RUSH IN A HURRY -- The Media Needs to Take the Skirt Off Obama

Overprotective Media Defends Obama From Olympic Criticism
Media hyperventilation over Obama's Olympic disaster.
October 5, 2009

AUDIO: The Children Sing Song of Tribute: Rush Hudson Limbaugh. Mmm, Mmm, Mmm!

BEGIN TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: The media is still stunned by the audacity of NOPE in Copenhagen with the Obamas and The Oprah rejected by the world community for the Olympics in Chicago. A lot of things went wrong with that presentation. Obama forgot to bring the Greek columns to go along with his and his wife's speeches. Forgot to add the reverb in there to his speech so it didn't sound godlike like all of his other important speeches, so without the reverb and without the Greek columns to distract, the IOC had to actually listen to the words and all they heard was a bunch of self-centered narcissism, narcissistic ramblings: I, me, my father, my kids. There's Michelle (My Belle) saying I sat on my daddy's lap watching Carl Lewis win his gold medal. She was 20 years old when Carl Lewis won his gold medal. If she was sitting on her daddy's lap, her daddy was infirm by that point. That's like Hillary saying that she was named after Sir Edmund Hillary when Edmund Hillary hadn't climbed the mountain before Hillary was born. It was not possible. And so here's Michelle (My Belle) saying she was sitting on her daddy's lap at age 20, and the Olympic committee no doubt -- (laughing) I mean, this is a bunch of sophomores here making this speech.

Everything I predicted about this has come true, ladies and gentlemen. I did a bunch of media tweaks on Friday and they're all upset, and you know what they're all upset about? Barack Hussein Obama, me, me, me, Barack Hussein Obama, mmm, mmm, mmm, they are just beside themselves. They're calling this hate speech in the media. Here, let's give you an example of this. This is Morning Joe, Joe Scarborough today, and he had on the BBC America correspondent Katty Kay about the discussion of politics, civility and me. And Scarborough, "It always seems that one side feels the need to delegitimize the other side. This cannot be helpful for our political process."

KAY: I don't think it is. After, you know, listening to that Rush Limbaugh clip again and I don't think I want to hear it, really, for a fourth or fifth time, is that it's not Barack Obama, it's Barack Hussein Obama, Barack Hussein Obama. There's something insidious going on there, too, in the repetition of his middle name.

RUSH: For crying out loud, this is a BBC reporter. She does not know, she does not know about this.

SCHOOLKIDS: He said that all must lend a hand to make this country strong again. Mmm, mmm, mmm, Barack Hussein Obama. He said we must be fair today, equal work means equal pay. Mmm, mmm, mmm, Barack Hussein Obama. He said we all must take a stand --

RUSH: All right, that's enough. A bunch of little kids out there being indoctrinated and propagandized into singing songs to dear leader and this BBC America person doesn't even understand that we're just having a little fun with all of this. I mean -- (laughing) -- here, they don't like that? See if they'll like this.

SCHOOLKIDS PARODY: Rush Hudson Limbaugh. Mmm, mmm, mmm. Rush Hudson Limbaugh. Mmm, mmm, mmm. (Battle Hymn of the Republic tune) My ears have heard Rush Limbaugh on my parents' radio. He tells me that the left is wrong and stuff I need to know. We turn it off when he is done 'cause there is no other show. Rush, keep broadcasting on. Glory, glory hallelujah. Glory, Clinton couldn't fool ya. Barack Obama can't ignore ya. Rush, keep broadcasting on. In 1951 he was born in Missouri. Now he's on the radio conducting EIB. On the air to set us free from sea to shining see, he keeps broadcasting on. Glory, glory hallelujah. Glory, Clinton couldn't fool ya. Barack Obama can't ignore ya. Rush, keep broadcasting on. Rush keep broadcasting on!

RUSH: Now, I wonder what they'll say about that. (laughing) More fun than a human being should be allowed to have. No sense of humor. I want to bring a football analogy into this. I was in Pittsburgh yesterday. I was in Pittsburgh for the Steelers-Chargers last night and it was a night game so we're in the hotel all day long and we're watching football, and I'm watching the Patriots and the Ravens game which is the early game at one o'clock, and the officiating in that game was very, very odd. I know Tom Brady is coming back from reconstructive knee surgery and so forth, but the penalties that they were calling against the Ravens defense for barely touching Brady got everybody all worked up. Ray Lewis, who is the great middle linebacker of the Baltimore Ravens said, "Without totally going off the wall here, it’s embarrassing to the game. You can’t do that. Brady’s good enough to make a play. Let him make his own play. You can’t end the play like that, and then throw the flag. No, man. The embarrassing part is when he understands that, and he walks up to one of us and says, 'Oh, that was a cheap one.' That’s not football. And that’s the embarrassing part about it. Two great teams going at it, like them go at it. But you can’t stop drives like that, you can’t throw flags and say, 'Oh, you touched the quarterback.' Put flags on them. Put a red buzzer on them, so if we touch them, they’re down."

Rodney Harrison last night joking, but he was taken seriously -- nobody has a sense of humor anymore -- Rodney Harrison last night on NBC for their pregame show in the Steelers-Chargers said, "Hey, Tom, you gotta take off the skirt, Tom, and put on a pair of slacks." And that goes back to Terry Bradshaw and Jack Lambert. Jack Lambert, back in the old days of the Steelers, the defensive people have always been concerned about how they protect the quarterback in the NFL because they are the franchise. And during a particular period in the NFL when the quarterbacks were overly protected by the refs, Jack Lambert said, "Might as well put skirts on them." So Rodney Harris said, "Hey, come on, Tom Brady, put on some slacks, take off the skirt." He was joking, but everybody took him seriously. Now, this is related to Barbara Boxer because Ray Lewis -- I want to hear a liberal agree with Ray Lewis that overprotection of the quarterback by officials is hurting the game because the insane protection of Barack Obama, this country's rookie, undrafted quarterback who played five minutes of one game has hurt the country.

It's time to take the skirt off Obama and time to put a pair of slacks on him. Take the skirts off, media. This is embarrassing. Take off the red flag. Take off the buzzer. You guys are going out of your way to protect Obama from any sort of natural reporting that you would do. There was no vetting of who this guy is and now there's no reporting at all, there's simply repeating. And you're making the enemies of the country out to be people who have zip, zero, nada power. Once again we're back to this: We play the talk radio card and the race card at the same time, and that is the old same page of the playbook, whenever things are going bad for the Democrats and their president, it's always time to blame talk radio and specifically blame El Rushbo. Here, let's grab the next sound bite in order. It's number 13. This is Joe Lockhart, again this morning on MSNBC: "How do we get back to the path of political conversations that even have the remotest air of wanting to solve any problem this country has?"

LOCKHART: I would say the first thing you do is you start ignoring people like Rush Limbaugh. I mean there -- there are fringe people who speak loudly and get ratings and are entertaining that at best are irrelevant to our politics, at worst are poisoning our politics and the more we pay attention to them, the more we --

RUSH: Wait a second, stop the tape you can't have it both ways, you can't say nobody listens to me and then say that I'm poisoning politics and you can't say stop listening to Limbaugh because nobody's listening to him because he's poisoning politics. These guys are just all over the board, and it's the same thing, day in and day out. Their problem is they've got a skirt on Barack Obama. Barack Obama is not allowed to be criticized, he's not allowed to be hit, even when he and his wife screw up royally in front of the world.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: Chicago Tribune yesterday: "Obama was Told a Trip to Olympics Meeting May Clinch Chicago Win -- 'The intelligence that we had from the US Olympic Committee and Chicago bid team was that it was very close and therefore well worth our efforts,' said Valerie Jarrett," the well-known Chicago slumlord and "a senior White House advisor. 'The message was that ... a personal appeal from the president would make a huge difference.'" Ho, folks! This is a guy that's going to talk Iran out of building nukes. So somebody at the IOC says, "You get Obama over here and it might put you over the top." Now, it is, if this is true, that somebody in the IOC knew exactly how to play to Obama's ego for the express purpose of embarrassing him.

