Rich Lowry: Rush Was Right About Obama

RUSH: I want to give a shout out. This does not happen much. Rich Lowry is the editor at National Review and he has a column now that runs at Politico. The column today is called "Rush Was Right." And as I say, I'm only calling this to your attention because this doesn't really happen much.

He starts out by saying: "There should have been something for everyone in President Barack Obama's second inaugural address. For liberals, a full-throated call to arms. For conservatives, vindication. Obama settled once and for all the debate over his place on the political spectrum and his political designs. He's an unabashed liberal determined to shift our politics and our country irrevocably to the left. In other words, Obama's foes ... always had him pegged correctly.

"If you listened to Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity and Laura Ingraham, you got a better appreciation of Obama's core than by reading the president's friends and sophisticated interpreters, for whom he was either a moderate or a puzzle yet to be fully worked out. Rush, et al., doubted that Obama could have emerged from the left-wing milieu of Hyde Park, become in short order the most liberal U.S. senator, run to Hillary Clinton's left in the 2008 primaries and yet have been a misunderstood centrist all along."

Rich is right. All during the 2008 campaign, the left and everybody was making Obama what they wanted him to be. Everybody wanted him to be a centrist. Everybody wanted him to be bipartisan. Everybody wanted the new president to be somebody that would unite us, new politics, post-partisan, post-racial, post-political. This guy wasn't even political. He was just great. He was the one. He was the Messiah. He was a moderate. And people like me all during the primaries, "No, no, no. This guy is as far to the left as anybody that's ever run for the office."

And we documented it with evidence. Here's Obama in his own words. We had audio sound bites. We had quotes that we read to you over and over, and yet smart people, the wizards of smart Inside the Beltway, both conservative and liberal, had a big dinner party over at George Will's house. Obama technically hosted, or Will hosted it but it was Obama's dinner. David Brooks, New York Times, conservative, was there. Larry Kudlow, conservative, was there. They all came out and said, "What a wonderful great guy." Brooks said, "I saw the crease in his pants and I knew, I knew he was going to be a great president."

I don't know if they were buffaloed or if they just wanted this guy to be something so badly that they just said that's who he is. But regardless, whatever the reason, it was right in front of them who he was. It has been for four years and they would never admit it. And while not admitting who Obama really is and always has been, and therefore not acknowledging what Obama's true intentions are, they have served to muddy the waters, cloud the issues and cast doubt on people who are giving honest interpretations of who Obama is.

And so Rich, in his column today at Politico, basically says, "Rush and the guys were right." And as I say, this never happens. It never happens. I mean, you go to the media and you'll see a blog here or a website there every day with a rolling feature, with whatever commentator and what he said that day as though it's some earth shattering unique interpretation or analysis of the day's events. And they're always wrong. They're always mistaken to some degree or another. And part and parcel, if me or my talk show are mentioned, it's usually in -- I don't want to say they rip it, but it's not flattering. It's, "Well, talk radio, these extremists. They're not serious. They're just entertainers." That kind of stuff. That's why I wanted to call this to your attention.

The last line of his piece: "The virtue of the address was making his intentions unmistakable, although Rush Limbaugh never mistook them in the first place."

So thanks, Rich. Rich acknowledging from the get-go we've been right about who Obama is. And now it can't be denied because his inaugural address indeed was one of the most partisan and divisive speeches, period, inaugural or otherwise. He basically pointed out he's got friends and enemies and his job is to take his enemies out, exactly what we've been saying, eliminate all opposition. That's the political objective. He doesn't come forth with policy ideas. Platitudes, everybody getting a fair shake, everybody getting a fair job, everybody getting a fair outcome. Fair this, fair that, fair and balanced approach, whatever, but he never gets into policy. He can't be honest about what he wants to do policy-wise.

