RUSH: Folks, we really need to put all of this in perspective. Obama never had a birth certificate problem. He has a spending problem. He has a redistribution of wealth problem. He has a socialism problem. There’s a story today that Eric Holder had been investigating oil prices, gasoline prices, and found something very disturbing. These people are bordering on totalitarian authoritarianism. They are going to use the law for the most awful purposes, as they are with health care, flouting the Constitution. The birth certificate was a handy distraction for Obama, but even that got to be a problem for him. And now what Obama would rather people go back to noticing is all of his other problems: the wars, the debt, the lack of leadership. And this conventional wisdom that he can’t be beat, that we just should set our sights on the Senate, where does this come from?

How does it come that any presidential election is a loss? You know, who thought that Obama could beat Hillary 19 months before the November 2008 elections? Who thought that George H. W. Bush would lose in 1992? Nobody! Obama didn’t even think he was going to win in 2008. So Obama says we gotta get rid of the silliness, we gotta move beyond this. He gets on a plane to tape the Oprah show later today, then to fly back to New York for three fundraisers. And it’s the third time this month that he has been fundraising. If he didn’t think he could be beat, why is he so worried about building up his war chest other than it’s the standard operating procedure? Pete Wehner, friend of mine, worked with Karl Rove in the Bush White House, worked with Bill Bennett at Empower America, now posts at Commentary magazine, and he posts today about the Trump business. He says that Trump has been shown now to be even more of a clownish figure than we imagined.

“Remember, Trump was saying on Monday, in an interview with CNN’s Anderson Cooper, that unnamed sources were telling him that the original birth certificate didn’t exist and he was now doubtful that the president was born in the United States, despite the overwhelming evidence that Obama was born in Hawaii. Yet Trump is interpreting the release of Obama’s long-form birth certificate as a triumph, which goes to show that even successful businessmen can live in alternate universes. The other thing to notice is how Trump has in the last few days portrayed himself as a victim of an irresponsible media. In his comments this morning Trump went so far as to say that he’s happy the White House released the president’s birth certificate ‘so the press can stop asking me questions’ about it. This after Trump has spent the better part of the month obsessing on this issue and raising it in every forum imaginable.

“One does not have to be naive about American politics to believe that it is a serious enterprise –” Here’s that word again, ‘serious.’ “– a forum in which we debate and decide on matters of justice and what constitutes a good society. Sometimes we do better than other times. But for the last few weeks a buffoon was allowed to hijack political discourse in America and mainstream an issue that was once relegated to the fever swamps. The public’s view of politics and politicians was already at low ebb; this whole episode will make things even worse. For those of us who care about politics and the ideas and philosophies informing politics — who believe that politics is, in the words of the Scottish novelist John Buchan, an ‘honourable adventure’ — the last few weeks have been discouraging, to say the least.”

So that’s the inside-the-Beltway view. Somebody from outside the Beltway has dared enter the scene and they don’t like it. They really don’t like it. Here’s Krauthammer. Now, remember, Trump called Krauthammer after Krauthammer said he wasn’t serious. Trump called him to discuss it with him. Last night on The O’Reilly Factor, the host, Ted Baxter, said to Krauthammer, “He calls a lot of people. He called me, said he didn’t like the Al Sharpton thing. He thought that was demeaning, was a cheap shot. He’s not Al Sharpton. He has a record of achievement. He’s gonna release his financial records. It’s gonna show $7 billion net worth. He’s saying, ‘How can you compare me to Al Sharpton when I’m a proven businessman, I know what I’m doing.’ What do you say to this, Mr. Krauthammer?”

KRAUTHAMMER: I’m not comparing bank accounts. I explained what I meant by that. He’s like Al Sharpton in the sense that he is slick, smooth, spouts provocative nonsense — operative word “nonsense” — which will distract any presidential debate. He says, “Oh, no, no, my real issues are OPEC, Iraq, oil, the Chinese, the economy.” I said, “All right, let’s talk about that. Let’s talk about your idea of seizing Libyan oil, seizing Iraqi oil and demanding $1.2 trillion worth of oil. That is a nutty idea. That’s what makes you unserious.” Look, Bill, that kind of talk is the stuff you expect from a guy at a bar at closing time with slurred speech.

RUSH: So Trump is the equivalent of a guy at the bar, last one there, after last call with slurred speech. He’s unserious. He wants to make a claim on the oil in nations that we are liberating and that we have saved. At the end of the day here the president of the United States has responded to a reality show star and called it silliness. And a part of me couldn’t agree more. A pop culture icon, not an elected official, has forced the president’s hand, not a journalist, not an elected official, but Big Hollywood. Somebody from the entertainment media forced the president’s hand, not one of our people. Celebrity has trumped the president, his message. I was just watching PMSNBC during the break, and Andrea Mitchell, NBC News, Washington, was talking to their White House babe, Savannah Guthrie and they heard that when Obama announced his presser today, he’s gonna be coming out and talking about the shift at the Pentagon and the CIA. Petraeus is going to the CIA. You want to talk about marginalizing somebody, that’s taking him out of the loop.

They’re afraid of Petraeus being somebody’s veep. That’s what they’re afraid of. So put Petraeus in the regime. He’s a loyal guy, he goes there. Gates has wanted out of defense for who knows how long. Panetta doesn’t like watching CNN, which is apparently what the Director of Central Intelligence does these days. Well, that’s what he said. He said he found out that something that happened in Egypt ’cause he saw it on CNN. And I kind of agree with Panetta, if my job was watching CNN all day I’d want a change, too. So Panetta is being sent over to the Pentagon; Petraeus to CIA. That’s what they thought Obama was gonna come out and start talking about. Instead, they were shocked that Obama came out to talk about the birth certificate thing. They couldn’t believe it. And the reason is because they don’t think it’s been an issue from the get-go, why should Obama care, why should he respond to this? Their view was, why elevate Trump here?

Now, it’s important to point out I have a modicum of experience with this, folks. Presidents, even in a circumstance like this, should be so far above people like Trump. I couldn’t believe the first White House Correspondents Dinner when Clinton starts telling that joke about me trying to portray me as a racist. I mean I understood his objective, but why even be concerned? Flying into St. Louis on Air Force One in the early nineties, he’s talking to the morning show team complaining about me that when their show finishes I’m gonna have three hours uninterrupted without a truth detector. This is the president of the United States complaining about me, and at the time James Carville was pulling what little hair he has left out. (imitating Carville) “It ain’t Limbaugh. Limbaugh not your problem. Limbaugh not running for office.”

What are the similarities? I think the similarities psychologically are that Clinton and Obama both have this characteristic they want to be loved. Clinton’s the kind of guy that could walk into a room with a hundred people and find the one person that doesn’t like him and spend the whole night trying to change his mind rather than revel with the 99 people who do love him. Lot of people like that. But what a sad state of affairs. The president of the United States calls a press conference to announce that he was born in the United States. Mr. Transparency. Here the press is waiting for the latest ho-hum about shifts at the top at CIA and the Pentagon. And Mr. Transparency is forced to submit a simple document that every American has, forced to address silliness by a reality television star on a day when Bernanke is talking to the press, Petraeus is being nominated to head the CIA, Panetta’s going over to the Pentagon, gasoline is unaffordable, fiscal policy is in shambles, and he calls a presser to talk about, (imitating Obama) “Yeah, I was born here, here’s my birth certificate. We gotta get the silliness out of the way.”

You want to talk about silliness, Obama just turned the White House communications into a circus, if you ask me. We’ve got Entertainment Tonight at nine a.m. We got Access Hollywood at 9:30. We got E Entertainment television at ten a.m. TMZ on steroids. Country’s going to hell in a handbasket, Obama’s responded to Trump more directly than he’s responded to Paul Ryan or John Boehner. The only thing that would have made Obama look more ridiculous today would be if he had made that statement in the press conference in front of those fake Greek columns that he used in Denver at his acceptance speech. This is phony baloney, plastic banana, good-time rock ‘n’ roller shtick circus sideshow politics. And it’s fun to watch. It is fun to watch. Maybe the birth certificate controversy was cutting into Obama’s fundraising. Hell, I don’t know. But something made this happen today.