I think Obama needs to take off the skirt, put on a pair of pants like real guys do and the media needs to start treating him like a quarterback that doesn't get kid-glove treatment. All weekend, all weekend long the word about what happened was "failure." Excusing failure, ignoring failure, blaming failure, enjoying failure, pretending it's too mean to enjoy failure -- and, remember, now, if this had happened to George W. Bush the glee would still be going on with these people in the media! Obama and Michelle (My Belle) made terrible presentations to the IOC. I watched these speeches. My junior high drama teacher and my speech teacher from my first year in college would have flunked me and everybody else for turning in those self-centered, self-aggrandizing junior high speeches.

If you look at these speeches and read them it makes perfect sense they got booted in round one. They flunked. They failed. Michelle (My Belle) was especially patronizing. Slow talking. She faked a crying voice. Lying about the time she spent with her father sitting on his lap -- when she's 20 years old! -- watching Olympics telecasts and Carl Lewis winning medals; whining about the very special poverty and racism, discrimination, trying to guilt the IOC into being charitable to the downtrodden Americans who have suffered so much for so long until Obama got to the White House. I mean, it was embarrassing. It was truly embarrassing. You don't even have to listen, just read these speeches. And Michelle's was all, before we got to the President. It's all about Bam's speech. Here's a couple quotes from what Obama said:

"Nearly one year ago, on a clear November night, people from every corner of the world gathered in the city of Chicago or in front of their televisions to watch the results of the US Presidential election. Their interest wasn't about me as an individual." Your interest is only about you! What does that have to do with the Olympic bid that people gathered around the world to watch the election returns? If I had been sitting there in that committee no amount of self-control could have kept me from rolling my eyes all the way to heaven except they don't believe in heaven at the IOC! Somehow he's president of the whole world and that justifies Chicago getting the Olympics. He's bigger than himself as an individual. "Rather, it was rooted in the belief that America's experiment in democracy still speaks to a set of universal aspirations and ideals."

Did he really try to interject the notion of American exceptionalism? If he did, it wasn't unbelievable. Obviously the IOC didn't fall for it. He said, "In the beginning of this new century the nation that has been shaped by people from around the world wants a chance to inspire it one more time." Well, wait a minute. Wait! I thought the world was inspired by Obama's election. I thought the world was in awe. I thought the world was in stunned awe and I thought that the world was bowing down and begging Obama to lead us all from bondage as he had to somehow lead himself from the bondage of his own existence. "And so I urge you to choose Chicago. I urge you to choose America -- and if we do, we walk this path together then I promise you this, the city of Chicago and the US will make the world proud."

Proud of what? A city awash in corruption with the blood of gangs killing each other, proud of a country that Obama has done nothing but apologize for since inaugurated? The only thing missing during Obama's speech to the IOC was somebody on the committee yelling, "You lie!" Oh, man, do you realize what I would have paid to see that happen? Somebody on the IOC committee, "You lie!" "House liberals have floated a bill to bar a surge of troops for Afghanistan." So the Democrats in the House are preparing to vote against victory once again. It's becoming a little clearer now, folks.

END TRANSCRIPT

Read the Background Material...

• NewsBusters: Chicago Sun-Times Blames Olympics Loss On...Bush! • American Thinker: But it Was Only the Olympics? • Heritage Foundation: Can You Blame Obama for Olympic Loss? • Sweetness & Light: Olympic Delegate: Ban Heads Of State

See, I Told You So! Times Four
Media tweaks from Friday's show work as intended.
October 5, 2009

BEGIN TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: All right, See, I Told You So time. I predicted last Friday during one of the most fun three-hour radio shows we've had since January, that the media and the liberals would squeal that I celebrated the Obama loss in the pitching of Chicago for the Olympics. This is what I said last Friday.

RUSH ARCHIVE: Look for the headline later today: "Republicans Joyful America Loses Olympics, Limbaugh Ecstatic."

RUSH: Sure enough, the State-Controlled Media ran with that line.

JOHN BERMAN: About the only place you could find more unbridled glee than Brazil was with Rush Limbaugh.

JULIAN EPSTEIN: Rush Limbaugh and others, cheering about the fact that the United States has lost.

JOAN WALSH: We certainly heard Rush kvelling (sic) over it.

HOWIE KURTZ: Limbaugh did say that this was the worst day of the Obama presidency.

ALEX WITT: What about what Rush Limbaugh did calling yesterday the worst day of Obama's presidency?

DAVID SHUSTER: There is a political benefit to them saying President Obama has been rejected on the world stage, as Rush Limbaugh did today.

MIKE PAPANTONIO: We've lost 400,000 jobs in a conservative projection, and Rush Limbaugh says that is a victory.

PETER MIRAJANIAN: Folks like Rush Limbaugh take glee out of the fact that we didn't get this.

KAREN FINNEY: Rush Limbaugh was jubilant.

RUSH: Do I know these people or do I know these people? You know, these people -- one thing I know, they have no sense of humor. They're utterly predictable. They listen to me predict what they're going to do and they still do it. Rather than say something just the opposite it make me look wrong they make me look like a wizard each and every day. Here's the second See, I Told You So. I predicted this last Friday.

RUSH ARCHIVE: They'll blame Bush for residual hatred of America even though he's not here.

RUSH: Jan Schakowsky Friday night: "What about the Republicans actually campaigning against the US and down talking Chicago? How do you feel about that?"

SCHAKOWSKY: How dare Rush Limbaugh! How dare he say that this president goes around talking about how bad our country is? He has final been able to establish us as real participants in the world community, and if anything would have stopped us from getting it, it's the last eight years.

RUSH: Bingo! Bull's-eye! (interruption) She does sound like Lorraine X. She's totally insane. She doesn't know how Obama's run around ripping the country to shreds, apologizing for it? Here is Roland Burris, Illinois Democrat Senator. He had this to say.

BURRIS: Chicago now is a victim of all of that negativism that came out of that bad image that was created.

RUSH: So they're blaming Bush. I predicted it. Now, something you need to know, ladies and gentlemen, about Bush. Chicago became a finalist for the Olympics, the 2016 Olympics on June the 4th of last year, while Bush was in the Oval Office. Hillary Clinton conceded the presidential race to "Barack Hussein Obama. Mmm, mmm, mmm," on June 7th. Is that when all of the anti-American sentiment really started, when Hillary dropped out? Because Bush was still in the White House. Another for-what-it's-worth: All these people conveniently blaming it on Bush all forget that Chicago was named by the IOC as one of the four finalists on June 4th, 2008 within while Bush was still president. And now, my friends, it's time for the third See, I Told You So. I ended up saying this on Friday.

