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Dec. 17, 2014 - Rush Limbaugh Program
34:27
December 17, 2014, Wednesday, Hour #3
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Time Text
Yeah, and we'll just go in order there.
Yeah, I knew I'd seen this.
And everybody thinks I don't know what I'm talking about in the first hour when I postulated that one of the reasons Jeb announced his exploratory committee yesterday is because he's heard that Romney is thinking about it.
And that would be a race for the same donors.
So somebody has to head somebody off at the pass there.
Anyway, folks, great to have you back.
Rush Limbaugh here at the EIB Network, Limbaugh Institute, Advanced Conservative Studies, the telephone numbers 800-282-2882 and the email address, ilrushbow at EIBNet.com.
So the American people mistook President Obama as a president, not a valet.
You know where he got.
People thought he was a president.
We should have been so lucky if people thought of him as a valet.
But what really happened here back in 2008, the American people mistook Obama, not as a valet, but as a president.
And what did the American people think Obama was going to do?
He was going to be a leader.
He was going to unite the country.
He was filled with hope and change.
He was going to bring about the end of all the anger and the animosity.
He's going to lower the sea levels and end global warming and all of this magical, wonderful stuff.
And there's going to be nothing but love in the air.
And there'd be no more acrimony.
And it'd be people crossing the aisle.
And it'd be mass cooperation.
Everybody would be working to help everybody else.
And the economy was going to skyrocket.
And the income gap, why, it was going to disappear.
And the rich were going to become middle class or poor because all the money was going to be taken away and given to the rightful owners who had it in the first place before the rich stole it.
All of that was going to happen.
You see, Obama was masquerading as a trustworthy steward of the Constitution.
Look at what this man got away with, folks.
Or we have to go back six years.
Look at what he got away with.
The American people mistook him for a man with presidential qualifications and characteristics.
They bought into the notion that he was going to be a steward of the Constitution.
Way back in 2008, the last thing in the world the American people assumed of Barack Obama was that he would be lawless and revel in it.
He was elected president and re-elected.
And today there's regret all over the country for that.
And it's not due to racism.
It's due to his performance.
He's not a victim of anything except his own behavior.
He's not a victim of racism.
What a cheap play, anyway.
Here he is president after six years and still runs around, wants sympathy because somebody once mistook him for a valet.
And the truth is, we're not racists.
What happens here, he's just not a very good president.
And he's a really unworthy victim, if you ask me.
I think that is so beneath him and his wife.
Speaking of my dream presidential ticket, 2016, Jeb Bush, Hillary Clinton, if you missed it, I made the announcement exactly one hour ago.
With full reasoning, I mean an irrefutable logic.
But you know our old buddy Nate Silver at the 538 blog, the Wonderkin that used to be the analyst of polls at the New York Times.
Readers of the New York Times loved Nate Silver because he gave them comfort.
He analyzed all the polls, and he accurately forecast an Obama re-election victory in 2012.
Well, Nate Silver saw the handwriting on the wall and left the New York Times, and he's now doing his analyst magic at ESPN.
Well, not just ESPN.
He's got his own blog call of 538.
And he made a submission or a post yesterday.
And the headline of Nate Silver's most recent post at his 538 blog is, is Jeb Bush too liberal to win the Republican nomination in 2016?
On Tuesday, former Florida Governor Jeb Bush announced that he will actively explore a bid for the White House.
While Bush has not yet formed an exploratory committee, he is running for president by any practical definition of the term.
And if he proves to perform poorly in the invisible primary, i.e., failing to gather support among donors and influential Republicans, he could withdraw later on before the first votes are even cast.
Now, what might those influential Republicans think of Bush?
He has sometimes been critical of his fellow Republicans, having questioned the Republican partisanship and lack of tolerance for dissenting viewpoints.
He's often staked out moderate policy positions on some issues, particularly immigration and education reform.
But is Bush in the mold of John Huntsman and Rudy Giuliani, candidates who generated lots of buzz among the East Coast media elite, but proved too moderate, i.e. liberal, for the Republican base?
