January 28, 2009

BEGIN TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: To the phones! We start in Pittsburgh.  This is Shelly, and it's great to have you with us.  Hi.

CALLER:  Hi, Rush.  What a pleasure to speak with you.

RUSH:  Thank you.

CALLER:  I just wanted to call and make sure that you got my e-mail via the Democrat committee website where they encouraged us all to write our comments about your comments, you know, about hoping Obama fails.

RUSH: (laughing) Look, there are so many of these.

CALLER: (giggles)

RUSH: I think the well-wishers using the Democrat Congressional Campaign Committee website, people sending me good wishes far outnumber the malcontents that the DCCC hopes sign their petition.  

CALLER:  Rush, I think you're right.

RUSH:  If I'm doing such great damage to the Republican Party, why petition against me?  If I'm doing all this damage...?  This is another thing just hilarious.

CALLER:  I think you're right.  I was on there, and I e-mailed you, and I read a few comments, and, of course, there's the sheep who don't bother to research any of what you really said and that are --

RUSH:  Yes, they did.  They lied about it.

CALLER:  Yes, they did.

RUSH:  They took it totally out of context.  They got a little clip, a 19 second clip of me --

CALLER:  That's right.

RUSH:  -- at the end of a long monologue explaining why I hope he fails.  They're just using that. It is the Michael J. Fox thing all over again.

CALLER:  Right. And I just wanted you to know that I e-mailed them also, and I told them that if they wanted to confront you and win, they should learn a lesson from their debacle with Harry Reid and they should do it honestly because what Harry Reid did, twisting your words around and that just blew up in his face. He didn't even have the good sense or class to admit that he did that after you raised all that money for charity. He tried to horn in on that and take responsibility for it, and it just made him look like an absolute ass.  So I suggested to them that if they were going to try and take you on, the best thing they could do would be to do it honestly.

RUSH:  Wait, wait just a second.  See, it might have made him look like an ass, but where is he today?  He's the majority leader of the US Senate.  Was he harmed by that at all?  I bet to this day he doesn't think he is or was.  We won't know 'til he begins his own reelection effort in Nevada in 2010.  Folks, you gotta understand what this is about if you want to take this stuff seriously. To me, this is old hat.  This is just the latest stunt that they've tried for a number of years, but let me tell you. Let me offer you a contrast.  It wasn't very long ago, was it, that the Democrat Party spent entire weeks praying, hoping, demanding defeat in Iraq.  They spent years saying they hope President Bush failed.  In fact, Google. Back in the old Google search days, if you searched, you'd find it.

They had to pull this down eventually, but I've got the screen shots.  If you put in the words "George W. Bush" in the search field at Google, the second or third entry was "miserable failure."  Dick Gephardt called George W. Bush a "miserable failure" way back in 2002.  Now, the idea that the Democrats have behaved like angels the last six years and all of a sudden it's mean old Rush now saying rotten things about Obama, and they have to take me out of context again to do it.  Now, it's troubling to some people.  It's interesting nevertheless.  We had brave men and women in the US military losing their lives, getting wounded.  We had the members of the US military who were following orders and succeeding, succeeding in taming the Wild West known as Iraq.  

And all during that time Harry Reid and others are hoping that they lose.  They are calling the commander a liar to his face, General Petraeus when he's brought up to testify.  Every Democrat from Waxman to Hillary Clinton to Harry Reid.  They were waving the white flag of surrender before the surge even began.  "This war is lost," Reid said.  Jack Murtha was accusing them of being murderers and rapists.  They said some of the most outrageously wrong, lying, personally destructive things about George W. Bush.  So it rings a little hollow to me for the Democrat Congressional Campaign Committee to now -- and, by the way, this is an association of elected Democrats.  This, once again...