RUSH ARCHIVE: [T]hey will come out and they'll say, "You know what? Obama probably really didn't want the Olympics. He wanted it to go to a city that had never had the Olympics before and so he tailored his presentation to see to it." (snip) I'm just telling you. It sounds ridiculous to you. You think I'm off my rocker here, but I'm telling you: Nobody knows the media like I know the media. Nobody knows leftists like I know them. They've got to save this guy's bacon, folks! This is a disaster! Do you understand what a disaster this is? This is a worldwide how humiliation! "Barack Hussein Obama! Mmm, mmm, mmm," and Michelle (My Belle) Obama, "Mmm, mmm, mmm," put it all on the line, and they got bitch slapped, humiliated in front of the world. There's going to be somebody that's got to cover the bases on this. Somebody has got to come up with a way that this can be explained that Obama maintains his brilliance, his uniqueness, that he is a step ahead of all of us. Mark my words.

RUSH: Sure enough, Friday night, ABC News Nightline, we're talking here with John Berman and his report about what all happened.

BERMAN: There is of course another way to look at this. Maybe despite the tears, maybe, just maybe, Chicago is better off. Just ask Montreal. That city just finished paying off debt from the 1976 games. Ask Athens. The Greeks budgeted $1.6 billion before the 2004 games and ended up spending $16 billion. London hasn't even had the 2012 games yet but they've already blown their budget plans.

RUSH: And what's the lesson here? It's that government bureaucracies don't know how to spend money properly. They're all going to go in debt. But you see maybe now it's better off. Here's a fourth See, I Told You So. This is what I said last Friday.

RUSH ARCHIVE: Before it's all said and done, they're going to blame me for spreading the vibe worldwide that I wanted Obama to fail. Before it's all said and done, that would happen. "Limbaugh wanted Obama to fail! He started that vibe! He spread it all over the world."

RUSH: MSNBC Friday night.

MSNBC HOST: Where Rush goes the Republican Party follows. What the Republicans did I think rivals Jane Fonda sitting on a gun in North Vietnam. This is not a failure of President Obama! This is a failure of the Republican Party, the right wing talkers in this country that openly -- openly! -- campaigned against the Olympics by denigrating our president again. It's their stated goal to see Barack Obama fail.

RUSH: So... (laughing) So four-for-four. Four See I Told You So's right out in the open. You know, you don't need a special code to listen to this program. You don't need a special radio. Anybody can listen to this program, and millions do. You would think these clowns would actually try that themselves. That whole show Friday was a giant, 100% media tweak (and, of course, Obama tweak) and here they come. I mean, they're like sheep. I have these people wrapped around my little finger. Ladies and gentlemen, I hope that these people all remember the policy that came out of the White House during those tea parties and the town meetings. "They hit us; we hit 'em back twice as hard." Well, that's what we do here on the EIB Network: We hit back twice as hard.

END TRANSCRIPT

"Barack Hussein Obama. Mmm, Mmm, Mmm" Defined for Katty Kay
An outraged BBC reporter doesn't get the joke.
We help.
October 5, 2009

BEGIN TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: In case you missed the opening hour, ladies and gentlemen, this is too good. I must repeat it. As you know, last Friday on the heels of our gigantic flop of a failure to get the Olympics in Chicago, the failure authored by Michelle Obama and Barack Hussein Obama, I went on the radio Friday and explained my thoughts. I did say I was gleeful. I do want the president's policies to fail. I stand behind that every bit as much as I did when I first ever said it. I do not want America to fail. It's the exact opposite. I want America to triumph and America cannot triumph if Obama's policies succeed. It just can't happen. And so I had a little fun out there. Barack Hussein Obama, mmm, mmm, mmm. Well, this did not sit well, as I predicted. Four amazing See, I Told You So's on Friday. That whole show was a Media Tweak of the Day, and I know these people and they bought it hook, line, and sinker, four See, I Told You So's, four predictions came true.

There was this conversation on Joe Scarborough's show on PMSNBC today with the British correspondent, the Washington correspondent of the BBC America network. Her name is Katty Kay. And Scarborough said, "It's always seemed that one side feels the need to delegitimize the other side. This cannot be helpful for our political process."

RUSH: Just unbelievable. This is a member in good standing of the State-Controlled Media and she thinks I'm out there, "Barack Hussein Obama, mmm, hmm, hmm." She does not realize that a bunch of school kids in New Jersey and across the country are being forced to learn songs and poems in praise of the dear leader such as...

RUSH: All right, that's enough, that's enough. Now, I must acknowledge that Katty Kay certainly does not watch Fox News, which is the only place the video aired. We aired the audio here, but she's clueless. She has no idea of the story, zip, zero, nada. Katty Kay, BBC America, has no idea that schoolchildren across America are being propagandized and indoctrinated to support personally the dear leader, Barack Hussein Obama. So when I mock this and have fun with it, she thinks I am being derisive of insidious, insidious, insidious, I don't want to hear Limbaugh again, I heard it four or five times, I don't want to hear it again. Hey, Katty, try this.

RUSH: RUSH: The official climatologist of the Rush Limbaugh show, Dr. Roy Spencer, University of Alabama Huntsville, said, "I didn't know that was your middle name. I couldn't understand it." Hudson is the middle name. "Rush Hudson Limbaugh. Mmm, Mmm, mmm." Rush Hudson... Here. We have it rolled off. Now that you know the middle name within here, hear it alone in its magnificence by itself.

SCHOOLKIDS: Rush Hudson Limbaugh. Mmm, Mmm, mmm. Rush Hudson Limbaugh. Mmm, Mmm, mmm.

RUSH: And of course we dedicate the previous segment to Katty Kay of the BBC America. I wonder if she will find the use of my middle name to also be "insidious."

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: Now, to the Bay Area. Jan, great that you called. I'm glad you waited. Welcome to the EIB Network.

CALLER: Hi, Rush. I'm a homeschooling mom of four girls, 16 to nine, and I want you to know that they get daily education from you --

RUSH: Well!

CALLER: -- as we sit at our kitchen table, and they want to do some serious Rush worship live.

CHILDREN: Mmm, mmm, mmm! We love Rush Hudson Limbaugh! Mmm, mmm, mmm!

CALLER: How do you like that?

RUSH: I think that is just great. It warms my heart. I mean, that is just as cute as it can be. Rush worship. Did you hear that, Katty Kay at BBC America?

CALLER: (laughs)

RUSH: Rush worship here on the EIB Network. Oh, that was fabulous, Jan.

CALLER: Okay. And, Rush, my nine-year-old has a very profound question for you before I get to my point.

RUSH: Oh, these are always fun.

LITTLE GIRL: Was it fun to run down Algore on the Jay Leno Show?

RUSH: Uhhh. (laughing) Yes, it was. "Was it fun to run down Algore on the Jay Leno show?" Yes. I did it twice. It was fun. I gladly sacrificed my attempt at the record, the speed record on the track, once I thought and saw the opportunity to back up and run down Algore again. Yes, it was a lot of fun. I'm glad that you noticed it.

LITTLE GIRL: (giggles) Here's mom.

CALLER: Hi, Rush.

RUSH: Hi.

CALLER: Thanks for indulging us.

RUSH: I'm happy to be part of the class this morning.

CALLER: Hey, man, you are great -- and my girls, they can go out and they can talk to anybody on any issue and be so articulate in large part thanks to you and hopefully a little help from mom, so... Anyways, I was calling about the California economy, but you've been talking so much about the failed Olympic bid of Obama, I just wanted to make one point. That just gave me such renewed hope that the citizens of the global world slapped the would-be president of the world down just a little. That, you know, the dynamic duo isn't so dynamic now, and I'm thinking that if we can just survive the next three years.

