CALLER: Hey, how are you?
RUSH: Good. Thank you.
CALLER: It is an honor to talk to you. I can’t believe I’ve been on hold for a while. It’s great. Anyway, my reason for calling is that I definitely hope that John McCain points the finger at these people that you just mentioned, like Gorelick, Dodd, Reid, Johnson, who’s on his little whatever you call, campaign thing. Frank is like a total blowhard — I’m sorry. I just hope he just goes there. I don’t see it happening. You know, I mean he needs to toughen up and realize that this is not back in like the Civil War where everyone was a gentleman. He has to point the finger and bring this stuff up because the American public’s not seeing it. I don’t know if that makes sense. I’m sorry.
RUSH: No, no. It does. Mike, grab sound bites 19 and 20. We’re going to listen to McCain again from yesterday in Albuquerque, New Mexico. We all know what Senator McCain has been doing. Senator McCain believes, and it’s because of events in his mind that took place in the past, he believes that the key to victory is independent voters, and he believes, he has been led to believe or understands, thinks he understands, that independent voters do not like the usual Washington ritual of criticism, one side criticizing the other. He’s got it indelibly branded on his brain that the people who decide presidential elections don’t like partisanship. He has it in his head that the people who decide presidential elections like honorable campaigns. They don’t like criticism of opponents. They want people to be able to work together. Now, this is a myth! It has always been a myth put forward by the media. It’s been a myth and the reason for it, the objective of it is to get conservatives to stop sounding conservative. It’s to get conservatives to clam up. And it’s worked! It has worked on way too many people. It has worked on our conservative intelligentsia in the media.
They buy into this notion that to be effective you can’t be partisan. Now, let me ask you a question. Do the Democrats ever, ever stop being partisan? How many of you see the Democrats losing everything they try? They got the Congress back by what? Did they reach across the aisle and say, ‘We’re going to do better and we’re going to work with everybody and we’re not going to be partisans anymore’? They didn’t say that. And even if they had, nobody would have believed them. So Senator McCain thinks that criticizing politicians by name will offend independents and send them running away. Now, where they going to go? Here is the thing I’ve never understood about this. If these precious independents, if these precious moderates are people who don’t like partisanship — now, look to me. Follow me on this. If they don’t like partisanship and Senator McCain is out there trying to be nonpartisan and run an honorable campaign, and then the minute he starts getting partisan these people that don’t like partisanship are going to go to the Democrats? Would somebody explain to me the logic of this? There is no logic in it ’cause it’s not true.
Independents don’t sit around and wait for Republicans to be mean and wait for Republicans to get partisan, and say, ‘See, see, I told you so,’ and then go vote with Democrats who are the meanest SOBs in politics in my lifetime. It just doesn’t wash. So Senator McCain in my mind has been dead wrong about this. It may serve him well in Congress, getting along with these guys here, but this is not how elections turn. You win elections by firing up the people who are for you. You do not win elections by assuming those people are going to be there and then go attract a bunch of mush brains on the basis that they don’t like partisanship. Well, hell’s bells, if we’re going to have people who don’t like partisanship determine the presidency, count me out, because people who don’t like partisanship are people who don’t want to hear the truth. So he has this calculation that those are the people that determine the presidency and he’s got it in his head that people out there love and appreciate and adore him because he walks across the aisle. I think it’s all a myth.
This business of making sure you don’t offend anybody and make sure you don’t get partisan, that’s nothing but the Democrats and their allies in the media trying to squelch and silence conservatives from speaking. Admit it, folks, this is what is so frustrating to us about Senator McCain, because we know how to win. We know what wins every time it’s tried anyway. And so, lo and behold, what do we have? On to the scene comes America’s sweetheart, Sarah Palin. Do you think Sarah Palin in the last week — well, hell, do you think Sarah Palin since she was introduced as McCain’s running mate, do you think she has been pursuing independence? A couple times where she’s been forced to mirror McCain. She’s out there naming names, she’s out there taking no prisoners, and look at the crowds that she’s drawing and look at the defensive posture she has put the Obama campaign on. I’ve always resented — and you know if you’ve listened a long time — I have resented this notion that everything in America has to be tailored to a bunch of people who wouldn’t have an opinion if it would save their lives because they don’t want to offend anybody. The great moderates, the great independents. Moderates are no such thing. They are linguine-spined liberals in waiting.
