The Right Word: The world turned upside down

Laura Ingraham declares war on social issues, Rush Limbaugh wants unemployment to go up and Michael Savage has to save the world. Laura Ingraham In the aftermath of the Planned Parenthood sting operation , Laura Ingraham warns conservatives that now is not the time take a back seat on social issues. ( Listen to clip ) "It's clearly going to be the ruination of the party if the party goes down this, again, kindlier, gentler, compassionate conservatism – 'yeah, I'm pro-life, but I don't want to talk about it,' 'yeah, I believe these things but, ugh, makes me uncomfortable.' Because it's kind of who we are, right? We try to stand up for the most defenceless and those who can't speak for themselves." What got Ingraham so upset was a rumour (which she is working on substantiating) that pro-life Indiana Governor Mitch Daniels once hosted a fundraiser for Planned Parenthood and recently called for a truce on social issues. I would say that any Republican who calls himself or herself pro-life should not be having a truce with Planned Parenthood. Because Planned Parenthood gets our taxpayer dollars: $300mn every year, $362m, I believe, every year. And we're going to declare a truce on social issues when Planned Parenthood clearly has engaged in these practices in their clinics, which I can't see how you can interpret it any other way other than turning a blind eye on the child sex trafficking trade?! Ingraham is referring, of course, to the sting operation orchestrated by the anti-abortion group Live Action, which sent men posing as sex traffickers into 12 Planned Parenthood clinics across the country, resulting in one Planned Parenthood worker getting fired for what Ingraham called dispensing "dispassionate advice". As a result, she believes that Planned Parenthood is not taking a hard enough line against sex traffickers. They [Planned Parenthood] weren't worried about the little girls who could be trafficked or abused or made pregnant by these freak and horrible criminal men! And we're having Planned Parenthood fundraisers!? Ingraham's concern for the "most defenceless" people in our society may well be genuine. Indeed, it is hard to imagine, as a woman, that any woman, even those with the most minimal capacity for empathy, would not be very afraid for the thousands of girls who are victims of sex trafficking or more general abuse, but how this tallies with a full-frontal assault on the very organisation that offers the most complete care package for these women (in addition to providing the average lady who just wants to have sex with some birth control), defies all logic. Ingraham does provide a clue as to what might be driving force behind this senseless war on safe sex and family planning, however. If we go down that road [of calling a truce on social issues] as a conservative movement, then we can pretty much kiss any hopes of retaking the senate and the White House goodbye. Because the reason the Republican party ever roared back in 1980 and stood as a bulwark against liberalism was because the Republican party embraced a more traditional conservative outlook on, of course, the economy – but also on moral issues. And divorcing one from the other is a fool's errand. The rich old white guys in the GOP must be thrilled with Ingraham's efforts to disempower her own sex by gratifying the wishes of some of theirs. Rush Limbaugh Limbaugh is concerned that a spike in retirement by baby boomers could lead to improved employment numbers that may help re-elect President Obama. ( Listen to clip ) "You got Bernanke going out there and everybody in the regime is saying, 'We're not gonna get back to employment where we were, 2014, 2015. Well, maybe 2016.' Well, what happens if there's huge retirement between now and 2012? Makes Obama look even better, way ahead of expectations on employment numbers." What has Limbaugh worried is a Bloomberg news report predicting that the unemployment rate may go down faster than expected as the baby boomers enter retirement. Worrying as the prospect of a reduction in joblessness is, Limbaugh is still hopeful that not all the vacated positions will be filled. Now, that's a whole new wrinkle on this that I hadn't even calculated. But if it's true and if there are jobs that could be filled, people are simply quitting … You'd have to say, "OK, why are they retiring?" Maybe not every job is fillable. Maybe the jobs are being eliminated and that's why they're retiring, who knows? Attrition. There's a lot of variables in this, too. But I wouldn't look for a rapid rise in the employment rate because of this. While Limbaugh is not opposed in principle to better jobs figures, it just doesn't seem fair to him that President Obama might benefit from a lower jobless rate or from unemployment statistics that his administration could so easily manipulate. So the unemployment rate could come down, as we were just speculating, Snerdley, resounding positively to Obama simply because the number of jobs serviceable is falling as well. No new jobs being created, they're just fewer jobs, period. So when the number of jobs in the universe is reduced or declines, then, of course, the percentage of people unemployed will also decline. Ergo the employment number will appear to be going up. Ergo a picture of a booming economy will thus present itself. Right, if we all quit our jobs, Obama's re-elected tomorrow – if we all just quit look at what happens to the unemployment rate. It'll just shrink. That's the theory. Hopefully, for Limbaugh's sake, the numbers won't lie and the economy will still be in tatters in time for the next election. Michael Savage Michael Savage is growing increasingly frustrated with the Obama administration's handling of pretty much everything and has come to the unhappy realisation that it falls to him, and him alone, to save America. ( Listen to clip ) "When I look at the sad state of our military leadership, then I look at the FBI, which was once a great institution. I felt protected in this country. I now feel hunted in this country! I feel that everything is upside down. It's Alice in Wonderland. It's a government that has turned on the patriots; a government that is protecting the barbarians !" It's difficult to pinpoint exactly who falls into the barbarian category, as Savage has many grievances on many fronts, but he does seem to believe that the American way of life is under threat from radical Islamists and that the White House is somehow involved. Do we have a sleeper in the White House? It doesn't matter whether we do or not. It doesn't matter whether he (Obama) is or he isn't. He may as well be a front man for them, the way he is behaving! Savage's suspicions about the Obama administration's allegiances are grounded in what he believes to be their mishandling of the Fort Hood massacre and of the Egyptian revolution. Anyway, he now accepts that they are simply not up to the task of protecting America and that he must step in. You know, night falls over Manhattan, night falls over San Francisco, night falls over all of us, and then life itself falls at the end of it. Where's it written on my birth certificate, I ask myself today? I woke up and said, "why, where is it written that I have to save western civilisation? Where is it written that I have to wake up every day and carry this world on my shoulders?" He goes on to lament that were he not so principled, he could be raking in the dough just doing a "two-dimensional radio show", telling everyone that Republicans are good and Democrats are no good and playing some rock'n'roll, because that's all the dumbed-down public want anyway. Maybe, we've all gotten dumber together under Obama. It's possible that Obama has lowered the native intelligence of the American people by about 15 points since he seized power and he took control of the media. Savage might be right about one thing: we would all be better-off if he stuck to rock'n'roll.