RUSH: You know something, there's a piece also in the American Thinker today that I glossed over, haven't shared it, detail-wise, but the opinion of the guy -- I can't remember who wrote it; it's at the bottom of the stack now -- said that the Olympic slap or snub was not just about the Olympics. I mean, there are worldwide implications. This is the point that I tried to make on Friday. This was a moronic thing to do. And now notice the blame. The blame on Friday from the State-Controlled Media was on Mayor Daley. "Mayor Daley made him do it! Obama knew better but Mayor Daley leaned on him, and it's going to be a long time before Obama's granting any favors to anybody in Chicago." That's what F. Chuck Todd said. Today, we learn that Valerie Jarrett, the Chicago slumlord who was hoping to have the slums bought by the IOC once Chicago got the games, was saying that they had bad intel!

She said that somebody in the committee, somebody over there said, "If Obama came over and delivered a personal pitch it would push the bid over the top." Now, folks, if that's true, that is another stupid thing to admit. It means they got tricked and very easily over something that on the world stage is really not all that significant. This is the point. It was imbecilic and moronic to go over there and even run this risk because presidents do not gladly, purposefully give up this aura of invincibility that they automatically have by being elected, and poof! As Lanny Davis says, "Poof!" It's gone. Now, they can act like they don't care about it and it's not that big a deal and so forth, but it can't be denied that this was not something in any way helpful. And all these attempts to covering it up, "Well, it's just as well! Look at all the corruption that comes to the Olympics. Look at all the debt that comes in the Olympics. It's just as well. It would be such a distraction for Obama. It's probably a good thing it didn't happen." The corruption the IOC would bring? The IOC may know corruption, but Chicago wrote the book.

END TRANSCRIPT

Read the Background Material...

• FOXNews: Review Ordered of Video Showing Students Singing Praises of President Obama

A Second Stimulus? Let's Do Mine
Yours already failed, Mr. President.
Give this one a try.
October 5, 2009

Rush's WSJ Op-Ed: My Bipartisan Stimulus

BEGIN TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: All right, there's a headline here in The Politico. this is from yesterday: "'Skepticism About Second Stimulus.' -- A day after President Barack Obama acknowledged he was exploring 'additional options to promote job creation,' Washington opinion leaders and policy makers on Sunday cautioned against a new stimulus package, urging more targeted steps to ease mounting unemployment." Ladies and gentlemen, this is unbelievable to listen to. I don't know if you heard the Bamster, the weekend radio address and YouTube address that no one listens to, Obama said that his health care plans would help to solve our unemployment problem because it would make small business startups more affordable. Well, how is that? The only way that can be is if small businesses don't have to provide health care for anybody and that means there's gotta be a public option which Obama is out there denying that there's going to be.

I don't know what planet this man thinks he's running these days. Did he learn nothing at Harvard about business, or did they teach him what he knows at Harvard about business? I watch all this, second stimulus now, "Former Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan and Sens. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) , John Cornyn (R-Texas), Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) and Jon Kyl (R-Ariz.) in appearances on Sunday shows all rejected or brushed aside suggestions of another stimulus." Another stimulus? We haven't one stimulus. There hasn't been a stimulus. We have a reelect Democrats in 2010 bill that's being called stimulus but it's a Porkulus bill. There aren't any shovel-ready jobs being worked on, nothing, it was nothing it was advertised to be and they're talking about a second one? Ladies and gentlemen, Obama makes a universal promise. I have figured this out, and here it is. One promise fits all, you fill in the blank, will create jobs. Now he's saying it's Obamacare that will create jobs, small business jobs, specifically, passing his health care, which will not be implemented 'til 2013, by the way.

So we wait 'til 2013 to create small business jobs on the basis that we'll have smaller startup costs because we won't have to pay for health care because, why? 'Cause there's going to be a public option. But before it was Obamacare will create jobs, it was cap and tax will create jobs, it was cap and trade, all these brand-new green jobs, new technology green jobs. There aren't any out there. And before that it was the Porkulus bill that was going to create jobs. All right, show me the jobs. We've had nine months of two job stimulus bills, and now health care will stimulate jobs, starting in 2013. Show me the jobs. Reminder here, folks. Obama inherited a mess. He loves to tell us this. Well, so did all presidents. Ronald Reagan inherited the mess that Jimmy Carter gave him. George W. Bush inherited a bunch of Clinton messes. The dot-coms collapsed, Al-Qaeda launched its attack on 9/11, 2001, and in four years we hope the next president will inherit Obama's messes. It's breathtaking to watch.

Do you know what it's time for? They're talking about a second stimulus. I want to go back to last January. The Wall Street Journal asked me if I would submit my own stimulus plan in the form of an op-ed, which I did. I think it would be wise to recall it now, because if we're going to do a second stimulus, maybe we could do mine. My original plan was, "Okay, you're going to spend a trillion dollars on stimulus." That was the ballpark number. I said, "Let's try something genuinely bipartisan, Mr. President. You got, what, 53% of the vote, and my guys got 47%, roughly, 46%, so let's do this. You get $530 billion of the stimulus to spend however you want, and I get $470 billion," whatever the electoral returns were, the exact numbers escape me for the moment, and I said, "Let's compare 'em side by side. You spend your $530 billion doing whatever you're going to do with it, and I'll do tax cuts, I will stimulate growth, I will suspend capital gains for a couple years and I will really cut business taxes. Let's see which one actually stimulates economic growth." So I propose that again today.

If we're talking about a second stimulus, let it be the Limbaugh stimulus plan as published in the Wall Street Journal in January. I mean, what do we have to lose now? A second stimulus? The first stimulus, by the way, again I say, is working exactly as they had it planned. It's creating no new jobs, it's creating more chaos, it's creating more dependents. There is no indication of any job growth any time soon. Even the administration on Friday said we hope the next three to four months maybe we'll be showing a net gain in jobs. But Obama has the audacity to say that he's more concerned about that than anything? He's out there, he's talking to his advisors every day 'til jobs are created. The man doesn't know how to create jobs. He knows how to agitate people, he knows how to aggravate and he knows how to organize but he doesn't believe in a private sector creating jobs by virtue of private sector growth because he doesn't believe in private sector growth. He's shrinking it; he is depleting capital from the private sector by design and on purpose, for the express purpose of growing the public sector.

Now, this is the UK Guardian, of all places, a story from yesterday: "Will California Become America's First Failed State?" I don't know if you remember, last week we also had the news that California, somebody out there proposed eliminating business taxes and lowering taxes on the rich as a last-gasp effort to get the state growing again. Now, they always, in the direst of circumstances, every time liberalism fails, which is every time it's tried, at some point you reach a catastrophe. You get to the tipping point of utter and total disaster, and then they always revert to Reaganism. They always revert to conservatism 'cause it works. It's such a myth that this is about creating jobs and a new economy which will never have down cycles again. The only reason it will never have down cycles again because it will never have an up cycle. You can't have a down cycle without an up cycle. If Obama contains and maintains control over this economy there's never going to be growth and so we can't ever have a down cycle again, he's right about that, because you can't have a down cycle unless you've had an up cycle first.

"California may be the eighth largest economy in the world, but its state staff are being paid in IOUs, unemployment is at its highest in 70 years, and teachers are on hunger strike. So what has gone so catastrophically wrong?" Answer: liberalism! Democrat Party. Who has run that state? "Patients without medical insurance wait for treatment in the Forum, a music arena in Inglewood, Los Angeles. The 1,500 free places were filled by 4am. California has a special place in the American psyche. It is the Golden State: a playground of the rich and famous with perfect weather. It symbolises a lifestyle of sunshine, swimming pools and the Hollywood dream factory," along with the occasional forest fire. "But the state that was once held up as the epitome of the boundless opportunities of America has collapsed. From its politics to its economy to its environment and way of life." And of course what this story doesn't mention but it has to be said, one of the primary reasons California is failing is the conservative right-wing talk shows in that state. We all know this.

