Caller: Lay Off McCain, Rush

RUSH: Tony in Palm Harbor, Florida, I’m glad you waited. Welcome to the EIB Network.

CALLER: Rush, how you doing, man?

RUSH: Fine, sir.

CALLER: I just wanted to ask you to please back off on John McCain a little bit simply because the judicial system is at stake. We can’t afford Barack Obama and his Marxist friends appointing judges to the Supreme Court. It will be a Marxist judicial tyranny, a Marxist dictatorship from the bench, man. They’ll overturn results of elections. They won’t respect freedom of speech, private property, and freedom of religion, so just back off on John McCain a little bit, man. He’s got a 22-year run of being solid pro-life. Do like Herman Edwards, the head coach of the KC Chiefs said, ‘Play to win the game.’ Rush, let’s play to win the game. Get him elected, get rid of this Obama.

RUSH: Wait a minute, wait a minute, wait just a second. First thing, the court doesn’t respect a whole lot of those things you mentioned a moment ago anyway.

CALLER: We don’t need any more of it.

RUSH: I understand that. But you’re going to cite Herman Edwards?

CALLER: I’m just asking you to play the game to win so we can win this thing, Rush. Then after the election you can say what you want about him, but right now let’s win this thing.

RUSH: Wait a minute, what have I been doing? How am I hurting McCain?

CALLER: Rush, you come up, you make fun of McCain with that growl like he’s insane, when you mimic him and joke about him. We can’t go in the tank with Coulter, Barr, and Dobson, and hand the judicial system over to this clown. There’s too much at stake here. After the election, say what you want to say.

RUSH: You haven’t been listening closely enough.

CALLER: I’ve been listening very closely.

RUSH: Well, you haven’t heard me say, then, that we can’t afford Obama.

CALLER: I know that.

RUSH: Well.

CALLER: I understand that. But what I’m basically asking you to say, underlying that, is please back off on John McCain. That’s all I’m asking you to do, man.

RUSH: What am I supposed to do when the guy stands up and starts talking — see, here I go — when the guy stands up and starts talking about green government —

CALLER: I agree with you on all that.

RUSH: Jimmy Carter 2.

CALLER: Rush, I agree with all that.

RUSH: I have experience crossing the aisle working with Democrats, what am I supposed to do, go, ‘Yay’?

CALLER: Rush, I agree with all that.

RUSH: Well, then?

CALLER: So do it after he gets, God willing, elected. We can’t afford this guy economically, and we can’t afford him judicially.

RUSH: Don’t you understand what’s happening here?

CALLER: I know that global warming is a crock of crap, but right now the judicial system is the most important thing we’ve got.

RUSH: Don’t you think I know that?

CALLER: — pro-abortion judge, man.

RUSH: Don’t you think I know that?

CALLER: Play to win the game, Rush, it’s all I’m asking.

RUSH: Wait!

CALLER: Just get on the team and —

RUSH: What do you think Operation Chaos–

CALLER: — get rid of this sucker, man.

RUSH: Tony, calm down man, what do you think the purpose of Operation Chaos was?

CALLER: It was brilliant, I loved Operation Chaos.

RUSH: So we win was the bottom line, so we win to create chaos in the Democrat Party. Do you know what’s going on here?

CALLER: Go ahead.

RUSH: Do you know what I’m actually trying to do here?

CALLER: All I hear you do is knock John McCain with mimicking his voice like he’s some kind of insane character who just got out of the nuthouse.

RUSH: Well… (laughing)

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: I want to go back to our last caller, Tony from Palm Harbor, Florida. He was all over me. You people heard it. I was sitting here minding my own business, I wasn’t bothering anybody, and I came under assault from a caller, a friendly caller, but nevertheless I was under assault. You all heard it. And what did Tony say? He said, ‘You gotta back off on McCain. You gotta stop making him sound like he’s a lunatic that just got out of the asylum. You can do that after he’s elected. The Supreme Court’s too important. We gotta change this court.’ And I asked Tony, I said, ‘Do you understand what’s going on here? Do you know what I’m doing?’ I don’t want to be blatant and bold about it. Sort of like a marketing plan, you don’t tell anybody about it, just execute it. Some people have figured out what my game plan is on this. Others haven’t. If you haven’t, you’re going to continue to be confused and think I’m obnoxious. Others of you will praise my brilliance. But I want to say again, I want to take a little bit more time doing it here for Tony in Palm Harbor and all the rest of you who believe that this election is crucial about the Supreme Court. It’s crucial about everything. That is why — (breathing hard) — that is why there has been so much passion about this from the Republican primaries to the present.

Now, when it comes to Supreme Court justices, John McCain does not appoint them. He nominates them. And then you know what happens? Then Patrick Leahy and his Democrats get hold of them at the Senate Judiciary Committee. Yeah, who we got on there? We’ve got Biden, we’ve got Durbin, we got Senator Kennedy, we got Senator Feinstein; we’ve got the usual suspects on the Democrat side. Let me just tell you, Tony, if the Democrats expand their majorities in both the House and the Senate as current polling suggests they will, it isn’t going to matter who McCain nominates. He could nominate the most brilliant conservative jurist who has a flawless resume and reputation. He doesn’t stand a prayer. The Senate confirms justices. We would have more conservatives on the appellate court today but for the Gang of 14. If we could have pulled the nuclear option, got rid of this filibustering, we wouldn’t be where we are today on all this. Let’s not pretend all this gets fixed in this election.

