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RUSH: Did you hear what Chris Matthews said? Snerdley, did you hear what Chris Matthews said about the miners? He said this proves that the Tea Party — let me get his exact quote here. He said that the miners would be dead if they followed the Tea Party’s ‘every man for himself’ philosophy. This is incomprehensible. This is along the lines of that review at Salon.com of the movie Secretariat. There’s nothing in the movie to be mad about, nothing in the movie to detest, nothing in the movie to be angry about or even threatened by. But now the rescue of 33 men who had been under the surface of the earth for 69 days and these people look at this in terms of the Tea Party versus the Democrat Party or socialism versus conservatism or what have you? The miners would be dead if they followed the Tea Party’s every man for himself? That’s not what the Tea Party is all about, that’s not what the conservative movement or conservatism is all about. I don’t know if you took the time to learn how they organized themselves in that mine. It actually is quite fascinating what they did to survive, and they had one leader that everybody invested their hope in and they trusted him, he was a natural born leader, and it all worked out. But to say that they would have died if they had been implementing Tea Party philosophies?

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

I want to talk about the miners. I really do. Listen to Matthews here. We have Chris Matthews last night, audio sound bite number 22. He is talking to Richard Trumka, and they have this exchange about the rescued Chilean miners and the Tea Party. This is delusional. It’s deranged. It makes no sense whatsoever.

MATTHEWS: The message coming out of the Tea Party people — and a lot of them are good people — is ‘every man for himself,’ basically. No more taxes, no more government, no more everything, no more safety net, no more health care for everybody. Everybody just get out there, make your buck, save it, screw the government, move on. Right?

TRUMKA: (whispering) Yeah.

MATTHEWS: You know, these people, if they were every man for himself out in that mine, they wouldn’t-a gotten out.

TRUMKA: (whispering) That’s exactly right.

MATTHEWS: They woulda been killing each other after about two days.


RUSH: Now, folks, this is deranged. These people are obsessed. ‘Tea Party, lot of good people in the Tea Party.’ The Tea Party is not a ‘party.’ The Tea Party is not even an ideology. The Tea Party is a force. The Tea Party is huge. Look at the amount of money congressional candidates are raising. Michele Bachmann, $5.4 million. The dirty little secret is that the inside the Beltway, ruling class, media types, their jaws dropped: $5.4 million. Sharron Angle: $14 million. That’s a gross number, direct mail campaign. The Democrats aren’t raising this kind of money and the Tea Party people are not going through the RNC or the Republican Senatorial Campaign Committee to get this. This is a genuine, grassroots, effervescent movement bubbling up. $5.4 million. So these people, Chris Matthews and so forth, are living in abject fear.

How do you take what happened in that mine and suggest that self-reliance would have resulted in them killing each other? What got them through that by self-reliance? Self-reliance and prayer — and I guarantee you they weren’t playing for the cleansed spirits or whatever that Michelle Obama is talking about. You know, everybody watched this last night in various stages of awe and amazement. You couldn’t help but be moved and thrilled by this thing. Not one hitch, and you look at how much of this was American ingenuity: The building of the capsule, the actual drilling, the techniques used, the strategy to come up with it. NASA was down there before Obama sent ’em out on their Muslim outreach. I mean, this was as American as you could get down there and the world was absorbed by it. This a teachable moment what happened in that mine and the whole rescue. It’s a teachable moment for Obama.

The leader of Chile didn’t whine. He didn’t complain. He didn’t say, ‘Yep, I’m on the job on day one.’ He didn’t complain about what he inherited. He didn’t say he inherited this problem. He didn’t bash his predecessor. He didn’t say that he was ‘focused on the problem like a laser’ while out playing golf 52 times. He didn’t threaten to sue the mining company. I mean, if you put Obama as we know him in place of that Chilean president last night, he woulda made a speech all about himself condemning the mine company, threatening to sue the mine company, talking about the entire call gold and ore industries and how we’ve gotta get out of that and go green because this is the kind of tragedy that happens. But the Chilean president just had a problem and he solved it without talking points, without spin, without a bunch of media guiding him through it. We’re told Obama’s a quick learner, despite this massive New York Times piece. A quick learner. Well, there’s a lot to learn from this whole escapade in Chile last night, particularly from the Chilean president.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: I was checking the e-mail during the break. It’s typical. I told you I do this. I go to the e-mail after the first half hour of the program and listen, read the people, telling me what they think I should be talking about, or tell me where I’m wrong about what I’m talking about. And a bunch of people said, ‘Rush, how come you have to take this great rescue and turn it into a slam of Obama? Why do you have to do that?’ I didn’t do anything. I’m sitting here talking about the great rescue and I have to listen to Chris Matthews trash the whole concept of self-reliance which had those guys protecting themselves, staying alive. I gotta listen to lunatics on the left try to politicize virtually every event that happens in the country and around the world.

This is a pure human interest story. I didn’t politicize this. These lunatics on the left did. So let me go back and remind you what Obama said the West Virginia mine collapse earlier in his administration, back in April. And, by the way, these quotes come from the Communist Party USA’s People’s World magazine. ‘Flanked by Labor Secretary Hilda Solis, Assistant Secretary of Labor for Mine Safety and Health Joe Main, and Mine Safety and Health Administrator Kevin Stricklin…’ So Obama shows up with everybody in his regime having to do with mines and mine safety for a press conference, and this is what he says to reporters: ‘There’s still a lot that we don’t know but we do know that this tragedy was triggered by a failure at the Upper Big Branch mine – a failure first and foremost of management…’ So he does: He runs out, trashes the company.

