just a Well I look, I don't want to go there because that's not gonna happen.
What I'm I'm bouncing off, I'm bouncing off, no, I'm taking very seriously what you said.
I'm bouncing off the fact that you said Bush made Obama possible.
Meaning Bush had to screw up so badly that Obama was able to act like a messiah and a magic elixir who was going to fix everything.
And if indeed the American people see, I guess what you're saying is, and maybe I've missed this, were the American people the last three years of Bush as depressed, as disappointed, as as angry as what as they are now, or more so.
I think there was more of a shock factor back then, Rush, because starting with the failure of Lehman Brothers in two thousand eight, and as it went right through up to election day.
I mean, McCain was in pretty good shape, as I recall, right up until about Labor Day and right up until about the failure of uh Lehman brothers.
And you can talk about, you know, the media reaction to Sarah Palin and what have you, but I mean, there was I mean, we were experiencing, you know, s many days of multi-hundred point drops in the Down.
I mean, there had really been a foundation-shaking thing going on with the economy in the last few months of Bush's presidency, and I think that helped Obama, but you know, fundamentally, uh Obama was basically the same candidate as Kerry.
I mean, they were both very liberal senators, never held a job, never sponsored important legislation.
They were just guys who, you know, would get up and give a speech.
But obviously Obama uh had a degree of charisma and perhaps other qualities that Kerry did not, and I think his timing was a lot better.
So here's another way of assessing this.
And actually, it's a more optimistic, at least in part, way of doing so.
I don't think you can talk about...
I don't think we can talk about Obama and winning without talking about race either.
But I'm really struck now, and I've got I've got to go back and and rethink myself and come up with a way of of of of expressing this, because uh I mean I know what they were trying to do to Bush.
I know what the media was trying to do.
I know that I it but it it it you know, I'm an objective person, and and I I I'm very honest with myself especially, and uh the I I saw exactly what was happening with the so-called financial crisis.
I thought there was a whole bunch of things were being manipulated uh to make this country look like it was in much worse shape than it was.
And I I guess I was I was just a little stunned that so many people bought it, but they did.
But I don't know how in the world you can look at the for just one thing.
Let's take a look at jobs now compared to jobs in 2006 or 2007.
That was panacea.
That was utopia then compared to now.
We had four point seven percent of employment we had full employment.
We had nobody living at home with their parents.
None of what's happening today was happening at the tail end of Bush.
None of it was, and yet people think that is what caused this, and I know they still do.
It burns me.
But here's here's here's my reaction to you.
See, I we and I made the point moments ago that I couldn't believe That the same country that elected Bush twice has elected people to do what they're doing now.
But the fact of the matter is that it was not the same electorate.
The same electorate was not choosing between Bush and Gore or Bush and Kerry in 2008.
The electorate in 2008 was choosing between McCain and Obama.
And then in 2012, the electorate chose between Romney and Obama.
Now the lesson is the more the Republican Party waters down its principles and refuses to expose the defects and the scandals and the problems and the truth of their opponents, the more they're going to lose.
The more Northeastern liberals they continue to nominate, they're going to lose.
The more try, the more they try to be like Democrats or Democrat light, the more they go along with what supposedly the Democrats define as the direction of the country, the more they're going to lose.
Bush, and I made this point, lost the popular vote in 2000.
He won the presidency because the electoral college.
That should have been a lesson.
That should have been a red flag for the Republicans back in 2000.
Now, you're right, he beat Kerry, who was a terrible candidate.
But you said that Kerry and Obama were almost identical.
They had neither accomplished anything.
Kerry in the Senate longer than Obama, but uh really neither of them had done anything, sponsored no significant legislation.
Kerry was known for throwing medals over the White House fence, and Obama was known for making a speech in uh in 2004.
But but the public, I think, I think in 2004 didn't want to change leaders during a war.
So Kerry, you know, even though he and the Swiftboat buddies reconquered Boston Harbor, the American people didn't see them as credible military leaders.
Bush was a solid leader dealing with 9-11.
I mean, how in the world do you go from that perception, 90% approval just like his dad after 9-11 rebuilding an economy in two recessions to go to being 30% approval, hated and reviled.
You do that by letting your opponents destroy you.
You do that by letting the media destroy you and not fighting back and not getting political because you don't want to sell out the office or whatever.
Um the reason I still have some hope here, folks, and I always will have hope.
I'm never artificially or falsely optimistic.
