This is a rush transcript from "Glenn Beck," May 11, 2009. This copy may not be in its final form and may be updated.
GLENN BECK, HOST: So I'm a complete — I mean, you might have noticed this — I am complete and total rookie at this whole TV thing. And I went down to the White House Correspondents' Dinner Saturday I couldn't — I felt like I had to shower afterwards. I've got get clean. I just can't get clean.
Anyway, you know, it made me think over the weekend — gosh, you know, the president has made all kinds of promises. And they have come true, almost every single one of them — hope and change. Yes. Watch this:
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA: I don't think that engaging in constant partisan bickering solves our problems.
OBAMA: We're up against decades of bitter partisanship.
OBAMA: Let's resist the temptation to fall back on the same partisanship and pettiness and immaturity that has poisoned our politics for so long.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BECK: Yes.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
WANDA SYKES, COMEDIAN: I think maybe Rush Limbaugh was the 20th hijacker but he was so strung out on OxyContin he missed his flight.
SYKES: "I hope the country fails" — I hope his kidneys fail, how about that?
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BECK: I have to tell you, you know, there is one thing to say something on television or whatever — I mean, that's just what comedians do. I have to tell you, sitting in the room with the president of the United States — I mean, I didn't — I told you last week I would wear these shoes, you know, these ones — and I didn't. And the reason I didn't — I could blame it on my wife and my wife said, "You're not wearing those shoes."
• Video: Watch Beck's interview
The reason why I didn't is because he is the president of the United States. And there is some kind of decorum that happens.
The things that even he said and Wanda Sykes said might be funny in some scenarios — not that. It kind of sounded like bitter partisanship to me.
But there is one thing that is changing and that is global warming. We may see the end of global warming, you know. I mean, not global warming is not going to end, there's still going — but the phrase "global warming" is.
President Obama's Council on Environmental Quality is reportedly meeting with a marketing group today, a group that says phrases like "global warming" and "cap and trade" are just not effective. Change the language. Don't actually change anything. Just say you're going to change things. Those words are too politicized. They conjure up images of Al Gore.
Last week we talked about the Republican listening tour and I told you we are being focus grouped to death. Stop. Both parties, stop it. Just say what you mean and mean what you say. Well, now the L.A. Times reports the pollster, the Mellon Group, recently shared a survey with the White House that says people are interested in curbing global warming if it creates jobs.
Sound familiar?
Do you remember this from the election:
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
OBAMA: If I'm president, I will invest $15 billion a year in renewable sources of energy. We will create 5 million new clean energy jobs over the next decade —
(CHEERS AND APPLAUSE)
Jobs that pay well. Jobs that pay well and can't be outsourced. We're going to open up those closed factories, those factories that used to make steel — they are going to make wind turbines. Auto factories — they're going to make solar panels.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BECK: Solar panels that are poisoning people now in China and wind turbines — oh, my gosh — wind turbines sold by General Electric — weird.
Anyway, global warming is not the only change Washington — has become a war of words now. All this week, we are doing an Inconvenient Segment, talking about real solutions to some of the world's biggest problems from an inconvenient book, now available in paperback.
I have to tell you, political correctness could be the biggest problem this country is facing, because we are not talking to each other anymore and actually speaking frankly. And that's what needs to happen. For more answers on the real solution, get the book.
But for now, we have Andrew Breitbart. He is the publisher of Big Hollywood and a columnist with The Washington Times.
Andrew, I can't take the changing of the language anymore. This is craziness.
ANDREW BREITBART, COLUMNIST, THE WASHINGTON TIMES: Well, I'm so glad that you are noticing that this is the big issue of the Obama administration. Obama is the graduate of the George Lakoff School of Word Maneuvering — he's the professor from Berkeley.
And he is just like Frank Luntz, and God bless Frank Luntz. He's a friend of mine, but I think that the American people, at a time of tumult, of economic crisis, want straight language from people and the propaganda that comes from the administration and is pushed off by MSNBC, CNN, The New York Times before we even have a lexicon of what these words mean. They're just mind numbing.
BECK: OK. Here is the real problem as I see — it's causing us not to deal with actual issues. You want to talk about global warming? Great, let's talk about global warming. But now, they're not. Now, because we know that's bull crap — now we're going into creating new clean — not green — clean jobs, which has that nice fuzzy sound to it, but isn't the same issue. We're no longer even talking about the same issue. And there is another thing. Have you read "Animal Spirits" yet?
BREITBART: I'm reading it right now. Books on tape. Right in my ear.
BECK: Can you — I mean, we'll have the authors of "Animal Spirits" on the program later on this week. When you are listening to it or reading it, Andrew, are you saying, "Oh, my gosh. I see exactly what they're doing right now"?
BREITBART: Well, they can only get away with it if the media lets them get away with it. And that's the huge problem — is that at the same time that they're changing language and they're playing off of our fear, the mainstream media is letting them get along with it. And for a very brief period —
BECK: Go ahead. Go ahead. I don't mean to interrupt.
BREITBART: No. I mean, you just saw — you saw that. You played the segment with Wanda Sykes. Who dictated that Rush Limbaugh have a target on his head? But Rush Limbaugh — the first week of this administration, these people — when Obama says jump, the media says, "How high?"
And they have targeted the people who would question this language and say that we're enemies of the state. So while they're creating euphemisms to make our real enemies in the world — like terrorists
— seem like they're mollified, decent people, they're isolating ex-vets, Rush Limbaugh and elevating the language. It is an anti-euphemism. They're making —
BECK: How long does this last, Andrew? I mean, at some point, you run out of words. I mean, look, global warming is global warming. I mean, it could — a wheel is a wheel because we call it a wheel. You can call it a horn, but it eventually becomes a wheel.
So is a lie is a lie is a lie.
At what point do we go, "Wait a minute. This is — you've changed this word. It's the same meaning from like three different things. You just keep changing the word."
BECK: Well, thank you for what you are doing, because from the word "go," it has been political correctness. And I can't even talk about the stimulus and my problems with it, because the language is framed by people who have changed words.
BECK: Yes.
BREITBART: And the average person at a cocktail party doesn't even know what TARP is or knows what stimulus is versus taxation or investment being taxation. It will probably be six months and all of the spending out before people actually understand the issues that were just played out.
BECK: Yes. OK, Andrew, thank you so much. I appreciate it. We will talk again.
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