He said, ‘Yeah, report back. I’m going to look forward to your report back to me this afternoon.’ (laughing) Report back this afternoon. Two-and-a-half hour breakout sessions, report back. Then they televised the report back. I’m at home; I’m flipping around. I’m just going to take it easy for a couple hours before I roll up the sleeves and get back into it. Lo and behold, all the networks, cable networks, are televising the breakout session members returning. I’m thinking, ‘You know what? Why don’t we just designate one of these networks to be the All Obama All the Time Channel?’ because that’s what’s happening. This guy is going to be scheduling so many events that he’s going to be on television all the time. We may as well just make it MSNBC. So I’ve got a lot of sound bites from the breakouts (laughing), the breakout groups Obama set up. There was a Social Security group. There was the fiscal responsibility group. I forget what the other groups were. They all came back and reported.
BREAK TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: To the audio sound bites. When we left you yesterday, ladies and gentlemen, President Obama, Professor of the United States of America, had convened a summit in Washington in the East Room consisting of members of the House and Senate of both parties and some other interested parties, figures and so forth from various walks of life in the great mosaic that is America, and he had given them a lecture. He said… (laughing) After spending two trillion bucks, he’s now going to tighten the bucks and he’s going to make sure these guys do it wisely and smart and he’s going to take names and he’s going to be watching to see who wastes it and misuses it. Then he sent everybody to ‘breakout groups,’ to study groups. Each group was assigned a specific area where they were to come up with solutions to all of our problems, except Social Security.
That was taken off. That’s too tough. They were all sent out there, and they were to report back to Professor Obama later in the afternoon. That’s where we left it. (laughs) Report back with solutions. Now, at the time, I have to be honest: I didn’t know who these people were in that audience, because we only saw the backs of their heads. I did not know who it was. When I tuned in yesterday afternoon and I watch as the breakout groups come back and report, I am shocked to learn that it is members of the House and the Senate, primarily. Except Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi weren’t there. I’ll guaran-damn-tee you that they will not go to some summit and let Obama tell them what to do. I looked at this and from a constitutional standpoint; I saw a little bit of a separation of powers problem here. Nobody else did, I’m sure. But here we have… I’m going to tell you. I’m going to describe that room for you once I saw it.
When the breakout sessions ended, everybody in that room yesterday, especially all the Democrats, may as well have been Monica Lewinsky. They coulda come in with special individual reports in the little bathroom off the Oval Office if they wanted to do it that way, and had the same effect. This was kissy-ass like I have not seen. It just… I sat there, I’m watching this, and I’m alternately fuming and then laughing myself silly. You want to hear some of it? Obama can crack a joke that is lame and horrible, and the place breaks down like both Jay Leno and David Letterman have both told the funniest jokes of their lives. Okay, so Obama reconvened the breakout groups after two hours and announced that notes were taken and that in 30 days, solutions to all of our problems will be issued in a report. Here is a portion of Professor Obama greeting the students as they came back from their breakout group assignments.
OBAMA: I understand you guys had great breakout sessions. Uh, my team, each of whom were taking copious notes during the course of these respective breakout sessions, will issue a report or a summary of the conversation. It will be distributed to each of the participants in those respective discussions. We will then ask for concrete ideas either about substance or process, and we will ask that you give those back so that we can then issue a final report coming out of this conversation, uhh, in 30 days.
RUSH: It’s meaningless. It is designed to show Obama making progress, Obama leading, Obama snapping the whip, Obama getting these recalcitrant little kids that are members of Congress and the Senate into gear. Professor Obama, a report on all the conversations. What everybody said will be reported back to him in 30 days, and a report will be sent back to those so they can remember what they said, and they can see what others said, and we’re going to have solutions in 30 days. Concrete! This is nothing about substance, by the way. This is pure, worthless, hilarious, nothing but process. So it was time to turn to the students. Here’s Obama — the great principal, the great lecturer, the great professor — who has given them the lecture and then has sent them to breakout groups where they are to discuss amongst themselves. Then they reconvene, and it’s time for the students to report back to Professor Obama and upon whom does he first call? None other than Senator McCain.
MCCAIN: Thank you, Mr. President. Thank you for doing this. I think it’s very important, and in our breakout session, the one area that I wanted to mention that I think, uh, consumed a lot of our conversation on procurement, it was the issue of cost overruns in the defense department. Your helicopter is now going to cost as much as Air Force One. I don’t think that there’s any more graphic demonstration of how good ideas have, uh — have cost, uh, uh, taxpayers an enormous amount of money.
