RUSH: I want to go back to debate sound bites. We’ve only gotten through six of these, and they’ve been very powerful. Mike, grab the montage which is audio sound bite number two, ’cause that sets it all up. I asked Cookie to do a montage of Newt’s greatest lines with the applause left in from last night’s debates and then play the full sound bite from which sample comes from.

GINGRICH: Only the elites despise earning money.

AUDIENCE: (cheers and applause)

GINGRICH: I know among the politically correct you’re not supposed to use facts that are uncomfortable.

AUDIENCE: (laughter and applause)

GINGRICH: So here’s my point. I believe every American of every background has been endowed by their creator with the right to pursue happiness — and if that makes liberals unhappy, I’m gonna continue to find ways to help poor people learn how to get a job, learn how to get a better job, and learn someday to own the job.

AUDIENCE: (cheers and applause)

RUSH: Standing O. Standing O at this point.

GINGRICH: The Social Security actuary estimated if you make it a voluntary program, you actually reduce wealth inequality in America by 50% over the next generation because everybody becomes a saver and investor and you have a universal investing nation.

AUDIENCE: (applause)

GINGRICH: Andrew Jackson had a pretty clear-cut idea about America’s enemies: kill them.

AUDIENCE: (cheers and applause)

GINGRICH: Ninety-nine weeks is an associate degree.

AUDIENCE: (laughter, cheers and applause)

GINGRICH: We actually think saying to somebody, “I’ll help you if you’re willing to help yourself” is good —

AUDIENCE: (cheers and applause)

GINGRICH: — and we think unconditional efforts by the best food stamp president in American history to maximize dependency is terrible for the future of this country.

AUDIENCE: (cheers and applause)

RUSH: All right. Now we head back to the individual bites, and Bret Baier had the question: “Speaker Gingrich, Senator Santorum just mentioned that the surge in unemployment has created these so-called 99ers, people who collect benefits for the maximum 99 weeks offered now. What is the maximum length anyone should be able to collect unemployment checks?”

GINGRICH: The fact is 99 weeks is an associate degree. It’s…

AUDIENCE: (cheers and applause)

GINGRICH: It tells you… I think it tells you everything — I hope my four colleagues would agree here. It tells you everything you need to know about the difference between Barack Obama and the five of us, that we actually think work is good.

AUDIENCE: (cheers and applause)

GINGRICH: We actually… We actually think saying to somebody, “I’ll help you if you’re willing to help yourself” is good —

AUDIENCE: (cheers and applause)

GINGRICH: — and we think unconditional efforts by the best food stamp president in American history to maximize dependency is terrible for the future of this country.

AUDIENCE: (cheers and applause)

RUSH: All right. Now, prior to that Newt had had — I don’t know where it fell chronological, but prior to that Newt had had — the question from Juan Williams (paraphrased): “Don’t you see how your suggesting that poor black kids become janitors in the school could be seen as racist?” Newt said, “No, no, I don’t see that. We want the best for everybody.” Newt Gingrich was explaining conservatism in an understandable, philosophical way last night that has been sorely missing throughout this process and throughout this campaign. I said at the beginning of this campaign: Whoever best consistently articulates the principles, the ideology principles of conservatism will win this thing hands down.

Now, I’ll just ask you: If Newt had been this in every debate, if Newt had ignored Romney’s super PAC ads and just stuck with this stuff, where would he be now? I just ask you. I ask you to think about it. He’d probably be standing a little higher than he is now. I don’t have any doubt about it. Now, in the answer to Juan Williams, Juan Williams was race-baiting, all kinds of things. Newt didn’t fall for it. He talked about work as helping everybody because he’s a conservative, and Newt at his best is inspiring. I’ve told the story: Newt Gingrich inspired me before I ever got back into radio. I’m working for the Kansas City Royals; Newt’s doing special orders on the floor of the House during the Reagan years.

