RUSH: Last night on CNN’s Anderson Cooper 45, discussion about Sarah Palin, the 2012 election, and the former White House communications director, Nicolle Wallace, was on and again said this…
WALLACE: You just take her and line her up against the rest of the field, the only other person that has had as great of an impact on these midterms is Rush Limbaugh, who gave a speech in March (sic) of 2009 at CPAC. You all covered it, it aired on this network, and everyone focused on the statement, ‘I hope [Obama] fails.’ He meant his agenda. But what Rush Limbaugh did and what would serve Sarah Palin very well is he made an intellectual argument about how Republicans can go at Barack Obama at an ideological and a philosophical level. He instructed Republicans to have a debate about the role of the federal government in American life. And Republicans are still very attracted to these intellectual arguments in defense of capitalism, in defense of conservatism. If she’s going to be the nominee for our party she’s gonna have tap into some of that power and some of those ideas and bolster that side of her political persona.
RUSH: Now, what was Nicolle Wallace referring to in the CPAC speech? Here it is…
RUSH AT CPAC: From the standpoint of what we have to do, folks, this is not about taking a policy or a process that the Democrats have put forward and fighting around the edges. If we’re going to convince the minds and hearts of the American people that what’s about to happen to them is as disastrous as anything in their lives in peacetime, we’re going to have to discuss philosophy with them. We are going to have to talk about principles, because our principles are not present in what’s happening here. So where the hell do we go to compromise what we believe in when our principles are not their principles, they’re just the opposite of what’s happening? (applause)
RUSH: That’s February of 2009, one month after Obama was inaugurated. ‘If we’re going to convince the minds and hearts of the American people that what’s about to happen to them is as disastrous as anything in their lives in peacetime, we’re going to have to discuss philosophy with them.’ We’re going to have to discuss ideology and principles, not issues, issue by issue, on the margins — taking, for example, health care and arguing with elements of it. We oppose the whole concept of government-run health care! And, if I might say so, I was a lone voice in this time, February 2009. I was a lone voice. Now, there are always other people in the conservative media who are doing this and I don’t mean to disparage them, but I’m talking about in electoral politics. In people dealing directly with Democrats and with Obama, I was a lone voice at the national level predicting what was going to happen. ‘I hope he fails.’ Everything I hoped he failed at he has succeeded at — well, most of it — and it’s distressing. But it must stop. Election Days can be a little dull waiting to see what happens. Let’s look back at why what’s happening today is happening. Nicolle Wallace says in large part it’s the CPAC speech. We have four sound bites. We’ll get started now. Here is the first.
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RUSH AT CPAC: Let me tell you who we conservatives are: We love people. (applause) When we look out over the United States of America, when we are anywhere, when we see a group of people, such as this or anywhere, we see Americans. We see human beings. We don’t see groups. We don’t see victims. We don’t see people we want to exploit. What we see — what we see is potential. We do not look out across the country and see the average American, the person that makes this country work. We do not see that person with contempt. We don’t think that person doesn’t have what it takes. We believe that person can be the best he or she wants to be if certain things are just removed from their path like onerous taxes, regulations and too much government. (applause) We want every American to be the best he or she chooses to be. We recognize that we are all individuals. We love and revere our founding documents, the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence. (applause) We believe that the preamble to the Constitution contains an inarguable truth that ‘we are all endowed by our Creator with certain inalienable rights, among them life (applause), liberty,’ freedom (applause), ‘and the pursuit of happiness.’ (applause) Those of you watching at home may wonder why this is being applauded. We conservatives think all three are under assault. (wild cheering and applause) Thank you. Thank you.
RUSH: February 28th, 2009, one month into the Obama regime, my CPAC speech in Washington. And we have more of it coming up right after this timeout.
BREAK TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: Back to the CPAC speech again, February 28, 2009. This was one month, basically — I guess five weeks — after the Obama regime was immaculated, was inaugurated. One month. Nationally — and, folks, I’m not doing this to pat myself on the back because I don’t have to. I’m doing this to remind you and for those new to the program who were not here two years ago, how we got where we are today. What happened? I’m contrasting how most people felt one month into the Obama regime versus how I felt and what I was saying. We could really replay the whole speech but that would be an hour and a half. They asked me to keep going. So I’m not gonna replay the whole thing. We have highlights. Here’s another sound bite.
