RUSH: Michele Bachmann was on Meet the Press yesterday and it was interesting. She decided she had some things to say regardless what the questions were. In fact, it was a lesson in how Republicans ought to behave on these programs rather than accept the premise, and in this case the host David Gregory puts forward, you go on the show, you have something to say, say it regardless 
what the questions are. In this case she was trying to sound a warning. This is the second time and she’s the second member of Congress to do this. About two to three weeks ago Steve King from Iowa pointed out that hidden in Obamacare Pelosi and Reid had snuck in a provision that spends $105 billion every year implementing the bill. ‘What do you mean, $105 billion to implement the bill?’ Exactly. It’s just $105 billion of slush fund spending. And it was one of those things, nobody knew what was in the bill, was 2,200 pages, one of those things nobody knew was in it until it was passed, like Pelosi said, ‘We gotta pass this thing to find out what’s in it.’
So you’ll recall when Steve King first brought this up and it was part of the original effort to repeal the bill, he ran into some obstacles at the Republican leadership not wanting to deal with this and target this provision. Remember the argument here was, is the House leadership gonna go after the meat here, or they gonna be true to the rules of the House that they had set up? Remember the leadership of the House thinks that you, the voters, want them to abide by the rules because you the voters are very much aware how the Democrats did not abide by the rules that they themselves wrote when they ran the House from 2006 to the present, until last November. And so the House leadership said, ‘We’re gonna obey the rules, and what King wants to do is take that $105 billion, is not part of the rules, we can’t do it.’ So they shot him down. Michele Bachmann is trying to bring it back up, trying to alert everybody that it exists. And, by the way, it all revolves around a potential government shutdown and this advance appropriation of $105 billion in the health care bill.
Let’s go to the audio sound bites. This is an example, Gregory is grilling her, but she’s not backing down about Obama. He says, ‘You referred to the Obama administration’s a gangster government. You’ve said that this president has anti-American views. Do you believe that still?’
BACHMANN: I believe that the actions of this government have been emblematic of ones that have not been based on true American values. Just consider Obamacare. Over 900 waivers have been given out to unions and protected special interests — (crosstalk)
GREGORY: Is it appropriate to refer to —
BACHMANN: — that are linked to the President. That’s not correct.
GREGORY: — the government as a gangster government and to question whether this president loves America?
BACHMANN: Well, I said I do believe that actions that have been taken by this White House, I don’t take back my statement on gangster government. I think that there have been actions that have been taken by this government that I think are corrupt, totally corrupt.
GREGORY: And you think the president has anti-American views?
BACHMANN: I said I have very serious concerns about the president’s views, and I think the president’s actions in the last two years speak for themselves.
RUSH: Now, folks, this sets up something that, to me, is very interesting, something I would like, frankly, to hear your thoughts on. Because I guarantee you that this split here, here’s Gregory, and he represents the media, and he represents the Democrats, and he represents a lot of Republicans, saying, ‘Whatever you think, don’t run around saying he’s anti-American. Whatever you say or think, don’t run around and say he’s a gangster government. You don’t want to say that.’ She’s not backing down, ‘I think he is. I don’t back off from my gangster government statement and I don’t think that this guy’s got traditional American values and views in his agenda.’
Okay, so let’s take this and move forward a little bit into the presidential election year and let’s just, for the sake of our hypothetical here, let’s say we’ve got a nominee. I don’t care who it is, doesn’t matter. We’ve got a Republican nominee. We’ve got four-dollar-a-gallon gasoline, four fifty. We’ve got unemployment. Let’s say they’ve been able to bring it down to eight and a half percent. That’s their number. We’ve got a supposed economic recovery taking place, but it’s not something everybody senses. It’s something we’re told is taking place, but it’s not something everybody can get their arms around. So we have a basic economic circumstance not much different than now. We have gasoline prices up. We’ve got the Middle East in turmoil. We’ve got a situation in Afghanistan where nobody now knows what’s going on. In fact, Gates is now saying we’re gonna be there a lot longer than 2012.
So the presidential campaign, here’s the question. You got an incumbent, Barack Hussein Obama. Does the Republican nominee focus on what we all believe to be true, the guy’s got a different view of the American tradition than all the rest of us? Do we say, does our nominee, does our campaign focus on portraying Obama as anti-traditional American values, do we say this guy is a socialist, this guy’s models consist of Marx and Alinsky, do we go that way, do we point that out? Or do we say to ourselves, you know what, most people don’t want to think that about their president. There’s such reverence for the office that people don’t want to think that even if they admit that they made a mistake in voting for the guy, they don’t want to think that they’ve elected somebody who is essentially an enemy of traditional American founding values.