Or is Jeb Bush more like the past two Republican nominees, Mitt Romney and John McCain, who also were accused of being too moderate, i.e. liberal, but won their party's nomination?
Can we study that paragraph here for just a second?
This is Nate Silver.
And if Nate Silver's anything, he's a liberal.
It's not a factor here, though, but the one thing that's clear, Nate Silver is not a conservative, so we can't assume that he's got any pro-conservative bias.
This paragraph is amazing in trying to analyze where Jeb Bush falls in a chart of conservative identity among Republican presidential contenders.
And there is a chart that accompanies this, but charts are very hard to translate in the spoken word.
But the chart essentially looks at several Republican presidents and nominees, Chris Christie, Huntsman, Nixon, Condi Rice, Bob Dole, Jeb Bush, Susanna Martinez, and ranks them on a number of factors as to just how conservative they are.
For example, Ronaldus Magnus, Ronald Reagan, everybody thinks he's a massive big-time conservative, is probably right in the middle of the pack, has a conservative rating in Nate Silver's chart of about, what would it be here?
I'm going to 50%.
The most conservative, just to give you an idea of how Nate Silver has worked this out, the most conservative in his calculations, Barry Goldwater, at about 68.
Scale of 0 to 100, 100 being more conservative, 0 being less.
Goldwater is number one at 68.
But there are a couple of people that are to the right at Goldwater on a couple of things, Rand Paul and Michelle Bachman.
Jeb Bush shows up around, you have to say 40% or 40 out of 100 in terms of how conservative is Jeb Bush.
And that's very close to Gerald Ford and Bob Dole, but it's definitely more conservative than Huntsman, Nixon, Condoleezza Rice.
He's very close to McCain and Romney and so forth.
So that's Silver's point here.
Just where does Jeb Bush come?
Where does he fall in our analysis of how conservative various Republicans are?
And this paragraph is fascinating to me.
But is Bush in the mold of Huntsman and Giuliani?
What do you need to know beyond the fact that both of them lost?
What more is important?
Both Huntsman and Giuliani lost the primary races that they entered.
They were candidates who did generate a lot of buzz in the East Coast media and in certain elements of the drive-bys, but conservative voters were not interested.
Or it says, is Jeb more like the past two nominees, Romney and McCain?
Well, all four of those people lost.
That's the takeaway of this paragraph.
All four, Huntsman, Giuliani, McCain Romney, and arguably, well, Giuliani and Huntsman never came close because they get the nomination.
Romney and McCain did, but they didn't come close.
So we are, in a blog here at 538, we're ranking Jeb Bush against four other men who have lost or failed to succeed in getting a nomination or did get the nomination but lost the election.
Now, isn't there a lesson there?
The establishment keeps telling us, no, no, no, you Tea Party people, look at what happened to Barry Goldwater, but we'll get creamed.
You people are extremist cooks.
America thinks the Tea Party is a bunch of cooks.
And if we have a nominee coming from you, well, we're going to get creamed.
We're going to landslide like Goldwater.
And of course, the retort is, yeah, well, the people you are nominating, I don't see a W next to their names at the end of the process.
You guys can cite one Barry Goldwater.
We can cite every one of your nominees.
They lose.
Every one of them.
But nevertheless, the process continues here to rank Jeb and other Republicans on this imaginary chart of conservatism.
And I'll tell you who looks really good on this chart.
Let me just cut to the chase here.
And not just the chart, but in the article.
I'll tell you who looks really good here: Scott Walker.
Now, I wonder, does the establishment think Scott Walker is a Tea Party kook?
They might.
I'm going to tell you something.
If the Republican Party has a success story, it's Scott Walker.
If the Republican Party has a blueprint, it's Scott Walker.
Here is a guy who has withstood the absolute best forms of personal destruction the left can throw at anybody.
And he survived three attempts.
And in addition to surviving, he succeeded in his policy implementations to totally turn upside down the way Wisconsin is run.
And he took a dark blue state and made it almost red.
I mean, it's not quite.
Little purple in there.
