Rush Signs a Contract for America

RUSH: No, no, no, no, just call it a contract for America. That’s how it should be viewed and how it should be seen. No, I’m not going to talk about it, Snerdley. No. Greetings, my friends, and welcome. It’s the EIB Network and El — why not? ‘Cause, I’m just not. We got other things to do here. I am — you know what — well — no, they won’t be mad if I don’t. Nobody talks about — no — anyway, greetings, and welcome back, ladies and gentlemen. Rush Limbaugh from behind the Golden EIB — would you people on the staff shut up. I am trying to open the program. It’s Rush Limbaugh behind the Golden EIB Microphone at the Limbaugh Institute for Advanced Conservative Studies. Telephone number if you want to be on the program today, 800-282-2882. The e-mail address is ElRushbo@eibnet.com.

I assume by now, ladies and gentlemen, you have heard about or seen the forthcoming edition of the New York Times Magazine this Sunday with an 8,000-word profile of me. They’ve already posted it on their website, and we’ve linked to it at RushLimbaugh.com. Dawn is reading it, frowning over her quotes. I said, ‘Get used to it, Dawn.’ Anyway, Zev Chafets was the writer, spent a lot of time down here this winter and spring, and it’s a nice piece. At any rate, folks, we have lots to do here, and it’s the Fourth of July weekend coming up, and I must tell you that I will be out tomorrow and we’ll have a best-of show. (interruption) That’s right, sign the contract for America and then take a day off. I mean, you gotta establish these things. You have to establish the pattern so that people are not surprised and shocked by this.

This morning on PMSNBC, the discussion on the Scarborough show with Mika Brzezinski, Pat Buchanan, and Tucker Carlson, there was a leak of the New York Times story last night on TIME magazine in which they quoted me saying a couple things, one about McCain and one about Obama. And basically the thing I told the writer about McCain is, look, when your team isn’t in the game, you pull for the team that you hate the least. That’s McCain. About Obama, I said, ‘He’s a liberal. I oppose liberals. That’s all there is to it.’ Those two things spawned a massive discussion on PMSNBC this morning. Here’s the first take.

CARLSON: It turns out that he despises everyone, but McCain less. You know, I think there are probably a lot of conservatives who feel that way. It’s another indicator of where we are. Take three steps back. Here’s the terrain.

BRZEZINSKI: Here’s what he said, Tucker —

CARLSON: Yep.

BRZEZINSKI: — and this is in the New York Times Magazine coming out this weekend, if I could get it right. ‘Rush is Just Getting Warmed Up,’ is what it’s called. ‘If your team isn’t in it, you root for the team you hate less, and that’s McCain.’ Well, here’s what he said about Obama. ‘He’s a liberal, I oppose liberals, and that’s all that’s involved here.’ Okay. Well, I —

CARLSON: There’s a man who knows what he thinks. Not a lot of nuance there, but I know he speaks for a lot of conservatives in saying that. But, look, the truth is, Obama really needs to foul this up in order to lose, partly because he’s a very talented guy, but partly because it’s just a Democratic year. Bush is super unpopular; the Republican Party is in shambles.

RUSH: Nuance? They were stunned that there was no nuance? I don’t do nuance. People ask me what I think, and I tell them. As for Obama really needing to foul this up in order to lose, he’s entirely capable of that, as we have discussed over the course of many, many previous days of broadcast excellence. Here’s the second tape, and this time Buchanan and Mike Barnicle get involved.

BRZEZINSKI: Well, in terms of Rush Limbaugh, Pat, he could be a factor. He takes credit with this Operation Chaos —

BUCHANAN: Right.

BRZEZINSKI: — for bringing down Hillary or whatever.

BUCHANAN: He was helping Hillary. She was doing pretty well in West Virginia and Kentucky.

BARNICLE: Yeah, your gal.

BRZEZINSKI: Look at that cover.

RUSH: They just don’t know what to think of this. What’s so tough to understand about what I said? And what is so controversial about it? What’s controversial about it is that I said it. What do you think the controversy is? Bringing down Hillary? They don’t know the story. We sustained Hillary. Operation Chaos kept Hillary in the game. At any rate, let’s take a look at the Drive-By headlines today just to see where we’re headed into the weekend: ‘Fewer Companies Plan to Hire and Give Raises in the Next Three Months,’ that’s USA Today. ‘Stocks Off 2.1 Trillion This Year,’ USA Today. ‘For Many, Golden Years Mean Less Travel and More Work,’ USA Today. ‘Chrysler Closing Mini-van Plant,’ USA Today. ‘Are Big Bets by Speculators Driving Up Oil? Experts Disagree,’ USA Today. ‘June Car Sales Plummet, More Declines Expected,’ AP. ‘Starbucks to Close 600 US Stores, Rein in Growth,’ AP. ‘Wall Street Zigzags on First Day of Third Quarter,’ AP. ‘Blockbuster Withdraws Plan to Acquire Circuit City,’ AP. ‘Manufacturers Struggle to Overcome Rising Prices,’ AP.

