RUSH: The president is back defending health care in his statements about the court yesterday. This is the AP luncheon. Now, he launched on the court again today, is what happened here. The Associated Press luncheon during the American Society of News Editors convention. By the way, the CEO of AP stood up and just lauded Obama as one of the greatest human beings ever, one of the greatest presidents ever, one of the greatest quotes ever, one of the greatest guys ever. And there was a Q&A at the event. Obama spoke. He spoke about the economy. And during the Q&A, the moderator is the chairman of Associated Press, Dean Singleton, who said, “Mr. President, you said yesterday it would be unprecedented for a Supreme Court to overturn laws passed by an elected Congress. Yet that’s exactly what the court’s done during its entire existence.

“If the court were to overturn the individual mandate, what would you do or propose to do for the 30 million people who wouldn’t have health care after that ruling?” Now, before we play his answer, I want to read to you from the AP story last week. This is the chairman of the AP and here’s the money quote from the AP article from six days ago: “Various economic studies have projected that without the mandate, 10 million to 15 million people who would have been covered instead will remain uninsured.” Ten million to 15 million people would remain uninsured, and yet today the chairman of the Associated Press asks Obama: “If the mandate is overturned, what would you do for the 30 million people who wouldn’t have health care.” So the chairman of the AP can’t even get the details of the story his own wire service put out last week straight.

Here is Obama’s answer.

OBAMA: Um, we have not seen a court overturn a law that was passed by Congress on a[n] economic issue like health care that I think most people would clearly consider commerce. A law like that has not been overturned at least since Lochner, right? So we’re goin’ back to the thirties, pre-New Deal. Um, and the point I was making is that the Supreme Court is the final say on our Constitution and our laws, and all of us have to respect it. But it’s precisely because of that extraordinary power that the Court has traditionally exercised significant restraint and deference to our duly elected legislature, our Congress. And so the burden is on those who would overturn a law like this. Now, as I said, I — I expect the Supreme Court actually to recognize that and to abide by well-established precedents out there. I have enormous confidence that, in looking at this law, not only is it constitutional, but that the court is going to exercise its jurisprudence carefully because of the profound power that our Supreme Court has. As a consequence, we’re not spending a whole bunch of time planning for contingencies.

RUSH: Well, where to start? (sigh) See, now it involves “economics” so the court shouldn’t overturn it. “Yeah, they’ve overturned stuff, but never something on economics like this.” There is no “burden” in a Supreme Court case. This isn’t a jury trial. There’s no burden here! The burden was on the government to answer their questions. The burden was to show that it was constitutional. The burden is constitutionality. There’s no burden here to make sure that people have health insurance. There’s no burden to make sure that people have affordable health care. There’s no burden on the part of the court to make sure that people with preexisting conditions get covered. You know what the scary thing is? How many Americans do you think think that is what the purpose of the court is?

How many Americans do you think the purpose of court is to make sure here that the uninsured have insurance? That’s the sad, shocking thing. I wonder if anybody in the AP audience fainted. Did anybody take off their underwear and throw their panties at Obama during his speech today? Somebody needs to tell him… I’ll do it right now. He’s a constitutional scholar, but he needs to be reminded that between 1789 and 2002, the Supreme Court declared 158 acts of Congress unconstitutional. One hundred and fifty-eight acts of the Constitution unconstitutional. The burden is on Congress to pass constitutional laws. This, again, is Obama threatening — not threatening — intimidating, warning, telling ’em what he expects. He’s trying to ladle guilt on these guys, the justices, about what they’re gonna be taking away from people. He goes back to the emotional campaign as the answer continued.

OBAMA: What I did emphasize yesterday is there is a human element to this that everybody has to remember —

RUSH: Stop the tape! Let me tell you what the human element is in Obamacare. The human element is telling a 100-year-old woman, “Sorry, here’s the pain pill. You don’t get the pacemaker. You’re too old.” That’s the human element in Obamacare. The human element in Obamacare is the death panels. The human element in Obamacare is the government, a bunch of bureaucrats that we’ll never meet, deciding who gets treated and how extensively we get treated. And they’ll make their decisions based on a bunch of factors that we’ll have no control over. If you’re 73 and you come in with a case of cancer, it’s, “Well, we don’t know if we should spend the money to treat a 73-year-old. We could better spend the money on a young person that’s got something wrong with them.” That’s the Obama death panels. There’s your “human element,” Mr. President. Here’s the rest of the bite.

