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Rush Limbaugh

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RUSH: We also have done something. It’s amazing, by the way, when you hear it, how similar Obama’s speech last night was to Jimmy Carter’s in 1980. It really is kind of stunning. We’ll do an A-B, side-by-side comparison and let you hear it. First we start in Fredon, New Jersey. Mark, great to have you. You’re up first on Open Line Friday. Hi.

CALLER: Well, mega one-of-the-89-million [not in the labor force] dittos, Sir Rush!

RUSH: Thank you, sir, very much.

CALLER: Last night, and after listening to you this morning on the opening monologue, I realized why I love you so much. Because evidently we felt the exact same way last night. I sat down in the chair and I turned on Fox and I said, “I’m going to watch this speech even though I don’t feel well.” I felt so poorly that I went and took three Maalox prior to the speech. This is not a joke. I am not over-exaggerating. I did literally do that, and I sat there and I watched him walk out on stage to some of the oddest music, first off, that I’ve ever heard at a convention.

It was mellow. It was not uplifting. It was nothing patriotic. I was kind of sitting there going, “What am I watching?” He didn’t stride out on the floor; he kind of meandered out onto the stage. He did not look like his normal, fiery self. And I was concerned. I must admit, I was concerned that if he hit a home run last night, it could have really changed the momentum of the election. He didn’t do it. As a matter of fact, I think he lost the election on one line last night, and it’s a line I haven’t heard you mention. I was sitting there feeling ill to my stomach, and he said, “I am the president,” and he stared right at the camera. He snarled at the camera. He snarled at the American people, and he said, basically, “Screw you, guys! I am the president.” I jumped up out of my chair.

RUSH: Well, I remember that. I didn’t quite have that reaction, but I can understand yours. The reaction I had was, “Duh! Yeah, like we didn’t know that?”

CALLER: I jumped up out of my chair, Rush, and I said, “You just lost the election. You don’t throw that in the American people’s faces. We already know we made a mistake last time.” I didn’t vote for him last time, I promise you that, but those that did who are already feeling poorly about their choice, he reinforced it to them by saying, “Nah-nah-nah-nah-nah-nah! You screwed up! I am the president and you’re suffering because of it.”

RUSH: I can see your point. It might have served him well not to remind us that he’s president. Grab sound bite four. I decided moments ago not to play this but now it might fit, because it is interesting. This is Obama from the convention last night. He did say, “I’m the president.” I don’t have the context here. I can’t remember it right off the top of my head, but he did say it. But this was a very curious thing to say.

OBAMA: You see, the election four years ago wasn’t about me. It was about you.

RUSH: What?

OBAMA: My fellow citizens, you were the change! If you turn away now… If you turn away now, i-i-i-i-if you buy into the cynicism that the change we fought for isn’t possible… Well, change will not happen.

RUSH: This is stunning! In 2008, he was The One! In 2008, he was The Messiah. In 2008, he was “O.” He was The One we were waiting for! All of that. He was the empty canvas on which you could paint any picture. You could make Barack Obama anything you wanted him to be. Four years later, it’s on you. Four years later, this debacle is all on you. “That election wasn’t about me.” This is a phony attempt at humility, number one.


But number two, he’s trying to ladle this audience with guilt. It’s up to them (“us,” if you will) to see to it that he has the opportunity to stay president. I don’t know. I found it was malaise. Let’s do a couple Obama-Carter comparisons. The similarities are striking here. Here’s last night. Barack Obama compared to Jimmy Carter in 1980. They’re not quite carbon copies, but they are close. Here’s Obama trying to cast himself as FDR…

OBAMA: The truth is, it will take more than a few years for us to solve challenges that have built up over decades.

RUSH: Stop the tape a minute! Stop the tape! Wait a minute, now. Here’s another thing. All during this convention, Kathryn and I kept looking at each other and saying, “Didn’t he say that if he hadn’t turned this around in three years, he’s a one-termer? Yes, he did say that, Maude. He said it. He said it to a number of journalists, and we’ve had the tape. Everybody’s been airing it, by the way. It’s been all over Fox. We’ve had the sound bite. In three years, if he doesn’t get this done, it’s “a one-term proposition.”