My commonsense best guess is it has to be poll-driven, and fundraising is what he’s concentrating on at the moment. Frankly, folks, the two things about this that really shocked me the most, one, that Obama was born at all. I thought it was a miraculous conception. And secondly, that his parents are actually mortals. Those are the two things I’ve really had a tough time believing. I mean here they presented this guy as The Messiah, as The One, and those people aren’t born. They just descend from the heavens.

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RUSH: Yes. Very true. Very, very true, Snerdley. I’ll say it again: At the end of all of this, the most shocking thing I learned today so that Obama was actually born. I’ll tell you something else about this that’s starting to grate on me, and that is this notion of “seriousness” and who is and who isn’t. I, for one — and I’m a lunch pail guy here, folks. People don’t understand this. This job is a lunch pail job. You know, I haven’t had a “power lunch” in 25 years. You know, you gotta be here. There’s no being five minutes late; there’s no any of this. I’m just person from the middle of the country. I did not go to college or any of that stuff. I’m as close to average American as you can get, and this whole notion of Obama is a serious figure offends my sensibilities.

Why is he serious? Because he can speak? Because he has a university resume that’s appealing or approved by people who define who’s serious? What about his intelligence? How smart is this guy? What does he know? I don’t believe if Barack Obama had a dream for a product to bring to market, I don’t think he’d have the slightest idea how to bring a product to marketplace. I don’t think he’s got the slightest understanding. He’s got a lot of resentment for it, but I don’t think he has the slightest understanding of how wealth is created. He just resents it when it is.

The guy is single-handedly destroying the United States economy, and we want to sit here and applaud because Obama’s a “serious component of our politics.” Serious? That’s just another word for “elitist,” if you ask me. So somebody’s “serious” and somebody’s “not serious.” Obviously “not serious” is a crude, unsophisticated rube, not qualified to be a member of the Ruling Class. So I guess in that context I’m not “serious.” I wouldn’t be considered “serious.” What makes Obama “serious”? “Well, look what he’s done to our health care, Rush.” Exactly! Look what he’s done to our health care! “Well, it’s a legitimate political argument, Rush. It’s a legitimate political view, socialism.”

Yeah, it deserves to be defeated, for crying out loud, not applauded as legitimate! It hurts people! So here’s Trump, a pop icon, dragging down the president to his level. But he’s not because Obama’s a pop icon at the same time. Here’s a dirty little secret: What was Obama with those staged, black canvas little appearances with the Greek columns and all of that? The first black president icon who offered nothing but a weak song entitled Hope and Change. We’ve got audio sound bites of the learned members of the Ruling Class admitting, they don’t know who he is, they don’t know what he stands for, they don’t know what books he’s read.

Charlie Rose and Tom Brokaw say it, and he gets elected. He’s a blank slate. You can make him whatever you want him to be. The “Magic Negro,” all of these things that other people created. He’s a pop icon, but he does not have a successful reality show. Well, maybe he does. He probably could get sponsors for this, too. Sure! Sure! No question Obama responds to Trump more than Ryan. That’s his territory. He wants no part of Paul Ryan. When he did match up with Ryan he was as empty as his lyrical campaign when they went into the details on Obamacare. He wants no part of Paul Ryan.

He can’t keep up with Paul Ryan and he doesn’t want to hear what Paul Ryan has to say. What did Obama tell the GOP when they first met him early in his term. They had the Republican and Democrat leadership up to the White House within the first couple of weeks. He said, “Don’t listen to Rush Limbaugh if you want to get anything done. That’s not how things get done here. You don’t listen to Rush Limbaugh.” So one of his first messages was to attack a pop icon like Rush Limbaugh. Obama is a pop icon! He’s looked at as a pop icon even by his supporters. Yet Trump and Obama, they’re on the same level in so many ways. The difference is Trump hasn’t ruined the economy.

But Trump isn’t “serious.” I forget. (sigh) Trump’s not “serious.” How many jobs has he created? Well, it’s in the thousands. How many has Obama destroyed? But Obama’s “serious.” Obama is a genuine intellect. Yeah, maybe Obama does have a reality show. His writers aren’t unionized, either. Yeah, I would love to see Obama’s grades in economics. I’d love to see them. The only way this guy’s gets good grades in economics is if he’s simply repeating the Marxist crap that he’s been taught. But if you get an A in Marxism, what does that mean. Is that helpful? Is that useful?

“Hey, Mom! Hey, it’s Barack on the phone. Yeah, I got an A here at Harvard in Marxism. Yeah, we’re on the way.” Yeah, that’s “serious.” “Yeah, after that we’re gonna look at Hegel and then Ingalls. I’m gonna have this Marx guy down pat so the day ever comes I have a chance to ruin America I can — ha! — and people will love me while I’m doing it. No, Mom, I can’t come home. I gotta work on being serious.” Serious: An A in Marxism, A-plus in socialism. Yeah, let’s see the grades. They’re not just academic. We all know that he went to Harvard, Columbia, Harvard Law School. That was supposed to be enough for us not to worry that he had no real life experience. It was supposed to cover for real life experience. Kinda doesn’t work that way, does it?

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RUSH: Saginaw, Michigan, Jeffrey, welcome to the program. Great to have you here.

CALLER: Hi, Rush. This is Jeff. I want to say mega dittos. I’ve been listening to you since Sacramento, California. I live in Michigan now. But it’s because of you that people like me who used to be Teamster Democrats are now strong Republicans.

RUSH: Thank you very much, sir.

CALLER: You are courageous. There are two things I wanted to tell you. (sigh) In 1774, John Adams wrote General Horatio Gates. He said, “If we finally fail in this great and glorious contest, it will be by bewildering ourselves and groping for the middle ground,” and I think (sigh) that John Adams hit the nail on the head. We can’t… (sigh) We can’t be Milquetoast RINO Republicans.

RUSH: Right.

CALLER: We have to stand for what’s right.

RUSH: That’s right, and being “serious” and all this is just a euphemism for being moderate and non-confrontational and reaching for the middle ground, exactly right.

CALLER: My second point was is that (sigh) Obama’s pretty easy to beat, he’s painted himself into a corner, and we have an arsenal of facts to use against him but we have to hold his feet to the fire and make him take ownership for his behavior. The first thing I would do — and I think this is really important, remembering that he’s just a demagogic ideologue — is to insist that Congress restore the $500 billion back to Medicare that he in his infinite wisdom took and assigned to Medicaid. By doing that, my hunch is that he would veto it, but that’s okay, because that would infuriate about 99% of all senior citizens. Now, the other thing he could do is say, “Okay, let’s go along with it and try to appease them,” and he would infuriate his base either way we went. And even if he does sign it into law, it’s still our bill, and we can make him take ownership and take that all the way to November, saying, “Hey, this is…” It’s a win-win for us, no matter what. “This is our bill. We came up with this, and you just signed it. It’s not yours.”

RUSH: You may have a point here because the polling data suggests that the elderly are the largest supporters of the Ryan plan.

CALLER: Absolutely, and there you have it. By having Congress restore that money to Medicare where it came from, it would make all of us heroes. Now, if he signs the bill, yeah, okay. But he’ll really anger his base.

RUSH: Well, it would also highlight the fact that he cut it!

CALLER: Exactly! Exactly. You can’t win. That’s my point. He’s easy to beat. He’s a demagogic ideologue. It’s what he’s always been, it’s what he’ll always be, and you can beat that easy but you’ve got to hold the truth.

RUSH: Let me tell you something. For me it just boils to something this simple: If we can’t beat socialist-Marxist policies then we may as well check it out anyway. What the heck, folks? Where is the smart money? Who are these people that say we can’t beat these policies? You know, if running against Obama makes ’em nervous — and I can understand how members of the Ruling Class would be uncomfortable going against such a “well-spoken” candidate. If you want the quintessential, perfect model of an Ivy League grad, Obama’s it. The cool demeanor, the arrogant condescension in his manner of speaking, his articulation.