So the alternative is, rather than point all that stuff out, we just focus on policy. We say things like the president’s economic policy is such and it’s led to $4.50 gasoline, the president’s policies, which show no signs of changing, he seems wedded to these policies, has led to us an endless unemployment rate of between 8 and 10%. In other words, do we depersonalize this and strictly focus the reelection campaign in the opposition to Obama on policy or do we go full bore and warn the American people why his policies are what they are? Well, I mention this because I dare say that if you are from the camp — (interruption) what are you laughing at in there? What in the world have I said that’s so funny? I dare say that if you are of the camp that wants to hear the Republican presidential nominee talk about the guy’s a socialist, the guy doesn’t believe in traditional American founding values, that you’re gonna be sad and disappointed. You’re not gonna have a candidate say that. The candidate is gonna accept that Obama’s a legitimate American politician, a legitimate president, just got totally cockeyed policies. We’re gonna hear policy this, policy that, that’s why we’re in the dumper.
Now, all the while the dirty little secret is that every Republican nominee is running for one of two reasons, A, they’ve just got their traditional campaign ego ‘country can’t get along without me,’ or B, four more years of the guy and this country’s changed forever. Four more years of this guy and we’re looking at generations to get our country back. Now, they’re all gonna think that, everybody knows this is a bad guy in terms of America’s traditions, values, and so forth, everybody knows this guy’s got some chip on his shoulder, every one of our candidates knows this. I would venture to say, folks, that zilch, zero, nada are gonna say it. That they’re all gonna focus on policy, for lack of a better word. I mean they’re gonna focus on his policies led this, policies led that, but they’re not gonna get into his intentions, they’re not gonna get into his motivations. And they are, therefore, going to leave — (interruption) well, Snerdley said it’s a losing recipe. It’s what I’m asking you all. If you hear the Republican nominee, I don’t care who it is, I don’t care who it is for the purposes of this discussion, if you hear whoever the nominee is say the president’s policies are gonna lead us to blah, blah, are you going to ask, ‘Well, why do you think that?’
Beyond policy are you gonna be interested in our nominee’s opinion of Obama’s motivation? For example, I’m comfortable saying this myself, I’m not running for orifice, nobody in their right mind who’s trying to revive a private sector enemy and create jobs would do anything Obama’s doing, and if they were seriously well-intentioned but mistaken, they’d dropped this and go for something else. He’s not dropping it. He’s doubling down on all this. He’s doubling down on the unions. He’s doubling down on crimping the private sector, doubling town on growing government, doubling down on deficits, doubling down on spending. At some point do you have to say, ‘Why?’ Does that become part of the campaign question, ‘Why is he doing this?’ Well, he must just be naive. He must be well-intentioned but just, you know, incompetent. Or now he’s got a design on this country we don’t have. I mention this because Bachmann is out there not holding back. Gangster government, anti-American values, she’s saying it.
Does it make you uncomfortable, or are you going, ‘You go, girl.’ And do you want your presidential nominee to be taking the same tack or do you think it’s a loser? ‘Cause I’ll guarantee you this, there isn’t a whole lot that’s changed despite a lot of things that have changed, and I can pretty much guarantee you that our nominee is gonna be scared to death of losing independents. And our nominee, whoever the hell he or she is, is gonna think that the best way to lose the independents is to go after Obama personally. I guarantee it. Whether it’s true or not, that’s what they’re gonna be afraid of doing, losing the independents. They’re gonna want to hold onto the independents, and they think going after Obama personally as Bachmann does here is gonna just cause the independents to flee the scene, fly the coop.
Now, would you tell me, Snerdley, what are you laughing about? Has Premiere Radio hired you to be an actor and start laughing at me during my program? Hmm, oh. See, Snerdley thinks I have an ulterior motive to what I’m doing here. And I don’t. He thinks I’m flushing people out. I’m not flushing anybody out. I’m telling you what I know is gonna happen. I’m telling you I know what’s coming down the pike, and Bachmann has thrown her hat in the presidential ring, but it’s not why I’m bringing this up. You’re voters, you’re the base. I guarantee you the nominee, whoever he or she is, is gonna think there’s nowhere else you can go but him or her. So they may not think they have to service you in the campaign. They may think we have to offer the red meat of this guy’s socialist, Marxist, Saul Alinsky, ’cause they’re afraid doing that might lose precious independents and so forth and so on. So they just focus on policy. I’m just asking the question here: What do you expect? What do you want? What would your reaction be?
I’ll play a little bit more of Bachmann to illustrate what I’m talking about here. Snerdley, there’s no grand design here, and I’m not making the case for Michele Bachmann. You know darn well I’m not gonna pick a candidate right now. That’s not at all what I’m doing. The way she’s handling Gregory here simply turned on a couple lightbulbs that had been dimmed in my fertile cranial cavity here to ask a question about how’s this campaign gonna shape up ’cause I’m telling you, look at it. Gas prices are five bucks and you’re still not gonna get the same kind of media coverage of it that we got when it was inching up to four bucks when Bush was president. You are not gonna get the sob stories of people walking to work with holes in their shoes. You’re not gonna get that. You’re not gonna get the personification or the portrayal of the country as in any kind of economic quagmire here. You’re not gonna get that kind of assistance like they gave the Democrats going after Bush when gasoline was going up to four bucks. Now, here’s a guy that’s responsible for the price going up. Middle East this, Middle East that. We’re not drilling for oil! We’ve cut back our own domestic drilling. The guy doesn’t want oil, he doesn’t want coal. He’s going after the stupid little shining green city on the hill that doesn’t exist.
