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RUSH: I think some people are missing this whole Obama at Notre Dame commencement speech event yesterday. Not everybody, but some people are missing this. The real question’s not what did Obama say. I mean Obama is who he is. He was consistent as he can be. The question is what happened to Notre Dame over the years? I mean that’s the real question. Obviously Notre Dame is what’s changed, and I think in simplified terms you’d have to say that Notre Dame is what? A major American university and what has happened to major American universities? They’ve all been overrun by the left, and we all know the Catholic Church has its own liberal members who are trying to tell the Vatican and the pope to leave them alone and modernize the church and so forth. So it appears that that’s happened at Notre Dame. Greetings, folks, great to have you here. We have another week of broadcast excellence, kicking off right now, our telephone number on the Rush Limbaugh program, 800-282-2882. The e-mail address, ElRushbo@eibnet.com.

We’re gonna parse it, we got the audio sound bites of some of the speech that President Obama made yesterday. In addition to his comments on abortion and what drew him to Christ, I found it amazing he didn’t mention Reverend Wright. And of course what’s now becoming the obligatory message to these college graduates: don’t go to work, go to a nonprofit, don’t make any money, do not try to achieve, do not try to excel, focus yourself on service and giving back. How can they give back if they don’t have anything? The only thing they’ve got is what their spoiled, rotten parents have given them. What have they got to give back? It’s not just Obama making these types of commencement speeches all over the country. Every lib doing so is pretty much carrying the same message. I don’t know how many of you have read the book 1984. I’m sure you’ve all heard about it. I’m sure many of you have heard of the book, but I don’t know how many people have actually read it. Have you read it, Snerdley? When did you read 1984? You were forced to read it in high school. Do you remember much about it? All right.

George Orwell wrote 1984, and in the book he created Newspeak: using language to mislead, to confuse and control. Some of the examples from 1984: War is peace; freedom is slavery; ignorance is strength. This is Newspeak in 1984. Now we have a real life addition to this given President Obamas speech at Notre Dame yesterday, and it is this: Morality is immoral. That’s the message Obama delivered yesterday, morality is immoral. Pro-life is a moral position. Pro-life is the extremist position, rather instead of being a moral position. Pro-life is an extremist position, according to President Obama. The entire abortion debate is manipulated. There are two manipulations of the language. It’s not about abortion. It’s about choice. That’s one manipulation of the language, and morality is not morality. It’s extremism. Pro-life is the extreme position; pro-choice is the moderate or normal position. This is how the liberal mind works, this is how they do it, and the treachery here is spreading.

They use it on abortion and they’re using it on union enrollment. They call it the Employee Free Choice Act, right? Card check. What it really should be titled is: The Union Brass Knuckles Busting on Your Knees Act, because that’s what it is. There’s no free choice whatsoever in the Union Free Choice Act, the Employee Free Choice Act. And just as Obama told us yesterday that pro-life is an extreme position, pro-choice is the moral position, they’re now considering changing the cap-and-trade policy or legislation. It’s not working. So they’re thinking of changing that to the Clean Energy Jobs Bill, when the truth is, by any name, it is a massive tax increase on the neediest families in the country. That’s all cap-and-trade is. Cap-and-trade is a stealth secret way to raise taxes to pay for all of this spending, and it won’t work, by the way, that Obama is ginning up. I went and played golf a couple days over the weekend and I had a chance to talk to a lot of people. It’s amazing the people who brought up Obama’s making a speech last week in which he said that this kind of spending, deficit spending and borrowing, selling our debt to China, is not sustainable. And, of course, it’s his spending and his borrowing that he is criticizing.

In my mind, he threw himself under the bus, and everybody’s focusing on that, ‘My gosh, and the press didn’t even get it,’ and I said, ‘No, you guys are missing the point. He wasn’t talking about himself. What he was doing was setting the stage for tax increases to pay for this. This was all to set the stage for more tax increases.’ After in his first hundred days running up debt like we have never seen in this country, after spending like we have never seen in this country, he goes out and condemns it. He knows that he’s still in the honeymoon period where the Drive-By Media is concerned. He knows that it’s only people like me who are gonna point out the irony of him throwing himself under the bus. The Drive-Bys have yet to make this connection. Nobody in the mainstream media has yet to make the connection that Obama was ripping his own policy, that Obama was criticizing to shreds his own legislation. No, they just think that Obama is responsible; Obama cares; he understands the future that we face and how to deal with it. He was just setting the stage for tax increases.

So as we go through the audio sound bites from the speech today, you will see what I mean when I tell you that morality is now immoral. The pro-life position is not a moral position; it is an extremist position. The New York Times in a story today, headline: ‘At Notre Dame, Obama Calls for Dialogue on Abortion.’ Now, what exactly has been going on in this country for 40 years? It’s no different than the libs saying, ‘You know what, we need to have that national conversation about race.’ What have we been doing since the founding of this country but having a conversation about race? What have we been doing the last 40 years but having a dialogue on abortion? And Obama appealed to partisans on each side to find ways to respect one another’s basic decency and even work together to reduce the number of unwanted pregnancies. Now, I have two thoughts about this. I have often asked, ‘Where is the middle ground between good and evil? Where do you compromise? Where’s the compromise between life and death? Where’s the compromise between killing and birth? Where do you compromise on that?’

