RUSH: You remember back in the period of time 2007 and maybe 2006, when the economy was roaring here? We’re at 5% unemployment, real 5% unemployment. There isn’t any economic crisis. We’ve come out of two recessions, in 2001 and after the World Trade Center attack on 9/11, and the media is just trying as hard as they can to convince people we’re on the verge of a recession/depression.

Because they’re trying to get rid of Bush, and they’re trying to taint Republicans so that whoever the Democrat nominee for president is will win. They’re trying to tell everybody the war in Iraq is being lost and it’s immoral, it’s unjust. Remember all of that? I had a call from a guy who said, “I’m confused. I keep hearing it’s a bad economy, and I’m doing great. I mean, everything’s fine. I guess other people in my town aren’t doing well,” and he felt guilty about it — and that was the exact point.

You keep pounding people with how bad things are, but if they’re not bad for you, you are then gonna assume they’re bad for other people that you don’t know in places that you aren’t alive or living or visiting. So they tug on your heart strings and they make you feel guilty for succeeding and doing well in the midst of so much misery, when there isn’t any. What Obama was doing last night was targeted right to the low-information crowd.

I mean, he was trying to tell everybody, “Don’t believe what you hear. This economy has come back after five years! We are roaring. We have jobs being created left and right. People are getting health care left and right. People are going to college left and right. It’s never been better,” and, of course, that’s just as far away from the truth as you can get, but it was aimed at low-information people so that their conclusion is, “Well, golly! That’s all great.

“I may not be doing well yet, but my day is coming ’cause it’s really rocking out there,” and it was all the creation of a false image and everything that goes into that, the president trying to take credit for something that hasn’t happened, things that haven’t happened, based on his policies. It’s just psycho-something. But here are reactions among the informed voter set. You’d be amazed at the number of people on the Democrat side who were flat-out disappointed and worried and panicked over that speech last night.

Ron Fournier, National Journal: Obama is a “diminished leader,” and “Is this all there is?” He said this speech was the small-bore stuff he rejected in 2008, and that’s exactly right. Obama tried to sound Reaganesque, in his own way. I mean, you know he can’t pull that off. But it’s like when he mouths this age-old American tradition, “You work hard and it’ll pay off. You keep your finger on the pulse and your nose to the grindstone.

“You keep pounding it, you keep working hard, and that’s how you get ahead.” Of course, he doesn’t believe that. He thinks that’s a false promise. He thinks the people that get ahead in this country do not do it via hard work. That’s his beef! He thinks the people who do all the hard work aren’t getting anywhere. They’re just getting shafted. But he didn’t say that. That speech last night…

I’m gonna have lot of people probably disagree with me on this. But that speech last night, to me, was an indication that Obama and the Democrats know (again) that they cannot be honest and sell it. They have to sound like people they are not. They have to sound like they believe things that they do not believe. They have to sound like they are traditional Americans in many ways. That’s why Fournier asks (paraphrased), “What’s this small bore stuff? This is the stuff you rejected in 2008,” and that’s damn right.

Everything he claimed was working last night was what he has ripped and criticized and impugned for five years. And then Fournier said, “Obama may not have the skill, the will, or the time to” fix inequality, mobility, and the economy. Not only that, Mr. Fournier, there isn’t anybody in government who can do that, except if they get out of the way. But there isn’t a government policy that will solve inequality.

There isn’t a government plan or philosophy. There would be a philosophy, actually, but there’s not a policy that will fix mobility. The government “fixing” the economy? The only way that happens is when government removes itself from as much of the economy as it can. But these people still think that if you got the right liberal mad scientist in there tinkering with the dials and the potentiometers and the gauges and stuff, that they can fine-tune it into a well-oiled machine, because the overriding belief is that you can’t.

The overriding belief is you are incapable and incompetent and they have to do it for you. Now Fournier says, “Obama may not have the skill…” See, it’s dawning on him. Folks, they’ve had a free run at it for five years. They have had a Republican Party basically standing aside. For the first two years, they had a Republican Party that couldn’t stop anything. They didn’t have the votes. And then after the 2010 midterms, when the Tea Party won big, the Republicans didn’t want to be associated with that.

So they still didn’t oppose Obama, and they’re still not opposing Obama. They’re trying to help him get amnesty passed. They’ve had a free run at it. They have done a lot of damage, don’t misunderstand. My head is not in the sand here. They have done a lot of damage that’s going to take a lot of time to reverse. But the true believers, wherever you find them — in the media, academia, Hollywood, elsewhere — expected the job to be done with no opposition.

I mean, just Fox News and Rush Limbaugh. The Republican Party’s laying down. They think that so much else should be done now. All the money should be taken away from the rich by now. The maximum tax rate ought to be in the seventies by now, and there ought to be some Wall Street people in jail, by God, and there ought to be some bankers in jail, and Gitmo should be closed and we shouldn’t have a soldier anywhere on foreign soil — and, after all that, Obama should be king!

