Rush Limbaugh addreses CPAC - I liveblog it!
Rush Limbaugh is good at talking without saying "uh".
I've never understood the appeal of this guy.
He made the claim that "conservatives" "love people".
He said that he believes that people can be the best they can be as long as onerous taxes, regulation, and too much government are removed. That brings up the question of why the country was not at its best when it was run by the Republicans.
He said that he believes that life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness are under assault. "...under assault". Under assault by the Obama administration.
He claimed that the "Democrat primary" [sic] displayed "exclusively" racism, and that Republicans never exhibited racism.
"Drive-by media". "We want everybody to succeed." (this contradicts his expressed desire that Obama fail).
He's portraying the Democrats as telling women that they can't succeed, and telling minorities that they can't succeed. I'm certainly not running to the bosom of the Democratic party to protect me, but I run from them much more slowly than I run from the Republican party. This part of Limbaugh's speech just seems bizarre, as though he's from a world that has a different history than the world I live in.
Now he says that he wants individuals to succeed, and he wants organizations that get in the way of personal success to fail. That seems like the sort of thing that everyone can get behind, because out of context it's a meaningless statement. Who in their right mind would be against individual success? (Unless, of course, the individual success is that of for instance Pol Pot.) (But that just points up the meaninglessness of this stance.)
He claimed that Republicans are the majority, though they don't all vote. That sounds a lot like Nixon to me, but I don't know very much.
He says that President Obama is not using his extraordinary talents to inspire excellence in Americans. Instead, he pursued a path that punishes achievement, that punishes earners. Obama portrays the country as a "soup kitchen". Obama tells people that the future will be bleak.
Limbaugh's claim that there are nations that have been around for thousands of years is false.
Limbaugh says that Obama wants to destroy... something. He wants either to destroy America or... the passion that people have to invent and produce food, and "human life-style advances". It's not quite clear, but Limbaugh is definitely charging that Obama is a destroyer. It's not clear exactly what Obama is a destroyer of, but it's something or other.
Speaking of people in New York who called for higher taxes on the very rich: "Their entitlement is to be fed and taken care of by these evil, mean people who make more money than they do."
"Most wealth in the country is not inherited." That may or may not be true. Wikipedia says that about half of the wealth in the country is inherited (Wikipedia, "Wealth").
He charges Obama with ignoring his oath of office and abusing his office. Which seems... I've forgotten what the Latin term is for when you can convict someone in absentia, but I seem to recall that it's important.
Limbaugh is now claiming that students are taught socialist principles. As a person who went to school more recently than Limbaugh, and as a person who taught in a University on Thursday, I can assure you that this isn't happening anywhere in my experience.
In short, there's nothing new here. Republican party line, added to which is the attempt to portray President Obama as power-hungry.
"The Barack Obama administration is actively trying to extend the welfare state so that he can control it."
Friedrich von Hayek, traditional liberal economist... Hayek's somehow supposed to be connected to the claim that Obama has no intention of paying for the welfare state. Obama's motivation in building this welfare state is not accounted for.
Barney Frank and Bill Clinton are portrayed as "the architects" of the current financial crisis. This gets a standing ovation.
Limbaugh makes fun of the homeless. "It's not fair that some people have a house and some people can't," he says in a puling voice.
"You get what you work for." I guarantee you that this is not the case. I work for people who don't know how to use Youtube, and who depend on it in order to do their jobs. They make seven times what I make per year.
Now Limbaugh's speech seems to have shifted into frank class warfare. Again he portrays a group of people as "losers". Which doesn't seem to me to jibe with his claim that he as a conservative doesn't hate anyone. Portraying people as losers seems to be an action motivated by something much closer to hate than love.
Now Limbaugh's beating up on Joe Biden because allegedly Biden made a joke about Bobby Jindal, saying that he marveled that Jindal could get time off his job at 7-11 to make the response speech to Obama's address. Is this true, livejournal?
In response to the charge that Reaganism doesn't work, a charge made by Obama, Limbaugh says that the recession of the 1980s was cured by tax cuts. And Barack Obama doesn't want to talk about that, because he'll have to admit that his own plan is bogus. Again, is this true, livejournal.