Is there any good news out there? You think you could find any good news in the Drive-By Media? (interruption) Well, no, my new deal is not in the news roster. The Drive-Bys are ignoring it. The TV people are all calling their agents, frantically. There’s no good news. Here’s AP making up news as they go along. The TV people are calling their agents, frantically, exactly right. Snerdley is getting a big kick out of that. AP making up news as they go along. (interruption) You people in there are making me feel real guilty trying to do the program. I’m trying to execute broadcast excellence. I’m trying to meet and surpass the audience expectations. I am taking tomorrow off. I just announced that I’m taking tomorrow off, but it had been long planned. I told the audience last week. Have you forgotten? You guys get a day off tomorrow, you don’t even know. You’ve forgotten. I told the audience rather than take two weeks of vacation in summertime when things are too hot and heavy and they’re percolating and too many summer spectaculars here required, take a couple days here and there. I’m doing this for the audience, not for me.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: I’m terribly conflicted here. I’m getting advice from both staff and many of you in the e-mail, to acknowledge what was headlined on the Drudge Report today, and (sigh) these things are always tough to talk about. I can tell you that I have extended my partnership at Clear Channel through the year 2016. I am not going anywhere. I am going to be here with you. I’m just ecstatic that this has happened, and I’m happy that I can be able to tell you about it during the Fourth of July week, because — and I’ve said this on many occasions — none of this would have been possible without you, and I can’t thank you enough. It’s a debt that I can never repay you, just like we can never repay the debt that we owe the men and women of the US Armed Forces.

I am constantly in awe of the bond, the loyalty, the length of time people have been listening to this program: 20 years coming up on August the 1st. So, yes, ladies and gentlemen, I have extended through 2016, and yes for the most part what you’ve read is true. But I want to say a couple things. It’s actually a cut, because I was projecting much more. And since I didn’t get what I was projecting, I’m looking at this not as a raise, but as a cut, because I was expecting twice this. What I’m going to call this is the Contract for America 2008. I know that the liberals and others will resent this, the class-envy crowd, but don’t resent it. I earned it. And if Obama becomes president, I won’t keep much of it. For example, his Social Security ‘reform’ will take how many millions? Who knows, but a lot. His first tax increase, which will take us back to the Clinton tax rate of 39.6%, that will take at least another 5%.

Who knows how many millions? Then Obama’s second tax increase, the one he never talks about, but the one there will be, will take heaven knows how much more out of what already is a cut — and then his Medicare bailout, and then a tax increase on whatever else he hasn’t thought of. Who knows? I mean, I am proud. I will be honest. I am proud of my new, much-deserved contract (which, of course, is a cut.) I’m telling you that I am proud that I will still have some of it left so that I can still be told I am not paying my ‘fair share.’ I hope to have enough of it left if Obama is elected. Seriously, this is hard for me to talk about. I’m trying to joke about it here to make a point, a little satire on the way baseline budgeting works in Washington, DC.

But to me, the great thing about it is that I have another eight years, all the way through 2016. I’m not going anywhere. I’ve told you, all of you, that I am not retiring until every American agrees with me. This is the United States of America, and we are celebrating our independence this week. And the things that have happened to me in my life are the reason that I am so optimistic and the reason that I have such love for this country and the reason I don’t want anybody messing with it. It’s the reason I don’t want anybody tampering with the capitalist system, the entrepreneurism that’s founded in freedom and ambition and creativity that lets people fail and fail and fail and try and try and try again until it works.

