Michelle (My Belle) Defends Her Stunningly Ineffective Husband

RUSH: Here’s a fascinating blog, Andrew Malcolm from the LA Times, Top of the Ticket blog: ‘President Obama Day 386: What’s happened to him? — A favorite story about Chicago politics involves Roman Pucinski, who served six long terms of political apprenticeship in the Washington minor leagues of the US House of Representatives –‘ (laughing) that’s interesting. The House of Representatives is the minor leagues to the Chicago — (laughing) — don’t you love that? (laughing) The House of Representatives minor leagues. ‘– before the Windy City’s vaunted Democratic political machine allowed him to step up and serve on the City Council.

‘The late Pucinski then served for 18 years as a loyal operative assigned to the 41st Ward (of 50). It’s always useful for Chicago pols to have White House connections if, say, they’d like to dispatch someone famous to fly off to Copenhagen to lobby the International Olympic Committee for their city’s 2016 summer games bid. But the Chicago Daley machine, which is actually a ruthless coalition of urban Democratic factions united by the steel reinforcing rods of self-interest, didn’t much care about this Barack Obama fellow before, as long as he was quiet, obedient and headed on a track out of town. How he acquired a reform label coming out of that one-party place is anyone’s guess. But now that the sun has risen on the 386th day of the Obama White House, many political observers are coming to see that the ex-state senator from the South Side is running his federal administration in Washington much the way they run things back home: with a small….

‘…claque of clout-laden people from the same school who learned their political trade back in the nation’s No. 3 city, named for an Indian word for a smelly wild onion.’ Did you know that? Learn something every day. Is Chicago the Indian word or is it a derivative? H.R. claims to know this. Oh. Okay. You knew it, but you don’t know the exact word, which means you don’t know it. Named for an Indian word for a smelly wild onion. ‘That style is tough, focused, immune to any distractions but cosmetic niceties.’ Anyway, the bloom’s off the rose here, or peeling the smelly onion. They’re asking, ‘Where did the hopes for Obama go?’ The people who understand what Obama is and who he is and where he came from are asking, ‘Why in the hell is he so ineffective?’ There hasn’t been a worst practitioner of Chicago politics ever. They genuinely get what they want. And his agenda, the big items — while a bunch of stuff behind the scenes actually is getting rammed down our throats, we don’t know it — big items are bombing out.

We’re going to go back to April 25th of 2005, and the reason I play this, we played this once before but I want to play it again because it’s all related to Obama’s poll numbers dropping and the media’s refusal to report them. Nobody, there’s not anywhere near a majority anywhere in this country for any of his major proposals. So we go back to April 25th, 2005, five years ago, almost, at the National Press Club, Senator Obama speaking about Social Security reform, the Q&A, got this question: ‘Someone in the audience would like to know what should the American people do to stop the privatization of Social Security?’

OBAMA 2005: The president has been on his 60-day tour, and everywhere he goes the numbers just get worse. The American people have essentially voted on this proposal. If they let go of their egos — I’ve been on the other side of this where, particularly with my wife — (laughing) — where I’ve gotten in an argument and then at some point in the argument it dawns on me, you know what, I’m wrong on this one, and it’s irritating. It’s frustrating. You don’t want to admit it. And so to the extent that we can provide the president with a graceful mechanism to — to say we’re sorry, dear, then I think that would be — that would be helpful.

RUSH: All right. So here he is making fun of Bush. Hey, the American people voted on your Social Security privatization, they don’t want it. Same thing here with health care. They have voted numerous times. I mean in more ways than the American people ever voted on Bush’s privatization. Obama’s lost two statehouses and the Kennedy seat. Now, that’s a pretty damning indictment, ladies and gentlemen. But Michelle (My Belle) Obama, who got her obesity bill today, or presidential directive, came to his defense on Good Morning America today. Robin Roberts interviewed her: ‘People were full of hope. How do you feel when people make light of something that was very important to the campaign, had every intent, still do, to bring hope and change and make it a better world for people?’

MICHELLE: People are frustrated, right? But one of the things that Barack Obama said and continues to say is, change ain’t easy, and it doesn’t happen overnight. And it certainly doesn’t happen in a year. My husband has done a phenomenal job staying on course, looking his critics in the eye, coming up with clear solutions, and again staying the course. That’s what leadership is. But people have a right to criticize the president of the United States.

RUSH: There is no leadership. Leaders have solutions. He’s got no solutions. He’s just an agitator. He’s offering solutions zip, zero, nada. But don’t you love the question? Robin Roberts: ‘So many people are making light of something that was so very important and had every intent, still do, to bring hope and change and make it a better world –‘ the world is disintegrating. I mean we’ve got the Iranians promising some big bang this week, we’ve got the Russians saying missile shields aimed at them, we’ve got the ChiComs suggesting that they sell some of our bonds to send us a big message. And who’s making fun of it? ‘You think people make light of something that was very important to the campaign –‘ who’s making fun of hope and change? Could it be me? You think she might mean me when I ask, ‘How is that hope and change working for you?’ Oh, you think Robin Roberts is worried about me making fun of it? Yeah, that really irritates them, we discussed yesterday, you’re not supposed to make fun of Democrats and liberals, no, no, no, ’cause they’re too serious, their work is too important, you’re not supposed to make fun. So then Robin Roberts said, ‘The peaks and valleys of this year, successes, some shortcomings, and the rhetoric of the last few months, is there ever a time you look to your husband and say, ‘We gotta fix this?”

MICHELLE: It’s a constant struggle. You know, the coarsening of Washington and politics has always been here. We had hoped that more progress would have been made, but as I say you just keep holding the hand out, you know, you never give up on the possibility —

RUSH: Stop the tape a minute. You hold a hand out with the middle finger extended is what’s happening here. Yeah, the hand’s being held out but there’s a middle finger extended. Resume tape.

MICHELLE: — more civility. You never walk away from that, right? You keep your hand-held out, you keep that smile on your face, you stay open to the possibility of partnership, and one day there will be another hand out there to accept yours. That is the beauty of Barack Obama, his hand stays out, positive and focused. It’s a gift.

RUSH: With the middle finger extended. So what is she suggesting here? People keep their handouts? He’s extending these hands out there and waiting for somebody to take the handouts. Disguised lingo. You have to be in the welfare state to understand the code lingo here, folks. It means the gravy train’s going to keep on coming.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: All right, here’s the Indian word for Chicago that means ‘smelly onion.’ It is s-h-i-k-a-k-o, shiKAko, and from that you get Chicago. Could be shiKAKo, I’m not sure, but regardless that’s the word, furnished to be by none other than H.R. It does sound similar to ‘macaca,’ which drove George Allen out of the Senate rase. You have here shiKAko. ShiKAKo. It is very close to ‘macaca.’