RUSH: I’m sorry, I can’t let this go. There’s a teachable moment here. You must understand I am trying to help. I’m not trying to be destructive. (sigh) Trying to help. That’s all I want to do. All I want is for Barack Obama to lose. That is what I want! It is probably what I care about more than anything outside of family. I’m talking about you’ve got the normal concerns, but I’m talking about things outside of my personal life. The thing I want most is for this man to be defeated.
Okay, so I just got this, I just literally got… What? No, it’s like Romney. I just got this 30 seconds ago. I was gonna be start this hour with something else. I was gonna start with the sound bites and I got a little stack here about the establishment starting to get queasy.

But then I got this, and maybe I’m gonna make too big a deal out of this. I don’t know, but I just tell you here that my desires and my motivations are pure, and that is the triumph of this country — return to greatness, at least the return to the path. Okay, so to review. Romney on CBS. Grab sound bite 21. This was a big point the first hour. This Mitt on CBS today with Charlie Rose. The question:

“Clearly, you know the outlines of what” the Democrats and Newt and Perry “want to say about your tenure at Bain Capital are clear. You were not a destructive force” and laid people off, scorched earth. What do you say to that? (replaying of sound bite) Obama was an anti-capitalist president who shut down Republican-owned dealerships, who screwed the legitimate investors, the bondholders. There was nothing capitalistic about what Obama did — and yet? “Well, yeah, I’ll accept the premise. Newt and Perry are out there saying that I did scorched earth stuff at Bain. We laid people off. Yeah, yeah, just like Obama.” No! No! Not just like Obama! Sorry. We went through that in the first hour. Okay, dealt with it. Fine and dandy. Move on.

From CNN: “Romney Feels “Sorry” for Wasserman Schultz for Having to Defend Obama.” Now, hang on, hang on. “Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney said [this] morning that he feels ‘sorry’ for Democratic National Committee Chairwoman Debbie [“Blabbermouth”] Schultz for having to defend President Obama’s economic record. ‘She’s got to stand up for the president’s record, and it’s pretty bad,’ Romney said Wednesday morning on CNN.” Mitt, you just did that yourself. Why help her apologies? Mitt, you just equated… Am I making too big a deal out of this? I don’t think I am. For two days, Newt Gingrich and Rick Perry have scorched the earth on how Romney burns people — and Romney today said, “Yeah, just like Obama! To save the company.”

Oh, no, not. If I’m Newt and Perry, I go out and I borrow money and I start running new ads that say: “Governor Romney accepted our premise and admitted that we are right and that he’s no different than Obama!” Do you realize what Newt and Perry have at their disposal now with this? I’m not making too big a deal out of it — and now he feels sorry…? And I don’t care (that’s not the point) what he feels about Debbie “Blabbermouth” Schultz. That’s not the point! But when you go out and equate your own actions in the private sector with what Obama did at General Motors, you are defending Obama! So this is my whole point. I guess this crystallizes the problem I had and I didn’t quite say it accurately, properly last hour.

He’s defending what Obama did with General Motors and Chrysler in the process of trying to justify what he did at Bain, which is not what he did at Bain! All right, I’ll move on. I just say if you’re gonna feel bad that Debbie “Blabbermouth” Schultz has to apologize or defend Obama, then don’t help her do it. (big sigh) “She’s gotta stand up for the president’s record, and it’s pretty bad,” Romney said. You just equated yourself to a pretty large part of his record! I don’t think he knows that. I’m sure, to his team, they don’t see it the way I do. He goes on to say, “You’ve got almost 2 million people that have lost their jobs under this president. You have median income that’s dropped by 10 percent over the last four years.

“You’ve got 24 million people out of work or [who] have stopped looking for work. This is a failed presidency. People know that,” and Wasserman Schultz has to go out there and defend it. You want what she said? Okay, here’s what she said. Debbie “Blabbermouth” Schultz “dismissed Romney’s victory in Tuesday’s New Hampshire primary by saying he won just 39 percent of the vote in a state next to the one he used to govern.” He should have won bigger. “He’s got a family home [in New Hampshire]. He was governor of the state next door. So to not crack 40 percent in a primary [in which] you should have droves of Republicans coming to the polls to vote for you, that’s a problem.”