Yeah, if that’s what impresses you — and if it also intimidates you, ’cause you really don’t want to destroy those kind of personalities ’cause that’s what you admire; you admire well-spoken Ivy League types, and going after Obama, that would be like going after all of us who aspire to the same things — okay. You don’t want to go after Obama personally? Fine. Can’t you find it in yourself to oppose the destruction of the US economy? Can you find it somewhere in yourselves to stand up for the creation of private sector jobs?

If you don’t want to go after Obama personally, can you see the danger in Obama policies which are destroying the futures of people in this country not yet conceived, much less born? Yeah, you may not want to go after Obama because he’s just so “perfect,” but for crying out loud, where is it written these policies can’t be beaten? If you’re gonna tell me the policies can’t be beaten because of Obama the personality, then I don’t want to hear one more thing about how Trump is a pop culture icon and “not serious,” because that’s what you’re telling me. If you’re telling me we can’t beat Obama because of his personality, then we’re not even talking about serious politics here.

We’re talking about high school clique-ism. I don’t understand it. Intellectually I don’t understand this rigmarole that this agenda, that this track record is untouchable. This could force me to go insane, to make me to believe this, to try to sit me down and make people explain this to me in a way that I should agree with it? It’s patently absurd. And don’t for a minute think that some of the opposition of Trump isn’t simply based on the fact that he’s not from Washington. He doesn’t quite fit the mold. I mean, folks, look… Don’t doubt me on this.

If you’re a columnist at the New York Times and you actually write that you are mesmerized by the “crease” in some politician’s slacks, and then you say has a gonna be elected president and he’s gonna be a damn good one, I submit you are a fool, a shallow bupkis, and you want to be taken seriously above all else? We’re talking the essence of pop culture icon, the essence of idolatry, the essence of star-screwer is to say, “I love the crease in his pants! He’s gonna be a great president!” That’s asinine! That’s insultingly unintelligent and it’s just… As Dawn would say, “It’s very sad,” but that’s David Brooks of the New York Times.

The crease in Obama’s pants, he was mesmerized by it, struck by it, and said, “He’s gonna be a great president,” and Trump is “not serious”?

David Brooks, that’s “serious.”

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RUSH: Yeah, folks, I’ll tell you, I’m deeply fascinated by this whole notion of what’s smart and what’s “serious,” and I think all this talk of “serious,” that’s the new word replacing gravitas, is what it is. But, you know, Dan Jenkins once wrote that if baseball was half as complicated as the baseball writers make it sound, the average player couldn’t play it. He wasn’t smart enough to. And I’ve often thought the same thing about football. If football were as complicated as all of these analysts make it seem, believe me, the average player couldn’t figure it out. The average player could not memorize and understand the playbook if it’s that complicated.

Now, follow me on this. Here’s the thing. If Obama is so smart, isn’t two and a half years enough time to figure out it isn’t working? That is if his intentions are honorable, if he really wants a growing economy, if he really wants new jobs, isn’t two and a half years of this ridiculousness enough to show that it’s not the right way to do it? Isn’t two and a half years enough time to realize that you’re on the wrong path? Hint: This is why some of us believe all this is on purpose. There’s no indication of smartness in anything he tries to do. He doubles down on his failures. Now, speaking of Obama’s academic record, he attended Harvard Law School at the height of something that it was promoting, education technique or a theory. It was called critical legal studies. Critical legal studies was in its ascendancy at Harvard Law when Obama was there. You can look it up. Just Google critical legal studies. It is out and out Marxism.

In a nutshell, critical legal studies claims that law is just politics by other means. It is a way for the rich to keep the poor working man down and deny him opportunities for prosperity. That is what Obama was taught at Harvard and based on what he believes and is doing it looks to me like he probably did get good grades. Look it up if you want. Critical legal studies. Law is just politics by other means. You can even turn it around. Politics is just law by other means. But I mean look at what they do. What has happened? You can’t get your accomplishments done in the legislative body, you put judges that are gonna write law on your court system. When Obama proposes taxes on millionaires and billionaires and says the starting point’s $200,000 a year, what he is doing is establishing a tax policy on millions and millions of small businesses, the express purpose of which is to prevent them from acquiring wealth. Their wealth is what is being taxed.

Millionaires, genuine millionaires and billionaires, they don’t have income. They don’t have wage income. They pay capital gains rates, 15% or what have you. The 36% rate, the 39% rate. They may have a salary of a hundred grand that their sub-S pays them or what have you, but their wealth is not being taxed. There is no wealth tax in America yet, but there’s an income tax and when you want to start taxing people at 200, 250 grand at 40%, small-business people. And what you’re saying is, “You’re gonna get rich over my dead body. You’re gonna acquire wealth over my dead body.” It’s a way for the truly rich to keep everybody else serfs. That’s what Obama was taught, critical legal studies at Harvard.

Remember, I’ve told you when I was in Sacramento, 1985, in Playboy magazine William F. Buckley Jr. had a long article entitled, “Redefining Smart.” How do you gauge it anymore? There’s so much knowledge that’s it’s impossible to know everything. And he actually went back and found the name of somebody in that era in human history where it was possible to know everything that was known. And those days of course are long gone.

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*Note: Links to content outside RushLimbaugh.com usually become inactive over time.

RUSH: Folks, we really need to put all of this in perspective. Obama never had a birth certificate problem. He has a spending problem. He has a redistribution of wealth problem. He has a socialism problem. There’s a story today that Eric Holder had been investigating oil prices, gasoline prices, and found something very disturbing. These people are bordering on totalitarian authoritarianism. They are going to use the law for the most awful purposes, as they are with health care, flouting the Constitution. The birth certificate was a handy distraction for Obama, but even that got to be a problem for him. And now what Obama would rather people go back to noticing is all of his other problems: the wars, the debt, the lack of leadership. And this conventional wisdom that he can’t be beat, that we just should set our sights on the Senate, where does this come from?

How does it come that any presidential election is a loss? You know, who thought that Obama could beat Hillary 19 months before the November 2008 elections? Who thought that George H. W. Bush would lose in 1992? Nobody! Obama didn’t even think he was going to win in 2008. So Obama says we gotta get rid of the silliness, we gotta move beyond this. He gets on a plane to tape the Oprah show later today, then to fly back to New York for three fundraisers. And it’s the third time this month that he has been fundraising. If he didn’t think he could be beat, why is he so worried about building up his war chest other than it’s the standard operating procedure? Pete Wehner, friend of mine, worked with Karl Rove in the Bush White House, worked with Bill Bennett at Empower America, now posts at Commentary magazine, and he posts today about the Trump business. He says that Trump has been shown now to be even more of a clownish figure than we imagined.

“Remember, Trump was saying on Monday, in an interview with CNN’s Anderson Cooper, that unnamed sources were telling him that the original birth certificate didn’t exist and he was now doubtful that the president was born in the United States, despite the overwhelming evidence that Obama was born in Hawaii. Yet Trump is interpreting the release of Obama’s long-form birth certificate as a triumph, which goes to show that even successful businessmen can live in alternate universes. The other thing to notice is how Trump has in the last few days portrayed himself as a victim of an irresponsible media. In his comments this morning Trump went so far as to say that he’s happy the White House released the president’s birth certificate ‘so the press can stop asking me questions’ about it. This after Trump has spent the better part of the month obsessing on this issue and raising it in every forum imaginable.

“One does not have to be naive about American politics to believe that it is a serious enterprise –” Here’s that word again, ‘serious.’ “– a forum in which we debate and decide on matters of justice and what constitutes a good society. Sometimes we do better than other times. But for the last few weeks a buffoon was allowed to hijack political discourse in America and mainstream an issue that was once relegated to the fever swamps. The public’s view of politics and politicians was already at low ebb; this whole episode will make things even worse. For those of us who care about politics and the ideas and philosophies informing politics — who believe that politics is, in the words of the Scottish novelist John Buchan, an ‘honourable adventure’ — the last few weeks have been discouraging, to say the least.”

