RUSH: I’m also really worried, folks. These Monday holidays, I keep forgetting, you know, it’s Michelle Obama’s birthday today and I thought maybe that’s why nobody’s working. I said no, that can’t be it, that will be coming later. Then I realize it’s Martin Luther King Day today, and I wish somebody would have reminded me, I woulda taken the day off. Do you realize they’re gonna accuse me of being a racist showing up to work today? You wait, that’s what’s gonna happen here. My brother sent me a note: ‘I don’t know if I gotta write a column for my syndicator or not,’ and I said, ‘You better not. Tell the syndicator you take this day off so they won’t accuse you of being a racist.’ He chuckled. He probably laughed uproariously, just didn’t want me to know it.
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RUSH: Edwin in New Bern, North Carolina, great to have you on the program, sir.
CALLER: Hey, Rush, this is Edwin from New Bern, I hope you’re having a great day.
RUSH: Yes, I am.
CALLER: As we look at this Martin Luther King birthday I think this country is still very much divided by name-calling. We hyphenate our nationality, Italian-American, Hispanic-American, I even have people in my neighborhood in the South Bronx, tell me, ‘Oh Edwin, when you left the Bronx in ’77 and you did this and that, you don’t sound like a Puerto Rican.’ I said, ‘Well, what does a Puerto Rican sound like? With a heavy accent?’ I just think that we need to look at people as neutral in this country, because I see a lot of division and a lot of hate that comes along when people talk to one another and communicate, and even to the point now where you and Beck and Hannity been attacked on this so-called deranged individual. And I even spoke to Sean Hannity last week and told him that talk radio, conservatives, have nothing to do with this issue.
RUSH: Yeah, I was just going to ask you, who do you think is responsible for the hyphenations and who is responsible for the name-calling and who’s responsible for the angst and the disarray throughout our culture?
CALLER: As a person who was raised, Rush, as a Democrat and you’re raised Democrat until you learn better, and I switched over to I think the right real side, because I see things in this country as not going in the right direction, and the Tea Party movement did a whole bunch to open people’s eyes, and I don’t want people in any political party to coddle a certain group for votes. Like Hispanics, for example, the situation in Arizona, which I think is appalling.
RUSH: Well, both parties are doing that, both parties are doing it via the illegal immigration debate. Both parties envision a brand-new bunch of new voters with amnesty for illegal aliens. Both parties do.
CALLER: But, Rush, I would love to see you, Hannity, and Beck have a show with President Obama on Fox, and you guys discuss these issues straight out. Because it comes to a point that this president is trying to mold reelection, and as an American first, and as my mother and father both born and raised in Puerto Rico, he will not get my vote —
RUSH: Look, Obama’s not gonna do a show like that. I wouldn’t even extend the invitation. Cindy Adams in the New York Post today reports that Obama held a private meeting recently with a couple of MSNBC hosts and Frank Rich to seek guidance from them on how to advance his political fortunes. So this notion that we all should get along is crazy. The left isn’t interested in it. They’re only interested in it when it equals Republicans caving or compromising on principle. It’s like this whole effort that’s being made for the Republicans and Democrats to sit together at the State of the Union. Make no mistake what that’s all about. This is political strategy by the Democrats to make sure that the optics, the picture of the vast Republican majority in the House and the sweeping, large sign of victory last November is not seen. If everybody is seated together, Republican, Democrat, Republican, Democrat, once the standing ovations come, you’re not gonna be able to tell which party has the most members, by design. And, of course, we’ve got some Republicans falling right in line with this. ‘Oh, yes, this will show unity. This will show that we actually like each other, that we’re all here to get along.’ And it’s classic.
Do you think if the Republicans had suggested this after the 2006 election or after the 2008 election the Democrats woulda gone for it? They woulda said, ‘You lost, you don’t even deserve to be in the hall much less sit next to us. It’s only by the grace of God and the Constitution that we’re gonna let you into the State of the Union show. You think you’re gonna sit next to us? Screw you, buddies.’ You think Pelosi would have entertained that? But here comes Chuck-U Schumer, some of these other guys making the idea. We’ve got Tom Coburn who says he’s disgusted with all the media right now, right and left, Senator from Oklahoma. He said it on Meet the Depressed. We got the audio coming up. ‘David Gregory was curious whether Senator Tom Coburn agreed with some that political discourse describing disagreement over issues in ‘apocalyptic’ terms was worrisome? However, Coburn was quick to dimiss the question as a media-generated ‘false premise.”
He said, ”I’ve pretty well been disgusted with all the media, right and left, after this episode, because what it does is it raises and says there’s a connection and the President rightly said there was no connection to [the Arizona shooting]. … And we’re spending all this time talking about political discourse rather than talking about the real risk to our country. We need to quit paying attention to what all the media says, we need to start watching, as [Sen.] Chuck Schumer has said, what we say.’ Gregory persisted by saying some on the right speak of President Obama as an ‘outsider who is trying to usher in a system … that will injure America and deny them of their liberty’ and wanted to know if Coburn rejects that idea and also the use of violent metaphors in political discourse.’
