RUSH: Mary in Kingsford, Michigan. You know, it’s good to know there are still people in Michigan who can afford a phone call. Mary, welcome to the program. Nice to have you here.
CALLER: Thanks, Rush. I’m calling to make a comment about our current president and about the president-elect.
RUSH: Yes, ma’am.
CALLER: First of all, let me qualify by saying I am an independent, since labels seem to be the coin of the realm on your program, but I’m 65 years old, so I voted for a lot of presidents, and I voted for Nixon in ’68 ’cause I thought he could get us out of Vietnam, I voted for McGovern in ’72, and to just continue the pattern I did vote for Reagan a couple of times.
RUSH: Yeah?
CALLER: I voted for Bush 41.
RUSH: Hm-hm.
CALLER: I voted the first time for our current president and not the second time.
RUSH: What do you want, a medal?
CALLER: No, I’m just making the point that I do try to think independently. But the point I want to make is about, our current president is leaving office, and obviously leaving a mess behind, leaving us with an unpopular war, and I am basically a fiscal conservative. So he has disappointed me very much on that score. However, I do not dislike him; I do not hate him. Actually, I feel a great deal of sympathy for him, because I think he is a good man who made some very bad choices, and he meant well, he meant well for our country, and so that is my feeling about him.
RUSH: Give me a couple of bad choices that he made. By the way, the coin of the realm on this program is truth, not labels. But give me a couple of bad choices.
CALLER: He took us into a war, he started a war in Iraq, and he had very bad information. He listened to the wrong advisors. We were not prepared for what followed the initial entrance into the country, and we’re still left with that war right now, and it looks like Afghanistan will continue to plague us, and —
RUSH: Why?
CALLER: — also fiscally, you know, need I say that we’re in bad shape fiscally, and so these things happened on his watch. But yet the point I’m trying to make is that it’s not incumbent upon us to hate him, to dislike him. I feel he is a good man who tried to do the right thing. Now, relative to our president-elect, I also feel he is a good man who is going to try to do the best for our country that he can do. And it disturbs me, Rush, to have you at this point in time criticizing him. You’re unbearably negative toward him, you’re sarcastic about him, and yet if we’re all Americans, and I’m an American more than anything, I wish him well.
RUSH: There you go, using labels again.
CALLER: Well, that’s a good label, American, I guess.
RUSH: Oh, there are good labels? Do you want Obama to succeed?
CALLER: Yes, I do. I do. Our country —
RUSH: So you want socialism? You want an ever-expanding government in debt larger than we’ve ever been in debt; you want tax rates ballooning to even come close to paying for it if we could; you want national health care; you want soft on foreign policy national defense; you want the CIA politicized?
RUSH: I want what’s best for our country, and that doesn’t mean that I’m going to support everything he does, but I’m going to give him a chance. And that’s what I think everybody should do right now is give the man a chance. It was fine to criticize him during the campaign, and maybe a year down the road we can come in with the criticism again, but right now it’s a new beginning.
RUSH: Have you been following the transition? Welcome, ladies and gentlemen, to Exhibit A, election returns, 2008.
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RUSH: Ladies and gentlemen, what was…? Oh, this lovely young — well, woman who called mere moments ago lied to Mr. Snerdley, typical independent, typical moderate. She said to Mr. Snerdley she just wanted to talk about Bush and how much respect she had for him, and we got a filibuster on her voting record to prove her independence ’cause she’s voted for all these disparate candidates, and then we got to the real meat of it when she said, ‘We need to give Obama a chance.’ How can I stop Obama’s ‘chance’? What is this? You independents, liberals, what is it? No criticism ever, unless it’s George Bush or me or a Republican? No criticism permitted?
That’s negative; that’s hate speech. It’s ‘uncalled for’? We must give him a year before we start criticizing him? Why? There’s plentiful evidence out there ladies and gentlemen. Frankly, I’ve even had questions. A good friend of mine last night — I will not mention who it is because I didn’t get permission to. It was private e-mail, off-the-record. The person said to me, ‘I, frankly, am stunned you just don’t want to get out of politics here on your show for a couple or three months. Do you realize how depressed we all are out there?’ I wrote back, and I said, ‘Depressed? I am energized. I am honored. I am happy to be the last man standing. I am happy to be the one lone outpost in the entire United States media where you can tune in and enjoy it and laugh and enjoy yourself, and also get the truth that you’re not getting anywhere else. I’m honored to hold that position, and I’m not having to be dishonest or make things up in order to hold it.’