"You can't just listen to Rush Limbaugh and get things done"

No, it wasn't all he said....but the rest of what he said backs up those four words 'I hope he fails.'

And when I first heard him say, "I hope he fails." I thought. "uh-oh, you're in deep doodoo." But he went on to explain what he meant by that, to explain he meant he hoped the policies would fail and then it made sense to me.

But it's skewed now and many will hear just those four words, as that's all that will be reported.

I read the article that was linked three or four times ... partly because long unbroken paragraphs on a monitor make my eyes bleed, so I really wanted to be sure I got the gist of what he was saying.

My first question is, are we all talking about the same transcript? Or are there two different broadcasts under discussion here? The one I am referring to is dated Jan. 16.

After reading, I still can't see Rush actually making an argument for anything. He's repeating his chant of socialism over and over but not really advancing any alternative proposal.

I'm waiting to hear how "free enterprise" as practiced in this country ... especially by the financial industry and multi-national corporations will correct our economic problems.

For instance, take the housing mess. Conservatives have a point ... there is a problem with personal responsibility in this country. Many of the people who got into mortgages they couldn't afford after the interest adjusted were, indeed, heedless and ignorant of the implications of the mortgages they were signing and shouldn't have done so.

But how about the personal responsibility of the brokers who sold those mortgages, using a sales pitch that said values would only go up and you could refinance before then ... for a profit?

Or the speculators who took low cost houses and proceeded to "flip" them over and over ... one house in my neighborhood flipped four times in two years ... always at a profit and driving prices ever upward?

Or the lenders who assumed, along with everyone else, that real estate values would only go up ... and collected interest on those loans ... more profit?

Or the bank regulators, who no longer had the power to insist on sound lending practices, because government got out of the way of "private enterprise" ... didn't we learn anything from the savings and loan mess?

Or the financial industry wizards who found a way to earn yet more profit on those risky loans by selling off bundles of subprime loans ... playing musical chairs with the risk and turning a profit on every flip ... and collecting obscene amounts of money in salaries and bonuses for doing so?

Or those institutions who collected 350 billion in federal money and still refuse to rework mortgages in trouble or do any business lending at all? Where did that money go?

I submit that unprincipled free enterprise had a whole lot to do with the current collapse ... I have yet to see any acknowledgement of that or any suggestion as to how to deal with it if not through government involvement.

I hear that conservatives don't want to spend more or let the government take any more power. So what do you want to do instead?