“Suddenly, Democrats are back to ‘politics stops at the water’s edge,’ in preparation for shielding an Obama administration from criticism.”
“Jim Nantz is a professional sports announcer, and his job is to keep himself out of what he’s covering, and he does that better than anybody else.”
“About 1979 or ’80, Howard Cosell came in with ABC to Kansas City when I was working for the Royals to do a game. I got my courage up and went down there, and I told him I had met him in Pittsburgh. His first reaction was Howard Cosell: ‘How dare you interrupt me when I’m in the middle of this preparation for this broadcast! You expect me to remember you from Pittsburgh?’ and then he totally changed, after I’m sitting there quaking in my boots, ‘Of course I remember. How are you? Nice to see you.'”
“Who are the neoconservatives? Well, the neocons are ex-Democrats who moved into the Republican Party with Ronald Reagan. ‘We’re not Reagan conservatives. We’re neoconservatives. We’re smarter than Reagan.’ Now they’ve made enough progress in having the media brand them as the face of serious conservatism, and they’re out there feeling their oats.”
“Ants that have ingested dry grits exploding in front of your very eyes. Wouldn’t you love to be outside and see that happen?”
“Marx wouldn’t permit a neo-Marxism nor would liberalism permit a neoliberalism.”
“Democrats are not trying to be our friends. They’re not trying to show us that they’re reasonable. They are advancing an agenda, and we’re not, from our pseudo-conservative media to elevated levels of our Republican Party.”
“HD DVD didn’t quite make it. Blu-ray did. And that’s going to speed the whole process of people getting into that market. You can thank also me for that because I chose Blu-ray early on and have every Blu-ray disc — other than the stupid little, you know, how to dance stuff out there.”
“Barack Obama would not only meet with terrorists, he has one as a good friend: William Ayers. Obama is a flat-out liar, a manipulator of words and of events. He thinks he is above criticism because he thinks he is so special.”
“I’m off for a charity golf trip, and will be gone Monday and Tuesday. Jason Lewis will be here Monday, and Mark Davis on Tuesday. I’ll be back Wednesday. Have a great weekend.”
“Obama is a statist. He’s an authoritarian. He doesn’t want to govern; he wants to rule.”
“A time-honored Obama technique is go ahead and say something that’s correct and then ‘but, on the other hand,’ which then equates what comes next with what he said first.”
“I love the Israelis. Obama yesterday, in his outreach of love speech at Cairo University, admonished the Israelis to stop building settlements on the West Bank. So the Israelis responded today by increasing their construction of what they’re now calling ‘Obama huts.'”
“Goldman Sachs is predicting that by the end of the year oil will be at $85 a barrel by the end of the year. Today it spiked at over $70 a barrel. So if — and I mean IF, capital I, capital F — there is any recovery, despite Obama’s policies, $85-a-barrel gasoline is going to wipe it out.”
“A time-honored Obama technique is to go ahead and say something that’s correct and then ‘But, on the other hand,’ which then equates what comes next with what he said first.”
“My friends, the plot thickens. One of Sonia Sotomayor’s best friends says that Sonia Sotomayor is ‘open’ on the question of abortion and would follow the law. Hmm.”
“Most Americans don’t want to believe that their president intends to benefit from the country being harmed. It won’t work. People will not be able to put their arms around that. Average Americans who are not political junkies will not be able to grasp that.”
“Obama’s voters have a cult-like attachment, emotional attachment to him. You wonder if even devastating personal economic circumstances will wake ’em up. This is the big question.”
“This is too rich. Howard Dean has been appointed as chairman of the Progressive Book Club, and he says that his next battle ‘will be to beat the conservative book industry.’ There is no conservative book industry. We just outsell liberals because we’re better writers and it’s more interesting stuff. This is going to be every bit as successful as Air America was.”
“Obama makes the visit to Buchenwald all about him and his family. It’s just narcissistic. And he compares himself, of course, to FDR.”
“Letterman has just sunk to a shadow of himself. He used to be genuinely creative and funny back in his NBC days, but he has now just degenerated into an angry old man, filled with cynicism, not humor. It’s a sad thing to see, actually, because he was so good at one point and apolitical.”