Obama has, in three weeks, proposed more spending than in the entire history of the country since its foundation, according to Limbaugh. Freedom of speech is under attack, because the Democrats want control. Again, this view just seems ignorant of extremely recent history.
Welfare checks destroy families because it makes it possible for fathers to go and do other things, and this is the fault of the Democrats. This gets a standing ovation, which is not as roaring an ovation as others have been. But it's still a standing ovation.
It is not the task of the President to tear the country apart and remake it in his image. After that everyone chants "USA! USA! USA!" like Michael Phelps is going to swim. Then he wonders if liberalism is a psychosis. He charges liberals with being unhinged. This also doesn't jibe with the way that President Obama handles himself. He suggests that you should tell liberals that their policies are cruel. "Why in the world would you be afraid of the deranged?" he asks, refers to liberals. Here's some deranged people: Charles Whitman, Charles Manson, John Wayne Gacy, Jeffrey Dahmer.
"The last thing to do is to think that we can beat them with better policy." "The notion of partisanship: false premise."
Lewinsky case reference. 5:28 EST
He says that bipartisanship is... I'm not sure. I think he just claimed that the Republicans "cleaned their [Democrats'] clocks and beaten them." This seems like another missive from an alternate history.
"Should Jesus have cut a different deal?" "Where is the compromise between good and evil?"
This is us-or-them dumb Bush stuff.
"We're going to have to discuss philosophy." Oh, good! I have a Bachelor's in that!
"We are not giving up. The country is too important." 5:31 EST
He's doing a hell of a job throwing red meat to his people. He is really enjoying himself, and giving what is just a hell of a sermon.
"[The Democrats] are going to overreach. Would you say they have?" "You can't have people living in homes they can't pay for!" Again, this didn't happen on the current President's watch, and seems like a poor tactical move, rhetorically.
He refers over and over again to "my first address to the nation," and it's genuinely funny.
"Where is the evidence that the people authoring all this [Democratic agendae] have had any success with any program like this?" 5:33 EST
"[Obama] can wipe out the Republican party if he can inspire people to be the best they can be. But he won't do that." Obama wants control of everything. He doesn't explain control of what. "They try to tear down the people at the top. It's not fair you're up there, so they whack yez."
"John Kerry." (laughter and boos) "Served in Vietnam." (laughter) You heard it here first, ladies and gentlemen. CPAC has contempt for veterans.
Northern Trust demonstrated responsibility by sponsoring a golf tournament. They demonstrated responsibility and not wastefulness, because they were trying to entertain their best clients, which is the correct move in terms of defending the capitalization of Northern Trust.
Now he's defending John Thain. Seriously. On the grounds that his office spending was okay before he took TARP money.
There are two sets of rules: one that liberals live by, and one that everyone else lives by.
Will you make any more money if Thain is punished? Liberals are sick because they want Thain's life to be destroyed, and the average person's own life won't be bettered at all. "That's sick!"
John Kerry has vericose veins.
McCain's not conservative, the Obama victory was not a humiliating defeat for the Republicans. (Note: only Reagan won by a higher margin, since FDR.)
"Conservatism is what it is, and it is forever. It's not something that you can bend and shape and flake and form." (wild applause) "Thank you, thank you, thank you."
Two Conservative DC-based writers wrote in 2007 and 2008 that the era of Reagan was over (boos from the audience). They wrote that the American people want big government, and that the Republican party would have to adopt that as their mission. Democrats never say that the age of FDR is over. Obama thinks that he is FDR, that he is Lincoln, and earlier this week thought that he was Reagan.
"The blueprint for landslide conservative victory is right there. Why do the so-called smartest people in our room want to chuck it?" Cocktail elitists are embarrassed by NASCAR types.
Rush Limbaugh says that he doesn't see white or black or woman or man when he looks into the audience, he sees people who are the luckiest people on earth, Americans. That gets another standing ovation.