The similarity to Harry Reid is this.  You have elected Democrats using the power of their office to attempt to stifle the speech of a private citizen who is in the media, and the First Amendment's free speech clause was expressly -- not expressly, but it was focused primarily on political speech, which is what we do here.  So the Democrats get this free ride. Nobody was upset. I don't remember too many people in our party doing what the Democrat Congressional Campaign Committee is doing today.  I don't remember people petitioning the Democrats to shut up, stop aiding and abetting the enemy, stop saying we can't win.  Remember we would do side by side audio sound bites of how talking points from Harry Reid or Chuck Schumer sounded just like they came from Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, or when a tape came from Ayman al-Zawahiri, how similar Zawahiri or Ahmadinejad's views on America were from what Democrat leaders were saying.  

The idea that they have been angels behaving clean and pure as the wind-driven snow, and all of a sudden I come along and they have to manufacture a lie or an out-of-context statement in order to get the rabble-rousers?  This is an attempt to stifle dissent.  Remember what Hillary said about dissent.  Dissent is the new patriotism! Well, not anymore.  The new patriotism is paying higher taxes, according to Joe Biden.  So we're in a serious battle here.  These people play for keeps.  The Obama philosophy is to clear the playing field, not level it. Just get rid of anybody on it who could stand in your way and that's what the Democrat Congressional Campaign Committee is doing, and they're doing it dishonestly. So, you know, I appreciate everybody responding to it and sending them a message.

But what we're going to do -- I'm going to predict this to you. It won't be long, today or tomorrow they're going to say they exceeded their goals in signatures.  They're going to say, "We got more signatures to tell Rush to shut up than we ever dreamed of getting."  That's the next step of this.  That's the next stage.  "We got more response! The American people," they will say, "are fed up with Rush Limbaugh," and they may release the numbers, who knows.  How are we going to prove it?  They don't have a counter on their website.  So this is just more of the same Stalinist-type, under the cover, under the guise of doing good and protecting the new president that everybody loves, and making sure he's not criticized. When the fact is, my friends, I, El Rushbo (and I say this happily) have hijacked Obama's honeymoon.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: Now, as for this -- I want to see one more thing about this Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee petition, this online petition. I'll tell you what they're going to do.  Maybe they'll announce the numbers.  When this is all over, when they decide to pull the plug on this, they're going to say something very simple, that there is a consensus to silence Rush Limbaugh.  Our petition drive was far bigger than we ever thought it was going to be, and there is a consensus to shut up Rush Limbaugh.

Now, this whole thing was put in play with Obama mentioning me last Friday at the congressional leaders' meeting he had at the White House.  You know, marginalize me (and by virtue of that, all of you) as the fringe kooks out here and co-opt the Republicans into, you know, being moderate, maybe even liberal a little bit and going along with the historic nature of the first black president. For that reason alone, he can't be denied. It's His plan. It's Change! Only His plan can get it done. It relies quite a lot on the ignorance of average Americans.  It relies on the ignorance -- and I'm not saying stupidity, the ignorance -- of average Americans who do not understand what's in the plan.  Even when you tell 'em, I think a lot of people are focusing on the individual items.  Well, 650 bucks for coupons to convert your analog TV to digital, $21 million to re-sod the Mall, $4.19 billion for ACORN, for "neighborhood stabilization efforts."  

See, the objective here, is people want to pick out these individual things and say, "Look at this! How does this create jobs? That's not stimulus."  I think, you know, narrow-casting this or looking at it in niche ways is interesting, it might be persuasive to some, but truly says what this is really all about.  What this is really all about is simply advancing an agenda of enlarging government and entrenching the Democrat Party in power, in perpetuity.  That's all this is, and the individual ingredients are the mechanism that they accomplish this.  Now, Snerdley has just sent me a note:  "Everybody doesn't know the details of what the petition is and who the DCCC is."  Okay, fair point.  The Democrat Congressional Campaign Committee. Republicans have one, too, and they are organizations in the Senate.  

For example, Chuck Schumer ran the Democrat Senatorial Campaign Committee, and when he was running it was when they uncovered the private credit data of Michael Steele and went public with it.  Tony Coelho used to run it in the House way back when.  Chris Van Hollen runs it now for the Democrats. The purpose of the Democrat Congressional Campaign Committee and the same thing with the Republican version, is to find candidates in off years and get them to run for open seats, and then to get your sitting members reelected, your incumbents reelected.  It's all about reelecting Democrats.  And the Republicans have one, too.  I don't know who's running the RCCC right now, but the Democrats are doing it. So they put up a petition.