Cue that to the top. Now, “it will take more than a few years for us to solve challenges that have built up over decades”? This guy hates Reagan, by the way. Here’s what he’s trying to convince people, that the 30 years of conservatism from the eighties gave us what we’re having now. The 30 years of Reagan (with an interruption for Bill Clinton, eight years of Clinton). But 30 years of Reaganomics, conservative ideology gave us this economy with all this unemployment.

He wants people to believe, “I thought I could fix it in 3-1/2 years. It’s gonna take longer than that. It’s worse than I knew. They didn’t tell us how bad it was when I took office in 2009. They didn’t tell me how bad it was. It’s worse than anybody ever knew. Bush lied. He didn’t tell me how bad it was, and it’s much worse than I thought it was, and it’s gonna take much longer than anybody thought to fix this.” That’s where he’s coming from. That’s his perspective.

Here’s the bite again, in toto…

OBAMA: The truth is, it will take more than a few years for us to solve challenges that have built up over decades. It will require common effort and shared responsibility and the kind of bold, persistent experimentation that Franklin Roosevelt pursued during the only crisis worse than this one.

RUSH: FDR’s “experimentation” is a whole ‘nother subject. Here’s Jimmy Carter saying the same thing, almost…

CARTER 1980: [W]e have a memory of Franklin Roosevelt, 40 years ago, when he said that there are times in our history when concerns over our personal lives are overshadowed by our concern over “what will happen to the country we have known.” This is such a time, and I can tell you that the choice to be made this year can transform our own personal lives and the life of our country as well.

RUSH: It’s amazing. How do we ever elect that guy? When I hear that, I ask, “How in the heck did anybody ever vote for that?” But, anyway, you see the similarities, and there are more.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: That’s it. When Obama said that he was the president, the context was he had changed from 2008. (impression) “I’ve changed since 2008. I’m the president!” Which, I guess, was a way of complaining that he couldn’t run against himself. Because he’s running a campaign as though he’s not the president, not the incumbent. Now, Snerdley just shared with me a theory that, frankly, I think is a bit of a stretch. Snerdley thinks that all this talk…

For example, in the last sound bite that we played Obama said, “The election four years ago wasn’t about me; it was about you.” Snerdley thinks that that was an attempt to get back some of the fallout from (impression), “You didn’t build that! You had nothing to do with that. You didn’t make that happen.” Snerdley thinks that means, “You were the change. You elected me. You were the change.” Snerdley thinks that that’s Obama trying to make amends. I don’t think that’s it at all, with all due respect to Snerdley.

I think Obama is saying, “The onus for getting me back in the White House is on you.” I think Obama is saying, “It’s your responsibility. I did the stimulus for you. I did Obamacare for you. I stuck my neck out for you. I did everything for you, and now it’s up to you.” I think the onus is on you to get him back in the Oval Office, and to keep his little (pause) on Air Force One. It’s totally megalomaniacal. That’s what he is. Let’s do another Jimmy Carter comparison, shall we?


As you listen to these tapes of Carter, it’s 1980. What is that, 30-years ago? Yeah, it’s 30 years ago. I can’t… (snickers) I always thought Carter was a hayseed. Anyway, we’ll do another side-by-side comparison. Here’s Obama, and the theme of the speech: “Referendum on their record is not an option. It’s a choice between two futures.” Obama’s record is not on the ballot. No, no, no, no. What we have is “a choice between two futures.”

OBAMA: The choice you face won’t just be between two candidates or two parties. It will be a choice between two different paths for America, a choice between two fundamentally different visions for the future.

RUSH: And one of those visions we’ve already been living for the past 3-1/2 years, but you’re not supposed to think of that. What’s gonna be different if Obama has another four years? It’s gonna be more misery, more debacle, more disaster, more crumbling. Here’s Jimmy Carter on August 15th, 1980, at the Democrat convention that year.

CARTER 1980: This election is a stark choice between two men, two parties, two sharply different pictures of what America is and what the world is, but it’s more than that. It’s a choice between two futures.

RUSH: This is uncanny. This is… I mean, I knew it was liberal boilerplate. What did I tell you in the first hour? I knew it was liberal boilerplate. I knew it was liberal playbook, 50-year-old stuff. This is uncanny! Of all the people you want to go out and copy! It’s like Paul Ryan said: “If we fired Jimmy Carter, why would we rehire Barack Obama?” Play these two again. Seven and eight are the sound bites. Go with Obama first.