Right-wing talk shows, local right-wing talk shows in California single-handedly have brought about the disaster that is California. Just like every inside-the-Beltway commentator, be they Republican or Democrat, wants to blame Obama's problems on me and my compadres in talk radio nationally. Well, then, I guess we have to follow suit and say all those conservative talkers in California have single-handedly brought down the state of California. Yes. And, of course, all the racist talk show hosts in California, they, too, have helped bring about this economic collapse. That's what they want everybody to believe. "At the start of summer the state government was so deeply in debt that it began to issue IOUs instead of wages. Its unemployment rate has soared to more than 12%, the highest figure in 70 years. Desperate to pay off a crippling budget deficit, California is slashing spending in education and healthcare, laying off vast numbers of workers and forcing others to take unpaid leave. In a state made up of sprawling suburbs the collapse of the housing bubble has impoverished millions and kicked tens of thousands of families out of their homes. Its political system is locked in paralysis and the two-term rule of former movie star Arnold Schwarzenegger is seen as a disaster."

Why? Because he campaigned as a conservative, he tried to govern as one, gave up on it and became a total wuss liberal pantywaist in order to get along with the other people that run the state, and, voila, we have California as it is and Schwarzenegger has the indignity of it being reported here that his approval ratings have sunk to levels that would make George W. Bush blush. "California is on the verge of becoming the first failed state in America." I wonder if Obama and his gang want to own and run California. Is California to something to fail? Maybe bail it out? A very teachable moment here. If we collectively as a country don't look at this and see a lesson on how not to do things, unlike this British writer, if you read the whole -- it's a very long story, I'm not going to read the whole thing to you. We don't look at this as another chance for the government to fix and take over and control us and keep us blissfully ignorant. That's the solution. What can government do to fix what government broke? Government can get out of the way, government can let the people of California take over, get rid of the tax burden, get rid of the regulatory burden, turn 'em loose, turn the entrepreneurs loose and then all they'll have to deal with is Obama's obstacles and not the obstacles placed in front of them by Democrats in the state of California.

ABC has this just comical headline today: "'Obama Confronts Waning Political Capital.' -- Think the White House may want to work on its vote-counting operation before the health care bill makes it to the Senate floor? Think the CBO might be just as brutal as the IOC -- with scoring that counts just as much? Think the public debate over Afghanistan strategy gets any easier as events shape perceptions? Nobody will much remember a 24-hour trip to Denmark in early fall if--" well, that won't be the case if I can help it, "-- by the start of winter, there's a health care bill in place and a Afghanistan policy everyone in the administration can agree to." Utter disasters, both would be utter disasters if we have a health care bill in place as designed, utter disasters. This guy had all the political capital God ever created, and in nine months it is already waning?

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: Do you know how much of the stimulus has been spent? (interruption) Well, it's actually it's more than that now. It's 14.5% percent of the stimulus that has been spent. The stimulus, as you know, it's actually $787 billion, but there was $200 billion of earmarks in there, too, to get these guys to vote for it. But we'll use the $787 billion figure. It's $84,587,463 as of September 1st. And some people say, "Well, why not spend the rest of the money?" Noooo! No! That would be the biggest... (laughing) Because it won't work. None of it's oriented toward creating jobs. You watch how fast it starts getting spent after January, which starts an election year. The stimulus Porkulus bill is simply the Democrats Reelection Act of '09. Now, here's my stimulus proposal that ran on January 29th this year in the Wall Street Journal. I'm not going to read the whole thing. I'm joining it in progress here. "Recent polling indicates that the American people are in favor of [two different] approaches. Notwithstanding the media blitz in support of the Obama stimulus plan, most Americans, according to a new Rasmussen poll, are skeptical. Rasmussen finds that 59% fear that Congress and the president will increase government spending too much. Only 17% worry they will cut taxes too much. Since the American people are not certain that the Obama stimulus plan is the way to go, it seems to me there's an opportunity for genuine compromise. At the same time, we can garner evidence on how to deal with future recessions, so every occurrence will no longer become a matter of partisan debate. ... Fifty-three percent of American voters voted for Barack Obama; 46% voted for John McCain, and 1% voted for wackos. Give that 1% to President Obama. Let's say the vote was 54% to 46%. As a way to bring the country together and at the same time determine the most effective way to deal with recessions, under the Obama-Limbaugh Stimulus Plan of 2009: 54% of the $900 billion -- $486 billion -- will be spent on infrastructure and pork as defined by Mr. Obama and the Democrats; 46% -- $414 billion -- will be directed toward tax cuts, as determined by me. Then we compare. We see which stimulus actually works. This is bipartisanship! It would satisfy the American people's wishes, as polls currently note; and it would also serve as a measurable test as to which approach best stimulates job growth. I say, cut the U.S. corporate tax rate -- at 35%, among the highest of all industrialized nations -- in half. Suspend the capital gains tax for a year to incentivize new investment, after which it would be reimposed at 10%. Then get out of the way! Once Wall Street starts ticking up 500 points a day, the rest of the private sector will follow. ... There's no reason, as the administration is doing, to depress their hopes. There's no reason to insist that recovery can't happen quickly, because it can. .. Let's stop the acrimony, Mr. President. Let's start solving our problems, together. Why wait one more day?" The entire column is now posted for you to see at RushLimbaugh.com: The Obama-Limbaugh Bipartisan Stimulus Plan. They're talking about a second one. I proposed it on January 29th of this year. Check it out.

END TRANSCRIPT

Read the Background Material...

• Wall Street Journal: My Bipartisan Stimulus - Rush Limbaugh - 01.29.09 • UK Guardian: Will California Become America's First Failed State? • Politico: Skepticism About Second Stimulus

Why We Can't Abide Obama
Betty in Florida asks why.
El Rushbo answers her.
October 5, 2009

BEGIN TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: To the phones. New Port Richey in Florida. Betty, welcome to the EIB Network. Great to have you here.

CALLER: Oh, hi, Rush. How are you?

RUSH: Fine. Thanks much.

CALLER: That's good. Do you know, Rush, I spoke with you exactly a year ago in October, before the big election, and I explained to you that I'm in my seventies, my husband is in his eighties and he fought in World War II. And I told you that we were going to vote for President Obama. And, of course, you were very upset about that. But I want to know, and like I asked the screener, what is your main reason why you dislike President Obama? What is it? Can you pinpoint it?

RUSH: Easily. But first I should point out, it's nothing personal, I don't even know him. I think he does have a personality that kind of grates on me with that insufferably large ego that is unbearable for me, but no, I don't like the fact that he looks at this country as an obstacle, the greatness of this country, that there's no such thing as American exceptionalism, that the country was immoral and unjust before he was elected, and his effort to totally remake it and rebuild it with the government as the central focal point of everybody's lives is just something, Betty, that I can't abide.

CALLER: Would you call remaking country, would you call that like medical reform, would you call that trying to build a strategy for the war in Afghanistan? Do you call that a remake?

