RUSH: What a great teachable moment. What a fabulously wonderful and welcome teachable moment about the hostility on the left for average, ordinary Americans. It’s just wonderful. It’s such a great opportunity. And we’re gonna explore it as deeply as necessary to make the point to you. In addition, everybody is shocked and surprised the unemployment number is up, unexpectedly, new claims for unemployment. The media is laughing now. Even CBS is laughing at Obama and his focus on the Buffett Rule. Dana Milbank is laughing. Ezra Klein: George Bush tax cuts worked. The Democrats actually admit this. All we’re talking about is raising rates on the top 2%. Yeah, yeah, Washington Post, Ezra Klein, the new wunderkind.
Yeah, and we got the George Zimmerman arrest to discuss. A lot of pressure, by the way, in Florida on this. What’s the name of the law down there? Stand Your Ground. I think we need to change the name, ’cause they’re trying to get rid of it, when in fact it’s not to blame for anything, but how about changing the name of the law to Resist We Much? Instead of Stand Your Ground, Resist We Much. You’d have to pay Sharpton a royalty, but I’m sure that Eric Holder could see to that. The Resist We Much law.
Anyway, hi, folks. How are you? Great to have you with us. Rush Limbaugh behind the Golden EIB Microphone here at the Limbaugh Institute. Telephone number if you want to be on the program, 800-282-2882.
What? What’s the question? I’ll get into that, I’m gonna get into that in just a second. I’ve gotta do this Hilary Rosen stuff here, because this is big, and because it’s such a teachable moment. This is such an illustration of who these people are, the left. It’s such an illustration of the phoniness of feminism. It is an illustration of the absolute hostility that the left has for women who stay at home. I thought this issue of stay-at-home moms and so forth, remember the original objective of feminism was equal pay for equal work, and now we find out in the White House that women are underpaid. Women make 18% less than men make in the Obama White House. That was the original organizing moment, supposedly, about feminism.
Now we find out that there is genuine hostility for women who do not work, who only stay at home and raise their families. So the Obama administration has just effectively, whether they know it or not, launched a War on Motherhood via Hilary Rosen on CNN last night. Obama and the Democrats are not content to just divide men and women. They want to go deeper and divide working mothers from stay-at-home mothers, and they want to attach the virtue to working mothers and assign no virtue to stay-at-home moms.
Now, you talk to most women, even those who consider themselves feminists and got caught up this way back in the seventies, they will tell you that they thought that was a battle that they fought and won and ended years ago.
But I, El Rushbo, have known that there’s always been hostility for women who don’t go to work. They are letting down the sisterhood. This has been one of my main contentions throughout the entire history of this program. But in one fell swoop, Hilary Rosen has reopened this wound and is allowing everybody to see in that the real hostility — and how is this gonna play with all those precious independents? The real hostility is for women who stay at home. And make no mistake: Hilary Rosen was hostile. She was hostile in her original comment and she was hostile as she ratcheted it up after the original comments.
Go to the audio sound bites. Last night on CNN Anderson Cooper. The guest was Hilary Rosen, and they’re talking about Romney’s appeal to women and this War on Women which, by the way, the Democrats are now saying that they never called it that. The Democrats are saying it’s a Republican term. We never called it the War on Women. They are sending out fundraising appeals with the War on Women name in them. Pelosi has sent one out. They’re all over the place. Obama refused to condemn the term War on Women when asked about it. They’re literally denying what they are saying. So here is Hilary Rosen, she’s upset that Romney cited his wife as someone he listens to on economic problems faced by women.
ROSEN: What you have is Mitt Romney running around the country saying, “Well, you know, my wife tells me that what women really care about are economic issues. And when I listen to my wife, that’s what I’m hearing.” Guess what? His wife has actually never worked a day in her life. She’s never really dealt with the kinds of economic issues that a majority of the women in this country are facing in terms of how do we feed our kids, how do we send them to school, and why we worry about their future. There’s something much more fundamental about Mitt Romney. He just seems so old-fashioned when it comes to women. And I think that comes across. And I think that that’s going to hurt him over the long term. He just doesn’t really see us as equal.
RUSH: Ann Romney has had breast cancer. Ann Romney has MS, multiple sclerosis. She has raised five boys while undergoing breast cancer treatment and being treated for multiple sclerosis. Hilary Rosen’s complaint is that she doesn’t know what life is really like for real women because she doesn’t have any economic problems. So she can’t relate to women who do have economic problems and therefore it is totally erroneous for Romney to hide behind her skirt, which she says later. Romney should stop hiding behind her skirt because she’s never worked a day in her life. She doesn’t know what she’s talking about and Romney doesn’t know what he’s talking about. They don’t have any clue what life is really like.
