Obama Fears Blame for Shutdown

RUSH: I have it in the stack from yesterday. It’s about Hillary supporters miserably unhappy with Obama and strongly hoping that she will once again seek the presidency in 2012 running against Obama. Probably ain’t gonna happen, but it’s a fascinating piece nevertheless that just goes to illustrate, contrary to State-Controlled Media, there is not universal contentment or happiness on the left with the regime. There’s no reason to be afraid of ’em, is the point here.

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RUSH: I see that the esteemed leader of the regime is in the White House briefing room here talking about how he and Boehner did identify areas where they could make substantial budget cuts. Now, Boehner came out of there saying there’s no chance of an agreement. We’re rolling on this and if Obama has anything interesting, substantive to say, we of course will pass it on to you. There’s a headline about this, CBSNews.com from early today: “Obama Summons Boehner for Budget Talks — Speaker heads to White House as Congress fails to reach 2011 funding agreement, may result in government shutdown.” I found the headline to be a little disconcerting. Oh, is that what he’s saying, politics and ideology are to blame if there’s a shutdown? Politics and ideology are to blame. Oh, yeah, he’s not political, he’s not an ideologue. Yeah, he’s Mr. Clean. He’s clean and pure as the wind-driven snow. He’s up there just trying to do his job. All these politicians, all these ideologues are getting in the way of the esteemed leader trying to get something done on the budget. He has no role in this whatsoever. He’s not a politician, and he himself is not an ideologue.

But this headline, “Obama Summons Boehner for Budget Talks,” that’s a little disconcerting. I didn’t realize Obama had that kind of power. I always thought the three branches were coequal. Obama summons Boehner. Like Boehner is sitting over there sucking his thumb and all of a sudden a note, “Hey, you’ve been summoned.” So Boehner drops everything and heads up.

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RUSH: Needless to point this out, ladies and gentlemen, but nevertheless I shall: Obama goes out there today (mere moments ago) with an unscheduled, impromptu little appearance in the White House Briefing Room; and he starts whining and moaning and complaining. People don’t want to see all this finger pointing, and they don’t want to see a government shutdown, and Americans don’t like seeing these games. About that, au contraire! I do want to see these games. I looove seeing these games. These are the games I want to see.

I want to see a lot more of this. I want to see our side go up there and not bow down and act afraid of this guy. Now, this guy, Obama, I’ve been mentioning all day as I look at the Washington Post poll and their reporting of it. It seems to me that the press is doing everything it can here to warn the Democrats (paraphrased): “You know, be careful on this shutdown because you guys are likely gonna get blamed for it this time. This isn’t 1995,” and I’m convinced Obama goes out there and portrays himself as Mr. Clean. (paraphrased) “It’s a bunch of ideologues and politics causing this problem. We don’t need the government shutdown. I’m willing to go $73 billion in cuts. Boehner wants $100 billion. It’s too much, some of the specific things, blah, blah.”

I think they sent Obama out there because if this shutdown happens, he gets blamed. I think it’s on the Democrat this time. There’s no other reason to go out there and do this today. There’s no reason for Obama to go out and play the games he played today and say what he said. Don’t doubt me on this. The Washington Post poll: 37-37 as to who gets blamed, Republicans or Democrats, for a government shutdown. That’s not good, and I’ll bet they’ve got internal polling that’s worse that shows them getting blamed — and why wouldn’t they? I know I keep saying this, but when it comes to the budget these guys don’t have any standing anyway. When it came time to do the budget, they didn’t.

We don’t have one. That’s why all these continuing rulings, because the Democrats punted. There weren’t any negotiations. They didn’t even present a budget. Obama did, but they didn’t (because of an election year) and Obama, again, just claimed they had an agreement of $73 billion in cuts. Boehner is right now saying that they never even agreed to $33 billion in cuts. So here’s Obama saying $73 billion; Boehner says we never even agreed on $33 billion. So we got a difference of $40 billion in what both sides are saying they’ve agreed to. That’s why I want to see these games. I want to see the sausage made. I want to see how this works. I want to see this played out in the media. I want to see it raw so that the media doesn’t have a chance to filter it for me. I’m telling you, Obama going out there is — to me — a sign things are not going his way. They had to send the great orator out there to try to put this back together again.

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RUSH: You know, folks, all of a sudden since Obama spoke none of the news networks are talking about the budget. That’s all they were talking about. Obama goes out and speaks and none of them are talking about it. Suddenly, everything else is much more important. Now, why is that? Why did they just drop talking about the budget? Are they worried Obama is gonna cave, or maybe they think he caved too much based on what he said? It’s very bizarre, folks, how quickly they have moved off the budget story since it was all they could talk about all day, then he makes an unexpected appearance and they dropped it like a hot potato.

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