RUSH: There’s another news story that came out. This is in the New York Post, but I guess it’s actually been in more places and I just read it first in the New York Post. Jodi Kantor, who is an infobabe reporter for the New York Times, has a book on the Obamas about to come out. It had some excerpts published over the weekend, and they reveal in this book that the White House put on a big Halloween party in 2009 — right in the middle of the worst of the economic downturn — and it was an Alice in Wonderland-themed party. They had Johnny Depp come in, in character, and run the whole thing, along with a Hollywood director named Tim Burton. They had vials…

I mean, this was a Hollywood theme party. They had vials of blood. It was just an over-the-top, no-expenses-spared, Halloween party in the White House that they didn’t want anybody outside the White House to know about; and the reason they didn’t want anybody to know about it is because they were puttin’ on the dog and they were spending money left and right, and having a grand old time in the midst of massive economic pain throughout the country. Unemployment, job prospects dwindling for a lot of people. But this private Halloween party that they gave for themselves took place in the State Dining Room.

As I say, the room was decorated by Tim Burton and included costumes. George Lucas actually sent Chewbacca from Star Wars. He actually sent the costume and an actor to be Chewbacca. They drank punch out of blood vials. And Johnny Depp was there in character, the Mad Hatter or some such thing, and — and the media obviously knew about it and didn’t say a word about it. They sat on it, knowing that such extravagance and weirdness might not fly too well in a country in the middle of one of its worse recessions and now it’s come out and the White House says, “Well, the media knew about this,” which I don’t doubt! I don’t doubt for a minute the media knew all about this and was hoping to be invited to it.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: This book by Jodi Kantor, New York Times, that reveals this Halloween party in 2009 also talks about the problem that Michelle Obama has with her husband’s staff. She didn’t get along with Rahm Emanuel; didn’t get along with anybody in the West Wing, primarily because Obama’s staff is not radical enough. And I have heard fairly credible reliable sources that Obama is influenced by two people, his wife and Valerie Jarrett, that there are two women who basically — and I don’t know, I don’t mean to say it disparaging, I’m just describing them, two women, Valerie Jarrett and Michelle Obama who basically are on this guy’s case every day and telling him what to do, where to go, how to do it, so forth and so on. And that Michelle is just profoundly radical. They’ve kept it quiet. They’ve done a good job of making her look like she doesn’t do much except raise the two daughters, but that she’s really an activist in there and not getting along with Obama’s staff because they’re just not radical enough. They’re not moving far enough, fast enough, quick enough to the left to satisfy her. That’s all in this book.

Anyway, I’m reading the New York Post expose on this book about this Halloween party, the Alice in Wonderland Halloween party, and my first reaction, “So what, would anybody have cared anyway if the news had gotten out?” I know it’s Halloween, October 2009, we’re right in the midst of the stimulus not working, but still, in October of 2009 there’s still a lot of hope. You don’t have a lot of people still with the guts to criticize Obama. They are beginning to be at that point in time some brave souls on the right starting to take shots at the worthlessness of the stimulus and all that, but pretty much is still in this first year honeymoon phase. There’s not a whole lot of criticism. The country is hurting. And I read the story and it makes a big deal here how the White House went out of the way to cover this up, to keep this quiet.

“The book reveals how any official announcement of the glittering affair — coming at a time when Tea Party activists and voters furious over the lagging economy, 10-percent unemployment rate, bank bailouts and ObamaÂ’s health-care plan were staging protests — quickly vanished down the rabbit hole. ‘White House officials were so nervous about how a splashy, Hollywood-esque party would look to jobless Americans — or their representatives in Congress, who would soon vote on health care — that the event was not discussed publicly and BurtonÂ’s and DeppÂ’s contributions went unacknowledged,’ the book says. However, the White House made certain that more humble Halloween festivities earlier that day — for thousands of Washington-area schoolkids — were well reported by the press corps.”

They basically had a bunch of kids over on Halloween and that’s what made the news, you know, traditional White House Halloween bash. But then they closed it all off and went and had this big decadent Hollywood-esque type Henry VIII bash. “Unbeknownst to reporters, the State Dining Room had also been transformed into a secretive White House Wonderland. Tim Burton decorated it ‘in his signature creepy-comic style. His film version was about to be released, and he had turned the room into the Mad HatterÂ’s tea party –‘” Anybody think that’s a coincidence, right in the middle of the Tea Party uprising? They’re heading into the 2010 elections and here they’re having a Mad Hatter tea party.

“‘A long table set with antique-looking linens, enormous stuffed animals in chairs, and tiered serving plates with treats like bone-shaped meringue cookies,’ reports the book, which The Post purchased at a Manhattan bookstore. ‘Fruit punch was served in blood vials at the bar. BurtonÂ’s own Mad Hatter, the actor Johnny Depp, presided over the scene in full costume, standing up on a table to welcome everyone in character.'”

The book also reveals this little anecdote. “One morning during his Senate campaign, Obama didnÂ’t show up to a meeting with donors. ‘After a frantic search, a white staffer named Peter Coffey called ObamaÂ’s barbershop to find that, yes, he was there.’ The president confronted Coffey about the call later that day. ‘The relationship between a black man and his barber is sacred,’ Obama bellowed … ‘For failing to understand this truth, your punishment is to watch the movie Barbershop. And for further punishment, you will then watch the sequel, Barbershop 2.'” So Obama’s making race jokes to this guy who tried to find him. “You can’t interrupt me when I’m at the barber. That’s a sacred relationship. Here, you gotta go watch Barbershop, which I think starred Ice Cube, if I’m not mistaken.