The notion that these are the people we need to punish in this country, offends me to no end, because these are the backbone of the country. The people who make it work. They’re not people seeking fame; they’re not people trying to get noticed by anybody. They’re just living their lives, doing the best they can, for the most part, what they think is right. Nobody can be perfect. But this little thing that’s happened to me the last 20 years, how could I not be optimistic for everybody else? If it happened to me, it can happen to a whole lot of people. But if there’s nobody around to inspire you, and if all you’re going to hear every day is how it can’t be done, ‘America is going to hell in a handbasket,’ well, that’s bad, and I don’t want to put up with it.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: I want to take one more stab here at something I was talking about just before the previous hour concluded, and that is the news that popped up everywhere today on the Drudge Report, and my syndication partners at Clear Channel put out their own press release announcing that I have extended my partnership arrangement with them for eight years through 2016. That’s why I am your ‘host for life.’ I’ve always said, ‘I am not going anywhere ’til everybody, every American agrees with me.’ It’s a daunting challenge. I have not shrunk from it, nor shall I. But I wanted to tell you what this means to me in terms of my mind and my heart. You know, we all — in this audience, you and I — cherish this country. We cherish the freedoms that we have in this country, and especially when we stop to think about it on the Fourth of July, independence week and so forth, it takes on an even more important relevance.

For example, I have a story in the Stack of Stuff today. The last batch of troops sent over to Iraq for the surge will be soon coming home. They will not receive anything from the Democrat Party along the likes of, ‘Job well done! We’re proud of you,’ and this is highly distressing. Not only will Democrats nor leftists say to any returning troops from Iraq, ‘Good job. Job well done. We honor your service,’ no. They did just the opposite. They sought to secure defeat of the US military in Iraq. They sought to discredit the surge before it had even begun. They called the architect of the surge, General Petraeus, essentially, a liar before he had even opened his mouth to give them, in Congress, a report. We face really challenging times. The left wing in this country is on a tear to restrict as much freedom and as much movement as they can.

Two days in a row, I’ve had Drive-By Media stories in the stacks of stuff here celebrating the end of the SUV, and this is because people can’t afford the gas price anymore. SUVs use a lot of gasoline. So people, A, aren’t buying new ones, and they’re trying to sell the ones that they have — and there are people happy about this. These are people who want to try to dictate to us what kind of car we can drive and how far we can drive it. They want us in mass transit. They want us blamed and feeling guilty for all of the ills in the world. The United States is the solution to problems in the world. We are not the problem. Too many Americans, all of them on the left, believe just the opposite. As such, there is a battle for the heart and soul of the United States of America, and the battle can basically be described as one side wants to tear down the traditions and institutions that have made this country great and reorder them so that they feel better about themselves.

And those traditions and institutions that have made the country great can be found in religion, can be found in family, can be found in the strict interpretation of the Constitution and a number of other things. They want there to be very little of that. They want a utopia, they think that can be created, on the basis of perfection. They look at the United States as a flawed country. (interruption) Yeah, Fox News is running a side-by-side comparison of the cover photo on the New York Times magazine of me with Don Vito Corleone. That’s a great picture. You know, I’ve had some people say, ‘How come you let them take a picture of you where you look mean?’ Hey, this is how the libs see me. You know what that picture says? That picture says dark, sinister, confident, dangerous; and if you look at the eyes in that picture, it also says something else, two words. (No, not ‘Tony Soprano.’)

It’s just a great picture. They came down here and they did the shoot right here at the EIB Southern Command. They shot some here in the studio and some of those are in the New York Times article — it’s a huge piece. It’s 8,000 words — and they shot some others out in our living room area, and that’s the one that made the cover. I saw it last night for the first time, I thought, ‘Wow, it’s actually a good picture.’ You know, when you start letting Drive-Bys taking pictures of you, it’s risky. I’ve learned now what not to do during sessions. Don’t look frustrated. Don’t start waving around and get all contorted looks on your face and so forth, because ‘Ka-ching, ka-ching, ka-ching,’ they can snap and get anything. But they were a very cooperative crew.

At any rate, back to the internal war that we face here. There are people who seek power to deny us freedom. And this is something that’s crucially important to me, to maintain it. The thing that Drudge wrote today on his website that’s appeared in a number of other places about the contract extension, it’s for the most part accurate. There are some things in it that are not quite true, but for the most part it’s true. But the main thing is that another eight years, right here, with you, defending and protecting the freedoms that we all cherish in this country. It’s quite an honor for me to have this position. You know, you look around — and I don’t mean to sound smug about this, but you’ve seen it yourselves. The print Drive-By Media is in trouble. They are laying off newsroom staff in newsrooms and newspapers across the country. Their advertising revenue is plunging. Their circulation is plunging.