He was never better than when he was doing that when he finally planned the Contract with America and the Republicans took over the House for the first time in 40 years. He has the ability to inspire, but he gets sidetracked. The other half his brain goes nuts and falls into a trap and Nixonian traits come out and he somehow seems to think he’s gotta prove he’s not a monster to people like Nancy Pelosi, and it never works. He falls into that trap sometimes. If he’d just close off that half of the brain. Well, it’s too late now, that half of the brain is this. But in this instance, 99 weeks, what a great analogy. Here we have people sitting on their duffs not looking for work, under the guys that there isn’t anyway. In 99 weeks, what could they be doing?

They could be getting an associate degree! What a great way of contrasting the left’s view of assistance versus ours. Ninety-nine weeks is an associate degree — halfway to a BA or BS, depending on what you take in college. But again there was no racial intent here, because we as conservatives want a great nation. We want great individuals. We want everybody to do well. That’s how we have a great nation! There is enough wealth in this country for prosperity for everybody who wants it, if the government stops taking far more than what it deserves.

Newt had another great line last night that unfortunately I forgot to tell Cookie I wanted, but it’s right outta my wheelhouse. I’m gonna have to paraphrase it. I don’t remember the quote verbatim. I would paraphrase it by saying: “Why is it always assumed that government has to get bigger? Why can’t it be automatically assumed that government should get smaller and individuals get bigger?” Because when you take money out of the private sector, you are limiting the opportunity for prosperity for everybody. There’s simple less to be had because the government’s gobbling it up, and they redistribute some of it but never enough. The government can’t make people prosperous. Look at the people who are their chosen beneficiaries and find for me a 1%-er.

Now, you’ll find 1%-ers who get government assistance ’cause they’re rigging the system, but they didn’t become 1%-ers because of it. The government does not make people prosperous. The government makes people dependent, and seeks to make people satisfied on a subsistence rather than an existence. But prosperity is not even in the picture. We want prosperity. Conservatives, we are average, ordinary Americans. Many of us, through hard work and toil, love for what we do, desire to work hard for it, have been blessed beyond our wildest dreams. All we want is the same for everybody else.

We are not the ones who want to deny it to people. We are not the ones who don’t think people are capable of it. We know they are ’cause we’re just like them. Average, ordinary people imbued with a love of the uniqueness of this country who wish everybody had the same love for this country that we do. We don’t understand people that hate this country. We know they do, but intellectually we can’t relate to it, ’cause we don’t hate it. Even now we don’t hate it. We love it. We want to rebuild it, save it, protect it, so that everybody can do well, so that everybody can have the opportunity to reach the highest they seek to reach.

That’s what we as conservatives want. We don’t care where they come from. We don’t care what their sexual orientation is. We don’t care what their gender is. We don’t care what their skin color is and we really don’t care what their religion is, unless they use all of that to claim victim status, blame us for it, and then say we owe them. Then it becomes a problem. ‘Cause we’re not the problem. Just like in the world, the United States is the solution to the world’s problems, conservatives are the solution to America’s problems. There is a cultural divide in this country that has been created and erected by the left. It’s our version, as I said earlier in the program, of our own Berlin Wall.

Snerdley asked me, after playing the Juan Williams questions of Newt, “Are we ever gonna bridge this cultural divide?” Not in our lifetimes, I don’t think. It’s getting bigger. To bridge the cultural divide would mean getting to these people’s minds and hearts and changing them. I don’t know that that’s possible, so what we have to do is politically defeat them and make them forever minorities, and then maybe try to bring ’em into the fold. The Democrat Party only wants to help people who want to make a living through the Democrat Party. If you want to help the Democrat Party, they might do something for you. It won’t be very much, particularly if you’re just an average citizen. Union member, they’ll take a little bit better care of you.

We don’t see people as voting blocs. We really don’t. Maybe it’s one of our electoral problems. Now, our establishment does, and that’s why they’re not conservatives. They see voting blocs. They think you gotta do this to get that group, gotta do that to get this group, can’t tick off the independents. That’s not us. We know, properly articulated with passion and energy and inspiration, our message will reverberate in every heart in this country, every mind in this country, if it reaches them. And what bloc they’re in and what victim status they want doesn’t matter. Not gonna get everybody. People have been born into this entitlement society, and if that’s all they’ve got they’re never gonna take the risk of giving it up. So they have to be defeated. Then we bring ’em in. It’s all done for them, though.