I don't think that the public is being given good choices.
The Democrats are going to nominate who are going to Democrat nominate.
And they're going to be hopelessly leftist.
They're going to be right out of the Sololinsky playbook.
If they go Hillary again, we're going to get this more of what we've got now.
Added with the first female president, which means hands off, no criticism, otherwise it'll be the war on women and ongoing sexism and what have you.
So Republicans will be cowed and afraid to be anywhere critical.
And if the Republican Party establishment has no interest in finding or nurturing another conservative leader, which is the only way they're going to really win and have a mandate and revive the country.
If they're not going to do that, then we're going to continue to have talks and discussions like this for the rest of our lives.
And the subhead of a conversation that we're having now could be called what if.
And the Republicans are going to continue to be the what if party if they continue to try to destroy every conservative that has a chance of winning in the primaries, which is what they're setting up to do again.
The answer to what's wrong in this country is conservatism.
And even now, I've got a story in the stack about reform conservatives who believe we've got to stop talking about tax cuts.
And we've got to stop talking about a smaller government.
I'm sorry, there is no other subject but smaller government right now.
The problems that we have are directly related to an out-of-control government and people who want to be in charge of one.
There is no solution that includes people from a different party who think they can run a bigger government smarter, which is what seems to be the Republican position.
Blue in the face, I am reminding everybody that the blueprint for the solutions to what ails us is right in front of everybody's face.
And it involves and it includes winning, and why people don't want to win being conservative is a very uh well, it's maddening, frustrating and all that, but it's it's also factual, apparently.
We have an out-of-control government, we have an out-of-control amount of spending, we have no accountability to anything going on, and the solution is smarter people running it.
Isn't that what the Democrats always said about the failure of communism?
Well, yes, but uh the wrong people tried it.
We are the right people.
Or, well, yes, uh, communism failed, but it's because they didn't spend enough money.
We are the smarter people who will do it right.
And the smarter people who are going to be doing it right continue to destroy everything they touch.
Every four years after every four years.
So somebody explained to me why the Republican alternative is to say the same thing.
Well, the American people have spoken, Mr. Limbaugh, and they want a bigger, active, uh, intelligent uh executive and government.
And therefore we, as the smarter, moderate conservative stewards of such a government can indeed make a difference.
How in the world is the solution a continuation of the same.
Well, the only difference being that the people in charge are supposedly smarter because they are not Democrats.
Doesn't compute for me.
Now let me tackle another question.
Because I get this all the time.
Well, Rush, you keep talking about Reagan and all of that.
But you know, Reagan, the ear of Reagan's over so long ago or whatever.
You know, the question is uh, how did Reagan overcome the media?
The media hated Reagan as much as they hate Bush.
The media hated Reagan as much as they've hated Nixon.
The media hated Reagan as much as anybody has ever hated the Republicans.
Don't doubt me.
For those of you that weren't alive, do not doubt me.
Reagan was hated and despised.
The players were different, their names are Sam Donaldson and Dan Dan Blather and so forth.
He was just as despised as any media hated Bush or Nixon.
And yet you've heard that, yeah, well, but Reagan, he had this charisma.
He was able to speak directly to the American people.
He was able to go over the heads of the media and speak to the people unfiltered.
True, but that's not why Reagan succeeded.
It all comes down to the same thing: substance and reality, versus spin, PR, buzz, and myth.
The end result.
Look at what happened when Reagan was president.
The economy grew like gangbusters.
I don't care what the media saying, the reality was, the economy was great.
We were vanquishing communist foes, foreign policy.
I mean, the point here is the way you overcome the media is with success on the ground.
But you don't vie for a buzz success or a PR success.
You don't try to have success that's defined by persuading as many people as possible are successful.
You You define success by being successful.
Implementing policies that work, that really benefited people.
Because they helped themselves.
The reason Reagan was able to overcome the media is because his policies revived a country which was in as bad a shape in the latter 70s as it is now.
Which is precisely what we need again.
We don't need PR tactics to try to convince the media we're not mean or bad.
We don't need tactics to get the media full.
We just need somebody who is unabashedly and unafraidly conservative, who will implement policies that will work and will bring actual positive results to people's lives.
And then it doesn't matter what the media says.
They'll look like buffoons, like they did in the 80s.
It's just, it's it's substance.
Over symbolism.
Reality over buzz.
That's all it is.
Back after this.
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