Limbaugh’s devastating remarks about McCain

On May 14, Rush Limbaugh delivered one of the most pointed, powerful, disturbing monologues I’ve ever heard from him, on the subject of Sen. McCain’s manmade global warming speech. I didn’t think I could have a worse opinion of McCain than I already had. I was wrong. Rush’s analysis shows how McCain’s well-known negative qualities—his desire to win the favor of the left by betraying his own side, his never-resting officious impulse to cleanse Republicans of their “divisive” and “bigoted” attitudes—have been raised, as it were, to a higher power with his handling of global warming. What McCain is pushing now, as Rush puts it, is a form of international socialism, the main object of which is not to save the planet but to put down America. To repeat what I said a couple of months ago on the subject of McCain’s support for the North American Union:

What McCain has done for his whole career as a senator, self-righteously selling out morally retrograde Republicans to please morally advanced Democrats, he will replicate on a global scale as president, self-righteously selling out morally backward America to please morally superior foreign countries and international bodies.

Ironically, just as Obama was getting so much worse that I began to play (not seriously) with the idea of voting for McCain, McCain has also gotten worse, removing even the slightest passing shadow of a thought of voting for him. I still believe that Obama would be less bad for America than McCain, because, while Obama is somewhat more leftist than McCain, conservatives will oppose Obama with far more energy and urgency than they would McCain, with the paradoxical result that Obama as president will accomplish fewer leftist objectives than McCain would. Furthermore, conservative opposition to a leftistPresident Obama would energize conservatives and reawaken them to their true principles, while conservative allegiance to a leftist President McCain would turn conservatism into a dead man walking.

Just think how bad McCain must be, if many intelligent conservatives are now seriously leaning to the view that the alien Obama-god would be preferable to him. What a fine choice we have, eh?

Once again, let’s thank the best and the brightest of the brilliant neoconservative establishment, those wizards who sucked all the oxygen out of the Republican political world for the sake of the cross-dresser Giuliani, their “sure bet” for the presidency, and who constantly dismissed, belittled, and marginalized the vastly superior but somewhat odd Romney, depriving him of the chance to gain familiarity and traction in Republican opinion, with the result that now we’re stuck with McCain as the alternative to Obama.

Here’s the text of the Limbaugh segment:

RUSH: Senator McCain’s embrace of a radical environmental agenda is a perfect example of all that I have been discussing with you today about how the Republican Party is abandoning conservatism, abandoning those things and those people that made it victorious.

Radical environmentalism, global warming—call it whatever you want—is an agenda born of the 1960s socialism that spread from Europe to the US. It rejects completely the notion of limited constitutional government. The plan advocated by Obama, the plan advocated by Mrs. Clinton, the plan advocated by Algore, the plan sadly advocated by our nominee, tramples on individual rights, tramples on capitalism, tramples on states’ rights, and it promotes the notion that government is the solution and the only solution to everything, and it promotes the idea that we are guilty, that we are guilty precisely because of our prosperity. Have you noticed on your own, other than the times I have told you, have you noticed that the only people in the world who seem to get blamed for global warming are Americans? The ChiComs don’t get blamed. The British, European Union, they don’t get blamed because they’re already driving around bubble cars. They’re already paying, whatever, six bucks, seven bucks per liter or gallon of gasoline. No, it’s only Americans. Have you noticed this? It’s only Americans that are blamed for this. And now, doesn’t matter who we vote for, for president. Whoever the next president is, is gonna agree with that premise.

Militant environmentalism is based on the long-heard left-wing complaint that we, Americans, consume far too much of the world’s resources, given our population, and that we need to restrict and restrain the creation of wealth, our own wealth, and our living standards to more share the world’s resources more equitably with the rest of the world. That’s what’s behind this. So when Senator McCain says that he’ll work diplomatically to ensure that the UN, other countries and so forth, are all working together to address the global warming global problem of manmade climate change, he is saying to us, quote, “I am surrendering the American economy. I am surrendering the American economy and decision-making process to forces outside the US who have never had our nation’s best interests at heart because we have to repair our image and we have to get along and I have to show everybody that I understand we’ve got a big problem and gotta fix it.”

Yesterday I speculated, I wondered allowed, how can it be that somebody who’s been in the US Senate for whatever number of years, the House before that, now running for president, knows 10% of what I know about something? How can this be? And not just McCain. Obama, too, who doesn’t know diddly-squat about anything. He thinks they speak Arabic in Afghanistan. He said that yesterday in Cape Girardeau. He thinks there are 57 states. This guy is a laughingstock if his last name is Quayle. [LA notes: It was absurd for Limbaugh to say that Obama “thinks” there are 57 states. See my explanation of Obama’s slip.] Regardless, Mrs. Clinton, she doesn’t know diddly-squat, either. And, frankly, as an American citizen, it bothers me that as an average, common, everyday American citizen, I know more about a lot of things than these people who have access to information I can’t get access to: classified, all that. The fact that we all know more than they do is a frightening thing.