So that’s the inside-the-Beltway view. Somebody from outside the Beltway has dared enter the scene and they don’t like it. They really don’t like it. Here’s Krauthammer. Now, remember, Trump called Krauthammer after Krauthammer said he wasn’t serious. Trump called him to discuss it with him. Last night on The O’Reilly Factor, the host, Ted Baxter, said to Krauthammer, “He calls a lot of people. He called me, said he didn’t like the Al Sharpton thing. He thought that was demeaning, was a cheap shot. He’s not Al Sharpton. He has a record of achievement. He’s gonna release his financial records. It’s gonna show $7 billion net worth. He’s saying, ‘How can you compare me to Al Sharpton when I’m a proven businessman, I know what I’m doing.’ What do you say to this, Mr. Krauthammer?”

KRAUTHAMMER: I’m not comparing bank accounts. I explained what I meant by that. He’s like Al Sharpton in the sense that he is slick, smooth, spouts provocative nonsense — operative word “nonsense” — which will distract any presidential debate. He says, “Oh, no, no, my real issues are OPEC, Iraq, oil, the Chinese, the economy.” I said, “All right, let’s talk about that. Let’s talk about your idea of seizing Libyan oil, seizing Iraqi oil and demanding $1.2 trillion worth of oil. That is a nutty idea. That’s what makes you unserious.” Look, Bill, that kind of talk is the stuff you expect from a guy at a bar at closing time with slurred speech.

RUSH: So Trump is the equivalent of a guy at the bar, last one there, after last call with slurred speech. He’s unserious. He wants to make a claim on the oil in nations that we are liberating and that we have saved. At the end of the day here the president of the United States has responded to a reality show star and called it silliness. And a part of me couldn’t agree more. A pop culture icon, not an elected official, has forced the president’s hand, not a journalist, not an elected official, but Big Hollywood. Somebody from the entertainment media forced the president’s hand, not one of our people. Celebrity has trumped the president, his message. I was just watching PMSNBC during the break, and Andrea Mitchell, NBC News, Washington, was talking to their White House babe, Savannah Guthrie and they heard that when Obama announced his presser today, he’s gonna be coming out and talking about the shift at the Pentagon and the CIA. Petraeus is going to the CIA. You want to talk about marginalizing somebody, that’s taking him out of the loop.

They’re afraid of Petraeus being somebody’s veep. That’s what they’re afraid of. So put Petraeus in the regime. He’s a loyal guy, he goes there. Gates has wanted out of defense for who knows how long. Panetta doesn’t like watching CNN, which is apparently what the Director of Central Intelligence does these days. Well, that’s what he said. He said he found out that something that happened in Egypt ’cause he saw it on CNN. And I kind of agree with Panetta, if my job was watching CNN all day I’d want a change, too. So Panetta is being sent over to the Pentagon; Petraeus to CIA. That’s what they thought Obama was gonna come out and start talking about. Instead, they were shocked that Obama came out to talk about the birth certificate thing. They couldn’t believe it. And the reason is because they don’t think it’s been an issue from the get-go, why should Obama care, why should he respond to this? Their view was, why elevate Trump here?

Now, it’s important to point out I have a modicum of experience with this, folks. Presidents, even in a circumstance like this, should be so far above people like Trump. I couldn’t believe the first White House Correspondents Dinner when Clinton starts telling that joke about me trying to portray me as a racist. I mean I understood his objective, but why even be concerned? Flying into St. Louis on Air Force One in the early nineties, he’s talking to the morning show team complaining about me that when their show finishes I’m gonna have three hours uninterrupted without a truth detector. This is the president of the United States complaining about me, and at the time James Carville was pulling what little hair he has left out. (imitating Carville) “It ain’t Limbaugh. Limbaugh not your problem. Limbaugh not running for office.”

What are the similarities? I think the similarities psychologically are that Clinton and Obama both have this characteristic they want to be loved. Clinton’s the kind of guy that could walk into a room with a hundred people and find the one person that doesn’t like him and spend the whole night trying to change his mind rather than revel with the 99 people who do love him. Lot of people like that. But what a sad state of affairs. The president of the United States calls a press conference to announce that he was born in the United States. Mr. Transparency. Here the press is waiting for the latest ho-hum about shifts at the top at CIA and the Pentagon. And Mr. Transparency is forced to submit a simple document that every American has, forced to address silliness by a reality television star on a day when Bernanke is talking to the press, Petraeus is being nominated to head the CIA, Panetta’s going over to the Pentagon, gasoline is unaffordable, fiscal policy is in shambles, and he calls a presser to talk about, (imitating Obama) “Yeah, I was born here, here’s my birth certificate. We gotta get the silliness out of the way.”

You want to talk about silliness, Obama just turned the White House communications into a circus, if you ask me. We’ve got Entertainment Tonight at nine a.m. We got Access Hollywood at 9:30. We got E Entertainment television at ten a.m. TMZ on steroids. Country’s going to hell in a handbasket, Obama’s responded to Trump more directly than he’s responded to Paul Ryan or John Boehner. The only thing that would have made Obama look more ridiculous today would be if he had made that statement in the press conference in front of those fake Greek columns that he used in Denver at his acceptance speech. This is phony baloney, plastic banana, good-time rock ‘n’ roller shtick circus sideshow politics. And it’s fun to watch. It is fun to watch. Maybe the birth certificate controversy was cutting into Obama’s fundraising. Hell, I don’t know. But something made this happen today.

My commonsense best guess is it has to be poll-driven, and fundraising is what he’s concentrating on at the moment. Frankly, folks, the two things about this that really shocked me the most, one, that Obama was born at all. I thought it was a miraculous conception. And secondly, that his parents are actually mortals. Those are the two things I’ve really had a tough time believing. I mean here they presented this guy as The Messiah, as The One, and those people aren’t born. They just descend from the heavens.

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RUSH: Yes. Very true. Very, very true, Snerdley. I’ll say it again: At the end of all of this, the most shocking thing I learned today so that Obama was actually born. I’ll tell you something else about this that’s starting to grate on me, and that is this notion of “seriousness” and who is and who isn’t. I, for one — and I’m a lunch pail guy here, folks. People don’t understand this. This job is a lunch pail job. You know, I haven’t had a “power lunch” in 25 years. You know, you gotta be here. There’s no being five minutes late; there’s no any of this. I’m just person from the middle of the country. I did not go to college or any of that stuff. I’m as close to average American as you can get, and this whole notion of Obama is a serious figure offends my sensibilities.

Why is he serious? Because he can speak? Because he has a university resume that’s appealing or approved by people who define who’s serious? What about his intelligence? How smart is this guy? What does he know? I don’t believe if Barack Obama had a dream for a product to bring to market, I don’t think he’d have the slightest idea how to bring a product to marketplace. I don’t think he’s got the slightest understanding. He’s got a lot of resentment for it, but I don’t think he has the slightest understanding of how wealth is created. He just resents it when it is.

The guy is single-handedly destroying the United States economy, and we want to sit here and applaud because Obama’s a “serious component of our politics.” Serious? That’s just another word for “elitist,” if you ask me. So somebody’s “serious” and somebody’s “not serious.” Obviously “not serious” is a crude, unsophisticated rube, not qualified to be a member of the Ruling Class. So I guess in that context I’m not “serious.” I wouldn’t be considered “serious.” What makes Obama “serious”? “Well, look what he’s done to our health care, Rush.” Exactly! Look what he’s done to our health care! “Well, it’s a legitimate political argument, Rush. It’s a legitimate political view, socialism.”

Yeah, it deserves to be defeated, for crying out loud, not applauded as legitimate! It hurts people! So here’s Trump, a pop icon, dragging down the president to his level. But he’s not because Obama’s a pop icon at the same time. Here’s a dirty little secret: What was Obama with those staged, black canvas little appearances with the Greek columns and all of that? The first black president icon who offered nothing but a weak song entitled Hope and Change. We’ve got audio sound bites of the learned members of the Ruling Class admitting, they don’t know who he is, they don’t know what he stands for, they don’t know what books he’s read.