“Barack Obama is destroying health care. He is destroying the American private sector. He is destroying the solvency of the United States government. And none of this is remarked upon.”
“If the Iranian mullahs replace one puppet with another in their so-called election, it will have nothing to do with Obama. Zilch, zero, nada.”
“Obama is all of a sudden now interested in paygo, right? We gotta pay for it as we go, we can’t do any more deficit spending. Fine, if that’s the case why not stop the rest of the stimulus spending? So far, only three-to-five percent has been spent. It will never happen. He doesn’t care what he’s spending; he doesn’t give a rat’s rear end.”
“What’s going to be the new travel slogan for Bermuda: ‘Hot babes and jihadists’?”
“I had a lot of e-mails today from people who are all excited that the government’s finally gotten a hold of the tobacco industry and they’re going to reduce the amount of nicotine in every cigarette. People are very happy about this; reduce health care costs, all the usual rigmarole. Be careful, folks, what you ask for.”
“This presidential election in Iran and having a ‘president’ is a buffer for the mullahs. It is to create an image to the world that there is some sort of freedom of choice in terms of the leadership in Iran, when we know there is not.”
“Obama has an ego and a narcissistic complex about himself that can only be described as unhealthy and dangerous.”
“I’m telling you firing an inspector general, because they’re not political, is a much bigger deal than replacing United States attorneys.”
“What does the government do to industries it gets control of? It runs them into the ground, it destroys them. And the danger of running the tobacco industry into the ground is it’s one of the greatest sources of tax revenue for the federal government and states.”
“Under this administration, our pursuit of happiness is grounded to a complete halt and it’s been replaced with a pursuit of survival.”
“Obama looks out across this country as a giant pot of gold. He can go get it — from here, there — and he thinks that somehow it’s going to be magically replaced once he grabs it.”
“You can’t compete with an entity that does not have to make a profit — and that is the United States government.”
“They call this the Waxman-Markey bill but they should call it the Madoff-Waxman-Markey bill. Put Madoff’s name in this bill because it’s a con game. It promises what it cannot deliver.”
“A lot of members of Congress who vote for this thing regardless of where it goes have seen their last days in Congress in front of them.”
“This bill is not about climate change. It’s not about improving the environment. It’s not about anything but raising taxes and taking away people’s freedom.”
“Most Americans are not happy with the state of affairs in Washington. In fact, most are outraged and are frightened.”
“It’s amazing. Every time you go back and consult Founding Fathers, you find that their wisdom was timeless. Their ability to foresee the future was incomparable.”
“Economic security is the role of the private sector. Economic security is the role of the individual. Economic security is the role of a person born with liberty exercising that liberty to secure whatever he can for himself and his family in life.”
“Our personal liberty is not for sale and it’s not up for a vote. It’s our birthright.”
“Congressman Goodlatte’s office called us. He says he’s voting no on this climate bill and was always going to vote no, and he doesn’t understand how somebody in his office told that caller we had that he was undecided. So there. I’m glad to get that straight.”
RUSH: Kathy in Bloomington, Illinois, you’re on Open Line Friday. Hi.
CALLER: Merry Christmas and to all your listeners as well.
RUSH: Thank you very much.
CALLER: I was wondering if you thought there might be a chance that the ACLU would step in and stop the terrorists from coming to Illinois. After all, it’s going to be pure torture for them coming from the tropical island to the sub degree weather here in Illinois.
RUSH: I think the ACLU is busy finding them all lawyers.
CALLER: (laughing) Well, I don’t want them in Illinois, but in all fairness I think we should take them because, after all, we sent most of our criminals to Washington this year, so we’re short criminals here.
RUSH: (laughing) Excuse me. That is hilarious. You sent most of your criminals — you did! Axelrod.
CALLER: We did.
RUSH: — Rahm Emanuel, Obama, Valerie Jarrett, all those clowns.
CALLER: I know. I know. We’re short. I don’t want terrorists here, but in all fairness we should take them.