So the assumption here is, find ways to respect one another’s basic decency. Well, what’s decent? Language still matters to me. What the hell is decent about abortion? What’s decent about it? This is the first time I’ve ever heard abortion categorized as a form of decency. Even the pro-choice crowd in trying to justify it, has tried to say that pregnancy is a disease, or that pregnancy is a sickness that can threaten the life of the mother, or a fetus is an unviable tissue mass. But I’ve never heard them say that abortion is decency. But Obama has now just said that both sides of the argument feature people who are advocating decency. And then he said we need to work together to reduce the number of unwanted pregnancies. This is right out of Bill Clinton’s mouth back in the nineties where abortion needs to become safe but rare, or something like that. Now, my question is, if President Obama at Notre Dame yesterday says that everybody on this debate is decent and we gotta work together to reduce the number of unwanted pregnancies, is he not admitting there’s something wrong about it, then? If there’s nothing wrong with an unwanted pregnancy and if there’s nothing wrong with abortion, why do we have to limit them?

Why do we hope it’s rare, if there’s nothing wrong, if it’s really nothing more than an issue of liberty and freedom for women, then why do we have to make liberty and freedom rare for women? So I think he bastardizes his own argument here, while trying to sound triangulated, above the fray, understanding both sides. There’s not one word in his speech — and I wouldn’t expect there to be — in his votes as an Illinois state senator three times for infanticide. I went back to the archives. Andrew McCarthy, who as you know is a friend of mine and he writes at National Review Online, wrote a piece in 2008, I think it was June, I’ve got it here in the stack, detailing Obama’s votes, comments, and so forth, on the Illinois law that says if a baby intended to be aborted is born alive, you gotta let it die. He sided with the doctors. We can’t have the doctors be liable here for a botched abortion. The mother wanted the baby to be aborted, so a baby born alive is supposed to die, voted three times this way and then tried to tell everybody who characterized it this way they’re lying about his position. But as McCarthy pointed out, going and getting transcripts of debates in the Illinois legislature, Obama participated in, it’s far worse than that, even.

It’s worse than just infanticide, it’s a purposeful decision that he made three different times here and there have been all kinds of excuses made by the Obama people and himself to cover it up and to portray it as something other than what it is. As all this is going on, we have the poll that came out last week for the first time in four years or however many number of years the majority of the American people think abortion is wrong. A majority of the American people, 51%, are pro-life or describe themselves that way. TIME Magazine, Nancy Gibbs, in a story that’s published today, attempts to explain all this: ‘A new Pew poll finds that while a majority of independents said abortion should be legal in most cases as recently as October, just 44% do so now. This may inspire some introspection on the part of political operatives in both parties who attribute the Republicans’ present frailty to its orthodoxy on social issues. The GOP may have fielded some hapless messengers, but their message, on abortion at least, may be closer to the mainstream than Democrats care to acknowledge.’

You go to page two of her story, it passes off the shift as a response to Obama as president. In other words, not because people are substantively pro-life, it’s just a bunch of Republicans reacting to Obama, just opposing Obama. That’s the means to express it. What’s interesting to me, and I mentioned this last week, too — and, by the way, folks, the purpose of this discussion, we’re not going to debate abortion, and Mr. Snerdley, when we go to the phones, we’re not going to debate abortion. We’re going to treat this in a little different way. We’ve been there and done that and everybody here knows, everybody listening knows I’m pro-life and have respect for life. What I want to discuss here today, rather, is a technique that Obama is using to make himself as a radical look like a reasonable guy, when he is just extremely radical, and he’s calling people who hold positions of morality the radicals. It’s Orwell, it’s Newspeak, it’s doublespeak, whatever you want to call it.

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RUSH: As we start with the audio sound bite excerpts of President Obama’s speech at Notre Dame yesterday, I want you to understand what this is. This is an outstanding demonstration of the low art of political seduction as practiced by the master, and that master is Barack Obama. He is good. He excels at the low art of political seduction. Here’s our first sound bite.

OBAMA: How do we engage in vigorous debate? How does each of us remain firm in our principles and fight for what we consider right without demonizing those with just as strongly held convictions on the other side? And of course nowhere do these questions come up more powerfully than on the issue of abortion. Maybe we won’t agree on abortion, but we can still agree that this heart-wrenching decision, for any woman, is not made casually. It has both moral and spiritual dimensions. So let us work together to reduce the number of women seeking abortions. (applause) Let’s reduce unintended pregnancies.

RUSH: You see how that got applause? Why? I ask again, why do we want to reduce the number of women seeking abortions if there’s nothing wrong with it? If a position of pro-choice is just as valid as the pro-life position, if we shouldn’t demonize, what’s wrong with it? Why limit it? Why reduce unintended pregnancies? What’s wrong with it? ‘ Even though the decision to have an abortion may be gut-wrenching…’? What’s wrong with it? I always thought it was a matter of liberty — a matter of liberation, a matter of independence. So why in the world go through the farce here of wanting to reduce the number of pregnancies, unwanted pregnancies and reduce the number of abortions?

