RUSH: So we had a disaster of a press conference last night, according to the Drive-By Media that loves Obama. As I said in the first hour, this was great. The more we learn about this guy, whining all 
night, ‘We inherited a mess,’ and lying about what he inherited, lying about inheriting a $1.3 trillion deficit. He voted for everything that led to the deficit. The Democrats have been running the Congress since 2007. Obama, with 150 big days working in the Senate and a six-year term — well, he didn’t serve all six, but he voted for everything that busted the budget. He voted for TARP. He voted for all this. He inherited his own work. But he still whines about it.
You and I, ladies and gentlemen, we see certain things. The casual watcher, casual viewer last night — and I’ll bet the ratings stink. That was laborious last night. But the casual viewer is going to say, ‘Why does he keep blaming, why is he keep whining, we inherited, we inherited,’ and then to talk about all the successes? You see, this is why I was afraid to give the audio engineer the sound bite roster order because now I’ve decided we’re going to do number 11 here. I just watched with my mouth wide open. The CBO and all these other agencies that say, ‘No, Mr. President, your numbers are not right,’ he needs to come up with his own White House agency to counter the CBO, the Office of Imaginary Information, or O.I.I., the Office of Imaginary Information, which he can cite. Listen to this. I don’t know what to say about it.
OBAMA (sped up): A result of the actions we took in those first weeks we’ve been able to pull our economy back from the brink. We took steps to stabilize our financial institutions and our housing market, and we passed a Recovery Act that has already saved jobs and created new ones, delivered billions in tax relief to families and small businesses, and extended unemployment insurance and health insurance to those who have been laid off. Of course we still have a long way to go. And the Recovery Act will continue to save and create more jobs over the next two years just like it was designed to do.
RUSH: Ladies and gentlemen, there is no job creation taking place. There are no jobs being saved other than in government. The economy’s not back from the brink. We have not stabilized the housing market. None of that’s true, not a word. Tax relief in billions of dollars to families and small businesses? What did I miss? Well, we have extended unemployment insurance. These unemployment numbers, Barbara Hollingsworth, local opinion editor at the Washington Examiner: ”Is Unemployment Actually Much Higher? Like Close to 20 Percent?’ — Every month, the US Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) publishes six ‘measures of labor underutilization’ (i.e., unemployment). The official unemployment rate used by politicians and the media, referred to as U3, measures the percent of the civilian labor force that is out of work. But U3 does not include so-called ‘discouraged workers’ who have completely stopped looking for jobs, ‘marginally attached’ workers who had not searched for a job within the past month, or those involuntarily employed part-time instead of full time. U6 includes every willing worker who wants, but is not able to secure a full time position, so a state’s U6 rate is obviously higher than its U3. Much higher, in fact. For example, Michigan, which has the highest U3 figure in the nation (11 percent), has an eye-popping 19.2 percent U-6 unemployment rate. Nine other states’ U6 figures are also above 15 percent, according to BLS.’ Here they are:
Oregon: 18.4%
California: 17.7%
Rhode Island: 17.1%
South Carolina: 16.8%
Tennessee: 15.7%
Florida: 15.6 %
Arizona: 15.5%
Nevada: 15.2%
Ohio: 15.1%
Now, I don’t know where in the world you can come out and say, ‘As a result of the actions we took in the first weeks we’ve been able to pull our economy back from the brink. We took steps to stabilize the housing market, and we passed a Recovery Act that’s already saved jobs and created new ones.’ Everybody watching this last night, ‘How come I don’t have one? Where are these jobs? What are people doing?’ And then we find out we’ve only spent, what, five or six percent of the Recovery Act. This guy lied through his teeth to the press corps, and not one question disputing any of this. There wasn’t one question about Iraq or Afghanistan. There wasn’t one question. I mean, Obama says he wants to do a press conference on health care and they dutifully oblige, and they ask softball setup. There are a couple questions that were asked that were somewhat tough. Where’s this transparency? You promised all these hearings on C-SPAN? Where are they? And he, you know, sort of knocked his way around that. This is becoming a mantra now, this next sound bite.
OBAMA (sped up): I understand how easy it is for this town to become consumed in the game of politics, to turn every issue into a running tally of who’s up and who’s down. I’ve heard that one Republican strategist told his party that even though they may want to compromise, it’s better politics to go for the kill. Another Republican senator said that defeating health care reform is about breaking me. So let me be clear. This isn’t about me.
RUSH: They are really getting to him. You never heard Bush talk about this thing in personal terms. Bush never whined, he never complained, here’s Obama, ‘These mean Republicans.’ I’m telling you this guy has led a charmed life. You don’t dare criticize him, you don’t laugh at him. He’s Barack Obama. You just don’t do that. And now the next sound bite, this is another thing I think the average American watching this thing, this is a kind of rub you raw –yeah, we know you’re the president. He sits there and says, ‘I am the president.’ Listen to this bite.
OBAMA: What I said is that there may be a number of different ways to raise money. I put forward what I thought was the best proposal, which was to limit the deductions, the itemized deductions for the wealthiest Americans. The House suggested a surcharge on wealthy Americans and my understanding, although I haven’t seen the final versions, is that there’s been talk about making that basically only apply to families whose joint income is a million dollars. To me, that meets my principle that it’s not being shouldered by families who are already having a tough time. It’s my job, I’m the president. And I think this has to get done.