The people of this country should be so happy and so grateful that they want him to be king. Of course, that’s not the reality. Associated Press: Liberals in Massachusetts “said that [Obama] did little to resurrect their once-passionate enthusiasm … ‘I would get more excited if I believed those things would happen.’ … [T]here was no applause and few smiles…” Now, I don’t know what they were looking at. I’ll tell you, there… (interruption) What was that? Say that slower. (interruption) Okay.

Well, I still don’t care who the group was. When Obama started talking about women, did you see all these Democrat women standing up and high-fiving each other? I thought, “Man, what a disconnect. What a bunch of tripe.” That 77¢ for every $1 a man makes? We don’t get it, it doesn’t compute for us, but we are not single women. It’s hate men, all that. So it’s tough to put ourselves in those bras — shoes. But nevertheless. I saw a lot of smiles. In fact, I saw smiles, folks, that if it were Halloween, it would scare kids. I mean, I saw some really…

Oh, I’m not gonna mention any names.

There’s nothing in it for me to mention names.

I would love to.

I would love to.

It was the Star Wars bar scene. And that’s part of the disconnect, by the way. Not only are those people not like us, they don’t even look like us anymore, a lot of ’em. I’ve never felt more estranged. I don’t want to put words in your mouth, but I wouldn’t be surprised if you feel much the same way. Now, here’s the Boston Globe, Boston Globe editorial basically apologizing for Obama’s speech. “It was scaled to the diminished expectations of the moment.”

See? These libs, these socialists, what have you, who think they’re responsible for putting Obama into office, they had great expectations. They thought a whole lot more would have been accomplished by now in dismantling and getting rid of the opposition, dismantling and getting rid of Wall Street, the banks, the rich, Fox News and all that, and they’re let down, folks. And the Boston Globe says that speech was scaled back to the diminished expectations of the moment. Meaning nothing grandiose, no long term vision, nothing in that speech that is going to help Obama go down as great. I heard a number of Democrats say that, too.

Washington Post editorial: “We were told; look out for the presidential pen and the presidential phone. … ObamaÂ’s tone was relatively non-confrontational. And if his proposals for executive action did not live up to the hype.” So the Washington Post was let down. They’re upset that Obama’s not gonna do more as a dictator would. People on the left, I’ve watched the Luntz focus group on Fox, Megyn Kelly’s show, and a few of those people in the Luntz group said that the president didn’t have sufficient enthusiasm. I didn’t see that. I saw a lot of enthusiasm, but I thought it was contrived.

But, see, this is what’s fascinating to me. I think that those people in the Luntz focus group who were complaining they didn’t see sufficient enthusiasm, I think they were original Obama supporters, and that’s why they are let down. That’s why they didn’t see sufficient enthusiasm. I think there’s a whole big group of true believer Obama voters who are disappointed, let down, depressed because they had all of these massive expectations that they really thought were gonna happen, and Obama hasn’t had any opposition.

And, again, you have to add one other thing to this mix. They really believe that government can do everything and better than anybody else. And they just can’t live with the fact, they are beside themselves that Obamacare is a disaster. You gotta remember these are true believers. They really believe that government is the end all of everything, the beginning, the middle, and the end. Government’s the final authority. Government does everything better than anybody ’cause government’s gonna be fair and government’s not going to discriminate, especially when it’s run by liberals.

And here is this abject, total embarrassment, failure, Obamacare, and that bugs ’em, because the left, the true believers, despite how badly they’ve screwed this country up, what they’re learning is that their policies do not create utopia. What they’re learning is things are worse. They’re unhappy.

I mean, you remember, go back to election night, those people were just on cloud nine. They were ecstatic. It was the happiest moment of their lives and now they’re all just deflated. And that’s what you’re seeing in a lot of the post-speech review. Dana Milbank, Washington Post: “Vague proposals. … He spoke as if congressional participation was optional. … implicit acknowledgment that his once-grand legislative ambitions are over.”

You see, folks? He’s just poking around the edges, talking about creating jobs and putting people back to work. That’s nothing. That’s not big. That’s not grandiose. Where is the takeover of the country? Where is Wall Street big shots in jail? Where is amnesty? Where is nationwide sanctioned gay marriage? Where is the legalization of marijuana? These are the things they had high hopes for.

And more. Dana Milbank says Obama speaks of concrete proposals to speed up growth, and then the first item cited was Michelle’s anti-obesity initiative? We haven’t even opened that door yet, but that’s another thing that’s got some let down. John King, CNN, national correspondent. “Amazing how quickly Democrats ran from Obama.” And they are. Practically every Democrat up for reelection in the Senate is running so fast from Obama, you can’t keep track of it.