Minority-Mindset Republicans Absent in Fight Against Obamacare

RUSH: Something’s go on. I’m not sure what’s going on, but something — well, it’s probably pretty easy to guess. These next two stories are fascinating. Ben Nelson. Ben Nelson says that he never asked for Harry Reid to give Nebraska more funding for Medicaid. He says he never asked for it. Now, the governor said something about it, the governor said something about it, but Ben Nelson says he never asked for it, and now Blanche Lincoln says that the Cornhusker bribe that Nebraska was given should be deleted. Blanche Lincoln, Senator from Arkansas says we shouldn’t have done it. ‘U.S. Sen. Blanche Lincoln said a political deal that benefits Nebraska and may…’ ha-ha, ‘may’ ‘…have clinched a lawmaker’s support for health care legislation should be removed from the bill.

‘Blanche Lincoln said she was disappointed about a provision in the Senate’s health care bill that will require the federal government to permanently pay the entire cost of Medicaid expansion in Nebraska, while only paying the costs of expansion in the other 49 states for three years. … ‘The people of Arkansas didn’t send me to Washington to be a horse trader.’ Now, what’s going on here? Is she simply now trying to revert to populism and save her own skin so that she doesn’t become the next Chris Dodd or ‘Helmet Head’ Dorgan and be asked to quit? Speaking of that, you know, folks, Chris Dodd especially — now, Dorgan shocked ’em. Dorgan was a genuine surprise. I don’t think that anybody knew that the Dorgan resignation was coming. But somebody, somebody, somebody had to go to Chris Dodd and say, ‘You’re outta here.’ You have to understand, these guys, especially these Democrats, this is the power, I mean this guy Dodd, a financial regulation reform bill that is just outrageous, that he wrote, and it’s going to police Wall Street like it’s never been policed before. It’s power. Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac. He’s involved in that, along with Barney Frank.

To get this kind of power has been his aspiration since getting in the Senate. What’s it’s all about, to have 60 votes however by hook and crook you get them, to be able to have any piece of legislation you want and to be able to be said that you are the engine behind it. And then all of a sudden you are asked to leave or you announce that it’s time to move on. Nobody can convince me that Chris Dodd came up with the idea himself, it’s time to move on, even if the polls showing his reelection bid in Connecticut is in big trouble, the ego is such, ‘I don’t believe the polls, I’ll work it out.’ Somebody, somebody had to go to this guy and a lot of these other people and say you’re gone. And in exchange for what? There’s a rumor floating out there that Chris Dodd is going to be named the secretary of the Treasury, Little Timmy Geithner is going to be forced out.

Now, there’s a story about Geithner today in Bloomberg that he ought to be fired, which I’ll explain to you in just a second. So you have Dodd now leaving and there’s gotta be something on the other side for him. This is just too much, and here’s the real at the end of the day, insult. It’s all being done to preserve Obama. It’s all being done to make sure that Obama has his 60 votes in the Senate so he can get the rest of this stupid agenda, anti-American agenda, implemented. And so all of these Democrats who have labored for decades in the Senate, who have desired like you can’t understand to have this kind of power, and after only one year of it, they come to Chris Dodd and say you gotta go for the good of Obama. This kind of stuff is going to rear its ugly head. Somehow the truth will out at some point, and here’s Ben Nelson, by the way, this is in the Fremont Tribune in Nebraska: ‘Senator Ben Nelson said Tuesday that it was a mistake for the Obama administration to take on massive health care reforms in 2009 and suggested efforts would have been better spent addressing the economy.’

