RUSH: Gene in Joliet, Illinois. You’re next. Hello, sir.

CALLER: It’s privilege to speak with you.

RUSH: Thank you, sir, very much.

CALLER: First of all, Rush, I’ll get to my point, but I just wanted to thank you for the work you do on the radio. There’s not that many sane voices out there anymore. I remember back in ’08, when Obama first started running for president, there was only two, and I searched the news diligently. There was only two people in all of broadcasting that was calling it like it was.

They were the only ones saying, “We better look at this man again. He’s not what he seems to be.” You were one of them, and Sean Hannity was the other. I thought I was the crazy one because everybody — even the people on the right, the conservatives and all — was saying, “Oh, this guy is just great.” But you and Sean had it pegged right, and I thank you for that.

RUSH: You’re more than welcome, sir. But you realize that back in 2008, there were a number of dynamics, all of them dominated by race. Of course you had, regardless of party affiliation, the historical possibilities of the first black president. You had a bunch of really decent people thinking that electing him would be the end of racism. Then you had a bunch of Republicans who, every day, buy into the notion they are hated and despised.

So therefore they have to say and do things to try to prove to whoever that they’re not mean and rascals. They supported Obama for that reason alone. Just like when Holder was nominated to be attorney general, a bunch of Republicans who knew he was a disaster couldn’t wait to run to the microphones and praise the choice hoping to get credit for bipartisanship, crossing the aisle, open-mindedness, all that happy horse manure.

Now we’re where we are. And there was a lot of fear, Gene, in saying anything negative about Obama. But it wasn’t hard to do if you kept it focused on policy. I always said, “I don’t concern myself with it. The historical nature is over with after the election. After that, he’s the president. It doesn’t matter what color he is. His policies are all that matter,” and that’s what scared the heck out of me.

CALLER: Well, that’s exactly right, and you guys had it pegged exactly right. Your one quote that you made that you hope Obama fails, you know, a lot of people didn’t get that. But I knew exactly what you were saying, because I can see by his associates and by everything in his life — the Reverend Wright church and all that kind of thing — that this man was not gonna be good for the country. From day one, you had it pegged right.

RUSH: May I ask you a question?

CALLER: I’m sorry?

RUSH: I want to ask you a question, Gene.

CALLER: Sure.

RUSH: You just said that a lot of people didn’t get what I meant when I said, “I hope he fails.” I assume you mean people you know, friends, acquaintances, people that you know in Joliet and elsewhere. You’re talking about average, ordinary Americans who might not have understood me. Am I right about that?

CALLER: Well, yeah. Plus, I mean, even in the media. I mean, I heard ’em —

RUSH: They knew. No, no. The media knew. This is my point. They knew what I meant. They took the occasion to misrepresent that on purpose.

CALLER: Oh, okay.

RUSH: I even went on Hannity’s TV show to explain this in intimate detail, and I explained it frequently on my own program, and I explained it to Greta Van Susteren on Fox. The people in the media, the Democrats, they knew what I meant. But average people who were convinced that I actually wanted the country to fail? I never understood that. How in the world would anybody think that’s what I wanted? It was the exact opposite! I wanted to prevent the country from failing. What I meant was, “I hope Obama fails at implementing his policies, his ideas, his transformation,” because it wasn’t any of it gonna be good for this country.

CALLER: That’s exactly right. I think a lot of the low-information voters that you talk about, Rush, take the snippets and the sound bites of the Democrats and they run with it.

RUSH: I know.

CALLER: You know, that’s all they want to know.

RUSH: Well, there’s a very great lack… That’s not a good way of saying it. There’s a huge inability on the part of a lot of people to critically think. There’s just a heck of a lot of emotional, knee-jerk reacting that takes place, but I don’t care. You know, I refuse to dumb myself down. Maybe I should try that. I just don’t know how.