RUSH: It is interesting that Dick Durbin is running around acting like this is the single biggest achievement that he has ever made or accomplished for you in Illinois.
CALLER: I just think the whole world has lost their minds. I don’t understand where the common sense is.
RUSH: There isn’t any. See? That’s what you have to understand when you’re looking for common sense you’re not going to find it on the left. You’re going to find lies. I mean they’re out there saying, 3,000 jobs, that’s what matters here. And people are worried about terrorists escaping and Durbin says, ‘There’s no way these guys are ever going to escape, no way.’ It’s like prison breaks never happened. I don’t know. It’s fascinating. I think all this, all of this stuff that they’re doing, they have no idea how it’s being perceived out in the country.
This is Ann in Houston, and great to have you with us on Open Line Friday. Hi.
CALLER: Hi, Rush. Oh, we’re a homeschool family, and you are a part of the curriculum.
RUSH: Very wise. Thank you very much.
CALLER: Yes. My husband is a doctor, and he has seen the cost of drugs dramatically increase over the last year. And he’s seen this both personally, drugs he takes, and professionally, and he thinks that the drug companies are being allowed to do this as a part of the deal they made with Obama to cover what they will be contributing to go his health care plan. And this increase that patients are now paying, of course it’s just really a hidden tax, and, Rush, I want to also say, for the sake of our country, I would like to see your listening audience double or triple. And I have five ideas how to do that. The first idea is to make available to your listeners bumper stickers that say, ‘Join Rush 740 AM, 11 to 2.’ We would sell those to all of the listening areas around the country, and I would like a job with you to execute my ideas. And may I come interview for a job?
RUSH: What’s your second idea?
CALLER: Okay, I’ve got five, but this is number six.
RUSH: Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa.
CALLER: We know kids are being brainwashed in our schools —
RUSH: Hold it, hold it, hold it.
CALLER: Oh, yeah. Yes?
RUSH: You got five ideas and this is number six?
CALLER: Yes.
RUSH: And you want to work for me?
CALLER: Because I want to do two, three, four, and five personally, with you.
RUSH: All right.
CALLER: But number six is the most important.
RUSH: But there’s only five.
CALLER: Oh, this is number six, I’m sorry. We know our kids are being brainwashed in our schools and, Rush, we need to start a camp for advanced conservative studies. It will be your legacy. It would be for children from seventh to the ninth grade, and we would wash their little brains in the morning, and then they would have the fun activities in the afternoon. And who would come to this camp? The children and grandchildren of your 20 million listeners. I’m a school teacher. And we would teach things I’m teaching right now, Henry Hazlitt’s Economics in One Lesson to five of my grandchildren. And then we would teach the Federalist Papers, and who would be doing the teaching? Folks like Michelle Malkin, your substitutes, the other talk show radio hosts would be thrilled to come do a morning. What do you think, Rush? May I come interview?
RUSH: (laughing)
CALLER: You don’t know what I’ve gone through to get this — and I’m unemployed. And I want to be employed with you.
RUSH: Well, I admire on your entrepreneurism here.
CALLER: Yes.
RUSH: I really do. I’m going to have a talk with Snerdley after the program today.
CALLER: Okay.
RUSH: But I could not possibly bring you in for an interview until I decide whether or not I want to implement all of your plans.
CALLER: Okay.
RUSH: Well, ’cause what you’ve just told me essentially is I’m not working hard enough.
CALLER: No. People are lazy. They don’t necessarily know when you’re on. We’re going to make it easy with these bumper stickers. You see, what people would do, they would mail their two dollars, we have to charge them so that the liberals don’t deplete the supply, and they would mail in with a little — I can do the whole thing. I can do it in Houston. See, I can do it whole deal.
RUSH: Well —
CALLER: I’ll have stacks. I’ve run for office, Rush. So I know how to mass produce. I was the Republican nominee for state rep a few years ago. And I’m also a developer, I drive a tractor, I have six kids, I can do it.
RUSH: You have six kids and six questions.
CALLER: I have six children and six grandchildren.
RUSH: That’s six questions and 12 kids.
CALLER: Yes.
