RUSH: No, no, no, I didn’t even know about it. I didn’t even know about this David Brooks piece because it’s in the New York Times, and I do not read the New York Times. I honestly don’t. I have people that do. I can’t deal with it. So I have people that do, and anything in it that I should know the show prep little helpers deal with, and they fire me stuff from the New York Times, and I throw away 90% of it. I didn’t know about this. Nobody told me about this. Snerdley came in about a half hour before the program today.

Greetings, and welcome back. Great to have you here, Rush Limbaugh behind the Golden EIB Microphone at the distinguished Limbaugh Institute for Advanced Conservative Studies. 800-282-2882 if you want to be on the program.

So Snerdley walks in here and he says, “You’ve been called out again. David Brooks, New York Times, all this is your fault.”

I said, “You’re kidding? I haven’t heard of that.” So he showed it to me, right there it is, and I said, “You know, I’m not even gonna mention this. How many times has this been said about me?”

“You can’t let this go by. This is Brooks. He calls himself a conservative, and here he is lambasting you.”

And I said, “All he wants is click bait, Snerdley. These people all know that all I have to do is mention ’em and they’re gonna get droves more traffic than otherwise. That’s half the reason they write about me.”

And Snerdley said, “I don’t know. Even so, you just can’t let this stand.”

“Why not?”

And, lo and behold, so I mention this as a tease at the end of the previous hour, and I get a bunch of e-mails, “Why’d you do that? All you’re doing is driving traffic to the New York Times.” I knew it. Because nobody believes this. But since I’ve mentioned it, and, by the way, Ben Shapiro who is writing here at DailyWire.com. I should mention him because he writes a piece totally refuting it.

Folks, do not misunderstand this, because this is not whining. It isn’t complaining. All I’m doing is observing here. Whenever I am under assault or under attack, I am rarely defended out there, even by people supposedly quasi-on my team. The reason for it is very understandable. They all think I can handle it myself. They don’t think I need any help. They don’t think I need any defending because it’s not right what is being said and so forth. So it doesn’t happen much. It does happen, but it doesn’t happen much. In fact, sometimes it happens and then some so-called conservatives then jump on the bandwagon. “Yeah, yeah, you know Limbaugh’s been a problem.” It’s all just career and professional envy and jealousy, in most cases, which is also very normal. It’s standard human nature.

So Shapiro has written this piece refuting David Brooks, which doesn’t happen much in my case. So I wanted to mention Shapiro as well as Brooks. Now, what’s amazing to me, David Brooks is the guy — and I totally understand him striking back at me. I mean, I made fun of this guy
ever since he told everybody that he was convinced Obama was gonna be a great president because of the crease in his slacks at dinner at George Will’s house. That was David Brooks. David Brooks is the so-called conservative with Mark “Maxi” Shields on whatever that is. What is the name of that show? PBS. The NewsHour. That’s right. The Newshour with Jim Lehrer. He’s not there anymore. Somebody else, I guess Gwen Eiffel. I don’t even know that. But Brooks is supposedly the conservative columnist at the New York Times.

You know what I’m really curious about, is how come it is the media loves to question the authenticity of conservative politicians. Like they’ll go out and demand that Ted Cruz prove he’s Hispanic by asking him what’s your favorite Cuban meal, or do you know how to hit a pinata? Have you ever been a pinata? You know, stupid stuff like that. They’re always demanding that these conservatives defend or proclaim their authenticity, but they never question the authenticity of so-called conservative pundits, like Brooks here. He’s not a conservative anymore. If anything, the guy’s No Labels.

But that’s the best that can be said. The fact of the matter is he’s a New York Times columnist, and he’s, if anything, a moderate RINO. But there’s not much authentic conservatism in Brooks anymore. But he is the guy that wrote about Obama, his crease in his slacks dazzled him and convinced him he’s gonna be a good president. ‘Cause I guess it meant that he was fastidious and cared so much about his appearance that somebody was that concerned about their appearance would have to be a brilliant, brilliant president.

Anyway, the piece is headlined: “The Republicans Incompetence Caucus — The House Republican caucus is close to ungovernable these days. How did this situation come about? This was not just the work of the Freedom Caucus or Ted Cruz or one monthÂ’s activity. The Republican PartyÂ’s capacity for effective self-governance degraded slowly, over the course of a long chain of rhetorical excesses, mental corruptions and philosophical betrayals. Basically, the party abandoned traditional conservatism for right-wing radicalism.”

And of course you and I know that that’s not what’s happened. Traditional conservatism has been abandoned for squishy, linguini-spined, RINO moderate beliefs, and that has led them to now call what is mainstream conservatism radical. Mainstream conservatism is focused on liberty. Anyway, you get it.

