RUSH: I gotta play this for you. I’ve told you countless times how most recent instance being when, what’s his name, Caddell and Schoen wrote a piece: Obama you should quit and turn it over to Hillary. I said, “That’s not the way you go about it. You don’t tell him he blew it. You don’t tell a narcissist he’s failed and to get out of the of way. You’ve gotta say, ‘Barack, this job is beneath you! It’s too small. You’re destined for bigger. You need to be running the world, Barack! Running the United States is not even interesting to you. We can tell you’re bored silly.” That’s how you get rid of him: You tell him that there’s something far bigger, far more important out there than just being president of the United States.

Well, get this. This is this morning on MSNBC, on Morning Joe. This is Mike Barnicle, syndicated columnist, along with Jon Meacham, former editor of Newsweek and now the Random House executive editor.

BARNICLE: He has reeeemarkable gifts. He’s eloquent, he’s convincing, he’s clearly very smart. He wins the presidency in 2008; overcoming all sorts of doubts and surpassing a field filled with a couple of truly, truly good candidates —

RUSH: What doubts?

BARNICLE: I think he is stunned, given his gifts, and his inability to get anything really done in Congress. I think he’s stunned by it.

MEACHAM: In a weird way the country is not commensurate with his gifts. That’s a harsh thing to say but I have a feeling in the dark night of the soul —

BARNICLE: Yeah!

MEACHAM: — that’s what he feels. I think he thinks that this is a[n] eighteenth century constitutional republic that needs s-s-significant updating.

RUSH: See, this is how you do it. This is Jon Meacham saying: “Ah, this country is so beneath Obama. This country is so beneath him. It’s not commensurate with his gifts.” That’s how you do it! That’s how you get rid of him. That’s how you convince him to move on. You tell him that he’s so, so above this chump country. That’s how you do it, folks. They listen to me. They did listen to me.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: I want to go back to this sound bite and replay this from Morning Joe today, Mike Barnicle and Jon Meacham. I had to cram a lot of analysis into 15 seconds. I didn’t get to say a word about what Barnicle said only Meacham, but remember now the whole point of this is that I said that Schoen and Caddell are blowing it. If they want to get rid of Obama as the Democrat Party nominee, the last way to do it — the wrong way to do it — is to tell him he’s failed and he’s blowing it; that he’s gonna blow it for the country, gonna blow it for the party. That won’t work. He’s a narcissist. You’re not gonna get through to him.

But if you tell him, “Barack, the world needs you. This country is so beneath you. This Constitution doesn’t permit somebody as smart as you to fix it! You’re up against obstacles here that are just beneath you. You need a much bigger gig,” that’s how you get rid of him. That’s what I suggested a couple weeks ago and these guys have finally done it. These are the guys listening to me. One thing we know: The news media definitely listens to me. The news media listens to me more closely than the Republican leadership does. The news media and the Democrats hang on my every word. The Republicans don’t. They couldn’t care less. Here’s this sound bite again. Focus on Barnicle here, because Barnicle talks about “his remarkable gifts,” and I want to know what those are.

BARNICLE: He has reeeemarkable gifts. He’s eloquent, he’s convincing, he’s clearly very smart.

RUSH: Stop. Based on what? See, here’s this thing again: “He’s very smart.” If there is anything that is hamstringing the Republican nomination process, it’s this smart business. I said on this program two weeks ago, and I sent this note around to some friends to prove it. I said it on this program. I said, “The thing that worries me…” In fact, that’s not how I put it. I said to a couple of people and on this program that we are — a lot of voters, a lot of people calling this program seem to be — focusing on one thing, and that’s whether or not we have a nominee that sounds smart. Because our voters are fed up with dumb-sounding Republicans. You know it and I know it.

Remember how the left made fun of Bush, thought he was stupid idiot ’cause he got deer-in-the-headlight eyes when he was on camera, and then the same thing was said about Rick Perry. Romney looks smart and everybody was happy about that, but Gingrich has come along, and I’m convinced that one of the things propelling Gingrich is that he sounds smart; and our side is longing, yearning for somebody to sound smart. Our side is also of the belief — and I’ve even argued with Snerdley about this and Snerdley’s argued with me on the air about this — that debates are factors in winning election, and certainly in presidential elections, I just don’t see it.

You can maybe cite a couple like Gerald afford goofing up on what was and what wasn’t within the Soviet bloc, you know, Reagan saying in another Republican primary, “I paid for this microphone,” but in terms of there aren’t enough presidential debates. There’s probably only gonna be one or two with Obama. There aren’t enough of those things to matter. Organization, money, ideas, ideology, that’s the kind of stuff that triumphs. We have people who are so fed up with Republicans sounding like idiots and somebody comes along and sounds smart… But because, why? Because we’ve been told how smart Obama is; and why do we think Obama’s smart?

We haven’t seen anybody’s grades. We’ve got every Republican getting a media anal exam on his religion, for example. The media hasn’t dared ONCE look into Obama’s religion, because that would mean looking into Jeremiah Wright, and Jeremiah Wright’s off-limits. Jeremiah Wright was off-limits in 2008, and we’ve been told Jeremiah Wright’s off-limits this election. So Rick Perry questions Obama’s religion or whatever he did in the debate, so what does Obama do? Goes to church yesterday for the first time since Easter — and the press, rather than talk about the hypocrisy of that, praises Obama as a man of God-d and as a man of the cloth.