They don’t know what to do about it. The Drive-By Media news media has a characteristic that is unlike most other businesses, and it is a business, and you can listen to the editors and the managers these papers talk about, ‘Yeah, we gotta make these cuts so they can stay profitable.’ They rip everybody else trying to make a profit, like Big Oil, but they reserve the right for themselves. But most of their employees don’t care about the profit, other than that’s how they get paid. Most people in the Drive-By Media, when a customer complains, the customer is told he’s wrong. The customer is told he’s stupid. The customer is told he doesn’t understand how journalism works. Well, if the customer gets sick and tired of reading something that’s predictable, that goes against the grain of cultural and political beliefs that the reader has, then bam! The reader is out of there. Why subject yourself to it?

So, it is happening. They’re out there losing jobs, losing advertising, losing subscribers. Meanwhile, here at the EIB Network, it’s just the opposite — and you know what the big difference is? The big difference — and I’ve said this a number of times, but I want to relate it to this instance. The big difference is they have no connection with their audience. When you get to the big Drive-By Media, such as in New York and Washington, most of them are writing for each other. They write what they write hoping other Drive-Bys will then read it and be impressed. They do. And then they hope to come up with something unique that everybody will then copy for when they go on the roundtable discussions on cable TV shows. So it’s become very incestuous.

There is no connection with the audience, and newspapers have audiences. They might call them readers or subscribers, but they are audiences. And if they are unable to establish a bond with the audience, then they’re going to have trouble. That’s what’s happened here, and it’s even referenced in the Clear Channel press release announcing the contract extension in the quote that I gave them. There’s something special here, the bond of loyalty between audience and host. And it is something that I cherish and am in awe of myself; and, as I said last hour and on numerous previous occasions: There’s no way I can ever adequately say thank you in a way that expresses the depth of emotion I actually feel about it. It’s just phenomenal, and it’s unique, and it’s incredible.

And that bond is what makes me want to continue to do this. You know, look at all of the attempts over the course of the years that have been made to weaken this bond, to try to convince you that this show isn’t what you think it is, that I’m some sort of lying fanatic making it all up, and yet you’re here. You stayed here throughout it, and the reason for that is that you know the truth because you have a daily relationship with the program, and we have a bond. So what the media says about what happens here, when it’s mostly lies what they say, doesn’t affect you.

It goes back to the old thing. If the media didn’t make you, the media can’t destroy you. But if you allow the media to make you by virtue of, say, buzz — let them build you up bigger than you are — they can then tear you down. That can’t happen with me because they didn’t make me; you did. Without you, none of this that you’re reading about today would happen. But the important thing is to be able to stay here for another eight years on our own terms and not give up the fight that is in the midst of really a fevered pitch right now for our basic liberties and freedoms.

Just yesterday — this is not anything that hasn’t happened before but it just continued to happen. Just yesterday, we learned that owners of land will not be able to develop it in Montana because of a grouse, a grouse population. The ultimate aim is to get the grouse put on the endangered species list so the owners of that property can’t do diddly-squat with it. There’s oil underneath that land, and there’s an opportunity for developers to make residential areas out of it or what have you. So there are people active in this country, doing everything they can to destroy the country’s ability to grow, to remain prosperous, and to remain a superpower. Here’s another example. This is from Investor’s Business Daily: ‘A state judge has blocked construction of a power plant on grounds that its emissions permit does not set a cap on carbon dioxide.’ So global warming, the hoax of manmade global warming, has won another round.

‘Judge Thelma Wyatt Cummings Moore of the Fulton County, Ga., Superior Court,’ this is Atlanta, for those of you in Rio Linda, ‘invalidated on Tuesday a government permit issued in 2007 for construction of a coal-fired plant in the southwestern part of the state. She based her decision on last year’s US Supreme Court ruling that forced the Environmental Protection Agency to regulate CO2 as a pollutant, even though it is harmless to humans and animals and is necessary to plant life.’ The Supreme Court had no business taking the case; they did. Their ruling, obnoxious. So this is how the left intends, with unelected people who have lifetime appointments who institute personal policy preferences on the basis of their liberal beliefs, to stop a coal-fired power plant. We need more energy.

If we’re going to grow, if your kids are going to have the opportunities that we had — and every parent wants their kid to do better than they did. If you want a country that is constantly growing and proud of itself and remains exceptional in as many ways as possible, you’re going to have to fight these people who want to establish an America in a permanent state of decline. These are the naysayers, the doomsayers, the doom-and-gloomers. This is how they look at life themselves; they want everybody else to be miserable with them, because in the midst of that misery you might vote for people otherwise because you’re so mad, you want a change. So I’m looking forward to the next eight years, looking forward to being with you. I’m calling this, ladies and gentlemen, the contract for America. You made it possible. I thank you much.