See, this is how good Obama is at the low art of political seduction. ‘Cause, as I mentioned, several years ago he made the case for killing babies born alive and giving legal protection to the doctors that did it, and it did not cost him politically. So Obama, after advancing his case for infanticide and the protection of the doctors, he went on to become United States Senator and then president. He talks about the debate about abortion. What’s the debate? Seriously, what’s the debate? Obama’s position in the debate is that a baby that survives an abortion is fair game to be killed, and the doctor should have legal protection. And his excuse at the time that he advanced this barbaric argument was that it was necessary to protect a woman’s right to choose.

Okay, so… Now, I want to know, folks. I want to know where it is that we compromise — and I want to know why it is. Why is this ‘a difficult moral and spiritual decision’ for women to make? Why? I don’t understand the left’s reasoning. I don’t understand why we should have to reduce the number of abortions, if there’s nothing wrong with it. I don’t know why we should have to reduce unwanted pregnancy if there’s nothing wrong with it, and I don’t understand why making the decision to go through with abortion is ‘a moral and spiritual question,’ if it’s not a baby. The only thing that can make abortion a tough decision is what’s being aborted, correct? So here’s the low art of political seduction. The low art of political seduction is: ‘Both sides have legitimacy, and we’re never going to agree. These are irreconcilable differences, but we must not attack personally, and we must try to get along with one another.’

What do we do in the process? We blur something that’s crucial: the definition of life. We blur morality. Just as Orwell had his Newspeak, immorality is now morality. Death is now freedom! This is one of the foundations of liberal reasoning as a means to advance any of their beliefs which you and I would find to be questionable, unjust, or immoral. This is how they justify it. It’s the low art of political seduction. But we look at Obama, and he’s such a nice man. He’s got a great family, and he wants us all to respect each other the same way he respected secured creditors for Chrysler, the same way that he respects retention contracts. Those are Fifth Amendment rights that Barack Obama stomped on at AIG and at Chrysler, but we need to have an open mind and an open heart about that, too. And by all means we must not open up and be critical. Because, you see, the extreme position here, according to Obama, is the pro-life position — and extreme because liberals do not share it, and anything not liberal, by definition, is extreme.

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RUSH: Obama, back to the Notre Dame speech, said this…

OBAMA: I found myself drawn not just to the work with the church; I was drawn to be in the church. It was through this service that I was brought to Christ. And at the time Cardinal Joseph Bernardin was the archbishop of Chicago. For those of you too young to have known him or known of him, he was a kind and good and wise man.

RUSH: Mmm.

OBAMA: A saintly man.

RUSH: Mmmm!

OBAMA: I can still remember his speaking at one of the first organizing meetings I attended on the South Side.

RUSH: Hmmm!

OBAMA: He was congenial and gentle —

RUSH: Mmm.

OBAMA: — in his persuasion —

RUSH: Mmm.

OBAMA: — always trying to bring people together —

RUSH: Mmm.

OBAMA: — always trying to find common ground.

RUSH: Cardinal Bernardin? Obama says the kind and gentle words of a Cardinal in Chicago brought him to Christ? Okay, at one of his first organizing meetings he was gently persuaded by the cardinal in Chicago — and then, he didn’t join the Catholic Church. He went out and joined a church where the pastor was this guy.

WRIGHT (screaming): Barack knoooows what it means to be a black man living in a country and a culture that is controlled by rich white people! [snip] Hillary ain’t never been called a nigger! [snip] Bill did us just like he did Monica Lewinsky!

CONGREGATION: (cheers)

WRIGHT: He was riding dirty. [snip] In white America, US of KKKA: black men turning on black men. [snip] I am sick of Negroes who just do not get it. [snip] Not God bless America, God (bleep) America! It’s in the Bible. For killing innocent people, God (bleep) America! [snip] (screaming) And now we are indignant because of stuff we have done overseas is now brought right back into our own front yards!

CONGREGATION: (cheers)

WRIGHT: America’s chickensssss are coming home to roost.

RUSH: That’s the elegant and eloquent Reverend Jeremiah Wright of the Trinity United Church of Christ in Chicago. That’s the church where Obama was a member for 20 years. Now, Obama said he didn’t hear anything like this. Obama said he didn’t hear it. You know, a lot of people, by the way, folks, ask me, ‘Were you not upset with the president laughing at that comedian’s jokes at the White House correspondent dinner? Rush, those weren’t jokes. Rush, the woman was wishing for you to die.’ And I said to them, ‘I don’t think President Obama heard them. He sat in Reverend Wright’s church for 20 years and never heard any of that, so I don’t think there’s any evidence to prove that he heard what the comedian or anybody was saying at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner.’