Rush Limbaugh says that conservatives already have most of the Wal-Mart voters. (Is "Wal-Mart voter" code for "uneducated, low-income person"? I can read and speak two languages, and I can communicate in four languages. I plan to buy a hole punch at Wal-Mart later tonight. What am I?)
Limbaugh says that the media was in love with McCain because he was the loudest at criticizing his President and his Party. (Limbaugh hasn't used Bush's name once.) I don't know anything. I just went to what Richard Dawkins calls "a third-rate state school," but this seems like partisanship to me. Rank partisanship. Am I wrong about this?
"Freedom is expected because it's part of the way that we're created." "Liberals will gladly tell you who can have freedom and who cant." This last quote is in reference to alleged liberal claims that the eastern bloc wasn't "ready for freedom" after the fall of the Soviet Union. I don't know what situation is supposed to refer to.
5:49 EST - Limbaugh refers to Bush by name for the first time.
Rush Limbaugh says "... I cringe when I see what is in store [for this country]."
Limbaugh says that people who attended Obama's George Will party were being anointed by Obama as the new spokesmen for the Republican party. They were so anointed because they are the people who think the era of Reagan is over.
"Conservatives are naturally happy." 5:53 EST
Limbaugh disparages communities 5:53 EST
"Don't be afraid to tell children that they're wrong." 5:53 EST.
You're kids are going to hate you and rebel against you. "You owe them [your kids] the truth about morality and about values and about politics." How many kids has Limbaugh raised? And what arguments are there for these truths?
"We've got to stop treating voters as children." 5:53 EST
"This [the film 'Swing Vote') was fascinating." 5:56 EST
Limbaugh makes a joke about being sexist. 5:57 EST
Biden was stumped by the question of what was in the stimulus package for small businesses. He said that "if there's a bridge that gets customers to your small business, we'll keep it open."
Get used to liberal Democrats being made fun of in this (Rush Limbaugh) way. 5:59 EST
The President's stimulus package relies upon authoritarian power and the complacency of the American people. It relies on people believing delusionally that there is a huge crisis. 6:00 EST
Some metaphor involving basketball that I didn't hear all of because my bladder was full. 6:01 EST
The American people aren't going to give up and sit idly by while the American dream is restructured and transformed. (Standing ovation.) 6:02
Regarding Limbaugh's comment that he hopes Obama fails: [anecdote about the Superbowl, involving his hope that the Cardinals failed] Which brings everything back to meaningless football fan-ism. Tribalism.
Limbaugh says that Democrats wanted the war in Iraq to fail.
Limbaugh says that he doesn't know what could be in the stimulus package that anyone could possibly want to succeed.
Limbaugh got over the historical aspects of the election in November.
Limbaugh says he doesn't care what Obama's race is... the problem is that he is liberal and his articulated plans scare him.
Then Limbaugh makes fun of gays, and the feed cuts out on CNN.
When it comes back on, everyone's chanting "USA! USA! USA!"
"I want the country to survive as we have known it. As you and I were raised in it."
"It's a waste of time being offended."
The Democratic party has actively sought the failure of Republican Presidents and wars. The Democratic party actively sought the destruction of lives and of characters. "And I'm supposed to say I don't want the President to fail?" "We are in for a real battle. We are talking about the USA. And there will always be a United Sates of America, don't get me wrong... it's never been under assault like this, from within, before." This sounds like Howard Beale's speech after he talked with Arthur Jensen.
"Talk to people. Respect their intelligence." Res ipsa loquitur.
"Stop thinking that we are a minority. Stop thinking that it is being in the minority that liberates you. It is your core beliefs, it is your confidence... that liberates you."
"I've gone over my allotted time by an hour." (standing ovation)
"I want to thank all of you so much for everything you have meant to me and my family... but... by virtue of listening to my radio show... you have meant more to me and my family and my life than I have meant to you, even though that's considerable." It's a pretty good heartfelt appeal, and I (Zac) believe it."
"...an enemy, and that's what we're always going to be."
Don't judge people based on how they live, is what he ends with.
In short, nothing new.