That’s his instinct when an accident happens, runs out there and trashes management, trashes the company. ‘[A] failure first and foremost of management, but also a failure of oversight and a failure of laws so riddled with loopholes that they allow unsafe conditions to continue. For a long time the Mine Safety Agency was stacked with former mine executives and industry players.’ Don’t tell me that I do not know what this guy’s going to do and compare him to the Chilean president. This guy, Obama, blames Bush, blames his predecessor, blames management, blames the mine company, and gets involved with all this. I’m just asking you to contrast this with the way the Chilean president reacted. He’s in first year in office, and it’s a stark, stark contrast.

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RUSH: John in Ogden, Utah, great to have you on the EIB Network, sir. Hello.

CALLER: Hello, Rush. Good to talk to you.

RUSH: Thank you, sir.

CALLER: I wanted to comment on Chris Matthews. I loved how he assumes, because the Chilean people are south of the border, that they just can’t make it without big government. I lived down there for two years, 1975, ’76, right after the coup when they threw the communists out. Pinochet took over and it was a hard row to hoe for those people. You know, they were just — I mean, Allende was gonna throw in with Castro, so they chased Pinochet around the world for the rest of his life because he threw the communists out.

RUSH: Yes, I remember them chasing Pinochet all over the place.

CALLER: They did. And, you know, all he did was save that country. Those people are more conservative than we are now. They are rugged individualists, and I think that’s why they were able to survive down there. I actually lived in Copiapo for four months and know those people well. You know, my wife watched the rescue last night, and she commented on the people, and she talked about how proud they were when they came out and —

RUSH: Well, they shoulda been. It was a tremendous achievement. I mean you talk about they got in, got it, and got out. There wasn’t a bunch of hand-wringing, there wasn’t a bunch of, ‘Oh, gee, how did this happen? Who can we sue? What are we going to do?’ The lawyers weren’t the first ones on the scene. The politicians weren’t the second ones on the scene. The first on the scene were the Americans with the knowledge and the technology to make the rescue work. It was an American company in Pittsburgh that drilled, came from Afghanistan, a private sector company. But, look, that’s not to diminish the Chileans. Your comment about Matthews and everybody south of the border being dependent on government, this is the way they envision most people. This is the thing that’s always been so frustrating to me, is that the people who claim to be looking out for the little guy, in order to look out for the little guy you have to think the little guy can’t look out for himself. You have to think he can’t get anywhere without you, and that’s Matthews and much of the American left. And you have to view people with a condescending contempt in order to have a belief that they can’t get anywhere without you and your help, and that’s how you derive your power. I think there’s all kinds of positives to glean from that rescue last night, and its aftermath.

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RUSH: Mark in New York City, you’re up next on the EIB Network. Hi.

CALLER: Hi, Rush. Thank you very much for taking my call.

RUSH: Yes, sir.

CALLER: I just wanted to make three quick comments.

RUSH: Yes?

CALLER: Watching Fox News yesterday morning. Condoleezza Rice was on with Gretchen on the couch. They were talking about the Chilean rescue efforts, and I found her comments very telling. As soon as it was discovered that the miners were alive, the Chilean president sent out an international appeal for help asking that the best and brightest from around the world come to help attack the problem rescuing the miners.

RUSH: Right.

CALLER: That’s how the Americans got there. And isn’t it amazing what untethered ingenuity can achieve? They beat all the timetables. They weren’t supposed to be out ’til December but by allowing them to work, getting the best and brightest in, they were able to do that. Compare that to the reaction of the Obama administration to the Gulf oil crisis. They refused all help and it became a fiasco.

RUSH: Yeah, but you know why?

CALLER: It was a snafu, one after another.

RUSH: You know why? You know why Obama refused help?

CALLER: Well, it comes back to him being the omnipotent one.

RUSH: No. It has to do with something called the Jones Act, and presidents have waived the Jones Act repeatedly. The Jones Act basically says that anybody from a foreign country or anybody working on a US disaster has to be unionized, has to be a member of a union. Well, the Dutch and a number of people who have some expertise in oil rig fires and collapses offered to come in and help and Obama would not waive the Jones Act because it would have insulted his union buddies. That’s just one of the explanations or one of the reasons, but your point is well taken. I’m glad you called. Thanks, Mark, very much.

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RUSH: Mark from New York City, there’s another reason — and this is crucial. There’s another reason Obama didn’t move fast during the BP oil spill. He wanted it. He wanted the disaster. He wanted it to play out over time. They were going to use and exploit that disaster, and that’s why it took 50 days to do anything seriously about it.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: Steve in Green Bay. We have less than a minute but I wanted to get to you, sir. Hello.

CALLER: How you doing, Rush?

RUSH: Good.

CALLER: Say, you touched on something in the first hour connected with the miners, that we’ve been trapped down in our hole for, what, 12, 14 months —

RUSH: Right.

CALLER: — and then you said maybe even longer, and, yeah, I think this is where the Republicans need to finish the race. It’s been four years since the Democrats took over. They campaigned on what, ending the corruption in Washington. Have they succeeded? No. They were gonna end the foolish spending. Have they succeeded? No. They were going to end the Iraq war. Not win the Iraq war, end the Iraq war. They haven’t succeeded in anything they campaigned on four years ago. Now the Republicans can finish the deal. Are we better off? The statement that came to mind, I was listening to your show the day after that election in November of 2006, Harry Reid said, word-for-word, ‘This just goes to show that one-party rule does not work in this town.’

RUSH: I remember, exactly right. Well, our hopes are high, and we’re going to have more than hopes behind what we do.

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