A Different Take on WeinergateJune 2, 2011
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RUSH: This Weiner business, I understand that Steyn had three hours worth of fun with this yesterday. I didn't wade into this until my third hour on Tuesday. This whole thing is so juvenile. You know, the Democrats, folks, are gonna have to figure out what it is that they are most proud of. Are they most proud of the culture of corruption or the culture of erection? Now, their culture of corruption is well known. The economy, Obama. The culture of erection is Ted Kennedy, Chris Dodd, Clinton, Anthony Weiner, Eliot Spitzer and so forth. But there's something serious about this, aside from all the jokes, culturally, that I want to get into here, and interestingly it involves a piece I read in the American Thinker about Charles Krauthammer and Sarah Palin and what's going on in this country.
I mean this Weiner thing, I understand that the Democrats seek to destroy us with this kind of stuff, oftentimes have to make it up. This is a little tit-for-tat, but folks, this is just juvenile. Go out and ask any woman -- Snerdley, this may disappoint you, it may distress you, it may ruin you for the next couple of days, hours, or what have you -- but photos of this kind do not arouse women at all. This is juvenile stuff. Go talk to any woman, and she will tell you that this isn't exciting. Whatever the desired effect here was, it was the exact opposite that was achieved, and the jokes are too easy. You know, there's nothing to all of these jokes. But in the meantime, folks, the Weiner situation matters to me because what does it remind us of? I'll tell you what it reminds me of. It reminds me that these people who seek to rule over us -- when this Weiner thing first hit, I was not interested in it in any way, shape, manner, or form because this guy did not have my respect before this happened.
The guy is not helpful to the future of this country. He is not helpful in fixing the problems. This guy represents the problem, the ideas side of problems. This guy is a Democrat and is a liberal and he's trying to get Clarence Thomas forced off the Supreme Court on health care issues because of Clarence's wife and her jobs. Well, who the hell is he to be demanding this kind of stuff? If anybody needs to recuse themselves it's Elena Kagan who actually argued health care cases for this regime before the Supreme Court. So to me Anthony Weiner was a problem long before this, and he's not worth laughing at. This guy needs to be properly explained and understood by people as the ideas problem that he represents. Because this reminds us -- and I'll go ahead and say us, because I know after I finish with this you're going to agree with me -- reminds us that these people who seek to rule over us, who seek endless power over us, Weiner is part of this Democrat cabal that wants total authoritarian power over the people of this country.
They are bullies and yet what do they do? They pose as wise, intelligent people, smarter than everybody else, so special, like Geithner. We were told we had to put up with his cheating on his taxes 'cause he's the only guy in Washington that could have shepherded us through the TARP business. A guy who's never had a job in the real world, never had a job in the private sector, was the only guy capable of shepherding this country through this mess that was TARP and the financial crisis. But Weiner is just part of this crowd that we are told is better than us, more special than we are. We dare not even look at them in their presence, we don't have that right, they are so elevated above us. So wise, so intelligent, beyond the people that they seek to control. But really what are they? They're flesh and blood and they are flawed like everybody else. They are perhaps more deeply flawed than anybody else because they bring with them the baggage of hypocrisy. They're no better than everybody else. Weiner is no better than everybody else. Just because he says Clarence Thomas should recuse himself doesn't carry a dime's worth of weight with me.
In many cases not only are they not better than we are, they are worse people than we are. The idea that we should continue to allow people like this to dictate to us, to tell us how to live is simply ludicrous. To tell us what our health care ought to be, to tell us what our energy ought to be and where we ought to be able get it and what ought to be the cost. Who the hell are these people? This is what bugs me about Anthony Weiner long before this silly, juvenile photo shows up out there, and all the deserving but juvenile jokes that attach themselves to this guy. The idea that we should allow these people to dictate to us, to tell us how to live, sorry, folks, not my cup of tea. What this points out is we actually know very little about these rulers, about these people who claim to have all of our answers. We know very little about them, other than what they want us to know via their carefully shaped images and propaganda. But here we get to look behind the curtain, so to speak, at one of the loudest of these people. And this is what I take out of this.
Now, I mention the American Thinker and Krauthammer. There's a piece out there [by Tom Rowan] "Analyzing the Analyst." Krauthammer was on Fox the other day, I happened to see it. He said that Sarah Palin still doesn't cut it for him. She's got good instincts but she's just not properly schooled. And he said I don't mean schooled in the right places. She's just not learned. She's had two and a half years to school herself on matters of policy. She hasn't done it. She can't demonstrate it. She's just not properly schooled. And Tom Rowan, "Analyzing the Analyst" in the American Thinker, says why in the world do we sit here and bow down at the opinion of somebody that used to write speeches for Walter Mondale.
Now, Rowan's theory is that people's pasts matter. So here you have Dr. Krauthammer, who was a speechwriter for Mondale who obviously at a point in his life thought Ronald Reagan was a total idiot, you know, probably not schooled. So Rowan's theory is, analyzing the analysts, that Krauthammer sees Reagan in Palin. Wasn't particularly enamored of Reagan. George Will was not an early Reaganite, for example, became a good friend and associate later on. But this got me to thinking about this whole notion of who earns respect and why. And Mr. Rowan, the American Thinker, said, why is it that everybody stops what they're doing and when Krauthammer issues an opinion that's it? He got me to thinking, yeah, why is that, with anybody, not just Krauthammer. I don't mean to be focused on Krauthammer here; that was just the jumping-off point here for me in the piece by Rowan here at the American Thinker. Everybody wants this kind of respect, by the way, everybody seeks it, everybody would love to have it.
