RUSH: You know me, folks, I always try to avoid sounding like a know-it-all, which is very hard to do, because I do know it all, and I always try not to sound that way because I know it — well, it’s not a character trait that people admire. People resent know-it-alls. People resent others that are so sure of themselves, because you’re not supposed to be that sure of yourself. There’s so much gray area out there, compounded by feelings, that it’s considered unreal to be in touch with what you really think. But I always am.

And I’m telling you, I’m sitting here — what is this now, the second or third day in a row — I guess the second — where the Drive-Bys are obsessed with the White House and its reaction to criticism that it didn’t go to the big rally on Sunday in Paris. We’re now into year seven of this Regime, and it still amazes me, as your official know-it-all here behind the Golden EIB Microphone, that people do not know that this Regime doesn’t care what they think.

And to the extent that the Regime responds when the Drive-Bys get all caught up in something and want a reaction, to the extent that the Regime responds, it’s just to feed the beast. It’s not for anything official or to convey an actual opinion, point of view, policy position or anything of the sort. They didn’t go because they didn’t want to go. Holder was there and they put him on an airplane to get out. Biden wasn’t there, but you wouldn’t want to send him anyway. He might hijack the whole thing and start making fun of the way the Indians run the 7-Elevens. So you can’t have him there. And Obama’s not gonna go to this thing because he’s not gonna be one of 40 or 44 people. And another reason he’s not gonna go to this thing, this Regime still won’t call this Islamist extremism.

They still won’t do it, and people are wringing their hands, “Why? I wonder why they won’t call it Islamist extremism? I wonder why they won’t do that,” as though people don’t really know why they won’t do it. So we’ve now got the daily soap opera that is recycling a bunch of themes. “Will they respond? Will they respond to our criticism? What will they say? Will they say it was a mistake?” They already did say it was a mistake, and that was just to feed the beast. They don’t think they made a mistake. It was calculated. They did it on purpose, the decision not to go.

But the Regime, as you know, the Drive-Bys have a lot tied up in the Regime. The media takes a lot of its self-esteem from being like Obama. And the Drive-Bys, as all good politically correct people would, would have shown up. The Drive-Bys would have shown up to be in solidarity with the suffering, to join the victimization parade. They would have shown up and been there, and they think because they would have, Obama would have, because they and Obama are the same.

But Obama didn’t go. Obama went (raspberry) and didn’t go. And now the Drive-Bys, “Well, wait a minute, if he didn’t go, why did we want to go? We think we should have gone. That means Obama should have gone.” So they’re gonna stay on it, so the Regime has gotta play footsie here with this never ending quest to find out why they didn’t go and why they won’t call it Islamist extremism. We’re into seven years of this now and the lack of understanding, or the lack of reporting that reflects an understanding, maybe that’s a better way to say it, ’cause I don’t know how anybody can’t figure out who this is by now.

I mean, how does anybody not — especially the Drive-Bys who have been covering the guy. Of course, they haven’t been covering. They’re the steno pool. Anyway, how are you, folks? It’s great to have you here. Rush Limbaugh, behind the — (laughing) — I don’t know. I just get frustrated. You know me. I don’t suffer fools well, and when I find myself surrounded by purposeful, wanton ignorance, that is disguised as a media narrative, it just kind of frustrates me. That’s all. I do my best here to see the humor in these kinds of things, but to watch this never ending circle just continue to repeat itself as though it is part of a script. And essentially it is, an unwritten script, anyway.

The telephone number if you want to be on the program is 800-282-2882, and the e-mail address, ElRushbo@eibnet.com.

I gotta turn something on here. I forgot, I have to activate a chat account. I forgot to do it before the programming started because I was so relieved when I heard that Obama’s gonna host a summit on countering violent extremism on February 18th. Did you hear about this? (interruption) Yeah. Gonna have a summit on it. That’s exactly right. Remember the jobs summits? Oh. Millions of Americans have left the job market since.

Obama’s job summits were jobs-killing summits. And what else would they be? The people he brought in there to counter the job loss, a bunch of reporters and columnists at the New York Times, what do they know about? The only thing you know about jobs at the New York Times is, do you accept the buyout and get fired or not? That’s the extent of their knowledge about the job market.

BREAK TRASNCRIPT

RUSH: Back to this summit. The president “will host a ‘Summit on Countering Violent Extremism’ on Feb. 18. The plan is to bring together ‘social service providers, including education administrators, mental health professionals, and religious leaders, with law enforcement agencies to address violent extremism as part of the broader mandate of community safety and crime prevention.'”

What in the world? I think people are gonna make the mistake of thinking this has something to do with Islamist extremism, and it doesn’t given this list of participants: education administrators, mental health professionals, religious leaders, law enforcement agencies. This is gonna be about things like Ferguson and New York with Eric Garner. That’s what this is.

