Con't..........
terror" bumper sticker -- political slogan, that's all it is, all it's ever been -- was intended to do was for George Bush to use it to justify everything he does: the ongoing war in Iraq, Guantanamo, Abu Ghraib, spying on Americans, torture. None of those things are okay. They are not the United States of America.
RUSH: You idiot! How in the world did we discover the threat? How in the world was it uncovered, Breck Girl? These people will tear down everything that's been set in place to thwart plots just as this one was thwarted. I realize these people are speaking to their base and their base is a bunch of flathead numskulls, but still you would think running for president you want to have some thing that you say sound intelligent. "I'll fight the terrorists wherever they are, I'll fight 'em wherever they are." Well, how you gonna know where they are, Breck Girl? Why, except Iraq! We're not going to fight 'em in Iraq -- no, no! -- because there aren't any really terrorists there. We're making all that up. That's just a "civil war." There aren't any terrorists in Iraq. No, no, no! The real terrorists there are in Afghanistan. The real terrorists are there. He'll go wherever they are? Where's the evidence? Where is the evidence that these people are going to do what they're claiming? He'll "use intelligence"? They just got through discrediting all that. Spying on Americans? Abu Ghraib? We just had three soldiers that were captured, that were kidnapped, and we have found evidence that they have been murdered, that they are dead, one of them.
Now, remember, we were all told that if we had to straightened up and fly right after Abu Ghraib, and granted these people at Gitmo the provisions of the Geneva Conventions: "We have to do that because when our soldiers get captured, we will demand the same kind of treatment!" That's sophistry, too. We're dealing with a bunch of savages, a bunch of barbarians who are not interested in playing by any rules and yet these... I don't know. This is upsetting, and I'll tell you what really is upsetting to me. These people are who they are, and we know who they are, and none of this is a mistake. What's happening here is the Democrats are feeling so emboldened over their election victory in November that they're no longer hiding who they really are. They are sitting ducks, and the Republican Party is tearing itself apart over immigration. The Republican Party has been given a goldmine here. This is just the rarest opportunity to blow these people out of the water. I'm talking politically. They're so focused on self-immolation that they're passing up this tremendous opportunity, but we're not going to pass it up. We will do that which the conservative movement in this country is known for, and that's lead.
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RUSH: To the phones. We go to Churchill Tennessee to start with John. Thank you for waiting, sir, and welcome.
CALLER: Mega dittos, Rush, from east Tennessee.
RUSH: Thank you, sir.
CALLER: Last night we found out what the Democrats think "rich" is. They asked the question, and Obama said $250,000 is where he starts with the new taxes that are going to come.
RUSH: Right. Now, let's take that $250,000 annual income and let's go New York City with it and let's assume you're a good liberal, and you and your wife combined -- you and your spouse, partner, whatever, combined -- make the Obama number for being rich, in New York City. You have tuition for the preschool, then you've got tuition for kindergarten. You have tuition for private schools, then you've got college, then you've got your rent, then you've got taxes in New York. $250,000! At least they're moving up. Back in 1984, during the debate between Mondull and Ronaldus Magnus, "rich" back then -- when Mondull promised to raise taxes -- was $60,000. Do you remember that?
CALLER: Yes.
RUSH: Now, tell me we don't have a growing economy, and don't tell me it's inflation because there hasn't been much. So at least they're moving up. But that's absurd. It is flat-out absurd. That's not "rich."
CALLER: Rush? Rush?
RUSH: Yes? Yes?
CALLER: What I couldn't understand is they never asked the follow-up on question on what that would do for job creation, since that amount of income is about pretty much what people who own smaller businesses generate, you know? What happens to job creation?
RUSH: Oh, come on here, John! You're a regular listener to this program. You know damn well that question is not going to be asked.
CALLER: Well, I was just hoping for hope.
RUSH: Well, you're hoping. Who you got there? You got CNN. You got a New Hampshire TV station. What do you think, that they're going to ask questions to embarrass these people on tax policy? Do you know whenever tax increases are mentioned by liberal Democrats, presidential candidates or whatever, there's glee! There is (clapping). There's applause! They're not going to do anything to discredit that. There's nobody on that panel that was going to ask that question, and you know that. I'm surprised at you.
CALLER: Well, Hillary piped in and said she wants to do something about the Alternative Minimum Tax, and I was thinking during her eight years as co-president, didn't they have at least four or five chances to index it to inflation or get rid of it?