Now, Krauthammer in many ways has acquired this respect because in many of the venues he appears he's the only conservative. On the local Washington opinion show on Friday night, he's it. Not so much on the Fox roundtable, but he's close. They surround him with a number of libs. So he's unique in that sense. In the old days, Krauthammer used to say things that nobody else thought. He did have unique takes on things. And so the perception was that what you got from Krauthammer was the truth. This guy points out as recently as earlier this week Krauthammer was assuring us in no way would the Republicans hold firm on this debt limit business, that they would cave 'cause the debt limit's gotta go up anyway, the Republicans would realize it. Well, sorry, not true, the Republicans held firm, and the debt ceiling ain't gonna go up, and it looks like Democrats are gonna have to be the ones to cave here with spending cuts and a lot of Democrats joined the Republicans in that vote.
So it got me to thinking, pondering this thing about respect as long as I've been behind this microphone. And when it comes to Krauthammer, I don't think he's earned the respect simply because he's a truth-teller, it's because he always managed to position himself on these shows as the lone conservative, like George Will has done, people are drawn to that. And he has the ability to come up with points of view, sides of things, analysis that nobody else has come up with, and he earned the title intelligent, reasoned, smart, and this kind of thing. But when you look at the American political world today, in fact when you look at all of American culture, you can probably count on one hand the number of people who have universal respect who are untouchable. It isn't very many people. Which is not good, folks, ultimately it is not good. My grandfather used to have the kind of respect I'm talking about, universal admiration.
Now, granted there's always mythology associated with people's grand patriarchs in families. Such is the case with mine, too. In the case of my grandfather, however, when you say he never uttered a curse word, it's true. Never drank an adult beverage, true. All of these cliches about clean living with my grandfather were true, universally respected, loved and adored, very, very true. Everybody in his family was urged to emulate him, be just like him, true. Nobody listening to me who knows or knew my grandfather will disagree with me on any aspect of this. But I don't think it's possible anymore to have or earn that kind of respect, certainly not with national figures. Maybe somebody living in a small town about whom little is known outside of that town, and certainly where there is no intense media coverage of people.
But I just don't think it's possible anymore to earn universal respect. It's not a criticism, this is an observation. There's so much media that is exposing everybody's flaws. In the old days people who had universal respect had flaws, too. We just never knew. Now everybody's flaws are there. In fact, it's gotten so bad that many people's flaws are purely made up and manufactured. Because we have a political party who cannot win in the arena of ideas, and the only hope they have is to destroy the very character and reputations of their opponents, and that's what they do. They will lie, they will make up things that people like us have never said, do not believe. They will put it out there as though it is fact, and any evidence to the contrary is studiously, purposely ignored. So with so much media now constantly exposing everybody's flaws, combined with the left's mission to personally destroy everybody not in their club, what chance does anybody stand of having respect or earning universal respect?
Again to reiterate, I really didn't care about this Weiner business. Because I didn't need this Twitter news to know that I opposed this guy, and I opposed this guy in areas of substance, and I don't need some juvenile picture. I don't want to have to require or need some juvenile picture that he sends out on the Internet to get people to understand that I'm right about the guy. I'll take it, but I'm not crazy about it, and I don't want to have to sit here and intellectually examine this like has been going on in the media for the last two days, "Did he say it, did he not say it," Wolf Blitzer. "Would you know if these were your underpants?" We're talking about people who claim to be a cut above all the rest of us, smarter, brighter, better, totally qualified, capable to be our betters, our rulers. So it's unavoidable, this thing gets out there, you have to use it. The left, on the other hand, lives to expose this stuff about us, even make it up. We would rather defeat these guys in lasting and permanent ways, the arena of ideas. We get dragged into this cesspool on this stuff.
But my point here, folks, is that nothing and no one can ever really be sacred or respected today, because everybody is flawed, many people deeply so. There aren't any secrets anymore. So now virtue attaches itself to those least deserving of it. Virtue attaches itself to those who cleanse themselves of their demons, except conservatives who are not allowed to cleanse themselves, their rehab is not permitted. In the process we learn that very few people are worthy of any real respect, and I think this is dragging the country down as well. I really do. Nobody is worthy of any respect.
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RUSH: My point is -- and, by the way, welcome. It's the Rush Limbaugh program. Great to have you here. Telephone number, 800-282-2882. What other program can get away with not identifying itself for a half hour and still everybody knows what they're listening to? Ha-ha-ha-ha.
People still need heroes. We still need people to look up to, still need people that we strive to want to be like and emulate. When nothing is admired, what is there to strive for? And our culture is tearing down everything in a foolish attempt to make everybody and everything the same, make everybody equal. We're tearing everybody down, tearing them apart. (interruption) I'm not... No, no, no, I'm not excusing Weiner at all. Weiner is a classic illustration of the kind of thing I'm talking about. He's a guy that did not deserve being built up. Obama doesn't deserve being built up. Krauthammer said (this was on Meet the Press November 2008), "With him," Obama, "we get a president with a political intelligence of a Bill Clinton, harnessed to the steely discipline of a Vladimir Putin, and I say this admiringly. With these qualities, Obama will now bestride the political stage as largely as did Reagan."
Sorry, didn't happen.
It wasn't right then, and it isn't right now.
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