Posted on 11/11/2009 4:32:40 PM PST by GOP_Lady
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On Today's Show... |
November 11, 2009
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Past editions of "RUSH IN A HURRY"
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Rush In A Hurry |
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BEGIN TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: We're going to start with the president of the United States at Fort Hood yesterday in what was the most empty, meaningless -- if you didn't know what had happened, you wouldn't know what he was talking about. Let's go to the audio sound bites. This is the State-Run Media, a montage in which many of them feel they were reminded of Bill Clinton's post-Oklahoma City bombing speech.
CROWLEY: This reminded me of President Clinton after the bombing at the Murrah building in Oklahoma City.
BAIER: President Bill Clinton had Oklahoma City.
GOLER: This is a national moment, calls for Presidential leadership. It is like the Oklahoma City bombings.
KING: A moment for this president, a moment to reflect, not unlike the days after Oklahoma City.
RUSH: See, the way these media people go and the way the Democrats look at it, these tragedies are good things for a president. Remember, the Democrats were so bent out of shape after 9/11 because it was an opportunity for greatness for George W. Bush that had passed President Clinton by. But now, Oklahoma City, let's go be back, let's listen to President Clinton after Oklahoma City. This is why they love the Clinton Oklahoma City speech.
CLINTON: We hear so many loud and angry voices in America today whose sole goal seems to be to try to keep some people as paranoid as possible and the rest of us all torn up and upset with each other. They spread hate. They leave the impression that by their very words, that violence is acceptable. You ought to see -- I'm sure you are now seeing the reports of some things that are regularly said over the airwaves in America today. It is time we all stood up and spoke against that kind of reckless speech and behavior.
RUSH: That was in Minneapolis on April 24th, 1995, in which President Clinton blamed me for the Oklahoma City bombing, ginning up government hate. Now, they haven't blamed me for Fort Hood, but wait 'til you hear in subsequent sound bites who is being blamed for this by Democrats. But first let's go to President Obama himself. He says this is incomprehensible. We can't possibly understand what happened here.
OBAMA: This is a time of war. These Americans did not die on a foreign field of battle. They were killed here on American soil in the heart of this great state, in the heart of this great American community. This is a fact that makes the tragedy even more painful, even more incomprehensible. It may be hard to comprehend the twisted logic that led to this tragedy but this much we do know. No faith justifies these murderous and craven acts.
RUSH: Yes, it does.
OBAMA: No just and loving God looks upon them with favor. For what he has done we know that the killer will be met with justice, in this world and the next.
RUSH: I mean folks, ought to read to you what my friend Andy McCarthy wrote about this at National Review Online: "After the carnage we’ve seen for two decades, and the high religious authorities that have endorsed it, it is simply astounding that an American president -- at a solemn memorial service for soldiers killed just days ago by a jihadist acting on his rational, broadly accepted understanding of his religious duty -- could claim that 'no faith justifies' sneak-attack murders, and that no religion teaches that 'God looks upon them with favor.' In fact, a widely held interpretation of Islam holds exactly these principles. No one is saying that all Muslims follow Hasan’s construction of Islam, but hundreds of millions do and they have scriptures to back up their beliefs -- scriptures we could all read if we’d just pull our heads out of the sand. To deny that is to deny reality. A country can’t be protected by people who lack the will to face reality."
And that's what we have in president Obama. I'm still struggling, does he face reality, is he this naive or is he this cunning? He's got to know what jihad is. He's got to know of the imams that preach it. He's got to know that there are scriptures in these people's book that suggests the way to get to heaven is to kill infidels. This is not even arguable. As Andy says here it's not about all Muslims but clearly hundreds of millions of them. Let's listen to the next sound bite.
OBAMA: The stories of those at Fort Hood reaffirm the core values that we are fighting for and the strength that we must draw upon. Theirs are the tales of American men and women answering an extraordinary call, the call to serve their comrades, their communities, and their country. In an age of selfishness, they embody responsibility. In an era of division, they call upon us to come together. In a time of cynicism, they remind us of who we are as Americans.
RUSH: I tell you, folks, there's bashing America again, taking the occasion of this solemn moment to bash the country with his New Age liberal-speak, in an age of selfishness? I thought he was going to fix all that. In an era of division? I thought he was going to fix all that? In a time of cynicism? I thought he was going to fix all that? He also used the term "extremists" to talk about people who act as Nidal Hasan did. They are not extremists. They are mainstream in their sect of Islam. They are mainstream. There are hundreds of millions of them. They are not extremists. This is serious stuff, the president of the United States, refusing to recognize -- and of course the FBI refusing to take seriously, the Justice Department refusing to take seriously, these agencies not sharing information that they had about this guy. You know, this guy, I had a PDF file today, George Washington University did its own transition task force, Presidential Transition Task Force last year. It ran from April 2008 to January 2009.
This is not an Obama-assigned task force. It was George Washington University, Homeland Security Policy Institute, "Thinking Anew, Security Priorities for the Next Administration. Proceedings report of the Homeland Security Policy Institute Presidential Transition Task Force." So they're working on this regardless who is going to be elected president. You go to page 29 of this PDF file, and among the participants who were giving lectures, sitting in on panel discussions, you find the name Nidal Hasan, Uniform Services University School of Medicine. Now, this is not Obama per se, and I don't want anybody to misunderstand here, but this is a failure of the broader government. How in the world, even if you don't do background checks formally which take a while for task forces like this, wouldn't you at least check with law enforcement or his name with the military, they knew about the guy. How does this guy end up, I mean, everywhere we seem to look, this guy is someplace of prominence.
He's at Walter Reed giving speeches, lectures to other doctors. As I said yesterday, this guy was not on the radar or even under the radar, he was on stage. He was on stage to the point that everybody knew he was on stage. So here's Obama with this speech willingly missing the boat on this? Taking the occasion here to praise the military by saying they show us the way during a time of selfishness, cynicism, and division. You know, these speeches are supposed to be uplifting. These speeches are supposed to be inspiring. They're supposed to comfort. He bashes the country. This business of division, who was it that divided this country on the war in Iraq? It was Barack Obama and practically every member of his party except for Joe Lieberman at the time. It was Barack Obama. It was Harry Reid. It was John Kerry: (paraphrasing) "This war is lost, we have no chance, we don't deserve to win." John Murtha: (paraphrasing) "Our Marines over there are committing rape and murder." Age of division. Ralph Peters last night on the O'Reilly Factor, he's a columnist for the New York Post, question: "You listened to the president today. What do you think?"
PETERS: One point particularly got to me, offended me. It wasn't hard to comprehend, and it's not now. It was the act of an Islamist terrorist who gunned down 54 people because he believed he was doing the will of Allah in accordance with the Koran. Not hard to understand. The evidence is there. And where are the Southern Baptist suicide bombers? Where are the Methodist marketplace massacre types? It's clear that the problem is Islam. And the other thing that offended me in all the speeches at Fort Hood today, not one mention of terror, terrorist, terrorism. I didn't expect them to mention Islamist terrorism, but what does it take? What evidence does it take for our president to admit this was an act of terror? My God.
RUSH: He can't. He can't because it occurred on his watch. Now, here is Dick Durbin. Let me remind you about Senator Durbin. Senator Durbin, remember, went to the floor of the Senate and compared interrogators in Guantanamo Bay and at Abu Ghraib of being no different than the people that worked for Pol Pot, the people that worked in the Soviet gulags, and the Nazis. Remember, that was Dick Durbin, US Senator from Illinois. On the Senate floor yesterday, he said this.
DURBIN: To rush to judgment based on this new act of violence at Fort Hood is premature, and it may be unfair, certainly to the 3,500 Muslim Americans who proudly serve in our nation's armed forces today. As you walk through Arlington cemetery, devoted to the -- the section that's devoted to the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, you will find headstones with the crescent star alongside the crosses and Stars of David. As investigators search for answers as to what happened last week, we owe it to the brave men and women serving at Fort Hood and throughout our military to think clearly and act thoughtfully.
RUSH: What is he doing here? Is he blaming this on the US military? He's determined to absolve radical Islam of any blame here. Just amazing. And here is Obama's patron, Mayor Daley, of Chicago, at a press conference yesterday to announce the expansion of Arabic language programs in Chicago city schools.
DALEY: Every day in society someone's being killed. Unfortunately, America loves guns. We love guns to a point that we see the devastation on a daily basis. And you don't blame a group, you don't blame a society, immigrant community because of actions of one group. You can't -- one individual, you cannot say that.
RUSH: So he's blaming it on our love of guns, on a military base! Had the 300 people in that room crowded into these cubicles, had they been armed, there might have been less carnage once this guy let loose. Remember, it was a local cop that brought down Hasan.
BREAK TRANSCRIPT
Click the pic!
RUSH: Jason in Houston, you're next on the EIB Network, sir. Hello.
CALLER: Rush, thank you for taking the call. It's an honor to speak with you.
RUSH: Thank you, sir.
CALLER: You were mentioning the guy from the New York Post that was on O'Reilly, and he asked the question halfway rhetorically, "What's it going to take for Obama to admit this is a terrorist attack," and I was riding with my wife in the car when the answer struck me, along with some expletives, that it's going to take for something like this to happen on video is my opinion. If this attack at Fort Hood had been on video and everyone could see the step by step, I don't want to get too graphic, but see what was happening and hear what was happening, I don't think even Obama could maintain his agenda-driven denial.
RUSH: Perhaps. Don't underestimate this guy in his ability to cast this as something else. Jason, we have 9/11 on video. And look how quickly people have forgotten that. We have 9/11 on video, and we have a large percentage of this country, mostly Democrats, who think that George Bush knew about it and engineered it and let it happen. So don't think that just a video is going to persuade. If Obama wants to stay in denial about this, then he will find a way to try to pull it off. I mean this is blatant. This is blatant. We know intelligence agencies knew everything about this guy. He was connected to a radical imam who advised, inspired two 9/11 hijackers. He was in the same mosque. He was communicating with this imam ten to 20 times via e-mail. "Allahu Akbar" when he opens fire. I mean, this is more than denial going on.
BREAK TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: Fox News has a story. Is it Fox News or is it AP? Hang on just a second. Fox News has a story. Everybody is now pointing fingers at everybody else in government over how this guy, Hasan, got past everybody. FBI is pointing at people and somebody is pointing at FBI and all this. It's just really comforting. The government once again has failed, and these failures keep mounting. Now, the latest excuse for inaction is the First Amendment. "Well, look, it would really been a serious violation of the First Amendment to read those e-mails and then act on them, those e-mails. We were really, really worried about the Constitution." (sigh) Right. Now, in that article is this quote from Evan Thomas of Newsweek. Now, remember Evan Thomas of Newsweek said in 2004 that the media would give Kerry at least a 15-point edge in the presidential race.
He's the same Evan Thomas who said that Obama was some kind of god. Here's what he said about Hasan's faith: "I cringe that he's a Muslim," said Evan Thomas of Newsweek. "I mean, because it inflames all the fears. I think he probably just a nutcase, but with that label attached to him, it will get the right wing going and just -- I mean these things are tragic, but that makes it much worse." So they're worried this is going to get the right wing going. We are the enemy, folks! We are the enemy. Not Hasan, and not Islamic jihadists, not Iran. We, the right wing in this country! We are the enemy of this administration, this government, and this media. You know, General Casey. General Casey was in command in Iraq. General Casey spoke to George W. Bush almost daily in Iraq.
It was General Casey who had to go when Petraeus was selected to go in there and lead the surge. And General Casey is now the chief of staff of the Army. And he talked about the "diversity" in the Army and, oh, how this incident is so very bad. He said something to the effect that it would be even worse if this incident caused us to lose our diversity in the military. And he went out there and said we're going to do everything we can to make sure there's not a backlash against the Muslim soldiers in our military. Janet Napolitano in the United Arab Emirates said we're going to do everything we can to make sure there's not a backlash against Muslim Americans in the United States. And there are statistics and numbers out there: Hate crimes against Muslims are at an all-time low, since 2001! They have plummeted.