OBAMA: I get letters every day from people who are affected by the health care law right now even though it’s not fully implemented. Young people who are 24, 25 who say, you know what, I just got diagnosed with a tumor. First of all, I woulda not gone to get a checkup if I hadn’t had health insurance. Second of all, I wouldn’t have been able to afford to get it treated had I not been on my parents’ plan. Thank you, and thank Congress for getting this done. I get letters from —

RUSH: Come on.

OBAMA: — folks who have just lost their job, their COBRA has run out, they’re in the middle of treatment for colon cancer or breast cancer and they’re worried when their COBRA runs out if they’re still stick what are they gonna be able to do because they’re not gonna be able to get health insurance.

RUSH: None of this matters. None of this is relevant. None of this is germane. “Mr. Limbaugh, you’re sounding very, very harsh. You say that none of this matters to the Supreme Court.” Mr. New Castrati, it may pain the individuals on the court, but it’s not germane to what they are deciding. Individual circumstances, this is not the role of the Supreme Court. It’s clear what’s going on now. Clear as a bell. Obama ladling guilt on these people.

Here’s what you’re going to be taking away: Look at these letters people are writing, thank you, Mr. President, for helping me get cured of cancer with a tumor that was discovered because of your health care bill. Give me a break. This is like the epitome of childish egoism and arrogance. So the court better do the right thing because people are writing Obama letters. If it hadn’t been for Obama, these people would die, and you people on the court better remember it as you make up your mind on this, and that’s the message.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: How many human elements have been killed by Roe v. Wade? What is that number? For a while there, wasn’t it over a million human elements a year that were killed by Roe v. Wade since 1973? Yeah. That’s right, the human element of abortion. And you know what I wouldn’t be surprised by? Snerdley, do you remember the school lunch fiasco back in 1995? Folks, if you weren’t with us then, if you are new to the program, the budget fight in 1995, the Democrats accused the Republicans of starving children by cutting the school lunch program. Now, there were no cuts in the school lunch program budget. There was a reduction in the rate of increase, but the aggregate spending in that budget for school lunches was going to go up, and it did go up.

But because it didn’t go up as much as was budgeted, I think it was budgeted to go up 10% and it went up 7%, because it didn’t go up 10%, the Democrats ran around and called it a budget cut, a Draconian budget cut. They said that students are gonna starve. Republicans are starving children. And the media picked it up. And what happened was that schools all across the country assigned writing assignments to students demanding they send letters to Republican congressmen asking not to be starved because it was very hard to learn when you’re hungry. Therefore, I won’t be surprised if maybe today or tomorrow grade schools start assigning students to write letters to the Supreme Court begging them to save health care for people. I wouldn’t be surprised if that happens.

The National Education Association, big-time union supporters of Obama, could do this on their own. And they could do it with no fingerprints of Obama’s. They could make this look like it happened spontaneously. Because everybody was so moved by the president talking about the letters that he’s received from people who didn’t die because of him and who have health insurance because of him. And now these meanies at the Supreme Court might take health insurance away from people. And so a letter writing campaign to Supreme Court, “Dear Justices: Please don’t take away my mommy’s health care. My mommy just got health care because of Obamacare, and she was just diagnosed with stage 19 breast cancer, and if it weren’t for Barack Obama, my mommy would die. And I don’t want my mommy to die. Please do not cancel Obamacare,” and send the letters off.

And of course the press will hear about it, “Oh, how cute. And look at how wonderful the spread of democracy. Why, young children are now learning about the American system of democracy.” It might already be happening, folks. I wouldn’t put it past ’em. I wouldn’t be surprised if a letter writing campaign to the Supreme Court is underway, being talked about. And we will get pictures of the sacks of mail arriving at the Supreme Court, begging them to save Obamacare, begging the judges, the justices to save my mommy. “Mr. Limbaugh, you are so cynical. How dare you make fun of such a wonderful plan. If it were to happen, this would be great democracy in action. How dare you make fun of it.” Make fun of it? It would be a pure, phony, fake Astroturf campaign. I’ll bet Axelrod’s working on it even as we speak. Just keep a sharp eye, folks. I wouldn’t put it past ’em.