This is right out of the Rahm Emanuel playbook.  This is right out of -- and, by the way, do you know that Rahm has a conference call every morning?  Now, he's the chief of staff to Obama.  You know who's on the conference call?  James Carville, works at CNN; The Forehead, Paul Begala, works at CNN; and George Stephanopoulos, who has his own show at ABC.  It's absolutely true.  There is a conference call every morning between Rahm Emanuel and these three guys who worked together in the Clinton days. They're all former Clintonites from the Clinton war room.  This is a conference call that takes place every morning, and sometimes multiple times during the day.  I kid you not.  Now, they have an online petition at the DCCC website that has a 19-second clip of me saying I hope Obama fails.  

It's taken totally out of context and it's presented as, "Tell Rush Limbaugh what you think! Here's a message and hit the submit button, and we will send it to Rush."  So it's a flood-my-inbox kind of campaign, and on my website last night, we linked to their home page where you can send the DCCC a message yourself. So we did a reverse petition last night at RushLimbaugh.com. It's still up there.  So you go to RushLimbaugh.com, the reverse petition sends them a message from you, and it's been going gangbusters all night.  So we've just been having fun with it.  My spam filter has taken care of all their e-mails to me. I haven't seen one of them, and so... (laughing) It's funny, but at the same time, folks, this is an organization that serves to advance elected Democrats again targeting the free speech and lying about the free speech of a private individual citizen.

Which of course I am, even though I have hijacked the Obama honeymoon and they're not happy about it.  So what they're going to do at the end of whatever their plan is, however long it takes, is they're going to say the response to their petition was overwhelming.  More people think I should be shut up than they could possibly have imagined. There is a consensus of opinion now that they've collected that I need to be silenced.  It's exactly what they're going to do, and there's no counter on their website so you don't really know how many it is.  We'll just have to trust -- at least there wasn't one last night.  We're just going to have to trust what they say.

END TRANSCRIPT

Read the Background Material...

• FOXNews: Dems Launch Online Petition Against Rush Limbaugh

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/first100days/2009/01/27/dems-launch-online-petition-rush-limbaugh/

• Click Here to Tell the DCCC and All Other Democrats it is Time to Stop Lying About and Distorting Rush's Comments on Barack Obama's War on Prosperity.

http://www.dccc.org/page/s/contact

• American Thinker: Google Covers President O's Flank

http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2009/01/google_covers_president_os_fla.html

• HotAir: Obama Administration Co-Opting Media Analysts

http://hotair.com/archives/2009/01/28/obama-administration-co-opting-media-analysts/

January 28, 2009

BEGIN TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: We'd now like to provide a little safe haven for Eric Cantor, congressman from Virginia, who just finished 20 or so minutes with Andrea Mitchell at MSNBC.  Congressman, it's great to have you here on the EIB Network for the first time.

CANTOR:  Rush, it is great to be on with you.

RUSH:  I was able to read some of the closed-captioning, Congressman, when you were on with Andrea Mitchell, and it's gotta be a little frustrating, but you know, you guys are doing great. You're hanging really, really tight and tough up there against this because it's a pork bill that Obama said would not be a pork bill. He promised that there would be no pork in this. We're going to do new ways, and here -- it could be Andrea Mitchell; it could be anybody in the Drive-By Media -- just basically treating you as a suspect, accusing you of opposing this marvelous, miraculous package, just because it's His.  I don't think she has the slightest idea what's in it, after you told her.

CANTOR:  Well, and that's the frustrating part, Rush, but we're not giving up, and thank goodness you're there to try and help get the message out about what this bill is and isn't.  This is a spending bill.  This is not a stimulus bill.  And, you know, the message to the president that I delivered on several occasions, has been this: "You were elected by the people of this country because they had hope that you would actually change the way that our federal government works so that it could start working for the people again, and the first order of business should be to cut the waste and pork barrel spending in Washington." This bill is so chock-full of government expansion, it's hard to even find the stimulus programs in here.  Even the Congressional Budget Office, controlled by the Democrats now, says it is not a stimulative bill.  Twelve cents out of every dollar could be maybe argued that it is worth some stimulative effect.  That is a far cry from doing things the right way and delivering results.