I wish CNN hadn't lost the feed/destroyed the feed while Limbaugh was making fun of gay men.
I've never understood the appeal of this guy.
He made the claim that "conservatives" "love people".
He said that he believes that people can be the best they can be as long as onerous taxes, regulation, and too much government are removed. That brings up the question of why the country was not at its best when it was run by the Republicans.
He said that he believes that life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness are under assault. "...under assault". Under assault by the Obama administration.
He claimed that the "Democrat primary" [sic] displayed "exclusively" racism, and that Republicans never exhibited racism.
"Drive-by media". "We want everybody to succeed." (this contradicts his expressed desire that Obama fail).
He's portraying the Democrats as telling women that they can't succeed, and telling minorities that they can't succeed. I'm certainly not running to the bosom of the Democratic party to protect me, but I run from them much more slowly than I run from the Republican party. This part of Limbaugh's speech just seems bizarre, as though he's from a world that has a different history than the world I live in.
Now he says that he wants individuals to succeed, and he wants organizations that get in the way of personal success to fail. That seems like the sort of thing that everyone can get behind, because out of context it's a meaningless statement. Who in their right mind would be against individual success? (Unless, of course, the individual success is that of for instance Pol Pot.) (But that just points up the meaninglessness of this stance.)
He claimed that Republicans are the majority, though they don't all vote. That sounds a lot like Nixon to me, but I don't know very much.
He says that President Obama is not using his extraordinary talents to inspire excellence in Americans. Instead, he pursued a path that punishes achievement, that punishes earners. Obama portrays the country as a "soup kitchen". Obama tells people that the future will be bleak.
Limbaugh's claim that there are nations that have been around for thousands of years is false.
Limbaugh says that Obama wants to destroy... something. He wants either to destroy America or... the passion that people have to invent and produce food, and "human life-style advances". It's not quite clear, but Limbaugh is definitely charging that Obama is a destroyer. It's not clear exactly what Obama is a destroyer of, but it's something or other.
Speaking of people in New York who called for higher taxes on the very rich: "Their entitlement is to be fed and taken care of by these evil, mean people who make more money than they do."
"Most wealth in the country is not inherited." That may or may not be true. Wikipedia says that about half of the wealth in the country is inherited (Wikipedia, "Wealth").
He charges Obama with ignoring his oath of office and abusing his office. Which seems... I've forgotten what the Latin term is for when you can convict someone in absentia, but I seem to recall that it's important.
Limbaugh is now claiming that students are taught socialist principles. As a person who went to school more recently than Limbaugh, and as a person who taught in a University on Thursday, I can assure you that this isn't happening anywhere in my experience.
In short, there's nothing new here. Republican party line, added to which is the attempt to portray President Obama as power-hungry.
"The Barack Obama administration is actively trying to extend the welfare state so that he can control it."
Friedrich von Hayek, traditional liberal economist... Hayek's somehow supposed to be connected to the claim that Obama has no intention of paying for the welfare state. Obama's motivation in building this welfare state is not accounted for.
Barney Frank and Bill Clinton are portrayed as "the architects" of the current financial crisis. This gets a standing ovation.
Limbaugh makes fun of the homeless. "It's not fair that some people have a house and some people can't," he says in a puling voice.
"You get what you work for." I guarantee you that this is not the case. I work for people who don't know how to use Youtube, and who depend on it in order to do their jobs. They make seven times what I make per year.
Now Limbaugh's speech seems to have shifted into frank class warfare. Again he portrays a group of people as "losers". Which doesn't seem to me to jibe with his claim that he as a conservative doesn't hate anyone. Portraying people as losers seems to be an action motivated by something much closer to hate than love.
Now Limbaugh's beating up on Joe Biden because allegedly Biden made a joke about Bobby Jindal, saying that he marveled that Jindal could get time off his job at 7-11 to make the response speech to Obama's address. Is this true, livejournal?
In response to the charge that Reaganism doesn't work, a charge made by Obama, Limbaugh says that the recession of the 1980s was cured by tax cuts. And Barack Obama doesn't want to talk about that, because he'll have to admit that his own plan is bogus. Again, is this true, livejournal.
