RUSH: Let’s just jump feet first into this Santorum business. I want to start actually with Friday night’s Hardball. Chris Matthews had the editor-at-large from Salon.com, Joan Walsh, as a guest. And they were talking about Obama’s decision that insurance companies pay for contraception coverage for employees of religious-based businesses.

That’s what happened at the same time Obama’s approval numbers were plummeting. Now, you’re gonna be hearing something that isn’t true in this bite. They cite a poll that shows 66% support of Obama’s federal requirement that private insurance plans cover the full cost of birth control. No. The vast majority of polls say it’s 50-50. It’s not a 66-34 issue. It’s not an 80-20 issue. More and more people are considering that the president doesn’t have the authority to unilaterally just dictate this! Don’t doubt me, folks. There are more and more people starting to actually become alarmed (and they are independents) at the brazen, naked power grabs that Obama is making. And the White House, the Democrat Party are living under age-old assumptions that the independents hate values.

Speaking of that, I think it was the midterms in 2002. In fact, I’m sure of it. It couldn’t have been 2006 ’cause that’s when we lost. Yeah! Yeah, yeah. Yeah, it was the midterms of 2002, ’cause I was a guest with Brokaw and Russert on their NBC election night coverage. That’s right. 2002. Remember after the 2002 midterms, there were many surprises. The Republicans did exceptionally well. The conventional wisdom is that the first midterm after a new president’s election, his party loses seats. That is a standard operating procedure, conventional wisdom bit. And it didn’t happen in 2002. Furthermore, the exit polls sent shock waves through the political establishment. Things that had never come up as issues per se, mattered greatly to people as expressed in the exit polls.

One of the things… You’ll remember this when I remind you. One of the glaring things that showed up in the exit polls was how much “values” mattered to voters. And we were all surprised. And I’ll never forget the Democrats. Immediately upon the delivery of the exit polls, the Democrats (for a week or two) were publicly were saying, “Yeah, we’re gonna have to get our house in order on the values. The values-based voters, we’re not giving ’em enough. We’re gonna have to make some adjustments.” I remember it like it was yesterday. And all that is, when you hear “values-based voters,” is we’re simply talking about social issues, social conservatives. They were the primary reason for the 2002 midterms success, and Democrats gave the usual lip service for a couple of weeks.

And then, of course, they abandoned it because they never meant it in the first place. I bring it up just to reaffirm the point that Jeffrey Bell makes in his recent book that social conservatism has led to victory in presidential elections. It’s the dirty little secret the Democrats know and the media know, and it’s why the social conservatives (one of the reasons why) are so despised. They’re also despised on principle. But they’re also despised because there are so many of them, and they’re thought to be hick, hayseed idiots who believe every syllable in the Bible, “And how stupid can that be?” in their minds. And they vote Republican, and they’re anti-abortion. Oh, every ingredient necessary for a liberal Democrat to hate somebody, the social conservatives have — and they joyously, happily propose it and vote it.

And the Democrats know full well. Why do you think…? Why do you think Obama and the Democrats all of a sudden try to concoct this contraception issue? ‘Cause they’re losing the independents! They believe, from the age-old pages of their playbook, that if they can revive this notion that the Republican Party is nothing but a bunch of theologians that want to dictate from the pulpit in the White House, that they can scare the independents back to Obama’s camp. They know they can’t attract ’em with economic issues. They know they can’t attract the independents back by being positive about Obama’s record, ’cause there isn’t anything there to be positive about. They know that social issues are a winner for the Republican Party.

Now, the Republican establishment doesn’t like the social conservatives either. They’ll take ’em on Election Day, but that’s as far as it goes. They’re scared of ’em, too. They don’t like them. But they’ll take them on Election Day. So Matthews says to Joan Walsh, “There’s a new New York Times/CBS poll taken in February. It spanned opinion both before and after the president announced his accommodation last Friday which kept the religious institutions from having to sign on to providing free-of-charge abortion benefits. Sixty-six percent…” Matthews erroneously cites here. “Sixty-six percent in the New York Times poll support the federal requirement that private insurance plans cover the full cost of birth control.” That’s the only poll that shows that, by the way. And he says to Joan Walsh, “This is a pretty clear public opinion here, I think.”

WALSH: The only people who are really opposed to this, ultimately — or the people who are most opposed — are born again evangelical Christians. So again this is a Christian right issue. Rush Limbaugh says they’re gonna win the culture war. I think he’s a secret Democrat. I think he’s a closet Democrat. He is leading Michael’s party off a cliff on this issue. All the polls show that.