Now, these are the people, the same people, folks, you’ll remember who hammered Sarah Palin for daring to go to work when she had a Down syndrome child. These are the same people that hammered Sarah Palin for daring to go to work when she had so many kids to raise. You couldn’t do both if you’re a Republican. You couldn’t do both. You couldn’t have it all if you’re a conservative. If you have a lot of kids and one that’s special needs, you don’t go to work. If you do, you are not exhibiting proper responsibility. If you’re Ann Romney and you have five kids and you have cancer and multiple sclerosis, and all you do is raise your kids, you have no way of understanding what real economic hardship is, and therefore it’s asinine for you to tell your husband about the economic plight of women and it’s stupid for your husband to actually listen to you. This is what Hilary Rosen was saying, and she continued to say.
Since this remark, Axelrod of the campaign, Messina of the Obama campaign, have distanced themselves. “She doesn’t work for us. She works over at the DNC, doesn’t work for us.” She’s visited the White House 36 times since Obama was inaugurated. That averages out to once a month. She has seen Obama personally three or four of those 35 times. She works with Anita Dunn. She is a PR specialist, by the way, that’s her title. She used to be a lobbyist for the recording industry, by the way. She and Anita Dunn were behind the all of the PR moves that Sandra Fluke engaged in. These are the two architects, Hilary Rosen and Anita Dunn. The Democrats, the Obama campaign, is trying to say, “Whoa, she has nothing to do with us. She works for the DNC.” Yeah, she’s meeting with Obama. This is Obama. This is the campaign. This is the reelect bunch. This is all of them.
It doesn’t matter where they are stationed. It doesn’t matter where they’re assigned. They’re all working for the reelection of Obama and the destruction of any opponent who gets in their way. But they’ve gone after the wrong woman here. Ann Romney is not disliked. Ann Romney is not unlikable. Ann Romney isn’t controversial. Ann Romney is not telling anybody else how to live. Ann Romney knows full well what life in America is all about. Ann Romney’s a role model. I don’t care what you think of Mitt. It’s not the point here. She is a role model for living and trying to live a fulfilling life. And the economics here — it’s so perfect. She’s apparently wealthy, so she has no way of knowing what life is really like.
Do you think her kids are running around with silver spoons? Do you think they’ve been taught to work? Do you think her kids are facing economic reality? Do you think the Romneys are giving their kids everything, setting them up for life without ever having to work? Do you think the Romneys don’t know what life is like in America? You don’t think they don’t understand hardships? Everybody understands it. Even Warren Buffett’s hard up. He owes the IRS a billion dollars, is resisting paying it. But this is who they are. This is exactly how they think. This is how they feel. They are angry, and they are hostile, and they are not compassionate, they are not nice, they have no manners. In the basics of human existence, they are reprobates.
They don’t understand politeness. They are rude. They are crude. They are thoughtless. They are selfish. They are mean. And it is all come out in one display in this one appearance, Hilary Rosen on CNN. This morning on CNN’s Newsroom, Carol Costello spoke with Hilary Rosen about her remarks about Ann Romney that she’d “never worked a day in her life.” Costello said, “You said Ann Romney never worked a day in her life. This is a woman who suffered breast cancer, has MS, raised five boys. That’s hard work.”
ROSEN: I have kids. Being a mom is the hardest job in the world. That’s the truth of it. I’ve said consistently that the issue… Look, Mitt Romney’s brought his wife into this conversation. This is not about Ann Romney. This is about the waitress at a diner in someplace in Nevada who has two kids whose daycare funding is being cut off because of the Romney-Ryan budget, and she doesn’t know what to do. This isn’t about whether Ann Romney or I or other women of some means can afford to make a choice to stay home and raise kids. Most women in America, let’s face it, don’t have that choice.
RUSH: And the choices are narrowing because of Barack Obama, not Paul Ryan, and not Mitt Romney. Ryan and Romney haven’t done diddly-squat. Ryan’s idea is on paper. What is she talking about? Waitress in a diner, someplace in Nevada, two kids whose daycare funding is being cut off because of the Romney-Ryan budget? There’s no daycare being cut! The fact that this woman, this mythical waitress in Nevada, may be having problems is because of the Obama economy. It’s because the real economy where that waitress lives and works is shrinking, because Barack Obama is taking more money out of it.
