Tuesday, January 15, 2008

The Right Rush   [Kathryn Jean Lopez]

Steyn said here that Limbaugh was "on fire" yesterday. Ditto today.

Rush issued a warning about Huckabee and McCain: “I'm here to tell you, if either of these two guys get the nomination, it's going to destroy the Republican Party, it's going to change it forever, be the end of it. A lot of people aren't going to vote. You watch.”

Late into the show — after he had Newt Gingrich on about the Speaker's concept of change in what he says is a post-Reagan-coalition era — Limbaugh had a caller who announced that “for 20 years I lived by the Republican Party, and today you could hold a gun to my head and I'm not voting for a Republican. I've never in my life voted for a Democrat, and I don't want to begin, but the Republican Party betrayed people like me. … the Republican Party doesn't understand people like me.”

Speaking to Rush, he added: When a man of your wealth — yes, your wealth — no matter what happens, you can afford it. What about guys like me out there? I've had years where I've made big six figure and years that I haven't, and all in all me and my wife are fairly financially stable, but do you know how expensive life is, or how much it costs to pay for health care, and why...?”

Limbaugh's response was about freedom – and I think it gets to the heart of conservative frustrations this election season and was in a tone of urgency that I think will wake people up and should :

RUSH: Yes, I damn well do because I do pay for it myself!

CALLER: Well, exactly.

RUSH: Let me tell you something.

CALLER: But when I talk about your wealth —

RUSH: No, no, no. Let me tell you something about this wealth business. I've been broke twice in my life. When I was 31 years old, I was making $17,000 a year. I have been fired I forgot how many times. Seven times! So I've been there. This constant refrain that I'm "out of touch," is just bogus. That's another thing that really bugs me: this movement within the Republican Party to claim that the middle class is in great suffering and pain. I understand if you own a house, and your value of your equity in your house is plummeting, that you're worried, and I understand that totally. What you need to hear is the truth of why it happened, so that you can make plans in the future. These are cycles, and everybody in every country and every society goes through them, and ours are not nearly as bad as people around the rest of the world are. I know health care is expensive. That's why I'm focused not on making it more expensive, but on making it cheaper, and how you do that? You do it with conservatism! I'm by no means out of touch on this. If the health care industry were priced like every other industry is on the patient's ability to pay, then we'd fix the problem, and that's the direction we have to head in.

But if we're going to keep this notion that everybody's entitled to have whatever they want medically paid for by their neighbors, then we are finished. We are finished as a country; we are finished as a society. You can talk about my wealth, but let me tell you something, sir. I don't depend on anybody else for anything, and it was one of my objectives when I grew up. I didn't want to be obligated. I didn't want to be dependent. I didn't want to owe anybody. I don't buy into insurance plans because it's a hassle! Now, I know a lot of people don't have that freedom. I used to not have that freedom, either. But I do now because I worked for it — and if I can do it, a lot more people can do it than think they can, and that's conservatism again. People are much better than they know. They have much more potential than they know. But when you've got a Democrat Party and a movement telling them they suck, telling them they can't get anywhere because the deck is stacked against them and the people stacking the deck are Republicans and so forth, then you are diminishing the country; you're diminishing the future, and you're destroying people's lives.

......

The health care problem in this country is getting worse, while people are voting on for people who are making it worse because they hear these people saying, "I'm going to fix it." Well, the people in charge of fixing it have no interest in it getting fixed, because if it gets fixed, you don't need them. You can rely on yourself. This health care debate is one of the most infuriating things I witness every day, because I get so sick and tired of people buying hook, line, and sinker a lie. "I'm going to get everybody covered. I'm going to make sure everybody gets health insurance in this country. We're going to make sure it's not just the rich." It doesn't happen, does it? When you have government telling private industry how to operate, this is exactly what you get, and it's going to happen in energy. It's already happening in a number of other industries, too. It's happening in the auto industry…

If you're a subscriber to his website, you get access to transcripts and audio from his show, among other things. I just lifted some of the text for the sake of the country (sorry!). It's worth listening to the Newt exchange and the rest of the show though — I only gave you a few minutes from today.

Going into his 20th year this year, that show, thanks to its host, continues to be a steady voice for conservatism — whatever folks who don't listen to the show and think they know everything about its host might say.

01/15 06:32 PMShare