Charlie Rose and Tom Brokaw say it, and he gets elected. He’s a blank slate. You can make him whatever you want him to be. The “Magic Negro,” all of these things that other people created. He’s a pop icon, but he does not have a successful reality show. Well, maybe he does. He probably could get sponsors for this, too. Sure! Sure! No question Obama responds to Trump more than Ryan. That’s his territory. He wants no part of Paul Ryan. When he did match up with Ryan he was as empty as his lyrical campaign when they went into the details on Obamacare. He wants no part of Paul Ryan.

He can’t keep up with Paul Ryan and he doesn’t want to hear what Paul Ryan has to say. What did Obama tell the GOP when they first met him early in his term. They had the Republican and Democrat leadership up to the White House within the first couple of weeks. He said, “Don’t listen to Rush Limbaugh if you want to get anything done. That’s not how things get done here. You don’t listen to Rush Limbaugh.” So one of his first messages was to attack a pop icon like Rush Limbaugh. Obama is a pop icon! He’s looked at as a pop icon even by his supporters. Yet Trump and Obama, they’re on the same level in so many ways. The difference is Trump hasn’t ruined the economy.

But Trump isn’t “serious.” I forget. (sigh) Trump’s not “serious.” How many jobs has he created? Well, it’s in the thousands. How many has Obama destroyed? But Obama’s “serious.” Obama is a genuine intellect. Yeah, maybe Obama does have a reality show. His writers aren’t unionized, either. Yeah, I would love to see Obama’s grades in economics. I’d love to see them. The only way this guy’s gets good grades in economics is if he’s simply repeating the Marxist crap that he’s been taught. But if you get an A in Marxism, what does that mean. Is that helpful? Is that useful?

“Hey, Mom! Hey, it’s Barack on the phone. Yeah, I got an A here at Harvard in Marxism. Yeah, we’re on the way.” Yeah, that’s “serious.” “Yeah, after that we’re gonna look at Hegel and then Ingalls. I’m gonna have this Marx guy down pat so the day ever comes I have a chance to ruin America I can — ha! — and people will love me while I’m doing it. No, Mom, I can’t come home. I gotta work on being serious.” Serious: An A in Marxism, A-plus in socialism. Yeah, let’s see the grades. They’re not just academic. We all know that he went to Harvard, Columbia, Harvard Law School. That was supposed to be enough for us not to worry that he had no real life experience. It was supposed to cover for real life experience. Kinda doesn’t work that way, does it?

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RUSH: Saginaw, Michigan, Jeffrey, welcome to the program. Great to have you here.

CALLER: Hi, Rush. This is Jeff. I want to say mega dittos. I’ve been listening to you since Sacramento, California. I live in Michigan now. But it’s because of you that people like me who used to be Teamster Democrats are now strong Republicans.

RUSH: Thank you very much, sir.

CALLER: You are courageous. There are two things I wanted to tell you. (sigh) In 1774, John Adams wrote General Horatio Gates. He said, “If we finally fail in this great and glorious contest, it will be by bewildering ourselves and groping for the middle ground,” and I think (sigh) that John Adams hit the nail on the head. We can’t… (sigh) We can’t be Milquetoast RINO Republicans.

RUSH: Right.

CALLER: We have to stand for what’s right.

RUSH: That’s right, and being “serious” and all this is just a euphemism for being moderate and non-confrontational and reaching for the middle ground, exactly right.

CALLER: My second point was is that (sigh) Obama’s pretty easy to beat, he’s painted himself into a corner, and we have an arsenal of facts to use against him but we have to hold his feet to the fire and make him take ownership for his behavior. The first thing I would do — and I think this is really important, remembering that he’s just a demagogic ideologue — is to insist that Congress restore the $500 billion back to Medicare that he in his infinite wisdom took and assigned to Medicaid. By doing that, my hunch is that he would veto it, but that’s okay, because that would infuriate about 99% of all senior citizens. Now, the other thing he could do is say, “Okay, let’s go along with it and try to appease them,” and he would infuriate his base either way we went. And even if he does sign it into law, it’s still our bill, and we can make him take ownership and take that all the way to November, saying, “Hey, this is…” It’s a win-win for us, no matter what. “This is our bill. We came up with this, and you just signed it. It’s not yours.”

RUSH: You may have a point here because the polling data suggests that the elderly are the largest supporters of the Ryan plan.

CALLER: Absolutely, and there you have it. By having Congress restore that money to Medicare where it came from, it would make all of us heroes. Now, if he signs the bill, yeah, okay. But he’ll really anger his base.

RUSH: Well, it would also highlight the fact that he cut it!

CALLER: Exactly! Exactly. You can’t win. That’s my point. He’s easy to beat. He’s a demagogic ideologue. It’s what he’s always been, it’s what he’ll always be, and you can beat that easy but you’ve got to hold the truth.

RUSH: Let me tell you something. For me it just boils to something this simple: If we can’t beat socialist-Marxist policies then we may as well check it out anyway. What the heck, folks? Where is the smart money? Who are these people that say we can’t beat these policies? You know, if running against Obama makes ’em nervous — and I can understand how members of the Ruling Class would be uncomfortable going against such a “well-spoken” candidate. If you want the quintessential, perfect model of an Ivy League grad, Obama’s it. The cool demeanor, the arrogant condescension in his manner of speaking, his articulation.

Yeah, if that’s what impresses you — and if it also intimidates you, ’cause you really don’t want to destroy those kind of personalities ’cause that’s what you admire; you admire well-spoken Ivy League types, and going after Obama, that would be like going after all of us who aspire to the same things — okay. You don’t want to go after Obama personally? Fine. Can’t you find it in yourself to oppose the destruction of the US economy? Can you find it somewhere in yourselves to stand up for the creation of private sector jobs?

If you don’t want to go after Obama personally, can you see the danger in Obama policies which are destroying the futures of people in this country not yet conceived, much less born? Yeah, you may not want to go after Obama because he’s just so “perfect,” but for crying out loud, where is it written these policies can’t be beaten? If you’re gonna tell me the policies can’t be beaten because of Obama the personality, then I don’t want to hear one more thing about how Trump is a pop culture icon and “not serious,” because that’s what you’re telling me. If you’re telling me we can’t beat Obama because of his personality, then we’re not even talking about serious politics here.

We’re talking about high school clique-ism. I don’t understand it. Intellectually I don’t understand this rigmarole that this agenda, that this track record is untouchable. This could force me to go insane, to make me to believe this, to try to sit me down and make people explain this to me in a way that I should agree with it? It’s patently absurd. And don’t for a minute think that some of the opposition of Trump isn’t simply based on the fact that he’s not from Washington. He doesn’t quite fit the mold. I mean, folks, look… Don’t doubt me on this.

If you’re a columnist at the New York Times and you actually write that you are mesmerized by the “crease” in some politician’s slacks, and then you say has a gonna be elected president and he’s gonna be a damn good one, I submit you are a fool, a shallow bupkis, and you want to be taken seriously above all else? We’re talking the essence of pop culture icon, the essence of idolatry, the essence of star-screwer is to say, “I love the crease in his pants! He’s gonna be a great president!” That’s asinine! That’s insultingly unintelligent and it’s just… As Dawn would say, “It’s very sad,” but that’s David Brooks of the New York Times.

The crease in Obama’s pants, he was mesmerized by it, struck by it, and said, “He’s gonna be a great president,” and Trump is “not serious”?

David Brooks, that’s “serious.”

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RUSH: Yeah, folks, I’ll tell you, I’m deeply fascinated by this whole notion of what’s smart and what’s “serious,” and I think all this talk of “serious,” that’s the new word replacing gravitas, is what it is. But, you know, Dan Jenkins once wrote that if baseball was half as complicated as the baseball writers make it sound, the average player couldn’t play it. He wasn’t smart enough to. And I’ve often thought the same thing about football. If football were as complicated as all of these analysts make it seem, believe me, the average player couldn’t figure it out. The average player could not memorize and understand the playbook if it’s that complicated.