But this is the low art of political seduction: a Catholic cardinal warmed his heart with gentle persuasion and brought him to Christ — and after he found Christ, Christ directed him to Jeremiah Wright. Of course, we didn’t hear about Jeremiah Wright in the speech yesterday. We heard about the cardinal in Chicago. By the way, somebody sent me an e-mail, and I don’t know how you pronounce Cardinal Bernardin’s name. Did he mis…? Somebody said he mispronounced the cardinal’s name, and I don’t know whether that’s true because I don’t know how you pronounce Cardinal Bernar-din, Ber-nar-din. I never heard it pronounced, so I’m sorry. I don’t know. You gotta be careful of people that send you e-mails. Let’s see. But may as well grab number eight here. One more from Obama at Notre Dame on Sunday.

OBAMA: I stand here today, as president and as an African-American, on the 55th anniversary of the day the Supreme Court handed down the decision —

RUSH: Mmm.

OBAMA: — on Brown v. Board of Education.

RUSH: Mmmm!

OBAMA: Brown was, of course, the first major step in dismantling the ‘separate but equal’ doctrine. But it would take a number of years and a nationwide movement to fully realize the dream of civil rights for all of God’s children.

RUSH: Except for the unborn. Except for the unborn. The civil rights movement still hasn’t made enough ground, covered enough ground to fully realize the dream of civil rights for all — all — of God’s children. The unborn. ‘Gee, we hope it’s rare,’ but damn. Why do you hope it’s rare? I still can’t get past this. Why do you hope unwanted pregnancy is reduced? There’s nothing wrong with it. Why is it a tough decision for women, spiritually, emotionally, if there’s nothing wrong with it? If it’s not a big deal, what is so tough about it? Notice how they want credit for making all these tough decisions. ‘Ah, they’re laboring hard to get through all this. They’re coming to the right conclusions, doing everything they can. It’s so difficult.’ Notice how they assign themselves the great hard work that they have overcome.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: Maybe I did not make myself clear, and if that’s the case, then I feel some guilt because I am a professional communicator. I had hoped I had made myself clear at the beginning of the program. I just read an e-mail and there have been two or three of these that I have found.

Dear Rush: All this talk about abortion, since the beginning of time, if a woman really wants an abortion, she’s gonna get one. Nobody’s going to stop her, no matter how many politicians or commentators say she should or shouldn’t. These kind of personal things will always be left to the woman when it gets down to it so with all the economic problems, the wars, nukes, don’t you think all these senators, presidents, commentators should talk about something they can really do something about? Signed, Martha in Texas.

Martha, I’m glad you wrote me this. I mentioned at the top of the program. This is not about abortion. This is about the low art of political seduction. This is about Newspeak. This is about turning what is immoral into the moral. This is about Barack Obama persuading the people of this country to vote against their own very interests all the time. This abortion discussion today is just an illustration, is just an example of it. It’s the most recent one since it happened yesterday. We’re not debating abortion. Now, you might think so because I’m asking some questions about what Obama said. If there’s nothing wrong with it, then why all this confusion, if there’s nothing wrong with abortion, why all this stress, why all this tension? And where do you compromise here? I don’t know where the moderate, middle ground is on life and death. I just don’t know where it is. I don’t know where you compromise on victory and defeat. I don’t know where you compromise on good and bad, good and evil, I don’t know where you compromise on it. But see, we’re supposed to compromise on everything, and for that to happen, notice Obama is not changing his position. We have to change ours, because of his successful practice of the low art of political seduction.

So I’m simply trying to illustrate how he does it with the most recent example. If the truth be known, why isn’t the left up in arms? He invoked Jesus Christ. He invoked the name of Christ. Where’s separation of church and state? The president of the United States at a commencement speech went out and talked about Jesus Christ and detailed how he was delivered to Christ. Now, you let George Bush or somebody go to Notre Dame and make this speech, I guarantee you that’s what they’re going to be focusing on, how the Republican president should not enforce and impose his religious views on people. What did we get but Obama imposing his religious views, or attempting to have us justify or accept his? It’s the low art of political seduction. I know full well a woman who wants an abortion is going to go get one. No matter what the law; we can have laws against murder, it’s going to happen. We have laws against robbing a bank; it’s going to happen.

The law defines what is moral and just and right in a society. It does not intend to get rid of all that activity. Nobody is stupid enough to think that we’re going to get rid of it. But there is an effort to limit it, damn right, because it’s wrong, pure and simple. But I know this is a discussion that makes many of you uncomfortable. I know it puts many of you ill at ease, and I would only ask, why? What’s so uncomfortable about it? What is it about abortion you don’t want to hear? Well, okay, it’s polarizing. Why is it polarizing? Why is it polarizing — because we’re talking about babies — why is it polarizing? Here’s April 2002, Illinois state Senate — and remember what we’re doing here. I’m illustrating the low art of political seduction practiced by President Obama, how he just made a speech advocating a point of view or suggesting that we peacefully co-exist here, but he didn’t detail his position here. I want you to know what his position is in his own words. This is in the Illinois state Senate, April of 2002.

OBAMA: And that essentially adding an additional doctor, who then has to be called in an emergency situation to come in and make these assessments is really designed simply to burden the original decision of the woman and the physician to induce labor and perform an abortion.