There aren't any hate crimes. There is no "backlash" against Muslims in America. Zip, zero, nada! Yet Janet Napolitano is all worried about it. Casey, General Casey, is all worry about it. You know who suffers more hate crimes than anybody else in this country, religious hate crimes? Jewish people! Jewish people are subjected to more hate crimes in this country than any other religion. The hate crimes against Muslims in this country is in the hundreds every year, not tens of thousands. So there is no backlash. And all of this, folks, all of this is so typically liberal. You know what this is like? Obama and his State-Run Media, the Democrat Party, General Casey, they're like a bunch of these liberal, out-of-touch adults at a Little League or Pop Warner football no-score game where we're just going to have the kids play.
And we won't keep score because we don't want the losers to be humiliated. "That's right, Mr. Limbaugh! This is just about people having fun. We don't want to humiliate people and forces of competition. Because in competition someone always loses, Mr. Limbaugh, and their feelings are hurt, and this is why we must eliminate competition," and so we've got people in the military thinking this way! We've got our commander-in-chief thinking this way. What do you think it is that makes somebody say, "I'm uncomfortable with the concept of victory. It reminds me of the Japanese surrendering in World War II on the USS Missouri"? They don't like competition 'cause there's losers.
So these guys, Obama and the media, Evan Thomas and all the smart people, all the elites -- the Democrat Party, General Casey -- they're sitting around congratulating themselves on how enlightened they are, at how good they are at maintaining self-esteem and how good they are in all of their diversity. But as I told you once: The kids in these no-score games are keeping score. The kids playing the game, I don't care how young they are, know who's winning and who's losing and they are playing to win. They're writing it down on their hands. They're keeping the score in their heads while these hoity-toity parents think they are enlightened by running around with no-score games and they're protecting sensitive, hurt feelings so that their kids will not feel like losers on the soccer field or the football field or the baseball field.
Well, the soldiers of the US military are the kids playing the game, and Obama, the Drive-Bys, the Democrats, General Casey are these enlightened adults. And the military knows the score. It is Islamic terrorists 13, Fort Hood 0. The soldiers know it and most Americans know it. The only people who do not are the media and their boss, Barack Obama and Rahm Emanuel. But the members of the military know. Can you put yourself in their uniforms yesterday at Fort Hood listening to that drivel? They know exactly what went on in there. And their commander-in-chief comes down and can't even face it, can't even address it and has to talk about because, "t happened because we're in an age of division and selfishness and cynicism"? This is Veterans Day.
The members of the military are keeping score. And right now, at Fort Hood, they're losing on their home field! And we've got Evan Thomas of saying, "Oh, I'm sorry this guy was a Muslim. Oh, it's just a nutcase! These things are tragic but this is just going to get the right wing going! Oh, no! It just makes it worse." It makes it worse! Not that 13 people are dead. What makes it "worse" is that the guy who did it is a Muslim and that's "going to get the right wing going." Islamic Terrorist 13, Fort Hood 0. The soldiers at Fort Hood and Fort Dix and Fort Bragg and Fort wherever know it. Most Americans know it. To have this kind of stuff happening on Veterans Day, what would you call it? Irony? Or is it just a smack in the face?
BREAK TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: Whatever happens, whatever happens, the backlash is always against us. You got Napolitano, you got Casey worried about the backlash against Muslims. It's not the Muslims who need protection. It's us! We conservatives are the ones who need protection. Oklahoma City, blame us! 9/11, blame us! Chelsea Clinton said it was Bush's tax cuts that led to 9/11. She did. Hurricane Katrina, blame us! Fort Hood, blame conservatives! Some lunatic shoots an abortion doctor, blame us! Swine flu, blame us! Donovan McNabb has a lousy season, blame me! (laughing) Well, it's true. It's always our fault. It's like the USSR, the Soviet Union, when things went wrong they always blamed Trotsky and then they blamed Reagan. Or in the allegory Animal Farm, the statists in that book, they blame everything that goes wrong on Snowball. Folks, we are the Satan in their religion. Everything that goes wrong has to be our fault. Evan Thomas, "Oh, no, oh, no, the guy's a Muslim, oh, no, oh, no, it's gonna get the right wing going." We're the ones who need protection. St. Louis Rams can't find a buyer, it's our fault!
Steve in Middleburg, Virginia, welcome to the EIB Network, sir. I'm glad you waited. Hello.
CALLER: Hello, Rush. Always an honor.
RUSH: Thank you.
CALLER: Someone compared Hasan to Timothy McVeigh or Geraldo comparing him to the Columbine killers. I would actually compare him to William Ayers, the domestic terrorist --
RUSH: Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait.
CALLER: Yeah.
RUSH: Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. Are you saying that Gerry Rivers compared Hasan to the Columbine killers?
CALLER: That's correct.
RUSH: What movie did he watch?
CALLER: I don't know. That's Geraldo for you.
RUSH: What movie were they showing in the mosque? What movie was the imam telling him to watch? Because remember the Matrix movie got blamed for Columbine.
CALLER: Right. Right. I can't explain Geraldo, I don't begin to try. But I would compare him to Ayers, though, he was a domestic terrorist not happy with the war being waged at that time, plotting to attack the Pentagon. But all is not lost --
RUSH: Wait, wait, bit of a stretch here because we don't yet have evidence that Hasan was a friend of Obama's.
CALLER: Well, no, no, but all is not lost --
RUSH: I mean Ayers was and is.
CALLER: I was about to say, you know, all is not lost for Hasan. If he plays his legal cards right in 30 years he might be able to chair a psych department at a prestigious university or maybe even host a fundraiser for a future Democrat candidate for president of the United States. I know that sounds silly, that can never happen in America. Oops.
RUSH: Sorry, it has happened in America. (laughing) He could chair a psych department at a prestigious university in 30 years and --
CALLER: I don't mean to make light of the situation, Rush, I'm trying to be, shall we say, ironical.
RUSH: Let me tell you something. You're good because sometimes humor is the best way to illustrate reality.
CALLER: Thank you, Rush, for everything you do.
RUSH: Thank you. Appreciate that, Steve. Thanks much.
END TRANSCRIPT
GRIFFIN: Hasan made NO attempt to hide his religion or his conservative Muslim ideology, which is exactly why some experts are convinced Nidal Hasan is NOT a terrorist.
RUSH: Outrageous on two counts! There is nothing "conservative" about Islamofascism. These people in the media continue to refer to anything they think is evil as "conservative." Secondly, I know and I have read a lot of terrorists who are pretty open about what they intend to do. They're out there. I mean, Zawahiri, Bin Laden, any number of them are doing everything they can to let it be known what they believe and what they intend to do and what it is that motivated them. What does this guy mean? He "made no attempt to hide his religion or conservative Muslim ideology, and that's why some experts..." Who are these experts? Name the names! We need to know who these people are so we don't listen to them anymore. Now, do you remember it wasn't long ago that the State-Controlled Media very, very, very concerned, ladies and gentlemen, (gasp!)very concerned that the forces of talk radio and the right-wing news bloggers were ginning up potential violence against President Obama and others in society -- and, oh, what had happened to our civility. Well, Anderson Cooper 360 broadcasts an American Muslim threat against President Obama. Revolution Muslim Brother Yousef Al-Khattab said this about Osama Bin Laden and President Obama, and they broadcast it on CNN last night.
AL-KHATTAB: I love Osama Bin Laden, I wallahi (swear to Allah). I love him! I love him like more than -- more than I love myself. Is [President] Obama a murderer, a tyrant, a scumbag? Absolutely he is. If they killed him, would I shed a tear? Absolutely I would not.
RUSH: There you go, now CNN putting it all out there, folks, while worrying and wringing its hands throughout the summer about the "tea baggers." Even President Clinton has gotten into that vulgarity game now, calling tea party attendees tea baggers. We'll get to all that in mere moments. Special investigations correspondent Drew Griffin had this exchange with revolution Muslim Brother Yunis Abdullah Mohammed on CNN again last night.
MOHAMMED: We're commanded to terrorize the disbelievers.
GRIFFIN: Commanded to terrorize the disbelievers?
MOHAMMED: The Koran says very clearly in the Arabic language: "Terrorize them." It's a command from Allah!
GRIFFIN: So you're commanded --
MOHAMMED: To terrorize them.
GRIFFIN: -- to terrorize --
MOHAMMED: Doesn't mean...
GRIFFIN: -- anybody who doesn't believe?
MOHAMMED: You define terrorism as going and killing an innocent civilian. That's what your --
GRIFFIN: And you?
MOHAMMED: I define terrorism as making them fearful so that they think twice before they go rape your mother or kill your brother or go onto your land and try to steal your resources.
RUSH: This guy, Drew Griffin, just has this conversation with this guy. Now, go back and play sound bite eight. He just heard this guy say what he believes terrorism is and what his commandment from Allah is. This is after he reported this...
GRIFFIN: Hasan made NO attempt to hide his religion or his conservative Muslim ideology, which is exactly why some experts are convinced Nidal Hasan is NOT a terrorist.
RUSH: Well, let me tell you something: I'm an expert in media and I am entirely convinced as to why CNN has no audience. Zip, zero, nada.
BREAK TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: Kelsey in Hurricane, Utah. Hello.
CALLER: Hello Rush how are you today?
RUSH: Fine and dandy. Thank you.
CALLER: Hey, it's great to talk to you. Real quick, I wanted to get back to the CNN reporter --
RUSH: Yeah?
CALLER: -- and how he was describing Nidal Hasan's religion. Now, am I remembering correctly, did he use the word "conservative"?
RUSH: Yeah, "conservative Muslim."
CALLER: Well, you know, normally if you would want to describe his actions, wouldn't you kind of use a different word? Wouldn't you say "radical" or "nut job" or "traitor" or "extremist"?
RUSH: Yeah, but it... See, we are the "extremists." Obama is calling us the extremists. This guy is a mainstream Islamofascist. But no, your point is well taken. Look, the media calls Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and the mullahs "the conservative leadership in Iran."
CALLER: Yeah. Well, you know, I feel like it's big marketing, you know? We are labeling, we are marketing. We are using rhetoric and trying to convince people that the duck that's walking like a duck and quacking like a duck is not a duck.
RUSH: Well, I know. But see what you have to understand is we're the enemy. We're the ones that need protection against backlashes. Not Muslims. Muslim backlash in this country? There's hardly any hate crimes against Muslims compared to other religions.
END TRANSCRIPT
CALLER: Yes. Hello. Yeah, this is Sam in Tampa.
RUSH: Yeah.
CALLER: I think we should cut the rhetoric for one day, talking about all the stuff that bothers you or you feel. Today is Veterans Day. We should be celebrating all the men and women that have died for our freedoms. If you had ever gone to the veterans hospital in the Trauma Center to see young men with their limbs cut off or their head blown half apart, you would not be sitting here talking about something that doesn't really matter. What matters are those men and women that are giving their lives. Give them the one day.
RUSH: I really don't believe you. I am sitting here stunned. I'm smiling, but I'm stunned. You may be the most ignorant person to ever call this program. We talk about the veterans in the military every day on this program we honor them and celebrate them every day. We defend them against relentless assault from the Democrat Party throughout the Iraq war. My man, I have been to Walter Reed Army Hospital. I have visited troops wounded in battle. I am on the board of the Marine Corps-Law Enforcement Foundation, which raises money to provide college scholarships for the children of Marines and others who are killed in action. If you had the slightest experience listening to this program, you would know that.
The "rhetoric" of this program is in defense of military personnel killed at Fort Hood, and we are talking about a president who either doesn't or refuses to recognize a genuine threat that this country faces, who is dithering in Afghanistan while three months ago the commander on the ground requested 40,000 more troops. The president of the United States made a political calculation he needed the House to pass his health care bill first before he could send the troops because he didn't want to lose his left-wing base, which is anti-military. You need to be calling some of these libs that host radio talk shows and telling them that they need to stop the rhetoric and get a little patriotic and start supporting the troops. And then you might call CNN.
And then you might call NBC, and then you might call the Washington Post and you might call the New York Times and tell them what you just told me! Because you're talking to the wrong guy, you doofus. Sorry. You idiot. He might not understand the word doofus. "We." What is this we? "We need to stop the rhetoric"? Don't you understand, sir, the rhetoric of this program is principles, based on love of this country and trying to save it, among the many institutions and traditions that defined its greatness, including the US military. Thanks for the call, Sam. That's a great example of a call. Happy Veterans Day to you out there, Sam. This is a great example. We used to do caller clinics in the early days of this program. That is a perfect example of a caller making the host look good. We used to have...