Obama has, in three weeks, proposed more spending than in the entire history of the country since its foundation, according to Limbaugh. Freedom of speech is under attack, because the Democrats want control. Again, this view just seems ignorant of extremely recent history.
Welfare checks destroy families because it makes it possible for fathers to go and do other things, and this is the fault of the Democrats. This gets a standing ovation, which is not as roaring an ovation as others have been. But it's still a standing ovation.
It is not the task of the President to tear the country apart and remake it in his image. After that everyone chants "USA! USA! USA!" like Michael Phelps is going to swim. Then he wonders if liberalism is a psychosis. He charges liberals with being unhinged. This also doesn't jibe with the way that President Obama handles himself. He suggests that you should tell liberals that their policies are cruel. "Why in the world would you be afraid of the deranged?" he asks, refers to liberals. Here's some deranged people: Charles Whitman, Charles Manson, John Wayne Gacy, Jeffrey Dahmer.
"The last thing to do is to think that we can beat them with better policy." "The notion of partisanship: false premise."
Lewinsky case reference. 5:28 EST
He says that bipartisanship is... I'm not sure. I think he just claimed that the Republicans "cleaned their [Democrats'] clocks and beaten them." This seems like another missive from an alternate history.
"Should Jesus have cut a different deal?" "Where is the compromise between good and evil?"
This is us-or-them dumb Bush stuff.
"We're going to have to discuss philosophy." Oh, good! I have a Bachelor's in that!
"We are not giving up. The country is too important." 5:31 EST
He's doing a hell of a job throwing red meat to his people. He is really enjoying himself, and giving what is just a hell of a sermon.
"[The Democrats] are going to overreach. Would you say they have?" "You can't have people living in homes they can't pay for!" Again, this didn't happen on the current President's watch, and seems like a poor tactical move, rhetorically.
He refers over and over again to "my first address to the nation," and it's genuinely funny.
"Where is the evidence that the people authoring all this [Democratic agendae] have had any success with any program like this?" 5:33 EST
"[Obama] can wipe out the Republican party if he can inspire people to be the best they can be. But he won't do that." Obama wants control of everything. He doesn't explain control of what. "They try to tear down the people at the top. It's not fair you're up there, so they whack yez."
"John Kerry." (laughter and boos) "Served in Vietnam." (laughter) You heard it here first, ladies and gentlemen. CPAC has contempt for veterans.
Northern Trust demonstrated responsibility by sponsoring a golf tournament. They demonstrated responsibility and not wastefulness, because they were trying to entertain their best clients, which is the correct move in terms of defending the capitalization of Northern Trust.
Now he's defending John Thain. Seriously. On the grounds that his office spending was okay before he took TARP money.
There are two sets of rules: one that liberals live by, and one that everyone else lives by.
Will you make any more money if Thain is punished? Liberals are sick because they want Thain's life to be destroyed, and the average person's own life won't be bettered at all. "That's sick!"
John Kerry has vericose veins.
McCain's not conservative, the Obama victory was not a humiliating defeat for the Republicans. (Note: only Reagan won by a higher margin, since FDR.)
"Conservatism is what it is, and it is forever. It's not something that you can bend and shape and flake and form." (wild applause) "Thank you, thank you, thank you."
Two Conservative DC-based writers wrote in 2007 and 2008 that the era of Reagan was over (boos from the audience). They wrote that the American people want big government, and that the Republican party would have to adopt that as their mission. Democrats never say that the age of FDR is over. Obama thinks that he is FDR, that he is Lincoln, and earlier this week thought that he was Reagan.
"The blueprint for landslide conservative victory is right there. Why do the so-called smartest people in our room want to chuck it?" Cocktail elitists are embarrassed by NASCAR types.
Rush Limbaugh says that he doesn't see white or black or woman or man when he looks into the audience, he sees people who are the luckiest people on earth, Americans. That gets another standing ovation.