Broader mandate of community safety and crime prevention in response to terrorism conducted ruthlessly by Islamofascists, beheadings, bombings, bullets, and Obama is calling in social service providers? That’s the first giveaway this has nothing to do with militant Islamism. This has nothing to do with jihad. This is all about domestic violence. It’s another show. And after it’s over, the way this works is, they call the summit, the media gathers. You show the attendees entering the White House, the obligatory pool cameras in the East Room or wherever they do it.

Obama speaks, welcomes them all to the summit. They break up in groups. One goes to one corner, another goes to another corner of the room. Barack Obama assigns them subject matter to study. At the end of the day, five o’clock, they all report back to Obama, and the problems have been solved. And there’s normal extremism, there’s no more violence because the administration will have dealt with it, just like the jobs summits and any other number of summits that have taken place at the White House. This sort of thing used to be — social service providers?

You know, it’s too bad that comedy died years ago. Well, it did. Chris Rock won’t go to college campi because the students are too busy being offended rather than laughing.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: Here’s Ted Cruz talking about this, by the way. He was at the Heritage Foundation 2015 Conservative Policy Summit yesterday, Washington. He delivered the keynote address. This is a little bit of what he said.

CRUZ: We need allies who will take this on. But I gotta say it is hard to enlist the support of allies when America ceases being a good ally. How sad was it in the streets of Paris as 40 world leaders walked down the street, absent was the United States of America. Where was the president? Where was the vice president? Where was the secretary of state? Where was the attorney general who’d been there moments before but chose to get on a plane and fly back home?

RUSH: Now, Cruz’s point is one of leadership. Okay, these 40 people decided that they were gonna show up. Even Netanyahu, who was asked not to by the president of France, Hollande, Netanyahu showed up. He put himself at risk. He said to heck with it. The United States didn’t. The United States is considered, for many reasons, to be the leader and always has been seen as the strength and the power and the leader providing defense and projecting power when necessary against the forces of evil such as this.

And Cruz’s point, when we don’t show, no matter how — I mean, look, no matter how lacking in substance the whole thing is in terms of bringing this to a stop, Cruz’s point — I think it’s mine, too — this is a show of unity. This is allies getting together in a way that you don’t see very much, and the people or the place, the country that’s always looked to for leadership, always looked to for strength, decided not to show. And that’s why it’s a big deal to a lot of people. I think people starting to come to grips, a lot of people are.

I want to take you back to a brief mention from the New York Times endorsement of Senator Barack Obama in 2008. One of the reasons the Times decided to endorse Obama is because they thought Obama was going to repair America’s image in the world. America’s image in the world had been destroyed, as you know, by George W. Bush and his cowboy, renegade foreign policy. And the world supposedly hated us. The world despised us. We had descended into nothing but a bunch of torturers engaging in brutality and inhumane treatment of our friends, the enemy.

And so America was hated and despised, and we needed our image rebuilt on the world stage fast. And the New York Times, this October 23rd of 2008, wrote the following, published the following: “Both presidential candidates talk about strengthening alliances in Europe and Asia, including NATO, and strongly support Israel. Both candidates talk about repairing AmericaÂ’s image in the world. But it seems clear to us,” here at the New York Times, “that Mr. Obama is far more likely to do that — and not just because the first black president would present a new American face to the world,” but because Obama is a citizen of the world.

They actually wrote this crap back in 2008. They actually said Obama would be preferable as president because he’s the only guy because of the color of his skin, and because he’s a citizen of the world, who could rebuild and repair America’s image in the world. The opposite of that is what has happened. And I dare say Obama not going and not assigning anybody else to go to this rally, this endorsement from the Times — remember, this is exactly what all the media thought about Obama. You go back to 2008, people don’t forget their heroes. People don’t forget those they idolize. And it takes a lot to talk ’em out of them.

It takes a lot to get a kid not to think of his hero as a hero. It takes a lot to get a kid to stop idolizing somebody. It takes a lot. The idol has to really screw up. Well, these people were falling all over themselves. It wasn’t just his ideology. I mean, it was the whole package. They really had created this fantasy world where Obama was unlike anything who’d ever lived before, certainly unlike anybody who had ever served as president. He was a magician, magic was gonna happen, that’s what they invested in. And I think they’re all now coming to grips with the fact that he’s a paper tiger.

I mean, this guy’s phony baloney, plastic banana, good-time rock and roller. He’s not even interested in the things they thought best qualified him to be president, and I think that’s one of the reasons why the Drive-Bys are so concerned why Obama didn’t go. Why didn’t Obama send Holder? Why didn’t he send Biden? They have all of these fantasies invested in this guy, and one by one, Obama is betraying them. We’ve paid the price. By the way, this rally that is going to take place in February was originally scheduled for October.

This summit on countering violent extremism, a lot of people think that it’s in reaction to what happened in Paris. It’s not the same. It’s been on the books since Ferguson, Missouri. This thing has been on the books since the whole thing happened in Ferguson and other related so-called offenses by the cops. The whole reason for this summit on violent extremism, the cops are the targets of this summit on violent extremism. They are the violent extremists. This summit in February was originally scheduled for back in October. It has nothing to do with Charles Hebdo, the French magazine, or anything that’s happened in Paris regarding that.