Now, here’s the point all this. When I read about this, I said, “Well, who would care?” Obama’s supporters wouldn’t care about this. They had thrown lavish parties in the White House, had Stevie Wonder up there, all kinds of stuff. They were turning the White House into — well, the media reported it as the cultural return of art and entertainment. It wasn’t any big deal, so they had a big Halloween party. The idea that the Obamas consider themselves above and beyond and not at all in any way related to common people, what’s surprising about this? The American people don’t get upset about anything, why would they get upset about this? But the White House was obviously afraid there would be some people upset, so they did their best to keep it secret.

Now, I don’t believe the press didn’t know. I think the press went along with keeping it secret. No way the press didn’t know this. Whether I’m right or wrong the White House thought people would care, it’s clear. Now, another thing you can then ask is, “Well, if we didn’t know about this, what else is going on in there that we don’t know about?” And that’s a legitimate question. What else is happening in the White House that the press knows about but is choosing not to report? And then there was late last week some blogger, somebody took a picture of Marie Antoinette, a painting of Marie Antoinette and put Michelle Obama’s face in it. I think it was a blogger, I forget where it was. Anyway, people in the media who saw it immediately started charging racism and insensitivity and how dare they make fun of the first lady this way.

I don’t know how you get that. How in the world, there was nothing racial about it. How you gonna put Michelle Obama in a picture and not portray here as African-American? How do you do that? There’s no racism in it at all. But anyway, that was the allegation. The point about this is, though, if you look at Michelle Obama and her vacations and her separate travel, she does consider herself royalty. And I have a theory, folks. I’m not retracting anything I’ve said about liberals, Marxists and their ideological aims, their idea-driven aims.

But I also think that there is something else that explains all of this, the Solyndras, the health care waivers, the entire regime — and I really think it’s nothing more complicated than money. I’ll never forget Marion Barry, the 1984 Democrat convention, San Francisco. And I don’t know what specifically he was referring to, but the theme of his speech was, “Tonight, tonight we’re on the inside,” meaning, “Okay, finally we’ve got our chance to be in charge of things.” And then when Mayor David Dinkins was elected mayor for life in New York City, I remember some of the civil rights coalition people saying, “All right, now it’s our turn to have the money.”

Now, I believe that in addition to whatever drives Barack Obama and his party ideologically, also near the top of the list is the pursuit of money without having to work for it; being able to pass it out to their friends and set their friends up to be wealthy for the rest of their lives. I think there’s all kinds of that going on, too; and I think if you look at the way the Obamas live — with Michelle and her separate vacations and not being concerned about how much it costs to take separate airplanes — there’s no question in my mind, whatever else they view this as, that they view this as an opportunity to live high on the hog without having it cost them a dime.

They justify it by thinking, “Well, we deserve this or we’re owed this because of what’s been done to us and our ancestors all these years.” Who knows? I think it’s part of it. I also think that it is why the Republican establishment wants back in power. Everybody in Washington wants to be in charge of the money. Everybody wants to run the committees and be the chairman. Everybody wants to be in charge of the budget. Everybody wants to have power over it. Do not discount, ever, the money. Folks, another thing not to fall for: Do not think that however wealthy somebody is, they run around thinking they have enough, because nobody ever thinks they have enough.

No matter how much you have, it’s very easy — it’s not hard at all — to learn how to spend every dime in your pocket. It’s easy. Now, people who have never had two or three million dollars think, “My gosh, what would I spend it on?” You’d be surprised once you have it. It’s not that hard. And the concept of, “Well, gosh, don’t you have enough?” That’s a myth, that’s something the liberals use to try to guilt other people out of pursuing achievement and so forth. But, believe me: No matter what they have it’s never enough, and I think there are a lot of reasons why the Obamas, the Democrats are doing what they’re doing.

In addition to the ideology — in addition to whatever grievances they have about this country and its past and however they think it needs to be cut down to size, however they think the people who have gotten rich need to be gotten even with — also in the mix is their chance to get their share without having to work for it and set themselves up and their friends up for life in the process. I don’t doubt that that’s a factor here, and they’re clearly willing to use the power, and they don’t care about the debt that the country is involved in. They don’t think that we are at a point of peril. The idea that the national debt is now greater than the economy? No big deal.

They’ve been hearing all their lives how the national debt’s too high, the national debt’s gonna cripple the country, but it never has. While they are hearing all of this horrible stuff about the debt, the deficits, all the tax rates, they look around and they see people doing just fine. They’re living high on the hog, and the national debt’s not hurting anybody. The rich are getting richer and that’s who they want to be — and if they don’t know how to earn a lot of money working for it they’ll go someplace where they can legally steal it, or apportion it to themselves and their friends and that’s a large part of what’s going on with this regime.

So when you have a big time Hollywood party like this or any other show of extravagance, to me it’s patently obvious what’s going on here: A bunch of people are taking advantage of having control over all that money, a chance to get a lot of it without having to work for it — under the guise of being entitled to it, pulling the strings — because in their view, this is what all their predecessors have done.

I’ll tell you what really woke me up to this (and nobody is more cynical than I am when it comes to Congress, including Will Rogers). I don’t know about you, but when I learned along with the rest of you, when I learned that Congress made it legal for themselves to use insider trading, that’s all I needed to know. When they specifically exempted themselves by statute from the insider trading laws — when Congress passed a law saying, “We can use insider trading,” they have a totally different perception of themselves than we do. When it comes to morality, when it comes to ethics, when it comes to why they’re there. When I heard that? You know, you live and learn. Lights still go off, red flags still get raised, but that told me a lot.