There’s less opportunity for that waitress because of Barack Obama. There’s less opportunity for that waitress because of the Democrat Party, because of liberalism, because of their political beliefs. To try to lay this off on Mitt Romney and now to come out and say, “Oh, it’s not about Ann Romney.” Not about Ann Romney? Most definitely it’s about Ann Romney! There is a genuine hostility for Ann Romney. Ann Romney’s everything Hilary Rosen would love to be. (interruption) What, you think that’s wrong, Snerdley? (interruption) She what? (interruption) Yeah, well, why does she hate Ann Romney? She resents Ann Romney!
I maintain to you that envy and jealousy are the primary ingredients for hatred and rage. And Ann Romney hasn’t done a thing to anybody, and yet she is despised by this woman. What does she…? All that happened was, Mitt Romney happened to say he listens to his wife! I thought feminism was about couples working together, and husbands taking their wives seriously, and having a coequal relationship and listening to each other and sharing ideas. I thought it was about getting rid of male chauvinism. I thought in the old days Mitt Romney would get in trouble for saying, “Ah, my wife? She doesn’t know anything about economics! I’m not gonna listen to her.”
In the old days, that’s what Romney would get in trouble for. Today, Mitt Romney gets in trouble and his wife gets in trouble because he says he respects her opinion? Isn’t that what we were taught as feminism took hold? We were supposed to respect the opinions of women. Romney respects the opinion of his wife and now that is reason for her to be ripped to shreds? I know. They’re Leave It To Beaver. They’re Donna Reed. They’re all this. They’re looked as old-fashioned throwbacks who can’t relate to life in America. Well, I guarantee you: You don’t have to live a certain economic circumstance to understand how hard it is.
But Romney wasn’t born wealthy. Romney worked for everything he’s got. He didn’t inherit this. To say these people don’t understand economic hardship is classic on the part of liberals to try to take conservatives out of the realm by suggesting they have no way to relate. And note, the only way that you can be accredited and respected is if somehow you understand and sympathize and are able to reach out to directly touch failure. Failure is the virtue. Economic depravity is the virtue. People like Ann Romney should be role models for what she’s endured, what she’s had to go through, the way she’s lived her life. Not be derided by a political operative for the president.
BREAK TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: You remember how the media fawned all over Elizabeth Edwards, do you not? She had breast cancer. They fawned all over Elizabeth Edwards while they were fawning all over her faux husband, John Edwards. Even Michelle Obama has been dragged in to do damage control now.
Hilary Rosen has visited the White House 35 or 36 times, about once a month since Obama was inaugurated. Now, to put that in perspective, Hilary Rosen goes 35 times to the White House. And, as best one can gather from looking at the roster, had personal visits with the president four or maybe five times. She’s had a lot of meetings with Valerie Jarrett, who is Obama’s number one adviser outside of Michelle. So she’s visiting people at the upper levels of the West Wing. General David Petraeus, head of our efforts in Iraq and Afghanistan, the current CIA director, visited nine times. Steven Chu, the energy secretary, visited 16 times.
The former CIA director and the current secretary of defense, Leon Panetta, 12 times. Hilary Rosen, 35 times. Vice President Biden has appeared on the guest list, the visitors’ log at the White House six times. Hilary Rosen left her job in 2003 to spend time with twins that she adopted with her partner, Elizabeth Birch. Now, Elizabeth Birch used to head a very large and connected gay rights group called the Human Rights Campaign. Elizabeth Birch, I’ll never forget. When Anne Heche and Ellen DeGeneres were an item, they were honored by this group. Elizabeth Birch was the president and Hilary Rosen is her partner, and they adopted twins.
And Hilary Rosen left her job in 2003 to spend time with twins. So she left her job, for a while, Hilary Rosen, 2003. So during that period of time that Hilary Rosen was at home raising her twins, we have to assume that she was out of contact with the economy and had no relationship to it whatsoever and thus is not qualified to comment on economic matters during the time she was at home raising her twins — by her own definition of things, when she was at home raising her twins in 2003. Hilary Rosen, if she’s ever had anything to say about the economy between 2003 and however long it was that she stayed home, we have to find it and discount it because she was at home and she doesn’t know, ’cause that’s what she says about Ann Romney: She has no clue!
