RUSH: Here is President Obama from the press conference this morning, and this is blaming the Republicans for all of this.
OBAMA: Let’s be clear. None of this is necessary. It’s happening because a choice that Republicans in Congress have made. They’ve allowed these cuts to happen because they refused to budge on closing a single wasteful loophole —
RUSH: Do you hear that?
OBAMA: As recently as yesterday they decided to protect special interest tax breaks for the well-off and well-connected, and they think that that’s apparently more important than protecting our military or middle-class families from the pain of these cuts.
RUSH: I mean, folks, that’s pathological. That’s self-absorbed. None of that’s true. We may as well sing songs about all this for all I know.
(playing of song)
RUSH: Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah, white comedian Paul Shanklin. And you remember the original there, Winchester Cathedral, and that’s a cover. Sequester Cathedral, sequester is here now.
BREAK TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: Grab audio sound bite 32 again, have it standing by, because what we are witnessing, as reprehensible as it is to us, as repulsive as it is to us, as insulting as it is to us, as depressing as it is to us, as frustrating and maddening as it is to us, what we are witnessing is masterful. Now, it’s also happening with no opposition. Oh, I mean Obama has some opposition here, yeah, and he’s got some opposition at Fox News, but he doesn’t have any opposition in the Republican Party. So he’s got smooth sailing. We are watching masterful demagoguery.
This guy is better than Bill Clinton. This guy is smoother, he’s better, he’s more accomplished, and the real genius of Barack Obama, he’s been in office now for four years, and may as well not have been, because not one aspect of his agenda or policies explains what’s happening in the country today, not one thing. His policies, in fact, as far as people are concerned, are all efforts to fix this mess. But damn it, he’s trying as hard as anybody could. He really cares about people as much as anybody ever has, but man, the mistakes that are this country, the flaws that are this country are so deeply embedded that it’s gonna take a long time to fix this place.
I’m sure he thought he could do it in four years. But now he knows it’s gonna take eight, minimum, maybe 12 years to fix this. And all the while the people that voted for him are encouraging him to keep going. They are advocating that he keep on, because none of what he’s doing has any relationship to the bad things happening in the country. He’s doing everything he can to fix it. Do you realize he opposed the sequester, that was a Republican idea. He doesn’t want any part of this sequester. He’s trying to save the country from it.
Now, you and I all know that it was his idea. You and I all know that he loves it. You and I all know that everything that’s happening is because of his policies. You and I all know that what’s happening is because he wants it to happen, and now you and I know that his genius is keeping his name off of it all. And, by the way, this sequester business today, this is textbook example number one for the Limbaugh theorem. The Limbaugh theorem is, Obama can’t be seen as governing. He has to be seen as constantly campaigning, seeking the power to stop this.
Right now he doesn’t have enough power to stop this. The flaws are too deeply embedded in this country’s fabric. All of the favors that the rich doled out to themselves all these years, all the tax cuts they gave themselves, all the money that they got from this government, all the money they took. It’s been going on since the country was founded, and we can’t fix this in four years, but he’s trying. So we have the sequester, and the Republicans have done it again. They want to shut down the government. They are trying to starve your kids. They’re trying to see to it that your kids don’t have any firefighters protecting your house or any police officers. The Republicans really don’t care if your kids have anything to eat. They don’t care if the horse meat that’s in the food you’re buying at fast food places is inspected or not. Republicans are getting away with polluting the environment.
He’s doing everything he can to stop it. He’s trying as hard as he can. But all of this stuff he wants to happen, all of this stuff he’s causing to happen, and yet nobody thinks that. And that’s why the Senate Republicans yesterday attempted to get Obama’s name attached to all of this sequester stuff. What did they do? They passed a bill that would give Obama total authority to administer the cuts mandated by the sequester. Now, he already has most of that authority. But the Senate Republicans wanted him to know that as far as they were concerned, he had total authority, and he promised to veto that bill if it were ever sent to his desk. He promised to veto a bill that would have made him dictator over the spending cuts.
I’ve read a lot of media analysis of this, and they’re saying this just shows that Obama isn’t serious, and they’re missing the point. It doesn’t show that at all. Obama rejecting that power, Obama rejecting that authority is not because he’s not serious. It’s because he doesn’t want officially to have that power. Why would Obama want his name on the spending cuts in the sequester? Why would he want that when he succeeded in making everybody think the Republicans are doing it? The party that doesn’t have any power at all, a party that even if they had power doesn’t have the know-how to use it, but, man, look at all the evil the Republicans are conjuring up, look at all the pain they’re causing. Why would he want his name on that? He doesn’t. The Limbaugh theorem.
So, here, listen to this again. This is Obama, this is the Limbaugh theorem. Remember now, I just want to remind you, we found the Des Moines Register story from last October 23rd, an interview that he did with the editors, that he did not let them run for a week. Everybody thought that it was because they weren’t gonna endorse him, and he didn’t want that out in the Des Moines Register, important state, two weeks before the election. That’s not why he didn’t want them to run it. The reason he didn’t want them to run it is because in the interview, he was all for the sequester. He was excited about the sequester happening, and he was salivating eagerly, tabulating the results of the sequester, combined with the expiration of Bush tax cuts to give him his grand bargain, his massive solution to budget problems.