What do you mean did Obama enjoy firing those people at General Motors, the dealerships? You asking me. My staff does not want me to let this go. Sending me that question? Did Obama enjoy firing people? What’s that got to do with Romney. Oh, oh, oh, oh, yeah, I forgot that. Yeah, Romney enjoys firing people. No, I’m sure. In fact, since Obama has never said that he likes firing people, the press will say, “Well, yeah, maybe Obama did have to streamline General Motors, but he hated it! He hated every layoff; he hated every lost job. He hated it. He didn’t enjoy firing people like Romney admits that he likes doing.” That’s so silly take out of context. Of course you fire an insurance company for not doing the job or you fire whatever. (tearing up paper)

Okay. Folks, you know you think I’ve got distracted. I’ve not. I am as focused as ever. What I’m doing here is really biting my tongue.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: Here is Peter in Lynchburg, Virginia. I’m glad you waited. Welcome to the EIB Network. Hello.

CALLER: Thank you, Rush. I think there’s a very fatal flaw in Governor Romney’s agreement with failed policy. And that is Ford. Ford did it and did it without bailout money and has survived.

RUSH: That’s right.

CALLER: And actually has made a profit —

RUSH: That’s right.

CALLER: — to bondholders.

RUSH: Look, I got people e-mailing me trying to defend Mitt on this. “You’re misunderstanding, Rush. It’s actually a brilliant comment, Rush, it’s really brilliant. He just didn’t go far enough. He didn’t close the loop. He shoulda made the point it was about private sector versus public sector,” and I’m thinking, look, he was in full-on defense mode, he was defending what Obama had done in the process of defending himself. He didn’t look at it as a teachable moment at all. That’s what bothers me about it.

CALLER: I just totally disagree with him. He’s trying to be too nice.

RUSH: I think that is a factor, too. I think that’s why he says he feels sorry for Debbie “Blabbermouth” Schultz.

CALLER: He has no gravitas.

RUSH: Oh, no, no, no. He’s got gravitas. That’s the thing. This guy’s got gravitas. This guy cut your heart out. I don’t mean that pejoratively. He’d fire your butt. Absolutely right. The handlers, “Don’t be critical. Can’t go anywhere doing that. Don’t call him a socialist, just say he’s in over his head.” He’s not in over his head. It’s where his head is, Obama’s, that’s the problem. He not in over his head at all. He’s breaking the law right in front of our faces and we don’t have the guts to call him on it. All we do is write pieces in our magazines and say, “Wow, do you believe this? He’s actually recess appointing people when there’s no recess.” End of story. Yeah, he’s doing that. Yeah, he’s suing Arizona because they’re trying to enforce immigration law. He’s doing all kinds of lawless stuff and our great chroniclers of the deeds of the day sit around.

But there’s no action planned after the criticism is leveled. It’s very simple where Obama’s head is at: white man’s greed runs a world in need. Jeremiah Wright, Obama’s preacher, “White folks’ greed runs a world in need.” That’s the whole animating premise here. It’s in the Audacity of Hope or Dreams from My Father, whatever book it’s in. He’s written it. He’s said it in interviews. There’s no mystery where Obama’s head’s at. There’s no mystery how he’s been educated. There’s no mystery what he believes. This is an inherently immoral and unjust nation as founded, because the 1% founded it and has been running it since it was founded. It’s not even really so much racial although you can’t take the racial component out. Yes, I see Michele Obama’s mad while saying she’s not. She’s tired of the angry black woman image that she’s got. She’s mad at the New York Times reporter for stereotyping her as an angry black woman. Imagine that. She’s mad at somebody for portraying her as mad.

Pat, St. Charles, Illinois. Hi, and welcome to the EIB Network. Welcome.

CALLER: Hello, Rush, and congratulations. You turned everybody from Brit Hume to Rachel Maddow into a Dittohead yesterday.

RUSH: (laughing) Is that how you interpreted it, that they all agreed with me?

CALLER: They couldn’t start a sentence without saying, “Even Rush.”

