RUSH: Here’s John in Centerville, Ohio. Hi. Welcome to the program.
CALLER: Thank you, Rush. It’s good to speak to you.
RUSH: Thank you, sir.
CALLER: Just a quick thought. I don’t think the administration fears you being the leader of the Republican Party. I think they fear that you’re fast becoming the leader of Libertarians, Democrats, liberals, and some of the Hollywood likes. Look at Whoopi, after all.
RUSH: Look at what?
CALLER: Whoopi. Whoopi Goldberg.
RUSH: Oh, you think that I’m the leader of the opposition in general, not just the Republican Party and I’ve become —
CALLER: Fast becoming.
RUSH: Well —
CALLER: There’s a lot of unrest out there, and people are looking for a light.
RUSH: I would say they’re right.
CALLER: Yes.
RUSH: I would say they’re right. I don’t know anybody who has got a louder voice of opposition to what this administration is doing. I don’t see anybody else’s cover on Newsweek magazine saying shut up. I don’t see anybody else being portrayed as the enemy. You’ve got a good point: leader of the opposition, not the Republican Party.
CALLER: There you go.
RUSH: And we’ve got so many people on our side who are afraid to be in the opposition. And the Democrats, the Democrat voters, I mean, you gotta give them time. I mean, they’re still in the honeymoon period for the guy.
CALLER: Well, I think it’s growing fast in the opposite direction. You know, there’s a lot of unrest, and I think people are switching out there. I think it’s growing fast.
RUSH: Well, I think it’s faster than a lot of people know. These tea parties, there’s a lot of things bubbling up out there.
CALLER: Exactly.
RUSH: There’s a lot of effervescence, and there are a lot of people here that are getting very alarmed and very much concerned, very eager to protest all this, and the Drive-Bys just don’t cover any of that because they’re still in the mode of presenting this guy as a 99% approval rating, that everybody loves him except for one American: Rush Limbaugh.
CALLER: Exactly.
RUSH: I appreciate the call, John. Anything else?
CALLER: No, sir. Thank you very much for putting me on.
RUSH: You bet. Let’s see. Joel in Jacksonville, Florida. You’re next. It’s great to have you here on the EIB Network. Hello.
CALLER: Hey, Rush. How are you?
RUSH: Good.
CALLER: Well, good. I want to just say a couple things quickly. Just congratulations first on an amazing career.
RUSH: Thank you, sir.
CALLER: And also, thank you for three things. One, the accurate dissemination of what I think is very vital information for the American public; for prescient insights you provide; and also for the forum that you offer to everyday Americans like me, the opportunity to exercise free speech on a national platform. So I think it’s an incredible service that you provide, and I thank you for it.
RUSH: Well, thank you, sir, very much.
CALLER: If you’ll give me a minute, I just want to set up my comments because this goes back a couple weeks, and basically it’s an observation and maybe a little bit of an admonition. A couple weeks ago you commented that there were no elected officials that seemed capable or willing to give voice to conservative values. And on Tuesday of that week you again said something to the effect that we are desperately looking for elected conservative leadership and even referenced the fog that saved the Continental Army at Valley Forge (sic) saying we’re looking for a fog or if I can paraphrase it somewhat. We’re looking for a miracle I think is probably more precisely what your comment was intended to convey. And on Wednesday of that week, you also rebuffed those essentially vaunting the importance of style over content in reference to some of the flak that Bobby Jindal was getting after he responded to President Obama’s congressional address. And yet I think we all understand and appreciate the ability to clearly articulate ideas as directly tied to the measure in which those ideas —
RUSH: That’s true, but I’m down to 30 seconds here. I hate to have to hurry you along, but about Jindal, what I was simply saying is this: We have a tendency on our side to throw people overboard. The left never throws their people overboard, other than Blagojevich. It’s the first time I’ve seen it, and now maybe Burris. They don’t do it. He had one speech. And we have a bunch of people who want to get rid of him on the basis that he had one bad speech and one bad style speech three and a half years out from the presidential race. We just gotta stop eating our own! That’s what we’re doing way too much of. And I’m just trying to stand up for the guy because I know him and I know what his policies are, and I know what his beliefs are, and I know that he’s a good man and he doesn’t deserve to be trashed the way he was by our side.
BREAK TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: Let’s go to Chicago. Joan, glad you called. You’re next on the Rush Limbaugh program. Hello.
CALLER: Hey, Rush, how you doing?
RUSH: Fine. Thank you.
