RUSH: Everybody’s all excited here. Senator McCain is going to give a speech today down there to the oil company executives whose profits he thinks are obscene. He’s ‘going to call for an end to the federal ban on offshore drilling and offering an aggressive response to high gasoline prices. This immediately drew the ire of environmental groups.’ Screw them! Who cares? You know, there’s this story here — and I had this in the stack yesterday, and I didn’t get to it. It’s on the ABC News site, but it’s from our old buddies at the Associated Press, and it actually ran over the weekend, a couple days ago. It ran on Sunday. ‘Less than a month after declaring polar bears, a threatened species because of global warming, the Bush administration is giving oil companies permission to annoy and potentially harm them in the pursuit of oil and natural gas.’
You know, when are we going to stand up and say, ‘Enough’? Do not the polar bears ‘annoy’ us? Do not the spotted owl populations annoy us? I’m fed up with being annoyed by all these animals who are freely allowed to annoy us and prevent our technological advancement. The polar bears will adapt. They’ll thrive and survive. So anyway, the environmentalist wackos are upset at what McCain’s going to do. So what? The environmentalists exist strictly as an organization for the left and media to tap into, and provide opposition to conservatives and Republicans; and that’s what this is for. ‘The move,’ McCain’s move, ‘is aimed at easing voter anger over rising energy prices by…’ It’s not. It’s not aimed at that. It’s aimed at coming up with more oil. It’s about substance! It’s not about getting rid of anger. Voters already support this. Rasmussen has a poll: 67% of the American people want to drill now.
They are fed up with being prisoners to environmentalist wackos. You know, every commodity, every service has its tipping point price. We have found out what it is in gasoline. It’s four bucks. Four bucks a gallon and you get a total change in public opinion on something, not because anything anybody is saying, not because of any PR, but because of reality. At four bucks and no end in sight, the American people are getting very sophisticated and understanding here, the laws of supply and demand, and we have people standing in the way of producing our own sources of energy. Ergo, they want to drill. They know we have oil; they know it’s the Democrats and the environmentalists who are standing in the way. So this is McCain’s big speech down there. You know, you gotta say it’s good. I’m happy he’s flip-flopped on this and changed his mind. But I have to tell you, I had this weird feeling when I saw this, this morning.
I actually saw it last night. No, I didn’t see it last night. Well, I was doing show prep while reading Vince’s book. I guess I saw it last night but the details came out today. They say that hostages — what was it, the Stockholm syndrome? — after awhile, if you’re hostage long enough, you start to bond with your captors, when they show the slightest kindness. That’s sorta how I felt today when McCain did this flip-flop, I felt, ‘Oh, man! I’m a prisoner here. I’m being held hostage in my own movement. But, man, my captor is all of a sudden doing something I want to do to make me happy!’ I said, ‘Gee whiz, this is cool!’ and then I said, ‘I can’t believe that I am heartened, that I am encouraged, that I am made to feel happy by a story like this, when it ought to be common policy for my party and my movement in the first place.’ This ought not be something that causes us all together to go, ‘Yaaay!’ But it is causing us to do this.
Now, of course, Obama got wind of this, and he came out with another typically dumb and stupid Obama remark. Get this. This is what the messiah said: ‘Much like his gas tax gimmick that would leave consumers with pennies in savings, opening our coastline to offshore drilling would take at least a decade to produce any oil at all, and the effect on gasoline prices would be negligible at best since America only has 3% of the world’s oil,’ and he then went on to say that this is tantamount to maintaining ‘the failed policies of the past.’ The failed policies of the past! What are the failed policies of the past? I guess he’s talking about the entire discovery and the bringing to market, the refining of crude oil. I guess that was a failed policy of the past. Obama said that McCain’s ‘decision to completely change his position and tell a group of Houston oil executives what they wanted to hear today was the same Washington politics that has prevented us from achieving energy independence for decades.’