That's the primary requirement of a caller, make the host look good. And many people misunderstood that. "Well, Limbaugh says he just wants a bunch of sycophants calling telling him how great he is." No. No, no, no, no. We need callers -- we get them now but in the early days -- that inspire even more brilliance from the host, who is the reason people are listening. Anyway, Sam, as I say happy Veterans Day out there.
END TRANSCRIPT
| Read the Background Material... |
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| • The Marine Corps-Law Enforcement Foundation |
BEGIN TRANSCRIPT
Maybe we need to call President Obama The Ice Man. He has no emotion, he doesn't show any emotion. Look how he reacts to unemployment. He's utterly unaffected! It's like it doesn't bother him at all. I want to share with you some excerpts of this piece by Toby Harnden in the UK Telegraph. "Barack Obama's reaction to bad news is to play it so cool that Americans yearn for a bit more drama -- and some even for his predecessor, writes Toby Harnden in Washington.
"During the election campaign, Barack Obama's cool detachment was a winning quality, the 'No Drama Obama' a welcome contrast with the 'Mr Angry' John McCain, never mind the hot-headed 'I'm the decider' President George W Bush," which, by the way, is a characterization I never understood. I never understood Bush being thought of as a hothead. Bush said, "You're either with us or against us." That's no different than Reagan saying, "We win, they lose." You know, Bush was just direct. Bush violated political correctness, at times. That's, I guess, what people consider to be hotheaded. We wanted hotheaded, by the way, after 9/11! We wanted hotheadedness. That's the whole point of Toby's piece here.
"A year into his presidency, however, Mr Obama seems a curiously bloodless president. If he experiences passion, he seldom shows it. It is often anyone's guess as to whether an event or issue truly moves him." No passion. Perfect word for Obama: The Ice Man. "He has spent more than two months considering a troop increase but do we know how he really feels about the Afghan war?" Yeah, we do. He doesn't like victory. He's "not comfortable," Toby, with the concept of victory. Yeah, we know how he feels about it. "In a sign that the Obama honeymoon truly is over, I began to hear this week the first stirrings of a wistfulness about Mr Bush. 'I never thought I'd hear myself say it,' one Democrat told me. 'But Obama makes you feel that at least with Bush you knew where he was on something.'
"When Mr Bush's Republicans were defeated in the 2006 mid-term elections, it was the President himself who stepped up and declared that his party had received 'a thumpin''. The Democratic defeats on Tuesday were not on anything like the same scale but Mr Obama acted as if nothing at all had happened. ... It took Senator Mark Warner of Virginia to admit that his party 'got walloped'. For three days, Mr Obama maintained a studied silence about the results while his aides blamed them on local factors that had nothing to do with the President. And to think that it was Mr Bush who was always accused of being 'in denial'. More serious perhaps was Mr Obama's strange disconnectedness over the Fort Hood massacre of 13 soldiers by an Army major and devout Muslim who opposed the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan," and was still in our military, somehow, "had praised suicide bombing and shouted 'Allahu Akbar' as he opened fire," and the president says we don't have any idea why this happened! The president says these kinds of things are "inexplicable."
"Maybe Mr Obama had been reading the American press, much of which somehow contrived to present the atrocity as a result of combat stress due to soldiers going on repeated war deployments (though Major Nadal Hasan had not been on any) and therefore, no doubt, Mr Bush's fault," and, in fact, I do believe, ladies and gentlemen... I thought I had a sound bite where it's Bush's fault. Maybe, yes, I do. Let me check the roster. I've got over 34 sound bites today. Let's see... Nah, can't find one. So I'll stick with the Toby Harnden piece. "When the television networks cut to the President, viewers listened to him spend more than two surreal minutes talking to a gathering of Native Americans about their 'extraordinary' and 'extremely productive' conference, pausing to give a cheery 'shout out' to a man named Dr Joe Medicine Crow.
"Only then did he briefly and mechanically address what had happened in Texas. On Friday, when most of the basic facts were available, Mr Obama tried again. It was scarcely any better. He began by offering 'an update on the tragedy that took place' -- as if it was an earthquake and not a terrorist attack from an enemy within... Completely missing was the eloquence that Mr Obama employs when talking about himself. Absent too was any sense that the President empathised with the families and comrades of those murdered. It was a reminder that for the past 16 years Americans have had two Presidents who would often extemporise and express emotion. President Bill Clinton could certainly 'feel your pain' while Mr Bush sometimes struggled to hold back tears. Mr Obama is more like President George Bush Snr, who famously communicated his concern for people by blurting out: 'Message -- I care.' ...
"With unemployment now above 10 per cent, Mr Obama needs to show Americans that he can relate to what they're going through, and take responsibility. It could do him good to show he has a bit of fire in his belly. Perhaps he might make a decision or two based on gut instinct ..." Toby, I'll tell you why this isn't going to happen. Barack Obama once said to Harry Reid, "Harry, I've got a gift." Obama thinks it's his speeches! Obama... Folks, you do not understand the ego of this man, the narcissistic ego of this man. The hardest thing for him to do every day is to turn away from the mirror after he gets dressed. And he thinks that his speeches soar and lift people's souls and inspire them to great actions and deeds -- his Berlin speech, his Cairo speech, the fake columns acceptance speech in Denver at Invesco Field at Mile High. They're all over the speech.
This speech yesterday, I'm sure he thinks that it was one of the greatest ever. But speeches, folks? Speeches are words. Speeches are not going to convince the Iranians to un-nuke! Speeches and words are not going to persuade the pot-bellied little dictator in North Korea to give up his nukes. Speeches are not going to change anything happening in Venezuela or other dictatorial outposts all over the world. So he's not going to stop making these empty speeches. In fact, I've gotta find this out during the break. There's a story I missed from over the weekend in the New York Times by Peter Baker in which this whole point was made: Mr. President, these speeches are starting to sound tired and the same and... Yeah, yeah. Here it is. I just happened to find it.
"The President Whose Words Once Soared," November 8th, Peter Baker. "As the most gifted orator of his generation..." He's not an "orator," he's a teleprompter reader! "As the most gifted orator of his generation, President Obama finds speechmaking perhaps his most potent political tool. It propelled him to national prominence in 2004 and to the White House in 2008. And whenever he needs to calm economic fears or revive stalled health care legislation, he takes to the lectern." He isn't calming anybody. This is the point! "But the limits of rhetoric were on display last week when the president could not rescue two foundering candidates in governor's races in New Jersey and Virginia. Has Mr. Obama lost his oratorical touch? Is the magic finally beginning to fade?
"Does the White House rely too heavily on his skills on the stump to advance his priorities? It may be too soon to reach such conclusions. The Democrats who lost last week, after all, had fatal flaws all their own. But the results do suggest that Mr. Obama's addresses these days may not resonate quite the way they did. Speeches that once set pulses racing now feel more familiar," 'cause they are the same thing! They are the same thing regurgitated over and over again. "We live in an era of divisiveness! We live in an age of cynicism! We live in an age of selfishness. My country sucks, but now that I'm here, it's going to get better, and we're going to work hard, and we're going to find jobs, we're going to..." These speeches do not inspire anymore. This is the New York Times on Sunday questioning Obama's one true gift. Here's the dirty little secret: People are sick of speeches. People want jobs!
BREAK TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: If you read this whole New York Times piece from Sunday, "The President Whose Words Once Soared," what you learn is that the New York Times is really, really worried. They know this is the only gift the guy's really got; that's how he gets people mesmerized to vote for him, and he's losing it. "The risk for any president is that at some point the public begins to tune out."
END TRANSCRIPT
Click the pic!
PLOUFFE: I just think it's a reality. The truth is that the Palin-Limbaugh-Beck wing of the party are calling many of the shots now. They purged a moderate woman out of that race in New York last week. I think they're not going to stop there, and I think there's plenty of Republicans outside of Washington --
RUSH: Stop the tape! "They're not going to stop there." "They purged a moderate woman out of that race in New York..." Palin and I! (laughing) Yeah, we went over there and we're not going to stop there we went on a rampage, folks! (laughing) We're tearing across the country and we're ripping the heart out of moderate Republican RINOs. (laughing) I love it! If they are so afraid of us, if they think we're such guaranteed loser they should be advocating this. Here, here's the rest of what Plouffe said.
PLOUFFE: -- that seem intent on trying to come up with solutions.
MATTHEWS: Yumphn!
PLOUFFE: But Boehner and McConnell, they don't dare cross that wing of the party, and so that's where the energy is. Uh, and I think that's really what the American people are faced with: A Republican Party that either doesn't want to cooperate because of politics not principle, or they're largely just offering warmed-over Bush policies which have been sounded like rejected.
RUSH: These people, I tell you... We are Satan! We are the enemies. The American people are faced with a Republican Party that... If we're such a minority, Mr. Plouffe, you ought to be celebrating out there. You ought to be happy. We're turning the party into this little minor, insignificant, minority-status party. Why, you ought to be happy about that! What in the world could be wrong with that from your perspective, I wonder. Hmmm?
BREAK TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: You know, folks, David Plouffe... David Plouffe is worried about me and Sarah Palin traveling around the country purging the Republican Party of these moderate RINOs. That's not what they're worried about, me and Palin purging. Let me tell you what Plouffe, Obama, Pelosi -- let me tell you what they're worried about. They are worried that I am going to purge the Blue Dogs. They're worried that I'm going to knock the Blue Dogs off and get them to vote against health care in the final analysis when it happens, Blue Dog Senate Democrats and so forth. They're afraid of Blue Dogs losing elections next November. They're not afraid. They're not afraid... In fact, they would love if this party were taken over fully by RINOs. They'd be in perpetual power, the Democrats would.
END TRANSCRIPT
MODULATED VOICE: Rush! Rush! Rush! Rush! Rush! Rush! Ruuuuuush!
RUSH ARCHIVE: The most dangerous man...in America.
ANNOUNCER: Twenty-five years on the air in Sacramento, and now...
CALLER: Major dittos, Rush. I've been listening to you since KFBK.
ANNOUNCER: ...we celebrate...
RUSH ARCHIVE: 1984, that's forever.
ANNOUNCER: Live from the same studios on Ethan Way, the only person to work side-by-side with Rush for 25 continuous years: KFBK's Kitty O'Neal! Live from the heart of Media Mecca, your favorite midday talker, and all-around good guy: KFBK's Tom Sullivan! And stay tuned because live form the Southern Command but northernmost in our hearts: The Big One! The reason we listen! America's Anchorman! Maha Rushie! El Rushbo! Our guest to honor, Rush Limbaugh, is coming up! (cheers)
RUSH ARCHIVE: This is going to be so much fun.
ANNOUNCER: All brought to you by NoMoreSnoring.com and Steve Luth, The Worker's Comp Guy. Here now your host for the 25th anniversary celebration of Rush Limbaugh on the air in Sacramento, KFBK's Kitty O'Neal and Tom Sullivan! (My City Was Gone theme song)
KITTY: Well, I'm high-fiving all you listeners as we're running through your radios. (laughing) Yeah, this is a very, very special hour. We are commemorating 25 years for the one-and-only Rush Limbaugh, who started here, humbly, at KFBK. Oh, how things have changed. Tom Sullivan, as you heard, is also on deck. So let's welcome in the gentlemen right now. We've got Rush Limbaugh and Tom Sullivan. Hello, guys!
TOM: Hello, hello. Welcome. Welcome, Rush, to your 25th anniversary show.
RUSH: See, I was waiting to see who would go first and you notice who jumped in there? Tom. (laughing)
TOM: That would be me. (laughing)
KITTY: Just like that. Just like that.
TOM: I'm the cohost, you're the guest. So I'm trying to cohost here.
RUSH: Now, that's true.
TOM: Yeah!
RUSH: That's absolutely right. You are correct. I take it back.
TOM: All right.
KITTY: You are the guest, exactly.
TOM: Just a second. Let me mark that down on the accuracy rating here.