These moderates and independents, these are the people that fall prey to the phony premise of fairness put forth by the Democrats. Moderates and independents are very much — well, I better not say this. Well, what the hell. I’ve already dived in. Let me sink to the bottom here before I surface for air. Going after moderates and independents is a way to secure our defeat, because doing so prevents us from being who we are, and we end up being like Obama, presenting a picture of ourselves that isn’t true. When we go after independents and moderates, we accept the definition of ourselves placed on us by liberals, that we’re mean-spirited, racist, sexist homophobes and we gotta go out and show we’re not like all those other conservatives, you can trust us. And the moderates and independents, all these polls and focus groups, round ’em up, and these people love being the star of the show every four years. They love being on these post-debate focus group shows where they get to tell us what they saw and what they saw is going to be the determining factor.
How in the hell can anybody who is engaged even partially, two days a week, be undecided about this? Now, don’t misunderstand here. I know, folks, that there’s some people out there who may be aware there’s an election coming up soon. I’m not talking about them. We know we’ve got differing levels of absorption and devotion and interest in the campaign. But people paying attention, don’t give me this garbage that they’re changing their mind on a daily basis. ‘Well, Rush, well, Rush, then why are you talking about Ayers?’ Because, folks, there are a bunch of Democrats who are going to vote Obama simply because he’s a Democrat who do not know who he is and the media that they watch is not telling them. Don’t dare tell them. Oh, aren’t you trying to go out and get independents? I think independents are going to reject me just because I’m so forceful. I’m sure my message gets through to them.
But I believe firmly, I don’t care if you’re the candidate, if you’re just somebody interested in the future of the country, you’re deeply invested in it, you damn well have to be who you are and you have to be passionate and you have to tell people what you think in a positive, upbeat way, even if it ends up sounding critical of certain people. Why shouldn’t we be? Why shouldn’t we be critical of people who are a bunch of dummkopfs not thinking about it? Why make them the stars of the show? Why go out and appeal to them? Now, this is a roundabout way of saying I, too, hope McCain names names tonight. The reason he hasn’t is because most of the names are Democrats, and that, in his mind, would destroy the whole notion that he’s able to reach across the aisle. See, it’s easier to attack your own party than it is the opposition when you’re trying to present yourself here as a nonpartisan, as somebody who can cross the aisle, America first and all of this. Let’s listen to these two McCain sound bites from yesterday in Albuquerque and maybe we’ll be right back get an indication of what’s on tap tonight at the town hall debate. Here’s the first of the two sound bites.
MCCAIN: For a guy who’s already authored two memoirs, he’s not exactly an open book. Whatever the question, whatever the issue, there’s always a backstory with Senator Obama. All people want to know is what has this man ever actually accomplished in government. What does he plan for America? In short, who is the real Barack Obama? But, my friends, you ask such questions, and all you get in response is another angry barrage of insults.
RUSH: And here’s the second McCain bite.
MCCAIN: Senator Obama has accused me of opposing regulation to avert this crisis. I guess he believes that if a lie is big enough and repeated often enough, it will be believed. But the truth is I was the one who called at the time for tighter restrictions on Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. It could have helped prevent this crisis from happening in the first place. Senator Obama was silent on the regulation of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac and his Democratic allies in Congress opposed every effort to rein them in. As recently as September of last year, he said that subprime loans had been, quote, ‘a good idea.’ Well, Senator Obama, that good idea has now plunged this country into the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression.
RUSH: Okay, I don’t think McCain’s going to name names tonight. He’ll name Obama. The reason I say that is ’cause Palin didn’t today. Palin talked all about the two executives at Fannie Mae who are now advising Obama. She did not mention their names, Franklin Raines and Jim Johnson. If she didn’t mention the names, I don’t think McCain is going to. So we’ll have to wait and see. By the way, a quick little pop quiz, ladies and gentlemen. What do Barack Obama and Osama bin Laden have in common? (singing Jeopardy tune) You want me to ask it again? What do Barack Obama and Osama bin Laden have in common? Answer: They both know people who have bombed the Pentagon.
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RUSH: Heidi in Oceanside, California. Great to have you here.
