RUSH: Rich in Raleigh, North Carolina. Rich, glad you called, thank you for waiting, and hello.

CALLER: Hey, Rush. You know, I’m not doing well here today. Normally I’m a pretty even-keeled guy, but this whole Mitt Romney thing that they’re trying to put on him about this woman dying because of what they’re calling poor business decisions that he made. I gotta tell you, I am a small business owner, and in the last five years, I’m a real estate appraiser, and in the last five years I almost lost my business twice. I almost lost my home twice. I know of people who lost their businesses, millions of small business owners who just either went under or almost went under. I had to sell personal assets to keep my business afloat. I had to forfeit so much in order to remain solvent, to remain a business. Even just last week, and we’re doing much better now, but even just last week I still have to pull money out of personal savings in order to make a payroll. And if we’re gonna start placing blame on poor decisions that people have made, let’s start with the government and all the poor regulations and how they gutted my industry and the things that they did. Now, while they’re handing out government bailouts, none of us little guys are getting the bailout.

RUSH: And so you don’t understand why everybody’s talking about this Romney business when what’s really happening out there —

CALLER: That’s exactly right. There is a much bigger problem going out there. They are making so much out of nothing.

RUSH: Yeah. Well, they’re trying to make sure people don’t talk about that or are not reminded about that. Some of this stuff is no doubt a diversionary tactic, but it’s all teachable moments at the same time, and it’s all linked together. It’s all being brought about by one guy. All of this misery is Obama. And it’s a tough sell. You tell people, yeah, it’s happening on purpose. It has to be, I mean there are fixes for this. There are ways to stop the direction of this economy. All he wants to do is double down on what’s caused this. If you believe that America has had an unfair advantage, it is an unqualified, illegitimate superpower, and if you think America needs to be cut down to size in the interest of fairness to other nations around the world, then this has to happen. The middle class has to be taken down a peg. The rich have to be stolen from. The rich have to be harmed, if this country is to assume its rightful, fair place among other nations.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: John in Wilson, New York. Great to have you on the program, sir. Hello.

CALLER: Hey, Rush. Hey, I’m the guy that called last spring and said, “We need a guy exactly like Gingrich ’cause at this time…”

RUSH: You’re the guy? You’re the guy who called last spring?

CALLER: Yes.

RUSH: Wow!

CALLER: And here we are in the middle of a war, and we are surrendering, and I am sick of it. This whole thing with Reid and the tax forms? I would put that little man down so fast, he wouldn’t even come out of his hole. Why are we playing around with this guy?

RUSH: I’ll tell you why.

CALLER: Somebody’s gotta call Laura Ingraham and Ann Coulter, who were so big on Romney. Romney was the guy! We all knew what was gonna happen. Now we have McCain 2, and somebody better get a hold of ’em right now.

RUSH: I’ll tell you —

CALLER: Go ahead, Rush.

RUSH: (chuckles) Thank you, sir. (laughing)

CALLER: I’m sorry to be (unintelligible).

RUSH: That’s all right. I need to be reminded what it’s like to be a caller now and then, and you helped me here. I’ll tell you why. I’ll take you back to Bush 43. Remember, they never responded to anything, either. And there you’re talking about the essence of the GOP establishment. And their theory was that if they responded to anything, it gave it life and kept the story alive in the media day after day after day after day. Where as, if they ignored, it would go away. And, yeah, something else would pop up, but it would eventually go away if they didn’t give it life.

There was also the belief that they didn’t want to sully the office of the president by getting down in the gutter all the time responding to this stuff. Now, Karl Rove admitted in a book (after he and Bush left office) that they mighta made a little bit of a mistake in not responding to some of this stuff. But I think that the prevailing theory in the Republican establishment today is: “Don’t mention it. Don’t respond to it. It just elevates it and gives it longer life. It will eventually go away and people will forget about it.”

CALLER: Well, it didn’t work for Bush 43, did it?

RUSH: No.

CALLER: And that’s not that long ago.

RUSH: They were able to… I’ll tell you how successful it was: There are still 40% of the people in this country who think he’s responsible for this economy. So you’d have to say that it worked.

CALLER: That’s another thing, Rush. I wish they’d have Bush 43 at the Republican convention and have him take the gloves off.

RUSH: Well, he’s not going to. In fact, I was gonna ask you about this, John, since you’re all fired up here about “burying” Harry Reid. Let me ask you to put yourself in George Bush’s shoes. You’re president for eight years. After 9/11, you saw to it there was not another attack on this country. Iraq and Afghanistan happened and 9/11. You rebuilt the economy, and when you left office, the unemployment rate was just about 5%, and all kinds of people were working. And now, your reputation’s destroyed; your presidency’s lied about.

Do you think you might have reacted to any of this at some point by now?

CALLER: Uhhh, I would have. Well, I don’t know. I can’t say that. I understand about when a president leaves office. And I understand how Clinton’s broken it. So I probably would not have responded. But the Republican convention would be a great place to do that, and brag about the average 5% unemployment we had for eight years. I don’t know why they don’t do that, the Republicans. Are they afraid of George Bush? You know what I mean?

RUSH: Is who afraid of George Bush?

CALLER: Is the Republican establishment afraid to bring a guy like George Bush out at the convention?