“Republicans came to see themselves as insurgents and revolutionaries, and every revolution tends toward anarchy and ends up devouring its own.” Anarchy. Revolution. Anarchy. “By traditional definitions,” writes Mr. Brooks, “conservatism stands for intellectual humility.”

Intellectual humility is, “I am smarter than you or anybody else, but I’m not going to tell you. I’m only going to act like it.” But to proclaim intellectual humility is to me to proclaim intellectual braggadocio. If you are so damn smart that you need to act dumb, you must really think you are hot excrement.

“By traditional definitions, conservatism stands for intellectual humility.” Well I have that. I tell people all the time I’m not as smart as they think I am. I’m the most humble person in media. Anyway, “By traditional definitions, conservatism stands for intellectual humility, a belief in steady, incremental change, a preference for reform rather than revolution.” Really? That’s how the country was founded? Reformers? (laughing) Reformers wrote the founding documents? “A respect for hierarchy.” Meaning you must respect the establishment and the various levels, and you must understand where you are on the ladder. He-he-he-he. And that’s gonna be at the bottom.

“Traditional conservatism requires respect for precedent, balance, and order,” which means don’t make the Democrats mad. “And a tone of voice that is prudent, measured, and responsible.” Well, that obviously disqualifies me. Certainly I’m not prudent or measured or responsible, in their view. And I certainly lack grace. I’m sure they would add that in. That’s another favorite word of these people. “Conservatives of this disposition can be dull,” like Brooks is, “but they know how to nurture and run institutions.” Really? Show me one. Show me one you’re running that’s winning and triumphing over anything.

“They also see the nation as one organic whole. Citizens may fall into different classes and political factions, but they are still joined by chains of affection that command ultimate loyalty and love.” Like illegal immigrants, acts of individual love. “All of this has been overturned in dangerous parts of the Republican Party. Over the past 30 years, or at least since Rush Limbaugh came on the scene.” (laughing) I wish my parents were alive. (laughing) To read this, my grandfather, too, the New York Times, this would blow their minds.

“Over the past 30 years, or at least since Rush Limbaugh came on the scene, the Republican rhetorical tone has grown ever more bombastic, hyperbolic and imbalanced. Public figures are prisoners of their own prose styles, and Republicans from Newt Gingrich through Ben Carson have become addicted to a crisis mentality. Civilization was always on the brink of collapse. Every setback, like the passage of Obamacare, became the ruination of the republic. Comparisons to Nazi Germany became a staple.”

So you see, Brooks is the perfect illustration of that part of our country which does not think that anything that’s happened in the last seven years is abnormal or even particularly threatening or dangerous. And we who do see it that way, we are the problem, you see. Because we are crisis-mongers, and we’ve become addicted.

Mr. Brooks, do you read the paper you’re in? Or the Washington Post? Have you somehow missed that the standard operating procedure of the American left today is crisis after crisis after crisis? And, Mr. Brooks, have you forgotten what conservatism is? Somebody has to try to stop this onslaught of the left. They are responsible for this crisis mentality because they promote crisis after crisis after crisis, and those of us with the gonads to stand up and try to stop it end up being accused of causing the crisis? You think it’s perfectly normal that the federal government, and you’re a conservative, would simply subsume one-sixth of the US economy? That’s conservatism? Well, he thinks that.

Anyway, ” This produced a radical mind-set. Conservatives started talking about the Reagan ‘revolution,’ the Gingrich ‘revolution.’ Among people too ill educated to understand the different spheres –” in other words, you people who are too stupid and too dumb, you mind-numbed robots who listen to Svengalis like me, “– adopted the mental habits of the entrepreneur. Everything had to be transformational and disruptive. Hierarchy and authority were equated with injustice. Self-expression became more valued than self-restraint and coalition building.” Self-restraint? You mean like our rules of engagement in Afghanistan where we can’t fire? “A contempt for politics infested the Republican mind.”

No, Mr. Brooks, a contempt for liberalism, which, thanks to you, is winning every damn day, because of you and people like you. Your liberal friends are literally winning the day. And the fact that you don’t even see a competition with them, big problem, sir. “Politics is the process of making decisions amid diverse opinions.” No, politics is the art of winning about your cherished principled beliefs. Politics is the art of persuasion. “It involves conversation, calm deliberation, self-discipline.” Right, like we see on the Democrat side every day when they’re out there lying about Romney and his taxes. Or Romney and the guy’s wife who died of cancer, Romney didn’t care, maybe even caused it. You sit idly by while people on your side are ruined and defamed and call for calm deliberation, self-discipline, and the capacity to listen to the liars.