RUSH AT CPAC: Now let’s talk about the conservative movement as it were. We, ladies and gentlemen, have challenges that are part and parcel of a movement that feels it has just suffered a humiliating defeat when it’s not humiliating. This wasn’t a landslide victory, 52 to, what, 46? Fifty-eight million people voted against Obama. There would have been more if we would have had a conservative nominee. (applause) I don’t mean that — I mean that in an instructive way, as a lead-in to what I’m talking about here. No humiliating defeat here. I can’t — sometimes I get livid and angry. We do have an organizational problem. We have a challenge. We’ve got factions now within our own movement seeking power to dominate it, and worst of all to redefine it. Well, the Constitution doesn’t need to be redefined. Conservative intellectuals, the Declaration of Independence does not need to be redefined and neither does conservatism. Conservatism is what it is and it is forever. It’s not something you can bend and shape and flake and form. (applause) Thank you. Thank you.
RUSH: We have edited the applause for the sake of time. The applause went on and on and on. When so many people were saying, ‘Hey, Obama won. We have to let him have his way. He’s a moderate, he’s a centrist, he will work with us.’ So many people were saying, ‘We have to realize we lost and work with this man. He may be special. He is historic.’ I asked, ‘Why would we want this Obamaism to succeed?’
RUSH AT CPAC: This notion that I want the President to fail? Folks, this shows you a sign of the problem we’ve got. That’s nothing more than common sense and to not be able to say it? Why in the world do I want what we just described? Rampant government growth, indebtedness, wealth that’s not even being created yet that is being spent. What is in this? What possibly is in this that anybody of us wants to succeed? Did the Democrats want the war on Iraq to fail!
CROWD: Yes!
RUSH AT CPAC: They certainly did. They not only wanted the war in Iraq to fail, they proclaimed it a failure. There’s Dingy Harry Reid waiving a white flag: (Harry Reid impression) ‘This war is lost. This war is…’ (cheers and applause) They called General Petraeus a liar before he even testified! Mrs. Clinton (booing) said she had to ‘willingly suspend disbelief’ in order to listen to Petraeus. We’re in the process of winning the war. The last thing they wanted was to win. They hoped George Bush failed. So what is so strange about being honest to say that I want Barack Obama to fail if his mission is to restructure and reform this country so that capitalism and individual liberty are not its foundation? Why would I want that to succeed? (wild cheering and applause)
RUSH: Why would any of us want to work with him so that only a little bit of it succeeds, so that we could be praised and complimented as working in a bipartisan way? Why? What was the value in bipartisanship with any of the Obama agenda? And then this…
RUSH AT CPAC: So as you leave here… (applause) As you leave here optimism, confidence, not guilt, it’s not worth it. There’s nothing to be guilty about. Don’t treat people as children. Respect their intelligence. Realize that there’s a way to persuade people. Sometimes the worst way is to get in their face and point a finger. Set up a set of circumstances where the conclusion is obvious. Let them think they came up with the idea themselves. They’ll think they’re smart that they figured it out. Who cares how you persuade them, the fact they can be persuaded is factually correct, it’s possible. But the main thing to do here is stop thinking that we are a minority. Stop thinking that it is being in the minority that liberates you. It is your beliefs. It is your core principles, it is your confidence that liberates you. It’s not being in the minority. In fact, for those of you watching my first national address and still hanging in there, we really are not that happy about being a minority and we’re out to change it. (applause)
RUSH: One month after the Obama inauguration, the immaculation. CPAC speech. Now, you go back and listen to this, and that speech foretold exactly where we are today in terms of where this regime was going to be take us. So many things from the conventional wisdom, such as, ‘If we don’t get on board with amnesty, if we don’t end up supporting this whole open borders proposition, why, it’s a death knell for the conservative movement and the Republican Party.’ Take a look now. Who is it that’s salvaging, who is it that’s saving this country? Who is it that’s saving the Republican Party from itself? It is you and me, those of us who were told that we are the problem. Those of us who were told that we were living in the Dark Ages, that the era of Reagan was over.
They told us to get past Reagan; that Reagan was fine in a historical sense but the era of Reagan was over, that the people wanted big government. People on our side, our own conservative intellectuals, were disparaging us, saying we had been passed by, we had lost sight, we had failed to recognize where the American people are. They want a welfare state. They just want it competently run. They want an ‘active executive.’ Oh, I remember that phrase. ‘They want an active role in life by the federal government. They just want it done smartly. They just want a new era of conservatism to be in charge of it.’ They told us we had to go along with global warming. We had to! If we tried to fight that that we would be seen as political dinosaurs and we would take the Republican Party down the tubes…
We have learned since that the whole manmade global warming movement is nothing more than a political hoax, as is the majority of liberalism — a deadly hoax but nevertheless a hoax. We knew what Obama was going to do because we read his damn book! We know and knew what Obama was going to do because we listened to Reverend Wright. We knew what Obama was going to do because we listened to him. We knew what Obama was going to do because we listened to William Ayers. We were not engaged in a false hope, wringing our hands, hoping and praying that Obama would deed moderate and move to the center and meet us halfway after having won the election. The very same people who mocked us for still believing in Ronald Reagan and Reaganism now mock us for believing in the Tea Party and its candidates.
