I happened to be listening today when Tea Party Activist and In-His-Face Obama critic Ryan Rhodes called in to the Rush Limbaugh Show. The dude was eloquent, passionate, and made an obvious impression on Rush:
RUSH: Somebody help me out here. Ladies and gentlemen, I’m drawing a blank. Who was it that said we need to go out there, argue with our neighbors, and get in their face? Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah, it was Obama, right? It was Obama. That was way back, September 18th, 2008. (imitating Obama) “You go out there and you get in their face. I need you to go out and talk to your friends and talk to your neighbors. I want you to talk to ’em whether they’re independent or whether they’re Republican. I want you to argue with ’em. I want you to get in their face.” Still, from here on in Obama’s gonna have to avoid all those pesky people who might try to ask him questions, like the Tea Party people. I don’t know, folks, it’s fascinating to watch all this.
We got Ryan Rhodes on the phone. Is he ready to go now? We got Mr. Tea Party in Iowa, Ryan Rhodes on the phone. Ryan, great to have you here on the EIB Network. You know, I was just going to observe that unlike whenever there were people that, quote, unquote, heckled Bush, CNN made a beeline to have them on their network to discuss it. Has CNN called you to come in and talk about your experience with President Obama?
CALLER: CNN has. I want to thank you for letting me on. This is unbelievable. I’ve always wanted to get on and I’ve never been able to get in. But, yeah, no, CNN and about every station’s pretty much contacted me.
RUSH: Are you gonna appear?
CALLER: Yeah, I mean, it’s time somebody started talking about the other side and letting Obama know that he’s not getting a free pass.
RUSH: Well, God bless you. You are Mr. Guts and Mr. Courage, and what you did yesterday, especially, Ryan, in the face of all this bogus news that the Tea Party was losing favor, you know, plummeting in the polls and so forth, what you did was gutsy and inspiring to a lot of people because we’ve all heard the staged comments that his supporters were telling him, “You hang in there, Mr. President, nobody’s faced tougher odds than you, a meaner bunch of opponents,” blah, blah, blah. How did you find him in your conversation? I haven’t heard it, but it sounded like he was flustered.
CALLER: It was actually somewhat cordial. I mean I’m sure it flustered him a little bit. I stood up and he didn’t — he obviously — I mean it’s hard to miss somebody standing there so I said I’m gonna ask this question anyway and I respectfully waited ’til the very end of the town hall, and then he didn’t want to answer it. His vice president’s gonna go out and say that, they’re gonna deny it, their whole party’s narrative is we’re terrorists, when he was the one hanging out with Bill Ayers, and, you know, the fact is the Secret Service didn’t even budge because they knew I wasn’t gonna do anything, they knew all I wanted to do was talk to the president and let him know that I did not appreciate what he was doing to our country.
RUSH: Well, you got the message across.
CALLER: Well, I hope so. It’s amazing the e-mails. I’ve had an awful lot of thank-you e-mails and thank-you requests, but I’ve also had some pretty visceral e-mails, if you will as well. It’s kind of funny.
RUSH: Oh, you’re gonna have —
CALLER: So, you know, and that happens when you stand up for what’s right and —
RUSH: Oh, it does.
CALLER: — I remember when Ronald Reagan said that when Bill Buckley got in there and was making waves he asked everybody else what they’re doing.
RUSH: Well, Obama didn’t call you a hostage taker or the enemy to your face, did he?
CALLER: No, no, no. He said that in fairness he was called, he’s been called a socialist, not born here, ruining our country and everything, but in fairness, he embraced the socialist title when TIME Magazine put it out and now that we’ve made it unpopular by standing up, now all of a sudden he thinks it’s dirty name-calling.
RUSH: Yeah, exactly right. Well, you know, you illustrated a lot of things just by showing up. How many people were at that event at the time you spoke up, you think?
CALLER: I want to say 500 plus. It was a ticketed event. You couldn’t get in without a ticket, and I kind of I guess snuck through those cracks there, but I requested a ticket to go and to be a part of this, and, you know, it’s a town hall. It’s time he heard from everybody. I was at the state fair, I was at the straw poll, you know, they sent people to heckle our people. I mean somebody virtually jumped Michele Bachmann and that’s why she had to be rushed out with security at the state fair, and, you know, that’s why I said, you know, I’m gonna be respectful but I’m gonna go out there and let him know this is not right to do this. This is not right for you to call us this and then tell us we’re unreasonable. He said, “I’m Mr. Reasonable, I’m accused of being Mr. Reasonable,” and I did say, “I will never accuse the president of that.”
RUSH: Ryan, what do you do for a living?CALLER: I was one of the car dealerships that got shut down by Obama in 2009. I was part of one of those, and then I went to work radio and I’m talking to people who were telling me, business owners who say if cap and trade gets passed I’m gonna have to fire my employees, otherwise I’m not gonna be able to pay these standards. I used to actually sell radio, even for your program as well, and after that I just decided it was time for me to get out and I do some consulting, I’m kind of between things ’cause we just finished a Tea Party bus tour around Iowa to train caucus-goers for a month on a few things as well as mention the gold standard which is the fact of getting our country back to sound money. So right I’m in the middle of figuring out what my next step is but I know the fact is somebody’s gotta be standing up to these people because there are no more free passes.
RUSH: Ryan, you are in the middle of your next step.
There’s much more and it’s pretty fascinating. And to think the guy’s only 29. Amazing.
He’s got a political future.