Now, follow me on this. Here’s the thing. If Obama is so smart, isn’t two and a half years enough time to figure out it isn’t working? That is if his intentions are honorable, if he really wants a growing economy, if he really wants new jobs, isn’t two and a half years of this ridiculousness enough to show that it’s not the right way to do it? Isn’t two and a half years enough time to realize that you’re on the wrong path? Hint: This is why some of us believe all this is on purpose. There’s no indication of smartness in anything he tries to do. He doubles down on his failures. Now, speaking of Obama’s academic record, he attended Harvard Law School at the height of something that it was promoting, education technique or a theory. It was called critical legal studies. Critical legal studies was in its ascendancy at Harvard Law when Obama was there. You can look it up. Just Google critical legal studies. It is out and out Marxism.

In a nutshell, critical legal studies claims that law is just politics by other means. It is a way for the rich to keep the poor working man down and deny him opportunities for prosperity. That is what Obama was taught at Harvard and based on what he believes and is doing it looks to me like he probably did get good grades. Look it up if you want. Critical legal studies. Law is just politics by other means. You can even turn it around. Politics is just law by other means. But I mean look at what they do. What has happened? You can’t get your accomplishments done in the legislative body, you put judges that are gonna write law on your court system. When Obama proposes taxes on millionaires and billionaires and says the starting point’s $200,000 a year, what he is doing is establishing a tax policy on millions and millions of small businesses, the express purpose of which is to prevent them from acquiring wealth. Their wealth is what is being taxed.

Millionaires, genuine millionaires and billionaires, they don’t have income. They don’t have wage income. They pay capital gains rates, 15% or what have you. The 36% rate, the 39% rate. They may have a salary of a hundred grand that their sub-S pays them or what have you, but their wealth is not being taxed. There is no wealth tax in America yet, but there’s an income tax and when you want to start taxing people at 200, 250 grand at 40%, small-business people. And what you’re saying is, “You’re gonna get rich over my dead body. You’re gonna acquire wealth over my dead body.” It’s a way for the truly rich to keep everybody else serfs. That’s what Obama was taught, critical legal studies at Harvard.

Remember, I’ve told you when I was in Sacramento, 1985, in Playboy magazine William F. Buckley Jr. had a long article entitled, “Redefining Smart.” How do you gauge it anymore? There’s so much knowledge that’s it’s impossible to know everything. And he actually went back and found the name of somebody in that era in human history where it was possible to know everything that was known. And those days of course are long gone.

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*Note: Links to content outside RushLimbaugh.com usually become inactive over time.

RUSH: Folks, we really need to put all of this in perspective. Obama never had a birth certificate problem. He has a spending problem. He has a redistribution of wealth problem. He has a socialism problem. There’s a story today that Eric Holder had been investigating oil prices, gasoline prices, and found something very disturbing. These people are bordering on totalitarian authoritarianism. They are going to use the law for the most awful purposes, as they are with health care, flouting the Constitution. The birth certificate was a handy distraction for Obama, but even that got to be a problem for him. And now what Obama would rather people go back to noticing is all of his other problems: the wars, the debt, the lack of leadership. And this conventional wisdom that he can’t be beat, that we just should set our sights on the Senate, where does this come from?

How does it come that any presidential election is a loss? You know, who thought that Obama could beat Hillary 19 months before the November 2008 elections? Who thought that George H. W. Bush would lose in 1992? Nobody! Obama didn’t even think he was going to win in 2008. So Obama says we gotta get rid of the silliness, we gotta move beyond this. He gets on a plane to tape the Oprah show later today, then to fly back to New York for three fundraisers. And it’s the third time this month that he has been fundraising. If he didn’t think he could be beat, why is he so worried about building up his war chest other than it’s the standard operating procedure? Pete Wehner, friend of mine, worked with Karl Rove in the Bush White House, worked with Bill Bennett at Empower America, now posts at Commentary magazine, and he posts today about the Trump business. He says that Trump has been shown now to be even more of a clownish figure than we imagined.

“Remember, Trump was saying on Monday, in an interview with CNN’s Anderson Cooper, that unnamed sources were telling him that the original birth certificate didn’t exist and he was now doubtful that the president was born in the United States, despite the overwhelming evidence that Obama was born in Hawaii. Yet Trump is interpreting the release of Obama’s long-form birth certificate as a triumph, which goes to show that even successful businessmen can live in alternate universes. The other thing to notice is how Trump has in the last few days portrayed himself as a victim of an irresponsible media. In his comments this morning Trump went so far as to say that he’s happy the White House released the president’s birth certificate ‘so the press can stop asking me questions’ about it. This after Trump has spent the better part of the month obsessing on this issue and raising it in every forum imaginable.

“One does not have to be naive about American politics to believe that it is a serious enterprise –” Here’s that word again, ‘serious.’ “– a forum in which we debate and decide on matters of justice and what constitutes a good society. Sometimes we do better than other times. But for the last few weeks a buffoon was allowed to hijack political discourse in America and mainstream an issue that was once relegated to the fever swamps. The public’s view of politics and politicians was already at low ebb; this whole episode will make things even worse. For those of us who care about politics and the ideas and philosophies informing politics — who believe that politics is, in the words of the Scottish novelist John Buchan, an ‘honourable adventure’ — the last few weeks have been discouraging, to say the least.”

So that’s the inside-the-Beltway view. Somebody from outside the Beltway has dared enter the scene and they don’t like it. They really don’t like it. Here’s Krauthammer. Now, remember, Trump called Krauthammer after Krauthammer said he wasn’t serious. Trump called him to discuss it with him. Last night on The O’Reilly Factor, the host, Ted Baxter, said to Krauthammer, “He calls a lot of people. He called me, said he didn’t like the Al Sharpton thing. He thought that was demeaning, was a cheap shot. He’s not Al Sharpton. He has a record of achievement. He’s gonna release his financial records. It’s gonna show $7 billion net worth. He’s saying, ‘How can you compare me to Al Sharpton when I’m a proven businessman, I know what I’m doing.’ What do you say to this, Mr. Krauthammer?”

KRAUTHAMMER: I’m not comparing bank accounts. I explained what I meant by that. He’s like Al Sharpton in the sense that he is slick, smooth, spouts provocative nonsense — operative word “nonsense” — which will distract any presidential debate. He says, “Oh, no, no, my real issues are OPEC, Iraq, oil, the Chinese, the economy.” I said, “All right, let’s talk about that. Let’s talk about your idea of seizing Libyan oil, seizing Iraqi oil and demanding $1.2 trillion worth of oil. That is a nutty idea. That’s what makes you unserious.” Look, Bill, that kind of talk is the stuff you expect from a guy at a bar at closing time with slurred speech.

RUSH: So Trump is the equivalent of a guy at the bar, last one there, after last call with slurred speech. He’s unserious. He wants to make a claim on the oil in nations that we are liberating and that we have saved. At the end of the day here the president of the United States has responded to a reality show star and called it silliness. And a part of me couldn’t agree more. A pop culture icon, not an elected official, has forced the president’s hand, not a journalist, not an elected official, but Big Hollywood. Somebody from the entertainment media forced the president’s hand, not one of our people. Celebrity has trumped the president, his message. I was just watching PMSNBC during the break, and Andrea Mitchell, NBC News, Washington, was talking to their White House babe, Savannah Guthrie and they heard that when Obama announced his presser today, he’s gonna be coming out and talking about the shift at the Pentagon and the CIA. Petraeus is going to the CIA. You want to talk about marginalizing somebody, that’s taking him out of the loop.