RUSH: I am leading the Republican Party off a cliff on the issue of abortion and social issues. I’m not on the ballot. I guess she’s saying this because I’m not condemning Santorum for what he’s doing. Well, if I’m leading the party off the cliff, they ought to be happy. But they sure as heck sound worried to me. You know, everybody chooses to conveniently forget that Bill Clinton ran on family values in 1996. That’s how he won the soccer moms, for crying out loud. The Democrats will make overtures to the family values crowd. Why did Clinton bother with all the public apologies with Jesse Jackson and so forth over the Lewinsky stuff? Because it offended people’s sense of decency where it comes to family values. He had to get ’em back.

If family values didn’t matter to Democrats, if it didn’t matter to people, Clinton wouldn’ta cared, it wouldn’ta mattered. And he probably didn’t want to do all that, but he had to. You want to talk about Santorum, Obama started this. If I may be bold, Ms. Walsh, it was Obama who started this at the National Prayer Breakfast. Santorum is simply reacting to Obama. Obama was the one who equated his policies with Jesus Christ, for crying out loud. We haven’t had a Republican do that in I don’t know how long. But Obama did it plain as day. And where were you, Ms. Walsh, and where were the rest of you libs? You’re probably gritting your teeth, but you say, “Okay, he’s our guy, we know what he has to do.” Another indication of just what the Democrats think they’ve gotta do to win reelection. They’ve got to show themselves to be at least friendly and nonthreatening to Christians and southern conservatives if they’ve to have a chance. Otherwise Obama wouldn’ta wasted time trying to equate himself and his wonderful policies to Jesus Christ.

So he started it. That’s what everybody has to remember here. Obama started it. Santorum was reacting. Pure and simple. And this was not all that Santorum was talking about last week. He was also doing extremely well talking about the economy, manufacturing. He hits grand slam home runs when he talks about such things as providing decent jobs for people who don’t have college degrees in this country. That’s a lot of people. And he hits grand slams talking about that stuff. He also mixes in the other stuff. And this next sound bite, this is what sent ’em in orbit. This is Jackie Gleason to his wife in the Honeymooners, “To the moon, Alice!” which she really ticked him off. Santorum said this Saturday in Columbus, Ohio. He was at a Tea Party rally.

SANTORUM: This is what the president’s agenda is. It’s not about you. It’s not about you. It’s not about your quality of life. It’s not about your jobs. It’s about some phony ideal, some phony theology. Oh, not a theology based on the Bible, a different theology.

RUSH: A different theology. It’s not about your quality of life. It’s not about your jobs. It’s about some phony ideal. And he said Obama’s agenda is not based on the Bible and he didn’t back down. When they started firing at him for this, he did not back down from the assertion that Obama’s values run against the values of Christianity. Santorum said, “Obama is imposing his values on the Christian church. He can categorize those values any away he wants. I’m not going to,” and he’s exactly right. It was Obama who at first demanded that the Catholic Church provide free contraception and other abortion-related benefits, after he says that his policies equate those of Jesus Christ.

So here’s Obama demanding that churches and religious schools provide things that they are morally opposed to. So Obama started this plain as day, and Santorum says he’s imposing his values on the Christian church, not the other way around. Robert Gibbs, the former White House press secretary, was on This Week yesterday, the fill-in host Jake Tapper said to him, “Pressed by reporters as to what exactly he meant, Santorum said the president’s, quote, ‘Imposing his secular values on the church, and I think that’s wrong.’ What’s your reaction, Gibbs?”

GIBBS: Those remarks are well over the line. It’s wrong, it’s destructive, it’s time to get rid of this. It’s time to have a debate on our political positions but not question’s character and faith. This GOP primary, in many cases, Jake, has been a race to the bottom. We have seen nastiness, divisiveness, ugliness, distortions of opponents’ records, of the president’s records.

RUSH: Oh, yeah, we’ve never seen this stuff before, never before. Just like we’ve never had any as brilliant and unique as Obama run for office. We never had this kind of filth in campaigns. We never had these kind of negative ads. What a crock. What is this, “remarks are well over the line”? What remarks are over the line? That Obama has a phony theology? Santorum made it clear he was not talking about Obama’s religious beliefs. He was talking about Obama’s political beliefs as a theology. He wasn’t questioning whether or not Obama loves Reverend Wright. Everybody knows he does. You didn’t hear Santorum say that Obama doesn’t believe what Reverend Wright says. He didn’t challenge Obama’s relationship with his pastor. They’re nervous, folks. They are very, very nervous.

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RUSH: So Santorum shows up on Slay the Nation yesterday, Bob Schieffer, he’s 74; I said 92. He’s 74 years old. And Schieffer actually seemed like he was talking to somebody from Mars. He looked at Santorum and he literally could not fathom that a living, breathing human being believes — much less would say — these things. So he asked Santorum about his remarks that Obama’s agenda is about some phony theology. “Senator, I’ve got to ask you, what in the world were you talking about, sir?”