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RUSH: Now, back to more Michele Bachmann on Meet the Depressed yesterday. She’s one of the few Republicans who remembers what the last election was actually about, and it wasn’t that long ago. It was about the fraud that is Obamacare and the spending and the indebtedness. So the host, David Gregory — who is just so disturbed that someone might say Obama’s ‘gangster government; Mr. Gregory so disturbed someone might question whether Obama’s views are traditional, American founding-type views — says to Michele Bachmann, ‘You heard the president this week offer an accommodation to the states to opt out of the individual mandate where necessary to tailor to their own states. Why isn’t that the sort of give the Republicans wanted?’
BACHMANN: David, that’s not a give at all. In effect all that is is a pretext for implementing a single-payer plan. If you recall the president’s entire statement, he said, ‘The states can opt out as long as they stay within the requirements of all of Obamacare unless they want to go with single-payer plan.’ Obamacare is a crime against democracy. It has been a deception from the beginning. Remember, the president told us it was a mandate, not a tax. Now in the federal court he’s arguing it’s a tax, not a mandate.
RUSH: Let me add something to this — and it’s something that I have stated on previous broadcast occasions. They want this to fail! They want all of this to fail. That’s why all these waivers. That’s to get everybody on board before the election, but they want all this to fail. She’s exactly right here. This is a pretext for implementing the single-payer plan. All of the states and their plans and the local and the private sector health care companies, it’s all about them failing. It’s all about this not working. So then the last resort’s what? Obama! The federal government! So there you have it.
Michele Bachmann said, ‘Obamacare is a crime against democracy.’ It’s a fraud. It is a pretext to implementing a single-payer plan. Mr. Gregory, this is not an opt-out. This is not any give on the part of the regime. This is simple acknowledging he’s got a legal problem right now and he wants to skate around it for a while. So it takes us back to my hypothetical setup. Because the presidential campaign is gonna begin in earnest soon. In fact you got, what, five or six Republicans in Iowa today, or this week. So it’s now starting to intensify. At some point we’re gonna get the polling data with front-runners and all this sort of stuff and it’s gonna matter, to you, what kind of campaign you want. Remember, it was McCain that ran around saying (screaming McCain impression), ‘Obama’s a fine American, a fine man, and I don’t want hear any thing otherwise, you got it? Limbaugh, you shut up! Nothing! I’ll have nothing dishonorable! You mention his name is ‘Hussein,’ you say that one of my rallies, and you’re toast, pal! You’re fired!’
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RUSH: Obamacare waivers are now over 1,000, by the way. One thousand waivers mostly, not entirely, but mostly to union and union-related groups.
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RUSH: Matt, Charleston, South Carolina, as we start on the phones. Great to have you here, sir.
CALLER: Hey, Rush. In regards to your question in the first hour.
RUSH: Yeah.
CALLER: We gotta just kind of caution you here a little bit, all right? We don’t need a civil war on our side, number one. That’s what Obama wants more than anything. This is not the campaign of ’08. He’s got a record now, and in two years from now is gonna have four years to pick apart. And we have you and Hannity and Beck to, you know, go Bachmann every day, so I just, you know, what do you think?
RUSH: Well, about the last thing you said, that’s all well and good to have all these media people, but, frankly, these candidates are gonna have to have the message. At some point the candidate, whatever the message is, they’re gonna have to have it, and if they want to have a hard hitting message, they’re gonna have to be the ones to articulate it.
CALLER: Well, you know, I may be a little biased here, but coming from South Carolina, nobody does it better than Jim DeMint.
RUSH: Yeah. Exactly, although I don’t know that he’s running.
CALLER: I hope he does, but it doesn’t look like it.
RUSH: But for those just joining, let me rephrase the question. You’ve gotten close but you haven’t really answered it. I know what you’re saying, Obama’s got a record, but that’s the exact thing I’m talking about. Do you want a Republican nominee who simply points out the differences between himself and Obama as policy differences?
CALLER: Well, nobody’s who’s out there right now — Romney, Gingrich — nobody impresses me, but Jim DeMint has got such a strong — every time you see him on TV, he doesn’t need a teleprompter, he doesn’t need notes, he just bam, bam, bam. Bachmann’s pretty good, but she rubs people the wrong way, kind of like Palin, to an extent.
RUSH: Why does she rub people the wrong way?
CALLER: Just the so-called, you know, the Saturday Night Live types are just —
RUSH: Screw them!
CALLER: I know, but —
RUSH: Whoever we nominate other than somebody that’s a wuss is gonna rub them the wrong way. That’s the point. They need to be rubbed the wrong way. If we’re gonna go out trying to make sure that they’re not offended by what we do, hell, we may as well mail it in and just say Republicans are not gonna run anybody, we’re gonna save our money for 2016, Obama, it’s yours. Here’s the question, folks. It’s really not that complicated and I’m asking it within the context of winning the election. You got Obama here. I guarantee you that everybody running, if you talk to ’em privately, they’ll tell you he’s a bad guy. I mean, four more years of this guy and we’re looking at generations to fix what gets broken, what’s already broken, generations. But we can’t say that, can’t say that. People don’t want to think of their president as purposely breaking the country. They’re not gonna put their arms around that. They’re gonna reject anybody who says that, so we gotta focus on policy, we gotta focus strictly on policy.