RUSH: Yeah. (laughing)
TOM: I want to mark it down.
RUSH: No, no, no. That wasn't an opinion.
TOM: That's right.
RUSH: The Sullivan Group only audits opinions.
TOM: Yes, and we -- through the disgronificator -- have been able to figure out through my brother Floyd who runs the group. It's true. I mean, I've had people from all over the country call me and ask me about your accuracy ratings over the years. So...
RUSH: Well, it's a great business that you do and a great service that you provide, and it's also exclusive to me, so it's even better.
TOM: It is.
KITTY: Well, I'm glad you're here.
RUSH: Reasonable fees, too, I might add. (laughing)
TOM: Well, we'll change that. (laughing)
KITTY: The accuracy is going to be important here because we were trying to recreate the early days and when everybody started. Now, I'll just start because I remember my part -- and then Tom and Rush, you're going to have to fill in the gaps. When I started here at KFBK, it was in '84, and Morton Downey Jr. was doing what became Rush's show. I remember taking the call that eventually got him fired. I went away for a little bit because I was filling in for an ailing Dawna Bailey -- a lovely young woman, Miss Black Sacramento, who has sadly passed.
RUSH: Ahhh, yes.
KITTY: Remember?
RUSH: Oh yeah! Yeah, yeah, yeah.
KITTY: She started off, and then when she left the job permanently, then I came back to KFBK. And, Rush, I remember coming into the newsroom, and they said, "This is the new talk show host that you're going to be working with. (laughing) His name is Rush Limbaugh." And you gave me a huge bear hug. I don't know if you recall this. But I thought, "Wow, this is a friendly guy. This is going to be fun," and that was my start with you. So I predated you, but then I left, and then I came back, and you were here.
RUSH: And it was a simultaneous start. And I do remember the hug. I remember every hug of you that I have made.
KITTY: (giggles) Well, and there were many, so have a good memory.
RUSH: (laughs) Yes, there were.
KITTY: And, Tom --
TOM: I don't remember getting a hug.
KITTY: I don't even remember you, Tom, when I first started. I hate to say that, but I think we didn't have the same shift or something.
TOM: No. You know why?
KITTY: Why?
TOM: It's because I was a suit!
KITTY: Oh.
TOM: And you looked at suits like, you know, there was something wrong with people that wore a uniform. You had the thing back then.
KITTY: I had a thing?
TOM: And we became very good friends. But in the beginning, I think you looked at suits like they were from a different world. You were a rock 'n' roll babe.
RUSH: Absolutely right.
KITTY: Yes, I was.
RUSH: Absolutely right.
TOM: Yeah!
RUSH: She was an FM type: longhaired, maggot-infested FM type back then.
KITTY: (laughing)
TOM: Yeah, yeah.
KITTY: Yeah, okay. But when I did become friends with you, Tom, we became fast friends and hit it off really, really well.
TOM: Yes.
KITTY: And the same with Rush. So that's what I recall from the beginning. And then, Rush, you came how long -- Do you remember? -- that Morton Downey Jr. had been gone that you came to KFBK? Do you remember that?
RUSH: Yeah, I think it was a month or maybe a couple of months. And there's a name here that I have to mention. He passed away in San Francisco. His name is Norman Woodruff.
KITTY: Yes.
RUSH: And Norman was consulting a radio station in Kansas City which fired me for being too controversial. (chuckles) I was doing commentaries about the '84 Democrat primaries, and they didn't like that. But Norman was consulting at the station. He was there. And after I'd been gone for a week or week and a half, trying to find another job, he called me at home and asked me how I'd like to be a star in California. And I said, "Whoa! A star in California? Where is it?"
He said, "I'm not going to tell you until you say yes."
I said, "Well, this is not good. It must not be Los Angeles or San Francisco."
He said, "Sacramento," and then he laid out what the job would be and what the opportunity would be -- and, you know, I weighed it pretty heavily because I'd never been to California. I'd never been there. It was a frightening thing. But I said, "Okay, I'll do it," and Norm Woodruff is the man singularly most responsible for watching my back and making sure that the way I wanted to do my show out there happened. There was all kinds of pressure when I got there to have guests and to do a formulaic talk show like everybody else in the business was doing. And I had told Norm that I wanted to find out if I, once and for all, could be the reason people listened to radio. I didn't want to invest in a bunch of guests that didn't care about my success or any aspect of my success.
He and a guy named Bruce Marr, who came in later, who really had my back on this. And one of the most fortunate things that happened was that shortly after I got there, the management stole from -- I even forget the name of the station. There was a competing talk station across town. They stole the morning team, Dave and Bob -- and of course when they got Dave and Bob, for those of you sophisticated listeners (most of you are) -- the morning show is where everybody focuses their attention. That's what matters. That's primetime in radio. So they forgot about me. They forgot about the formula; they forgot about what I was doing. They were focusing everything on Dave and Bob, which is the best thing that could have happened to me because then I had three to four months to establish myself, and when the ratings came out after the first three or four months, they were better than I'd ever had anywhere. So Norm's, you know, having my back and just a natural flow of events there allowed all this to happen as it did. And if it hadn't been for Dave and Bob being hired, and Norman Woodruff, none of the rest of this would have happened because I wouldn't have cut it as a host who had to have guests. I would have blended into the crowd and been, you know, no different than anybody else.
KITTY: Well, I do remember fighting that. Yeah, as a producer.
TOM: Yeah, but there was one thing that needs to be said here that you haven't said, and that is Norm... Also I grew to have a wonderful relationship with Norm Woodruff. And because of him, you got that break, and because of that, the rest is history. Norm died of AIDS, and he was a gay man. And it always has driven me crazy when people say, "Rush Limbaugh doesn't like gays," when this man was somebody that you and I both loved, and it just goes to people that don't know you or don't know the story or don't listen you and the complaints that they have that are unjustified.
RUSH: That's a cliché, that conservatives are racist, sexist, bigot, homophobic and so forth. My opposition is to liberals. I don't care what they are, who they are, where they coming from. That's my opposition. Norman was a liberal, but he was more than that. He was a radio programmer. He had, as his desire, the success of KFBK. Since you bring this up, the first two weeks I was there, I lived at the Red Lion. And then after those two weeks was over, I got kicked out to a Motel 6. Seriously. And Norman would take me to dinner every night. And one night he took me to dinner, and he looked at me in the eye, and he said, "Do you understand what fear is?" And I didn't know where that was going.
I said, "What are you talking about?" And that's when he started talking. That's when he told me that he was gay and that AIDS was ravaging San Francisco and that he was deathly afraid of contracting it. And he did. And I've never... He just spoke to me openly about it. It was chilling, and it was extremely sobering. You know, he lived with two men in San Francisco, and I remember when he got sick, they both quit their jobs to stay in the house with him and go down to see him, and he was just putting up a valiant fight, but it was really unfortunate. And you're right, Tom, to bring this all up, because he was so full of life. I remember the first week when I showed up, I showed up in a pair of brown slacks (I think they were Sansabelt slacks_ and a yellow sweater -- crew neck, long sleeves, no shirt. He came up to me, and he said, "Unacceptable attire, sir. We wear natural fibers in California," and then demanded I wear a coat and tie.
TOM: (laughing) You sound like him. That's exactly how he talked. Yeah.
RUSH: He demanded I wear a coat and tie every day if I was going to take my job seriously and be perceived as a professional. So he was a godsend for me.
KITTY: I'm going to have to do a PS about Norm. He hired me as well, and if anybody is trying to visualize this man, we often compared him to Lou Grant, the character from the old Mary Tyler Moore Show.
TOM: Yeah, yeah.
KITTY: Because he was gruff, he was a little heavy set, had a shock of hair, and did kind of like speak like that. He had a toughness to him, no question.
RUSH: Oh, yeah!
KITTY: Oh, yeah. He was tough.
RUSH: I remember one day in the newsroom, there wasn't a copy of the New York Times, and he just lambasted everybody in there. "You can't do a broadcast without reading the New York Times first!" and so forth. It was funny. (laughing)
TOM: (laughing) I will tell you what. Another story about this, is that when you first got there, I've had people come up to me, because I'd been doing business reports there for four years. So I was a senior guy.
RUSH: Yeah.
TOM: I'd been there since 1980.
RUSH: Wearing a suit! (laughs)
TOM: Yeah, I was wearing a suit. And people said, "What's with this new guy? What happened to the old guy? You know, I liked Morton Downey Jr. I don't know about this new guy. Where's Morton? I don't want this new guy." I mean, it was a typical reaction. You had to prove yourself.
KITTY: Don't like change, yeah.
TOM: You had to prove yourself. And you did not prove yourself, Rush Limbaugh, until three months in -- which I've always believed it takes 90 days for a show to have a personality. I think you taught me that one time.
RUSH: Right.
TOM: When you went and did the show, you were talking about things like the Soviet Union and all these serious topics, and you went up to Yuba City to do a show, and you banned the people from Yuba City from ever being on the show because they smoked --
RUSH: No. No.
TOM: -- or smokers, or something along those lines.
RUSH: Yuba City had been found by some magazine to be the least desirous place to live in California, something. I forget what it was. So I went on the radio and said, "There are refugees pouring out of the place," and I banned all calls from Yuba City because if it's the worst place to live, what could they possibly have to say to be interesting?
TOM: So that's what it was. All right. All right.
RUSH: And so they got all offended up there, and Norm and I drove up. We actually did a show from City Hall. That's exactly right.
TOM: Well, it was the first schtick that you had done on KFBK --
RUSH: Yep.
TOM: -- and it went over hilariously. And that is when your humor and your using your techniques in broadcasting came through for the first time.
KITTY: It's true. And I'm going to have to play traffic cop here, because this is commercial free, but yet we have to get some sponsors in here. So I just want to say add a P.S.
TOM: What?
KITTY: (laughs) Yeah, I know. Imagine.
TOM: How can it be commercial free if you have to get sponsors in?
KITTY: Well, you know. When you mentioned ratings in the morning, this is what I remember is things changed with Tom and Rush when suddenly midday ratings became bigger than morning ratings. And this doesn't take anything away from what was on the morning, but a credit to you guys. All right. We have a little station identification business here. It's Rush and Tom live on KFBK.
BREAK TRANSCRIPT
RUSH ARCHIVE: I moved to Sacramento in 1984, and I was to start my show there October the 15th. So I got there a couple weeks early, and I drove around to try to familiarize myself with the community about which I was going to soon be speaking. So I'm driving around, and I went up to one of the Air Force Bases, I think there were two of them out there, and I now get them confused, but I think this was McClellan. Anyway, I'm driving around out there, and, all of a sudden, I come across this one-lane or two-lane road leading into what looks like oblivion, and the population sign or the city designation sign says "Rio Linda" and there's no number there in terms of how many people live there. You know, most population signs always say the population, at least they did when I grew up. So I figured, "Nobody is willing to admit living there, so let me go look at it." I'm driving down this two-lane road, and I see houses with refrigerators, the door is open on the porch.
I see cars jacked up on concrete blocks in the front yard, dogs running around chasing garbage in the front yards, and I said "Whoa, what is this place?" So I went back and I asked people at the radio station, KFBK, "What is this Rio Linda place?" And they said, "Well, it is what it is. There are some nice areas of it, too, but you just happened to go through the bad part." So I offered, after having seen the place -- and I used to have a shtick back then of always picking a local community and making fun of it just as a broadcast technique. So I offered to move there to elevate property values if they would rename the place Limbaugh, California. They refused, of course. I also tried the same thing with West Sacramento...
KITTY: That's right, celebrating Rush's 25th anniversary, and that takes you back a little bit. Yes, I remember as the caller screener for Rush, getting all kinds of complaints from people who lived in Rio Linda: "What does he have against us? Why is he picking on us?" But I think eventually, Rush, you became their hero, because look at the recognition you gave them.
RUSH: Oh, yeah. The recognition, the property values skyrocketed. Any number of wonderfully positive things happened.
TOM: Ha! But the thing about it is, you still use it as your schtick, and it's a very local thing, but it says something to your national audience.
RUSH: Yeah. And you know something, 25 years -- well, 21 years -- on this show and people still ask. Because there are new arrivals every day, the show is still growing by leaps and bounds, people say, "What is this Rio Linda stuff?" And you know, every now and then I have to take time to explain it, which I always love doing.
