RUSH: Dayton, Ohio, this is Will. Thank you for waiting, sir. Nice to have you here.
CALLER: Hey, it’s great to be here, Rush. I’ve been a big fan since I became politically aware when I was 12 years old. I think the stuff you do is great. I think it’s a shame that you’re probably going to get a lot of crap for that Obama slip you just made.
RUSH: Did that sound like I made that slip on purpose?
CALLER: Well, no, of course not.
RUSH: Well, of course not.
CALLER: I could just hear the sound bites —
RUSH: I’m not the first guy to make that slip. Hell, Ted Kennedy’s made that slip. I’ve said Obama about a gazillion times more than I’ve said Osama in the last six months, and that’s the explanation for it. Look, it doesn’t matter. If they give me crap, they give me crap. They’ve been giving me crap — you know, I’ve got the crap cannon back. Doesn’t matter.
CALLER: But the reason why I called is I had called earlier when you were going on the tirade about how Obama is not going to be anything more than Jimmy Carter’s second term and, you know, the Obama people are sitting there saying, ‘Well, McCain is just going to be Bush 3,’ and all that crap, and to be honest, I don’t think that’s fair to the predecessors. I think we need to address the candidates for who they are and not try — and I know the Dems are just trying to bring this up because they want to keep Bush on the ticket because they think everybody hates Bush, which I’m disappointed in George Bush, I am, but, you know, I don’t hate him. I think he’s done a lot of good, you know.
RUSH: All right, let’s stay focused on your suggestion. Your suggestion is that we be a little bit more detailed, say, about Obama than simply saying hey, this is going to be nothing more than Jimmy Carter’s second term.
CALLER: Right. I think Obama has the potential of being way more dangerous than Jimmy Carter ever was.
RUSH: That would be hard to do. How old did you say you are now, Will?
CALLER: I’m 28.
RUSH: 28.
CALLER: So I missed Jimmy Carter completely, you know, I grew up —
RUSH: That’s right. You don’t know, then. You did not live through it. I know what you mean by it could be worse than Carter, but let me explain why this is done. Now, we know why the Democrats are saying Bush 3. They want Bush on the ballot. The Democrats hate Bush. The media hate Bush. They think, therefore, most Americans hate Bush. So if they can turn McCain into Bush, then their dimwit voters, that’s all they’ll need, they think. They’re misunderstanding. Bush is not hated. He is unpopular. A lot of his unpopularity stems from the fact he’s disappointed people on his own side by not fighting back and not defending himself against some of these outrageous attacks that he’s undergone, but nobody dislikes the guy. The reason for Jimmy Carter 2 — and, by the way, that was not how I started out explaining Obama. We have dissected as much of Obama’s policies as possible. Every time he opens his mouth and says something that’s just naive, ignorant, stupid, dangerously wrong, or whatever, I explain in great detail why. But there’s also this notion, the concept here of communication, the concept of persuasion, and the concept of illustration, Shakespeare said it: Brevity is the soul of wit.
Now, to somebody like you, you’re 28, so you were born in 1980. Carter was gone and you weren’t old enough, soon enough, to have any direct recollection of what those years of his were like. But for people that are older than you to say Jimmy Carter’s second term, those who lived through it do not want to do that again. It is a simple way and a brief way of getting people to start thinking about who Obama is. I agree with you, you gotta back it up with in-depth analysis and commentary of his policies, which happens here regularly. I get calls, Will, now and then from people similar to you, and basically what you’re saying is, can we stop at the labels, can we just stick to the substance? The problem is labels work. A Marxist is a Marxist because he’s a Marxist. A leftist is a leftist because he’s a leftist. A communist is an SOB because he’s a communist. A conservative is a conservative because he’s conservative. It gets a little bit more nebulous when you start talking about Republicans and Democrats ’cause there’s all kinds of Republicans, a couple kinds of Democrats, but again, it’s not labeling; it’s accurate description. The art of communication, persuasion, motivation, this sort of thing, those are key elements here in how one tends to convey honest impressions and opinions of others and their policies. I appreciate the call.