RUSH: Of course! Of course! To fix health care and all these other things, to get rid of terrorism and so forth. Look, the solution for every one of these problems. I went through my recap. I did not watch the debate. They're going to fix the AMT by raising taxes on "the rich." Now we know the rich are $250,000 or above in Obama's world.
CALLER: (snickers)
RUSH: That's the solution: raise taxes on the rich. That's how we're going to get rid of the AMT. We're going to fund health care for everybody raising taxes on the rich. We're going to solve whatever it is by raising taxes on the rich.
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RUSH: Here's Butch in Pittsburgh. Hi, Butch, I'm glad you called. Welcome to the EIB Network.
CALLER: Greetings from Pittsburgh, Rush.
RUSH: Thank you, sir.
CALLER: You're my shining light.
RUSH: Yeah? Well, I appreciate that very much.
CALLER: Mr. Snerdley asked me to get right to the point. I'd like to --
RUSH: I like the way you did that. (Laughing)
CALLER: Yes, sir. Wolf Blitzer last night at the Democratic debate asked a question to a couple of the candidates in reference of Bill Clinton in the next administration, should a Democrat be elected. Governor Bill Richardson states that he'd like to return the favor to the former president, and either have him appointed as Secretary-General of the United Nations or else a liaison in the Middle East. Hillary started to cackle like she just swallowed a feather or two, and then she stated that all the former presidents should be used in various positions, appointments or whatever.
RUSH: Well, Bill is well versed in various positions, and I think what Hillary wants to do is get him out of the country. If she is elected -- and there's an 80% chance that she will be -- she'll get him out of the country so he can horn-dog it over there without a whole lot of people knowing about it. I find the whole question just fascinating. Clinton has served his two terms, and asking all these other Democrats, "What role would you envision for former President Bill Clinton?" (Laughing.) Folks, if you ever doubted these people live in another world. They're obsessed with Bill Clinton and the Clintons. That question, in fact, they even asked it of the Republicans. Chris Matthews asked that question of the Republicans, and he couldn't understand why they all started laughing. They all said, "No." He literally didn't quite understand. By the way, Clinton did another commencement speech at Knox University and he told that same joke. He went out there, and he started talking about the Human Genome Project to identify our DNA trail and all that, and he told the story, (Clinton impression) "I met Limbaugh at a restaurant in New York the other night. All those horrible, hateful things he said about me over the years, I almost went up to him I said, 'You know, we are 99.9% the same,' but I couldn't bring myself, because that poor man would run fleeing from the restaurant."
There was no report on audience reaction to this.
Rick in Victorville, California, you're next, sir. It's nice to have you with us.
CALLER: It's an honor to talk to you Rush.
RUSH: Thank you.
CALLER: I tried calling many times. Hey, you made a statement a little bit earlier about inflation being nonexistent, and you being the oracle of education, I have some figures here that don't quite jibe. So educate me.
RUSH: Well, the statement was in the context that the Democrats back in 1984 said that $60,000 was "rich." That was the floor from which they were going to raise taxes on "the rich." Barack Obama in the debate last night said that his tax increases on "the rich" would start at an annual income of $250,000. I said, "That's not all inflation." I said, "The Democrats are moving up. At least they're going in the right direction in how they define rich, from $60,000 to $250,000. That's all not inflation." I'll tell you, for much of the nineties, one of the biggest problems that really worried a lot of people in the financial markets was disinflation, because the price to produce a product oftentimes could not be met with a retail price showing enough of a profit to make the production costs worthwhile. There was a real disinflation. We've had inflation. We have it every year, but it's been so slow all I'm saying is that $60,000 to $250,000 cannot be accounted for strictly by inflation.
CALLER: Okay. Well, I understand that, but I took it in a different context. I took it as though you meant nothing is really going up in price, when everything is going up in price dramatically.
RUSH: Oh, no. I did not mean to imply that. If I thought that, I would really be out of touch because then I wouldn't be caring what things cost, and of course I do and I know. There's inflation. I'm just saying it hasn't been the inflation of the Jimmy Carter years. It hasn't been double-digit. It's not been something that would account for the Democrats deciding that $60,000 in '84 was rich versus $250,000 today.
CALLER: Yeah, okay. Okay, well, I appreciate the education, my friend.
RUSH: Thank you for saying that, but I might have misstated this if a lot of people got the same idea you did, so I'm glad you called and offered me the chance to restate this in a clarified and revised standard.
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Read the Background Material...
AP: Leadership Questions Emerge at Debate
CNN: Contenders clash on Iraq, immigration, health care
American Spectator: Hillary's Achilles' Heel
WT: Democrats take off gloves in debate