KITTY: Absolutely. And, you know, Rush, there are so many things we could bring up: The trips, the Rush-To's, the people that we've known. Actually, the studio is filling with people, and I guess we should probably bring a couple in here while we still have a minute just to kind of bring back some fond memories. Why don't we start here, because, Rush, one of the very first radio remotes I ever went to was with you, and it was Natomas, and it was this store. There was only one of them at the time. It was called the Sleep Train. Remember that?
RUSH: Oh, yeah.
KITTY: And in studio we do have Mr. Dale Carlson.
DALE: Hey, Rush. How are you doing?
RUSH: Dale! How are you, my man?
DALE: I'm doing fantastic, thanks to you. (laughter)
RUSH: (laughing)
KITTY: Did you single-handedly do this, too, Rush? Did you make...?
DALE: He did. He did. Without Rush I wouldn't be where I'm at today.
RUSH: But, you know something, I was talking about this on the radio today when I was mentioning I was going to be doing this hour on KFBK. I figured out, after talking to Sullivan -- and Sullivan was the business guy, the money guy, and we'd sit around and just chew the fat about radio. Finally it dawned on me, or he mentioned to me, "You're going to have to find your way into the revenue stream. You gotta put your name, your hand on X-amount of dollars you generate. That will give you ratings insurance and so forth," and out of the blue, there was a salesman, first name Frank. I forget his last name.
KITTY: Paluch.
RUSH: Frank Paluch.
KITTY: Yeah.
RUSH: That's right. Frank Paluch. And he said, "There's a guy with a mattress store who wants to advertise," and I went out and I met Dale, and I just jumped at the opportunity to do it. I mean, it was called Sleep Train! It was just made to order for this. And at the time you guys, you remember, there was a lot of controversy, and Dale was getting a lot of heat from people. "I am never going to shop at your store as long as you are using Limbaugh!" He stuck with it. And you know, that begot a whole bunch of others like it, and this kind of success I've never had. I'd never had that kind of investment by a sponsor, and me specifically and in my talent. And I've never forgotten it. That stuff, everything that you can remember and bring up -- even that I may have forgotten -- that happened in Sacramento was crucial. It was just... Without doubt, everything that happened out there was what prepared me for what happened later on. That's why I called it my adopted hometown. It was the first place in my whole life, except my hometown, where I really felt like a member of the community, like I actually had roots out there. I was only there three-and-a-half years, but I look back on it, and I still feel like I've lived there longer than anywhere else.
KITTY: Interesting. And, you know, Rush to have somebody in a commercial venture just starting out put their eggs in your basket and, despite all the controversy, keep them there and stand by you, it really paid off in so many ways. But I think it was just so encouraging for you, as you just said, when you were just starting out. And look at how it's turned out. (laughing) Sleep Train. How many Sleep Trains do you have, Dale?
DALE: About 230 stores in different brands and so forth.
KITTY: Yeah.
DALE: But, you know, Rush, he's done the same thing for me. When he left town to go to New York, you know, he told me, "Dale, the people you meet on the way up are the same people on the way down. I'll always take care of you," and the man's been true to his word, and you've continued just to be a godsend to me, Rush, and a great friend, and I appreciate everything you've done.
RUSH: Well, and vice-versa. Thank you. You know, there's so many people that I owe who enabled me to enjoy success that I've never been able to repay and probably won't be able to repay properly. So I'm glad that they had you in here, Dale, so I could tell you this personally again, 'cause he sends me a cheap bottle of wine every Christmas.
ALL: (laughing)
DALE: Something cheap. I can't afford your budget, Rush.
ALL: (laughing)
KITTY: Who can? Gee whiz. Absolutely.
TOM: Was that about the time, because of that, Rush, that you traded in that old Pontiac or Buick or whatever you had?
RUSH: Ohhhh, yeah.
TOM: Remember that thing? Did that thing even work?
RUSH: I arrived in California with a Pontiac Bonneville that was my dad's that was falling apart. I had traded him my falling-apart Buick Riviera. I showed up out there and it just died, I guess within a month or two. And I remember walking to and from work two or three days just because I didn't have the money. I didn't have the money to go get a new car, and I didn't know enough about the town. And they finally introduced me to a car dealer out there that had been a sponsor and ended up getting a (laughing) -- Tom, you'll remember this -- a four-cylinder Chrysler something or other. And I came over and I showed it to you. You're driving your SL 360 or whatever --
KITTY: Mercedes.
RUSH: -- Mercedes. And Tom said, "Oh, wow this is really pretty." He's faking it, you know?
ALL: (laughing)
RUSH: "Look at all these lights inside on the dashboard!"
TOM: No, you got like a really nice, nice Chrysler.
RUSH: Yeah.
TOM: It was a nice model.
RUSH: It was.
TOM: Yeah.
RUSH: It was a four-cylinder turbo. And it got up the hill to Tahoe like anything. It was great. I loved the car. It was the first --
TOM: But see, that wasn't that all that part about again building that confidence in you that just brought you up to the next level -- and then one thing after another, one thing after another -- and like you said, it prepared you for when you hit New York?
RUSH: Exactly. But, you know, when you look back on nostalgic things, your memories always end up being positive. But I mean there were... You know, radio is typical. There are a lot of egos in it, a lot of jealous people, and there were a lot of people not happy that my success was happening. There was some guy... At the time the FM station on the other side of the hall was country, and they had this really mean SOB that was the morning guy in there, and he invited me over to his house for dinner one night with his wife, and I think Dave Williams was there. I'm not sure Dave Williams was there or not. But, anyway, this guy just mocked me all night: "Do you really believe this garbage? Do you really think you're going anywhere? You are so idiotic and stupid" and so forth. You know, I left after about an hour and a half. I said, "I don't need to put up with this." But all of that, every aspect of it was preparatory to dealing with criticism and people that don't like you.
You know, I had to learn to take that. One of the things I tell people that ask me about it is, "You know, we're all raised to want to be loved and liked, and we go out of our way to make people like us." We'll sometimes, you know, modify who we are to adapt to what we think somebody wants us to be just so they'll like us. Nobody ever hated me growing up. Nobody who knew me personally ever hated me, nor did they think I hated anybody. But after I started in New York, in six months I'm a racist, sexist, bigot, homophobe. I had to learn to take that. This was a big psychological challenge. It took me three years to do this. I had to learn to take, as a measure of success, being hated by -- what? -- 20% of the country, audience, whatever it was. But now I've learned how to tweak that hate and embellish it and just drive those people nuts. And it's fun. But all of that stuff that happened in Sacramento, good and bad, was totally preparatory.
KITTY: It is. We were your prep school. And now you're just experiencing many of the same things but just on a grander level, I guess.
RUSH: Yeah, but with much more maturity and ability to deal with it.
KITTY: Yeah. Well, of course. I mean, you've grown as a person, no doubt.
RUSH: I mean, Mary Jane Popp, even. I loved Mary Jane Popp, but she was doing carrot cake recipe shows in the afternoon and this sort of stuff.
ALL: (laughing)
KITTY: And Roger, her producer. I remember that.
RUSH: Oh?
KITTY: Remember that?
RUSH: They were good.
TOM: I'm saying nothing. Nothing! (laughter)
KITTY: Okay. This is probably a good time for a break. We're gonna regroup here. We are, of course, talking with Rush Limbaugh and Tom Sullivan, 25 years celebrating Rush's career here on KFBK. We are talking about the good old days. We have another special guest who will be joining us in the next half hour, an old friend of yours, Rush, and Tom's and mine; and you'll know the voice as soon as you hear it. So, ladies and gentlemen, there's much more to come. Don't go anywhere. They're here 'til four. It's 3:30 now at KFBK.
BREAK TRANSCRIPT
KITTY: Yes indeed, 3:33 now at KFBK, celebrating 25 years of Rush Limbaugh at KFBK -- and we do have the self-proclaimed little fuzzball. You have a lot of names for yourself, Rush, and a lot of slogans and things that were just singularly you. And there were a lot of things that changed once you got to KFBK, and Dale Carlson was reminding me. I remember taking a call. You had made fun of some show called Supertanker when I was back screening your calls, and you'd made fun of the caller on the air (laughing) because of the way he said "Supertanker." And so you, you know, mimicked him for some time. Then he showed up at the front door with a knife and made it almost down the hall, until our two engineers tackled him. Do you remember that?
RUSH: No.
KITTY: You don't?
RUSH: No! My gosh!
KITTY: Maybe this is the first time you've heard it.
RUSH: Wow. Maybe. See? Nostalgia only reminds me of the good things. (laughs)
TOM: Whoa!
KITTY: Well, we remodeled the building. Remember when we got the more secure doors? I mean, before you could just kind of walk through, but not after that.
RUSH: Wait a minute. Now, it is starting to click. Now, when you say remodel the doors, that I remember, and now it's starting to come back. But I never saw the guy, I don't think.
KITTY: Remember Mark Stennett, the little engineer?
RUSH: Yeah.
KITTY: Nice guy.
RUSH: Yeah.
KITTY: He tackled him with somebody else.
TOM: I never heard that.
KITTY: You didn't?
TOM: Never heard that story.
KITTY: Oh, yeah.
RUSH: Try this one. Now, you guys all know this if you remember it, but of course I have never, ever divulged this on any air. But I mentioned Mary Jane Popp a moment ago. Shortly after I got there, six months ago or so, you could go on one of these cruises with Mary Jane Popp. Look, this is just factual. I'm not trying to be critical of anything here. The sales were not going all that great, and this was while the Sleep Train stuff was working great, so the general manager at the time whose name we won't mention came to me and said, "Look, I need you to show up at some McClatchy building at the newspaper. We're going to have a bunch of people, and I want you to do a big sales pitch on Mary Jane Popp's cruise." And I said, "Am I going on it?" "No. No."
KITTY: (laughing) So you endorsed it?
RUSH: "I have to go down there and tell people why it's a fun deal to go on Mary's cruise?" "Yes, you do." I said, "Why are you doing this to me?" So I refused to do it, in an act of insubordination, and he came in the studio one morning, during a commercial break, and said, "I'm not leaving here until you tell me you'll go," and he waited until a commercial break, and there was dead air for two minutes while he's standing in there waiting for me to answer. That's the way he dealt with it. The same general manager wanted me to check into an insane asylum in San Francisco to try to get them as a sponsor. And he tried to tell me that I was exhibiting traits of depression and so forth and it really would help if I took a couple weeks to go down there and then come back and sell it. You know, that I just refused to do.
KITTY: Well, I'm glad you drew the line somewhere. (laughing)
TOM: And that's the guy, that's the guy who I'm not going to give out numbers, but I mean you weren't making a whole lot of money, and you were asking for some small raise, and he kept putting you off and putting you off. And I remember you and I went to breakfast, you said, "I'm all excited. He's going to meet with me. We're going to go in. I'm going to talk to him about getting that raise," and he stiffed you. He said, "I don't have an appointment with you."
RUSH: Yeah, I got in there.
TOM: As a result of that, you met the people that put you in New York.
RUSH: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. They were more concerned about re-upping with the Kings, the basketball team.
TOM: Yeah.
KITTY: Yes, we know.
RUSH: Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's been a fortuitous thing.
TOM: Yeah.
KITTY: Well, and you mentioned the going to breakfast. Maybe we can talk a little bit about the social aspect, because, Rush, you did spend a lot of time out in the community, and there was a little bit of a club, I have to say. I wasn't a part of all of it because you guys kind of formed a little boys club. And one of the boys, if I may use that term, is in studio now, and you're going to know the voice as soon as you hear it who wants to congratulate you on your 25th anniversary, Rush.
STAN: Yeah, but you were the best mascot we could ever have. (laughter)
RUSH: Stan Atkinson.
STAN: Hey, Rushbo. Hello, Tom.
TOM: Hello, Stanley.
STAN: Great to be with you. I can't believe it's 25 years --
RUSH: I can.
STAN: -- especially when you're only 35 years old, Rush.