RUSH:  Congressman, did you happen to have a chance this morning to hear President Obama's remarks in the White House after the two CEOs from IBM and Honeywell spoke?

CANTOR:  No, I didn't.

RUSH:  I'd like for you to hear what he said.  I want to play you two sound bites because I know you've been swamped today.  I want you to hear President Obama from January 8th.  He was at George Mason University.  This was the occasion where he said, only government can get this economy moving.  Only government can provide the short-term boost.  The second sound bite -- and these are short; they're 28 and 38 seconds each. In the second sound bite from today, he sounds positively Reaganesque.  Here is Obama. It's cut 19, Mike. This is from January 8th of this year.

OBAMA:  Only government can provide the short-term boost necessary to lift us from a recession this deep and severe.  Only government can break the cycle that are crippling our economy.  That's why we need to act boldly and act now.

OBAMA JANUARY 8:  Only government can provide the short-term boost necessary to lift us from a recession this deep and severe.  Only government can break the cycle that are (sic -- is) crippling our economy.  That's why we need to act boldly and act now...

RUSH:  Okay, stop the tape.  Now, let's move on.  This was this morning.  Congressman, this is 180-degrees different.

OBAMA JANUARY 28:  In the end, the answer to our economic troubles rests less in my hands or in the hands of our legislators than it does with America's workers and the businesses that employ them.  They are the ones whose efforts and ideas will determine our economic destiny just as they always have, for in the end it's businesses -- large and small -- that generate the jobs, provide the salaries, and serve as the foundation on which the American people's lives and dreams depend.  All we can do, those of us here in Washington, is to help create a favorable climate in which workers can prosper, businesses can thrive, and our economy can grow.

RUSH:  Okay, two totally contrasting views.  When you go up to the White House and talk to him, which president...? I know it's tough. You guys, your strategy here is to blame the House bill on Pelosi and so forth, which is great, but how do you know which president you're dealing with?

CANTOR: (laughing) This is a good question, Rush, and to tell you the truth, you know, he came out to Capitol Hill yesterday and spoke to House Republicans, and he said he has no pride of authorship in this bill and he wants to continue to work with us.  In fact, three weeks ago, before he was even sworn into office, he reached out and says, "Bring me your ideas."  Well, last Friday, when we went to the White House, it was the bipartisan, bicameral leadership. So it was Pelosi, it was Hoyer, it was Boehner and I; Reid and McConnell and others; and we presented to the president our House Republican plan; and that plan is focused very much on the premise that he was trying to relate in the latest clip, that it really is the men and women in small business of this country that provide the jobs and the salaries, and all we can do here in Washington is to create an environment where you provide economic incentives for people to put their money to risk and create jobs.  I couldn't have said it better.  The problem is when we got into the discussion of the kind of tax relief that really will produce that kind of stimulus and incentive, he says we have a philosophical difference.  His opinion is that we ought to go the route of his make-work-pay program.  Well, you know what his make-work-pay program is.  It is to provide refunds to people who don't even pay income taxes.

RUSH:  Yeah.

CANTOR:  Now, the American people know that is unfair, and it doesn't do anything to provide incentives for people to get back to work and create jobs.

RUSH:  It was actually reported that in that meeting he said to you -- and you were the one who specifically presented the tax cut proposals and then he smiled and said -- "Well, I'm going to trump you on that. I won, and we're not going to do that."  How did that make you feel?  You go up there under the auspices that he's willing to listen to your ideas, which I guess he did, he followed through.

