RUSH: Dwight in Indianapolis. Indianapolis is, by the way, the home of the owner of the Indianapolis Colts, a man by the name of Jim ‘Hearsay.’ Dwight, welcome to the program. Great to have you here.
CALLER: I appreciate it. I was just calling in because earlier you had mentioned or asked about liberals who might be upset at Obama and I’m actually one of those liberals, and the question of whether one would abandon him? I’m not sure, but I did vote for Nader in 2000, so I have certainly voted third party in the past when I think the Democrats have strayed too far, and I’m certainly of that opinion in terms of this administration, too. So…
RUSH: Can I ask you a personal question first?
CALLER: Sure.
RUSH: This always fascinates me because I’ve heard that liberals are afraid to call here because they think they’re just going to get hung up on or insulted or whatever.
CALLER: Uh-huh.
RUSH: And yet you called. I’m curious. You obviously didn’t think you would be mistreated when you called?
CALLER: No. That has happened but I’ve never heard anybody being mistreated on your show.
RUSH: Okay.
CALLER: I will say that has happened on more local conservative talk radio stations that I’ve listened to. But not your show.
RUSH: Well, yeah. I don’t know. I guess they could be if you say it. But you voted for Obama. Why are you dissatisfied?
CALLER: Well, I’m dissatisfied in a number of respects. I suppose the first one would actually be the health care bill. To me I see a $1.2 trillion income transfer to private insurance companies required by law. And in some measure, the way in which —
RUSH: Do you really…? Wait just a second. (laughing)
CALLER: Yes.
RUSH: Fascinating. You oppose Obama’s health care because you think it’s a $1.2 trillion transfer to the insurance companies?
CALLER. Yes.
RUSH: Where did you hear that? Because I haven’t heard that.
CALLER: Well, because it is essentially requiring people to purchase health insurance, adding for the insurance companies, what, 47 million, 38 million new customers?
RUSH: Yeah, but I ought not tell you what I’m going to tell you because when I finish here you’re going to love Obama again.
CALLER: (laughing) I would like it.
RUSH: I’m going to tell you the truth. I know I’m going to regret telling you this, but I’m going to do this for the larger audience out there. Here’s what you have been led to believe is a $1.2 trillion transfer to the insurance agencies is actually this. The health care plan — and there are five different ones, but the best guess is that the final version will indeed require everybody to have insurance. There is a fine if you don’t get insurance. The IRS will be investigating to see whether you have health insurance, and you’ll be fined. The fine will be priced in such a way that it will be easier to pay the fine than it will be to buy insurance. This is by design. Now, the next thing to happen is that there will also be a public option in the plan which will be cheaper than any private insurance plan, and the objective then is to get as many employers as possible to dump their current insurance plans with private insurance companies and go on the public option. And that will then destroy the private insurance agency. That is the ultimate objective of the Obama health care plan, which you ought to like.
CALLER: Well, I would say, though, that one of the things on the political websites, it seems to be a consistent message, is that Obama is not invested in the public option. And Olympia Snowe seems to —
RUSH: What website? What website?
CALLER: Politico. You played it earlier.
RUSH: Well, see, I understand your confusion now because these guys — for most of the State-Controlled Media they’re not, trust me on this, Dwight, you can’t trust them. It’s not just Politico, you just can’t trust any of them. Obama says there won’t be a public option, and the reason he’s saying it is because there’s so much opposition to it and he needs members of Congress to vote for this thing so he’s made people think he’s going to take it off the table. But if you believe anybody about anything ever in your life, including your mom and dad, believe me when I tell you that the entire, sole, 100% reason for national health care reform is a public option. There is no reason for Obama to do this if there isn’t one. And trust me, it may not be in there the first year, it may not be in there the second year, but we’ve played sound bites on this program of Obama from 2007 and 2008 saying it may take 15 years to wipe out private insurance, but that’s the objective, it’s the only way we can make health care fair for everybody. So you need to relax —
CALLER: Well, the other element to it is, like I said, it seems that Olympia Snowe and those folks have been more driving the debate than the 51 Democrats who said they support a public option, but the other element is the question of if the Obama administration has negotiated with drug companies to get those industries on his side in this debate, this would include part (unintelligible) —
RUSH: Yeah, you’re right about that.