RUSH: At any rate, look, I love your thought on this. I love the desire that you have here to expand the audience exponentially as you have. And I’ll think about it. People pepper me with ideas constantly on other things that I could do or should do and I’ll throw yours into the hopper along with everybody else’s. I thank you for the call out there, Ann, and all the best to you. Thanks again for your call. It’s Open Line Friday, folks. This a great example of whatever you want to talk about is fair game on Open Line Friday. If I don’t care about it, I’ll still talk about it and act like I do.
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RUSH: Gary in Fairfax, Virginia. I’m glad you waited, sir. Nice to have you on the program.
CALLER: Mega Christmas and merry dittos, Rush.
RUSH: Thank you, sir, very much.
CALLER: All right. I’m calling about the big tent that moderates keep ordering conservative Republicans to make and the purity test they keep demanding, and I say that my tent is as big as the Constitution and that it’s the moderates who are demanding this purity test. Your 63% stat that you shared with us today is very revealing. I think about 63% of the country that moderates feel don’t belong in that tent. What they want is that we allow moderates in there who are going to start cutting holes in that tent —
RUSH: Wait. Hold it. Hold it. Wait a minute. You’ve been on hold a long time and people may not know what you’re talking about. There’s a new Battleground poll out that’s had the same result for eight years and that is that 63% of the American people identify themselves as conservative. Only 1% in this Battleground poll called themselves moderates.
CALLER: Exactly.
RUSH: But, see, it’s not the moderates who have been putting this stuff out, it’s the left, it’s the Democrats who have been saying that we need a big tent. Republicans are discriminating against people. It’s all about abortion. It’s all about the social issues. And of course the Republicans bought into this, we’ve gotta get that constituency to vote for us, gotta get that constituency to vote for us, we’ve gotta seek the moderates ’cause the moderates are holy ground and the moderates, we are told, if we make them mad and it’s easy to make them mad, all you have to do is criticize Democrats then the moderates will run away from you in droves, and so the Republicans dutifully play along, they don’t criticize because they don’t want to get the moderates mad, 1%! It seems to me we are the big tent.
CALLER: Yes, we are. We’re as big as the Constitution. That’s plenty big. And they keep demanding that we allow people at the table and to vote for us and represent us who want to keep cutting coals in that Constitution, you know, that the government should be running our lives and raising our taxes and taking away our freedom. And every time we raise our hand and say, ‘No, no, no, wait, wait, that’s not in the Constitution, they got no right to do it,’ we’re accused of having the purity test.
RUSH: Exactly right. Exactly right.
CALLER: By the way, Rush, I met a poster child moderate. It blew me away, but it defined them for me perfectly. Right after the election, this guy was proud of the fact that he went into the polling place not knowing who he was going to vote for.
RUSH: You’re kidding?
CALLER: And that defined it for me. They’re so proud of being open-minded that they’re standing in line and not ’til he actually pulled the lever did he know — and he never told me who he voted for. That’s a moderate.
RUSH: I don’t believe that for a friggin’ minute.
CALLER: Yeah, but he was proud of telling you that and telling me how closed-minded I was for knowing how to vote before I got there.
RUSH: Yeah, well, he just wanted you to know how smart he is and how unideological he is. He was making himself out to be a genuine mental midget while trying to make himself sound better than you.
CALLER: Well, their highest virtue is open-mindedness and they love pointing out how we conservatives are so closed-minded because we know what we believe. You’ve heard that all your life.
RUSH: Constantly.
CALLER: Yeah. Can I run one theory by you real quick?
RUSH: Sure.
CALLER: All right. It’s a little exaggeration, but I say there are no liberals in America, there are liars and people who have been lied to.
RUSH: (laughing) It fits. It fits if you understand that liberals lie. That’s why I suggested yesterday: For Harry Reid, you say ‘Harry Reid,’ comma, ‘Democrat-Nevada,’ or ‘D-NV. Change it to L: ‘Harry Reid (Liar-Nevada)’ Nancy Pelosi (L-California). Harry Reid (L-NV). Doesn’t matter. Barney Frank (Liar-Massachusetts). It works.
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