RUSH: Ladies and gentlemen, with all due respect here, we get the scenario. Professor Obama lectures ‘the class,’ members of Congress and the Senate, on taking things seriously. Solve these problems! So McCain’s little breakout group goes back and they spend the whole time, he says, primarily talking about Obama’s new fleet of helicopters. Now, I’m not trying to pat myself on the back here. I’m not trying to expose my ego, but, ladies and gentlemen, it was last week (and maybe it was the week before) that I reported to you that the defense department is working on purchasing a new fleet of Marine One helicopters. The current fleet is very old. They’re made by Sikorsky in Connecticut. The new fleet will not be made by Sikorsky. There will be a couple of different kinds, and these helicopters — there are 31 being proposed for the Marine One fleet, and each of these new helicopters — will cost more than the current Air Force One, which is a Boeing 747.
The reason is for the 15-minute flights from the White House to Andrews Air Force Base, they gotta have anti-missile missiles. They gotta surface-to-air missiles, ground-to-air missiles, air-to-missile missiles. They gotta have all this stuff. They gotta have all the technological upgrades: sonar-radar. They gotta have carbon sensors, all of this garbage. These helicopters are gonna cost more than the current 747, which was built in 1990. We did not need a breakout study group to study this. So here is Pupil McCain reporting about all these problems, and he admits that his breakout group focused on Obama’s new ‘helicopter.’ It’s 31 helicopter(s)! Now, by the way, I should point out that Obama had nothing to do with this. These things happen. He just happened to be inaugurated when the program was being discussed and so forth. Here was Obama’s response.
OBAMA: I already talked to (Secretary of Defense Robert) Gates about a thorough review of the helicopter situation.
CLASS: (haughty chuckles)
OBAMA: The helicopter I have now seems perfectly adequate to me. Secretary Gates, uh, shares our concern. And he recognizes that, uh, simply adding more and more does not necessarily mean better and better or safer and more secure. Uh, those two things are — are not… They don’t always move in parallel tracks, and we’ve gotta think that through.
RUSH: What? So we’ve got this giant seminar on fiscal responsibility, saving the American people money. McCain comes back and says, ‘We don’t need helicopters that cost as much as Air Force One.’ Obama says, ‘Yeah, I kind of like the helicopter I’ve got, but I gotta leave it up to Gates. We gotta look parallel.’ And then here came the professor-speak. So item one: no solution. I’ll guarantee you whatever is decided on these helicopters is going to happen regardless of what happened in yesterday’s summit. It’s going to happen regardless of what happened yesterday. Next up — the next pupil, the next student hoping to get an A from Professor Obama — is Susan Collins. Obama said, ‘Susan? Susan, you were in the procurement discussion, too, right?’
COLLINS: Yes. If you look across the federal government, there are problems in IT contracts no matter where you look, and one recommendation that our group talked about is establishing some kind of Nunn-McCurdy Law to apply to IT contracts. We also talked about the need for more competition in contracts or justification for cost-plus time tracks. So those were some of the issues that we discussed in addition to what Senator McCain said.
OBAMA: Good.
RUSH: Okay, good. So, in addition to the Marine One helicopter fleet, we talked about competition and the Nunn-McCurdy law in IT contracts. All of this, folks, is totally irrelevant. (laughs) It’s worthless. It means nothing. But I guarantee you, to the dope heads watching this take place, ‘Wow, it was impressive! We’ve never seen a president do this, convene these members of the House and Senate and get them talking seriously.’ (interruption) What’s the question, Mr. Snerdley? Snerdley has a question. Mmm-hmm. Mmm-hmm. They’re supposed to be doing this stuff in committee. That’s why I tell you: in a real sense, this is a separation-of-powers issue. But who cares about the Constitution with this bunch, on either side?