BREAK TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: Another Democrat has come out, ladies and gentlemen, and has spoken the Democrat talking points here that the oil price has artificially been pumped up by a bunch of Republican conservative types in the oil business trying to benefit their oil buddies. Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad says that the market is ‘full of oil.’ (interruption) No, I did say Democrat, Mr. Snerdley. You heard me right are. Well, he said this. It’s Ahmadinejad. He sounds just like a Democrat! What the hell? These guys continue to just regurgitate Democrat Party talking points. Ahmadinejad is vertically challenged, by the way. This guy is so short, 5’3′ or 5’4′, that his feet don’t hit the floor when he sits in a standard chair. I’ve heard he takes a shower once a week, if that. ‘The market is full of oil and the rising price trend is ‘fake and imposed’, Iran’s president said on Tuesday, partly blaming a weak US dollar which he said was being pushed lower on purpose.
”At a time when the growth of consumption is lower than the growth of production and the market is full of oil, prices are rising and this trend is completely fake and imposed,’ President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said in a televised speech. ‘It is very clear that visible and invisible hands are controlling prices in a fake way with political and economic aims,’ he said…’ Does that not sound just like an average Democrat or leftist in this country? Every time these wacko militant Islamists open their mouths — be it from Al-Qaeda, Al-Qaeda in Iraq, al-Jazeera, Hezbollah, Hamas, the Iranians — I feel like I’ve heard it all before just watching the nightly news as they interview various Democrats on the issues of the day.
Let me get a sound bite here. I hate to do this. McCain has just done a great thing. He’s going to go down there to Texas to tell the oil companies we need to have offshore drillin’. We need to get into it, and exploration — which is good. Don’t misunderstand the tone of my voice. It’s about time. I’ve been hoping that somebody in the McCain camp would do this, because it’s a fabulous way to contrast us versus them. The Democrats versus Republicans: Republicans, conservatives are for economic growth, for energy independence. This highlights the fact that the Democrats are opposed to that. It’s gotta be done, not just for the politics of it, but for the substance. We need the oil. We’ve got plenty of it. It will bring the price down. It will lessen our dependence. All of this is good. So don’t misunderstand my (groans) attitude about this. I’m glad it happened, and I’m gradually getting rid of my disappointed attitude about this, that it hadn’t happened before now. But then the McCain camp has rolled out a new ad, a new television ad. We have the audio. It’s a portion of his new ad in Arizona.
ANNOUNCER: John McCain stood up to the president and sounded the alarm on global warming five years ago. Today he has a realistic plan that will curb greenhouse gas emissions, a plan that will help grow our economy and protect our environment. Reform, prosperity, peace. John McCain.
MCCAIN: I’m John McCain, and I approved this message.
RUSH: Okay, so we’re gonna go out there and we’re gonna be drilling for more oil out there. What McCain said, by the way: There’s this federal ban. That’s overreaching. Leave it up to the states. Let the states do what they want to do. So Charlie Crist, our governor here in Florida, says, ‘I like this plan.’ I like this plan. To be honest, Jeb Bush is the governor who put in the regulations, the restrictions of no offshore drilling here in coastal Florida. Some other governors are excited about this.
You know what would be really, really cool? Look at what’s happened in California. They started their gay marriage wedding ceremonies today. These people just have the most rotten sense of timing. The Democrats have been doing everything they can to get these gay activists to wait. ‘Just be patient? Can you just wait for this? Wait to do this ’til after the election,’ and, of course, the gay activists who are naturally in love with one another, said, ‘Screw you,’ to the Democrats, and they went ahead and they’re starting their ceremonies today in California, and they’re on television. There are lots of fanfare, lots of speeches. George Takei from Star Trek is out there making speeches. It’s a beautiful thing out there. There are circles and circles of love, and they’re just all happy getting married. I think the judge, whoever marries ’em, says, ‘I now pronounce you happily married,’ rather than ‘man and man’ or ‘woman and woman,’ or ‘groom and groom,’ whatever. So Democrats are just trying to get these people to stop it, and they won’t.