CALLER: Hi, Rush. Just thank you for doing what you do for us every day.
RUSH: Yeah, thank you.
CALLER: And I want to let you know you do keep us laughing with all your Barney Frank impressions.
RUSH: People tell me they don’t like that ’cause it’s irritating.
CALLER: We think it’s hysterical.
RUSH: Thank you.
CALLER: So I’m pretty psyched about Sarah Palin, John McCain finally kicking butt out there. I want to get your ideas on the Jerome Corsi story I heard this morning on the radio about him being apprehended in Africa.
RUSH: He’s in Kenya. I think he went over to try to find Obama’s brother and give him some money while launching a book tour over there on Obama. Kenya, of course, is where Obama’s father is from. Jerome Corsi from WorldNetDaily wrote a best-selling book on Obama. It is a very strange coincidence, isn’t it —
CALLER: Yes.
RUSH: — that a man who’s written a critical book on Obama gets apprehended by Kenyan authorities on the eve, the day that he’s supposed to go out and do a book tour over there? Highly, highly strange. But we cannot assume Obama knows anything about this. We can’t assume that Obama and his supporters have any knowledge of this; they don’t know these kinds of things. Obviously Corsi did something to upset the authorities there and cause this to happen — like show up.
CALLER: Yeah, this is like one more slimy thing Obama’s got his hands in. What do you make of the story that he funneled money to getting the African leader elected?
RUSH: Nothing would surprise me about Obama. Look, Obama and Osama bin Laden have something very much in common. They both know somebody who bombed a Pentagon. Once you can say that about somebody, you cannot question the other people in this.
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RUSH: The AP Obama has put out a story today: ‘McCain Linked to Group in Iran-Contra Affair.’ Here’s how the story opens: ‘Barack Obama has his William Ayers connection. Now John McCain may have an Iran-Contra connection. In the 1980s, McCain served on the advisory board to the US chapter of an international group linked to ultra-right-wing death squads in Central America. The U.S. Council for World Freedom aided rebels trying to overthrow the leftist government of Nicaragua. That landed the group in the middle of the Iran-Contra affair and in legal trouble with the Internal Revenue Service, which revoked the charitable organization’s tax exemption. The council created by retired Army Maj. Gen. John Singlaub was the US chapter of the World Anti-Communist League, an international organization linked to former Nazi collaborators.’
But this kind of excuse, this kind of spin tells you that Obama is lying about this, and for Andrea Mitchell and the other media hacks to lie for him is truly a stain on their reputations, such as their reputations remain. How many investigators have NBC and MSNBC sent to Chicago to look deeply into the Obama Ayers connection. Any? They don’t want to look because they don’t want to know. They prefer to repeat the Obama talking points as utterly preposterous as they are. So he doesn’t know who and what his pastor is. He doesn’t know who and what his political mentor is. He doesn’t know where his legislative papers are from, his days in the state senate, he doesn’t know, he doesn’t know how he got into college despite his last two years of being in a drug induced haze. He wrote about that. He doesn’t know anything about radical PLO types he used to hang around with. He doesn’t know anything about Saul Alinsky. He just doesn’t know those things he doesn’t want you to know. Sarah Palin, however, is showing the way, along with others in illuminating Obama’s alliances with these people.
Now, Barney Frank, I want to revisit this, too, Barney Frank is now out there accusing Republicans of being racist, conservatives trying to blame economic woes on blacks. He said, ‘This is an effort I believe to appeal to a kind of anger in people–‘ Congressman Frank, they’re already angry and they’re angry at you. We just had an APO headline: ‘Budget Officials Say Financial Turmoil Wipes Out Estimated $2 Trillion in Retirement Savings.’ Two trillion in retirement savings, you know who that’s aimed at, Social Security recipients. They’re going to read that and think their Social Security is gone. This is AP Obama again. Two trillion in retirement savings wiped out. Not unless you sell what you own. If you’re out there selling, you’re in problems. If you hold, the market will be back at some point, probably long before most of you retire. But here’s the problem. The problem is that what Barney Frank and Maxine Waters and Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi and Barack Obama and ACORN and Jimmy Carter and Franklin Raines engineered is the sharp decline in the value of your largest asset, your home.