Romney has worked hard. He didn’t inherit anything. So what’s happening now is you have Jim Messina of the campaign and Axelrod at the campaign asking Hilary Rosen to apologize, and she’s doubling down and saying “no,” and she’s getting snarkier. Rosen isn’t backing down. From The Politico: “‘I admire Ann for getting in the mix,’ Rosen told me tonight, via e-mail. ‘But she didn’t answer my follow up tweet to her! Which I thought was respectful and sincere.'” So Hilary Rosen tweets Ann Romney — who started a Twitter account last night to reply to this, by the way, and already tens of thousands, if not more, followers.
The Washington Post has an online poll asking who’s right or wrong in this. Ann Romney has 90% support. So Hilary Rosen tweets Ann Romney, and Ann Romney doesn’t respond to it, and Hilary Rosen tells The Politico guy, “Why, I thought my tweet was respectful and sincere.” Here’s her tweet. Here’s Hilary Rosen’s tweet to Ann Romney: “I’m raising children, too. But you do know that most young American women have to earn a living and raise their kids, don’t you?” Ann Romney didn’t reply to that so Hilary Rosen called The Politico or The Politico called her. Rosen is talking to the Politico: “She didn’t answer my follow-up tweet. I thought that was respectful and sincere.”
“I’m raising children, too, Ann, but you do know that most young American women have to earn a living and raise their kids, don’t you?” War on Moms! Hostility! The hostility, the anger, the rage. Folks, I’ve commented frequently of the ongoing, the daily existence in rage and anger that characterizes the American left. They never are happy, never laugh. They’re always enraged, they’re always angry, and their anger and rage expressed constantly makes everybody else ticked off half the time. They don’t like it when people are enjoying themselves. It’s not fair! If somebody’s not enjoying themselves and a lot of people are, it’s not fair to the people that aren’t.
So we all should be miserable and relate to ’em and not rub our happiness in their nose. I guess it’s pretty tough to be a lobbyist for the Human Rights Campaign. I hope Hilary gets full benefits there, ’cause I don’t know how long this is gonna go on. By the way, she and Elizabeth Birch, her partner, split up in 2006. Do we know who got custody of the twins that they adopted? I don’t know. But Hilary Rosen stopped working when they adopted the twins, by her own admission. Do you think that Hilary Rosen knew that Ann Romney had multiple sclerosis? Do you think that Hilary Rosen knew that Ann Romney has had a bout with breast cancer?
MS alone with probably qualify her for the Americans with Disabilities Act, and of course that’s a way the left would be able to relate to people. And, by the way, Rosen wasn’t finished. She wrote a column on the Huffington Post last night. And in that column… After all this that I’ve told you, after all this blew up, she writes a column on the Huffington Post and she said Mitt Romney should, quote, “Come out from behind his wife’s skirt and tell us working women in this country should trust his vision for the future.”
Yes siree, Bob, that’s Hilary Rosen. She has her finger on the pulse of the American woman. No doubt about it. So all this is happening now and people are running for the hills, Moochelle and Messina and Axelrod. And the Democrats are now trying to say they respect women with kids at home who work. They respect them. Oh, yeah? Well, tell that to Sarah Palin and tell that to Michele Bachmann. How many foster children does Michele Bachmann have? How many of her own biological children did Michele Bachmann have? And how often were these two women impugned, laughed at, derided as being not the proper kind of role model for American women?
Look at who gets mocked by these people. Black conservatives are mocked and smeared and insulted. Hispanic conservatives, women, Asians, any other group or subgroup that isn’t in the tank for statism, mocked. These leftists, folks, it’s on display. You can see it. They are angry. They are haters. This is why Jeremiah Wright wasn’t any big news to these people. Jeremiah Wright was not out of their norm. Jeremiah Wright was right up their ally. Jeremiah Wright was right on, dude, right on. Barack Obama’s pastor for 20 years, his spiritual mentor, political soul mate. Obama has sought out and surrounded himself with these kinds of mean-spirited, hostile ideologues. Hilary Rosen is just one of many.
But don’t attack Obama personally just because his friends and associates all share the same bitterness towards those who don’t share their views and anger. There was a guy who had a piece yesterday. I’ve got it here in the leftover stack. I’m having a mental block on his name, but it’s a great piece. He said, “Where does this notion that Barack Obama’s likable come from?” The guy’s point is, I see all these polls that people hate his policies, nobody wants health care, his approval number’s at 41%, but people like him personally? Why? This guy can’t figure it out. The guy who talks about low-income Americans as bitter clingers. What is there to like? What’s likable about Obama? This guy says, I don’t think he’s a cool, calm guy. He’s cold, is this guy’s point.