If he had announced in that 2008 campaign -- by the way, everything that's happened in this country for the last four years has been by design. The debt, the growth of government, the expansion of government with Obamacare, all of it's been by design as part of the plan. He never would have been elected on this agenda. He got elected because he was the opposite, people thought, of who he really is. Moderate, centrist. Post-racial, post-partisan, bring everybody together. If you're not even in the media or the commentariate, after this speech that he gave and coupled with the real policies, the real actions that he's taken, if you can't acknowledge who he is and what his intentions are, you're not ever going to. And you don't intend to because you don't want to. But it's unmistakable now. And that's the point Rich is making. It's unmistakable who Obama is and who he's always been.

I just want to go back to this program, way back, April 17th of 2008. Now, this sound bite, it is of me on this program. It comes from the day after one of Obama's debates with Hillary, and this was in the midst of Operation Chaos. For those who weren't here then, let me tell you what was going on. The Republican primary was over. McCain had it sewn up after Charlie Christ endorsed him in Florida. It actually ended in West Virginia when Huckabee threw his voters to McCain and that basically aced Romney out. The Christ endorsement wrapped it up. So the Republican primary was over. And in terms of this audience, no drama on the Republican side. There was nothing to talk about. And there wasn't all that much excitement for McCain anyway.

So I, not wanting to be bored, didn't want the Democrat primary to end early. And for that to happen Hillary needed to stay viable. Hillary was in debt. She was not winning states in the primaries. The press was totally behind Obama. And so there were some remaining state primaries to go, and I implemented Operation Chaos. Operation Chaos was designed to keep the Democrat primary going. To prevent Obama from winning it early. To hopefully prevent Obama from winning it period. By propping Hillary up.

What was Operation Chaos? Operation Chaos was where I suggested that Republican voters, since the Republican primary was over, in states yet to come in the Democrat primary, go in, change registration to Democrat and go vote for Hillary. It was a tough thing for people to do. They had to hold their nose. The last thing that anybody in this audience ever thought they'd be doing is voting for Hillary Clinton for anything. But the purpose of it was to keep the Democrat primary going, to keep Obama spending money, and to help the woman.

Don't forget, that nomination was Hillary's. I mentioned this yesterday. Her payoff for sticking with Bill, her payoff for defending Bill, her payoff for not leaving Bill, her payoff for keeping Bill in office, not letting the scandals run him out of town, her payoff was the presidency. It was hers. She was going to be the next Democrat nominee. It was in the cards. It was a 75% sure bet. And then out of nowhere came Obama and the media swooned. They swooned over the possibility of the first African-American president coming from the Civil Rights Era, as they did. It was irresistible.

So they abandoned Hillary. Members of Congress, ranking Democrats, some stoke with her, but they abandoned her, went to Obama. And poor Hillary, it was hers and then the Democrat Party powers-that-be yanked it right out from underneath her. For a fairytale. That's what Bill Clinton described Obama's candidacy as, a fairytale. (Clinton impression) "That's all this is, it's a fairytale." Talking to Ted Kennedy, "Ted, remember it wasn't all that long ago that this guy would be fetching our adult beverages. Here he is about to get my wife out of the race." Then they played the race card on Clinton in South Carolina, and that ticked him off.

A lot of people who had been on board with Hillary, abandoned Hillary and went to Obama. And so I rode to the rescue with Operation Chaos, and that involved you. George Clooney made a movie, the Ides of March. I didn't even know this. I didn't see the movie until six months after it came out. I had no idea how Operation Chaos really discombobulated the Democrat Party. It really ticked them off. The first 35, 40 minutes of that movie is about Operation Chaos. Because there were Republicans registering as Democrats voting for Hillary and the primary was extended, came down to super delegates, and it worked. Obama had to take that all the way to the summertime.

So that's what was going on at the time of this sound bite. And let me say it again for the record that it was I, El Rushbo, not the Democrat Party, it was I keeping Hillary's campaign alive, or trying to. It was I trying to defend the honor of the woman. The Democrat Party, they dangled the carrot in front of her, made her think it was hers, and yanked it away for the skinny new black guy who came on the scene. It always happens that women end up getting the shaft in the Democrat Party. Just like we had to defend Carl McCall. We had to fund raise for Carl McCall when the Democrats pulled money away from him in the governors race in New York. And yet they still claim that I am anti-female, this war on women stuff.