SANTORUM: I was talking about the radical environmentalists, that’s why I was talking about energy. This idea that man is here to serve the earth as opposed to husband its resources and be good stewards of the earth. And I think that is a phony ideal. We’re not here to serve the earth. The earth is not the objective. Man is the objective, and I think a lot of radical environmentalists have it upside down.

RUSH: I guarantee you, Santorum, by the way, could not be more correct. I don’t care whether you’re religious or not, he could not be more correct. The left in this country has done its best to subordinate humanity to every other living or near-dead organism on the planet. You don’t even have to go to its extreme fringes to find this, although you will. The left believes this would be a far better place, the planet would be, if there were no human beings. They don’t see any other organism participating in destruction of the climate, destruction of anything that’s on the planet. Everything but man is completely normal and natural. It is man, it is humanity that is the abnormality and the problem on the planet. Santorum’s exactly right. That’s exactly how they think. Now, I guarantee you, Bob Schieffer, in the circles he travels, has never heard anybody say that. Nobody’s even gotten close. This the first time he’s been confronted with something like this, and he doesn’t know how to deal with it, as you will hear when we get back.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: Now, before we get back to the Bob Schieffer sound bites and the stuff with Santorum, the Drive-By Media headlines have been hilarious. “Santorum Says Obama’s Agenda Based on Phony Theology, Not the Bible,” or Santorum Questions Obama’s Christian Values!” Santorum has never once criticized Obama’s beliefs as they relate to Jeremiah Wright’s. Santorum has never questioned Obama’s devotion to Reverend Wright’s church. He’s not even talking about that. Almost all of these reports go out of their way to misunderstand — actually misreport — what Santorum was saying. Which, to those of us who understand, was perfectly clear. Anybody who doesn’t see… And this is the real truth.

Anybody who doesn’t see that Obama and the rest of the left are the ones treating manmade global warming as an article of religious faith is either blind or a member of the news media. It is the left that has converted global warming into a religion! It is the left that has made abortion the sacrament to their religion of liberalism. It’s Obama and the left that are converting everything to do with environmentalism and manmade global warming to a religious belief. Santorum was talking about Obama’s belief in global warming. He was saying that gas prices are going up because of Obama’s actions, which are based upon his belief in manmade global warming. Which is a religion. It is a theology. Global warming is not a science.

But I’ll tell you this: It really is an insult to conflate global warming and religion. The insult is what the left has been doing! The insult to our intelligence and sensibilities, the affront is the left’s conflating of global warming and religion. No modern religion is as anti-science as the belief in manmade global warming. They have to fake the science, they have to lie about the science, they have to ignore the science in order to expound their beliefs. It’s got everything that Christianity has. It’s got its Garden of Eden where everything was perfect. It’s got man coming along corrupting himself and committing sin and destroying the planet, and it’s even got a nirvana! If you agree to drive a hybrid car and pay higher taxes, then you can reach heaven on earth.

Which is what the left preaches. For crying out loud, they are trying to make what we exhale into a “pollutant.” And therefore, according to the left, only man and our animals emit carbon dioxide, thus pollutants. I’m frankly gonna get a little offended that they’re harping on Santorum for this. I’ve been doing this for decades! I’ve been making this point for decades and they’ve ignored me. Let’s go back to Schieffer and his attempts here to deal with Santorum. So after Schieffer on CBS on Slay the Nation yesterday asks (summarized), “Senator, what in the world…? What in the world were you talking about, sir?” Santorum answers, and then Schieffer says, “Well, how does that translate into some sort of theology…?” Meaning Obama’s global warming beliefs. “How does that translate into some sort of theology, that the president’s theology is not based on the Bible? I mean, that suggests he’s not a Christian, sir.”

SANTORUM: (chuckling) I wasn’t suggesting the president’s not a Christian. I accept the fact that the president’s a Christian. I just said that when you have a worldview that elevates the earth above man and says that, you know, we can’t take those resources because we’re gonna harm the earth by things that are — that, frankly, are just not scientifically proven. For example, the politicization of the whole global warming debate. I mean, this is just all an attempt to — you know, to centralize power and to give more power to the government. And this is not questioning the president’s beliefs in — in Christianity. I’m talking about the belief that man is — should be in charge of the earth

SCHIEFFER: (unintelligible sputtering)

SANTORUM: — and should have dominion over it and should be good stewards of it.