RUSH: I know. (laughing) That's a quarter of a century. I have to tell you another Norm Woodruff story. He would take me to dinner every night at 7:30, eight o'clock, seven o'clock, something like that, and the old Alhambra Fuel and whatever it was.
KITTY: Feed.
TOM: Oh, yeah.
KITTY: Fuel and Feed. That's right.
RUSH: And we'd go in there, we'd go in there and Norm would get a strategic table waiting for Stan to walk in. And he said, "Now, I want you to watch how this man carries himself. This is a star. This man is a star. Watch him work the room. Watch the love for this man." And he did. He did. That's where I first saw you in person. Of course, you didn't even know I was in the room watching.
STAN: Yeah, and that was, you first approached me. We were both in the locker room, the men's locker room at the Alhambra Health Club.
RUSH: Oh, yeah.
STAN: And you came up, and you said, "Hey, Stan, I've seen you on TV. I'm Rush." And I said, "Oh, yeah. I've listened to you. I think you'll really good." And that was all it took. And we started having dinner at Mesa's. We would work our way through either the menu at the Alhambra or Mesa's from top to bottom for about three hours every night.
RUSH: Skirts steak at Mesa's, right.
STAN: Every three weeks or so, and that's how our friendship began.
KITTY: Well, Rush you had a lot of friends here, absolutely. And I know Stan was one of them. And Tom probably really guided you along to the three of you, I think, huh?
STAN: Well, and there was another one, and I talked to him last night, Rush. It was Tom Hazlett, of course, who was a professor of economics at Davis at the time, and that was back east at George Mason University. And we did some reminiscing of our own. And we were recalling something that, if I use the word CompuServe, what does that bring up for you?
RUSH: Oh, CompuServe. That was the first Internet service where you could access the news wires.
STAN: And you were the original. We couldn't remember anybody who ever used the computer in that manner.
RUSH: No.
STAN: But you started stuffing your head every single night with whatever you could pull down from CompuServe -- which is something, by the way, you still do as a matter of prepping for the shows.
TOM: We used to talk to each other on the phone, Rush and myself, and I had a CompuServe account, and he did, too. And I would say, "All right," and we would go through this big setup to figure out if we could send a message through our computers to each other. (laughter)
RUSH: Yeah. (laughing)
STAN: It was a big deal.
TOM: It worked, and it worked. And the other part -- this is a funny part. I had a Macintosh, one of the early Macs. And Rush was looking around for some sort of computer. And I said, "Well, go over and get one of these Macintoshes." You've been a big Mac fan ever since, but I'll never forget, you said, "You mean you just bought it without asking your wife?" (laughter) I said, "Yeah."
KITTY: Yeah. Just did.
STAN: Rush, always the dutiful husband.
TOM: At the time that was a big deal, yeah.
KITTY: You know, Rush, I remember before even computers, when I was working with you, and I can remember coming in the door every day, and you would be sitting at your desk near the back door there in the newsroom, and you'd have on your tie; you always dressed up for the show; and you'd have your stack of newspapers and your single-edge razor blade, and you'd be slicing out articles, remember, for your show.
RUSH: You know, it's amazing. I used the Chronicle, the Bee, sometimes the New York Times, and the LA Times. Back then, you know, you could prep a show with three newspapers. Today, you can't do that. With all that's out there, the Internet, one person can't do it anymore. You need a couple people helping you find stuff off the Internet. Yeah, the explosion of information that's available has been incredible.
KITTY: Yeah.
RUSH: And Tom, I asked him, "When you buy a new car, what do you do?" He said, "I send them a wire." I said, "What's that?" He said, "I just wire them the money from my account." "You mean you pay for the whole thing at one time?" (laughter)
TOM: You were amazed.
RUSH: You don't know what an inspiration you were. (laughter)
STAN: Do you remember our argument over the man who owned Sacramento? That was something the Bee had called me, and as your fame began to spread --
RUSH: Oh, yeah.
STAN: -- far and wide in this marketplace, you finally went on the air and made some comment about, "Yeah, the Bee thinks that Atkinson is the man who owns Sacramento, but in fact I'm the one who owns the banks." (laughter) It was all you cared about, right, Rush?
RUSH: Well, at a certain point, yes.
STAN: Not today, by the way. (laughter)
KITTY: Rush, when you were getting ready to go -- see, you were here from '84 to '88; is that correct?
RUSH: Seven, summer of '87.
KITTY: And I remember having lunch with you before you left, and I remember you saying, "I am scared to death to do this, but I absolutely have to. This is an opportunity I just cannot pass up." And why don't you tell us a little bit about how you felt as you were getting ready to make that transition to New York.
RUSH: Well, Sacramento was my home. I had friends, more friends there than anyplace I'd ever lived. I had, you know, a life outside the radio station. I had success. And I was making at the time $45,000 a year, which was more than twice what I had ever made. This was '87, so I'm 36 years old, but this opportunity has been presented and everybody that had tried it in the daytime had failed. It just hadn't worked. And I figured, "Even if it doesn't work, I'm going to expand the number of people in the business who know me, and I'll at least, if all else fails, be able to come back to Sacramento or maybe go someplace else." But it was scary because I'd been to New York only once, when I worked for the Kansas City Royals, and the amount of money -- you know, the big thing that I did was take a percentage of the net profits versus a draw, against a draw without a full salary. And therefore it depended on performance. And the draw, as it turned out, was not enough for me to equate the lifestyle that I'd had in Sacramento, which was nice, but it wasn't top drawer. It wasn't enough to live in Manhattan. So that begot the Rush to Excellence Tour. Every weekend for the first two years I'm traveling around to all the new affiliates doing appearances and charging for it. I think I charged $10,000; the station got to keep whatever else there was and donate it to charity, just to supplant my income. But, oh, I was scared to death, because my most common experience in radio had been failure. Sacramento was the only place I'd succeeded.
TOM: Yeah, but at the same time -- you know, the audience doesn't know this; you know this, but is this business about the fact that everybody said, "No, you gotta have a local show. We don't want no syndicated radio show," and you broke that barrier to where now syndication is standard.
RUSH: That's one thing. Yeah, that's true. I forgot about that. By the way, I remember Mickey Luckoff down the road at KGO saying, "We wish you well, but this isn't gonna work. Syndication, national shows only work at nighttime. You gotta have local numbers, local hosts, local issues. You're not going to have any meaningful stations care about it." And I said, "Well, you know, I'll give it a try anyway." I mean, it was satellite time that was available, two hours of it to start, from noon to two. Turned out -- here's another fortuitous thing -- noon to two Eastern time is nine a.m. Pacific, and it's 11 a.m. Central, and so it was out of drive time. It would have been impossible if I were asking stations to pick me up in drive time either morning or afternoon. So those two hours that were available from noon to two turned out to be fundamental in having this all work out.
TOM: Yeah. Wasn't it your first book where you said that? I mean, it was the stars literally lined up because you couldn't have planned it.
RUSH: No, couldn't have planned it. And as Kitty mentioned earlier, or you did, if it hadn't been for the fact that they were playing hardball on a contract with me and pretending that they had not had meetings when they did and focusing on re-upping with the Kings. I had a clause in the contract that if I got an offer from a top-ten station, I could get out of it in 30 days. And that happened because part of the moving to New York was working on WABC. I had to do two shows, two hours local and then two hours national. And that was like for the first year, year-and-a-half. And if that hadn't happened, nobody would ever have heard of me.
TOM: And because of that, when I filled in on your show, Johnny Donovan did a little bit, a recorded bit that Kit put together that said that Rush Limbaugh gave Tom Sullivan his big broadcast break. And it's true because KFBK was the only station in the nation that had a problem. We had you for three hours. All of a sudden we had you for two hours, and Tyler almost-the-boss Cox said, "Tom, go in there and do a one-hour talk show, the hour that Rush isn't on," and that started that.
KITTY: The Tom Sullivan Show.
TOM: Yeah.
KITTY: Ah. The genesis of it at all.
TOM: So it was. I mean it was my big broadcast break because of the fact you did two hours instead of three.
KITTY: Amazing. Well, let's take a quick break here. And, Rush, I have to insert this. No question, I'm not overstating the case to say that you, I think, single-handedly changed talk radio, and to some extent broadcasting.
TOM: No question.
KITTY: Yeah, absolutely, Tom. We can talk about that more when we come back. We have, of course, Tom Sullivan here, Rush Limbaugh. We're celebrating his 25th anniversary on KFBK. I'm talking to him on the phone here in studio. We have special guest Stan Atkinson, also Dale Carlson from the Sleep Train, all to weigh in on this amazing 25 years. It's 3:47 at KFBK. We'll be back.
BREAK TRANSCRIPT
(Montage: The Bush Family's Call to Rush on his 20th Anniversary Show, August 1, 2008)
KITTY: That's right, 3:49 now at KFBK. And to pick up where we left off, you know, Rush, I remember starting with you, and you were so different. No callers, condom updates, Slim Whitman's records played backwards. I mean, this morning Ed Crane on KFBK asked me, he said, "When you were working with Rush, did you think that maybe he would ever achieve the kind of success that he has?" "Absolutely not." And who would have? Not even you, I don't think. Who could have done that? But what I did say was that you were absolutely singular in your talent then, and you've gone on to prove that in spades. And the thing is, as Stan was saying -- and, Stan, you can weigh in on this if you want, and Tom, too -- it's all generated by you. It was all your ideas. There's nobody coming to you and saying, "Hey, Rush! Hey, Rush! I think you should do this." No, these crazy things out of that own brain of yours.
STAN: Every show of every single day comes out of your head and nobody else's. And people who do what you do usually have a phalanx of writers and producers who pump them up and get them prepped for the next day and for the show. And it was so interesting because when you started doing the nightly TV show from New York, you were so frustrated by it because you'd leave the radio studio, you'd go over to the TV studio, your staff had already prepped the show for you. You said every single night you'd have to tear it up and start all over.
RUSH: That is true, because... Well, my whole career in radio has been spontaneity. I've never had one meeting with anybody for this iteration of the show. I mean, back when I was a deejay, I had them all the time. But I mean this talk show starting in Sacramento, never had one meeting with anybody. It was just whatever I wanted to do when I felt like doing it, based on what I thought would work at the time, even when the show started off and I didn't know what the first item would be. Television was so confining that I just felt constrained by it because I'd had so much experience with what I call improv. TV just didn't allow for it because whatever video you were going to use had to be put in a certain order, had to be used that way, and the floor director had to know where the cameras were going to be, and the first year of that show was extremely frustrating.
TOM: Yeah, I remember.
RUSH: As you remember.
TOM: I feel the same way about it. But I've gotta ask you a question. We never talked about this. When you were in Sacramento, Rush, you did all kinds of things, and there was a lot of humor, and the comedic side of you was there in various different kinds of topics. When you went to New York, it became more and more a political show; and I don't know how that happened or why it happened or if you found that that gave you better success. Because it seemed like your topics were all over the map in Sacramento as compared to New York.
RUSH: Well, part of that was the explosion of information that was available once the Internet kicked up and once cable TV expanded beyond CNN. But, you know, I'm listening to some of these clips that you're playing here during the billboard segments, and I've forgotten that I ever said half this stuff. Tom, it is a brilliant thing you bring up, because radio is a constant -- for me, a constant -- evolution. And it's always been about my passions. And I was just saying the other day, just saying the other day on the radio that I really used to put together a Lighthearted, Human Interest Stack of Stuff that was nothing to do with politics, nothing to do with anything other than just people behaving stupidly and laughing about it. And the evolution that we're in now, what's happening in the country, to me, is deathly serious. And it's hard to laugh at it. I try to find ways because I think that's the fastest way to persuade people, you know, is to ridicule and make fun of the people that you're having problems with. But every day I wake up, I feel like I'm in the trenches of a war without bullets flying back and forth. And it's a struggle. Not... Well, yeah, it is a struggle to keep as much entertainment value in it, because I feel compelled to be serious about what I think are really serious, destructive things happening in the country.
KITTY: 'Cause I remember you used to say that you were first and foremost an entertainer. Do you still feel that way?