For example, we’re gonna say the president’s policies have led to $4.50 gasoline, or whatever the prices. The president’s policy has led to a Middle East on fire, here’s why. The president’s policies are leading to us never-ending unemployment. And then go A, B, C, and D what the president’s policies are and why, and then what our policy differences are going to be. In other words, don’t get personal, don’t say socialist, don’t say he’s a Marxist, any of this stuff, don’t question his motives. Don’t even go there. Can’t win that way. That’s gonna be one argument. The other argument is, ‘Hey, reality is reality, he is who he is, and we don’t have time to pussyfoot around anymore. Here’s what we’re doing.’
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RUSH: Who’s next? Mike in Covington, Kentucky. Hello, sir. Great to have you on the EIB Network.
CALLER: Mega dittos, Rush. Longtime listener.
RUSH: Thank you, sir, very much.
CALLER: I think that whoever the Republican nominee is does not need to go out and attack the president himself. He needs to attack the president’s policies and the president’s issues.
RUSH: Okay.
CALLER: I’m a professional truck driver, and if fuel goes up to four dollars a gallon, it will cost me roughly $1400 every time I fill up. So that has a big impact on me directly.
RUSH: Yeah, but let me tell you something. I’ve had two stories on that so far today, and guess who’s blamed? Khadafy. It’s Moammar Khadafy’s fault. Our brave president — our brave president, Mike — is doing everything he can to get rid of Khadafy except get rid of him. He’s doing everything he can. The gasoline prices are going up despite the best president has and it’s Khadafy’s fault. It’s not Obama’s fault.
CALLER: Well, Rush, can I make a quick comment?
RUSH: Well, sure. You’re a paid actor. Go for it.
CALLER: To a certain extent there are… You talked about Bill O’Reilly earlier. To an extent, yeah, the oil speculators have something to do with it. I mean, every time there’s a crisis in the Middle East, the price per barrel always spikes up, but I don’t think that’s 100% of the issue. You’ve got a — a — the president now is not allowing any drilling, he’s banned it, he’s against it. he’s pushing this electric car from Obama Motors, and right now we need to drill everywhere we can drill, and we need to find every barrel of oil we can find right here on our shores.
RUSH: Right. Right. I — I —
CALLER: We need to.
RUSH: Yes, which people have been saying for a long time.
CALLER: Yes. And on the stick-to-the-issues deal, whoever the nominee is also needs to push home that we’ve got a health care plan out there that nobody wanted that everybody is against, that 34 — I could be wrong on the number of states — have voted on try to repeal it, a judge in Florida that has ruled it totally unconstitutional, yet they’re putting it down our throats anyway, and they’re disobeying the judge. The nominee also needs to bring that home.
RUSH: Okay. This is interesting. By the way, it’s 26 states, but who’s quibbling? Sarah Palin was destroyed, mocked for saying, ‘Drill, baby, drill!’ A lot of people have been destroyed for suggesting that the way out of this is to drill for domestic oil, because the template is, ‘Oil is the enemy; we gotta ‘go green’ now. This is a perfect time to go alternative.’ I don’t want to get sidetracked here. You’re clearly of the frame of mind: simply remind people of the policy realities, just because of Obama we’ve got X, Y, Z. We’ve got a health plan nobody wants. See, where I coming from, I find it fascinating… How do I say this?
Obamacare is why the Democrats lost the election. It’s why they got shellacked in November. I’m not gonna have to be reminded by a candidate anything about the negatives of Obamacare during a presidential race. I already know. It already animates me. I’m not gonna have to be reminded of any of these things. I’m not gonna have to be reminded the president shut down drilling in the Gulf. Now, understandably some people are gonna have to be informed in the campaign; some don’t pay attention to stuff until that happens. I am not choosing a side here yet. I’m merely presenting the options to you. Let me put it another way. Obviously I’ve gone about this the wrong way.
I fashion myself as the premiere communicator, and obviously I’ve failed here based on the calls that Snerdley has found. What I’m asking you here is: During the presidential campaign of 2012 — (sigh) How best to put this? — should the Republican nominee…? I’m gonna have to think about this. I thought I had put this out pretty clearly. I’m still struggling here for another way to frame this. (drumming fingers) Okay, let’s make myself the nominee. What would I do? If I were the nominee, I wouldn’t hold back. If I were the nominee, I’d go way beyond policy. I’d tell you why this guy’s policies are what they are.