If you ask me, Scott Walker, I mean, they should have been issuing press releases and videos and Little helpful hint videos to other candidates.
Here's how you do it videos.
Here's how you win.
And there's not a word about him.
And I just wonder if they think that Scott Walker is to Tea Party at the Republican establishment.
I don't know.
If I had to guess, based on experience, guided by intelligence, I don't see a lot of excitement for Scott Walker.
The excitement at the Republican establishment is Bush, Romney, who else?
Christie?
That's who they're getting all jazzed about.
By the way, did you guys watch Sunday night football at Dallas Cowboys at the Philadelphia Eagles?
If you watch the game, they cut away to the visiting owner's suite.
And seated there, prominently next to Gerald Jones, who's also the team doctor, was the governor of New Jersey in a very Christmassy red sweater, Chris Christie.
Now, the Dallas Cowboys are enemy number one in the tri-state area, New York, New Jersey, Connecticut.
The Giants are the team.
And there is Chris Christie sitting next to the owner that hated Cowboys and having fun.
And he was on the sideline pregame.
And there were two shots at Christie.
And the fans were outraged.
They were angry, more angry at that at whatever Christie did or didn't do on the lane closing at the bridge.
Is that not interesting?
Is that not fascinating?
Of all the things they get mad at a governor about, they're most angry at the fact he's seated next to Jerry Jones in a Cowboys suite at the link.
What do you mean, typical Giants fans?
It wasn't just Giants fans, it's New Jerseyans as well.
Anyway, from the Politico.
Oh, and speaking of which, folks, just a little heads up for those of you that have not figured this out.
If you want to know in the mainstream media what is actually going on at the higher, upper levels of the Republican Party, read about it in the Politico.
I am convinced the Politico is the go-to place for the Republican establishment to get their news out.
It is in the Politico where you read all the cutting comments about the Tea Party.
It's the Politico where you read all the rosy articles and comments about the Republican moderates, moderate candidates.
You check it out on your own, and you will find that the establishment types in the party are either leaking to or have a relationship with the Politico.
But when the Politico writes about the Republican establishment of the Republican Party, it's probably from an informed rather than speculative basis.
And a Politico story from last night.
Oh, take it back.
It's from this morning.
Money men cheer.
Bush news.
In one swift move, Jeb Bush showed his fundraising prowess without raising a dollar.
A number of top-tier donors reacted to Bush's announcement on Facebook that he would actively explore the possibility of running for president with genuine enthusiasm and even relief.
How does Politico know this?
Some of the GOP's top donors and operatives have been pushing Bush to get into the race or were holding their breath and hoping he would.
And they interpreted his Facebook post on Tuesday as a signal that all systems were a go.
It amounted to an instant impediment for possible rivals like Texas Governor Rick Perry, Senator Marco Rubio, and New Jersey Governor Chris Christie, whose chances of amassing a national fundraising network necessary to mount a credible campaign just dimmed.
Others said it's bad news for the rest of the Republican field.
What do you mean it's a little bit BS?
That's not the point whether it's BS or not.
The point is the politico is where you learn what's actually going on at the establishment.
Not national review.
Not the weekly standard.
Not take your pick of whatever else you think is conservative.
Politico is where you go to find out.
Audio soundbite number eight, Rick Davis, former campaign manager for John McCain on CBS this morning.
Nancy Cordes, the reporter who ran that feature on me claiming I was fuming in reacting to Bush's announcement yesterday, which I didn't fume.
I wasn't up in arms or any of that.
But Nancy Cordes said to the former McCain campaign manager, why announce anything now, Rick?
Why would Jeb do it now, right before the holidays?
He was cross-pressured by the Mitt Romney boom occurring this weekend, which were donors calling all around saying, Jeb, if you don't get in, I'm going to go with Mitt because Mitt's calling around.
Got to take a break.
But see, I told you.
I told you.
Fox River Grove, Illinois.
Next, this is Andrew.
Andrew, hello.
Great to have you on the EIB network.
Hi.
Hey, Rush, thanks for taking my call.
