RUSH: Ben in Milwaukee, you’re next. It’s Open Line Friday. We’re happy to have you with us. Hello.
CALLER: Yes, sir, Rush, and thank you for everything that you do.
RUSH: Yes.
CALLER: Rush, I have a question, and I need your perspective on this as the great teacher that you are, but I can’t help but sit back and think that our current president is really… He’s so caught up in building his library that you can’t see that he’s self-destructing. I mean, the people that he has surrounded himself with — and we know that the fuel that they live by is hatred, and to put somebody like Hillary or — or, you know, somebody that has openly — or Joe ‘I Can Cure Your Paralysis’ Biden or whoever may be in his key positions and the things that they’re saying and they’re doing… Just yesterday, even, I mean it goes to show the powerful force that you are when the only thing that he could talk about predominantly in Green Bay was how ‘they’ and ‘them.’ Don’t believe ‘they’ and ‘them,’ which is Rush and the rest, who are bringing out the truth, and calling it for what it is and who he is for an individual that is driven by pure hate and not common sense, which is what we see.
RUSH: But your question still is, ‘When is he going to implode,’ right? ‘Is he going to self-destruct?’
CALLER: I see it coming and he — you know, and — and —
RUSH: Well, now, wait a second. What do you see coming? Define ‘self-destruct.’ He could self-destruct… Look, he may not have self-destructed but he’s already embarked on a destruction of our economy and so far who cares about it?
CALLER: Well —
RUSH: I’m not arguing. I’m trying to draw you out. I’m not faking it. I want you to tell me: What will be the manifestation of his self-destruction? For him to self-destruct, he could self-destruct all day and still have a 60% approval rating.
CALLER: Right. But you know what it is, is it’s ‘hope.’ It’s a vestige of hope on behalf of those of us who still care, and unfortunately these individuals that call your program, the majority of the time who are paid by groups like ACORN to pretend whatever it may be but, you know what? We are people who care, who respect, who want the good for America, who want to go out and achieve, who want to work hard, who want to pick up our brothers and sisters, who want to do the right thing. We want to move forward. We want to make this country the greatest we can possibly do. How do you do that when you’re legalizing the killing of babies, you’re freeing terrorists, you’re raising taxes you are using to filling your pockets. You’re involved in, you know, Blagojevich-style politics through and through. It’s self-destruction, you know, and it is happening. And, you know, yes. Do we need more of a front? Yes. You are a front right now, and the front that we need, because that’s what’s driving them crazy — and it was evident yesterday in Green Bay.
RUSH: Well, you know, that’s a good point. But unlike Obama, I would not take credit for forcing his press conference yesterday. If I had the same kind of personality as Obama, I would have opened this program today and said, ‘Folks, that town meeting, that was all because of me. I’m glad to see that this show was affecting the behavior of the president of the United States of America.’ I don’t look at things that way. That’s for you to say, and I will agree that you’re probably right. But I’m content to let others conclude it and to say it. I have not changed from this. I have not changed from my constant-over-these-last-20-years-expressed belief in the common sense and the decency of the American people. And I think that there are more people waking up and more people starting to say, ‘This is not what we voted for.’
I think a lot of people thought they were electing a moderate centrist down the road that was going to bring people together, that he was the kind of guy that was exemplified by his speech patterns and so forth. But I think there are a lot of people now that are starting to say, ‘Wait a minute! This is not what we voted for.’ You can look it on polls on the GM-Chrysler bailout. You can look at it on his health care plan. I mean, issue by issue he does not have majority support yet he does have a high approval number. Now, those two things are going to intersect at some point and something’s gotta give. I also have faith — believe me — in the power of the opposition media today. I believe if this were 20 years ago, there would be no stopping this — or 25. There would be no stopping it, there would be no alternative media, but there is a huge alternative media.
The existence of the New Media today I think is a driving force in what has turned the State-Run Media upside down and has made it a laughingstock. Because they realize now that they’re in some sort of a competition. They’re dropping the pretense of objectivity, for the most part, and they’ve chosen sides now for just a host of reasons. But it’s going to be an ongoing battle, and stopping liberalism is something that will never, ever cease. We’re always going to have battle it. By definition, an organization or a person who is not conservative will be or will become a liberal. Liberalism is easy. Liberalism is very seductive. Conservatism is more of a thought process. It’s an active pursuit. Even though people live their lives that way, it’s still — to understand the essence of how you live it still — requires a little bit of an intellectual pursuit, intellectual application. Liberalism doesn’t require any thinking at all. It just requires feelings.
So it’s a constant battle that’s going to have to be waged. The evidence, best evidence — if you want to really express frustration: How are we here after two landslide elections of Ronald Reagan? How are we here after the Republican takeover of the House in 1994? ‘How in the world,’ we ask ourselves, ‘can the voters forget?’ And the answer is, our side stopped teaching. Our side got wobbly. Our side wanted to make nice with the other guys. Our side thinks that the future is getting the gay marriage vote and the Hispanic vote. Our side thinks that showing ourselves to be more like moderate Democrats and so forth (whatever they are) in Washington, that that’s the future. It’s an ongoing battle. But have faith because I think there are more Americans than you would believe that think exactly as you just said, and I think they outnumber the people who fervently support what Obama is doing.