Uh, Ben, that’s what you did! We had the stimulus. You voted for it, the stimulus, we had TARP. You voted for it. It was all done. You took care of the economy, ahem. You did exactly what you suggest we should have done. You screwed the taxpayer on the economy first, and now you’re screwing the taxpayer on health care. It’s what you did. You’re following right along with the Obama agenda. Now, he requested Tuesday’s interview with the Fremont Tribune. ‘I think it was a mistake to take health care on as opposed to continuing to spend time on the economy. I would have preferred not to be dealing with health care in the midst of everything else, and I think working on the economy would have been a wiser –‘ all you had to do was vote ‘no.’ Do you realize how lame all this is? Gutless wonders. Here comes Blanche Lincoln, ‘I don’t think Nebraska shoulda gotten that deal.’ Ben Nelson, ‘I don’t think we shoulda done health care at all.’ And where, where are the Republicans on this?

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RUSH: All right, here’s Brit in Thomasville, North Carolina. Great to have you on the program, sir. Hello.

CALLER: Oh, it’s ma’am. It’s so good to speak with you, Rush. I’m so honored that you took my call.

RUSH: Thank you. Now, wait, wait a second. Are you from Thomasville, North Carolina?

CALLER: Yes.

RUSH: And your name is Nan, not Brit?

CALLER: No, ma’am, I’m a female.

RUSH: Yeah, I know.

CALLER: You said sir.

RUSH: Oh, I’m sorry. I’m sorry.

CALLER: Don’t worry, I get that a lot. But listen, the reason I called, Rush, is because I’m so glad, so utterly glad that you’re bringing up the Republicans and what they are not doing. You know, they’re doing nothing. They’re like, ‘Well, I voted ‘no.” You know, that’s not enough. That’s not even close to enough.

RUSH: Well, I know.

CALLER: They are there in Washington. They could be fighting. We’re at home. I’ve written as many letters as I can write, you know? I’ve been to Washington on one of the trips to the protest. I’ve done as much as I can do. We are paying them to fight for us. Why are they not fighting?

RUSH: Look, I’ve been asking this question all year and I’ve been referencing this behavior by the Republicans all year, and all I can do is guess at the answers. I’m going to give you a third one here. The first two answers I gave you, they’ve become ‘of Washington’ and that becomes a mind-set, and then you become afraid of criticizing Obama because you’ll be called a racist and so forth, and afraid of offending moderates, which is ridiculous because all these moderates and independents are now running to the Republican Party, and conservatism is the number one ideology by far in the country. Brit, this is something that you need to understand, and all of you. There is a collective mind-set among a lot of legislators — I know this is true in state governments, and has to be true in Washington — of an ‘us against them’ mind-set, meaning us in Congress versus them, the people.
The prevailing opinion among a lot of legislators, Senators and congressmen, is that the people who call are kooks, the people who write letters are kooks. They think that people who are working, the real normal people, do not have time to sit around and go to Washington or write letters or send e-mails or faxes or make phone calls. They just do. It’s a mind-set of both parties. They think people who call are just kooks. It leads to an ‘us versus them’ kind of mentality. Now, I don’t know, I can’t say with certainty what percentage of Republicans have this view. We know that it is rampant throughout the Democrat Party. I mean the Democrat Party is, from Obama all the way over to Capitol Hill, the Democrat Party is governing against the will of the people and I assure you that the Democrat Party and liberals in general hold average Americans, average people in contempt: they’re not elitists; they’re not smart enough, not bright enough; they’re not sophisticated. And they do sit around and they think most people out there are kooks, especially the ones that call Washington. Republicans, there have to be some of them who think that, I mean this is because it’s a legislative mind-set. But the Democrat Party 100% through and through holds the American people in contempt and is now governing against their will. This is another reason why the Republicans ought to just start firing both barrels.

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RUSH: One other thing, folks, I actually believe that the Republican Party has a minority mind-set. Remember, they were out of power for 40 years in the House of Representatives and quite a bit of time in the Senate, so there’s a minority mind-set. They even had the minority mind-set when they were the majority. So there are a lot of things that could be factors but there’s no excuse for it now and it’s time to change. We’ve got some great audio sound bites still ahead and more of your phone calls coming up. We’ll be right back faster than you know it.