They’re afraid of Petraeus being somebody’s veep. That’s what they’re afraid of. So put Petraeus in the regime. He’s a loyal guy, he goes there. Gates has wanted out of defense for who knows how long. Panetta doesn’t like watching CNN, which is apparently what the Director of Central Intelligence does these days. Well, that’s what he said. He said he found out that something that happened in Egypt ’cause he saw it on CNN. And I kind of agree with Panetta, if my job was watching CNN all day I’d want a change, too. So Panetta is being sent over to the Pentagon; Petraeus to CIA. That’s what they thought Obama was gonna come out and start talking about. Instead, they were shocked that Obama came out to talk about the birth certificate thing. They couldn’t believe it. And the reason is because they don’t think it’s been an issue from the get-go, why should Obama care, why should he respond to this? Their view was, why elevate Trump here?

Now, it’s important to point out I have a modicum of experience with this, folks. Presidents, even in a circumstance like this, should be so far above people like Trump. I couldn’t believe the first White House Correspondents Dinner when Clinton starts telling that joke about me trying to portray me as a racist. I mean I understood his objective, but why even be concerned? Flying into St. Louis on Air Force One in the early nineties, he’s talking to the morning show team complaining about me that when their show finishes I’m gonna have three hours uninterrupted without a truth detector. This is the president of the United States complaining about me, and at the time James Carville was pulling what little hair he has left out. (imitating Carville) “It ain’t Limbaugh. Limbaugh not your problem. Limbaugh not running for office.”

What are the similarities? I think the similarities psychologically are that Clinton and Obama both have this characteristic they want to be loved. Clinton’s the kind of guy that could walk into a room with a hundred people and find the one person that doesn’t like him and spend the whole night trying to change his mind rather than revel with the 99 people who do love him. Lot of people like that. But what a sad state of affairs. The president of the United States calls a press conference to announce that he was born in the United States. Mr. Transparency. Here the press is waiting for the latest ho-hum about shifts at the top at CIA and the Pentagon. And Mr. Transparency is forced to submit a simple document that every American has, forced to address silliness by a reality television star on a day when Bernanke is talking to the press, Petraeus is being nominated to head the CIA, Panetta’s going over to the Pentagon, gasoline is unaffordable, fiscal policy is in shambles, and he calls a presser to talk about, (imitating Obama) “Yeah, I was born here, here’s my birth certificate. We gotta get the silliness out of the way.”

You want to talk about silliness, Obama just turned the White House communications into a circus, if you ask me. We’ve got Entertainment Tonight at nine a.m. We got Access Hollywood at 9:30. We got E Entertainment television at ten a.m. TMZ on steroids. Country’s going to hell in a handbasket, Obama’s responded to Trump more directly than he’s responded to Paul Ryan or John Boehner. The only thing that would have made Obama look more ridiculous today would be if he had made that statement in the press conference in front of those fake Greek columns that he used in Denver at his acceptance speech. This is phony baloney, plastic banana, good-time rock ‘n’ roller shtick circus sideshow politics. And it’s fun to watch. It is fun to watch. Maybe the birth certificate controversy was cutting into Obama’s fundraising. Hell, I don’t know. But something made this happen today.

My commonsense best guess is it has to be poll-driven, and fundraising is what he’s concentrating on at the moment. Frankly, folks, the two things about this that really shocked me the most, one, that Obama was born at all. I thought it was a miraculous conception. And secondly, that his parents are actually mortals. Those are the two things I’ve really had a tough time believing. I mean here they presented this guy as The Messiah, as The One, and those people aren’t born. They just descend from the heavens.

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RUSH: Yes. Very true. Very, very true, Snerdley. I’ll say it again: At the end of all of this, the most shocking thing I learned today so that Obama was actually born. I’ll tell you something else about this that’s starting to grate on me, and that is this notion of “seriousness” and who is and who isn’t. I, for one — and I’m a lunch pail guy here, folks. People don’t understand this. This job is a lunch pail job. You know, I haven’t had a “power lunch” in 25 years. You know, you gotta be here. There’s no being five minutes late; there’s no any of this. I’m just person from the middle of the country. I did not go to college or any of that stuff. I’m as close to average American as you can get, and this whole notion of Obama is a serious figure offends my sensibilities.

Why is he serious? Because he can speak? Because he has a university resume that’s appealing or approved by people who define who’s serious? What about his intelligence? How smart is this guy? What does he know? I don’t believe if Barack Obama had a dream for a product to bring to market, I don’t think he’d have the slightest idea how to bring a product to marketplace. I don’t think he’s got the slightest understanding. He’s got a lot of resentment for it, but I don’t think he has the slightest understanding of how wealth is created. He just resents it when it is.

The guy is single-handedly destroying the United States economy, and we want to sit here and applaud because Obama’s a “serious component of our politics.” Serious? That’s just another word for “elitist,” if you ask me. So somebody’s “serious” and somebody’s “not serious.” Obviously “not serious” is a crude, unsophisticated rube, not qualified to be a member of the Ruling Class. So I guess in that context I’m not “serious.” I wouldn’t be considered “serious.” What makes Obama “serious”? “Well, look what he’s done to our health care, Rush.” Exactly! Look what he’s done to our health care! “Well, it’s a legitimate political argument, Rush. It’s a legitimate political view, socialism.”

Yeah, it deserves to be defeated, for crying out loud, not applauded as legitimate! It hurts people! So here’s Trump, a pop icon, dragging down the president to his level. But he’s not because Obama’s a pop icon at the same time. Here’s a dirty little secret: What was Obama with those staged, black canvas little appearances with the Greek columns and all of that? The first black president icon who offered nothing but a weak song entitled Hope and Change. We’ve got audio sound bites of the learned members of the Ruling Class admitting, they don’t know who he is, they don’t know what he stands for, they don’t know what books he’s read.

Charlie Rose and Tom Brokaw say it, and he gets elected. He’s a blank slate. You can make him whatever you want him to be. The “Magic Negro,” all of these things that other people created. He’s a pop icon, but he does not have a successful reality show. Well, maybe he does. He probably could get sponsors for this, too. Sure! Sure! No question Obama responds to Trump more than Ryan. That’s his territory. He wants no part of Paul Ryan. When he did match up with Ryan he was as empty as his lyrical campaign when they went into the details on Obamacare. He wants no part of Paul Ryan.

He can’t keep up with Paul Ryan and he doesn’t want to hear what Paul Ryan has to say. What did Obama tell the GOP when they first met him early in his term. They had the Republican and Democrat leadership up to the White House within the first couple of weeks. He said, “Don’t listen to Rush Limbaugh if you want to get anything done. That’s not how things get done here. You don’t listen to Rush Limbaugh.” So one of his first messages was to attack a pop icon like Rush Limbaugh. Obama is a pop icon! He’s looked at as a pop icon even by his supporters. Yet Trump and Obama, they’re on the same level in so many ways. The difference is Trump hasn’t ruined the economy.

But Trump isn’t “serious.” I forget. (sigh) Trump’s not “serious.” How many jobs has he created? Well, it’s in the thousands. How many has Obama destroyed? But Obama’s “serious.” Obama is a genuine intellect. Yeah, maybe Obama does have a reality show. His writers aren’t unionized, either. Yeah, I would love to see Obama’s grades in economics. I’d love to see them. The only way this guy’s gets good grades in economics is if he’s simply repeating the Marxist crap that he’s been taught. But if you get an A in Marxism, what does that mean. Is that helpful? Is that useful?

“Hey, Mom! Hey, it’s Barack on the phone. Yeah, I got an A here at Harvard in Marxism. Yeah, we’re on the way.” Yeah, that’s “serious.” “Yeah, after that we’re gonna look at Hegel and then Ingalls. I’m gonna have this Marx guy down pat so the day ever comes I have a chance to ruin America I can — ha! — and people will love me while I’m doing it. No, Mom, I can’t come home. I gotta work on being serious.” Serious: An A in Marxism, A-plus in socialism. Yeah, let’s see the grades. They’re not just academic. We all know that he went to Harvard, Columbia, Harvard Law School. That was supposed to be enough for us not to worry that he had no real life experience. It was supposed to cover for real life experience. Kinda doesn’t work that way, does it?