Everybody is being touched by this, not just people with retirement accounts, 401(k)s and so forth. Everybody’s being touched by this. Home prices in this country, home values have plummeted. Now, that’s bad for owners. It’s pretty good for people who want to get into the market, the housing market now and buy their first home. Prices are coming down. Everybody’s being hurt by this. And how about all these neighborhoods with all the foreclosures or the soon-to-be foreclosures, what about property values there? What about people leaving blighted areas and moving into neighborhoods now under Section A, making these homes purchasable for something like $150 a month? It’s happening in a lot of places. Values of homes are plummeting. This is what Barney Frank wanted. He wanted affordable housing. He wanted everybody in the housing market who couldn’t afford to be there. When you put people in the housing market who can’t afford to be there and then you have policies to keep them there, by definition you have to lower and are lowering the value of people’s number one asset. So it’s hurting everybody. The Democrat Party has gotten exactly what it wanted out of this.
All this happening right now before an election, with you thinking it’s a Bush problem, it’s a Republican problem and that is why John McCain has an obligation to the country he loves tonight and through the remainder of this campaign. Will he step up? If John McCain loses this election, his country, our country, will be turned over to four of the most liberal, most inept political figures in our history: Barack Obama, Joe Biden, Harry Reid, and Nancy Pelosi. Those four people and William Ayers will be running this country. Even worse, they will run this country, our country, without any checks and without any balances and possibly without even the restraint of the filibuster, depending on how the vote in the Senate goes. McCain’s original ideals, however noble they might have seemed, have not worked, and they won’t work, and they won’t turn the election in McCain’s favor. And you know what I’m talking about, the drill emulating Teddy Roosevelt, reaching out across the aisle, cutting back on earmarks, big whoop. That’s not the big deal now. Saying you’ll stop out-of-control spending. Spending is already out of control. This is not the way to go about this campaign. And thanks to Sarah Palin, McCain has been given not one, but two chances to resurrect his campaign, first after the convention, and again after last Thursday’s Palin-Biden debate.
Senator McCain, you were a prisoner in the Hanoi Hilton. You knew there was no way to reach out to your captors in the spirit of bipartisanship. Now, hold on. I am not equating liberals with the Vietcong, but I am saying there is about as much chance of bipartisanship now with the liberals in Congress as there was back then in Vietnam with the Vietcong. Senator, the media that once loved you has abandoned you, they’ve deep-sixed you, they have jettisoned you in order to get a liberal Senate, a liberal House and the most liberal White House in history. Senator McCain has 30 days, less than 30 days to be a hero, to save not a few of your fellow prisoners, but his entire country. He’s got a chance once again to be a hero, a far bigger hero than he was back then. So for the good of the country tonight, Senator McCain, put the blame for the credit mess where it belongs, the original sin: homes for those who couldn’t afford them and Fannie Mae for enabling them and name the names of people who made it possible. Get America off the dime with energy, not only your nuclear plans but our drilling needs and Sarah Palin’s Alaska drilling.
Shock the nation with the fact check. FDR’s philosophy didn’t pull us out of a mess. It took years and years and years and World War II to pull us out of a mess. FDR did not get us out. The New Deal did not get us out. Big Government spending, bailouts, takeovers, did not end the Great Depression. Ronald Reagan’s ideas pulled us out of a mess in a lot less time. Why would you follow FDR’s model? Why follow Teddy Roosevelt’s model? Don’t talk about putting Algore in the cabinet as a climate czar. Don’t talk about Andrew Cuomo as housing czar, attorney general, whatever, don’t talk about that. Demand that Obama tell us how many of his blue sky campaign promises will be canceled by the cost of the bailout or this rescue, and ask Obama where we go to complain when his promised tax cuts are like Bill Clinton’s, they become tax increases.
Quote Hillary Clinton, quote Joe Biden as to what they thought about a President Obama. Senator McCain, candidate McCain, you will either be a greater hero than you were in Vietnam or a former hero no longer ready to lead. Which will it be? Because tonight you have an obligation and for the rest of this campaign, you have an obligation to the country you love. It is time to step up and share with the American people what you know in your heart, that your opposition is not made up of honorable people, and we don’t just have simple disagreements that can be ironed out by working together. We have fundamental ideological differences, and the side opposing you wants to create an America that neither you nor I nor your kids and grandkids will recognize in a few short years.