I realize the risk inherent here. You’re gonna have the press (snidely), ‘Oh, you think he’s a gangster? You think he’s anti-American?’ No, that’s not what I’m saying. I think he’s got a different view of Americanism than we do. He’s got a whole lot totally different idea and understanding. This guy’s got a chip on his shoulder about the country. He doesn’t believe in exceptionalism about America, doesn’t believe in America’s greatness. One of the reasons he’s not doing anything in Libya with Khadafy — has anybody got a clue? — is he doesn’t believe we have the moral authority to do anything other than mouth a bunch of words in the first place. ‘Who are we to tell ’em what to do?’ That’s the way he looks at it. ‘Who are we?’
Obama’s whole worldview is, ‘Who are we to tell anybody in the world what to do? Whatever gave us that right, whatever gave us that authority? Whatever gave us that moral authority? Whatever gave us that power? Who the hell are we? I mean, as president I can clearly express my disagreement, and I can ‘denounce in the strongest terms what Khadafy is doing,’ but I don’t have the right to throw him out of office. What the hell! Who are we? United States of America?’ He doesn’t hold that kind of moral view of this country’s superiority and these kinds of things
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RUSH: I think maybe I am assuming way too much of my brain will be utilized by others. For example, I’m assuming that most people are gonna be as curious as I would be. I know that’s not true. I know that the vast majority of people are nowhere near as curious as I am. This is a characteristic trait. So I’m a voter and I’m sitting here and I’m listening to the presidential campaign, and let’s say that we got 9 to 10% unemployment during the presidential campaign, gasoline is at four dollars to five bucks a gallon, right? Let’s say that it is. And we know that nowhere in the media is Obama going to be held accountable or responsible for this. It will be Libya, Khadafy’s responsible for gasoline and business sitting on all that cash, evil, big business refusing to hire, wanting to make our young president look bad is why we’ve got unemployment. So that’s gonna be the media spin. In the midst of all this we’re gonna have a Republican nominee who is going to say, ‘We need a change, and I’m the man to be the change, president’s policies have led us to 10% unemployment, the president’s policies have led us to five-dollar-a-gallon gasoline.’
Now, if I’m a voter, my natural reaction to hearing that is, ‘Why? Why would anybody want 10% unemployment?’ I’m gonna assume that no president would want 10% unemployment. I’m gonna assume that no president, no American, no American, period, wants gasoline prices at five bucks a gallon. I know leftists do. I’m talking about an American president. So I’ve got the Republican nominee saying the president’s policies have led to 10% unemployment, five-dollar-a-gallon gasoline, it’s time for a change. I’m sitting here saying, ‘Why? How? What are these policies? What are the policies that have led to 10% unemployment?’ Okay, well, that’s gonna require an explanation of what was wrong with the stimulus. Doesn’t it demand an ideological explanation? If you’re gonna sit there and be critical of a president’s policies which have led to this kind of stagnant deteriorating economy, doesn’t it seem to you that people are gonna say, ‘Well, why? Is he just mistaken? Is he incompetent? Is that your case? Are you saying that President Obama is just not up to the job, that he’s incompetent, his policies are wrong?’ My natural reaction is, ‘Why are his policies wrong?’ I guess what it gets down to is motivation. (interruption) Well, that’s what I’m saying, Snerdley. I know it’s not the typical voter.
I sit here and, heck, I don’t care about the presidential campaign. I’m looking at it now: 8.9, 9, 9.4% whatever it is, unemployment, rising gasoline prices, and then you measure this against all that we were promised by this president and his party prior to the 2008 election. It hasn’t worked out that way. So that’s what I’m saying. Most people do not have anywhere near the curiosity I have. Most people may not actually want to hear the president’s motivation for his policies. I do. I want to know, why does somebody who claims to want to lower unemployment, why is somebody who’s claiming to focus like a laser on jobs, how does that guy end up with so many jobs lost? How does that guy end up presiding over an energy policy that’s led to us five dollar-dollar-a-gallon gasoline? How does that happen? But I guess that’s just me.
I’ll just tell you this. The prevailing view is that to delve into this in the context of a presidential campaign any further than simply delineating policy differences is a loser, because people do not want to hear that their president’s a bad guy, that it’s a losing proposition to try to make that case. And by bad guy, I mean somebody who has reform ideas for this country that are really nothing like the country was founded. I’m not talking about criminal bad guy, that kind of thing. Just a policy bad guy. There’s just a lot of fear, I’m telling you, there’s a lot of fear going there, they think, is a guaranteed loser. The Democrats are saying, Jim McDermott, the Republicans are trying to destroy the economy so they can get back into power. See, my problem is they’ve got a free ride. The Democrats can say that about us all they want, they can run around and say the most personally destructive, damages, untrue things they want, and nobody ever says they’re gonna go too far, nobody ever says they are going to step in it.
Nobody ever says the Democrats are gonna send people running away to the independents and Republicans. They can be as mean, vicious, they can lie through their teeth all they want. We, on the other hand, tie both of our arms behind our backs. ‘We can’t go there, Rush, we’re gonna lose all our voters. They’re gonna transfer over to the Democrats, independents are gonna run away.’ Meanwhile, the foundation of all this is we’ve got a guy who’s purposely trying to transform this country, who is destroying the private sector health care industry. He’s destroying it. He’s destroying private sector job creation, destroying it. We can’t say that. Can’t say it, scare the voters. Voters don’t want to believe that, so we’ve got a strict focus on policy differences.