I would suggest, Tony, and many of the rest of you that one of the reasons Senator McCain has moved on anything during this campaign is because I and some others have continued to point out where McCain is moving too far left. For example, he was praised mightily by me on this program for doing a 180 on offshore drilling. If he would just go to ANWR, just go up there and learn that it’s not the Grand Canyon and then change his mind on that, we would have a huge difference in which to contrast ourselves from the Democrats. There’s no better issue than gas prices, supply and demand. The Democrats are making this so simple, and yet we need to stop all this talk about greening the government and this stuff. People don’t care about that right now. They care about the gasoline price, and they’re sophisticated enough to understand that the Democrats are standing in the way of doing anything that lowers the price. We got a made-to-order issue here. It’s just waiting to be teed up. If I were to just sit here and cheerlead every day, it wouldn’t work. I’d lose half my audience because I’d lose my credibility.

This election, yeah, it’s about the courts; it’s about capitalism; it’s about individual liberty; it’s about the detainees, the war on terror. It’s about a lot of things. If Congress passes a massive regulatory bill that expands government like never before in the name of dealing with global warming, the court doesn’t have to do anything, Tony. If Obama and his gang get their way on this, we are going to have the most devastating attack on limited government in 70 years. I shouldn’t challenge this? And one other thing? I’m addressing this because Tony might have articulated — well, in fact, I know he did because I’ve had similar calls in the recent past from people who have also said, ‘Take it easy on McCain.’ And I’ve even had people out in public when I have not been on the air, ‘Can you kind of take it easy on McCain?’ Why should I have to change? No, I’m serious. Why should I have to change? Why should I have to sweep my principles aside or under the desk, why is that up to me to do that? I know you don’t like it when I say ‘you people.’ You know who you are. You should have thought about all this when you’re out there voting for Huckabee. You should have thought about all this when you saw McCain and Huckabee teaming up to screw all the other nominees in our party.

You’re calling me telling me I gotta bite the bullet. Why don’t you call McCain’s office and tell him to drop this environmental BS instead of demanding that I drop my principles? It’s probably easier getting through to the McCain office than it is getting through to me. It will take you a lot less time getting through to them than to me. But seriously, why should I change? I know what you’re saying. I have empathy. ‘Rush, you don’t have to change, but you don’t have to destroy the guy’s chances.’ We’re doing just the opposite here, folks. You think I want Obama elected? Get real. We can’t afford this guy. I don’t care how you calculate how you afford something. We can’t afford our liberty; we can’t afford economically; we cannot afford this guy. We cannot afford this guy with the massive majorities he’s going to have in the House and the Senate, in any number of ways. But at the same time, it’s not just McCain on the ballot. There’s a whole bunch of Republicans and conservatives out there who look to get swamped right now unless something’s done, and they are Republicans, and do you see any coattails here?

There’s a lot at stake here, and the solution to it is simply not defeating Obama. That’s a big part of it. But people just like Obama are going to be running the House and the Senate.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: This is Dawn in Indianapolis. Welcome to the program. It’s nice to have you here.

CALLER: Thank you, Rush. I wanted to respond to the gentleman who was on near the top of the hour.

RUSH: That would be the guy from Palm Harbor, Florida, Tony; who was giving me some constructive criticism on Senator McCain.

CALLER: Okay. Well, I think Tony’s been drinking the Republican water that for the past 30 years, conservatives have been told, ‘Just vote Republican and we’ll get the court back.’ Well, as of right now, seven of the nine judges were nominated by Republicans.

RUSH: Yes, that’s true.

CALLER: On the Supreme Court.

RUSH: That’s true.

CALLER: So how many Republican judges do we need to get conservatives on there?

RUSH: Well, they were nominated by Republicans, but not conservatives.

CALLER: Okay.

RUSH: That’s a big difference.

CALLER: Okay, well, then we keep getting them. But what is McCain? (laughs)

RUSH: I know. We’ve been here, done this. I know what you’re saying. There’s no guarantee here. Gang of 14, desire to please the left, the left is running the show anyway. Yes, the ingredients are all there for disaster, but we are trying to thwart this. I’m sure you understand that.

CALLER: I know, but what guarantees do I have that McCain can’t do any better than Bush or Reagan?

RUSH: That’s not the way to look at this, honestly. No, no, it’s not. The way to look at this is, very simply: Do you want Obama appointing them?

CALLER: Well, Stevens who you were saying was nominated by Ford, so…

RUSH: These are the choices we have, right now. It’s too late to complain about the choices. The choice is McCain or Obama. (doing McCain impression) ‘I knew you’d come around, Limbaugh! I knew you’d see it someday.’

CALLER: (giggles)

RUSH: And so —

CALLER: Well, what guarantees do I have that McCain is going to do any better than Obama?

RUSH: You don’t have guarantees about anything, but common sense here should tell you that Obama–

CALLER: It’s going to be bad, I agree.

RUSH: It’s disaster. It is going to be a literal disaster.

CALLER: So Obama’s fast disaster and McCain is slow disaster?

RUSH: Well (laughing), no. I’ve not reached this fatalistic point that you have seemed to have arrived at here, Dawn. I’m not there yet. It’s not over. Even after the election, nothing’s ever over! There is no end. Nothing ever ends. We just think it does. We want it to end, so we say, ‘Okay, this is over,’ but it’s not over. These kind of things are never over.

CALLER: Okay.

RUSH: Even when you lose you still have a chance of turning it around and win. Loss is not final. Defeat is never the end.

CALLER: Except it seems to me we got a lose-lose situation. (laughing)

RUSH: We gotta lose-lose situation?

CALLER: Either candidate, we lose.

RUSH: (laughing) I know. I know. I know.