RUSH: Now, here he is talking about the Born-Alive Infants Protection Act and why he was going to vote against it. And he voted against it three times, the Born-Alive Infants Protection Act, because it would be a burden to bring in another doctor, okay, the abortion doctor botches it, so you gotta bring in a third doctor to save the baby. That’s a burden on the first doctor. It’s a burden on the second doctor; it’s a burden on the mother, who intended to abort. Here’s Obama, August 16, 2008. This is Lake Forest, California, after the Saddleback Civil Forum with Rick Warren, the Christian Broadcasting Network’s David Brody talked to Obama, said, ‘Real quick, the Born-Alive Infants Protection Act, they’re basically saying they felt like you misrepresented your position on that bill.’

OBAMA: Here is a situation where folks are lying. I have said repeatedly that I would have been completely and fully in support of the federal bill that everybody supported, which was to say that you should provide assistance to any infant that was born, even if it was as a consequence of an induced abortion. That was not the bill that was presented at the state level. What that bill also was doing was trying to undermine Roe v. Wade. By the way, we also had a bill — a law already in place in Illinois that ensured lifesaving treatment was given to infants. So for people to suggest that I and the Illinois Medical Society, so Illinois’ doctors, were somehow in favor of withholding lifesaving support from an infant born alive is ridiculous.

RUSH: Well, play number nine real quick again. He says ridiculous? Well, let’s listen to number nine again.

OBAMA: And that essentially adding an additional doctor who then has to be called in an emergency situation to come in and make these assessments is really designed simply to burden the original decision of the woman and the physician to induce labor and perform an abortion.

RUSH: Now, if he’s going to start calling people liars, we’re going to have to ignore what he said on three different occasions in order not to call him one.

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RUSH: We’re going to start in Dubuque, Iowa. This is Colleen. Great to have you here Colleen. Thank you so much for waiting.

CALLER: Thank you for taking my call.

RUSH: Yes.

CALLER: I just want to say that we took a busload of people from Dubuque to Notre Dame yesterday to join with the pro-life students who were having an alternative prayer service at the Grotto [of Our Lady Lourdes at Notre Dame]. And it was a beautiful experience, a very prayerful spirit, very peaceful, and in fact when the priest started the announcements he said, ‘My first notes say to calm down the crowd,’ and everybody chuckled because we were all very calm and prayerful. And my point was to say, you know, he talks about healing divisions that have occurred, but the fact is he’s the cause of division, and he’s the cause of why those graduating seniors were not at that commencement and why so many Catholics are divided.

RUSH: Wait, wait, wait, wait just a second. I know what you mean, and I agree with you Barack Obama is a divisive guy. I think Barack Obama’s presiding over the most split, partisan country we’ve had in a long time. But, look, all he got was an invitation. You really need to look at Notre Dame, Colleen, and figure out what happened there. Now, I know they’ve got a tradition of inviting presidents to commencement speeches. But 30 years ago this wouldn’t have happened.

CALLER: Well, they also have a history of dissent. You know, one of the favorite people for the media to go to is Father Richard McBrien (sic) who is on their theology staff there, and he’s a well-known dissenter. So they also have a long history of dissent.

RUSH: Well… (sigh) Yeah, but a long time ago this — actually not that long ago — an invitation to this person, with these kind of beliefs, would not have been extended. But you have to ask what’s happened to Notre Dame. Notre Dame is a university. It’s like every other university; it’s been overrun by the left. We know that the Catholic Church, religion in general, has a bunch of leftist theologians. We know that there’s a war in the Catholic Church for the church to ‘moderate’ and modify what it believes. I remember hearing this. There are people who believe the church must change to accommodate the cyclical mores of the culture of the moment.

CALLER: Just like the mainline Protestant churches have done and have lost membership and are sinking fast?

RUSH: That’s not why they want the church to moderate. They’re not trying to actually grow the church. They’re trying to excuse themselves!

CALLER: Exactly.

RUSH: They don’t want to have to adhere. I mean, the church is the church. You find a religion, its faith. You ascribe to it and you go to it because it doesn’t change. It’s always there. If a church, if a religion is going to change itself to stay in line with the congregation every six months or every year, it’s not gonna become a church anymore. It’s gonna become, you know, a social hall.

CALLER: Amen. Our traditions go back 2,000 years.

RUSH: Exactly. So Obama, if I were him, I would have gone, too. What a political opportunity here to ram it down everybody’s throat! You don’t blame Obama here. He’s the president. He got an invitation. It’s a tradition. The real question to me is what’s happened to Notre Dame over all these years, and it’s been slow, and it’s crept up on people. But it’s there. I mean this is good illustration of the creeping liberalism throughout institutions that once people thought were impenetrable. But they’re everywhere. They’re everywhere. It’s not because they’re trying to grow these institutions. They’re trying to water ’em down on purpose so that they can blur the lines between what’s right and wrong. They don’t want to be judged by anybody, particularly a religion. Anyway Colleen, thanks much. I appreciate the call. This is Katherine in Baltimore. You’re next on the EIB Network. Hello.