Rush Limbaugh says that conservatives already have most of the Wal-Mart voters. (Is "Wal-Mart voter" code for "uneducated, low-income person"? I can read and speak two languages, and I can communicate in four languages. I plan to buy a hole punch at Wal-Mart later tonight. What am I?)
Limbaugh says that the media was in love with McCain because he was the loudest at criticizing his President and his Party. (Limbaugh hasn't used Bush's name once.) I don't know anything. I just went to what Richard Dawkins calls "a third-rate state school," but this seems like partisanship to me. Rank partisanship. Am I wrong about this?
"Freedom is expected because it's part of the way that we're created." "Liberals will gladly tell you who can have freedom and who cant." This last quote is in reference to alleged liberal claims that the eastern bloc wasn't "ready for freedom" after the fall of the Soviet Union. I don't know what situation is supposed to refer to.
5:49 EST - Limbaugh refers to Bush by name for the first time.
Rush Limbaugh says "... I cringe when I see what is in store [for this country]."
Limbaugh says that people who attended Obama's George Will party were being anointed by Obama as the new spokesmen for the Republican party. They were so anointed because they are the people who think the era of Reagan is over.
"Conservatives are naturally happy." 5:53 EST
Limbaugh disparages communities 5:53 EST
"Don't be afraid to tell children that they're wrong." 5:53 EST.
You're kids are going to hate you and rebel against you. "You owe them [your kids] the truth about morality and about values and about politics." How many kids has Limbaugh raised? And what arguments are there for these truths?
"We've got to stop treating voters as children." 5:53 EST
"This [the film 'Swing Vote') was fascinating." 5:56 EST
Limbaugh makes a joke about being sexist. 5:57 EST
Biden was stumped by the question of what was in the stimulus package for small businesses. He said that "if there's a bridge that gets customers to your small business, we'll keep it open."
Get used to liberal Democrats being made fun of in this (Rush Limbaugh) way. 5:59 EST
The President's stimulus package relies upon authoritarian power and the complacency of the American people. It relies on people believing delusionally that there is a huge crisis. 6:00 EST
Some metaphor involving basketball that I didn't hear all of because my bladder was full. 6:01 EST
The American people aren't going to give up and sit idly by while the American dream is restructured and transformed. (Standing ovation.) 6:02
Regarding Limbaugh's comment that he hopes Obama fails: [anecdote about the Superbowl, involving his hope that the Cardinals failed] Which brings everything back to meaningless football fan-ism. Tribalism.
Limbaugh says that Democrats wanted the war in Iraq to fail.
Limbaugh says that he doesn't know what could be in the stimulus package that anyone could possibly want to succeed.
Limbaugh got over the historical aspects of the election in November.
Limbaugh says he doesn't care what Obama's race is... the problem is that he is liberal and his articulated plans scare him.
Then Limbaugh makes fun of gays, and the feed cuts out on CNN.
When it comes back on, everyone's chanting "USA! USA! USA!"
"I want the country to survive as we have known it. As you and I were raised in it."
"It's a waste of time being offended."
The Democratic party has actively sought the failure of Republican Presidents and wars. The Democratic party actively sought the destruction of lives and of characters. "And I'm supposed to say I don't want the President to fail?" "We are in for a real battle. We are talking about the USA. And there will always be a United Sates of America, don't get me wrong... it's never been under assault like this, from within, before." This sounds like Howard Beale's speech after he talked with Arthur Jensen.
"Talk to people. Respect their intelligence." Res ipsa loquitur.
"Stop thinking that we are a minority. Stop thinking that it is being in the minority that liberates you. It is your core beliefs, it is your confidence... that liberates you."
"I've gone over my allotted time by an hour." (standing ovation)
"I want to thank all of you so much for everything you have meant to me and my family... but... by virtue of listening to my radio show... you have meant more to me and my family and my life than I have meant to you, even though that's considerable." It's a pretty good heartfelt appeal, and I (Zac) believe it."
"...an enemy, and that's what we're always going to be."
Don't judge people based on how they live, is what he ends with.
In short, nothing new.
I wish CNN hadn't lost the feed/destroyed the feed while Limbaugh was making fun of gay men.