Pete Calls El Rushbo a Wimp

RUSH: We go to Houston. This is Pete. You’re next, sir. Thank you for waiting.

CALLER: Yes, Rush. It’s a pleasure. I’m a long-term — longtime Dittohead. And my point is that you’ve become an ineffectual wimp. I believe you’re ineffectual in that since Ronald Reagan and the Contract of America [sic] under Newt Gingrich, conservatism has been in retreat. You’re a wimp because you have the biggest microphone, and you’re not standing up to reverse the destruction of conservative principles. And, you know, I think the result is that I don’t know which way to vote. I either can vote for a Democrat, who I know will cause a very significant —

RUSH: Wait a minute, now. Wait, wait, wait, wait a minute. I’m going to give you a chance to take that back. Do you really want to say as a member of this audience that you don’t know which way to vote until I give you guidance?

CALLER: No. What I’m saying is that I’m in a quandary about how to vote because I can either vote for the Democrat — who I think will cause very severe, almost unrecoverable damage to this country — or I can vote for a Republican, who will cause significant damage to this country; and frankly, in a lot of ways, I’d rather see the Democrats do the damage.

RUSH: Well, this is a theory we’ve discussed numerous times on the program. I mean, it is a perplexing question. If you do think, as you just said, that the country is going to go down the tubes either way — and a lot of people think so because of the large majorities that the Democrats are going to have in the House and Senate — then who would you rather get the blame for it when it happens, the Democrats or the Republicans?

CALLER: Right.

RUSH: Are you asking me which way you should vote?

CALLER: Well… (laughing) That’s a personal decision.

RUSH: Because I’m an ineffectual wimp.

CALLER: Yeah. Well, no. I think I’m going to make up my own mind and but for the Supreme Court selections, I think I would have gone with the Democrat, frankly. But I still can’t quite… I keep coming back to Supreme Court. I hate it because I feel like this triangulation that’s going on that the Republicans have been using, they learned it from the Democrats, and they take us for granted and they keep trying to go to the middle and compromise just like I guess Bill Clinton started, and therefore they’re void of their original principles. And I don’t know how to stop it, and if we don’t stand up and show ’em and let them lose their offices, but that’s all they’re interested in doing is retaining their positions. I don’t know how else to get their attention.

RUSH: Well, you would think back to 2006 and the loss would have gotten their attention.

CALLER: It hasn’t, Rush.

RUSH: It doesn’t appear that it has. It may take even more failure for their attention to be focused. I want to go back in our limited amount of time here, Pete, I want to go back. You said I’m an ineffectual wimp because I’m not doing what I could be doing to, what, revive or promote conservatism. What am I supposed to do? What would you like me to do? What do you see me doing?

CALLER: Well, one thing would be to articulate a strategy to get the elected Republican officials to see the error of their ways. If I vote for Obama, that’s going to be a vote of protest. Now, if I do it myself, which I still may do, it’s not doing a whole lot unless I’m joined with a whole bunch of other people who feel the same way I do.

RUSH: Okay, so you are suggesting — and correct me if I’m wrong — that I just come out with it and as we get closer to the election just urge conservatives to vote for Obama, because it’s the only way to send a message to the Republicans and conservatives who are not listening to us? Is it a step like that that you…? Is that what you think would be non-wimpy, would be more of a leadership course of action?

CALLER: Well, I look to you for guidance. I do. I think that you’re a lot smarter on these issues than I, and therefore I would like for you to help me with the quandary I’m in, and I’d like to get some guidance from you, and hopefully you can think of or develop a strategy that would solve this very significant problem that we’re facing.

RUSH: Let’s cut to the chase here. The strategy is: How in the hell do we turn the Republican Party back to conservatism? That’s essentially what you’re asking?

CALLER: That’s right.

RUSH: When you strip away all this other BS, that’s it. How do we do it, and you think I’m a wimp because I have not come up with a strategy to cause that to happen?

CALLER: Well, you put yourself out front and if you’re going to be a leader, lead. Don’t follow. I think you should be the point guy to lead us.

RUSH: So you think I need to do something besides this radio show is what you’re saying, beyond the Golden EIB Microphone and do some other thing. Because what I’m doing here does not constitute leadership, even though I’ll make you a prediction. Regardless what happens in this election. When we get to December, January, when the postmortems are written and conceived, you know there is one place that everybody is going to point to and say: ‘You know, the one guy that didn’t waver from principles, the one guy that didn’t care what they said about him — the one place where you could constantly be assured that you were going to hear what you believe articulated, represented, and promoted — was the EIB Network.’ It was right here. You won’t find that in the Republican Party; you won’t find it in the McCain campaign. Now, I don’t know if that constitutes leadership to you — and I’m not trying to be argumentative with you, don’t misunderstand; nor confrontational, nor contentious. I don’t know if that constitutes leadership to you or not, but what we do here on the radio has confines, and it has boundaries. The countryside is strewn with the carcasses of media people who thought they could take their so-called popularity and either get elected or start having impact in the actual area of policy, hands-on policy. There’s a theory I’ve always lived by: You have to know who you are. You have to love what you do, know what it is, be satisfied with it, and you also have to know what it’s not cut out for, what you’re not made for, what you’re not cut out for — and in my case I’ve just always followed my instincts, and my instincts have not told me to leave the radio show and run for office anywhere or become somebody’s spokesman or buy television time in the millions of dollars on the networks at night and make speeches to America.

CALLER: Then find that shining knight that can do it.

RUSH: But that’s the closest I’ve come. I have considered doing that. In the little, bitty neurons of thought, I have had these little ideas that spring up now and then and I’ll be watching the news — or a program like today — and I’ll say to myself, ‘Somebody needs to have some national TV time here buy a half hour every now and then and just address the American people.’ I don’t know if they would sell it to me. (laughing) I don’t know, but sometimes I think about that, but that’s as far as I go beyond the radio show.

CALLER: Mmm-hmm.

RUSH: People say, ‘Why don’t you do a television show?’ I have no desire to do a television show!

CALLER: Well, can you identify the political leader that will take us forward?

RUSH: Yes.

CALLER: Then that’s what’s missing. Let’s find that person or that group of people.

RUSH: Well, his name is being bandied about a little bit too frequently these days, and I don’t want to be constantly talking about this because it will put pressure on him. Bobby Jindal is a name I want you to remember. Thirty-six-year-old governor of Louisiana. Mike Pence, congressman from Indiana in the House of Representatives. Look, I gotta run here, Pete. There’s a farm team out there, but time is what it’s going to take for this team to get to the field.