RUSH: The specifics, yeah. We're not talking about medical reform. That's not what this is. Health care reform is simply a vehicle for the denial of individual liberty and freedom and the opportunity for government to regulate every aspect of the moment you're awake and sleep.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: We have a nursing home crisis brought to you by the people who want to control your health care. (interruption) What, you want me to answer that lady? I mean, she's been listening to me for how long? How often have I said on this program what my problems with Obama are? I don't believe we're trying to build a strategy to win the war in Afghanistan, Betty. I think Obama has said he's uncomfortable with the whole concept of victory in Afghanistan. He's got a public spat going on with the general. He's not a general. Obama looks at the military and kind of frowns. He's not a big military guy. He's one of these people that thinks the US military is one of the problems in the world, not the solution. He looks at the United States as one of the problems in the world, not a solution to the world's problems. He said it over and over and over again. I'm sorry. He doesn't see the America I have lived in, and he doesn't want the America I've lived in to continue. He wants to remake it, government being the focal point of everybody's life. National health care is simply a gold mine of regulatory power for people like Obama and the reason, Betty, it's not going to be implemented 'til 2013 is because he'll be reelected, he hopes, in 2012.

Once this thing gets implemented there's going to be a revolt but there's nothing anybody can do about it at the ballot box, he'll be in, that's why none of this stuff gets implemented while he's in his first term. It's bad enough talking about it, but wait 'til the stuff actually happens, wait 'til people actually have to start living these policies. His objective is to destroy the wealth of 70% of the people in the country and transfer it to the 30% of the country he thinks have gotten the shaft since the founding of this country. And that's what he's in the process of doing. The student loan business is now totally run by the government -- or it will be starting next year. If we're not careful, whenever you need a loan, of any kind, for any reason, you're going to have to go to an Obama-controlled entity. And then do you think it might matter whether or not you support Obama or contribute to Democrats as to whether or not you'll be given assistance with your financial needs? Or why are we even talking about this? This is not the role of the US government. None of it's mentioned in the founding, none of it's mentioned in the Constitution.

I mean all I have to know is what Obama has said. The Constitution is a list of negative rights. I'm sorry. From that perspective how can the Constitution be negative? The Constitution tells government what it cannot do to the people. Obama looks at that as a negative. He wants the Constitution to say what government can do to people. Well, he says "for." But he means "to." This is a dangerous man, Betty. This guy wants to do things that your husband fought World War II for to prevent, if I may be so bold. And now we have this: "The nation's nursing homes are perilously close to laying off workers, cutting services -- possibly even closing -- because of a perfect storm wallop from the recession and deep federal and state government spending cuts." The headline of this AP story: "Waves of New Fund Cuts Imperil US Nursing Homes." What kind of cuts, you say? "A Medicare rate adjustment that cuts an estimated $16 billion in nursing home funding over the next 10 years was enacted at week's end by the federal Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services -- on top of state-level cuts or flat-funding that already had the industry reeling. And Congress is debating slashing billions more in Medicare funding as part of health care reform."

But wait, but wait, but wait, I thought they weren't going to touch Medicare, I thought they were going to get money from Medicare by cutting off fraud and abuse, and already we're dangerously close to closing some nursing homes. I thought they weren't going to do any of this. They weren't going to do any of this, Betty, but they're doing it right before your very eyes. How you don't see it mystifies me. "The funding crisis comes as the nation's baby boomers age ever closer toward needing nursing home care. The nation's 16,000 nursing homes housed 1.85 million people last year, up from 1.79 million in 2007, U.S. Census Bureau figures show." It's bad out there, Betty. All you have to do is have the courage to believe what you see.

Susan in Monrovia, California, glad you called, nice to have you on the EIB Network.

CALLER: Hi, Rush. You've got another mad Susan in Southern California.

RUSH: That would be you.

CALLER: Oh, yes. Oh, yes. And I think what makes me so furious is that we keep on looking at this president, when in reality it's Barack puppet Obama. And we need to start looking at where he takes his talking points every day. This is a man who looks at the teleprompter and if it fails, he has no idea. So he has to look at Rahm Emanuel, the media, we have to look at the labor unions, the ACLU, we have to look at these wonderful czars, which were all election obligations given, and that's who we need to start focusing on, because Barack, he's a teleprompter, and only if it works. It's most frustrating. Do you think I'm mad?

RUSH: No. Not deranged mad. I think you're angry, yeah.

CALLER: It's amazing when I listen to a woman such as Betty, and she doesn't see that this last election was all about the media getting its power back, all about the media. They took a man who had no experience, a couple of days in the Senate, they even chose the Republican candidate, and then they wonder why all of this is going on. It was all about control, and they got it back.

RUSH: Well, I don't disagree with this as you well know. I myself have articulated these sentiments. I know the media was desperate to show itself, that it had the power to shape public opinion and public events, their outcome and all that, but the thing that you said about who is Obama, who is writing the stuff, without the teleprompter he's nowhere. We've gone back and forth on that subject. Is Obama a puppet, is he a Manchurian Candidate, what is he? And whether or not he's a Manchurian Candidate, what you have to understand, Susan, is that he believes it regardless whether he can write it himself or whether he can put it on the prompter himself, he believes it. This is who he is. Whether he's a front man for somebody else, who would it be, George Soros, Rahm Emanuel, Axelrod.

If my sensibilities are quite naïve, but it didn't take me long to see the reality. I think a lot of people bought into this whole postpartisan Obama is a brand-new kind of guy, he's going to get rid of all the partisan divide, no more blue state/red state and he had a lot of supporters on that basis, a lot of people joining him in the White House. It wouldn't have taken me very long to realize this is not who I thought he was. This is not right. This is not what this country is all about. Government does not run everything that happens here. We are not going to enact policies that are gonna destroy the US economy. We're not going to do it and yet nobody has defected. And if you look at the people that he has put in there, he's got child abusers, he's got perverts, he's got noted communists, he's got people who do not like this country at every level of his administration. So you have to assume that's him, too.

CALLER: Well, maybe, but I think the only thing Obama believes in is himself. I think he's a huge ego. And I think he is so angry right now that he can get on a microphone and no one's buying it except sabatreu Betty. And yet there are people out there that are still holding onto the sixties movement feeling that it's Enron yet they're not looking at GE, that, you know, that it's all about what he says, and he's going to make the change. And I disagree, I think he only believes in himself. I think he does hate the US but I only think he believes in himself.

RUSH: Well, I don't think he hates the US. I think he sees the US as an opportunity for it to be remade in a way that he thinks is more fair and more just because basically the whole country was structured and put together in the most unfair, discriminatory way. But, look, there's no questioning his ego. But don't doubt for a moment that he's just a brainless puppet here executing somebody else's words. This guy, this is who he is. This is in his heart. This is in his brain. It's how he was raised; it's how he's been taught. And it's why he's able to surround himself with so many people like him, 'cause the shocking truth is that there are a lot of them in this country who believe exactly as he does.

END TRANSCRIPT

Read the Background Material...

• AP: Waves of New Fund Cuts Imperil US Nursing Homes

Gen. McChrystal vs. Gen. Biden
White House sees war through prism of Obamacare.
October 5, 2009

BEGIN TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: Obama's liberal buddies are blocking a surge. This is from the blog at TheHill.com, the Briefing Room. "Nearly two dozen House liberals have signed onto a bill introduced this past week that would prohibit an increase of troops in Afghanistan. A bill introduced by Representative Barbara Lee (D-CA) Thursday would bar funding to increase troop level in Afghanistan beyond its current level. Lee and 21 lawmakers, largely from the liberal Congressional Progressive Caucus..."