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RUSH: Celia in Marysville, California. Glad you waited. Nice to have you on the EIB Network.
CALLER: Thank you, Rush. Thank you for your honorable service to our country.
RUSH: Thank you very much.
CALLER: I just want to say that regardless of how we got in the financial crisis which we all know was Congress and Obama in the pocket, politics, and $700 billion is not helping the market yet, but I think beyond that what we have to see is the (unintelligible) of Obama economics because the media has already inaugurated Obama. They haven’t waited for January, they haven’t waited for November, and so the whole world, you know, when we went off the gold standard, our whole financial system is based on confidence and trust in the market, but nationally and internationally there is no confidence due to fear of Obama economics. Like in your earlier monologue you talked about the no checks and balances with the Democratic controlled Congress.
RUSH: Yes.
CALLER: And with Obama as president, you didn’t mention the Supreme Court, because it will be liberal appointees, and so there will be no checks and balances and the economic world knows the disaster that all this —
RUSH: Well, except there’s a problem here. I’ve got a poll out there today that says that 16 out of 17 nations polled want Obama to be president. The only nation that doesn’t want Obama to be president in this worldwide poll is the United States. Now, if the rest of the world wants Obama to be president, why the hell are they having financial turmoil, why the hell are we having financial turmoil in this country? I do agree with you that part of what’s going on in Wall Street is genuine fear over liberals getting unchecked control of this government, and the Drive-Bys will never tell you that. Yesterday, to explain the market drop, do you know what it was? ‘Well, our market’s afraid of what’s happening in Europe.’ Oh, give me a break. That’s like telling you they’re worried about the schools not having enough chairs for the kids in September, October, November. This is ridiculous. We’re worried about European markets? European markets are worried about us.
I don’t care what Obama says, we’re still the economic superpower, what we do affects others, and if they’re all excited about Obama, then the markets ought to be going through the roof around the world. Well, they’re not. In this country the markets are not going through the roof. There’s a lot of concern about the future and Obama is part of the concern people have about the future. He goes over to Berlin and he starts talking about citizens of the world, ‘I am the one, going to lower the seas,’ all this garbage that he spews and 200,000 people are cheering and so forth. How can they possibly let their markets decline when the savior, when The Messiah is going to become president in a few short months? Don’t tell me that the markets worldwide are down as part of an overall conspiracy to elect Democrats here. They may be interested in US politics, but unlike America’s Democrats, most foreign people do not want to wreck their economies to elect Democrats in the United States. Democrats in this country are perfectly willing to do that, but I don’t believe that most people around the world will wreck their economies in order to elect Barack Obama and Barney Frank and so forth and so on. There is a lot of concern out there. Supreme Court, that you mentioned is right on the money, it’s a crucial aspect to all of this well.
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RUSH: Here’s Mary in Jacksonville, Florida. Welcome to the EIB Network. Great to have you here.
CALLER: Hi, Rush. How are you?
RUSH: Fine.
CALLER: Second-time caller.
RUSH: Thank you.
CALLER: It’s almost as exciting having seen Sarah today, as it is to talk to you right now.
RUSH: That’s so sweet of you to say. Thank you.
CALLER: Well, I have such a admirable respect for you and listen to you unconditionally, and I share you with all my kids, and I have four military Marine sons and my husband. I called you once before when Cindy Sheehan was on the scene and going on and on about how George Bush ‘killed her son’ and so forth. But the reason I called today was just to tell you how exciting it was to see Sarah. She has such a great way of connecting with the people, and she’s willing to tell it like it is. She calls the issue, calls it out and calls the problem. You know, she recognizes the problem and who’s caused the problem, doesn’t have any problem saying that. It just drives us nuts that McCain is, you know, been so silent. It’s almost like I want him to speak tonight like she’s been speaking.
RUSH: Well, I think we’re going to get some of that as indicated by his appearance in Albuquerque, New Mexico, yesterday afternoon. I think there’s a pretty good chance that we’re going to see a McCain far more aggressive. He’s probably going to get a question, ‘Well, what about your new negative tone and so forth.’ McCain’s going to say, ‘I’m not being negative. I’m being honest.’ That’s how he could deal with it.