CALLER: I just want to tell you, I’m a longtime listener, first-time caller, and I have to say: I love your guts, but I want to tell you this whole thing with the Democrats and you, it’s like a bad divorce, Rush. Heh-heh. Don’t keep catching their ball. All you’re doing is catching their ball and throwing it back, and that’s distracting you from your insights, your message, the issues.
RUSH: No. No, no, no, no, no, no. It’s not. The one person staying focused on Obama, the one person tying Obama to all these policies is me.
CALLER: Yeah, yeah, yeah!
RUSH: There aren’t enough other people, particularly — well, very few others with the guts to do it.
CALLER: No, we want you to do it, Rush.
RUSH: Well, I’m doing it. I’m not being distracted by this.
CALLER: No, I’m talking about the Rahm Emanuel thing. Every time they throw you a curve, you catch the ball, and you throw it back.
RUSH: Like when?
CALLER: It’s like a bad… You know, it’s he said, she said, this. Just rise above it, because that’s when you’re the most brilliant, that’s what we need to hear from you.
RUSH: I’m totally confused. What do you mean, ‘rise above it’? I am above it.
CALLER: No, you’re not. You’re just catching the ball and you’re sounding —
RUSH: Give me an example of what you’re talking about, Joan.
CALLER: Well, for instance, on this Newt Gingrich thing, I heard the caller. Newt Gingrich was saying the exact same thing that you say about Obama, only he used different words. He said, of course I think the president should succeed, but I don’t agree with a lot of his policies that he hoped that they would fail. That’s exactly what you’ve been saying.
RUSH: No, he didn’t say that.
CALLER: Yes, he did.
RUSH: No, he didn’t say that, not at least the sound bite I’ve got. I didn’t see the show.
CALLER: No, I saw the show and I heard the sound bite again. He’s saying essentially —
RUSH: No, no. He said, ‘I don’t want the president to fail. I want him to learn new policies.’
CALLER: Well, that’s what you’re saying.
RUSH: I want to leave this studio and fly home today without an airplane, too.
CALLER: No, no. He’s saying the same thing.
RUSH: Obama’s about as likely to change his policies as I am to be able to fly like a bird this afternoon.
CALLER: Ah, we’re going to get him, Rush, as long as we keep listening to your messaging, your insight.
RUSH: (sigh)
CALLER: But this baby teenage thing about — you know, I can just see Rahm Emanuel in the hallway with Axelrod and they’re whispering about da-da-da-da-da. They throw you the ball, you catch it, and you respond the same way. Get over it. Just rise above it.
RUSH: You know, I never married these guys, and so therefore there can’t be a divorce, messy or otherwise.
CALLER: You know what a divorce is like, Rush.
RUSH: What you want me to do… Yeah. (chuckles) Don’t… Yeah. I’m smiling for the first time today.
I’ve gotta take a break, folks. Timing is everything.
BREAK TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: Back to the audio sound bites, ABC’s This Week with George Stephanopoulos, David Brooks of the New York Times was on the roundtable discussions.
BROOKS: The problem with them and the problem with Limbaugh in terms of intellectual philosophy is they’re stuck with Reagan. They’re stuck with the idea that government is always the problem. There are a lot of Republicans up on Capitol Hill right now calling for a spending freeze in the middle of a recession, slash, depression. That is insane, but they are thinking the way they thought in 1982, if you can only think that way again, that is just insane, and there are a lot of Republicans like David Frum, the author of this piece who are trying to say Reagan was great for his era, but it’s time to move on. There are just not a lot of them on Capitol Hill right now, and I think the party is looking for that kind of Republican.
RUSH: We nominated one. (laughing) We nominated one, Mr. Brooks, got beat, what is it, 52-46. A bunch of Reagan guys won in 1993-1994. A bunch of Reagan Democrats won in 2008 and 2006, Mr. Brooks, in the Democrat House of Representative races, a bunch of Reagan Democrats, conservative candidates won. So there you have it. The era of Reagan is over. I’m stuck with Reagan, and that means that government never does anything good. Nobody ever said that, the idea that government’s always the problem. At any rate, I’m happy to be stuck with Reagan. It’s an honor to me. I just wonder if these guys ever stop to think that the Democrats never throw FDR overboard. In fact, Obama’s now trying to do FDR again. Every Democrat tries to emulate FDR. I wanted you to hear that.
Tim Kaine was on Fox News Sunday. He’s the chairman the Democrat National Committee. Chris Wallace said, ‘The Democratic National Committee, the organization that you run, is planning to put up a billboard in Rush’s hometown of West Palm Beach, Florida. And you’re having a contest to come up with a slogan — I assume it’ll be a somewhat snarky slogan, Governor to put on the billboard. In the campaign, Barack Obama talked about changing the way business is done in Washington. Governor, isn’t going after Rush Limbaugh a perfect example of the stale ideology and petty partisanship that the president was talking about?’
