Rush Limbaugh
Address to Incoming House GOP Freshmen
delivered 10 December 1994, Baltimore, MD
https://www.americanrhetoric.com/speeches/rushlimbaughhousegop.htm
The first thing I would like to tell you, you’re coming into the beltway — inside the beltway — and as we’re all human beings, and we all are susceptible to human nature, and we all want to be liked; we all want to be loved; and you all want to live in surroundings which are not hostile. But inside the beltway for people like us this is not possible. And so sometimes to avoid the hostility, we say things and then begin do things designed to gain the approval of those who are hostile toward us. I want to warn you against it. I want to warn you: You will never ever be their friends. They don’t want to be your friends.
Some female reporter will come up to one of you and start batting her eyes and ask you to go to lunch. And you’ll think, “Wow, I’m only a freshman. Cokie Roberts wants to take me to lunch. I’ve really made it.” Don’t — seriously — don’t fall for this. This is not the time to get moderate. This is not the time to start trying to be liked. This is not the time to start gaining the approval of the people you’ve just defeated. (No offense, Cokie.) I use “Cokie” generically. It could be anybody. I don’t mean to single her out — I really don’t.
Well put.