And I'm just going to say it like it is.
I'm an elected pre-seat committee man.
I'm an elected county board member.
I'm also the vice chairman of the county party here in McHenry County, Illinois.
And what I want to say is there is no way in hell we can have Jeb Bush as our presidential nominee.
We've gone down this road.
It sounds like you're filming and are up in arms here.
Well, you know, I ran openly as a Tea Party candidate, and I won.
And the thing is, is that we have to go out there and we have to say and espouse our conservative principles.
And we can't be afraid of that.
And what is happening is we are letting people with enormous amounts of power pigeonhole the conservative base out there.
You know, they have the majority.
The money people have always had power.
That's indisputable.
But here's something that maybe you can help me with since you're a party official.
I always thought that the Republicans wanted to get away from this idea that they are the party of the rich.
I thought that was a negative that they wanted to get rid of.
And yet, here's the political.
Moneymen cheer Bush news.
I mean, all the news about the Republican nominees, how happy the donor class is.
I'm sorry, the donor class is rich Wall Street guys, rich hedge funders, rich this, rich that.
And I thought the Republican Party wanted to get rid of that image.
What happened?
I don't know, but when it comes to presidential politics, it seems like all the Republican money in the world isn't doing any good.
It is the local parties that have their committeemen, their volunteers on the ground going out door to door to try to turn out the vote.
And that's what we did a little bit here in Illinois this past election cycle.
We didn't have nearly the same results that, you know, other states like South Carolina, Texas, New Mexico had.
But what I'm trying to say, Rush, is that unless we as conservatives actively get involved in the Republican Party and running.
Well, I understand.
But there's so much anger.
But you're right.
I get it.
We're up to audio soundbite number nine.
It looks like here, maybe in order.
Ladies and gentlemen, I, El Rushbo, have been recognized by the great Barbara Walters as one of the 10 most fascinating Americans of the Year twice.
I have experience with this.
And last, I don't know, was it Friday night, whatever, she did it for this year.
The most fascinating people, not just Americans, fascinating people for 2014.
And there's always number one.
I've never been the most fascinating.
See, it doesn't rank them.
You have number one and then the other nine.
And I've always been in the other nine.
Somehow I never ranked the most fascinating.
I was almost Time Magazine's man of the year one year.
That was 94, 95.
But I cut that short.
I mean, that would have killed me.
So I made sure that didn't happen.
I knew how to take care of that on the air.
But this year's 10 most fascinating people is really funny to me.
Here are the 10.
I think it's 10, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8.
Yep.
Here are the 10.
Scarlett Johansson, Chelsea Handler.
Snurdle, do you know who Chelsea Handler is?
Brian, you know who Chelsea Handler is?
You do.
Dawn, do you know who she is?
You do.
You really do.
Okay.
Neil Patrick Harris.
You know who that is?
David Koch, Koch brothers.
Barbara Walters' total interview with him was, do you realize people hate you?
Well, but you know people hate you.
Whatever he said.
Yes, but how do you deal with the fact so many people hate you?
Oprah Winfrey was on this year's list.
Elon Musk.
You know who that is?
Brian, you know who that is?
Elon Musk?
Dawn, you know who that is?
He's the inventor of Tesla, the electric car.
Oh, by the way, story yesterday didn't get to.
The electric car is far more polluting than a gasoline engine car because of what it takes to make one and drive one.
And it's scientific study.
Oh, and in California, speaking of this, keep reminding myself of things.
In the California, is it the, I think it's the public employees' pension.
I got a bunch of pension funds that the state government runs.
One of them is $72 billion in the red.
One of the pension plans, it might be the state teachers or it's the public employees' pension.
I'm not sure which.
$72 billion in the red.
And despite all of the talk from the Governor Moonbeam that they've fixed the budget problems, all these tax increases, $72 billion in California.
Look at all of the dues and the contributions, the payroll deductions to fund these pensions.
And there's $72 billion in the red.
And this is what these people have been promised they will live on when they retire.
Say what you want about the promise, but it was made.