But there you have it, Ann Romney, never worked a day in her life, has no clue about the economy, has no basis, no business telling her husband about economic circumstances for women. And her husband, Mitt, has no business listening to her. She doesn’t know anything. She never worked a day in her life. Mitt doesn’t know anything because he’s rich. They don’t know what they’re talking about. It’s about time Romney came out from behind his wife’s skirt. I’ve got countless other examples of profound hypocrisy on this.
BREAK TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: Well, the best-laid plans. I think I’m gonna move on, and then I find something else. Ann Romney was interviewed by Jack Thomas, the Boston Globe, October 20th, 1994, 17, 18 years ago. Ann Romney interviewed by Jack Thomas, the Boston Globe, on her students days with Mitt Romney at BYU. Ann Romney said, “They were not easy years. You have to understand, I was raised in a lovely neighborhood, as was Mitt, and at BYU, we moved into a $62-a-month basement apartment with a cement floor and lived there two years as students with no income. It was tiny. And I didnÂ’t have money to carpet the floor. But you can get remnants, samples, so I glued them together, all different colors. It looked awful, but it was carpeting.
“We were happy, studying hard. Neither one of us had a job, because Mitt had enough of an investment from stock that we could sell off a little at a time. The stock came from MittÂ’s father. When he took over American Motors, the stock was worth nothing. But he invested MittÂ’s birthday money year to year — it wasnÂ’t much, a few thousand, but he put it into American Motors because he believed in himself. Five years later, stock that had been $6 a share was $96 and Mitt cashed it so we could live and pay for education.
Mitt and I walked to class together, shared housekeeping, had a lot of pasta and tuna fish and learned hard lessons. We had our first child in that tiny apartment. We couldnÂ’t afford a desk, so we used a door propped on sawhorses in our bedroom. It was a big door, so we could study on it together. And we bought a portable crib, took the legs off and put it on the desk while we studied. I had a baby sitter during class time, but otherwise, IÂ’d hold my son on my lap while I studied.
“Right after Mitt graduated in 1975, we had our third boy and it was about the time MittÂ’s first paycheck came along. So, we were married a long time before we had any income, about five years as struggling students. Now, every once in a while, we say if things get rough, we can go back to a $62-a-month apartment and be happy. All we need is each other and a little corner and weÂ’ll be fine.”
This is the woman who was just impugned and continues to be impugned today by Hilary Rosen, who is snarkily doubling down on all this. The Democrats, Obama White House, are asking her to apologize and back off, but she won’t do it. This is the woman that Hilary Rosen, the Democrats, say is not qualified to tell her husband about economic circumstances as they exist for women today. And this is the woman who is saying that Mitt should stop hiding behind his wife’s skirt, he has no business bringing her into the campaign. It’s fine for Bill Clinton to bring Hillary in the campaign, let her run the damn show, and it’s fine for John Edwards to bring Elizabeth Edwards in, and it’s wonderful for Michelle Obama to be in charge of what everybody eats and whatever else they want her in charge of. But Ann Romney, who the hell does she think she is? She doesn’t know anything. She never even worked a day in her life, and that coward husband of hers, hiding behind her skirt.
Folks, for 23-plus years I have literally been begging people in this country to have an ideological outlook on people. Why wouldn’t you want to know what their ideology is? It’s the fastest, most direct way of finding out who they are, and I have been begging people to understand the abject rage and hypocrisy and, at times, hatred that courses through the veins of so many of these people, the upper echelons of the Democrat Party. This is one of these great, great teachable moments. “Blabbermouth” Schultz just tweeted, by the way. Which, by the way, these two babes were hired to tone her down. Did you know that? Anita Dunn and Hilary Rosen were hired to tone her down before her first appearance on Meet the Press, or after it, ’cause she was too off the wall. I don’t have time to tell you what she tweeted, but I will.
Sit tight.
BREAK TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: This is such a disaster. They’re dragging out Debbie “Blabbermouth” Schultz now on Twitter. Blabs just tweeted: “Disappointed in Hilary’s comments. As a mother of three there’s no doubt that raising children is work.” Wow. Okay, so that tells you where the American people are on this one.