CALLER: Hello, Rush. I wanted to make a point about the Notre Dame — Obama speaking at Notre Dame — and it ties in beautifully with the political art of seduction you were talking about.

RUSH: ‘Low art.’ The low art of political seduction.

CALLER: The low art of political seduction, and the fact that people end up voting against their own interests. And it came up when I heard that the students were chanting ‘yes, we can’ at him. And it horrified me that at this education, this institution of education, that they’re idiotic enough to not realize that one of the Catholic principles is individualism. And he is all about the collective, not the individual. This goes not only when you’re in the womb, but when you’re outside of the womb. He wants to lump us all together, and he wants to ration education and health care. The media asked one of the adults at the campus what she thought about Obama coming and speaking, and she thought it was wonderful. While she’s against abortion, she understands that Obama is pro-Catholic principles of education and health care for all. But that’s not what he’s about at all, and in fact the way he speaks, he seduces people into believing what is not true.

RUSH: Well, that’s exactly right. That was my point at the top of the program: Morality is now immoral.

CALLER: Mmm-hmm.

RUSH: War is peace. All these things that you thought you knew. (snorts) We’re all scratching our heads as everybody is applauding Obama here. ‘What is this?’ But you have to understand. I’m not surprised at young skulls full of mush would be among the first to be seduced by this guy. After all, when you’re young is when you’re an idealist. You know, in addition to all the abortion stuff, Obama again went through the same rigmarole he went through at Arizona State in which he told these students, ‘Don’t amount to anything. Don’t follow the…’ In fact, he used the word ‘acquisitiveness.’ He condemned being ‘acquisitive.’

Now, does anybody…? What do you think acquisitive means? When you hear it, a lot of people, I think, confuse the definition of ‘acquisitive,’ and they think, ‘Well, don’t be curious.’ That’s not what acquisitive means. ‘Acquisitive,’ the root word is ‘acquire.’ He was telling them don’t try to acquire a lot. Reject the formulas of the past and be different. Don’t seek. He actually used the word ‘self-interest’ yesterday, in a condemnatory way. He said self-interest has led to immorality and a whole lot of rotten things, and he told these students to shed their self-interest.

When, in fact, it is self-interest that propels every achievement. Self-interest achieves or propels every success. Without self-interest, you aren’t going to be any kind of a success whatsoever. And then he was telling them, ‘Give back, give back,’ all these college graduates. Give back what? They’ve got nothing to give back. They haven’t acquired anything yet! The things they do have, have been given to them, everything — by their overindulgent Baby Boomer mommies and daddies. Now when they can go out and earn money so they can repay what they’ve been given, Obama is trying to tell ’em, ‘Don’t do that! Don’t give back. Go back and ‘give back’ by working at a nonprofit or some such thing.’ It’s convoluted.

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RUSH: I hate this whole concept of ‘giving back’ anyway, that somehow it is the duty of the successful to ‘give back.’ Walter Williams, an occasional guest host on this program, has it exactly right on this whole notion of ‘giving back.’ The only people need to give anything back are the thieves among us: the thieves and the criminals, the people who have taken things which are not theirs. They’re the ones that need to give back. What in the world does Bill Gates need to give back? How many millionaires has he created? How many jobs has he created? I know he has his big foundation and he gives away a lot of money. But this notion of giving back is so convoluted because Obama is talking to a bunch of college graduates who don’t have anything yet and telling them to give back.

What’s to give back? The only thing they have is what they have been given by their parents — and by definition, they haven’t earned it. So when they graduate, at that very moment when they are now supposedly prepared to go out and produce, achieve, accomplish, and earn money (so that they, quote, unquote, ‘can give back’) you have people like Obama telling them, ‘No, no, no! Don’t do any of that. You go work for the government or you go work for a nonprofit, and that’s how you give back.’ Give back for what? ‘Well, their good fortune, Mr. Limbaugh. These people who graduate from Notre Dame and other universities, Mr. Limbaugh, have been extremely fortunate and they’re winners of life’s lottery. It’s time to pay it back.’

What, give back? This whole notion of giving something back is rooted in the belief whatever you have is somehow ill-gotten. That you’ve cheated, lied, or stolen to get it or that you’re somehow not entitled to it, and so you need to give back. People melt over that — ‘Ohhhhh, yeah!’ — the whole concept of giving back, when people don’t even have the foggiest idea what genuine contributions are to society

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RUSH: This is Ethan in Pittsburgh. You’re next on the EIB Network hello.

CALLER: Hey, Rush, mega dittos.

RUSH: Thank you.