So while our candidates are getting the whole anal exam on their religion, we still don’t know anything about Obama’s! The closest we can get to knowing anything about Obama’s religion is Jeremiah Wright — and it ain’t pretty, folks. If Obama happens to agree with the religion of Jeremiah Wright, it’s a problem — and, of course, he does. He’s admitted it. It’s black liberation theology, a bunch of other stuff, and they won’t go anywhere near it. So we’re also told Obama’s smart. Well, where are his grades? (pause) Where are his grades? They will not release his grades. Nothing about Law Review. All of this, we’re just supposed to accept — and we accept that he’s smart because he sounds it. That’s what Barnicle is saying.

“He’s eloquent,” with a prompter, yeah. “He’s convincing.” Really? Have you looked at the percentages of people who support his policies? What do you mean, he’s convincing? “He’s clearly very smart.” No, he’s not very smart! It depends on how you define it. It’s like saying somebody’s rich. It depends on how you define it. There was a fascinating piece. Get this. This is a little off the subject, but get this: I have said for years — Snerdley will back me up on this, you’ll remember this yourselves. I’ve said for years if you want to have a fun game, fun time, the next you have people over for dinner or if you’re in a group of people, run around the table and ask everybody what is rich to them. I have been asking this question for 23 years, and you’ll be amazed.

You will be amazed at the numbers you get from people, what they think is rich. It is one of the most relative terms going. Gallup has just come out with a poll about this. Do you know the median income in America? I was a little shocked at this. The median income is $26,000. In fact that’s so low, because “the median” means there are as many people below that number as there are above it. It’s not the average. The median is there are as many people who make more as there are who make less. But to a certain group of people earning $60,000 in this Gallup poll would be rich. They earn at present less than the median, which is 26,000.

They were asked, “What would make you rich?” Certain percentage — not a majority certain percentage — said $60,000 would make ’em rich. Now, Snerdley’s nodding his head because for 20 years this has come up now and then, it’s a fun thing to ask people. Now, if you make $250,000 a year, you are in the upper 1%. If you make $150,000 a year, you’re in the 2.5%. But do you think if you make 150, you’re rich? To somebody making 60, you are. If you’re making 85, do you think 150 is rich? Maybe. Depends. It’s all relative. It’s the same thing here with this intelligence business, this “smart.”

There isn’t any quantifiable, empirical evidence that Obama is smart, ’cause they won’t show us that. So it’s all based on how he speaks. And I’m telling you this is gonna be a problem because a lot of conservative voters are basing their vote on that, whether somebody can give a good speech, whether they think somebody is gonna show up well in a debate, whether or not they think they’re smart, at the expense of looking at their policies, at the expense of examining what they believe in. There are a lot of, for example, great leaders who are not Mensa. There have been a lot of great leaders who you wouldn’t put in the upper tier of intelligence.

By the same token you could have people 160 IQ who couldn’t lead an ant out of a molehill. Is Obama a leader? He’s a community organizer. If you give him enough money he can buy what he wants, he can buy people’s allegiance, he can buy their loyalty, he can buy their actions, but is he a leader? No. How many people have been inspired by Obama’s program? How many people have been inspired to give up on capitalism? How many people have been inspired to give up on economic freedom and go along with Marxism or socialism? If they had, there wouldn’t be any reason to run a Republican opponent. If this guy were a leader, well over half the country would be willing to give up their economic freedom and turn it over to the government and let him run it. But that’s not the case.

These guys are liberal, and they’re media types, and, therefore, they are sycophants, and they are going to die of anal poisoning if they keep this up. “He’s convincing, he’s very smart, clearly very smart, and he wins the presidency, overcoming all sorts of doubts and surpassing a field filled with a couple –” what doubts? Nobody had any doubts. The only people that had doubts about him were liberal racist types who feared he wasn’t authentically black.
Those were the only doubts about Barack Obama. The media was doing puff pieces, you know, building up as a messiah. What doubts? Resume the bite from right at that point.

BARNICLE: He wins the presidency in 2008; overcoming all sorts of doubts and surpassing a field filled with a couple of truly, truly good candidates. I think he is stunned, given his gifts, and his inability to get anything really done in Congress. I think he’s stunned by it.

RUSH: Stop it. He’s stunned. He’s so smart. He is stunned he can’t get these plebes to go along. He is so stunned. With his gifts, with his superior talent and intelligence, he is shocked that he can’t get these Neanderthals in Congress to go along with him. So this whole business of Obama being smart is a total con job. And mark my words, it’s not gonna redound well to our benefit if the sole characteristic we look at in our nominee is whether or not we think they sound smart. I understand how you feel. You’re sick and tired of the Republican president or local congressman or senator sounding like an absolute hick, an idiot or what have you. I know you’re really sick and tired of people saying their candidate’s dumb and stupid. You want somebody you think can shellac Obama in a debate by sounding good, but, boy, that’s tempting I know. I think it’s wrong criteria.

Let’s go to Meacham again, former editor of Newsweek, now Random House executive editor. What do you executive edit at Random House? Books anyway. Here’s what he says.

MEACHAM: In a weird way the country is not commensurate with his gifts. That’s a harsh thing to say but I have a feeling in the dark night of the soul that’s what he feels. I think he thinks that this is a[n] eighteenth century constitutional republic that needs s-s-significant updating.

RUSH: So we’re just not good enough for him. He feels it. He knows it. We’re just not good enough for him. That’s how get rid of him. See, Meacham listened to me. This is how you convince Obama to give it up. It’s beneath you, Barack. There are so many things out there far more suitable for you. This is like running a kindergarten. It’s just nowhere near your league. This is how you get rid of him.