“But this new Republican faction,” i.e., Rush Limbaugh, “regards the messy business of politics as soiled and impure. Compromise is corruption. Inconvenient facts are ignored. Countrymen with different views are regarded as aliens. Political identity became a sort of ethnic identity, and any compromise was regarded as a blood betrayal.” Yeah, well, I don’t know what there is to compromise with liberals on. When’s the last time they compromised with you, Dave? Well, you’re not a good one to ask because you agree with them.

When’s the last time the liberals compromised? They don’t. We’re the ones that have to change our attitude on immigration. We’re the ones that gotta change our attitude on abortion. We’re the ones that have to always do the things that really add up to us just kissing away our principles. At least we still have some. This is classic ruling-class drivel that passes for high intellect and brilliant reason, and so forth.

Now, Shapiro just rips this to pieces in his piece at DailyWire.com. Brooks writes, “Over the past 30 years, or at least since El Rushbo came on the scene, the Republican rhetorical tone has grown ever more bombastic,” blah, blah, blah. Shapiro writes, “One wonders whether Brooks has ever listened to five minutes of Rush Limbaugh, or whether Limbaugh is too gauche for his chichi sensibilities. Blaming Rush Limbaugh for conservative radicalism while ignoring RushÂ’s role in returning Congress to Republican control in 1994 seems odd; blasting Newt Gingrich, the architect of that victory, seems equally odd, when youÂ’re talking about successful Republican movements.” Then there’s more. He even called Brooks horse excrement, except he doesn’t say “excrement.”

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: You know, there’s one thing that Brooks is right about and he doesn’t know it. And I’ve even said this on the air. You know what, let me go to the phones because there’s not enough time to fully develop this and say it the way I want to say it, but I think the arrival of this program and the giant conservative army that it built, with all the other talk shows and the conservative blogosphere, I think that is what awoke the Drive-By Media from their phony objectivity and turned them into the partisans they are. It blew up their monopoly.

Back in 1988 they had a monopoly. CNN was the only cable news network, and that was it. The three networks and the newspapers, magazines, they owned everything. In ’88 this program starts and that began the end of their monopoly, and that is when they freaked out. And that’s when they began to stop hiding what they really are: extreme radical leftists. They became competitors and they threw off this objectivity yoke. I mean, they tried to maintain that they were fair and balanced and all this other stuff, but the truth was displayed, was exposed, and they were forced to adopt public positions, portrayals of exactly who they’ve always been, like Cronkite, the biggest arch-leftist that you would ever find, but nobody ever would think that. He never had to come out and be it.

But in 1988 they all had to come to the surface because there was competition for their audience, which they had lost. So now they are constantly trying to prove that they can still move people that shape and make public opinion rather than reflect it, and that has created competition, on the surface, not beneath the surface, competition in the news business where there supposedly isn’t supposed to be. Objective, not supposed to be known ideologically, party wise, one way or the other, but now there’s no pretense whatsoever.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: Snerdley, you’ll want to hear this — a close friend of mine said: “I think you missed the point of the Brooks piece.” He said, “Keep a sharp eye now if the Brooks piece gives other Republicans cover to start blaming you for everything.”

This friend of mine said: “A lot of these elected Republicans, the stories in the news media constantly say how afraid they are to oppose you.” Remember that story last week, none of them want to be Speaker because they’ll have to deal with me, which I think is utter nonsense, by the way. I think it’s total BS. But the stories are out there. So this friend of mine says: “You better just keep a sharp eye because that Brooks piece could be cover. Now all these Republicans who think you’re in the way, all they gotta do is agree with Brooks. They don’t have to come out and hit you on their own, they just gotta agree with Brooks.” He says: “You keep a sharp eye. They could be ready to throw you overboard inside of two days here.”

I said, “I don’t know, this has happened many times before. This is not the first time somebody in the Drive-By Media has taken after me.” I thought it was an interesting point. And, by the way, if it were to happen, there’s a lot of — well, let me just leave it at that. I don’t want to try to foretell the future on that, but if things play out here as I think they’re going to, I’ll be honest with you and tell you yep, yep, yep I was gonna tell you that but then I pulled back rather than make the prediction.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: Another friend has written about the Brooks piece. “Your other friend is wrong. This is not about anything other than the establishment of the Republican Party is it totally frazzled and at its wits’ end and they have to lash out and blame somebody for it, and it’s you. They’re losing Boehner. They can’t control anything. The conservative caucus is taking over the House of Representatives, and so they got to lash out and blame you.” That’s what you think it is, Snerdley? All right, well, whatever, who do I write to thank? That’s the real question. To whom do I send a thank-you note? ‘Cause I knew it’s not Brooks’ idea, though I’m sure he had no problem doing it.