KAINE: It’s not like Rush is a member of Congress or, you know, or anyone of that kind. He’s a radio personality who has been saying that he wants the president to fail. The billboard is a little bit of fun, admittedly, but there is an important point. At a time of crisis in this nation, nobody should be rooting for the president to fail. Both this country and the world needs him to succeed. If we have people out there praying for the president to fail and trying to rally folks around that, we need to push back on that.
RUSH: Well, let’s go back again to the Fox News poll of August of 2006, a two-day poll, 8th and 9th of August, 2006. Mr. Kaine, the question was number ten on the Fox News poll. Regardless of how you voted in the presidential election, would you say you want President Bush to succeed or not? Fifty-one percent of Democrats said they wanted him to fail. They didn’t want him to succeed. We were talking about losing a war here, Governor Kaine. We’re talking about hoping the military fails in its effort to secure victory in Iraq. The last caller, Snerdley told me, Joan in Chicago, that what she never really got to, she wanted me to apologize, she wanted me to apologize for this ‘fail’ remark because that will end it and they’ll have to move on. Joan, Joan, dear, if you are really going to — sorry, ‘dear’ is a condescending term. I got suspended in Kansas City once for saying that. Joan, my good friend, to apologize, you talk about never hearing the end of it? No, no, no, you never apologize, particularly about something you’re right about, unless you’re married. Yeah, that’s true. If you’re married, it’s a whole different story, but I’m not married to these guys, Joan, so I can’t divorce ’em. Chris Wallace, though, he has a great comeback to this. And here’s what he said to Governor Kaine.
WALLACE: Governor, we have to leave it there. I do want to point out just as a point of information that Rush Limbaugh says, and I think if you read what he says, he wasn’t saying I want the president to fail, he was saying I want his policies, his agenda to fail and that he disagreed with him and thought they were bad for America, but fair enough.
RUSH: There we go. So Chris Wallace, thank you, sir, daring to say back to the chairman of the Democrat National Committee, the truth. Now, this next bite, this is cool. Lindsey Graham was on Meet the Press with David Gregory. He was on with Senator Chuck-U Schumer. And Gregory said, ‘A lot of back-and-forth between the White House and Rush Limbaugh. Is his prominence and influence right now in the Republican Party good or bad for the party?’
GRAHAM: His prominence in the radio world to gin up people for conservative cause is prominent. He doesn’t play in the Republican Party. He’s not an elected official.
GREGORY: He didn’t have influence over lawmakers?
GRAHAM: Sure, when people call, some people give in. I’m Lindsey Grahamnesty. He’s been on me for two or three or four years about different things, and I take it for what it’s worth.
SCHUMER: He calls me worse.
RUSH: Chuck-U Schumer. They know. (laughing) ‘I’m Lindsey Grahamnesty.’ (laughing)
Let’s grab a call here before we have to go to the break. This is Toni in Galveston, you’re next. Welcome to the program.
CALLER: Well, thank you, Rush, and thanks for keeping me laughing at a terrible time in the country.
RUSH: I’m happy to give it a shot and try.
CALLER: You always do. I wanted to make just two quick points, if I might.
RUSH: Yes, ma’am.
CALLER: I listened to Mr. Buffett this morning, and it was interesting to me that he described the fall, September, the fall of 2008 as the Pearl Harbor of our financial systems and that in fact what Paulson and President Bush did was the correct thing to do, which sort of flies in the face of the way it’s being painted now. The other thing I wanted to remind you of, because it keeps going around in my head, is if you recall when President Clinton was in all of his trouble, all the Democrats jumped to his defense with this one cry, which was, the American people don’t care about Paula Jones, they care about Dow Jones.
RUSH: Right.
CALLER: So just wanted to put that little bird out there because it seems to me they don’t seem to be worrying about Paula or the Dow Jones now up there, so thought you might be interested in hearing it.
RUSH: Well, I’m glad that you refreshed my memory on that, my dear.
CALLER: Well —
RUSH: Toni, Toni, I’m sorry, I’m glad that you refreshed my memory on that.
CALLER: Well, you’re so welcome, and I enjoy you so much. I really do.
RUSH: Thanks a lot.
CALLER: I think about my dad when I listen to what you’ve been saying today. He always said to me, ‘Remember that the business of America is business.’
RUSH: The business of America is business.
CALLER: That’s right.
RUSH: Well said.
CALLER: I thank you, Rush. God bless you, honey.
RUSH: Thanks, Toni. I appreciate you as well.