I look at the exit polls out of West Virginia, and I look at the college educated vote, and I want to propose right now we change the term college educated to college brainwashed. College brainwashed is a more accurate description of college educated. For all I know, maybe there are 57 states. Obama’s the only one that’s been told. Maybe it’s classified. Hell, I don’t know. At any rate, I decided, my friends, it’s not for me to know or say whether McCain understands or comprehends the extent of his surrender to these forces that seek to conquer our status without firing a bullet. It’s not for me to know; I don’t care. The fact is these consequences are what they are. Now, McCain went out there in Oregon, and he delivered a bang bang environmental speech as far as the left is concerned. If I had been Nancy Pelosi, if I had been Obama, if I had been Hillary Clinton, if I were Algore, I would be doing back flips. If I were the Drive-By Media, I’d go, “Oh, boy, this is Christmas in May.” But they’re still not satisfied. The environmentalist wackos, the Democrats, Algore, still not satisfied with McCain’s proposals.

McCain’s proposals are so far reaching, they are frightening, but this is a typical tactic of the left: constantly demand more, constantly voice dissatisfaction, change the political dynamic so that even the most radical proposal is characterized as just the beginning, and it doesn’t go far enough, or it’s just a first step, or it’s otherwise incomplete. The new voices of fascism and Stalinism are to be found in the environmentalist wacko left. There is no Republican, nominee or otherwise, who should embrace them or any of what they are preaching, not in a sane political world. The lesson of these Republican House losses in heavily Republican areas, safe districts, is not that the American people are now socialists or that they want more and more government programs, or that they want to surrender their liberty to bureaucrats, domestic or foreign.

- end of Limbaugh quote, end of initial entry -

Geoffrey in CT writes:

You write:

I still believe that Obama would be less bad for America than McCain, because, while Obama is somewhat more leftist than McCain, conservatives will oppose Obama with far more energy and urgency than they would McCain, with the paradoxical result that Obama as president will accomplish fewer leftist objectives than McCain would

It seems the creator of Auster’s First Law has forgotten its tenets!

The more Obama acts up in a typical black ruler way, the more his presidency becomes a forum for black extremists, the more the entire white ruling elite community will forgive him.

After all he is a protected minority and thus can do no wrong and must be allowed to behave any way he likes.

On the other hand, the left will hate McCain with the same visceral anger with which they hate Bush and will oppose everything he tries to do because he is a “Hard Right Conservative”.

Or not.

LA replies:

Well, the First Law generally operates on and through liberals rather than conservatives, though conservatives tend to follow along. But if in Pres. Obama’s case the First Law is fully operative on conservatives, then, yes, you’re right, there will be no conservative opposition to him and he will be unstoppable. But I don’t think it will be that way. I expect that opposition to him over his leftism will trump his racial status and thus trump the First Law.

However, if I’m wrong, if under President Obama the First Law operates fully on conservatives and they offer no opposition to Obama, then his presidency would be an unmitigated disaster and his election must be opposed at all costs and conservatives should vote for McCain.

But if conservatives are that weak that they would not oppose the measures of a leftist president because of his race, then there’s really no hope for the country in any case.

Geoffrey in CT replies:

“However, if conservatives are that weak that they would not oppose the measures of a Pres. Obama because of his race, then there’s really no hope for the country in any case.”

Hence my opinion in a previous email that this is a referendum on America.

I have no doubts that any high profile, “intellectual” white person will be wholly incapable of criticizing Obama in any meaningful way under any circumstances.

So no matter who wins the election we are in for a rough four years. And we no longer have the demographics in place for a Reagan to ride to our rescue on the other side.

LA replies:

Geoffrey’s view cannot be dismissed. All along, my position that Obama would be preferable to McCain has been based on the assumption that conservatives would oppose President Obama. Of course, my assumption could be wrong. But as I just said, if my assumption is wrong, then there will be no conservatives opposition to the leftist/minority takeover of America, and there is no hope for America at all. I would rather bet on the prospect that there is life in conservatives, and thus hope for America, than accept the view that there is no hope for America.

Geoffrey replies:

Thanks for the reply.

But hope is not a strategy. We should be prepared for an “Iron Age”:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ages_of_Man#Hesiod.27s_Five_Ages

http://www.americanthinker.com/2008/05/men_with_guns.html

LA replies:

Hope is no more the substance of my strategy than it is of any strategy. Any strategy, including yours, is based on the belief and hope that it can succeed.