What? Violent metaphors in political discourse? Oh, you mean when the left does assassination books and movies on Bush? No, you know he doesn’t mean that. ‘Coburn agreed that he does reject that, and Senator Charles Schumer added ‘we as elected officials have an obligation to try and tone that down, and if we tone it down, then maybe the media will be less vociferous.” Ha-ha-ha. Fat chance, proving once again these guys think that all in politics revolves around them.
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RUSH: This is Jonathan in Everett, Washington, you’re next, and it’s great to have you on the EIB Network. Hi.
CALLER: Hi, Rush. Thank you so much. This is a total honor for me.
RUSH: Thank you, sir.
CALLER: About your previous caller, and advice you gave him, it’s wonderful. That’s the way I feel. They don’t back me down for one second.
RUSH: Good. Good. Good.
CALLER: I don’t listen to one thing they have to say. It’s ‘blah’ to me. But what I called about is that word ‘civility’ they keep talking about, and over the years I’ve noticed a lot of ‘killings’ they’ve done. For example, the ‘killing’ of jobs. The ‘killing’ of our industries.
RUSH: Mmm-hmm.
CALLER: The killing of the USA economy.
RUSH: Mmm-hmm!
CALLER: They want us to kill our unborn.
RUSH: Yeah-hah.
CALLER: They want us to kill our grandparents.
RUSH: Mmm-hmm. Through rationing of health care.
CALLER: Rationing of health care.
RUSH: Death panels.
CALLER: They killed President Lincoln’s birthday. They killed President Washington’s birthday. They’re trying to kill Christmas for us. They made a movie, like you said, about killing President Bush.
RUSH: And wrote a book about it!
CALLER: And wrote a book. They stand outside our soldiers’ funerals with banners, how happy they are our soldiers were killed.
RUSH: Oh, yeah. That’s a bunch of Democrats.
CALLER: Yes.
RUSH. Yeah, I know who you’re who talking about. They’re a bunch of Democrats.
CALLER: I have dreams. People that come to this country have dreams. We all have dreams. A wonderful man I respect highly is Martin Luther King. He had a dream, but they killed him.
RUSH: Boy, has that been bastardized, that dream?
CALLER: Yup.
RUSH: ‘Content of character’? Whatever became of that?
CALLER: The poor girl in Arizona? Ugh. They should be with her nine-year-old friends. They talked to her friends who played baseball with her. That’s where she should have been that day. The poor girl was just brainwashed by her parents, by her neighbors. Just like the Hitler Youth. She shouldn’t have been there in the first place.
RUSH: Well, I don’t know if I’d go that far, brainwashing. That was a toughie. It always is when kids are involved like that.
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RUSH: Tom in Port Orange, Florida. Hello, sir, welcome. Rush Limbaugh, the EIB Network.
CALLER: Yes. Good afternoon, Rush.
RUSH: Hi.
CALLER: A pleasure to talk to you. I’ve listened to you for many years.
RUSH: Thank you, sir, very much.
CALLER: I have just a little bit of a different take on all this ‘rhetoric’ about what caused this tragedy in Arizona.
RUSH: Yes.
CALLER: I listened to the liberal people try to blame it on right-wing rhetoric, and I think they’re just shielding the president. I think he’s the biggest divider in the country.
RUSH: I understand what you’re saying. I’ve said it myself: He has come to divide.
CALLER: Yes, I believe it. I mean, consider this. Think about the amount of fiscal and moral damage he has heaped on this country. I think has a created a level of civil unrest almost equal to the days of the civil war. It’s just nonstop from this man. His name-calling. Any hardworking, honest people that work hard just disagree with them, automatically they’re the enemies of America.
RUSH: Or they’re racist or something like that.
CALLER: Well, what a thing for the president to say about the American people. I just can’t understand this man.
RUSH: Well, that was set up by design. That was supposed to insulate him from any criticism being effective: ‘Ah, it’s just a bunch of racists! It’s just a bunch of people who are nervous to see a black man as president.’ That’s the refrain, and it’s designed to do two things: Stifle criticism and then render any criticism as irrelevant because it’s just coming from a bunch of racist kooks. Here’s a question: What president has ever demonized his critics more than Obama? Bill Clinton? It’s a toss-up. Remember, we’re comparing two years of Obama to eight years of Clinton. I think two years of Obama versus two years of Clinton, there’s no question it’s Obama. Big time. And we hope there’s not an eight year comparison we can make. We hope it’s four years Obama, eight years worth of Clinton. Anyway, Tom, I appreciate the phone call. Thanks el mucho. (A little Spanish lingo there.)