Common Enemy in DC: Tea Party

RUSH: Folks, I know I speak for all of you. We had this last caller. He’s been paying attention to politics for two years and he’s tired of all the bickering, and he said, ‘We just want everybody to get along. We want there to be no division between rich and poor.’ (laughs) Well, how’s this gonna happen, sir? Are the rich just gonna give up their money or are the poor gonna go find the pot of gold? How does it happen? Who’s gonna sit there and determine what everybody has, what everybody gets? I know I speak for all of us, ladies and gentlemen. I would submit, folks, that I — and I’m being (sigh) serious about this. I think I’ve probably done more to bring Americans together over the last 20 plus years than Obama has.

Obama has come to divide, and he succeeded. This country has never been more divided. Well, throw out the Civil War, but in the modern times this country has never been more divided. It really gets tiresome to be constantly accused of spreading negativity about Obama and the country. He’s doing that on his own. We just chronicle it here. Has everybody forgotten the media, the Democrat drumbeat for the last eight years prior to Obama’s immaculation? Where were the complaints about negativity then? I mean, in the last eight years prior to 2008, we had a political party in this country rooting for America to lose at war.

We had a Senate majority leader happily proclaiming, ‘This war is lost!’ We had Democrats accusing General Petraeus of lying before he had said a word in joint congressional and House hearings. Besides, our criticism (or our reporting of the facts) has helped lead to the only hope that we now have, to turn around in November and the victory of the Tea Party, which — if I might interject here — if there is a common enemy in Washington among those who will sit together tonight, it is the Tea Party. Want me to say that again a little louder?

If there is a common enemy in Washington, among those who will sit together tonight, it is the Tea Party. The Democrats don’t like the Tea Party because the Tea Party engineered their defeat. The Republicans, some members, don’t like the Tea Party because the Tea Party illustrates what they have to do to win and they’re not really comfortable with that. If it weren’t for ours and other people’s voices, what do you think Obama would be talking about tonight? Do you think Obama would even be pretending to move to the center? If there hadn’t been any successful opposition, what would Obama be talking about tonight? I shudder to think what he would be talking about.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: Is it civility for Obama to continually lie, to promise the same things he’s promised us last year and the year before? Jobs, jobs, jobs, shovel-ready, shovel-ready, shovel-ready, earmarks, spending freezes, all of these things he’s promised before. Where is the civility in misleading the people?

By the way, Fox News, ladies and gentlemen, is reporting 11 policemen have been shot in the past 24 hours. I was nowhere near any of the crime scenes. Eleven policemen shot in the past 24 hours. Is that somehow due to the Tea Party? Eleven policemen shot in 24 hours, is that due to all the right-wing rhetoric from Sarah Palin and talk radio? I haven’t heard anybody make the charge.

By the way, Obama mentioned jobs 29 times in last year’s State of the Union. What good did it do? He mentioned jobs 29 times. He’s mentioned it much more than that outside the State of the Union. Jobs, that’s our focus now. He had a jobs summit in December 2009, and I remember them say the focus was not on creating new jobs. They actually said that. They had a jobs summit and Thomas L. Friedman was there, the columnist for the New York Times, at the jobs summit. Yeah, laser-like focus on jobs, exactly right.

To Huntington Beach, California. Hi, Dave. Welcome to the Rush Limbaugh program.

CALLER: Hey, Rush. I’m honored to speak with you, very nervous.

RUSH: Well, thank you very much, sir, but you don’t need to be nervous, really. This is a very pleasant experience.

CALLER: Anyway, then you remember the old Statue of Liberty play in football?

RUSH: Absolutely.

CALLER: Okay, what you got now is for two years the Tea Party has had both Democrats and most Republicans scratching their heads, and this is what I call the civility play. They’re trying to quiet down the Tea Party and put us back in our place.

RUSH: Well, that’s what you think all the sitting together at the State of the Union is about?

CALLER: Hm-hm. Yeah. It’s a way to move the conversation in a different direction.

RUSH: You may have a point. I just said that I think one of the things that those sitting together tonight probably agree on is the Tea Party. The Washington establishment does not like the Tea Party. I mean you have Obama doing the State of the Union. You’ve got Paul Ryan doing the Republican response, and Michele Bachmann doing the Tea Party response, which is quite telling. Some are mad at Bachmann for doing it, some are very mad at Bachmann for doing this, but we know this. Don’t you love all these politicians that run around and campaign as outsiders, anti-establishment, ‘I’m not part of that Washington culture.’ Well, then join the Tea Party, ’cause that’s who’s really anti-establishment, that’s who’s really a bunch of outsiders is the Tea Party. But you don’t see those politicians who want to be considered outsiders joining or embracing the Tea Party, do you? The Tea Party represents a threat. None of the networks are covering Bachmann’s response except CNN, which, sorry for her, means it won’t be seen. CNN is the only network covering the Tea Party response in the State of the Union tonight.