$72 billion.
That's horrible investments or whatever.
But anyway, the guy that runs the fund, I think his name is Chang, has said that in order to be correct, they've got to divest from all of their investments in coal.
These people are lunatics.
They're going to divest all their investments in coal for politically correct reasons in a fund that's already $72 billion in the rate.
Anyway, back to this list.
Michael Strahan is on the list.
Well, look, do you know Strahan?
He's a huge celebrity, but he's an ABC celebrity, live with Michael and Regis or whatever.
Cross-promotion explains that one.
George R.R. Martin, you know who that is.
You don't know who George R.R. Martin.
Here I've gone through the top 10 most fascinating people, and there are a bunch of them that members of my staff don't even know who they are.
How can they be on the list if my staff doesn't know who somebody he wrote Game of Thrones, all the books?
No, he's not a Hollywood writer.
He's not a Hollywood writer.
He's not Hollywood at all.
He's written these books and HBO glomed on to women.
He's not Hollywood.
So he's not Hollywood at all.
Most fascinating guy, one of the ten.
Yeah, and Taylor Swift, the singer.
And Amal Clooney.
Now, this is the most, here we are.
The modern era of feminism we can trace back in 1969 because that's when I was first impacted by it doing a radio show on the subject with high school girls telling me what it was all about.
And I was blind, so I know I'd never heard of it.
But that's when I first, that's when I knew the modern era of feminism.
I was 18.
Okay.
Do you know why she's on this list?
She married Clooney.
So in the era of feminism, and she was number one, she was the most fascinating woman person of the year because she is the woman who made one of the most fascinating men marry her.
So in the modern era of feminism, her claim to fame is the fact she married an actor.
She's the most fascinating person in the world on the Barbara Walters show because she married George Clooney, an actor.
I mean, Betty Friedan, if she's still alive, well, if she were dead, she'd be rolling in her grave.
Can you believe after all of this, and this Clooney wife, her name is Alamuddin Amal Alamuddin?
She is a woman of achievement in her own right.
She's a lawyer for the aggrieved and for the conceived and for the angry and the ticked off and the thirsty and all that.
She's a social justice lawyer, but barely got mentioned.
Most fascinating woman in the world because she somehow tricked, convinced Clooney to marry her.
Taylor Swift's on the list.
Yeah, Taylor Swift on the list.
Elton John loves Taylor Swift.
Now, be careful.
You're going to launch into Taylor Swift.
I remember at our wedding backstage when we met Elton before the, somebody asked him what he thought of Taylor Swift.
And he launched into effusive praise.
Well, she's the same, but I thought it was interesting because here's Elton.
He's a timeless icon.
And, well, from that standpoint, why not Justin Bieber, you're saying, if it's going to be Taylor Swift, fascinating people.
Snirdley is objecting that singers can make a most fast.
This is most fascinating.
Not the most accomplished, not the most important, not the most Contributions, it's the most fascinating.
Very little fascinates me about people as I live longer.
But I don't care who's on the list.
It's a television show.
What fascinates me is Amal Almuddin is number one because she convinced a confirmed bachelor to marry her in the era of feminism.
And ABC's out there celebrating this, and this is the biggest achievement in her life.
And, oh, my God, how lucky we all are to be able to participate in it, even from afar.
Anyway, it's the president of the California Senate that wants to divest from coal.
It's not the guy that runs the fund.
His name is Chang.
It's not him.
It's the president of California Senate that wants to divest.
A minor point of distinction.
Here's F. Chuck Todd on the Today Show this morning.
Savannah Guthrie said, hey, Chuck, got new poll numbers.
You polled Jeb Bush.
You pulled all the Republican frontrunners.
31% for Jeb.
What do you make of that, Chuck?
The 57 you have to wonder about a little bit because some of it is conservative Republicans.
And I think that's the reasoning in his head why he went early, because he's got work to do to win over skeptical conservatives who sit there and say, we went with one Bush, he let us down.
We went with a second Bush, he let us down.