The same people who mocked us for believing in Reagan now mock Sharron Angle, Joe Miller, Rand Paul, Christine O’Donnell, and Sarah Palin. Same people! We refused then and we refuse now to believe in magical thinking. We are too rooted in reality. We are too rooted in Literalville. We know precisely what is happening. We know where the left will take this country. It’s happening. We are living it. We’ve seen enough of it. We knew it was coming. The ‘smartest’ on our side didn’t. We did. They continue to mock us. (interruption) The supposed ‘smartest,’ of course.
I think, Snerdley, everybody knows what I mean when I say ‘the smartest in the room.’ It’s always in quotes. They told us we had to support amnesty, we had to get on the right side of this open borders business. We had to! We had to! ‘We’re gonna cease to be a majority part. We can’t alienate people like this. We’re gonna have to have a policy for Hispanics. We’re gonna have to have a policy for blacks, a policy for women, a policy…’ No, no. We are conservatives; we love everybody. Our belief, our principles are for the express purpose of benefiting everybody because our beliefs and principles empower individuals to be the best they can be, independent of a Nanny State, ruling class who views them with contempt. Conservatives love people, want and seek the best in them. And that’s how we get a great country. Which starts today.
BREAK TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: We led off the program today with some highlights of my CPAC speech back in 2009. I want to continue. This was one month into the Obama regime. At this time the Tea Party had not yet sprung up. There was general malaise. There was a depression, ‘Gosh, Obama actually won this thing.’ Republicans were talking about how we compromise. ‘First black president, can’t disagree. He’s very moderate. We hope he moves to the center.’ He’s out there having dinner with all these conservative columnists and so forth, and there was one guy, one person that was trying to say, ‘Nope, I hope all this fails. This is dangerous. This is bad for America.’ February 28th, 2009, at the CPAC conference.
RUSH AT CPAC: We don’t want to tell anybody how to live. That’s up to you. If you want to make the best of yourself, feel free. If you want to ruin your life, we’ll try to stop it, but it’s a waste. We look over the country as it is today, we see so much waste, human potential that’s been destroyed by 50 years of a welfare state. By a failed war on poverty. (applause) We love the people of this country. And we want this to be the greatest country it can be, but we do understand, as people created and endowed by our Creator, we’re all individuals. We resist the effort to group us. We resist the effort to make us feel that we’re all the same, that we’re no different than anybody else. We’re all different. There are no two things or people in this world who are created in a way that they end up with equal outcomes. That’s up to them. They are created equal to give them the chance… (applause) We don’t hate anybody. We don’t — I mean, the racism in this country, if you ask me, I know many people in this audience — let me deal with this head on. You know what the cliche is of a conservative: racist, sexist, bigot, homophobe. Excuse me, ladies and gentlemen of America, but if you were paying attention — I know you were — the racism in our culture was exclusively and fully on display in the Democrat primary last year. (applause)
RUSH: And my speech continued. We have three more bites.
RUSH AT CPAC: For those of you just tuning in on the Fox News Channel or C-SPAN, I am Rush Limbaugh, and I want everyone in this room and every one of you around the country to succeed. (cheers and applause) I want anyone who believes in life, liberty, the pursuit of happiness to succeed; and I want any force, any person, any element of an overarching big government that would stop your success — I want that organization, that element, or that person — to fail. (cheers and applause) I want you to succeed. Also for those of you in the Drive-By Media watching, I have not needed a teleprompter for anything I’ve said. (cheers and applause) And nor do any of us need a teleprompter because our beliefs are not the result of calculations and contrivances. Our beliefs are not the result of a deranged psychology. (laughter) Our beliefs are our core. Our beliefs are our hearts. We don’t have to make notes about what we believe. We don’t have to write down, ‘Oh, gee, I believe this way, I believe this way.’ We can tell people what we believe off the top of our heads, and we can do it with passion and we can do it with clarity, and we can do it persuasively. Some of us just don’t have the inspiration or motivation to do so in a number of years but that’s about to change. (cheers and applause)
RUSH: February 28th, 2009, El Rushbo at CPAC warning, telling everybody where Obama would go.
