RUSH: A fascinating thing happened yesterday. There was a conference call yesterday. Sununu ran a conference call with four small-business owners. They had a bunch of bloggers on the call and some traditional reporters. One of the bloggers on the call was John Hinderaker from Power Line. And he wrote about it, he said: “This morning I participated in a media phone call organized by the Romney campaign led by John Sununu and focused on President Obama’s astonishing claim that ‘If you got a business –you didn’t build that. Somebody else made that happen.’ Sununu was joined by four small business owners.
“Sununu was nuclear. He said that Obama’s comments show three related things: 1) The President doesn’t understand how America and business work. No wonder his administration has failed to create jobs. 2) Obama’s crony capitalism: he thinks the way to create jobs is for the government to pick winners and losers, and slide money to Obama’s bundlers and allies.” The way this works, Obama knows what he’s doing. This business he’s incompetent and doesn’t understand. He understands how it works, and resents it. But the crony capitalism works this way. Obama slips you some money for an industry going nowhere, like Solyndra, solar panels, wind, or what have you, and you send some of it back to Obama. It’s a way for Obama to actually get taxpayer dollars as campaign donations. He just has to launder the money first. He has to first give it away to some nonexistent business that’s going nowhere in exchange for the guy who got the money sending some of it back as a donation.
It’s much like the union money-laundering scheme that’s been going on for years, the Democrat Party and all the big labor unions. So literally, federal money from the Treasury, say, to Solyndra, nonexistent business goes bankrupt, but beforehand, the Solyndra guy sends some of it back. It’s a little cleaner than Obama just appropriating money to himself, but that’s essentially what he’s doing. That’s Obama’s version of crony capitalism. And Sununu said the third thing: “Obama’s attitude toward small business also reflects where he comes from, the ‘murky political world’ of Chicago where politicians and felons are interchangeable. Sununu wrapped up by saying that not only were Obama’s comments insulting to entrepreneurs, they show he has no idea how the economy functions. He said he wished Obama would learn how to be an American.”
He has since apologized for that. We have those sound bites. Those are numbers 18 and 19 coming up thing. But before we get to that, after Sununu went through his little riff, “Sununu then introduced four small business people, all of whom did a great job of pushing back against Obama’s casual dismissal of their hard work. Kyle Kahler and his brothers and sisters own a tool and die company in Ohio. He pointed out that if all it took to have a successful business is a road in front of your building, as Obama seems to believe, then everyone would have one. Kahler and his family went without new cars, vacations and so on so that they could reinvest money in their business. In the end, the business succeeded and has paid millions of dollars in taxes as well as millions in payrolls. Obama, he said, is ignorant. The government is getting a free ride on the backs of businesses, not the other way around.”
And that is exactly right. It’s the government that gets the free ride. It’s Obama trying to tell everybody that government comes up with these great ideas, government makes all these great ideas possible. Government is a sponge with a police force. It’s all these other people that are out creating jobs, creating businesses, creating products and services. They pay taxes. The government gets to collect it for doing nothing, just for existing. It’s the government that gets a free ride on the back of business and here’s Obama trying to make it look like these businesses owe everything they’ve got to a benevolent ruler or leader or government.
The next guy, the next business owner, David Napier, owns a catering business. “He noted that Obama doesn’t seem to understand that 100% of the government’s revenue comes from business activity.” The government wouldn’t have a dime if it weren’t for people creating wealth and the government taxing it. This seemed to be a theme among all four of the business owners. Now, wait. Stick with me, folks, because this has a great, great payoff. The next business owner, Jerry Pierce, “said he was insulted by Obama’s ignorant comments. Obama has no idea what it takes to start a business. When Pierce began, his first office was a door he laid across two filing cabinets and a single phone line. He got no help from the government, nor was there ever a community organizer helping him. Pierce took out a second mortgage on his house, gave up vacations and sacrificed to build his business. We need a new president; Mitt Romney understands business.