Why should we believe the third Bush, even though he's been more conservative in his life, why should we believe you'll be a real conservative?
Do you believe that Chuck got all that from a poll?
I'm sorry.
Is that really what people told NBC in their poll?
Well, you know, he had the first Bush, what is quite as conservative.
Second Bush, a little bit better conservative.
Jeb, I don't know.
Anyway, 57% in the NBC poll don't want Jeb, and that was F. Chuck explaining why.
And so then Savannah Guthrie, who was shocked, said, well, I mean, Jeb has taken positions outside the thinking of conservative activists.
Why is it he loved and adored by 100%, F. Chuck?
Immigration, education, common core.
Those are the ones.
And he has said he's going to be sort of a Bullworth about it.
Hey, I'm not going to placate conservatives on those two issues.
But guess what?
They could really burn him.
Really?
Okay.
So, Bullworth strategy.
Remember, did you see that movie Bullworth?
Warren Beatty?
Okay, it's indication.
Now, up next, the news hour used to be with Jim Olara.
Now it's with Judy Woodruff.
And she spoke with Susan Page, who is the White House Bureau Chief, USA Today, about Jeb announcing his exploratory committee.
And Judy Woodruff said there's already conversation about how Jeb's big challenge would be in the primaries, where you have more conservative voters making a decision.
And he's certainly not seen at the more conservative end of the spectrum.
So how do you see that, Susan, at USA Today?
And the effect on the Democrats, the effect on Hillary.
Do you think her camp is sitting around talking about Jeb Bush today?
I think this is great news for Hillary Clinton because she's got some disadvantages in terms of being a dynasty, a family that's been in power for a while.
He offsets that very nicely.
Being a fresh face, I mean, it makes her look like a fresher face in contrast to him.
Do you believe the way these people think?
What they do is project the way they look at all of this onto average, ordinary, and low-information voters.
Do you think low-information voters look at the Clintons and think dynasty, they look at the Clintons and they see blue dresses and Monica Lewinsky.
Fresher face?
Are we talking about fresher face in the same sentence with Hillary Clinton?
Show you how fast things change in politics.
Yesterday, Jeb Bush announces exploratory committee, and everybody says, Well, that's it for Rubio.
Rubio's finished because Jeb's going to get all the money in Florida.
And then Obama says he's going to end the embargo, effectively, prop up the Cuban dictatorship, and Rubio is reborn today.
Rubio is out saying he's going to do everything he can to stop this because this is going to further the discrimination against the Cuban people and keep them poor and so forth and so on.
People magazine, worst-selling issue this year.
Do you know who was on the cover?
Yes, right.
That old fresh face herself, Hillary Clinton.
Hillary Clinton, the cover of the worst-selling issue of People magazine this year.
Do you know there were two other issues that also were in the bomb category?
One of them had Beyoncé on the cover, the other the Kardashians.
I kid you not.
Speaking of people of the year and so forth, Vladimir Putin just won his 15th consecutive man of the year in Russia.
Want to be man of the year, be a dictator.
15th consecutive.
And snerdly, you don't.
I'm going to just tell you something about Taylor Swift because you're in there, you're all bent out of shape here.
Taylor Swift, I think, is actually a shining example of a successful woman, as opposed to nothing against Amal Alamo, but nobody ever heard of her till a wedding.
Taylor Swift's the only singer today selling out live performances regularly.
She runs her business herself.
She writes her own songs.
She pulled her category from Spotify because the royalties aren't there.
She's not going to give the product away.
She does this all without getting naked and shaking her butt around and showing up at clubs at 2 in the morning.
And she's only 25.
All right.
So that's just a brief sketch of Taylor Swift.
Well, that's it for the fresh-faced excursion into broadcast excellence today, hosted by me.
Fresh-faced.
Isn't that sexist?
You call somebody fresh, call somebody 67 fresh-faced.
She's about as fresh-faced as old Joan Crawford picture, but that's just me.
Anyway, folks, sadly, we're out of precious busy broadcast moments, but there's always tomorrow.
In this case, Thursday.
So be back here.
We will be.
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