RUSH: Yeah, because I think that radio is a show biz medium, and you have to cut through all the noise to be heard first. It's first a business. You have to stay on the air business-wise. There has to be a profit made, because the rest is academic if it doesn't happen. But, yeah, of course it's entertainment. I think what's happened to me is that, partly because the Republican Party's crashed and burned and doesn't have anybody that's singularly identifiable charismatically as a leader, that I'm looked to now as a political figure more than I ever was. But you have to adapt. You have to adapt to what things are and the way they happen. And, you know, I was worried for a while some years ago when the tone of things changed and got a little bit more serious, but we haven't yet had a down financial year from the previous year. We haven't lost any significant ratings at all. We're still growing. So it's all worked out. I think the reason for that is because, in the early days, I really have a deep bond. I think all of us who succeed in media do. Stan had it on Channel 3; you've got it, Tom. We all have a deep bond with the audience. And if the media doesn't make us, they can't destroy us. And I've had a lot of personal problems that have been publicly known and aired. The media has jumped in and chimed on and tried to do everything they can to discredit me, but because of the bond of credibility I have with the audience, they haven't been able to do it. So whatever the credibility is, however it started: Me being honest, treating them with respect, respecting their intelligence. They're loyal. It's something that I, you know, pinch myself every day for.
KITTY: I wonder that sometimes, Rush, how you must feel, and in our remaining moments here, when you look at where you started and where you've ended up. I mean, your salary's in the stratosphere. You're internationally known. You could have every material thing you possibly could want. You're a huge success. Are there times you still wake up and say, "How did this happen to me?" Or did you feel you were destined for it?
RUSH: Well...
KITTY: How do you assess all this now?
RUSH: I always thought, even in the early days when I was a disc jockey and being fired, I always had a confidence that I would succeed. In fact, I always -- and my mother was largely responsible for this by continuing to urge me on, and she made me feel special and talented at what I was doing. And I always knew I was going to be one of the biggest in this business, but I didn't have any idea how it would manifest itself. I didn't know what. I didn't know talk shows or anything of the sort. Now, the honest answer to your question is, "I never phone it in." I am so focused on tomorrow that I don't think about yesterday or where I am. I am so focused on meeting audience expectations and exceeding them that I don't stop to think of that. Look, I'm thankful for what I have, don't misunderstand. I don't take it for granted. I don't have my head in the clouds over it. It's something I think I have to earn every day.
KITTY: Got it.
TOM: So the question that the audience always asks me: How long is he going to do this?
RUSH: Ah. I've always said to myself, "If I get up one day and I don't care what's in the news, then that's the first red flag, maybe a yellow flag," and if that happens repeatedly, if I wake up and don't care, then that's when I'll know. But I have no intention of going. I'm still happier doing this than I've ever been. I enjoy it more than anything. It's become a part of my identity. And I know time is dwindling down here, and I just want to say a couple of things. Stan and Dale came in for this thing tonight, and Tom from New York. I really love all of you people. You have no idea the importance you have all played in my success, my being who I am as a person. And I cherish it. I'll never forget it, ever.
KITTY: Well, they are still here to say good-bye, Dale and Stan.
STAN: Tom, good seeing you, talking to you as well, Tom.
TOM: Likewise. Likewise.
DALE: Rush, Rush, thank you so much again, and God bless you, and thanks for what you do for all of us.
RUSH: Thank you, Dale.
STAN: Keep on trucking, Rush. Keep on trucking.
KITTY: And, Tom, you want to weigh in in the last minute?
TOM: I just thought... I was just thinking from the very beginning where I sat in that production room with Don Wright, and you came in with this song from The Pretenders, and you wanted him to cut it up a certain way. It's your theme song, and you've kept it all this time.
RUSH: Yeah, but now it costs me a hundred thousand dollars a year, because back then Chrissie Hynde had no idea who I was.
KITTY: I remember asking her that at an MTV ball, I said, "How do you feel about Rush using your song?" And she said, "Who's Rush?" (laughter)
RUSH: Her parents happen to like me. Her parents like me.
KITTY: Well how about that? Well, Rush, Tom, it's just been a pleasure, Rush. We could talk for hours, but suffice to say happy anniversary.
TOM: Happy anniversary, big guy.
KITTY: You've exceeded everyone's expectations. Congratulations.
RUSH: Thank you all very much. This hour has flown by. And only one political comment, too, which I absolutely loved.
KITTY: Excellent. You maintained it. Rush Limbaugh, Tom Sullivan also Dale Carlson and Stan Atkinson. Thanks, everybody. It's 3:59 at KFBK.
END TRANSCRIPT
| Read the Background Material... |
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| • KFBK: Rush Limbaugh 25th Anniversary Show |
"The chief U.S. diplomat told popular Charlie Rose TV Show that she listened to Pakistani concerns during her recent visit and in her meetings with the civil society representatives also aired U.S. concerns on some issues including the whereabouts of al Qaeda leaders. 'Well, I did raise that question because I was very willing to hear all the questions and the concerns from the people and the Government of Pakistan. And there are reasons for their concerns. I mean, we haven’t always been the most consistent or understanding partner and ally over the course of our relationship. And we do bear some of the responsibility, frankly, for helping to create the very terrorists that we are now all threatened by,' she stated." Our secretary of state, in Pakistan, making that statement. So that's who we are, that's who we have running our country. They're all Alinskyites.
Have you ever heard, by the way, we got this debate raging here over whether or not to send any more troops to Afghanistan, McChrystal, the general on the ground, wants 40,000 troops. And it looks like they're going to send 34,000. Media reports today that we're going to have a troika of Gates, Hillary Clinton, and Obama or somebody, they're going to decide on sending 34,000 troops. Let me ask you a question, folks. Have you ever heard Barack Obama explain why we are in Afghanistan? Have you heard him tell us what the mission is under his command? He is the commander-in-chief. Have you heard him say what the policy is? Do any of you know why we are there? What do you know beyond the fact that he has said he is uncomfortable with the concept of victory? Why are we there? What are we doing? What is the purpose? We can't say war on terror anymore, officially, as people that work for the government can't. Although I guess Hillary violated that by referring to these people as terrorists, but my point is, I'm watching video of the president at Arlington National Cemetery today, I just had the impression that Afghanistan and Iraq, and having to go to Arlington, they're just political inconveniences.
It's just things he has to make a show of caring about but really doesn't, and I firmly believe that. He has many, many other higher priorities. Well, Afghanistan, it's quite obvious. That's not even arguable. You know, I think back to my wonderful and earth-shattering, shocking appearance on Fox News Sunday in which I said in response to questions from Chris Wallace I think he's wrecking the economy on purpose. I don't think he cares about Afghanistan. I recall that in all of the administration reaction, they didn't address the substance of one charge that I made, folks. They came back, "Well, you know Limbaugh, just an entertainer. I mean it's surreal to be lectured to on humility by Rush Limbaugh,"blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. But let me ask you something.
If you happened to be the president of the United States and a highly acclaimed and extremely proper media figure goes on television or on the radio every day and says you are purposely wrecking the economy -- (laughing) they have yet to respond to that. They have yet to respond to, "He doesn't care about Afghanistan." Look, the reason they don't respond to he doesn't care about Afghanistan is because they're going to have to say what their purpose is, and they haven't done that. I mean, back during the Iraq war when Bush was in power, the only reason to go to Afghanistan was to find Bin Laden. Remember? Once we got Bin Laden, the war on terror would be over. Bush had failed because we didn't have Bin Laden. But now we don't care, all those people that said we had to get Bin Laden, it doesn't matter.
Now, for those of you who are disappointed that Barack Obama doesn't seem willing to connect the dots as they relate to domestic jihad and terrorism. In his speech yesterday at Fort Hood, I mean if you listen to that, it was mind-numbing to listen to him describe that in terms that nobody accepts or believes. What I want to do here is an exercise of giving Obama the benefit of the doubt. He tells us that we should not jump to conclusions. Have you heard, by the way, about what happened at the Columbia University bar, the black professor, 59, punched out a white employee of the university? Theater department. They were talking about race in the bar, and the subject of white privilege came up, and tempers flared and this 59-year-old black guy, professor McIntyre decked this theater department employee. I mean it was so loud, people in the kitchen could hear the fist hit the face. Let's not jump to conclusions, folks, about what was behind that. Just because they were talking about white privilege doesn't give us any indication at all why the guy decked the girl. We can't jump to conclusions on that. Just like we can't jump to conclusions with some lunatic shouting "Allahu Akbar" and opening fire on military personnel at Fort Hood.
So this is an exercise in giving Obama the benefit of the doubt, pretending that he doesn't know exactly what he's doing in every one of these instances, which I don't believe, frankly. But, you know, whether Obama is a bright guy who knows what he's doing or is a naive fool that doesn't, the result's still the same, so the reason doesn't matter. Whether he's a bright guy who knows what he's doing or is a naive fool that doesn't know what he's doing doesn't matter; the result is the same. In reality Obama connects dots as well as anybody, it's just that the dots he connects create a picture that Americans don't want like or need. For example, Obama has not connected the dots that Iran's present nuclear plans and activities will result in Iran obtaining a nuclear arsenal to go along with their promise to wipe Israel off the map. He's not connecting those dots. Is it because he's naive or is it because he knows what he's doing? Doesn't matter. The fact is he's not connecting the dots!
He hasn't connected the dots that siding with Central and South American thug dictators, what that will do to undermine the future of freedom and democracy in the region. It doesn't matter whether he knows what he's doing or doesn't know what he's doing; the result is the same: We are in trouble. He hasn't connected the dots on abandoning our allies in Eastern Europe and what that will trigger in Russia. So I don't care whether he's a bright guy that knows what he's doing or a naive fool that doesn't know what he's doing, the result is the same, we in heap big doo-doo. He hasn't connected the dots with regard to where following political advice leads as opposed to military advice in matters of war, i.e., Afghanistan and putting health care first, it's a political inconvenience is what it is. That's the truth. The result's the same. He has not connected the dots on bankrupting the country and resulting inability to fund the military and defend ourselves. In fact, it may be one of the purposes, to defund the military. But whether it is or isn't, it will happen.
He hasn't connected the dots with domestic jihad and terrorism. Whether he's a bright guy and knows what he's doing or is a naive fool and doesn't, it doesn't matter, it's still the same, the result. He hasn't connected the dots on completing the private sector of capital and the resulting inability to create jobs and thus provide adequate revenues to pay for what the government is supposed to do. Whether he is purposely destroying the economy or whether he's a naive fool that doesn't know what he's doing doesn't matter; the result is the same: The economy is being destroyed. I mean Obama, he's probably one of the better dot connectors in American history. The only problem is that his dots are not our dots and the same thing with Pelosi and Harry Reid. They're connecting a whole different set of dots and their dots are all about them, first and foremost. So, to oppose Obama and Pelosi and Reid is political and economic self-defense. Whether the attacker coming after you knows what he's doing or is insane doesn't matter, you still have to protect yourself, right? To sit passively and hope for the best will result in -- well, you connect the dots. I'm sure you can.
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BEGIN TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: Lake City, Tennessee. This is Judy, and you're next on the Rush Limbaugh program. Hi.
CALLER: I love you, Rush. Don't ever leave us. I want to tell you, I was turned on by my favorite aunt to you. She was one of the first women in uniform, she worked on the Manhattan Project in Oak Ridge that ended World War II, so happy veterans to you, Clara Zellager in Oak Ridge, but also this is a second terrorist attack. That extreme Muslim that attacked the recruitment office in Arkansas and then Fort Hood has been attacked, and when 9/11 happened, I still have a picture in my mind of President Bush standing on that pile of rubble and saying, "The men that did this, the people that did this, they will hear from us." He didn't blame the CIA, he didn't blame the FBI, he didn't blame the previous administration like that big air, big mouth, big ego we have in the White House now. He just said, "We'll make the people that did this pay." And here we've had two attacks in eight months while Obama is there, and for the seven-and-a-half years after 9/11 we were not attacked again, and I love President Bush, and I thank him for that, and I thank all of our veterans for their service, and I have a son in Afghanistan right now, and I hope they all stay safe.
RUSH: God bless you. I don't need to add one comment to what you said.
CALLER: Thank you, Rush. Don't ever leave us.
RUSH: Oh. I'm not going anywhere 'til every American agrees with me, which probably will be never, which means I'll be around forever.
