RUSH: Now, let’s go to the Obama press conference last night, just a couple of sound bites. I watched this last night, ladies and gentlemen. I know that there are two Americas watching this. The America of you and me saw one thing; the America represented by the people in Fort Myers today in Obama’s town meeting, they represent the other America. We have a little update tune here. Obama is liking the recession, wanting it to continue. That’s what this plan’s about, when you get right down to the nitty-gritty.
(playing of Obama spoof song)
RUSH: Barack Obama and Recession. Only he’s very happy about the opportunity it affords him and his fellow Democrats. All right. I don’t know about you, but when I watched the press conference last night, I laughed. This is rambling incoherence. I have never seen a teleprompter used in a press conference.
I have never seen a president start out with a teleprompter and make his opening comments with his head looking far above the multitudes as Obama’s was last night, reading off a teleprompter for an opening statement. And it was a campaign speech. It was right out of a campaign speech. It was nothing specific. It was just more platitudes and empty rhetoric, and then they went to the questions. The first question, he took 13 minutes to answer it. I sent a friend of mine a note, I said, ‘This is incredible. He’s trying to limit the number of questions that he’s getting by going on and on and on with diarrhea of the mouth,’ and it was incoherent. He was not answering the questions; he was just rambling. It got to be ridiculously funny. Then Chuck Todd from NBC stood up and said, ‘Mr. President, don’t you think it would be better if you tell people that they should perhaps save their money and not spend it?’
He actually started asking the president to tell people how to spend their money. It was just mind-boggling. It was so incoherent. It was unprofessional, and when he left the prompter and went to the press Q&A, the difference was striking. It’s hilarious how the liberal media and even some supposedly conservative commentators are telling us how smart Obama sounded last night. He was rambling. At times he was incoherent. They act like we didn’t see it. They act like we didn’t hear it. He complains about the deficit he inherited, but he wants to massively increase it! He voted for every piece of legislation that led to this deficit that he inherited that he’s whining and complaining about. But there’s another America that looked at this, and I am sure saw something totally different. They saw an Obama that was articulate, they think. They saw an Obama that was able to reflect his intelligence. I watched some of the commentary after the press conference last night. It was predictable. I knew what it was going to be. The Drive-Bys say, ‘Whoa, this guy is so smart! What a nice change from President Bush.’
I was saying, ‘Give us Bush back.’ At least we got answers to questions there, and we didn’t get avoidance and we didn’t get detours and we didn’t get… He did not want to answer anything. When he got the question about Geithner, ‘Well, I don’t want to step on Secretary Geithner’s toes. He’s got a big announcement tomorrow.’ What do you mean? Who works for who here, President Obama? Step on the Treasury secretary’s toes? He either didn’t know what Geithner was going to say or he didn’t want to double whammy everybody with massive spending totals in his press conference, talking about his stimulus bill plus whatever Geithner was going to propose today. And then there was one other thing that —
Oh! He threw Biden under the bus. Major Garrett stood up, and he said, ‘Hey, Joe Biden said that even if you do everything right, there’s still a 30% chance you won’t get it right. There’s a 30% chance it will go bad? What was he talking about? Obama said, ‘I don’t know. I really… You know Joe. I don’t know what he was talking about. He may not know what he was talking about.’ He made it clear to everybody he thinks Biden has got diarrhea of the mouth himself and is just a blooming idiot. He just threw Biden under the bus! ‘I don’t know what Joe was saying. You all know Joe. ‘Hey, Chuck! Stand up! Let ’em see you out there. Ohhhh, God love you, what did I do? Oh, gee. Stand up for Chuck!” And then, before we go to the break, there was one instance again. He keeps going back and forth. Here is a portion of Obama’s remarks last night.
OBAMA: At this particular moment, with the private sector so weakening by this recession, the federal government is the only entity left with the resources to jolt our economy back into life. It is only government that can break the vicious cycle where lost jobs lead to people spending less money, which leads to even more layoffs — and breaking that cycle is exactly what the plan that’s moving through Congress is designed to do.
RUSH: It is not. It’s designed to prolong the cycle. But let’s go back to January 28th. Remember? In the East Room, the same place where the press conference was. Surrounded by a bunch of CEOs who had probably flown in on private jets, but that was okay, because they were supporting Obama. He said this.
OBAMA: In the end, the answer to our economic troubles rests less in my hands or in the hands of our legislators than it does with America’s workers and the businesses that employ them. They are the ones whose efforts and ideas will determine our economic destiny just as they always have. For in the end it’s businesses — large and small — that generate the jobs, provide the salaries, and serve as the foundation on which the American people’s lives and dreams depend. All we can do, those of us here in Washington, is to help create a favorable climate in which workers can prosper, businesses can thrive, and our economy can grow.