Helen in Scotts Valley, California. Hi.
CALLER: Hi, Rush. Mega unwilling user of a smart meter in California.
RUSH: Thank you.
CALLER: This election has got to be black and white. It has to be showed so much what — I gotta keep the words down —
RUSH: Let’s say red and blue versus black and white, can we?
CALLER: Okay.
RUSH: Yeah.
CALLER: Red and blue is good.
RUSH: Yeah.
CALLER: Very, very good.
RUSH: Right, yeah.
CALLER: Okay.
RUSH: Red and blue. Yeah. I agree with you totally on that, by the way.
CALLER: Yeah. Anyway, we can’t pussyfoot around about policies. It’s time to get into what kind of a person Obama is.
RUSH: Well, that’s it. That’s it. I’m just gonna tell you, I don’t know a single Republican nominee that wants to go there, potential nominee. I don’t know a single one of them that wants to go there.
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RUSH: Now, on this question of mine, I realize folks that I am a media figure, and I know there’s a huge difference in acquiring an audience and getting votes. It’s a huge, huge difference. For example, in just one area, just one example: A politician will not get the votes of people that don’t like him. I will have no problem getting people to listen to me who don’t like me. In fact, I have to keep giving them reasons. There are some people who listen precisely because they hate, precisely because they don’t like. You gotta keep fueling that. I don’t have to work at it. That’s just who they are.
But a politician can’t survive like that. I live in Literalville, and I know the population of Literalville is not much. There aren’t a whole lot of people who live there, but I do. So my view on things is, ‘Call it as I see it.’ What this really boils down to is: Do we call Obama a socialist or not? In a presidential campaign, do we tell the American people, ‘We are up against an avowed socialist. We have somebody who is doing his level best to make this country no different from any of the Western European social democracies. Sweden, the UK, France, that’s what we’re headed for here.
We got somebody who wants to preside over America’s decline.’ There’s no question that that’s happening, but I don’t think there are gonna be too many, if any, Republican presidential candidates are gonna want to get anywhere near saying that. They’re gonna want to keep it focused strictly on policy. My problem is this: If we can’t straightforwardly address who Obama is and what he wants, it’s sort of like a doctor trying to treat the symptoms of a disease without diagnosing the disease itself. Not comparing Obama to a disease. It’s just a metaphor here.
You go to the doctor and you got something really wrong and the doctor says, ‘Well, the best we can figure out here, life as you know it you’ve got about a year.’
‘Well, what’s wrong with me?’
‘Well, that doesn’t matter. I don’t want to go there. I don’t want to describe what this disease is, and don’t want to tell you how it operates and I don’t want to tell you what its purpose is. I just want to say you’ve got it.’
‘Oh. Okay.’
If Obama’s opponents don’t try to explain what Obama really thinks about America, what he really wants for our country, then (what I was trying to say earlier with my curiosity) we’d have to assume, ‘Well, he’s just overcome by bad luck or coincidences,’ or, ‘He’s just incompetent,’ or just wrong. The problem is, as the caller said earlier, by the time this campaign runs around we’re gonna have a three-year record here — a three-year record on doubling down on what’s wrong! ‘Okay, the first stimulus didn’t create private sector jobs? Okay, we’ll do another one!’ We’ve had all this spending. We now have monthly deficits larger than annual deficits used to be as recently as 2007. Obviously the policy isn’t working but he’s keeping right on with it.
Why?
Anyway, it’s sort of a moot question because I’ve answered it myself by saying that you can pretty much guarantee that we’re not gonna have a campaign where the president’s ideology is referenced to as a socialist. It just isn’t gonna happen. Mark my words.
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RUSH: Chattanooga, Tennessee, hello, Ray. Great to have you on the program.
CALLER: Hey, Rush. It’s good to talk to you.
RUSH: You bet.
CALLER: Listen, I had a thought about what you’re asking about, and you pretty much answered it I think in your last monologue about this whole Obama, what he believes and stuff and how we should approach it. But I think a real basic question is, you know, should the next nominee ask what Obama’s core values are. Because you know we certainly didn’t ask it in the last election. And it seems to me that, you know, what a person believes in their heart, in their soul is what they do.
RUSH: Wait. You just hit on something. Wait a minute. You’ve just helped me here. We know all of this stuff.
CALLER: Yeah.
RUSH: See, this is the key. The question is not what. We know. We know that he has said to his buddies he wants a single payer national health care. We know he wants to put traditional energy sources out of business. We know that he views the American private sector as a culprit. We know all this. The question is, how much of it do we actually say?
CALLER: Here’s my thought on that, Rush, if you will. I would say that if a nominee — and they don’t have to be yelling and screaming about it, but if they asked a question, if they say, ‘We know this guy believes these things –‘
RUSH: They are going to be asked the question. Michele Bachmann on Meet the Press yesterday was asked, ‘You gonna back off of this gangster business?’ ‘No, I’m not gonna back off of it.’ There are enough Republicans who have said X, Y, Z. Whoever the nominee is, it’s gonna be, ‘Do you agree with what X said that Obama is Y.’ They’re gonna be asked this.