CANTOR:  Well, you know, Rush, he is the president, so, you know, he can say that, but all I countered with and said, "Look, you know, again, you set the standard.  You're the one that said you want this to be a real stimulus bill.  Let's get down to business.  Let's throw out all the pork barrel stuff and really make this work."  So he came back up to the Hill after we were at the White House and again was here yesterday.  I'm hopeful. I'm hopeful, at some point, Rush, that we can get there.  Again, Speaker Pelosi has really not embraced what it is that we are for.  She claims she has.  You know, she talks about the sacrifices that her caucus has made to include the net operating loss provisions, and you know what that is.  Those are the ability for businesses to take advantage of the losses they have now and apply them against the gains and the income taxes they paid before.

RUSH:  Which she has incurred, by the way, with her investment in T. Boone Pickens' natural gas plan.

CANTOR:  Well, there you go.

RUSH:  She should be excited about this.

CANTOR:  Right. Well, she claims that was a very heavy lift and that the Democrats don't like that, and that perhaps we should be satisfied with that.  My contention back, you know, to any of that kind of discussion is, "Look, we shouldn't just be satisfied with a partial attempt to sustain jobs.  We ought to be doing everything we can, focused like a laser in on preserving the jobs that are out there and providing an environment to create new jobs."

RUSH:  We're speaking with Congressman Eric Cantor from Virginia.  Two more things before we let you go.  You mentioned pork.  I want to play you another President Obama sound bite.  He's president-elect at this time.  This is December 7th.  He was on Meet the Depressed with Tom Brokaw, and he was being asked about the stimulus package, and he wanted to know how -- Brokaw wanted to know how -- much was gonna cost and who was going to pay for it.

OBAMA:  When I met with the governors! All of them have projects that are shovel-ready.  Now we're going to have to prioritize it and do it, uh, not in the old traditional, uh, politics-first-way.  W-w-what we need to do is, uh, examine what are the projects where we're going to get the most bang for the buck. How are we going to make sure taxpayers are protected.  Uh, you know, uh, the days of just pork coming out of Congress as a strategy, uh, those days are over.  

RUSH:  Apparently not --

CANTOR: (laughs)

RUSH: -- because this a pork bill. You could call this the "porkulus."

CANTOR: Right. (laughing)  Let me tell you something. It is porkulus.  That's a great description.  But let's call it how it is.  Even the Congressional Budget Office says less than a quarter of the money that they've allocated towards these types of projects even gets out the door prior to the beginning of 2011.  You know, and let's also look at sort of what they're talking about giving states money.  Listen, we need to impose reform all over the place, at all levels of government.  If you just sit here and have the federal taxpayers, again, borrow the money -- $2,700 for every man, woman, and child -- to then go and give to the states, and there's no reform there, how do we end up growing GDP? How do we end up getting jobs?

RUSH:  We don't.

CANTOR:  Exactly.

RUSH:  We don't.  See, that's the whole point.  You know, it's great news, it is fascinating to learn all of these pork projects that are in this bill, and only 12%, if that, actually goes to stimulus.  But that masks what this really is.  This is a bill to grow government.  This is a bill to grow the power of the Democrat Party.  This is the New Deal 2.  This is designed to create another 50 years of Democrat rule in perpetuity.  This is not going to grow the economy. This isn't going to create any jobs.  Congressman, he doesn't need any House Republicans. Correct me if I'm wrong. Every Republican could oppose this and it would still pass, correct?

CANTOR:  That is absolutely right.

RUSH:  All right.  So here's my question, final question.  If this bill is so magical, if this bill is going to accomplish everything in terms of stimulus and bring back prosperity and full employment, why doesn't he want it to be only a Democrat vote?  He could ruin the Republican Party forever! If this bill actually works as he says and none of you vote for it, he can come back when it's in full-fledged success mode and say, "These guys opposed it. They didn't want this." They could destroy you guys, but yet he wants your cover on this.

CANTOR:  Absolutely.  And, you know, it's the same as went on in prior bills when Speaker Pelosi wanted us to take responsibility along with them -- and, you know what?  House Republicans are not going to do that, given the nature of this bill.  That's our message to the president as well.  If you want us to shoulder the burden of the product that comes out of Congress, it ought to be the right product. It ought to be a stimulative bill. It ought to create incentives for investment.  It ought not be just more borrow and spending on the part of the government.

