RUSH: Mike in McLean, Virginia. Mike, Mr. Snerdley tells me that you identify as a “progressive.”

CALLER: Yeah, I’m on the opposite side of this as you, but I’m still interested in what you have to say because I see you as the clearest leader of the Republican Party —

RUSH: Thank you. Definitely.

CALLER: — conservative moment in the United States. You know, while you… Back in 2009 you said, you know, famously that you hope the president failed.

RUSH: Yeah.

CALLER: And as it turns out, on inauguration day Eric Cantor and Kevin McCarthy and the current Speaker of the House, Paul Ryan, they were all meeting with Frank Luntz and a bunch of other people trying to figure out exactly what their strategy was going be. Which turned out to be scorched earth, utter noncooperation and make this president fail. McConnell famously said it was his job to make this president a one-term president. He failed at that. But I’m wondering how you feel. Do you think your efforts to make this president fail have been successful?

RUSH: Obviously not.

CALLER: Why? You’ve got —

RUSH: The president —

CALLER: I don’t think it’s obvious. The reason I don’t think it’s obvious is you’ve got this Tea Party. You’ve got a Republican movement that’s swept across the states. You’ve got the House. You’ve got the Senate. Uh —

RUSH: But wait just a second. Let’s take these things one by one. In the first place, McConnell said his job was to keep Obama to one-termer, but he just said it. He didn’t mean it, and neither did Boehner. They didn’t mean any of that. They’ve been working with Obama. The reason I say I have failed… You know, I said I hope Obama fails; clearly he hasn’t. We are under a major transformation, and he’s almost finished. We’re almost to a point where this country, the way it was 20 years ago and beyond and the way it was founded, will be forgotten. It will be history. It is in the process of being totally undermined, corrupted, overtaken, without a shot being fired, and it’s not gonna be recognizable to people who were born in the forties and fifties and sixties in too many more years. I’d call that pretty much Obama succeeding wildly, maybe beyond even his own imaginations.

CALLER: Yes, considering the constraints he had, I think there’s reason for success, too — a couple of Supreme Court justices. You guys haven’t been able to get rid of Planned Parenthood yet. You know, today he said no to the KXL pipeline. We’ve got gay marriage. These have been huge changes. But at the same time, don’t sell yourself short. The conservative movement has been empowered by this administration, empowered by the glue that you provide, uhh, through — through your radio show and, you know…

The stick-to-itiveness of the Republican obstruction agenda I think has been amazing. I mean, record numbers of filibusters. I don’t get where you’re saying… I still haven’t gotten. I mean, I understand you want to rev up the base, the Tea Party, and elect more conservatives. And you can do that by saying we’re not conservative enough. But you set the record for the number of filibusters. You got the Bush tax cuts extended, a lot of them. The sequester, you know, has managed the size of government down.

RUSH: This is fascinating to me. You are laying out… In essence, you’re describing areas in which you think Obama’s failed himself. You’re disappointed. He’s not gone far enough. There’s still too many of us around, and we still have too much obstructive power, and I don’t like that, and you think Obama hasn’t gone far enough in wiping out the opposition.

CALLER: Yeah, no doubt! I mean, we’re on opposite sides of this. You say one thing and I say the polar opposite. I mean, I’m a progressive. You are a pretty extreme conservative.

RUSH: See, I don’t want to wipe you out. I just want to beat you. My objective is not to obliterate you or to eliminate your existence as a political force. I just want to beat you all the time. I don’t want the world to ever forget liberals. I want there to be liberals like department store mannequins. I want people to always be able to be reminded how close we came to losing the country, and we need liberals talking and explaining what they think for that to happen. I don’t want you destroyed.

You guys, Obama and the Democrats, do not want any opposition because they can’t really compete with it in the arena of ideas. And our continued growth in opposition proves that. You guys don’t beat us in the arena of ideas. You don’t beat us in the hearts and minds of the American people. You have to destroy us. You have to destroy the Ben Carsons of the world. You have to destroy Republican candidates like Mitt Romney. You have to… You want to clear the playing field.

When I say “you,” I’m talking about the Democrat Party and the American left. We don’t try to destroy your people that way. We live that up to you. But we do want to beat you. Maybe to our failing. Maybe our objective ought to be what yours is, but we’re nice people. We realize that people are gonna live and do what they want to do, we have no problem with that as long as it doesn’t ruin the country, culture, and the family. (sigh) And if you don’t do that, fine and dandy, but we still want to beat you. You don’t want us to exist.