This program kept her campaign alive. Well, we can't say that she didn't have a role in it, but we were there. We did what we could to help her, is the point. So this sound bite, April 17, 2008, this is one day after an Obama/Hillary debate, right in the middle of Operation Chaos. We all knew who Obama was, we knew exactly. But this was the salad days when Obama's a moderate, a centrist, he's just wonderful. Blank canvas, whatever you want him to be, he is. He was the Messiah. And yet today, almost five years later, it's just now dawning on the establishment media that Obama's not the centrist. Just now dawning on them. Of course I don't believe that either. I think they've known who he is from the get-go. All that other stuff was for public posturing. That's one of the reasons they were so in the tank for him because he was such a leftist. I want you to hear what I said back on April 17th, 2008.

RUSH ARCHIVE: What we learned last night, ladies and gentlemen, well, what America who watched last night learned, because you and I have known this from the get-go, Barack Obama is a fully manufactured candidate. The Drive-By Media invented him. They helped invent him. Therefore, any effort to reveal who he really is, including his associations, past and current, are quickly attacked, and that's the scope of the criticism today. Let's face it, his associations are with true, genuine radicals in any number of ways. In addition to his associations that were exposed last night, his ideology was open and bare and anybody could see it. And that was attacked as well. Any effort to expose his liberalism is being attacked today, too.

Now, here's the conclusion. A moderate, as Obama claims he is, a centrist, as Obama claims he is, a uniter, as Obama claims he is, would not be in the same room with the Reverend Jeremiah Wright, would not be in the same room with a former terrorist who blew up the Pentagon, Bill Ayers. A moderate centrist uniter like Barack Obama has promised that he is would not have a wife on the stump making repeatedly offensive statements about the United States of America. A moderate centrist uniter would not have been a Saul Alinsky activist -- Obama calls himself a community activist, but it's much more dire than that. Obama has become, to a lot of people, an idea of what they want him to be. So they project their perceptions on to him, and that's exactly what he wants.

RUSH: But this program was never fooled. We never bought into this silly notion that he's this harmless moderate, centrist, post-partisan, post-racial, post-whatever. On the cutting edge. Now, after this inaugural address, do you believe the number of people talking about, "My God, this guy really wants to wipe out the Republican Party." Yep been saying that for a while. It's been out there for five years, people just didn't want to admit it. Even John Boehner is now saying Obama's goal is to annihilate the Republican Party. What took him so long?

That’s how we know they know - and that means they were lying.

Yup. Conan Doyle's dog that didn't bark.

It's all the proof anyone needs of mens rea in the MSM. They're lying, they know they're lying, and they want to lie, they love to lie, because they so despise the People and the idea of America.

It's a sardonic new TV series: When the Smartest Kids in the Room Go Bad. So cool, so ironic, so detached ... so rotten.

So, in your world, everything is absolutely horrible.

I don't quite get your beef with him -- is it lack of eloquence? Does he need to be Pat Buchanan or Ronald Reagan? I don't quite understand.

And objectively speaking, he's at least partly right -- you could hardly name five people who'd be worse, or more dangerous in the Oval Office, than Barack Obama. His grandaddy was a Mau-Mau, and he's willingly harbored and secretly nursed those grudges against white America like that nasty little Egyptian proto-Salafist, al-Qutb, did back in WW II and later, when he went home to Egypt to write his great hate-tome against America that all the wuzzies read and got cranked about.

Has Obama been much less rad than those guys? And he's the damn President! This is the stuff the writers of The Manchurian Candidate were thinking about.

I don't quite get your beef with him

My beef with him is that he's angrily criticizing a guy who's done far more to advance conservatism in this country than likely any individual FReeper ever will. And what's his complaint? That Rush hasn't said the equivalent of "I hate your face, Obama!" Wow. Yeah. Good one, there, dude. I'm sure Obama's pissing his pants now.

There's some outstanding analysis on FR. There's also a lot of idiots who think if they string together "Obama," "Marxist," "Kenyan," "Evil," "Communist," and, possibly, "Homosexual" in any permutation then they have really shown some hard thought and excellent analysis of what's happening today and how to change it. Personally, I refer to it as "Conservative Tourette's" and people who practice it should just stop. It goes hand-in-hand with the old "Better to say nothing and let people think you a fool than to open your mouth and remove all doubt."