OBAMA: The choice you face won’t just be between two candidates or two parties. It will be a choice between two different paths for America, a choice between two fundamentally different visions for the future.

RUSH: And Jimmy Carter…

CARTER 1980: This election is a stark choice between two men, two parties, two sharply different pictures of what America is and what the world is, but it’s more than that. It’s a choice between two futures.

RUSH: “It’s a choice between two futures.” No, not “sutures.” He said “two futures.” Unreal. Sometimes, I even pause to admire myself. I said in the first hour — and I didn’t know Cookie had put these sound bites together. I had not heard these before the program started. I just knew. I told Kathryn last night, “This is liberal boilerplate. There’s nothing innovative in this speech. There nothing new here. This is old, old, old. It’s standard, liberal playbook stuff.”

Let’s do it again. It’s the same 30-year-old playbook. Here’s Obama claiming he put us on a path to energy independence from the evil oil companies with all of his alternative energy.

OBAMA: You can choose the path where we control more of our own energy. …

CROWD: (applause)

OBAMA: Today the United States of America is less dependent on foreign oil than at any time in the last two decades.

RUSH: Wait a minute! Stop. Hold it. I just can’t let this stuff go by. We’ll play the whole bite and we’ll play Jimmy Carter, but I can’t let this go by. “Today the US is less dependent on foreign oil”? This guy has shut down drilling and production in the Gulf of Mexico. He has not authorized the Keystone pipeline. Now, we’ve got an oil boom going in North Dakota, but we’re having to make up the oil from somewhere because he’s standing in the way of domestic production. He’s not permitting it. So this is an out-and-out lie.

Okay, keep going…

OBAMA: You can choose the path where we control more of our own energy. …

CROWD: (applause)

OBAMA: Today the United States of America is less dependent on foreign oil than at any time in the last two decades. So now you have a choice, between a strategy that reverses this progress, or one that builds on it.

RUSH: What progress?

OBAMA: We’ve opened millions of new acres for oil and gas exploration in the last (pause) three years, and we’ll open more.

RUSH: Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa!

OBAMA: But unlike my opponent, I will not let oil companies —

RUSH: Stop the tape! Stop! (singing) “Stop, stop, stop all the dancing; give me time to breeeeathe.” The Hutch just called and said, “Stop singing The Thrill is Gone. If you’re gonna do it, just play B.B. King. Don’t sing it.” This is a weird. You know, every commercial break I go to the e-mail and there’s 30 people telling me what I shoulda said, or how I coulda said what I did say better — and then the Hutch piling on. “Don’t try to be B.B. King.”

We have a choice of strategy that reverses this progress? What progress? Folks, seriously. There’s no progress anywhere. Not as a nation. We’re not experiencing progress. These people don’t like progress. What do you think environmental wackoism is? It’s opposition to progress. It is an opposition to modernizing things. It’s an opposition to improving standards of living.

Environmental wackoism is opposed to progress. Gasoline was a buck seventy-five when this guy took office. It’s close to $4 a gallon now! I guess to a lib, that is progress. That means we’re using less of it. But that’s how convoluted they are. They won’t be happy ’til we’re paying $5 a gallon like they do in Europe. “We’ve opened millions of new acres for oil and gas exploration”? They may have made leases available, but they’re not approving them.

Then he said, “I will not let oil companies write this country’s energy plan or endanger our coastlines or collect…” This is liberal boilerplate. I mean, I’ve grown up hearing about how the Big Oil companies are obscenely profiting. They’re destroying the coastline and they’re wrecking the environment, and getting corporate welfare and tax breaks they don’t deserve, and that they write the energy plan. That was the big thing. Cheney brought the oil companies in, remember, and let them write the energy plan.