I’m not trying to cast them out. They’ve cast themselves out. But we still want them to be prosperous, because ultimately that’s the best persuasion. But at some point they’ve gotta help themselves, too. If they refuse to do that then there’s not a whole lot that can be done for them. And that’s where the Democrat Party comes in. Those people become the heroes. Victims become the heroes. Victims of conservatism become the heroes. The greater mess your life is, the bigger opportunity you are for the Democrat Party. But you better remain a mess. You don’t serve the Democrat Party by improving yourself. That’s what ticks them off. You don’t help them by helping yourself. You help them by helping them. And to help them, you have to stay mired in squalor and poverty and subsistence, while they run around pretending to be the only ones who care about you.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: I have time for one phone call in there and gotta get some of these audio sound bites in.

Here’s Newt, co-moderator Bret Baier: “Speaker Gingrich, if you received actionable intelligence about a location of a Taliban leader like Mullah Omar inside Pakistan, would you authorize a unilateral operation much like the one that killed Bin Laden with or without the Pakistani government knowing, even if the consequence was an end to all US-Pakistani cooperation?”

GINGRICH: Bin Laden plotted deliberately bombing American embassys, bombing the USS Cole, and killing 3,100 Americans and his only regret was he didn’t kill more. When you give a country $20 billion and you learn that they have been hiding — I mean nobody in their — nobody believes that Bin Laden was sitting in a compound in a military city one mile from the National Defense University and the Pakistanis didn’t know it. (cheers and applause) We’re in South Carolina. South Carolina, in the Revolutionary War, had a young 13-year-old named Andrew Jackson. He was sabred by a British officer and wore a scar his whole life. Andrew Jackson had a pretty clear-cut idea about America’s enemies: Kill them. (cheers and applause)

RUSH: Kill them. Andrew Jackson, another near standing ovation. What did we get after 9/11? We had the State Department putting together seminars, “Why do they hate us? What did we do to cause this?” Ron Paul (imitating Paul) “We don’t need anymore wars. What did we do? I mean, we have to understand, if we start bombing them, well, they bomb us.” Right. Andrew Jackson: kill ’em. And even today, ladies and gentlemen, there are lots of headlines tut-tutting over the violent rhetoric in last night’s debate. The violent rhetoric and headlines about how the Republicans promote child labor laws. Home runs were hit last night.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: All right, now, this may only be a curiosity to me. I’m watching Fox here, Megyn Kelly, they’re doing a little Q&A. “Did the debate help Newt?” I’m asking myself, wait a minute, why do the debates if they’re not potentially helpful? Why even do them? Of course it’s gotta help somehow. You know, the interesting thing is how large a determining factor are they. But debates are not about maintaining status quo except for the leader, who is Romney.

Greenville, Michigan. Doug, hi. I’m glad you waited, sir. You’re next on the Rush Limbaugh program. Hello.

CALLER: Thanks, Rush. It’s good to talk to you.

RUSH: Thank you, sir.

CALLER: I’ve listened since ’88, and this is the first time I’ve called. I’ve been screaming at my radio all morning, was screaming at the debate last night saying, “Guys, you’re missing the point.” This is Martin Luther King Day. The contrast has been laid out clearly by Speaker Gingrich and the other candidates, but yet we’re not pointing out the fact that it’s occurring on an historical day, and they’re articulating for all practical purposes the dream speech of Martin Luther King, that calls for our people, black or white or any other color to be judged not by the color of their skin, but by the content their character. And Newt’s exchange with Juan Williams was a perfect example of that, clearly illustrates the contrast and couldn’t be more clear, you know, between President Obama, Harry Reid and the Congressional Black Caucus, their ideas of affirmative action as opposed to equality, equal opportunity as opposed to equal outcome, and I just thought that needed to be pointed out and a great pleasure to talk to you.