Who cares about the Constitution? Harry Reid, by the way, with his little train? You know, he’s going to have to seize state-owned or private-owned land to get that train built from Disneyland to Las Vegas, and he’s just going to do it. He’s going to violate the law. He’s going to ignore state law. He’s just gonna say, ‘We gotta get the train built. We’re going to have to get the land. We’re just going to take it.’ I don’t know what he’s relying on to do it, but he is. So there’s Susan Collins, and did you hear Obama at the end? He said, ‘Good.’ Pupil Susan Collins received praise from Professor Obama. Now, next up, Charlie Rangel. Try not to laugh here. Rangel chaired the tax reform breakout group. (laughing) Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha! In fact, I’m going to take a commercial break because I don’t think… (laughing)
BREAK TRANSCIRPT
RUSH: Let’s take what happened yesterday with this Infallibility Summit, and let’s pretend that Bush did it. And let’s say the same number of Democrats are up there, and Bush sends ’em out into their breakout groups, do you think those Democrats would have been civil? Do you think any Democrat in a meeting like that that Bush had convened would have shown up and thanked him for doing this? ‘This is unprecedented, thank you, Mister, we’re so excited to be here,’ and then report accurately on whatever the hell went on out in the breakout meetings? They would have taken the opportunity to personally insult him when they stood up, talking about how pointless it was, how in their own breakout groups Republicans wouldn’t let ’em talk. They would have purposely disrupted, they would have purposely made it look like there was no comity, there was no civility, and our guys act like Monica Lewinsky. It’s the best way I can express it. In fact, let’s go back to the infallibility summit, I keep wanting to say seminar, ’cause it’s what it was. It was nothing more than a presidential seminar where Professor Obama, probably with Professor Ayers in the earpiece. So then they call on Chuck Rangel, Charlie Rangel, who is one of the many Democrats who has not paid his taxes. And Obama says, ‘Charlie, you chaired the tax reform breakout group. Tell us what happened in there.’
RANGEL: If you’re looking for a fight and a partisan fight, every loophole you close is a tax increase, and we have to get over that to make certain that the vast majority of businesses recognize it’s in their best interests to do the right thing as it relates to those who are taking unfair advantage of…
OBAMA: You were — you were here in ’86. It’s been done before. We might be able to get it done this time.
RUSH: Okay, I’m going to tell you what that was. Let me read what Rangel said ’cause you may not have heard it all. He said, ‘If you’re looking for a fight and a partisan fight, every loophole you close is a tax increase, and we have to get over that to make–‘ What did I tell you, that one of the five things that this breakout group would come up with was close tax loopholes. The five things, they’re on my website. I made a big point, close tax loopholes was one of them. So Charlie Rangel is saying here, ‘If you’re looking for a fight and a partisan fight, every loophole you close is a tax increase, and we have to get over that.’ What he’s saying is the Republicans say that closing a tax loophole is a tax increase. Closing a loophole is simply getting rid of a legal deduction, but they call ’em loopholes. And it’s Charlie’s boys that wrote them!
Once again, we have Charlie acting like he’s a spectator off to the side, had nothing to do with writing the rules. ‘Those tax loopholes.’ So he’s jumping on the Republicans here. ‘If you’re looking for a fight and a partisan fight, every loophole you close is a tax increase, we gotta get beyond that kind of thinking,’ and Obama says, ‘Well, you were here in ’86. We’ve done that before, we might be able to get it done this time.’ Meaning close tax loopholes, screw the Republicans. And then he said, ‘We have to get over that, and we have to make certain that the vast majority of businesses recognize it’s in their best interests to do the right thing as it relates to those who are taking unfair advantage of them,’ meaning the people that don’t get access to the deduction, it’s not fair that they don’t get access, so we close it. It’s just socialism. Whatever one group is getting and another group’s not, we close it. Rather than spread it to everybody, we let nobody have it. And Obama’s, ‘Well, you were here in ’86, we can get that done again.’ Here’s another bite. This is number 15. Obama said this on taxes as well.
OBAMA: Just a quick thought on taxes, Charlie. On the corporate side, I, at least, have always maintained that if we tried to think in the same ways that we thought about in 1986 and if you closed loopholes you could actually lower rates, because I think on the books the rates in the United States are high. In practice, depending on who it is that you can — what kind of accountant you can hire, they’re not so high.
RUSH: So, do you understand the bias here? Only the rich — that is sneaky, it is — only the rich depending on the accountants. So what we’re going to do here is close the loopholes, and then you can actually lower rates. So what he’s saying is, you let us get rid of the deductions and we might lower a rate here or there. Then after that’s done, guess what? Then they bring the rates right back up because you can’t do anything about it, they bring the rates back up after the loopholes and the deductions are gone. The bottom line is that what happened here yesterday, whatever these groups came up with is utterly meaningless because Obama is going to do what Obama’s going to do and this is just designed to give him cover for it to make it look like he’s listened to both sides and that there is bipartisan agreement, so it really is a sneaky thing, but it’s totally, totally phony. One more bite, ’cause I really gotta go, but — nah, let me take the break. We got a David Gergen bite, and I’m going to say, this thing yesterday, I’ve seen it once before, on Nightline.