Folks, I’m here to tell you, I would love Rex Tillerson of Exxon being in charge of our energy program much more than Barack Obama or any of his little statist, socialist Trotskyites running in here and trying to so-call improve our energy situation, because there’s not a damned one of them that has the slightest idea what they’re doing. They’re a bunch of professorial theoreticians from the faculty lounge at Harvard, thinking they’ve got all the answers. Barack Obama and his pals could not produce a drop of gasoline if this country depended on it. There’s not a one of them that would know what to do. Every one of Barack Obama’s energy buddies goes bankrupt. Hello, Solyndra. By the way, one-year anniversary of them going bankrupt I think was yesterday. Okay, so I don’t need to play this again. You’ve got it, it’s fresh in your mind. Choose the path where we control more of our energy, we’re producing all this wonderful oil, but the oil companies suck. Here’s Jimmy Carter, August 15th, 1980, Democrat convention.


CARTER 1980: The battle to secure America’s energy future has been fully and finally joined. Americans have cooperated with dramatic results. We’ve reversed decades of dangerous and growing dependence on foreign oil. We are now importing 20 percent less oil. That is one-and-a-half million barrels of oil every day less than the day I took office. This is what they propose: to destroy the windfall profits tax and to unleash the oil companies and let them solve the energy problem for us.

RUSH: It’s the same thing. It’s unreal. It’s the same thing, 30 years apart. It’s the same speech. I am twice, three times as stymied now as to why Obama did this last night. Not only did he phone it in, not only was his heart not in it, not only was it a bad speech and no nourishment, no beef, it was a carbon copy of Jimmy Carter. You notice how all these Democrats talk out of both sides of their mouths? They all say that we have reduced our dependence on foreign oil when it’s time to run for office, for election, but every other time we’re importing more, we’re getting worse, and the oil companies are soaking us, and they’re ripping us off. But at election time, they all tell us that we’re depending less because of what they’ve done. We ought not be importing any oil anymore if all these Democrats were as successful as they tell us they have been.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: I, naturally, was right. Snerdley, of course, was wrong. We have dug up an e-mail from Obama to his supporters, a fundraising e-mail, and the e-mail says: “The fact is that solving this problem is up to you. We are losing this air war right now.” This was a pitch for campaign contributions because Romney was out-raising them. So they sent an appeal out to all the people on their mailing list, “The fact is, solving this problem is up to you. We are losing this air war right now.” So this is, “If I lose, it’s your fault.” Obama’s saying, (imitating Obama) “It ain’t on me anymore. If you have hope, it better be in you. I’ve been at this three-and-a-half years, and I don’t know what I’m doing, and it hasn’t worked, and so it’s up to you now. It’s up to you save my job, ’cause I am worth it.” That was the speech last night.

Okay, one more comparison, Obama to Carter. The weight of a failed presidency has taught both of them what to do if only you give them another chance. They’ve failed, but they know now what to do, if you just give ’em another chance, Obama first.

OBAMA: Times have changed, and so have I. I’m no longer just a candidate. I’m the president. I know what it means to send young Americans into battle. For I’ve held in my arms the mothers and fathers of those who didn’t return. I’ve shared the pain of families who lost their homes and the frustration of workers who’ve lost their jobs. While I’m very proud of what we’ve achieved together, I’m far more mindful of my own failings, knowing exactly what Lincoln meant when he said, “I have been driven to my knees many times by the overwhelming conviction that I had no place else to go.”

RUSH: Here’s Jimmy Carter.

CARTER 1980: Let me talk for a moment about what that job is like and what I’ve learned from it. I’ve learned that only the most complex and difficult task comes before me in the Oval Office. No easy answers are found there, because no easy questions come there. I’ve learned that for a president, experience is the best guide to the right decisions. I’m wiser tonight than I was four years ago. And I have learned that the presidency is a place of compassion. My own heart is burdened for the troubled Americans, the poor and the jobless and the afflicted. They’ve become part of me.

RUSH: I’m just sitting here in stunned disbelief. Barack Obama, he coulda channeled FDR. He coulda gone back and tried to copy something JFK had said, or RFK. If he’s gonna go back to the past and seek inspiration, if he’s gonna go back in time, if he’s gonna go back to the liberal playbook, if he’s gonna go back to the Democrat Party failed ideas of the past, if he’s gonna go back to the boilerplate, why pick Jimmy Carter, if you want to win? Why pick Jimmy Carter? Little did I know — and I’m always aware when I’m right; I never doubt it — but little did I know how right I was when I warned the people of America that an Obama presidency would end up being nothing more than the second term Jimmy Carter never had.

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