Do they really need a separate liberal caucus in the House? Aren't they all liberal socialist jerks? They need their own separate caucus? They introduced the bill, H.R. 3699 on Thursday. Who is this? Jones. "James Jones, the national security advisor vowed that the president's decision on troops wouldn't be swayed by politics." Wait 'til you hear the next story. James Jones said, "I don't play politics. I certainly don't play it with national security, neither does anyone I know. I can assure you that the president of the United States is not playing to any political base." Mmm-hmm. Right. And here's the next story from the UK Telegraph. You would not expect to see this here in the US State-Controlled Media.

"According to sources close to the administration, General Stanley McChrystal shocked and angered presidential advisors with the bluntness of a speech given in London last week." Ohhhhh! So that 25-minute meeting aboard Air Force One was a dressing down! Obama flew all the way across the world to yell at his general. That's another thing I predicted: Hey, he was really there to talk to McChrystal. The Olympic thing was an afterthought. "The next day McChrystal was summoned to an awkward 25-minute face-to-face meeting on board Air Force One on the tarmac in Copenhagen, where the president had arrived to tout Chicago's unsuccessful Olympic bid." HIS unsuccessful Olympic bid. "In London, General McChrystal, who heads the 68,000 US troops in Afghanistan, as well as the 100,000 NATO forces, flatly rejected proposals to switch to a strategy more reliant on drone missile strikes and Special Forces operations against Al-Qaeda.

"In a public speech, the general told the Institute of International and Strategic Studies that the formula which is favored by Vice President Joe Biden would lead to Chaos-istan. When asked whether he would support it he said, 'The short answer is no.'" So the general appointed by Obama went public and said Biden doesn't know what he's talking about, essentially. He called the place Chaos-istan if Biden wins this. So what we have here is a battle in the administration between General McChrystal who is a genuine general, and General Biden, who's a general buffoon. And we got these 21 members of the House liberal caucus voting against any money for a new surge in Afghanistan. (laughing) And then there's this from the LA Times. This is great. This is Gregory Rodriguez. It's an opinion piece.

The headline says it all: "What America Needs is a Good Enemy -- An external threat is almost always a cure for National Disunity." We don't have any? We don't have any good enemies? "Where is Osama Bin Laden when we need him?" is how this piece opens. I kid you not. "Where is Osama Bin Laden when we need him?" That's like saying when Bush was president, somebody said, "Where's Lee Harvey Oswald when we need him?" Remember that? And that's of course when there were no problems with civility in our scoursion. "Don't get me wrong; in no way do I wish death and destruction on our country. But as I listen to the increasingly vitriolic and even seditious rhetoric coming from the political right," that would be me, of course, "I can't help thinking that we need a threatening external enemy to help us cohere as a nation -- a more looming threat than the almost vanished Al Qaeda leader or even his recently arrested alleged minion from Denver. ...

"It's not pretty, but it's true. Both individual and collective identities are forged as much by declaring what and who you're against as what and who you are for. Although we certainly don't wish for violence on the group we identify with, there are times when we can acknowledge the social value of circling the wagons." Mr. Rodriguez, dude: The enemy that's in focus now on the part of the left is the United States as we know it. The big enemy that you and your buddies see when you look out across the world is the United States and its Constitution! That's the "enemy" that you and Obama and everybody is fighting. And we are not "attacking" my man. We wake up every day and we watch our Constitution and our country under assault and we defend it, and then you get all crying and moaning and whining about "the lack of the civility."

"With 9/11 less than a decade past, we've returned to our corners to fight it out among ourselves with a vengeance. ... Despite the fact that we have dangerous global enemies, the members of the disgruntled right seem content to find their primary enemies domestically." (laughing) Projection again. It's just the exact opposite. It's the left who sees us as the biggest enemy they face. "Though angry political dissent is an American tradition, the vitriol is reaching new levels. Last week, a columnist for a conservative website fantasized happily about a coup d'etat toppling President Obama. In the meantime, we all but ignored Bin Laden's most recent tape, and attention to the arrest and indictment of Afghan Denverite Najibullah Zazi on WMD conspiracy charges has been surprisingly low-key. Such blase responses..." We? We ignored Al-Qaeda? These guys don't even want to talk about Afghanistan. You don't want to talk about it. While we've got an enemy, we are at war in Afghanistan, we've got a guy in the LA Times wishing for a new enemy so we can all coalesce. It's breathtakingly ignorant.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: Now, one thing that we have to assume here -- well, can't assume it, I mean we know General McChrystal is serious, he's a general. General Biden is a buffoon. What we ought to do maybe is let's divide Afghanistan up into three parts, like General Biden wanted to do in Iraq. I remember Biden said he was going to stuff Iraq down Bush's throat. You remember that quote? "We're going to stuff this bill down his throat." Now, we have the worst Afghanistan attack in a year on our troops in Afghanistan. What McChrystal wants to do, he wants to shift US troops away from these remote outposts which is where the killings are taking place. McChrystal wants to shift troops away from those remote outposts that are difficult to defend and move them into more heavily populated areas as part of a new strategy to focus on protecting Afghan civilians and this is what Obama's waiting on. McChrystal goes out and makes speeches, Obama gets mad, I don't know if he's being petulant, I don't know if he just doesn't know how to play the Hardball Washington game.

Washington Post: National security advisor James Jones suggested yesterday the public campaign has nothing to do with politics. McChrystal is being shortsighted, comments effectively rejected a policy option that senior White House officials, including General Biden, are considering nearly eight years after the US invasion. It's Biden that wants to pull back in Afghanistan. And McChrystal says I don't want to sit here and be part of defeat. And then there's Petraeus. Military memo, New York Times: "'Voice of Bush’s Favored General Is Now Harder to Hear.' -- Gen. David H. Petraeus, the face of the Iraq troop surge and a favorite of former President George W. Bush, spoke up or was called upon by President Obama 'several times' during the big Afghanistan strategy session in the Situation Room last week, one participant says, and will be back for two more meetings this week. But the general’s closest associates say that underneath the surface of good relations, the celebrity commander faces a new reality in Mr. Obama’s White House: He is still at the table, but in a very different seat."

Petraeus, page two of this story, is a military superstar. He's got the White House worried. Obama supposedly isn't, but Democrat political aides fear the presidential qualifications of Petraeus. He hasn't taken a public stand behind McChrystal yet, but he's leaving that bit of politics to others. But clearly we've got a bunch of people in the White House in totally over their heads on this and they are in fact making political calculations based on Obama's health care bill.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: Chip Reid of CBS News grilled Robert Gibbs on Stanley McChrystal, the general in Afghanistan, today at the White House Q&A. Chip Reid says, "Have you heard anybody complain or voice any concerns that General McChrystal is out there pushing his position publicly?"

GIBBS: No. I think that the president believes strongly that we have a process that is working, that we ought to take the time to get this right. As you heard Secretary Gates say, it has been since sometime in the mid-eighties since we actually had a strategy to deal with Afghanistan.

RUSH: What?

REID: If General McChrystal continues to go out and give speeches very forcefully giving his opinion on that that's fine with the administration and the president?

GIBBS: The president is comfortable with where we're at in this process and how we're going about, uhh, getting that strategy right.

REID: In his meeting on Air Force with General McChrystal he did not in any way suggest that he should stop doing that?

GIBBS: The president had a very constructive meeting about what's going in Afghanistan not what's, uhh -- going on in, uhh, on cable television.

REID: He didn't mention the speech?

GIBBS: I -- I -- I did not get a full download from him.

RUSH: Well, then how do you know what the hell happened, Bob, if you "didn't get a full download from" the president? But now here's the White House dumping on its own allies in cable television! Uh, take it back. He probably means what's going on at Fox. Back to the phones. This is Gil in Philadelphia. Welcome to the EIB Network, sir. Hello.