CALLER: — you know, it will prevent the ability of the public option to, you know, be (unintelligible) the Medicare rate —
RUSH: Look, you have no reason to believe me other than I’m an honest guy. But let me tell you about that. Yes, Obama made a deal with Big Drug. Billy Tauzin is their leader, he’s a former Republican member of Congress from Louisiana. And what they did, they promised to give Obama $150 billion that Obama could use advertising health care and to say that the drug companies are part of his plan. The drug companies, Dwight, agreed to this because it was their hope that Obama would be nice to them after all this was all done and exempt them from some of the hell he has planned for everybody else. This is what I want you to believe. And I know you won’t, but I’m going to tell you anyway. It’s from the bottom of my heart because I know this guy, I know people like him. And in time, he’s going to own the drug companies, too. So if you don’t like drug companies you gotta be prepared for not liking Obama just like he owns car companies and owns Wall Street he’s going to end up either controlling them or owning them outright. But regardless he is going to punish ’em. And what I hear you saying is that you don’t like big private sector corporations, Big Oil, Big Insurance, Big Pharmaceutical, Big Chicken, and I just want you to be confident, Obama has ’em all in his crosshairs. He just can’t tell everybody all at once that’s what he’s going to do. You need to be patient out there, Dwight.
BREAK TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: The caller Dwight from Indianapolis, home of the owner of the Indianapolis Colts, Jim ‘Hearsay.’ CNN says I’m the radio king, right? That I am the king of all radio; and Dwight called and said that I was polite but some of the local hosts that he listens to in Indianapolis hang up on people and so forth. So I wanted to tell Dwight: As the king of the talk radio kingdom I’m going to look into this, because this is not how you run the kingdom.
BREAK TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: Mike in Washington, DC, hello, sir.
CALLER: Rush, you’re either absolutely ignorant or a complete ingrate; and I know you’re not ignorant, so ingrate must be it. Listen, from the time Joe Lieberman came back to the Senate when it reconvened and after campaigning with John McCain and screwing the Democrats in every single way, Barack Obama opened up his arms to him. The stimulus was one-third tax cuts, another concession to right-wing Republicans. What he shoulda done is gone back to the tax plan we had under Bill Clinton, when everybody’s votes (sic) were raising. The Afghan war, there wouldn’t be a debate on the Afghan war if Barack Obama was beholden to progressives. He screwed progressives. He’s got this thing called a ‘veal pen’ for progressives.
You know what a ‘veal pen’ is? You can’t move around in it if you’re a calf. You just sit there. You’re fed every day but you can’t move. That’s how he treats progressives. He puts progressives in this little veal pen, he has meetings with them where Rahm Emanuel comes in and says, ‘If you run ads against Democrats that aren’t for the public option, you’re F-bomb on stupid and we’re going to dry up your funding. All of our institutional funders, we’re gonna take it away,’ and he’s done that. He’s punished people by taking away their funding, for criticizing Barack Obama from the left. He hasn’t done any of that to Joe Liebermans or the Blue Dogs or the conservative Democrats or Republicans that have come out against him. What did he do to Chuck Grassley after he lied about death panels? He is your best friend, Rush. If he was like Tom DeLay or George Bush, do you think we’d have any problem changing this country?
RUSH: No…
CALLER: He’s ran on hope and change and we’ve gotten none of it.
RUSH: I sit here in stunned disbelief. I don’t know what… It took me awhile to figure out what you were talking about. Lieberman and I’m an ingrate because I don’t appreciate how much Obama is really doing for me by destroying his own left?
CALLER: With the mandate this man has he could have changed this country 180 degrees by now, and maybe it’s changed two or three degrees. He is your best friend as a Democrat.
RUSH: (sigh)
CALLER: He got elected with mandate for change, and he’s changed nothing. You’ve got the status, George Bushian quo. You should be singing this guy’s praises every day on your radio show.
RUSH: We have already lost whatever portion of America old Mike here represents. It’s gone, critical thinking. Obama is Bush. Obama is Bush. If I were Bush, I’d call in this show and deny it. I wouldn’t put up with this.