CALLER: No. What I mean is if the Republican nominees don’t ask the public or they don’t bring up that this guy’s core values are such because, you know, we know people by what they do, then to me that says that that nominee doesn’t deserve the presidency.
RUSH: Oh.
CALLER: If they’re going to be sheepish about this —
RUSH: Wait, wait, wait, wait. We’re talking here about what’s the best strategy for winning. What is the best way to go about winning this thing? That’s the umbrella under which I’m asking all of these questions.
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RUSH: Look, Snerdley, if you were running for the Republican nomination this year, wouldn’t you think you had a chance? I mean everybody acknowledges this is one of the weakest fields. It is kind of strange. Here we’ve got the single greatest opportunity we’ve ever had to contrast ourselves with that which we oppose and we got one of the weakest fields. Everybody knows this. Everybody knows this. Everybody you talk to. I can’t mention any names. I’ve talked to a bunch of people last week. They all tell me, the weakest field. I had one guy — (laughing) — ranking Republican, tell me it’s the weakest field ever. But it doesn’t matter ’cause the election’s gonna be about Obama. And all we gotta do is get his negatives on Obamacare back up to 60, 70%, and it doesn’t matter who our nominee is. Well, that’s what one of the ranking Republicans told me. It doesn’t matter who the nominee is because it’s gonna be a referendum on Obama, it’s that simple. We get his negatives up, he doesn’t have a prayer. Okay, well, still takes me back to my question, ‘How do you get the negatives up?’ If that is the acting or animating philosophy or policy, theory, whatever, okay, how do we get his negatives up, how do we do it? He already had a shellacking in November because of Obamacare. How do we keep getting them up, the negatives?
Audio sound bite time. I mentioned Jim McDermott here. The Democrats never handcuff themselves in describing us. The Democrats never handcuff themselves in talking about our motivations as they see it. I mean they’re dead wrong, too. They engage in the politics of personal destruction, and we’re told it never hurts them. Let me go through this one more time. For those of you new to the program, one of the things I have always had a big problem with, all my life, all my adult life, all of the life I’ve had during this program I’ve heard people say, ‘Look, we can’t be personal criticizing Clinton, can’t be personal criticizing Obama, ’cause, Rush, if we do that it’s gonna send these independents away. They just want us to get along. The independents want people to get along, they want to cross the aisle, want us to work together. If we start getting critical the independents are just gonna run right back to the Democrats.’ Yeah, right. The most negative, mean-spirited, combative political party in my lifetime, these precious independents are gonna retreat into the mouth of the most mean-spirited bunch of people ever because we might be critical of Obama or Clinton. I’ve never understood that.
And all it was, all it’s ever been is a trick put forth by the Democrats and the media to get us to shut up. The Democrats are never personal when it comes to criticizing Sarah Palin, are they? Why, they never get mean when they’re talking about Sarah Palin, do they? Oh, no, that’s how we’re supposed to behave, right? ‘Rush, we’re never gonna win, never gonna win.’ Can you imagine two Democrats sitting around saying, ‘We’re never gonna win if we keep talking about Palin the way we’re talking about her?’ Of course not!
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RUSH: Speaking of Obama’s core values and all that, this sound bite remains one of my all-time favorite sound bites in the history of the program. It is Charlie Rose and Tom Brokaw. It’s right around election time. I mean it’s within days of the 2008 election, and it’s on Charlie Rose’s PBS show.
ROSE: I don’t know what Barack Obama’s worldview is.
BROKAW: No, I don’t either.
ROSE: I don’t know how he really sees where China is.
BROKAW: We don’t know a lot about Barack Obama and the universe of his thinking about foreign policy.
ROSE: I don’t really know. And do we know anything about the people who are advising him?
BROKAW: You know, it’s an interesting question.
ROSE: He’s principally known through his autobiography and through very aspirational speeches.
BROKAW: Two of them. I don’t know what books he’s read.
ROSE: What do we know about the heroes of Barack Obama?
BROKAW: There’s a lot about him we don’t know.
RUSH: Well, there you have it, two of the most well-informed people in the world, in their own minds, and they don’t know a thing about Obama. Well, that’s the question: Do they know now? That’s from before the election. It’s a fine time to tell us now, Lucille. Now he’s moving to the center, but center of what, because they don’t know where he started from. I wonder if they today know what he’s all about, if they know what the universe of his thinking is. Okay, so they’re admitting I don’t know. So, okay, let’s tell them. ‘Oh, no, Rush, I mean we can’t do that. Why, that’s just gonna make ’em not like us.’ Oh, as though they do already like us. It was the Friday before the election, I think. Yeah. It was October 31st. It was the Friday before the election when they made that little sound bite that happened there.
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RUSH: This is John in Chicago. Great to have you on the EIB Network. Hello.
CALLER: Unpaid-caller dittos from Chicago, Rush.
RUSH: Thank you, sir, very much.
