Barry’s Authenticity in Question

RUSH: This is what I’ve been telling you. He’s a blank canvas. You can make him anything you want him to be. If you want to say Obama’s a virgin, he’s a virgin. You want to say Obama’s clean and pure as the wind-driven snow because he hasn’t been in politics long enough to be corrupted, you can say that, absolutely. All right, let’s see. Audio sound bite number 18. As you know, Michelle Obama got some people riled up with her statement that for the first time in her life she’s proud of her country. Her husband, Barack Obama — and by the way, have you noticed the difference in those two, when they speak? She is loaded for bear, she is sometimes angry, she’s saying nothing along the lines of what Barack is saying at all, and that’s because Axelrod is not writing her speeches. Well, you just hang on, if you think that I’m — hang on. I want to play the bite, though. He was on the radio in San Antonio today, WOAI talking to the host Jim Forsyth who said, ‘Your wonderful wife hit the campaign trail, she’d been quoted, ‘For the first time in my life I’m proud of America.’ Why is it, sir, that she hasn’t been proud of America before, and is this the first time you’ve been proud of America?’

OBAMA: What she meant was this is the first time that she’s been proud of the politics of America because she’s pretty cynical about the political process.

RUSH: She didn’t say that.

OBAMA: For good reason. She’s not alone. But she’s been seeing people participate and get involved in record numbers —

RUSH: Right, right, right.

OBAMA: — so this is why I think a lot of people get turned off of politics because, you know, a statement’s made, and people trying to take it out of context and create a big deal out of it, and that’s not at all what she meant.

RUSH: Oh, come on. This is why people get turned off to politics? This is why people get turned off to people. She said, for the first time in her life after going to Harvard and all these things, living in the Chicago suburbs or wherever she lives, they are millionaires out there, this is the first time in her life she’s been proud. He’s the one that added words and changed the context of her comment. But, see, all I’m doing now is cementing the bond that Obama supporters have. Gotta be very careful how you launch into this criticism. Maybe I should seriously endorse Obama, just to see what would happen to some of his supporters. You know, take advantage of liberal disgust with me. At any rate, I mentioned earlier that some of these things Obama is saying have been repeated four years prior by the Breck Girl, John Edwards, because the same guy that ran Edwards’ campaign, David Axelrod, ran Deval Patrick’s campaign for governor of Massachusetts. David Axelrod, who is running Obama’s campaign, David Axelrod.

Here are some samples. This is Edwards as quoted by Sasha Issenberg: ‘Obama Borrows From Edwards, The Boston Globe’s Political Intelligencer blog on January 5th: ‘I haven’t spent most of my life in politics, but I’ve spent enough time in Washington to know how much we need to change it.’ Obama: ‘I know I haven’t spent a lot of time learning the ways of Washington. But I’ve been there long enough to know that the ways of Washington must change.’ Edwards: ‘Hard work should be valued in this country, so we’re going to reward work, not just wealth.’ That was Edwards July 28th, talking to the Democrat National Convention in ’04. Obama: ‘We shouldn’t just be respecting wealth in this country — we should be respecting work.’ Edwards, again from the Democrat National Convention: ‘Reject The Tired, Old, Hateful, Negative Politics Of The Past … Embrace The Politics Of Hope.’ ‘[T]he American people, you can reject the tired, old, hateful, negative politics of the past. And instead you can embrace the politics of hope, the politics of what’s possible because this is America, where everything is possible.’ John Edwards, Democrat convention, 2004.’ Sound familiar? Obama — and this is from Charles Babington, by the way, the Associated Press. ‘Democrat Barack Obama said Sunday it is difficult … ‘to break out of the politics of the past,’ when the country was badly divided and Democrats lost control of Congress.’

Even Edwards’ wife, Elizabeth, back in August said this: ‘You listen to the language of what people say, particularly Obama, who seems to be using a lot of John’s 2004 language, which is maybe not surprising since one of his speechwriters was one of our speechwriters, his media guy was our media guy. These people know John’s mantra as well as anybody could know it. They’ve moved from ‘hope is on the way’ to ‘the audacity of hope.’ I’m constantly hearing things in a familiar tone.’ The Breck Girl’s wife, Elizabeth, and that was last August, 2007. The importance of this is two things. It means that Obama is perhaps, not authentic. It also means that the people don’t care who says — well, it’s not the words that are resonating here, it’s who’s saying them. If Edwards was saying many of these same things, and he was, he didn’t catch fire. There weren’t people fainting at Edwards rallies. Women weren’t thinking of throwing their bras at John Edwards. You didn’t need gurneys to take the fainted out and there certainly weren’t 20,000 people at the time lining up to hear John Edwards. But all these things are true of Obama, which means it’s a cult of personality among other things. The authenticity thing is what represents I think the biggest target for people who want to start taking pokes at Obama. It’s going to be tough, though, because anybody who starts criticizing him is going to have to be prepared for the fact that they’re only doing it because they’re racist.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: Well, basically what we have here is this media guy, David Axelrod, the puppet master. He presses a button on his computer, an old speech pops out, hands it to his various clients, Edwards, Obama, whoever, sort of like the college student selling his term paper to other students. That is what’s happening. The difference is, Edwards couldn’t sell this stuff. Obama is. It’s the authenticity of this that’s probably going to be the focus, down the road, of his opponents.