RUSH: The Associated Press is piling on Obama today. After the first story, ‘Questionable Associations of Obama,’ they actually ran a story saying that he knows Blagojevich, he knows Tony Rezko, he knows Jeremiah Wright, he knows Bill Ayers, he knows Emil Jones, he knows Rashid Khalidi, and he knows Michael Pfleger. These people in AP, they’re shameless, telling us all these things now. And then there’s this from Liz Sidoti: ‘President-elect Barack Obama hasn’t even stepped into office and already a scandal — not of his own making — is threatening to dog him. Obama isn’t accused of anything. But the fact that Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich, a fellow Democrat, has been charged with trying to sell Obama’s now-vacant Senate post gives political opponents an opening to criticize him. A slew of questions remain. … Despite all that, at the very least, the episode amounts to a distraction for Obama just six weeks before he’s sworn into office while he works to set up his new administration and deal with a national economic crisis. It also raises the specter of notorious Chicago politics, an image Obama has tried to distance himself from during his career.’ Yeah. They gave birth to him.
‘There were signs the continuing investigation could still involve Obama. … More details on the case could be forthcoming.’ AP says Obama’s not out of the woods yet. They are clearly piling on our president-elect, ladies and gentlemen. It’s unbecoming of the Drive-Bys to behave in this manner, but they are certainly doing it. I wonder if Fitzgerald could get all these guys summoned to a grand jury. I think he knows how a grand jury works. He convened one for two years to nail Scooter Libby. These guys need to go to the grand jury and tell their stories. That could be somewhat fascinating. Back to the audio sound bites. This is like a Drive-By montage on how this whole thing is just a sad, sad distraction.
YELLIN: It’s an unwelcome distraction as Obama tries to build a new government.
HANNITY: It’s gotta be a distraction.
TOOBIN: This is solely a distraction.
HARWOOD: Certainly a distraction.
QUIJANO: Clearly this story has become a huge distraction.
SWEET: It is a major distraction.
ROGINSKI: It’s a drag for Barack Obama, it’s obviously a distraction.
RUSH: Okay, so that’s the byword now, it’s just a distraction, and Jeffrey Toobin said ‘solely a distraction.’ They are convinced, ladies and gentlemen, of his, not just innocence, but I mean his purity. He is so pure that even surrounded by scandal, he is unaware that it’s taking place and he is incapable of being smeared by it or touched by it. And they are so sure, which is why I’m so sure, that Obama has nothing to do with this and has no culpability whatsoever because the Drive-Bys clearly know him better than I do, and they have vetted him and they know all these things. They would have told us if there were any questionable character traits held by Barack Obama. And listen, Jonathan Alter on MSNBC last night had this to say about Blago.
ALTER: I would not rule out the possibility that Blagojevich will start trying during this case to try to take down Obama with him and spread a bunch of lies about him. It’s very, very possible.
RUSH: Whoa! That’s quite an assertion from the anointed Jonathan Alter. He knows that Blagojevich will probably start telling lies about Obama to try to take down Obama with him. He’s going to spread a bunch of lies. What lies could he possibly tell that anybody would believe? Because Obama has been vetted. What could Blagojevich say that anybody is going to believe now? Especially since Jonathan Alter has warned us and has sort of set the table here to expect Blagojevich to lie. Well, what could he possibly lie about that anybody would believe? Folks, corruption, nationalization, and propaganda. Those are the three words that describe America today. Corruption, nationalization, and propaganda. Vladimir Putin is looking at the United States right now and saying, ‘Damn it, they’re beating me to it.’ This is quite a trifecta when you stop and think of this: corruption, nationalization, propaganda. We have come a long way, baby, but that’s where this country is. We’re being run by corrupt politicians who, with the help of propagandists in the media, are destroying the private sector.
We’re on the way to becoming a socialist country. We no longer believe that the private sector can do a better job of running businesses than the public sector. Does it not frighten you a little bit that whenever any private sector business is in trouble, everybody says let the government run it, let the government fix it. The government can do it better than these frauds and these cheats. This is incredible, ladies and gentlemen. We no longer believe in risk. We no longer believe in reward and the possibility of failure, and it is failure where life’s real lessons are learned. We’re becoming soft out there, and a lot of people want to stay that way as a country. So the Big Three defects: corruption, nationalization, propaganda, they’re all related. They work together quite well, they reinforce each other. These are the three legs of the stool of liberalism: corruption, nationalization, propaganda. There are no ethics when you have corruption, nationalization of propaganda, no ethics. And so nobody can violate any ethics. They exist to make the individual subservient to the state, and they are winning for now.
Remember Senator Moynihan? Senator Moynihan of New York talked about defining deviancy down. That’s when things got so bad in a certain area that you can’t fix them, you don’t even try anymore and say it’s normal, normal behavior. We can’t stop it; we can’t fix it. We have done just that. It used to be considered deviant to cheat, lie, and steal. Not to Charlie Rangel, and not to anybody in Charlie Rangel’s orbit. Tell it to Barack Obama. He worked closely and helped the careers of Tony Rezko and Bill Ayers and Blagojevich and vice-versa. But it’s not considered deviant to cheat, to lie, to steal. It’s now clever. It’s clever to be able to get away with it. Obama knew these people were corrupt. But they had no impact on him. He knew, he had to know, he came from this cesspool. He had to know that there was a corrupt place. It didn’t taint him. I know, I know, he bought his house with a little help from his convicted friend Rezko. I get by with a little help from my friends. But everybody does that. Everybody has connections.
Do you realize in America, nobody does anything on their own, folks? This is the lesson you are to learn. Hard work does not get you where you want to go. Ambition is not the answer. Connections, getting help, getting sweetheart deals, not even paying wholesale, much less retail, having it given to you, that’s a measure of power, that’s the measure of character. So of course Obama is untainted, even though a felon arranged the purchase of his home for him at below market prices. That’s brilliant. That shows he understands how the system works. You know, it used to be considered deviant to even suggest the federal government should own and operate American businesses. Today, it isn’t just an option to take over an industry in a down business cycle, which is caused by corrupt liberals. It’s the answer. The answer is to have the government take it over, the only option. And we’re supposed to feel good about this. It used to be considered deviant to withhold news or knowingly lie and smear people who did not share the politics of the reporter or the media outlet, but tell people like Dan Rather and others who get their own television shows by doing exactly that, smearing people simply on the basis they have a different political ideology than the reporter does. So the country will now accept almost any behavior without objection. In fact, I’m not so sure that deviant behavior isn’t now the preference.