CALLER: Captain, my captain.

RUSH: Yes?

CALLER: Mega dittos from the land of the Philadelphia Phillies. Listen, I have a question for you. I'd like to make an observation. Have you noticed a word I don't hear batted around the way it used to be, and that is "quagmire"? And you know, of course, the word "quagmire" is an allusion to the word "Vietnam," which was fought 45 years ago by a left-wing, liberal president who fought a war of containment in order advance a social agenda politically. And I can't help but think that there are amazing similarities between the situation we were in 1965 and those we're in today.

RUSH: So you mean Obama's domestic policies are in a quagmire?

CALLER: No. I mean that just as LBJ fought a war of containment that he was not resolved in winning in order to advance his political agenda -- which, of course was, you know, the Great Society -- so Barack Obama is fighting a war that he's not convinced he's going to win.

RUSH: Oh, you mean Afghanistan?

CALLER: Yes, Afghanistan. Yeah.

RUSH: Oh. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

CALLER: So o he's fighting this war that has no intentions, evidently, of winning. You know, he can't afford to exactly lose it because it would really hurt him politically and him politically being hurt would hurt the health care initiative and, his entire agenda.

RUSH: So you think we're getting a repeat of JFK here?

CALLER: Well, not JFK. LBJ.

RUSH: Or LBJ. So you think it's a purposeful strategy here to use Afghanistan as a distraction while we don't win, we don't lose, to advance the social agenda? Well, I don't think it's purposeful at all. The point is that LBJ in memoirs that were written subsequently it's been revealed supposedly or alleged that he knew all along, you know, that he couldn't win the war in Vietnam but he didn't want to pull out because he wanted to keep certain Democrats on board for his Great Society policies. And the only way he could do that was to not necessarily win the war in Vietnam but fight the war in Vietnam.

RUSH: Well, I'll tell you what. I'm going to say that even though I don't quite get the analogy, I hope you're right. Because LBJ did not run for a second term. Because Vietnam's quagmire ruined him. Remember, LBJ lost Walter "Klondike." When Walter Klondike said we couldn't win the Vietnam War, LBJ happened to be watching in the White House, "Oh, I've lost Klondike. I can't win the war." So I don't see anybody in the media saying we've lost Afghanistan -- and, quite frankly, if we do lose Afghanistan, I see enough people in the media applauding it that it won't hurt. This Afghanistan business is an interesting thing 'cause I don't think he knows what he's doing. He's in this public spat with this general now, and he's got the general pit against Biden. In Vietnam, we were lost 50,000 kids there, 50,000 troops, and we had maximum number of 500,000 over there at one time, and we're not going to be anywhere near that in Afghanistan. The war in Afghanistan has not been sold like Vietnam was. "Well, this is to stop the domino March of communism. We've gotta go in there and stop it over there," blah, blah, blah. Don't forget JFK actually started it to distract people from his affairs with Marilyn Monroe. So we have some parallels here that are not quite the same. But I hope your analogy is right, because if he follows the path of LBJ, he will not seek a second term, something I doubt. Bostic, North Carolina, Frank, welcome to the EIB Network. Great to have you here, sir.

CALLER: Hey, how you doing, Rush?

RUSH: Just fine. Thank you very much. You bet.

CALLER: Hey, it's an honor to talk to you, Rush. I wanted to speak with you about the double standard in this country. Take somebody like David Letterman and he can fondle or have sex with somebody. And anybody else that is involved in any kind of sexual harassment, you have the National Organization for Women and you have all these different women's groups that come up to bat, where are they all at now?

RUSH: They're in the same spot they were when they were with Clinton, asking themselves, "Oh, my God, why not me?"

CALLER: (laughing)

RUSH: "Why couldn't I have been there?" (laughing)

CALLER: (laughing)

RUSH: That's where they are.

CALLER: Well, you know, I finally got a chance to talk to you and I'm tongue-tied. I'm really excited about being able to speak with you. It's an honor, and I think you're a patriot and a real American, and the things that I hear you say on the radio are the things that I was brought up on. And it's just a real privilege and I hope that you'll keep fighting for us.

RUSH: Thank you very much sir. As I assured a bunch of people on the sideline last night pregame before the Steelers-Chargers: "I am not quitting until every American agrees with me," which means, my friends, that I plan on immortality. I read the story on that last week and I'm going to do what it takes.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: All right, Tom in Freeland, Michigan, great to have you on the EIB Network, sir. Hi.

CALLER: Oh, it's my pleasure to be on, Rush.

RUSH: Thank you.

CALLER: Glad to meet you. I noticed on Stephanopoulos yesterday, I couldn't believe it. They were talking about justifying a war in Afghanistan with the purge, so on and so forth, and just as the conversation was tapering off Cokie Roberts said that President Obama would be abandoning the women that were, as we know, so subject to the wrath of the Taliban. With the chickification of America, as you have so aptly coined the phrase --

RUSH: A chickification which, by the way, I have resisted. It has not happened to me. Let's be clear about that.

CALLER: Now it's happened to war.

RUSH: That's right.

CALLER: Now it's happened to war. Cokie Roberts wants our boys to die in Afghanistan for chickification reasons.

RUSH: Wait, wait. I find this fascinating. We can't pull out of Afghanistan because of betraying the women there. Cokie Roberts, I understand this. But she's not far off here. If we pull out of there now, every ally we've got -- and we've got our own spies over there and we've got contract agents working for us. We've got US military personnel on the ground. If we pull out of there, everybody that's worked for us is dead. Everybody that has supported us, I'm talking about Afghanistan people, I'm talking about Afghanis, they are dead if we pull out of there. Not just the women in their burqas and so forth. A lot of people dead if we pull out. Even children are taught this. You don't start something you're not prepared to finish. Obama, this is his now. We were there before he got there but he ramped this up and I'm wondering how much of it was genuine or because he thought he had to just because during the campaign the Democrats say we should never have been in Iraq, we should have been in Afghanistan. That's where we needed to be. Bush distracted us from the real problem. That's where Osama is. We need to going after Osama. Now they couldn't care less about Osama.

Now we got stories from the State-Controlled Media, Osama, he's a has-been, he's yesterday's news. Letterman is the man of the hour. Osama's nothing. We don't need to catch Osama. In fact, we don't even need to stay in Afghanistan. Why, it's a lose-lose over there. We gotta get out of there. He went over there ramped it up, chose his own general, McChrystal. Because even the fringe left was saying, Afghanistan's where we gotta go if we're going to go anywhere, and we gotta get out of Iraq. We got to close Gitmo, get out of Iraq. Afghanistan, that's what Bush didn't do. So he's kind of caught there now. Biden wants to pull out of there. If he lets Biden run this, if he doesn't listen to the general whose job it is to win these things, if he's not going to listen to him, then it's not just the women in Afghanistan who are going to be losers. The whole country will be losers, but the people that worked with us are certainly dead, if we pull out of there.

END TRANSCRIPT

Read the Background Material...

• The Hill: House Liberals Float Bill to Bar Troop 'Surge' • New York Times: Voice of Bush?s Favored General Is Now Harder to Hear • LA Times: What America Needs is a Good Enemy - Gregory Rodriguez • Heritage Foundation: Indecision in Afghanistan Costs Lives • Washington Post: McChrystal Faulted On Troop Statements • UK Telegraph: Barack Obama Angry at General Stanley McChrystal Speech on Afghanistan

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.