CALLER: Hey I wanted to call in and talk to you about Notre Dame a little bit. My wife and my three daughters were there yesterday, and they were at the student protest called ND Response. And what’s really shocking is how it’s not being covered at all in the media. You had about 4,000 students at the South Quad, and 4,000 people. There were faculty members there. There was a whole slew of speakers. They had a Holy Cross priest, actually an African-American priest who is a Notre Dame grad who went to Notre Dame obviously. There was ex-football player Chris Godfrey who spoke, a lot of great speakers. They actually had the different faculty members that were there supporting what they were doing get up on stage and be recognized. There were about 30 faculty members that stood up. And when we went to read about this on the news last night and how it was reported, there was just no coverage of it. And I kind of compare it to what happened with the tea parties and how the press just really ignored it because it was going to be anti-Obama press and they just didn’t need to cover it. They were covering the real outspoken pro-life demonstrators out at the gates of Notre Dame and the people getting arrested and things, but they didn’t cover this peaceful protest that was on campus organized by the students and had an actual turnout.

RUSH: Well, I heard some of that. I played golf yesterday. By the way, I played one of the best rounds of golf I have ever played. I eagled a 515-yard par 3. I drove a 325-yard par 4 over water. I was just creaming the ball yesterday. And I was driving home, and I had the Fox News Channel on the satellite radio. And I gotta tell you something, Ethan. They were wired. There was controversy, and they were interviewing — exactly as you said. They went out and they found the most radical elements of the pro-life community they could find and had them being interviewed. The media loved the story, but from this standpoint: They loved that there was some protests. They loved it, because it gave them something to talk about on Sunday afternoon. But they ignored you. They ignored the sizable peaceful protests. See, that wasn’t news. What they instead chose to do was point out how small the number of protesters really was at the speech, and those that did stand up and boo during the speech were easily shouted down. So at the end of the day the picture was that there weren’t 4,000 people there who disputed any of this. There were five or six and that they were all lunatic fringe radicals who were probably let out of jail for the day to get there.

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RUSH: Here’s Jeff in Indianapolis. Welcome, sir, to the EIB Network. Hello.

CALLER: Thanks for taking my call, Rush.

RUSH: Yes, sir.

CALLER: And to steal a quote from you, thanks for keeping the gullible grounded in reality. During the campaign in one of those rare off-the-teleprompter moments, Obama was asked a question regarding abortion and how we would address the issue with his daughters when they were old enough to understand it. And I remember him saying that he would teach his daughters values and morals but if they made a mistake, he did not want them punished for the baby. And I remember being thrown back in my seat and I said did he just actually say ‘punished’? And I couldn’t believe that he was actually teaching the value of life, in this case, and equating it to being punished.

RUSH: Well, we have that sound bite. Would you like to hear it again and be knocked back on your ass?

CALLER: I think so.

RUSH: All right, here it is.

OBAMA: I’ve got two daughters, nine years old and six years old. I’m going to teach them first of all about values and morals. But if they make a mistake, I don’t want them punished with a baby. I don’t want them punished with an STD at the age of 16. You know, so it doesn’t make sense to not give them information.

RUSH: All right, there you have it. Yeah, he did say he didn’t want his girls punished with a baby and he didn’t want them punished with an STD but, you know, you cannot abort an STD.

CALLER: That’s true.

RUSH: Once you get an STD, you’ve got it. You can’t abort it. What’s your big problem with this? I mean because, look, the low art of political seduction, do you realize how many people think that that is thoughtful and deep and caring and devoted to his daughters? Do you realize how many people hear it exact opposite way you do.

CALLER: Yeah, but I mean he first predicated it by teaching values and morals.

RUSH: Well, yeah, but then he covered it, ‘I’m going to teach ’em values and morals but what if this they screw up, what if they make a mistake? I’m going to teach them values and morals — his. In this case, is he going to tell them to abstain? He doesn’t believe in abstinence only. I mean, what morals is he going to teach? I would assume he’s gonna say, ‘I don’t want you punished with a baby, don’t get pregnant. If you don’t want to get pregnant, then don’t have sex, but I don’t believe in abstinence only. So he’s going to teach ’em morality and values and what? But then he gets the gold star for teaching them values and morality. Then, when kids are kids — I mean you have kids?

CALLER: Yes, I have two kids.

RUSH: All right you’ve taught ’em values and morals, right?

CALLER: Absolutely.

RUSH: Well, they haven’t been flawless in their execution of life that way, have they?

CALLER: They have not, no.

RUSH: All right. Neither will his be. And he knows it. So he gets the gold star for teaching values and morality. Then his daughters go out and make a mistake, one of them might make a mistake, (gasping, crying) I don’t want them punished, they’re so young, I don’t want them punished with a baby. Do you realize most people will hear that and say, ‘I don’t want my kids punished either.’ The pro-choice people will say that, the pro-choice people, I agree with him; I wouldn’t want them punished with a baby. And the whole pro-choice movement looks at a baby as punishment in order to survive. It’s a disease, it’s punishment or something (interruption). I’m being argued with here in the IFB, Jeff, my own staff, as usual, thinking I don’t know what I’m talking about when I say that a lot of people will look at a baby at punishment. If your teenaged daughter gets pregnant, ‘Ah, I wouldn’t want my daughter punished.’ I guarantee you there are more people look at it that way, maybe not a majority, but he’s not that different.