“The last small business person was Renee Amoore, who owns a health care and business consulting firm in Pennsylvania. She was white-hot, her voice quivering with anger. Where did Obama get his comments, she asked. She is blessed, but she is blessed because she has sacrificed. Obama’s statement is reprehensible, he doesn’t know what is going on. He doesn’t understand business or the economy. Romney understands business because he has lived it. People think that because I am an African-American woman I am supposed to vote for Obama, she said. Well, I have been an African-American woman for a long time, and I’m not voting for him. 23 million Americans are out of work and incomes are falling. I’m working hard, Obama isn’t. He doesn’t know what hard work is. Her husband suffers from ALS, and she is her family’s sole support. I need Mitt Romney, she said. Hope and change? I’m hoping for a change.”
Now, Hinderaker is listening to all this on the conference call and said: “It is hard to imagine a more hard-hitting presentation. I would love to see every one of these business owners featured in a commercial. Ms. Amoore, in particular, would be a sensation. So when Sununu and the business owners had spoken, the floor was opened up for questions.”
Look at me. Listen to this.
“The first question came from Joe Varden of the Columbus Dispatch: Can you clarify your comment about [Obama] learning to be an American? Sununu: I meant that Obama needs to learn the American formula for creating business — not for government to create business, but to create an environment in which entrepreneurs can thrive. Varden’s second question: What do you think of Rob Portman as a Vice-presidential choice? Next up was Andrew Stiles of the Washington Free Beacon, who asked about Jeffrey Katzenberg, a major Obama bundler, being under investigation for allegedly bribing Chinese officials.
“Then it was back to the media-formerly-known-as-mainstream. Garrett Haik of NBC News wanted to know how the issue of Romney’s tax returns ‘plays into the argument about what someone understands re business.’ Sununu said the tax return question is merely a distraction, no matter how many Romney releases the Democrats will always want more. The last question came from Sarah Boxer of PBS: Expanding on the tax return question, a new Obama ad is running in Pennsylvania that says Romney’s returns may show that he didn’t pay any taxes at all. Any comment on that? Sununu said that the ad ‘shows how stupid the Obama campaign is.’ To think that someone who has been in the public eye all his life and has been Governor of Massachusetts didn’t pay any taxes is ridiculous. The IRS would have been beating down his door.”
So what happened here? Here you had the Romney campaign — this is what all of you in this audience say you would love to see. It happened yesterday. You’re not hearing about it from the people who covered it. And you won’t. They had a dynamic presentation on the people who make this country work, made by the people who make this country work, for the people who make this country work. Four small-business owners describing what it took and what it takes and how difficult it is with Obama as president. And all they wanted to know, all journalists wanted to know was how any of this plays into Romney’s tax returns.
So the Romney campaign puts on a great show that you didn’t see and you won’t see. The only thing that the Democrat Party reporters wanted to know is how they can spin it back to Obama’s talking points. That’s all they cared about. They’re not the slightest bit curious. They’re not the slightest bit interested. They’ve got marching orders, or their narrative, or their template, or whatever the hell. And their template is whatever Obama happens to be alleging about Romney, either he’s a felon, or he should release his tax returns. So no matter what Romney says or does in a press availability, the questions are always gonna be taken back and tried to be linked or tied to the Obama agenda and Obama’s talking points. It’s journalistic malpractice. It is blatant incompetence.
These are people that have… I would call it a “constitutional privilege,” in addition to a constitutional responsibility. But regardless, it’s simply journalistic malpractice. It’s not bias. That’s a foregone conclusion. This is a bunch of hacks advancing an agenda of a particular candidate, in this case the incumbent president of the United States. Now, Hinderaker closes by saying, “It will be interesting to see whether any word of what actually happened in today’s call will see the light of day in the media formally known as ‘mainstream.’ If you didn’t see it here, would you see it anywhere? I doubt it.”
And there’s no doubt that he’s right.
BREAK TRANSCRIPT
SUNUNU: The president clearly demonstrated that he has absolutely no idea how the American economy functions. The men and women all over America who have worked hard to build these businesses, their businesses, from the ground up is how our economy became the envy of the world. It is the American way, and I wish this president would learn how to be an American.
RUSH: “[A]nd I wish this president would learn how to be an American.” I have a theory. I believe that untold millions of Americans know exactly what he means. I think that this is not a unique opinion. And it has nothing to do with birthers. It has nothing to do with the birth certificate or any of that. It has to do with the fact that this guy does not like this country as founded. He has said his objective is to transform this country. We’ve got three-and-a-half years, a track record here of too many things to be coincidental. There is a purpose to this.