RUSH:  Congressman Cantor, thank you very much.  I've enjoyed talking to you.  And, you know, keep fighting these people in the media. They are every bit as much your enemy as Pelosi is.

CANTOR:  Well, listen, Rush, we've got so much work to be done.  I thank you very much for what you're doing.  We've got a tremendous amount of pork lift that we can back up this description of "porkulus" that I think your listeners would really like to read.  So if they want to go on the Web, they can find it. It is astounding.

RUSH:  All right.  We'll direct 'em to it.  Thanks again and we'll chat soon.

CANTOR:  Thank you, Rush.

RUSH:  You bet.  Congressman Eric Cantor, Virginia.

END TRANSCRIPT

Read the Background Material...

• Wall Street Journal: A 40-Year Wish List. You Won't Believe What's in That Stimulus Bill

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123310466514522309.html

• AskHeritage.org: Why Government Spending Does Not Stimulate Economic Growth- Brian M. Riedl

http://www.heritage.org/research/budget/bg2208.cfm

• FOXNews: Obama Urges GOP to Keep Politics to a Minimum on Stimulus

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2009/01/27/house-republicans-express-skepticism-bipartisan-backing-stimulus/

• American Spectator: Good Morning, Suckers

http://spectator.org/archives/2009/01/28/good-morning-suckers

• HotAir: The Democratic Porkfest Bill of 2009

http://hotair.com/archives/2009/01/28/the-democratic-porkfest-bill-of-2009/

• NewsMax: Obama's Bill Hands ACORN $5.2 Billion Bailout

http://www.newsmax.com/headlines/obama_bailout_bill/2009/01/27/175729.html

• Wall Street Journal: $646,214 Per Government Job

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123310498020322323.html

• The Hill: Massive Government Spending is Not a Solution - Rep. Tom Price

http://thehill.com/op-eds/economic-recovery-act-is-wiser-alternative-to-massive-spending-2009-01-27.html

January 28, 2009

BEGIN TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: We'd like to welcome to the microphone Georgia congressman Phil Gingrey, who ended up being quoted yesterday by Jonathan Martin and somebody else at Politico.com.  Congressman Gingrey asked to come on the program today to address that and we are happy to have him here.  Congressman, welcome to the program, sir.

GINGREY:  Rush, thank you so much.  I thank you for the opportunity. Of course, it's not exactly the way I wanted to come on, but I appreciate you giving me the opportunity.  Mainly, I want to express to you and all your listeners my very sincere regret for those comments I made yesterday to Politico.  Basically the intent of my words to them was to discuss the unique position of congressional Republicans and our leadership, particularly John Boehner and Mitch McConnell.  I clearly ended up putting my foot in my mouth on some of those comments (laughs) and I just wanted to tell you, Rush, and -- and all our conservative giants who help us so much to maintain our base and grow it and get back this majority that I regret those stupid comments.

RUSH:  Well, look, I appreciate that.  I have quite a lot of experience with people in the media, and believe me: They loved the little storm that they were able to create yesterday.  And I thought this was one of the goals, when it was reported that the president told you guys not to listen to me last Friday at his White House meeting, I thought one of the objectives was to have some of the Republican conference, or caucus, come out and denounce me as well because he would like to co-opt you guys as on his team and distance you from conservatism, and so would the media.  But it is what it is, and I'm glad that you called and I've read your explanation for this on the website.  We all want to be on the same team here, Congressman.  

GINGREY:  Absolutely.

RUSH:  Our numbers are dwindling in Congress and there's a reason for it, and we want to reverse on that, and --

GINGREY:  Well, we're down, as you say, Rush, we're down to 178 in the House, and our House membership is looking more and more conservative, and we're gonna work our tails off across the country trying to recruit additional Republicans that understand that, as you have so well said, that this economic bailout, rescue, stimulus package is nothing but growing the government.  It is not growing private sector jobs.  And our -- and again, I was trying to defend John Boehner, who basically is leading -- providing very good leadership on this issue.  I can assure you, Rush, that on the House side, there will be very, very few Republicans voting for this.