There are a number of people who just need to keep their mouths shut until they have something useful to say.

“Is there any point to which you would wish to draw my attention?'
To the curious incident of the dog in the night-time.'
The dog did nothing in the night-time.'
That was the curious incident,' remarked Sherlock Holmes.”

Good catch lentulusgracchus... thanks for sharing.

There are a number of people who just need to keep their mouths shut until they have something useful to say.

And when there is something useful to say, they clam up! No one in the conservative Chattering Classes, including Limbaugh AND National Review, has ever taken notice of the entire issue of Obama's constitutional eligibility or non-eligibility.

I am not even suggesting that they should take sides. God forbid they should offer an opinion on the matter. But they could have easily by honest reporting. After all, they are members of the media.! It IS a legitimate question, and should have been answered long ago by the courts, in particular the SCOTUS, which has been given ample opportunity in many cases, which it failed to address.

I also find them responsible for never urging Republicans to formulate Plans, Programs, and developing the Leadership necessary to implement them. IOW, we all know how bad Obama is. What is the alternative ... how can we specifically undo the damage? Instead, Romney taking his cue from the talkers, ran on the nebulous platform: "I am not Obama."

IMNSVHO, the Right Wing Yakkers and associated media have probably done just as much or more than the Democrats to make Obama the center-piece in a cult of personality. Neither did these broadcasters do much to "get out the vote." They are powerful media men who got that way preaching to a choir of believers, and as such have little influence on actual events.

The Conservative movement in the US is suffering mightily because its premier spokesmen and public philosophers are recycled rock'n'roll disc jockeys whose main objective is selling gold bars and mattresses.

It IS a legitimate question

Wrong. It was a legitimate question, but it was very poorly handled as an issue, and it ended the only way it possibly could: with Obama waving around a piece of tissue paper with "Birth Certificate" written on it in Sharpie and the media telling us that the entire thing was finally over.

Now you people want the few strong voices left on our side to completely torpedo their credibility with what amounts to, at this point in the national consciousnesses, a conspiracy theory. Add in a few more names, don't forget to include that "Obama's a stupid-head" and the end of liberalism will finally be near!

And what's his complaint? That Rush hasn't said the equivalent of "I hate your face, Obama!"

Well, we both know Rush doesn't do that, but I thought FWIW that the poster was trying to convey something that is, pace him, just a fact of life, that Rush can't really say just everything he knows, and there are other things he knows, that he's chosen to defer. An example of the latter would be the vital-documents and document-fraud issue (there is no doubt now, that Obama's grandmother lifted Obama's SSAN in the 70's from a then-recently-deceased merchant seaman; the dead man's identity is a matter of record, and it's a reasonable expectation she stole the number while working at a Hawaiian state agency that gave her access to the deceased's documentary history).

Rush did not, for a long time, touch any of the "Birther" </smear> issues.

Likewise, when Obama came to office, he sent a number of signals to Limbaugh, daring him to bring up some issue or other that Obama knew Rush knew about but wasn't talking about. He dared him, he baited him a couple of times in public remarks that went over the heads of 96% of the audience, and Rush finally said on-air that yeah, Obama was daring Rush to throw down on the issue -- what it was, he wouldn't say. At the time, I thought it might have been the Man's Country issue.

At least I think that is what the poster was referring to, which is a risky exercise given that Rush is on-air about 230 times a year, and damned few people could create with confidence a list of topics he hasn't talked about in the course of his long critique of Obama's political career.

Instead, Romney taking his cue from the talkers, ran on the nebulous platform: "I am not Obama."

Oh, no he didn't "take his cue" from talk radio. He took his cues from "the pros", among them the execrable Karl Rove. If there were any radioheads out there that were thoroughly down with Romney and articulated his message, nevertheless he did not cue from them, but the other way around. Michael Medved, Hugh Hewitt, Laura Ingraham, and a few others toed Romney's line, but he led, they followed.

but it (i.e constitutional eligibility) was very poorly handled as an issue,

Yes. And it was mishandled by our very own RW Talk Show Hosts from the get-go in 2007. Not even the great constitutional scholar Levin managed to tell people that the BC and Constitutional eligibility were separate issues.