RUSH: So you think they blew it by not reminding people they were making these points on Martin Luther King’s birthday?

CALLER: Absolutely. I mean we’re trying to appeal to black voters out there as well, and not only that, Dr. King is an historical figure, and, you know, our ideas are much closer than the liberals’ ideas to the articulation of Martin Luther King Jr. —

RUSH: I appreciate the call. Thanks very much. This is what frustrated me about television. Well, Newt hits a grand slam and we blew it. Newt hits a grand slam and we blew it. Newt did the best debate he has done all debate season, all the campaign, and we blew it because we didn’t say Martin Luther King Day enough, or because we didn’t contrast it with Martin Luther King. It never occurred to me that it was Martin Luther King Day. But see, this is instructive because you find out what people think and how they would have improved it, how it could have even been any better. There’s just so little satisfaction, even when something is done very well. There’s no question that, you know, Martin Luther King, the American dream speech that he gave in Washington in August of that — Democrats don’t see it that way. It’s like his niece was on the Today show or something this week and said that he would be a pro-life social conservative today. You see that comment didn’t go anywhere. It had no legs as they say.

John in Crofton, Maryland, welcome to the EIB Network. Hi.

CALLER: Happy birthday, Rush.

RUSH: Thank you.

CALLER: I tried to get in last week to wish you that but I’m a little bit late.

RUSH: Thank you very much, sir.

CALLER: As far as Newt, everybody was saying that this is all over, especially when Huntsman dropped out, even before the debate there and he threw his support to Romney, everybody saying it’s Romney, and I guess a week ago you were even giving Newt some stuff about coming from the left and attacking Romney’s work at Bain Capital, and I think he more than made up for any ground that he may have lost in those I guess ill-thought-out attacks he did about a week ago, and you mentioned something about your speech at CPAC and the standing O’s that you got there, and I thought the same thing. I don’t know how many standing O’s he got, but the volume and the crowd down there yesterday, last night, was very welcome, very deserved, and I think that —

RUSH: It was unlike anything so far.

CALLER: Oh, my God.

RUSH: For anybody, I don’t care.

CALLER: This is ball game again, I think. But what I wanted to say is, I looked at the Mayflower Compact, you know, Obama always says that when times get rough, you know, certain Americans, middle Americans cling to their Bibles. Well, that’s what Governor Bradford did in 1620 when he found out that putting everything in the common store based on the Mayflower Compact didn’t work because people didn’t work. And so he read the Bible and he came to the second epistle of Paul to the Thessalonians and it said in there if any man would not work, neither should he eat. Now, all these freeloaders that we had then, we have them today. They’re up on Capitol Hill right as we speak asking for free stuff. And it never worked, communism never works. It’s in the Bible, the Bible was followed and that’s why we had a successful Thanksgiving in Plymouth colony. That was 400 years ago and it’s as true today as it was 400 years ago.

RUSH: I want to make a point about that as it relates to the standing ovation that Newt got. This is an important point to make because you referred to the freeloaders back then and the freeloaders today, and we still have ’em and they’re up on Capitol Hill, but they’re also throughout the country. Newt did not get a standing O last night ’cause he attacked freeloaders. Now, this is an important distinction. Newt got a standing O because his comments were positive and uplifting and inspiring and telling people how to get out of freeloader status. He was not ripping freeloaders. He was ripping the Democrat Party for sponsoring and keeping them. He was not ripping them. He was not scolding.

This was an inspiring set of comments that he made rooted in conservative principles. And they were oriented toward uplifting people, not bashing them. And this is why the left is befuddled today, it’s why all they can say is, “Well, Newt was obviously standing up for child labor laws.” What bunk. Nobody in the world thinks we support child labor laws, or forced child labor, let me put it that way. I mean that’s how weak their intellectual response to this is. But I think it’s worth pointing out that what Newt was doing was not bashing freeloaders. If anything, you feel sorry for ’em, you feel sorry because they’ve gotten the wrong message. They’ve been educated to be freeloaders. They have been raised to be freeloaders. They have been raised to believe that being an American is something that it isn’t, that it’s an entitlement.