So the truth is, last October he was counting on the sequester happening, he wanted it to happen, and he was calculating positively the impact of the sequester. Now, that’s the truth. Everything since then you’ve seen is not the truth. But that doesn’t matter. ‘Cause the genius of Barack Obama is the truth never attaches itself to him. It’s not that he’s not held accountable, that’s not the genius. It’s not that the media doesn’t tie him to it. His genius is his direct relationship with the people that vote for him and how he is able to convince them. I don’t even think he needs the media, frankly. Now, it would be a lot harder if the media were challenging him, but that is a hypothetical that’s never gonna happen because the media never is gonna be in opposition to Obama, so that’s a pipe dream. It’s ridiculous to examine if it would be any different were the media an enemy or at least opposed to him.
So here he is at the presser today, and what he’s doing in this sound bite, if you listen very carefully — well, he doesn’t say it, but what he’s doing, folks, in his mind, and remember, now, in the minds of the people that voted for him, the sequester is going to cause pain. Layoffs, salary reductions, shutdowns of meat inspectors, the weather forecast bureau, all of that, his voters believe this, you’ve got to understand that. And in this one little 31-second sound bite, Barack Obama sees to it that every bit of economic woe in the next six months is seen as the Republicans fault. He has just guaranteed another reason why the sequester happening is valuable to him.
If everything you do can be assigned to other people, in terms of responsibility, including if you want to destroy things and you can make others responsible, you do it. He has just, with this sound bite, guaranteed that his voters, a majority of people, think it’s the Republicans making all of this misery happen.
OBAMA: Let’s be clear. None of this is necessary. It’s happening because a choice that Republicans in Congress have made. They’ve allowed these cuts to happen because they refused to budge on closing a single wasteful loophole to help reduce the deficit. As recently as yesterday they decided to protect special interest tax breaks for the well-off and the well-connected, and they think that that’s apparently more important than protecting our military or middle-class families from the pain of these cuts.
RUSH: Yeah. So the sequester now is a fait accompli, midnight tonight, less than 12 hours, and the Republicans did it. And all the misery, pain, and suffering that results from it, Republicans’ fault. And nobody’s gonna challenge him on it. Well, we will. Fox News will. But his voters, we’re outnumbered, folks. Hollywood movies, books, newspapers. Snerdley is asking me a question, “What’s incentive to work with somebody like this?” There isn’t any, but, see, this is another area where he’s got the Republicans over the barrel.
You remember the Luntz focus group from yesterday. Twenty-two people who voted for Obama, 22 people who voted for Romney, they all blame the Republicans and Congress for this, and they all want people to work together. They think the solution here is people getting together and holding hands and compromising. So the Republicans, desperate to get votes from people, desperate to be loved, desperate to be understood, hear people say they want us to work together, so they’re gonna make it known they’re willing to work with Obama. And he’s gonna take full advantage of it.
He’s gonna supposedly listen to ’em say it and he’s gonna say, “I tried, but these people, they keep insisting on tax cuts for the rich. I’ve tried. I’ve done everything. But look at these people, just yesterday, they decided to protect a special interest tax break for the well-off.” Nothing like that happened yesterday. In fact, that whole sound bite is untrue and wrong.
BREAK TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: Snerdley, it’s not me saying it. Snerdley is arguing with me here about the next six months being blamed on the Republicans. Obama said it. Here, we got the sound bite. Obama said it in the presser today. Listen.
OBAMA: Not everyone will feel the pain of these cuts right away.
RUSH: No, of course not.
OBAMA: The pain, though, will be real.
RUSH: Right.
OBAMA: Beginning this week many middle-class families will have their lives disrupted in significant ways.
RUSH: Oh, yeah.
OBAMA: All of this will cause a ripple effect throughout our economy. Layoffs and pay cuts means that people have less money in their pockets, and that means that they have less money to spend at local businesses. That means lower profits. That means fewer hires. So every time that we get a piece of economic news over the next month, next two months, next six months, as long as the sequester’s in place we’ll know that that economic news could have been better if Congress had not failed to act.
RUSH: So, there you have it. Next month, next two months, next six months, there isn’t gonna be any good economic news, folks. There hasn’t been any in four years. What’s gonna change? So the economic news is gonna be bad, whether there’s a sequester or not. But there will be. The sequester will be in effect. We’ll know the economic news could have been better if the Republicans had not failed to act. Congress equals Republicans. And then he went on to say that (paraphrasing), “The American people agree with my approach. They agree that we should have a balanced approach at deficit reduction. And the question is can the American people persuade Congress to do the right thing?”
I’m just warning you, next six months, that was the media getting their advisory, their marching orders, next six months, every bit of economic news, you trace it back to March 1st. Sequester and the Republicans. But don’t worry. We are not gonna let people forget what Obama said in the Des Moines Register last October, where he wanted the sequester, it was his idea, and he was counting on it accomplishing his goals of causing economic harm.