RUSH: I hadn’t thought about it, but now that you mention it.

CALLER: It’s kind of odd.

RUSH: There might be some in there who think his negatives are still too high to bring him out. I wouldn’t be surprised. It’s a good question. I hadn’t really thought of that. I put myself in Bush’s shoes, and I know about the decorum and the tradition, the role of ex-presidents. And Bush has old-fashioned ideas about the presidency, and he’s got profound respect for it. So he’s not going to do anything in his mind that would sully the office.

He was merely a placeholder, in his view. The office of the presidency is sacrosanct, and he’s not gonna do anything to denigrate it. Clinton can do what he does, and Obama when he leaves will do what he does even if it means the country goes down tubes. This is where I, in putting myself in his shoes, wonder if I could sit around and let that happen; if I wouldn’t want to try to stop it. But, see, this is why I always say: I’m not a politician.

And, folks, those people play this game (whatever you call it) by a totally different set of rules than you and I go about living our lives. It’s like you said: Harry Reid wouldn’t be able to walk after two days of this if he’d said this about you. But those guys say, “Ohhh, that’s just Harry Reid. He ought to stop that. That’s just wrong. Harry ought to stop that,” and that’s as far as it goes as far as the Republican response to it’s concerned.

John, I appreciate the call.

Here is Henry in Portland, Maine. You’re next, sir. Great to have you.

CALLER: Hey, Rush. Thank you. You know, they accused Romney of killing this poor woman. You know, the only presidential candidate this year that’s actually killed an American citizen is Barack Obama. He’s got his hit list. He killed somebody who was a bad person but he killed him without due process. How can we trust that, if he’s elected again, that he won’t actually bring that back to the United States and kill American citizens?

RUSH: Oh, it’s more than one person. How many people died with Fast and Furious?

CALLER: Oh, that’s true, too.

RUSH: With Obama guns.

CALLER: Absolutely.

RUSH: You want to talk about death squads and Romney, how many drug cartels have American-made guns that they’re killing people with?

CALLER: Absolutely true. So, you know, he is a candidate that’s actually killed American citizens. And we have proof. We don’t need to speculate. We absolutely know, and he personally has to approve anyone on that hit list. So we know that he will approve killing more people, possibly more American citizens. Do we trust that he won’t bring that back —

RUSH: You’re talking about al-Awlaki, right? The terrorist and the drone attack, is that what you’re talking about?

CALLER: Absolutely.

RUSH: And Obama has the right, if he decides anybody’s misbehaving, can wipe ’em out?

CALLER: Absolutely.

RUSH: Yeah.

CALLER: And al-Awlaki, who had the Fort Hood shooter in communication with him also. So who’s to say that American citizens, you know, maybe these right-wing —

RUSH: You know what —

CALLER: — killed, too, in those countries.

RUSH: — Obama didn’t even read that poor sheik his Miranda rights.

CALLER: He did not. And, as an American citizen, I think there’s due process, no matter how bad you are, which is proven with these shooters and the person yesterday who pleaded guilty.

RUSH: The point is, the president of the United States is accusing you of killing a woman, you have to realize what this is all about. Here’s what’s always been frustrating to me with Obama. We have never had this great an opportunity, this great a contrast between who we are and who our opponents are. This guy, Obama, is a sitting duck. He ought to be a sitting duck. There is no reason to compromise with any of this. All this notion of walking across the aisle and making friends, that’s not even relevant with this, with this Democrat Party.

We’ve never, ever, had a greater opportunity to teach the American people who the Democrats of today are, who the liberals of today are, what they’re doing. The damage that they are wreaking on this country, we have never, ever, had a greater opportunity, and I’m sorry, Republican Party, it’s not enough to do it every day on talk radio. You’re going to have to do it as a part of your campaigning to win elections. Because you’re going to have to have a mandate when you win elections. You’re gonna have to do some teaching. You’re gonna have to get into some ideology here. The opportunity to contrast who we are with what we’re up against; we’ve got a Democrat Party and a president literally destroying this economy and the middle class. And we have the opposing party still reluctant to frame it properly.

They still want to couch it in the same old traditional political terms and universe. Well, they’re the Democrats, and we’re the Republicans, and sometimes they win, and sometimes we win. And you listen to all the analysts on TV, and you listen to all the strategerists, and you listen to all the pollsters, and you listen to all the political scientists, and they, too, every damn one of them, it’s just another election. It’s the Electoral College here, the state here, the swing state there, this poll over here. It’s about so much more than that. Every election, it is said, “This is the most crucial election in our life.” This one really is. This one really is! The problem with the Republican base voter is they know they get it, but they’re not sure that their party still gets it. And they don’t understand how anybody can’t get it, how anybody can’t understand what we’re up against. We’re in the middle of what’s happening.

If you’re in the middle of a forest fire, and that forest is everything to you, and you know who set it, you know who set the blaze, you know who put it on fire, you, A, want to save the forest, as much of it as you can, and you also want everybody to know who did it. Because forest fires don’t happen every day. They’re not common. This election season is not common. This campaign is not common, it’s not like every other one before. And that’s because of the last three-and-a-half years and what’s happened in this country. You gotta go back to FDR and Woodrow Wilson for things like this, and those two guys were pikers compared to what’s happening here.