Shifting the battleground to the BC was the greatest PR coup of the century, well worth the many Soros-millions spent on it. This IS still a legitimate issue because now, we are going to be looking at Rubio ... born in Florida, with a real BC, and yet neither of his parents was a citizen at the time of his birth. Ditto, Jindal, with one citizen parent.

The issue: is any person born in the US a Natural Born Citizen? Are the children of illegal aliens citizens? Call me old-fashioned, but rather than rely on public opinion, I would require the courts to ... in particular the SCOTUS ... to fulfill their responsibilities.

....you people want the few strong voices left on our side to completely torpedo their credibility with what amounts to, at this point in the national consciousnesses, a conspiracy theory.

Yes. Rather than have candidates torpedo theirs. Are we afraid of a legitimate question?

LG, I am not so sure that a good many of the Right Wing Yakkers don't also take their cue from Karl Rove. Remember Rush a few years ago reassuring all and sundry that illegal immigration was "a sign of a healthy economy?" He also bought into the entire Rovian and US Chamber of Commerce Mantra about these "hardworking Catholic family people becoming the "Republicans of the Future."

My main thesis: the raison d'etre for talk radio is to keep an already convinced part of the base amused, and that the Conservative Movement might be better served if a few of these chaps went back to being rock'n'roll disc jockeys and perhaps getting their GED's and going to community college on line.

I’ve pretty much stopped reading National Review because of Rich Lowry. I was disgusted by a statement that Lowry made right after the Obama election in 2008. I actually think that Lowry voted for Obama in 2008, he said that the far right wingers claimed that Obama was a socialist, but that he hadn’t seen any evidence of that in anything that Obama said.

In other words, Lowry was too lazy to vet Obama or look any further than the surface of what Obama was saying in the campaign. Many of the press even continued their Obama discipleship up until the past election. Peggy Noonan, for example, was writing pro Mitt Romney articles in the run up to the 2012 election, right up until she accused Mitt Romney of politicizing the Benghazi attack by calling it a terrorist attack.

I am not so sure that a good many of the Right Wing Yakkers don't also take their cue from Karl Rove. Remember Rush a few years ago reassuring all and sundry that illegal immigration was "a sign of a healthy economy?"

Well, yeah -- whoever gives out the talking points, which I thought was the foundations (Cato, AEI), that's where the direction is coming from, and Rove is the implementer, and guys like Romney the alleged beneficiaries.

I don't recall Rush taking that line about illegals, but I do remember that it was the Business Roundtable/Chamber/Wall Street Journal line all during the Bush 41-Bush 43 years. I remember, in the late 80's and 90's, the WSJ pounding the table and saying flatly, in editorial, "The U.S. Constitution should be amended to read, 'There shall be open borders.'" Period, end of graf, thud, bump. Well, they didn't look so swift all of a sudden on 9/11. But that's always been their line: Break wages, do whatever it takes to cut costs -- offshoring, green-carding people who barely have English, and shouting, with Eric Cartman, "Whatever! Whatever! I'll do what I want!!"

Now you people want the few strong voices left on our side to completely torpedo their credibility with what amounts to, at this point in the national consciousnesses, a conspiracy theory.

In the face of a vast, prolonged, very secret conspiracy, fed and nurtured since the days of Feliks Dzherzhinsky, I would modestly submit that a conspiracy theory might be appropriate.

Remember Edmund Spenser:

Treason never prospers; what's the reason?
For where it prospers, none dare call it treason.

We're about there now.

Are we afraid of a legitimate question?

What's the point? Is Holder going to do anything? Is the SCOTUS? After Obama was sworn in in 2009, nobody was going to do anything about it, period. At this point, especially, it's a waste of resources.

Remember, most people think Obama's a "nice guy." This issue rising to the forefront would doom whatever credibility the GOP has at this point.

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