RUSH:  Look, I totally agree with you on that.  I think a backbone is clearly visible here.  And, look, I understand why you guys might be upset with me.  I don't have thin skin, and when I make the statement that it appears the president's more concerned with me than he is with Mitch McConnell or John Boehner, I can understand how that would offend some people.  But look at it this way. Look at me as taking the heat. Look at me as taking the fire, directing it away from you so that you guys can go stealthily and do what you're doing here in building an opposition to this.  I want to ask you a political question about the vote.

GINGREY:  Yes.

RUSH:  I know that you don't know how it's all going to end up.  But what is your thought? Let's say not one Republican votes for this. See, I happen to think... It's a leading question. I happen to think that would be perfect for the future and your reelection efforts.  What's your thought on that?

GINGREY:  Rush, I agree with you completely.  Unfortunately, that's not going to happen because, as you know, on the Senate side there are some rather moderate-leaning Senate Republicans --

RUSH:  Oh, but I meant in the House.

GINGREY:  -- up for election in 2010, and you know their names and there are few in the House and they're going to tend to go along with this, but it's going to be a very, very small percentage.  But I agree with you.  It would be the best possible message for this country for every single Republican to vote against this.

RUSH:  The way I look at this -- by the way, we're talking to Congressman Phil Gingrey from the 11th district in Georgia. I look at Obama presenting this as the end-all to all of our problems.  This is gonna magically create jobs, magically reignite prosperity.  It's gonna eliminate all the bad memories that we had from the Bush years.  If it's that wonderful, if it's that magical, why even care whether you have Republican votes?  Why not have all Democrats? Because he doesn't need one vote from you guys to pass this.  He's got enough votes in the House to get it done himself.  Why not let the Democrats take all the credit for this magic?

GINGREY:  Oh, because he wants -- if it -- if it fails, and I expect that he will, he wants to say that, well, hey, the Republicans voted for it, too, you know, it's not just me."

RUSH:  Exactly.

GINGREY:  Don't blame the Democrats. This was a bipartisan bill.

RUSH:  Exactly.

GINGREY:  He wants cover.

RUSH:  Exactly right.  Well, you have... I know you hear from your constituents, but sometimes the Beltway can be a lonely place.  You can end up being isolated up there, and I'd just like for you to know on behalf of at least the people I can speak for, most of my audience, that they have extremely high hopes, expectations or what have you that you guys can hold firm and represent an alternative ideological approach to what President Obama's trying to do because, you know, we keep hearing about how the American people are scared -- and they should be.  Even Obama has said, if this thing passes, we're going to have 10% unemployment even if he gets this.  There's a war on prosperity.  People's lives are at stake.  They're losing their jobs.  Some of them didn't vote for him, Congressman, and they don't think his plan is the way to get this done.  They think what you believe is their ultimate hope and the ultimate way that they're going to be able to rebuild their lives and get their 401(k)s back up.  There are a lot of people invested in you guys.

GINGREY:  Well, Rush, congressional Republicans and our leadership need you and other conservative giants to galvanize the millions of Americans who don't live in Washington.  They may not even live in Republican districts.  Maybe they're in Democratic districts.  But we've gotta have your support, and of course I know you reach millions of people across the country.  I'm telling you, I heard from quite a few of them (laughs) since my foot-and-mouth disease yesterday, and I just thank you so much for what you're doing, and we're with you 100% -- and we know that you're with us a hundred percent, more importantly.

RUSH:  Congressman Phil Gingrey, Georgia.  Thank you so much for calling, sir.  It's great to have you here.

GINGREY:  Thanks, Rush.

RUSH:  You bet. 

END TRANSCRIPT

Read the Background Material...

• Congressman Phil Gingrey, MD (R-GA): Gingrey Comments on Rush Misunderstanding

http://gingrey.house.gov/News/DocumentSingle.aspx?DocumentID=109616

• Politico: House GOP Member to Rush: Back Off

http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0109/18049.html

Story #3: Barney Frank Says Republicans Afraid of Rush

http://www.cnsnews.com/public/content/article.aspx?RsrcID=44125