RUSH: Speaking of November, when the recession will be proclaimed over, this morning on MSNBC, Scarborough’s show, David Axelrod was the guest. Scarborough said to Axelrod, ‘You do understand that health care and the stimulus and the bailout and all these battles have caused some serious problems for Democrats in the House that have won seats that McCain and Bush also took. You do understand the past year has had a negative impact on their political chances?’
AXELROD: Here’s what every Democrat who’s running and supported the president ought to be thinking. They ought to be thinking, here’s a president, and we supported him, who stood up in a very difficult time, made some tough decisions, has a vision not just for how to solve the problem in the short term, but is doing things to strengthen the economy for the long run. And on the other side you have a Republican Party that has essentially said, ‘We’re going to sit on the sidelines and root for failure, and that’s our political strategy.’
RUSH: Yeah, we are sitting on the sidelines because we don’t have the votes to stop you, Mr. Axelrod, and we are rooting for your failure and Obama’s failure, which means the country’s success. But they’re going to run against me because I’m the only Republican who said, ‘I hope he fails.’ Other Republicans have come along and said he is failing, but I’m the only one and I was alone for almost a year. So what Axelrod is saying to all these Democrats, ‘If you know what’s good for you, run against Limbaugh. Limbaugh wants the country to go down the tubes, Limbaugh wants Obama to fail, that means the country to fail.’ And everybody knows now exactly what I meant. This is Obama succeeding. Obama is succeeding and by virtue of that the country is in peril. So Scarborough said, ‘Well, the Republicans had 80 amendments, they had alternative health care bills, Paul Ryan’s come on this show, had very specific issues, very specific viewpoints, much different than the president. But those were not allowed to be debated on the House floor.’
AXELROD: The plan the president signed, Joe, included hundreds of different elements that were proposed by Republicans in the Senate, in the House. Most people who would look at that plan would say it reflects more of what Richard Nixon proposed and what John Chafee proposed, two Republicans in the past, than some radical plan. What I recall is a parade of Republicans standing up and calling it socialism, calling it the end of freedom as we know it. That harsh rhetoric was not healthy for the country and not healthy for the Republican Party.
RUSH: How could he say it’s not healthy for the Republican Party? Mr. Axelrod, you are facing a bloodbath in November. It is socialistic. It may be even worse than that. It may be fascistic before we’re all finished here. But, hundreds of ideas, hundreds of Republican elements proposed by the Republicans in the Senate, in the House, are in the health care bill? Name one! Oh, there is one, an exclusive Republican idea, and that is to eliminate fraud and abuse. Obama said that was a great idea that somebody had on the Republican side. I forget who it was, may have been Coburn, eliminate fraud and abuse. So we are left to assume that if the Republicans had not suggested it, that fraud and abuse would still be in the health care bill, which of course it still is. A real reporter might have asked Axelrod, ‘Would you tell me exactly what Obama’s done to improve the economy for the long term? Would you tell me, Mr. Axelrod, exactly how the economy’s improved in the long term with all of these tax increases and all of the impositions coming on people with your health care as it’s implemented, would somebody tell me where you have strengthened the US economy in the long term?’ You know, these guys run around, they say all these things, and the State-Controlled Media just, ‘Hm-hm, hm-hm, a-ha, I see, hm-hm.’ They never question them. ‘What do you mean, strengthen the economy long term? Hundreds of Republican ideas? Name three. I can name one, Mr. Axelrod. Name three.’ Hundreds of ideas? It’s absurd.