CALLER: I believe the next conservative presidential candidate has to do with something that is going to be very difficult to pull off, and that is he’s gonna have to separate the person, Barack Obama — who a lot of people identify in this country — from the leftist ideology that is ruining this country, and it’s gonna be difficult to pull off, but in essence I think he says, ‘Barack Obama loves a version of America, but that version is a big government version of America; and what made America great was free economics, freedom of expression, and freedom of religion; and we must have a dismantling of Washington, DC, so that the rest of the country can thrive; and the only way to do that is to reemphasize those basic core freedoms that Barack Obama believes are subservient to a big, overarching, all-intrusive government that will destroy what made America great.’
RUSH: All right, so you’re basic coming down on the side, ‘Just keep it focused on policy’?
CALLER: No. Keep it on philosophic… Here’s my problem, Rush. The next Republican or conservative is not just running against Barack. He’s running against David Gregory, CBS, NBC, and any criticism can be viewed as personal. What I’m saying is: Attack his hard left ideology and philosophy, and give examples from policies that show what that is. But it has to be done so that it is not viewed as mean. Ronald Reagan was perfect at this. He wasn’t mean toward Jimmy Carter personally but he was deft at pointing out the destructive path that he led America down in the 1970s. That’s why I think it’s gonna take a master politician to pull this off.
RUSH: Weeell, you know, there’s a lot of stuff people think about Reagan. If you go back and you listen to Reagan talk about leftists and Democrats, you will hear a guy who was brutal in his honesty about who they are and what their objectives are.
CALLER: Absolutely, but he –
RUSH: He didn’t categorize these people as just a bunch of misguided naive idealists.
CALLER: Well, I agree with you, but he wasn’t viewed as being a personally mean person. That’s why I said it’s gonna take a very deft person —
RUSH: A-ha!
CALLER: — to pull this off.
RUSH: All right, now, interesting. ‘He wasn’t viewed as mean.’ So is it ‘mean’ to say Obama’s a socialist? Just asking. No trick question here. You’re not a paid actor. Is getting too personal to say socialist?
CALLER: No. I think what you do is you publish his own thoughts, his own words, you put it up on the big screen and you say, ‘I don’t just call the man a socialist. Here’s why I believe he is a socialist.’
RUSH: Yeah?
CALLER: And then you say, ‘Dreams of Our Fathers’ (sic) or whatever the book was, you pull out the quotes, and then you say he’s being quoted in 2004 being a single-payer advocate, and this is just a transition to get us there. I think that’s how you do it. Rather than say he’s a mean guy, he loves his family, blah, blah, blah, but the point is he has said some very Marxist or neo-Marxist things in his life. I personally think he was brought up as a Marxist. I wouldn’t believe he was just a soft-core socialist. He may have mitigated his views somewhat, but he’s pretty hard-core left. I think you and I would agree with that. But I think there are words, there are speeches, there are policies that point out that his vision of America — his version of America — is a hardcore left version that will lead to the destruction of what this country is.
RUSH: Oh. Oh, oh, oh, oh! Wait just a second. Once you do that — once you say that Obama’s policies are leading to the destruction of America — then here comes your aforementioned David Gregory and Bob Schieffer saying, ‘Are YOU saying that the president is trying to destroy America?’ What’s your — ?
CALLER: Here’s my answer to that. ‘He’s trying to destroy what made America great, and he wants to reestablish his version –‘
RUSH: Waaait a second. Then why would President Obama want to destroy American greatness, sir?
CALLER: Because, to him, a free country is not what made America great. He believes that an all-intrusive federal government will right every wrong, will make everything good, will make America great again — and that is precisely the wrong thing. So the next presidential candidate needs to be like Michele Bachmann or Sarah Palin and address, head-on, David Gregory who is nothing more than a mouthpiece for the Obama administration and challenge him right back.
RUSH: Well… (sigh) Mouthpiece, stenographer, true.
CALLER: Yeah.
RUSH: But these guys are all going to be trying to get the aforementioned nominee to get into this. You know, I addressed this at CPAC, and it might be wise for tomorrow to get these excerpts from my CPAC speech a couple years ago. Because I actually with that speech at CPAC started a debate: Principle versus policy. And I remember making the big case for principle, and I remember that audience standing up and cheering. And, you know, a lot of our conservative intelligentsia was appalled. They were horrified ’cause we have people, you know, everybody’s out there getting all tied up and they’re policy wonks. They are asked if they wanted Obama to fail like I wanted to fail. I was out there pushing principle, principle. All we had to do was stand on principle, and every question that anybody could ask us has an answer that’s about us and what we believe. Anyway, I’ll have Cookie tear that apart and I’ll show you what I’m talking about with those excerpts from the CPAC speech tomorrow.
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RUSH: Folks, don’t forget: Ronaldus Magnus called the enemy the ‘evil empire.’ He did not pussyfoot around. And don’t forget, as amiable, friendly, good-natured as Reagan was, they made him out to be a meeean hater. They did everything they could. So no matter what the truth is, they’re going to accuse us of being things we’re not anyway. So go for it!