The Truth: A Jackass is a Jackass

RUSH: Newark, New Jersey, Alex, you’re next, great to have you here, sir. Hello.

CALLER: Hey, Rush, big fan.

RUSH: Thank you.

CALLER: Quickly, the first point is I really feel that this new Pledge to America is nothing like our 1994 edition of Contract with America. I feel it wasn’t strong enough. It’s not as specific. You know, there’s a lot better — they were much more specific in 1994 and they didn’t have all this ‘we hate the Democrats,’ you know, and it was much more like, ‘We’re gonna do stuff.’ Second, I really feel that when the people were booing Bush and we were all screaming, the Republicans were all up and at it, you know, he’s our president, there’s a certain amount of respect by being our president that we’ll show him no matter what he does, he could do anything and there’s a certain amount of respect, and you getting on the air and calling our president a jackass is just — it’s so not in cue with everything that we as Republicans, you know, and conservatives believe in, you know, that there’s a certain amount of respect that we have no matter what he does. That’s how I feel. I don’t know, you know —

RUSH: I know you don’t.

CALLER: Yeah, I do.

RUSH: Well, you said you know you don’t, and I know you don’t. The difference here in what was said about Bush and all the mean-spirited things about Bush and my calling Obama a jackass, I’m telling the truth. All that stuff about Bush was lies, it was made up, it was character assassination. I don’t know what your problem with the Pledge is. Let me ask you, Alex, have you read the Pledge? How many pages are in the Pledge?

CALLER: There’s 37 pages and there’s a lot of graphics in the new Pledge as opposed to the Contract with America which was two or three pages, all shiny pictures of the Statute of Liberty, there was just, ‘We’re going to do this, this is how we’re gonna do it, how much time we’re gonna do it in and by the first year we’ll have it out.’ I’m a major conservative, I loved that. You know, I live in Newark, New Jersey, I watched that whole debate with O’Donnell yesterday, and, you know, good for her, she was great. I’m a real conservative, but there’s a limit, there’s a limit on how we treat other people, and especially our president, who is our representative. When we insult him, we insult our representative. Whether we voted him in or not, he’s our president.

RUSH: You know, let me ask you a question here. People keep reacting to this jackass business. Would you rather me repeatedly say the man is purposefully trying to destroy the United States economy, he has grudge against this country, obviously he doesn’t like it, he wants it to be cut down to size, are you okay with that?

CALLER: That’s an opinion. That’s an opinion, I might not agree, I might think that, you know, he’s actually trying to do something good.

RUSH: Well, but jackass is not an opinion, jackass is a statement of fact. I don’t know. Here’s some stuff from the Pledge, what’s not specific about this: Permanently extend all the Bush tax cuts, including those on the wealthy. Cancel all unspent stimulus money. Repeal the Obama health care bill, replacing it with Republican proposals. There’s nothing in the Pledge about hating Democrats. I don’t know. I think your priorities are a little out of whack. You’re worried about how people are going to think of you rather than what they are doing to the country. You know, right now, frankly, I don’t care about their feelings. They obviously don’t care about ours, either. And I don’t think this Pledge or even the jackass comment takes away from decorum in any way, shape, or form. In fact, I frankly have been amazed at how it penetrated, out of all the things. And it’s because brevity is the soul of wit. The fewer words you can say to make a point, the more powerful the point.