Anyway, he gets a gold star twice here. Low art of political seduction. Now, you and I don’t look at a baby as punishment. I don’t think there are people that do? If there weren’t people that do, there wouldn’t be any abortion. If people looked at babies as a blessing we wouldn’t be talking about abortion as something as common as it is even though the numbers are decreasing. So he gets gold stars on this. Now, the way you’re hearing it is he’s going to teach them morality and values, but then they’re going to ignore him and they’re going to go out and do something that’s a mistake, but every kid does. Everybody who has kids knows they go out and make mistakes. Every adult makes mistakes. What I don’t know is how you abort an STD.

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RUSH: Brian, Yuma, Arizona, welcome to the EIB Network. Hello.

CALLER: Thanks indeed, Mr. Limbaugh.

RUSH: Yes, sir.

CALLER: It’s an honor. I appreciate it. Between my wife’s prescience and my addiction to logic, we’ve got a great little Limbaugh program in our house. We’re raising our three children to push back against the —

RUSH: Good.

CALLER: — liberalism that’s just rampant out there.

RUSH: Good for you.

CALLER: Well, thank you. Thank you for everything you do. We do pray for you and your continued success. And I sincerely mean that.

RUSH: Thank you very much, sir. I appreciate it.

CALLER: The point I want to make was about Obama yesterday at Notre Dame talking about wanting to reduce the number of abortions, et cetera, et cetera, and there was raucous applause for what he was saying. And like Obama, on the one hand he’s saying reduce the number of abortions, and on the other, within the first 100 days, he funded programs for more abortions across the country.

RUSH: Exactly right, reduce the number of abortions, and what is he doing? He’s enabling them, worldwide. Brilliant point. Thank you.

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RUSH: Lewis in Illinois, cell phone call. Nice to have you on the program, sir. Hello.

CALLER: Yes, Rush, mega dittos.

RUSH: Thanks.

CALLER: I just wanted to give a different perspective on the Notre Dame commencement that maybe you’ve not heard before, but my wife and I are on our way back to Texas after seeing our daughter graduate and it was really disheartening and sickening to us to see how far the priests of Notre Dame and the faculty have taken the student body to positions where the moral clarity is not there any longer. All the focus is all about social justice, worker rights, help for the poor, health care for the poor — and, as a matter of fact, the biggest new building, a building on the campus is the Center for Social Justice and Peace. That kind of gives you an indication of where the leadership of the school is taking the students. And I realized this over the past four years after being glad that my daughter was going there, now being somewhat melancholy about the fact that she is being subjected to this just like the majority of students that were in that hall.

RUSH: What did your daughter major in?

CALLER: She was a biology major and a Russian major.

RUSH: Biology and Russian.

CALLER: Yes.

RUSH: Okay. So she was taught to be nice to frogs and extend social justice?

CALLER: Well, that’s the commencement speaker. The valedictorian, she praised her and she was very accomplished, but one of the times she spent in countries to help other people in Haiti, she worked for a Catholic Workers women’s relief center.

RUSH: Yeah?

CALLER: Now, if I remember the Catholic Workers from the thirties, that was basically a communist socialist organization. There are a lot of people in that hall — despite the students and the faculty cheering Obama on — about my view about a third of the families and friends that were in the audience sat there in silent protest, did not get up on their feet, did not get up and applaud anything that he said or for that matter what Father Jenkins said, who has been really abysmal on this whole issue. There was a lot of silent protest. Those who were loud did get booted out, and the students chanted ‘We are indeed,’ not ‘Yes, we can.’ A little bit different take on that. But there was a lot of silent protest going on by myself, my wife, and a lot of other people in that organization, in that hall, that did not want to honor abortion in any way, shape, or form.

RUSH: Well, I’m glad you called. I’m glad to get your perspective on that. Thanks very much, Louis. John in Libertyville, Illinois. You’re next. I’m glad you waited, sir. You’re up on the EIB Network. Hi.

CALLER: Hi. I’m sure you’re aware that the vast majority of students and alumni at Notre Dame University supported the university’s position to ask the president to speak. And I think it’s also certain that there’s no question that a great many of those people are also anti-abortion like you. But I think the difference between them and you is that they recognized that the word ‘universe’ as included in the word ‘university’ implies a very broad range of information and ideas and opinions and that the university should be a forum for those ideas rather than sharing your viewpoint, that the university should be a place where they put on a blindfold, they stop anyone who they disagree with from speaking and if they hear anything they don’t agree with they stick their fingers in their ears and go, ‘La la la la. I can’t hear you.’

RUSH: I’m a little bit surprised and shocked and stunned here at your point of view, because you have just criticized the vast majority of major American universities who are closed to all points of view. They are closed to the conservative point of view. When conservative speakers are invited to speak, they are often shouted down to the point of not being able to speak and being forced to leave the stage. The university is anything but what you’ve just described. There is no ‘universe’ in university today. It’s pure, unadulterated, 100% Marxism leftism. But I wasn’t talking about Notre Dame the university. I was talking about the Catholic Church and the people at Notre Dame University — the theologians there — who are doing their best to undermine the Catholic Church. I know full well what’s happening on American campuses today, and it’s why the country is in such bad shape, or one of the reasons.

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