Also, I notice in that article on the coming Iron Age at American Thinker that the author expects a thousand years to pass before men with guns succeed in bringing back civilization. Oh, that’s great. Because Obama might be elected president, let’s give up—right now—on our civilization for the next thousand years.

I of course agree with the author that civilization rests on guns, on the use of force and on the continuing readiness and willingness to use force. But when he talks so easily of a coming Iron Age from which we will not emerge for a thousand years, and when Geoffrey links that article as the expression of his own point of view, that sounds to me not like a call to use force to defend our civilization, but like an announcement that this civilization is over.

Joseph C. writes:

Notwithstanding Rush Limbaugh’s monologue yesterday, do you have any doubt that he will dutifully pull the lever for McCain in November?

LA replies:

If I had no doubt that Rush would vote for McCain, that would mean that I regard it as a certainty that he will vote for McCain. Prior to his monologue of the 14th, I did regard it as a certainty. As a result of that monologue, I no longer regard it as a certainty, though I still think it’s overwhelmingly likely. I would say there’s a 5 to 10 percent chance that Rush won’t vote for McCain. Same with Michelle Malkin. And in both cases, if they vote for him, they will be walking into the polling place backward with a sack over their head.

Joseph replies:

If they do vote for him, and he wins, they should put sacks over their heads for the next four years.

David B. writes:

On Thursday Rush Limbaugh had another lengthy monologue about how bad McCain is. Rush wrings his hands that McCain is going to run against Bush and Congress, and that GOP politicians won’t stand up for conservative principles. All this will result in a 70-seat Democratic Congressional majority. Limbaugh still is loyal to Bush, and will not admit that Bush is also a liberal whom Rush has blindly supported. He ends up saying:

“Barack Obama wins the White House, has a 70-seat majority in the House of Representatives, a seven-seat majority in the Senate, gets pretty much everything he wants, and we end up with Jimmy Carter 2 and the country goes to hell in a handbasket, and who gets the blame? Well, it can’t be us, it can’t be conservatives, even the Drive-bys will try to lay it at our feet, we’ll have no power,”

El Rushbo then lays out the same scenario with McCain in the White House. Rush says, “But the party in power is the Republican Party, and they get the blame. Of those two scenarios, (which) is better for the future of conservatism?” Rush does not answer. Below is the thread:

It looks like McCain is going to back away from support of the Iraq war. He will do it sooner than Hubert Humphrey distanced himself from LBJ Vietnam policy in the fall of 1968.

LA replies:

But notice how lame Limbaugh’s reasoning is. The reason he says it would be comparatively beneficial for Republicans to lose is not that this will push them into a contrarian position in relation to liberalism and make them stronger conservatives. No. His reason is that if Republicans are in the minority, THEY WON’T GET BLAMED BY THE MEDIA. Rush is still focused on liberals as the ones running things, and Republicans needing to negotiate with this liberal environment and seeking to avoid liberal attacks, instead of seeing the Republicans as active agents taking the initiative. How utterly pathetic.

Geoffrey in CT writes:

“However, if conservatives are that weak that they would not oppose the measures of a Pres. Obama because of his race, then there’s really no hope for the country in any case.”

Hence my opinion in a previous email that this is a referendum on America.

I have no doubts that any high profile “intellectual” white person will be wholly incapable of criticizing Obama in any meaningful way under any circumstances.

So no matter who wins the election we are in for a rough four years. And we no longer have the demographics in place for a Reagan to ride to our rescue on the other side.

LA replies

But look at how the conservative commentariat has been going after him over the Bush appeasement speech controversy. They’re not shy to attack him at all.

Adela G. writes:

You write:

“But if conservatives are that weak that they would not oppose the measures of a leftist president because of his race, then there’s really no hope for the country in any case.”

It’s not his race that would deter conservatives from any criticism of Obama but their fear of being demonized by the left should they have the audacity to criticize him.

This self-censoring based not on moral uplift but on visceral fear will result in increased resentment of conservative whites toward blacks. You see the same dynamic all the time in families. When parents favor one child over another, the child to whom favor is not shown becomes increasingly antagonistic toward the favored child. It’s not a question of racism in one case or sibling rivalry in the other. The fact is that people resent the unfairness of blatantly preferential treatment of others. And the more blatant and prolonged the preference, the more intense and long-lasting the resentment.

LA replies:

I do not think such visceral or emotional resentment can lead to anything politically useful. We already have lots of emotional conservatives, who strike out emotionally at the left or minorities, and then, as soon as they are attacked, retreat, because their action is not based on reason. What we need are rational conservatives.

It’s the same on the left. They are filled with resentment—and thus incapable of making a rational or useful argument.

Posted by Lawrence Auster at May 16, 2008 12:12 AM | Send