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: Saginaw, Michigan, Jeffrey, welcome to the program. Great to have you here.

CALLER: Hi, Rush. This is Jeff. I want to say mega dittos. I’ve been listening to you since Sacramento, California. I live in Michigan now. But it’s because of you that people like me who used to be Teamster Democrats are now strong Republicans.

RUSH: Thank you very much, sir.

CALLER: You are courageous. There are two things I wanted to tell you. (sigh) In 1774, John Adams wrote General Horatio Gates. He said, “If we finally fail in this great and glorious contest, it will be by bewildering ourselves and groping for the middle ground,” and I think (sigh) that John Adams hit the nail on the head. We can’t… (sigh) We can’t be Milquetoast RINO Republicans.

RUSH: Right.

CALLER: We have to stand for what’s right.

RUSH: That’s right, and being “serious” and all this is just a euphemism for being moderate and non-confrontational and reaching for the middle ground, exactly right.

CALLER: My second point was is that (sigh) Obama’s pretty easy to beat, he’s painted himself into a corner, and we have an arsenal of facts to use against him but we have to hold his feet to the fire and make him take ownership for his behavior. The first thing I would do — and I think this is really important, remembering that he’s just a demagogic ideologue — is to insist that Congress restore the $500 billion back to Medicare that he in his infinite wisdom took and assigned to Medicaid. By doing that, my hunch is that he would veto it, but that’s okay, because that would infuriate about 99% of all senior citizens. Now, the other thing he could do is say, “Okay, let’s go along with it and try to appease them,” and he would infuriate his base either way we went. And even if he does sign it into law, it’s still our bill, and we can make him take ownership and take that all the way to November, saying, “Hey, this is…” It’s a win-win for us, no matter what. “This is our bill. We came up with this, and you just signed it. It’s not yours.”

RUSH: You may have a point here because the polling data suggests that the elderly are the largest supporters of the Ryan plan.

CALLER: Absolutely, and there you have it. By having Congress restore that money to Medicare where it came from, it would make all of us heroes. Now, if he signs the bill, yeah, okay. But he’ll really anger his base.

RUSH: Well, it would also highlight the fact that he cut it!

CALLER: Exactly! Exactly. You can’t win. That’s my point. He’s easy to beat. He’s a demagogic ideologue. It’s what he’s always been, it’s what he’ll always be, and you can beat that easy but you’ve got to hold the truth.

RUSH: Let me tell you something. For me it just boils to something this simple: If we can’t beat socialist-Marxist policies then we may as well check it out anyway. What the heck, folks? Where is the smart money? Who are these people that say we can’t beat these policies? You know, if running against Obama makes ’em nervous — and I can understand how members of the Ruling Class would be uncomfortable going against such a “well-spoken” candidate. If you want the quintessential, perfect model of an Ivy League grad, Obama’s it. The cool demeanor, the arrogant condescension in his manner of speaking, his articulation.

Yeah, if that’s what impresses you — and if it also intimidates you, ’cause you really don’t want to destroy those kind of personalities ’cause that’s what you admire; you admire well-spoken Ivy League types, and going after Obama, that would be like going after all of us who aspire to the same things — okay. You don’t want to go after Obama personally? Fine. Can’t you find it in yourself to oppose the destruction of the US economy? Can you find it somewhere in yourselves to stand up for the creation of private sector jobs?

If you don’t want to go after Obama personally, can you see the danger in Obama policies which are destroying the futures of people in this country not yet conceived, much less born? Yeah, you may not want to go after Obama because he’s just so “perfect,” but for crying out loud, where is it written these policies can’t be beaten? If you’re gonna tell me the policies can’t be beaten because of Obama the personality, then I don’t want to hear one more thing about how Trump is a pop culture icon and “not serious,” because that’s what you’re telling me. If you’re telling me we can’t beat Obama because of his personality, then we’re not even talking about serious politics here.

We’re talking about high school clique-ism. I don’t understand it. Intellectually I don’t understand this rigmarole that this agenda, that this track record is untouchable. This could force me to go insane, to make me to believe this, to try to sit me down and make people explain this to me in a way that I should agree with it? It’s patently absurd. And don’t for a minute think that some of the opposition of Trump isn’t simply based on the fact that he’s not from Washington. He doesn’t quite fit the mold. I mean, folks, look… Don’t doubt me on this.

If you’re a columnist at the New York Times and you actually write that you are mesmerized by the “crease” in some politician’s slacks, and then you say has a gonna be elected president and he’s gonna be a damn good one, I submit you are a fool, a shallow bupkis, and you want to be taken seriously above all else? We’re talking the essence of pop culture icon, the essence of idolatry, the essence of star-screwer is to say, “I love the crease in his pants! He’s gonna be a great president!” That’s asinine! That’s insultingly unintelligent and it’s just… As Dawn would say, “It’s very sad,” but that’s David Brooks of the New York Times.

The crease in Obama’s pants, he was mesmerized by it, struck by it, and said, “He’s gonna be a great president,” and Trump is “not serious”?

David Brooks, that’s “serious.”

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: Yeah, folks, I’ll tell you, I’m deeply fascinated by this whole notion of what’s smart and what’s “serious,” and I think all this talk of “serious,” that’s the new word replacing gravitas, is what it is. But, you know, Dan Jenkins once wrote that if baseball was half as complicated as the baseball writers make it sound, the average player couldn’t play it. He wasn’t smart enough to. And I’ve often thought the same thing about football. If football were as complicated as all of these analysts make it seem, believe me, the average player couldn’t figure it out. The average player could not memorize and understand the playbook if it’s that complicated.

Now, follow me on this. Here’s the thing. If Obama is so smart, isn’t two and a half years enough time to figure out it isn’t working? That is if his intentions are honorable, if he really wants a growing economy, if he really wants new jobs, isn’t two and a half years of this ridiculousness enough to show that it’s not the right way to do it? Isn’t two and a half years enough time to realize that you’re on the wrong path? Hint: This is why some of us believe all this is on purpose. There’s no indication of smartness in anything he tries to do. He doubles down on his failures. Now, speaking of Obama’s academic record, he attended Harvard Law School at the height of something that it was promoting, education technique or a theory. It was called critical legal studies. Critical legal studies was in its ascendancy at Harvard Law when Obama was there. You can look it up. Just Google critical legal studies. It is out and out Marxism.

In a nutshell, critical legal studies claims that law is just politics by other means. It is a way for the rich to keep the poor working man down and deny him opportunities for prosperity. That is what Obama was taught at Harvard and based on what he believes and is doing it looks to me like he probably did get good grades. Look it up if you want. Critical legal studies. Law is just politics by other means. You can even turn it around. Politics is just law by other means. But I mean look at what they do. What has happened? You can’t get your accomplishments done in the legislative body, you put judges that are gonna write law on your court system. When Obama proposes taxes on millionaires and billionaires and says the starting point’s $200,000 a year, what he is doing is establishing a tax policy on millions and millions of small businesses, the express purpose of which is to prevent them from acquiring wealth. Their wealth is what is being taxed.

Millionaires, genuine millionaires and billionaires, they don’t have income. They don’t have wage income. They pay capital gains rates, 15% or what have you. The 36% rate, the 39% rate. They may have a salary of a hundred grand that their sub-S pays them or what have you, but their wealth is not being taxed. There is no wealth tax in America yet, but there’s an income tax and when you want to start taxing people at 200, 250 grand at 40%, small-business people. And what you’re saying is, “You’re gonna get rich over my dead body. You’re gonna acquire wealth over my dead body.” It’s a way for the truly rich to keep everybody else serfs. That’s what Obama was taught, critical legal studies at Harvard.

Remember, I’ve told you when I was in Sacramento, 1985, in Playboy magazine William F. Buckley Jr. had a long article entitled, “Redefining Smart.” How do you gauge it anymore? There’s so much knowledge that’s it’s impossible to know everything. And he actually went back and found the name of somebody in that era in human history where it was possible to know everything that was known. And those days of course are long gone.

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