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Gingrich Goes Perot on Romney

by Rush Limbaugh - Jan 10,2012

RUSH: Folks, I realize this is serious out there, and at some point I may have to issue a fatwa to stop this. If I sense it’s really getting out of hand, of course I’ll take action. I’ll stand up and I’ll just tell everybody here involved, “Cut this out and get serious.” I don’t want to bleed on any of you. It’s unbecoming (sigh), but you don’t know what being surrounded by negativism is. I am surrounded by it. It takes a concerted effort on my part every day to avoid it, to not be affected by it. I can’t tell you tell you the amount of pessimism that’s out there over this and a number of other things. So I know how you feel about this. I know you’re worried about the negative aspect of it, but I just want to tell you that you are not alone. We have more Newt sound bites here. You’re gonna have to hear this. That happened this afternoon on Fox with Megyn Kelly. Yeah, it was Megyn Kelly. It’s America Live. She interviewing Newt. Megyn Kelly said to Newt, “Isn’t our financial system, isn’t our free enterprise system, set up to speak to profits, not so much fairness?” Isn’t that what people go into business for (this is the essence of her question): profits? GINGRICH: There has to be some sense of everybody’s in the same boat — and I think again, as I said, he’s gonna have to explain why would Bain have taken $180 million out of a company and then have it go bankrupt, and to what extent did they have some obligation to the workers? Remember, these were a lot of people who made that $180 million, it wasn’t just six rich guys at the top, and yet somehow they walked off from their fiduciary obligation to the people who had made the money for them. RUSH: (sigh) Folks, things happen. Sometimes they happen for a reason. Now, one of the things that you have to say that is happening here is (whether he intends it or not) we’re finding out some things about Newt that we didn’t know. We’re finding out that he looks at “these rich guys,” six rich guys, and they have an obligation. He sounds like Elizabeth Warren. Elizabeth Warren is this Harvard professor, who is running for Scott Brown’s Senate seat in Massachusetts who had the disparaging comments for the nameless factory owner. (paraphrased) “You didn’t make it on your own! You couldn’ta done it without us! We paved your roads and built your distribution system, and it was our taxes that did it. You didn’t do anything on your own! Nobody ever does anything on their own. We did it for you and you can’t ignore us.” So, Newt… I guarantee you, Newt… You go back to the eighties and the nineties when Newt’s Speaker and trying to run the Conservative Opportunity Society in the House, you never heard stuff come out of Newt’s mouth like this. I never have. So, in that regard, it’s serving a purpose. Kelly then said, “Well, the Club for Growth has come out against you on this. They call your criticism of Romney on the Bain issue ‘disgusting.’ They said, ‘Newt Gingrich should apologize for his attacks on free markets. He should apologize to Governor Romney.'”
GINGRICH: If we identify capitalism with rich guys looting companies, we’re gonna have a very hard time protecting it. I am totally committed to capitalism. I am totally committed to Main Street. I am totally committed to people’s right to start companies. I am committed to their right to fail. But I think it has to be fair, it has to be out in the open. This is why you have this underlying anger about the financial class. Because people look over there and they go, “Wait a second. How come I lost my mortgage and you stayed a millionaire? How come I lost all my savings and you stayed a millionaire?” RUSH: No, no, no. If anything, they’re saying, “How come I lost my mortgage and Fannie Mae paid YOU a million dollars?” I mean, it works both ways here. I don’t understand why the Occupy Wall Street crowd is protesting Newt. They’re singing from the same hymnal on this. This is right out of the New York Times. Newt is parroting what the New York Times is writing about Romney on this: Six rich guys taking over. “But, if we identify capitalism with rich guys looting companies…” Folks, it is clear here (to me, anyway) what’s really going on. This is not a campaign for the presidency. That’s not what this is anymore. This is payback time. This is Newt. It drove him nuts that series of ads the Romney super PAC ran against him in Iowa, and this is the result of it. That’s why we are where we are. (interruption) No, no. I’m not making excuses, don’t misunderstand. I’m just explaining. I’m not defending anybody. I just think this is very unfortunate. This is… (sigh) This is not the kind of stuff you want said by Republicans. I mean, even the establishment Republicans don’t go after conservatives this way. Here is one final bite. Megyn Kelly says to Newt, “What is your goal in New Hampshire?” GINGRICH: My goal in New Hampshire is to have done well enough — which I think we already have, frankly. Uh, if you look at the energy level we have, you look at the size of our crowds, you look at the level of news coverage, we’re doing just fine. My real goal was to make sure that Romney did not win here by a big enough margin to develop real momentum.
RUSH: All right. So that’s it: My purpose here is Romney. I’ve taken out Romney. You can almost say that Newt is going Perot. You know, when Perot got involved in 1992 everybody was saying, “What the heck is this? Where did Perot come from?” And I found out. Do you remember, Snerdley? Do you remember the story? (interruption) Yeah, but why? (interruption) It was: Get Bush. Exactly. I’ll tell you what happened. If you have forgotten, here’s what happened. Ross Perot was a huge supporter of the military. He always has been. Loves them. At some point in the Reagan years, the administration wanted to investigate claims that there were American POWs in North Vietnam, but it was long after the war was over, and they needed private sector funds to do this. So from what I was told, the Reagan White House dispatched George H. W. Bush to go to Perot and explain what they wanted, what they needed. They asked for Perot to help fund the potential rescue mission — and Perot was willing to — but he said he wanted to go. He wanted to be part of it. He wanted to be on the front lines. And they said, “Oh, no, no, no. You can’t go. Nobody can know. No, no, no. You can’t have any role in this.” And a couple of other things, and Perot felt — (sigh) what’s the word? — slighted, betrayed, what have you, ’cause that was after. They told him after they got the money that he wasn’t gonna be able to be involved in it anyway, and from what I was told — and it was by somebody in the inner circle of Bush — that that led to the desire of Perot to wage payback. When I learned that, that’s why I’ve felt all along that Perot never really wanted to win that campaign. He just wanted to deny it to Bush. He just wanted to deny reelection of George H. W. Bush in 1992. So you might say that Newt now has adopted the Perot stance, because he just said it: “I’m gonna make sure that Romney doesn’t come out of New Hampshire with any momentum whatsoever.” And he’s using language that the left uses, and he’s attempting to make hay with this. You know, he’s trying to dredge up and have long-lasting negatives attach to Romney (this is what’s so unsettling about this) in the same way the left would say it. You could, after all these bites, say, “I’m Barack Obama, and I approve this message.”

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