RUSH AT CPAC: Now, let me speak about President Obama for just a second. President Obama is one of the most gifted politicians, one of the most gifted men that I have ever witnessed. He has extraordinary talents. He has communication skills that hardly anyone can surpass. No, seriously. No, no, I’m being very serious about this. It just breaks my heart that he does not use these extraordinary talents and gifts to motivate and inspire the American people to be the best they can be. He’s doing just the opposite. And it’s a shame. (applause) President Obama has the ability — he has the ability to inspire excellence in people’s pursuits. He has the ability to do all this, yet he pursues a path, seeks a path that punishes achievement, that punishes earners and punishes — and he speaks negatively of the country. Ronald Reagan used to speak of a shining city on a hill. Barack Obama portrays America as a soup kitchen in some dark night in a corner of America that’s very obscure. He’s constantly telling the American people that bad times are ahead, worst times are ahead. And it’s troubling, because this is the United States of America. Anybody ever ask — I’m in awe of our country and I ask this question a lot as I’ve gotten older. We’re less than 300 years old. We are younger than nations that have been on this planet for thousands of years. We, nevertheless, in less than 300 years — by the way, we’re no different than any other human beings around the world. Our DNA is no different. We’re not better just because we’re born in America. There’s nothing that sets us apart. How did this happen? How did the United States of America become the world’s lone super power, the world’s economic engine, the most prosperous opportunity for an advanced lifestyle that humanity has ever known? How did this happen? And why pray tell does the President of the United States want to destroy it? It saddens me.
RUSH: This again was February 28, 2009, my first national address on television to the people of this country at the CPAC conference, accurately predicting who Obama was and where he was taking the country. And I spelled out, for those who had any doubts, what his goals were to be.
RUSH AT CPAC: Most wealth in this country is the result of entrepreneurial, just plain old hard work. There’s no reason to punish it. There’s no reason to raise taxes on these people. Barack Obama, the Democrat Party, have one responsibility, and that’s to respect the oath they gave to protect, defend and follow the US Constitution. (applause) They don’t have the right to take money that’s not theirs — and none of it is — from the back pockets of producers, and give it to groups like ACORN, which are going to advance the Democrat Party. If anybody but government were doing this, it would be a crime. And many of us think it’s bordering on that as it exists now. (applause) President Obama is so busy trying to foment and create anger in a created atmosphere of crisis — he is so busy fueling the emotions of class envy — that he’s forgotten it’s not his money that he’s spending. (applause)
In fact, the money he’s spending is not ours. He’s spending wealth that has yet to be created. And that is not sustainable. It will not work. This has been tried around the world. And every time it’s been tried, it’s a failed disaster. What’s the longest war in American history? (interruption) Did somebody say the war on poverty? Smart group. War on poverty. The war on poverty essentially started in the ’30s as part of the New Deal, but it really ramped up in the ’60s with Lyndon Johnson, part of the Great Society war on poverty. We have transferred something like $10 trillion, maybe close to $11 trillion, from producers and earners to non-producers and non-earners since 1965. Yet, as I listen to the Democratic Party campaign, why, America is still a soup kitchen. The poor are still poor and they have no hope and they’re poor for what reason? Well, they’re poor because of us, because we don’t care, and because we’ve gotten rich by taking from them. That’s what kids in school are taught today. That’s what others have said to the media.
You know why they’re poor? You know why they remain poor? Because their lives have been destroyed by the never-ending government aid that’s designed to help them, but it destroys ambition. It destroys the education they might get to learn to be self-fulfilling. (applause) And it breaks our heart! It breaks our heart. We lose track of numbers. With all of the money, with all the money that’s been transferred, redistributed, with all the charitable giving in this country, ladies and gentlemen, there ought not be any poverty except those who are genuinely ill equipped. But most of the people in poverty in this country are equipped for far much more. They’ve just been beaten down. They’ve been told, ‘Don’t worry, we’ll take care of you. There’s nothing out there for you anyway; you’ll be discriminated against.’ It breaks our heart to see this. We can’t have a great country and a growing economy with more and more people being told they have a right, because of some injustice that’s been done to them or some discrimination, that they have a right to the earnings of others. And it’s gotten so out of hand now that what worries me is that this administration, the Barack Obama administration is actively seeking to expand the welfare state in this country because he wants to control it.
RUSH: And that is exactly what’s happened. The Porkulus bill, the stimulus bill, it was designed to further exactly that agenda.