BREAK TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: Last night Anderson Cooper 180 spoke with David ‘Rodham’ Gergen. Anderson Cooper said, ‘How unusual is it, unprecedented is it for the president to take questions from members of Congress on camera like we saw today?’
GERGEN: It’s rare, Anderson. I’m trying to wrack my brain for previous examples. It had a good feel about it. I — I think it’s one of the kind of things the country likes to see, is civil discourse, the president answering questions.
RUSH: Yeah, and here’s Gloria Borger on CNN later that night. Campbell Brown, the hostette: ‘The US president taking question after question from lawmakers. What does that tell you about his approach?’
BORGER: This is a president who likes live events, unscripted live events; who goes to town halls and lets anybody speak; and who lets anybody, uh, ask him any questions they want. It’s an administration that is intent on lifting the veil on all the complexities we face in government, particularly in this economic crisis. He was kind of wonkish. You know, we haven’t seen a wonk in the White House like this since Bill Clinton.
RUSH: Yeah, yeah, yeah. We haven’t… Oh, this is so wonderful! This is Gloria Borger, by the way, who on Sunday referred to the Republican Party as looking too much like the Confederacy. And then former labor secretary Robert B. Reichhhh on television last night.
REICH: Enormously effective. For President Obama to be standing there in command of the class and for John McCain, Senator McCain to be there in the in the sixth row, it was, uh, as if the president was the professor and everybody else a student. He was completely and totally in control and in command; and he’s not only commander-in-chief of the military. He’s commander-in-chief of the economy, and there was no doubt about that today.
RUSH: So you see there are orgasms all over the place, Obamagasms everywhere over this meaningless thing. Now, it’s meaningless in terms of substance. It’s a great illustration of the waste of time in process, but the media just loves all this. ‘Look at how bipartisan this was, and look the president taking questions! The Republicans sat in the sixth row.’ The Republicans made themselves look small, did they not? They thought they were making themselves look large. See… In fact, MSNBC is doing a story right now: ‘Can the GOP work with Obama?’ Now, my friends, after this little charade yesterday, how can you even ask the question? Of course they can work with Obama! They went up there and they thought they were going to look magnanimous.
They’re rerunning the 2008 presidential campaign. ‘Why, we’re showing we can moderate. We’re showing we can check our conservatism at the door. We’re showing that we can get along. We’re showing that we can cross the aisle! We’re showing that we can be nice.’ They looked tiny, did they not? Tell me. You disagree with me on this, Snerdley? I think they looked tiny. I think they looked small, and they look irrelevant, and I think they demeaned themselves by going. They allowed themselves to be used as props. We all know full well what was going to happen with this and how it’s going to come out, what the point of it was. (laughing) We just get sucked in every time. Last time I saw something like this, honest to God, was a Nightline show.
It was back in the Clinton years, and it was during some scandal, and everybody in Washington was wringing their hands over it. ‘Oh, my gosh! Oh, my gosh! How do we stop this from happening? Oh, my gosh!’ Ted Koppel was chairing a giant town meeting. Nightline started at 11:30. They went long. It was a 90-minute thing. It was about two in the morning, and finally Koppel says, ‘Is there anybody in my group — is there anybody that’s gotta solution?’ And David Gergen said, ‘I think we do, Ted! I think we do!’ and he and a guy had been working out a solution to whatever it was the problem they were discussing. When they announced their solution (which nobody’s ever heard since) the place erupted in applause. It’s typical, wonkish, irrelevant, inside-the-Beltway ‘process’ with no substance whatsoever, and everybody that thing yesterday walks out thinking they got something done while nothing happened. Nothing happened.
BREAK TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: President Obama said after the Infallibility Summit yesterday that it would be possible to lower the rate on corporate taxes if the many loopholes in the tax code were closed, if the many deductions were removed. Most businessmen are saying, ‘Close the loopholes, I don’t care, but somebody help me out with my pretax burden!’ ‘Cause that’s what’s killing them. They’re talking about closing loopholes to reduce the tax rate. It’s time for despair. I know.