RUSH: Right. I guarantee you this is Greek. This is hieroglyphics to Schieffer. He doesn’t comprehend it. Remember when Lord Monckton came and delivered a speech here in the United States about global warming and said things that you’ve been hearing on this program for a long time? Juan Williams said, “You know, I never heard that before. I’ve gotta stop and think about this. I’ve never heard that perspective on global warming.” He hadn’t heard it! It’s just everywhere, but he hadn’t heard it. I guarantee you, Bob Schieffer hasn’t the slightest ability to comprehend this. “What do you mean, elevating man over the earth? What…?”

Bob, you do it every day. All you have to do is believe that man is causing global warming, and therefore man should be subordinated to a tree or to carbon dioxide (which we exhale) or whatever. Then you are believing that we are the problem, that we are destroying the planet and that we are the ones that have to change and be punished for it. And all that does is transfer control and power to the government and takes away individual freedom and liberty. I guarantee you, I could sit here and explain this for two straight hours to Schieffer; he wouldn’t comprehend it. And not just Schieffer. You take any of them in the media on the left. So Schieffer says, “Well, Senator, I have to ask you to give some explanation of that. I mean, you sound like you’re saying…”

Well, he’s moving on. This is the prenatal care controversy. Santorum had made the claim that amniocentesis and prenatal care contribute very proportionately to abortion, and it’s undeniable that they do. I can remember 20 years ago on this program talking about the coming conflict between the ethics of prenatal care — amniocentesis, learning what is in the womb before it’s born — and medical ethics. For example, I’ll give you the example that I gave 20 years ago. “If, for example, somewhere down the road,” I said, “we’ll be able to tell prospective parents that your child is genetically prone to red hair, freckles, and overweight, how many people might decide to abort the kid because they just don’t want a kid to have to live with those problems?”

Nobody wants to be fat, freckle-faced and redheaded. We wouldn’t do that to a kid.

I said, “This is coming, folks. It’s coming,” and then I hit them with the clincher: “What happens if someday down the road some scientist claims to discover the gene that indicates a predisposition to homosexuality, and two prospective parents are told that their fetus has this gene? What do you think is gonna happen? You’re gonna see the biggest switch from pro-choice to pro-life in the history of the planet, in the gay population.” Twenty years ago we were talking about these kind of things on this program. So here comes Santorum and he’s making the point that prenatal care, amniocentesis, the ability to discover characteristics and traits of children in the womb before they’re born leads to abortion. Again, Schieffer is just gob-smacked with this. He can’t comprehend it. He says, “Senator, I have to ask you to give some explanation to that. You sound like you’re saying that the purpose of prenatal care is to cause people to have abortions, to get more abortions in this country. I think there are a number of people who would say that that’s not the purpose at all.”

SANTORUM: That’s simply not true. A lot of prenatal tests are done to identify deformities in utero and the customary procedure is to encourage abortions. I didn’t say prenatal care shouldn’t be covered. We’re talking about specifically prenatal testing, and specifically amniocentesis — which is a procedure that actually creates a risk of having a miscarriage when you have it, and is done for the purposes of identifying maladies of a child in the womb. And which in many cases — and, in fact, most cases — physicians recommend, particularly if there’s a problem recommend, abortion. Ninety percent of Down syndrome children in American are aborted. So to suggest, “Where does that come from?” I have a child who has trisomy 18. Almost a hundred percent of trisomy 18 children are encouraged to be aborted. So I know what I’m talking about, here.

RUSH: And, by the way, tell the Chinese and the people in India that knowing the sex of your children in advance doesn’t lead to abortion. They have a one-child policy and they want a son, and they learn that their fetus is going to be a little girl? Ha-ha. What do you think happens? Folks, the thing about this is, it’s provocative, yeah, because it really pierces people’s sensitivities and sensibilities. But it’s undeniably true at the same time! None of this is easy. You start messing around in things like this, it’s going to be get complicated and uncomfortable. And we’ve got an abortion industry out there. We’ve got an outfit, Planned Parenthood. You should go to their website if you don’t believe me. Go to their website and look at what children can see.

But Planned Parenthood makes its money, and a lot of it, performing abortions. And what do they need for that to happen? They need premarital sex. They need as much sex of any kind going on as they can get, and therefore they encourage it. There’s a reason why in the nineties all this ratcheted up and they started teaching sex education and they started making all of this normal and they started saying, “You know, kids are gonna have sex. We can’t stop it! We better do the best we can to help it be clean” and all of this stuff. But the proponents of this need pregnancies. Unwanted pregnancies. They need ’em! Planned Parenthood lives off of unwanted pregnancy. Now, you may be offended. I’m telling you: As a matter of fact, it is unarguable. They would be out of business if there were no unwanted pregnancies — and the more of them, the better, as far as Planned Parenthood’s concerned.