RUSH: Yeah, but…

CALLER: Anyway, what I wanted to talk about, because Newt is horrible at this, but this whole thing with Freddie Mac, everybody jumped all over him for his association. But the fact is, all he did was have a business. He had four offices. He had professional staff, and he gave advice to Freddie Mac whenever they needed it. And he had the misfortune of sending them invoices between 1999 and 2007 or ‘8, which is before everything happened. There’s no evidence that he did any lobbying —

RUSH: I know. It’s the whole guilt by association thing. It’s the double standard that exists for conservatives.

CALLER: I know. But the thing is, everybody started out, “Even Rush said.” And I don’t know why Newt isn’t out there defending himself. He keeps telling us about these four Pinocchios, but nobody knows what the Pinocchios are or what the truth is.

RUSH: Wait a minute. What did I say he’s not defending himself? About what?

CALLER: Well, like Freddie Mac —

RUSH: No, no. I think he has been defending himself. I think Newt has been. I think that’s one of the things he has been doing, is defending himself, trying to.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: Hudson, New York. Frank, thank you for waiting, sir.

CALLER: You’re welcome, Rush. I think you’re doing a great job with this teachable moment, but I think we ought to insist that the Republican candidates seize this teachable moment and not be moderate in defending capitalism. If Mitt Romney did nothing wrong, let’s have the details of how he dissolved the company, how it would have been dissolved otherwise, because it’s important for capitalists to understand, businesses failed, jobs were lost, but it’s an accidental unfairness that results in government deliberate unfairness and injustice by trying to intervene. If the capital and labor that’s being deployed inefficiently is not redeployed, it just breeds more inefficiency and more un-productivity. And you can stimulate the economy if you only refrain from stifling it. And if you feed government money into weak enterprises to the detriment of viable enterprises, you shouldn’t be surprised. It’s not only the company that’s failed that finally goes under because it’s unsustainable, other companies as well who had the markets undercut officially —

RUSH: Yeah, but, see, in that circumstance the liberals would be surprised because they haven’t the slightest idea what you’re talking about. There’s not a liberal breathing that understands a syllable of what you just said here.

CALLER: As Buchanan said yesterday, most American people, when they hear those sound bites, they associate Mitt Romney now with Gordon Gekko, with somebody who deceives people to take over companies —

RUSH: Right. I know.

CALLER: They don’t look at it as the capitalist process working even —

RUSH: Well, we’re dealing with a hard and cold reality, and that is that capitalism not only hasn’t been taught for generations, it has been maligned. The only reason this Gordon Gekko stuff sticks is because that’s what people have been taught. Gordon Gekko just confirms what they’ve been taught in class about capitalists. Gordon Gekko is not teaching anything; he’s confirming, with these movies. It’s just like the movie The China Syndrome. The China Syndrome did not really create a whole bunch of people that opposed and afraid of nuclear power. It confirmed for people, it validated what they’d already been taught. This is an intricate web of deceit that has been woven by the left throughout every strata of our culture: movies, books, music, television shows, you name it.

So when you say teachable moment, yeah, teachable moment. But you can do more damage trying to teach something when you don’t know how to explain it. And if what you’re doing in your teachable moment simply defends something that people already hate, you’ve lost ’em. You have got to first tell them that what they believe is wrong. And you have to convince them that what they believe is wrong. And then you start with the examples. But I don’t know that a presidential campaign is where this happens anyway. It can with the right communicator. Reagan had multiple talents at teaching. What assisted Reagan was he was likable. You gotta remember, Reagan did not have a media. He didn’t have a talk radio network or blogs. Reagan dealt with three networks, two newspapers, the magazines, that was it.

Reagan was so good that he was able to go over all those heads and establish a bond of likability and trust with the American people despite what was being said about him. Very few people have that ability. Reagan was one who did, and Reagan defended conservatism. This is the thing that people forget. Reagan taught conservatism. He explained it as he went along. When he talked about cutting taxes, he explained how it benefited the middle class, how it benefited everybody. And everything Reagan taught was oriented around reducing the size and role of government and government’s role in people’s lives, which equals more and more freedom. There’s nobody out there now that is, I don’t know, capable, willing to do it or what have you. There’s no question.

Every day in politics is a teachable moment when you’ve got liberals as your opponents. We’ve got our side so scared to be critical of it because of what’s gonna happen with the independents.