They’ve been raised to believe that they are victims. They’ve been raised in the throes, in the midst of class envy. They have been raised and brought up to believe that the only reason they don’t have anything in life is because others have stolen it from them and are keeping it away from them and they don’t have a chance to get it on their own. So it doesn’t make any difference if they go to work because that game is rigged, too. This is what they’re taught. This is what we have to overcome. The freeloaders are trapped on the wrong side of the Berlin Wall in this country. They’re trapped on the wrong side of the cultural divide. It’s going to have to change if America is to avoid this massive transformation that Obama seeks.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: There were other people on stage. We haven’t had a chance to get to nearly all of them. Everybody was good last night, including Ron Paul, who was incoherent as hell on foreign policy and (impression) “the waaaars” and Obama getting Osama and all this stuff, but here’s Rick Perry. This is Bret Baier, again, with the question: “Governor Perry, you’ve gone so far as to call what Romney did at Bain ‘vulture capitalism,’ but you’ve also said regulations in America are killing America. In fact, you said we should repeal the most recent financial regulations law, Dodd-Frank, so what specific regulations would you put in place to curb ‘vulture capitalism’?”

PERRY: I visited Georgetown, South Carolina. It was one of those towns where there was a steel mill that Bain swept in, they picked that company over and a lot of people lost jobs there — and — and the fact of the matter is we got records. My income tax have been out every year. Newt, I think you’re gonna let your income tax come out Thursday. And, Mitt, we need for you to release your income tax so the people of this country can see how you’ve made your money.

AUDIENCE: (cheering and applause)

RUSH: By the way, that became an ongoing topic, and Mitt said, “Well, maybe, maybe in April. If I get the nomination I’ll do it in April, maybe. Maybe.” He said he thinks his aggregate tax rate has been 15%, what he’s been paying. So after this, Jerry Seib of the Wall Street Journal said, “American Pad & Paper is a company Bain Capital bought for $5 million, took on more debt to expand it, couldn’t pay back the loans, went bankrupt, several hundred people lost their jobs. Bain Capital, though, took a hundred million dollars in profits and fees. Now, does that show a flaw in the Bain Capital model, or is that just the rough and tumble of American capitalism, Governor Romney?”

ROMNEY: At the time I was at Bain the company, the business was still going and didn’t go bankrupt. What the company did is they had one paper company and then they bought another one down the road and they said, “We don’t need to have,” in an industry, that’s shrinking, “two different plants making the same product so let’s consolidate the two plants together,” and all the people in the plant that was closed were offered jobs in the new plant. Now, they were union workers, they didn’t all want that nonunion plant work rule setting. But ultimately do I believe that free enterprise works and that private equity and the various features of our economy work to actually improve our economy to make America more productive with higher income and a brighter future? Absolutely.

RUSH: There is a piece in the New York Times today by Andrew Ross Sorkin. It says,
“Meet Paul S. Levy.He is a low-key private equity executive and former lawyer who helped co-found a midsize firm, JLL Partners, in 1988. … Mr. Levy has been dismayed that the industry’s heavyweights have not sought to publicly defend their industry in recent days. … ‘There’s a tinge of McCarthyism here,” Mr. Levy said in an interview. “I think it’s a pretty honorable industry, and I don’t know why people aren’t stepping up and defending the careers that define their lives. That’s a sad thing. What do they fear it will cost them?'” This guy voted for Obama, he says, in 2008; and it’s a good point. The private equity guys are not defending themselves, and capitalists don’t stand up and defend themselves. They just don’t. That’s how they have been intimidated. They have been stymied. They think that they’re gonna get caught in defending how they got rich, and they don’t think there’s any upside to it. So they just weather the storm, rather than looking at it as a teachable moment, rather than seeing it as an opportunity to go on offense and illustrate for people how this happens and how it’s a uniquely American thing.

Oh, we get all timid! There’s a shortage of guts out there from all these people who are under assault being attacked.