This is going to have an impact on the election. There’s no question it will if this stuff keeps up. They have so many economic problems, so many economic problems in California. What if…? This is just a big hypothetical. What if Schwarzenegger somehow gets convinced that drilling for oil offshore in California would be one of the greatest financial boons to his state ever? That’s a long shot. But what if the state of Oregon decides to do it and California doesn’t? The people in California are going to go nuts and say, ‘Well, don’t you have any spills up there. They’re going to be coming our way.’ Even with Hurricane Katrina ripping through the Gulf and other hurricanes, with all the offshore decks out there, we haven’t had any oil leaks. We haven’t had any oil spills despite damage to the oil wells and the derricks out there. So we’ve gotten much, much better at this. Anyway, this is a good thing. But then they go out and do an ad — I admit it’s in Arizona — that we’re going to get tough on emissions and carbon feet prints and all this other stuff? The two, they just don’t (sighs) seem… It’s like two pieces of a jigsaw puzzle, and they get close to fitting but not quite, and yet you think they do. So you keep jamming those two pieces together until you break one of them. We’ll see how it shakes out.
We’ve got Jason from Philadelphia on the phone. Jason, you’re up first today. Great to have you with us on the EIB Network.
CALLER: Hey, Rush. Mega dittos from a disabled US Army vet. I’d like to thank you first for everything that you do for our soldiers.
RUSH: Well, thank you, sir.
CALLER: My point today is with Obama making this statement about ‘the failed policies of the past,’ I would contend that the failed policies of the past are the Democratic policies that have stopped us from drilling and stopped us from getting our own resources that have brought up to this point.
RUSH: Exactly right, Jason. ‘The failed policies of the past’ is a term that’s been approved for usage by the Democrat Party. It’s in their playbook; they have been using it. Obama spouts it, and doesn’t even know what he’s talking about.
CALLER: Right.
RUSH: It just sounds good: ‘the failed policies of the past.’ The way to translate it — what Obama and the Democrats hope that people will think — is Bush. ‘Failed policies of the past’ equals George W. Bush. Used in this circumstance, it’s so easily — as you’ve just done — blown to smithereens. Failed policies of the past are drilling for oil? What failed policy? What alternative policy did you have, Obama? You know, this guy, they put words in his mouth. I think that when he’s on his own, he’s at great risk.
CALLER: That is true. I think this guy is more of an empty suit than people would like to actually note.
RUSH: He’s like a blowup doll, you know, that people put in the passenger seat when they’re trying to sneak into the HOV lane.
CALLER: Well, I think he’s more like a blowup doll that has a pinhole in it, who keeps sort of leaking out and folding over, and people blow him up, and he folds over, and they blow him back up.
RUSH: (laughs)
CALLER: And at some point he’s going to rupture and just fold altogether. But right now I think that the Democrat Party is trying to keep him blown up, but it’s not going to last forever.
RUSH: Let me tell you something.
CALLER: People are going to find out who he is.
RUSH: That’s a good analogy. They got problems. Everybody was expecting this huge bump in the polls once Obama firmed up the nomination. It didn’t happen, and he and McCain are running dead heats, and now the Democrats and the Obama campaign have announced the stupidest strategy for winning the presidency. (interruption) What, you don’t like me to keep using the word ‘stupid’? It is stupid! They’re coming out with this 50-state strategery where they say they’re going to be able to win without focusing on Ohio and Florida and Pennsylvania. Well, that’s all well and good. It’s true that Ohio and Florida have been pivotal states for the WINNER of the presidency in many past elections, particularly 2004 and in 2000. But those are… I mean, Pennsylvania is a traditional blue state. Ohio is in a circumstance now where the Republicans there are greatly disfavored because of a bunch of things. Ohio and Florida, he’s just going to write it off? This is exactly what I thought was happening during the primaries when Hillary was winning these states. These states have a lot of bitter clingers in ’em, and Obama has made ’em mad — the people ‘clinging to their guns and their religion’ when things aren’t going well — and it appears they’re writing these states off, unless this is a rope-a-dope. But I don’t think it is. And even if it is, the McCain camp I’m certain (ahem) will be prepared for the rope-a-dope policy. But the fact of the matter is, they have to look at how he did in the primaries. He barely showed up, even spending on a lot of ads.