CALLER: Well, I hope so. And listen, being called a tea bagger by that scumbag Bill Clinton I wear as a badge of honor.
RUSH: (laughing) She's on a roll. Well, you know -- (laughing) -- tea bagger -- that scumbag. (laughing) That's funny. (laughing) Badge of honor to be called a tea bagger by a scumbag. (laughing) You know, Obama has also called you a tea bagger.
CALLER: Well, I don't listen to him. I can't stand to look at him. I turn him off every time he comes on. But, you know, I like to keep it on a positive note. And I love all the veterans, I've got my flag out, I love my aunt. She's 90 years old. She was one of the first women in uniform, and we have a beautiful picture of her wearing her WACs uniform. That's what they called them then. And she's just an inspiration to me, and she turned me on to you, so she has to be always right.
RUSH: Well, God bless you. You know, I have experience with the WACs. My first and only year in college I was required, required to take as a physical education course ballroom dancing taught by a former drill sergeant in the WACs.
CALLER: Well, you know, could I point out one thing, we have people in Oak Ridge that know how to do nuclear research. And I heard a couple weeks ago that Obama is giving stimulus money nuclear research to the historic black colleges. We've got people in Oak Ridge being laid off that know how to do nuclear research. That's where the money needs to go, to people who know what they're doing. And I'd just like to point out that Oak Ridge, you know, everybody needs to keep them in their thoughts and prayers, and we're all for nuclear research and we need more nuclear energy.
RUSH: We do. Thank you, Judy, so much. I've got the story here. New York Times business blog: "'Electricity for Americans from Russia's Old Nuclear Weapons.' -- For about 10 percent of electricity in the United States, it’s fuel from dismantled nuclear bombs, including Russian ones. 'It’s a great, easy source' of fuel, said Marina V. Alekseyenkova, an analyst at Renaissance Capital and an expert in the Russian nuclear industry that has profited from the arrangement since the end of the cold war. But if more diluted weapons-grade uranium isn’t secured soon, the pipeline could run dry, with ramifications for consumers." I wonder how many people would be shocked to know that 10% of our electricity comes from old nuclear bombs, including those from the Soviet Union.
BREAK TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: Folks, we have reached a tipping point in vulgarity, perhaps. President Clinton has once again demeaned himself by using a phrase describing a perverse sexual act, "tea bagging," as an attack and slur on Americans he used to lead! We're talking about Americans who do not engage in vulgar sexual acts, as President Clinton has engaged in. If anybody's close to being a tea bagger, it's President Clinton. These are people who are standing on the shoulders of original patriots, those who led the revolt of attacks on tea which preceded the American Revolution -- and that's the problem. The tea parties are protests by Americans who object to an intrusive government, a government which is confiscating private property under the threat of punishment, incarceration.
These people -- you people, you tea partiers, people like me, Sarah Palin -- we have to be destroyed, we represent something very dangerous, individualism, American exceptionalism. There's some serious irony at play here. Americans who object to Central Planning, a loss of liberty, and unreasonable taxes are demeaned by an impeached former president using a sexually perverse phrase who, as a married man, had an affair with an intern, an affair that became famous for the creative use of a cigar, phone sex, and semen on a blue dress! And he's out there calling us tea baggers! Here we have a sexual predator, Bill Clinton, hailed by the left for these sexual perversions, using a vulgar sexual phrase against law-abiding Americans exercising the constitutional rights President Clinton once swore to uphold.
Courageous, ironic, deeply disappointing. Of course, this demonstrates the esteem President Clinton and anyone else who uses that vulgar phrase has for their audience. We have no evidence that Democrats are offended by anybody using the phrase tea bagging, but Macaca? Oh-ho-ho! Macaca? We gotta drive George Allen outta politics! He used the word Macaca! But the President Clinton can run around and call us tea baggers without consequence? Yeah, Clinton talked to the Democrats yesterday. He urged them to... He turned them into the kamikaze party yesterday. Bill Clinton treated the Democrat senators as kamikaze pilots. He ordered them to get in their Japanese zeros and fly them into the nearest aircraft carrier. Clinton said (impression), "Yeah, yeah, you know, the reason the tea baggers are so inflamed is because we're winning." We have sound bites. This is President Clinton after he spoke with the Democrats. A reporter said, "What did you tell 'em in there?"
CLINTON: The worst thing to do is nothing. One of the things that I think most Americans don't know is that under all versions of this, everybody that already has health insurance not only knows they can't lose it now, but they get to keep their kids on the insurance policy 'til they're 26 years old. There's more for mammograms, more for prostate cancer. There are a whole range of insurance reforms where the benefits flow immediately as we work up toward universal coverage and work out the financing and the costs and all that. It's not important to be perfect here; it's important to act, to move, to start the ball rolling, to claim the evident advantages that all these plans agree with.
RUSH: Well, now, in addition to none of that being true, there is a big contradiction here. He says, "We gotta get going. Pass it now. Pass it whatever you can. Just pass it." Here, listen to the next bite, and then I'll give you my analysis.
CLINTON: That's up to them to decide. The opposition has already been generated. But if the support gets disenchanted and the turnout goes down and you -- the surveys don't mean anything, puts you at a structural disadvantage. So I think -- I think it is good politics to pass this, and pass it as soon as they can. But I think the most important thing is it is the right thing for America. The worst thing to do is nothing.
RUSH: No, no! In fact, the best thing to do right now would be nothing. Nothing equals stopping this. Stopping this, stopping this equals doing nothing right now. Then we can do our own reforms. We don't need to do this now. But Clinton wants this done now. Just do it, do it -- and every year, add on! Every year, amend it, every year add something else, every year, then you get to universal this and get to universal that, and you get the public option. You gotta do it, gotta do it now. Why? Seems to me Clinton should understand this. Clinton went in there, and he told these Democrats that the only way they're going to keep their seats is if they pass health care. There have been three stages of Clinton. When he lost health care in '93, '94, he blamed on we went to too much, too soon, one big basket.
Then he blamed it on the Republicans in Congress. He blamed it on three different things, but he didn't blame anything on the fact he didn't get it passed. Not once did he say, "The Republicans were elected because I didn't pass health care." The truth is, the Republicans were elected for a host of reasons, among them Bill Clinton tried for health care, used Hillary to do it, and nobody liked her. So now all of a sudden Obama goes up and talks to the Democrats in the House, Clinton goes talks to Democrats in the Senate, and both guys tell the Democrats, "You're going to be worse off if you don't pass this. The only way that you can get reelected is to pass it. We've lost the Republicans. They're ginned up, their opposition to this is clear. You gotta turn out your base. You gotta go out and vote. You gotta pass this."
Now, if this is such a winner, if this is such a winner -- if he is of such a certain mind that health care reform will be the biggest winner for Democrat candidates next year -- why is he telling members of Congress to pass it now? Why not wait 'til next year, close to the elections? It will be fresh in people's minds when they go to the polls. Because this is all predicated on the fact people want this, right? Well, the polls don't say that, polls say most people don't want this. The fringe Democrat base may want it, and the Democrats are going to need their base to turn out and vote for them, but this is a kamikaze party. Bill Clinton's advising these guys to basically go out and throw themselves overboard. He's lying to them. Obama's lying to them.
The fact is that Clinton realizes most people are against it. So the Democrats had better pass it as soon as possible and hope that everybody forgets about it by November 2010. You know, Democrats only gave up on Hillary Care in late September in 1994. Don't forget this. The Democrats frantically tried to distance themselves from the effort in the run-up to the elections but it was too recent. Everybody was still painfully aware what the Democrats had just tried to pull when they went to the polls. By the way, we're supposed to believe that the Clinton-Democrat-media spin that the Democrats only got wiped out in '94 because they didn't pass health care reform? People just aren't that irrational! The Democrats are, but people aren't.
Now they're all in for Obama. "Gotta get this passed! If you don't pass this, you gonna go down in certain defeat." Everybody knew it was the Republicans who had stopped Hillary Care, so why would the voters turn around and reward the very party that had stopped something they wanted so badly? Do you realize the delusional state these people are in, in order to persuade their allies to get this done? If the American people in '94 so wanted health care, why wouldn't they have voted in still more Democrats to make sure it passed the next time around? It's not what happened. They threw Democrats out; Republicans took control of the place for the first time in 40 years. This is revisionism. This is Orwellian, in fact. Orwellian. You know, screw Nostradamus. George Orwell called everything. He called everything. He called Newspeak, he called Big Brother, and he called history revisionism. Statists sat in there and revised history books to take out all the stuff that the statists didn't want in there.
That is exactly what Clinton is doing now. And, by the way, ditto Hillary Clinton over there at the Brandenburg Gate. I don't care what your politics are. How you can not mention Ronald Reagan, a former president of the United States who was instrumental in the fall of Soviet communism -- how you can not mention him -- and still say that you are for a unified America is beyond me. How you could go over there and you can praise the current president who was barely reaching puberty when all that happened and probably regrets that it did. You mention him. You don't mention Thatcher. She's right there, you know, just a couple countries away in Europe. You don't mention Pope John Paul II who was a huge role in it. These people, folks, they are 1984, they are Saul Alinsky. They are Abbie Hoffman. They are a sixties radical bunch, and they have finally got their arms around this country, and they're going to run it into the ground.
BREAK TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: Mark in Houston. You're next on the EIB-Network, sir. Hello.
CALLER: Ah, yes. Rush, thanks for having me. I'd like to say that we conservative Americans are at the mercy of a handful of Democrats, these senators that are going to have to vote here. And it's a small few, but I know we're going to see some Chicago policies really hard on those guys. I know they're going to be bought. We already know the highest bid for a "yes" vote is some $1.6 billion. But the only thing I have to stand up and believe in right now is that there is a couple of good old American Senators, Democrats, who are looking at this and going, "I've gotta make the biggest vote of my entire Senate career on this vote right here." And that's scary, and that's all I've got to believe in right now, it feels like.
RUSH: Who are the two Senators? Who are the two Senators?
CALLER: I don't know, the Blue Dogs, call 'em what we want, but that's all we have to go on right --
RUSH: Oh, that there would be a couple senators that will not be bought off?
CALLER: That they won't be bought off, that they're going to look at this and recognize this is socialism staring us in this face, the country changes direction from this vote forward, it will wreck or ruin my career but it will also wreck or ruin this country, this is a very --
RUSH: I don't want to alarm you or anything out there, Mark, you know, I'm hear to calm, inspire, and motivate, but you're looking for a couple of good Senators among Democrats? Ha-ha.
END TRANSCRIPT
Thank you to all of our wonderful Veterans!
I wish more people would realize this, and just call them fundamental Muslims and stop calling them radicals or extremists.
Practicing your religion as written doesn't make you an extremist or a radical.
Unfortunately for us Infidels the religion itself is extreme, by our standards. Someday we might get the courage to face up to the fact that it's the religion itself that is the problem. - tom
Rush is so right about Hillary airbrushing Reagan out of the history of the fall of the Wall. We get such a constant barrage of petty Stalinism from this administration that you kind of go numb to it, but what Hillary did (with approval from her boss of course) really is a stunning bit of revisionism and deserves special recognition for its contemptibleness. I wonder what Merkel and the rest were thinking when Hillary never got around to mentioning Reagan. They have to be wondering what kind of fever America has come down with to inflict these kinds of leaders upon itself.
And if it did the other practitioners would rise up against you and shun you. We don't see that happening. Where is the outrage from the American Muslim community?
place holder
If you read the Koran and Hadiths you will see that the so-called Muslims, who collaborate with us Infidels, don't stand a chance of refuting the Fundamentalists about their desire to subjugate convert or kill all non believers in Allah. That's what the religion calls for Muslims to be doing.
The fundamentalists have the Koran and Hadiths on their side. So the so-called moderate Muslims can't refute those Muslims who are killing us Infidels.
One of the reasons so many Muslims get killed by the Muslim Fundamentalists is that they are killing Infidel collaborators, who are more repugnant too the Fundamentalists than we are.- Tom
I so often forget to say THANK YOU!!!!....
so a BIG THANKS tonight for faithfully posting El Rushbo!!!
Polly
No “thank you” necessary, deal pollywog. :-)
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