RUSH: Yesterday in Columbia, South Carolina, at a campaign event, this is just a portion of remarks made by Mitt Romney.

ROMNEY: This has been a failed presidency. I don’t think he’s tried to make it bad, he just didn’t know what to do. He’s in over his head.

RUSH: Talking about Barack Obama. Now, some of you might not think this is really that big a deal, and some of you might think that you understand. There’s no reason to provoke people by accusing Obama of being a bad guy. The conventional wisdom is — no, no, Snerdley, don’t look at me that way — you know as well as I, the conventional wisdom is that if you talk that way you’re gonna send the independents running back to Obama. The inside-the-Beltway conventional wisdom. The political consultant conventional wisdom. The Republican Party conventional wisdom. If it could be proved to Romney that Barack Obama was purposely doing this, he still wouldn’t say it.

You know, people say, “Why don’t you run for office?” I couldn’t. If you have to couch what you really believe, I couldn’t do it because I don’t believe for a minute he’s in over his head. Unless — Good Lord, oh, my. Ho. Ho. No, man. I can’t even tell people what I just saw without getting into big trouble. I just saw a picture of Hillary on TV. That’s as much as I’m gonna say. My point is this. (interruption) Well, I had to explain the reaction. It’s not fair to react that way if people don’t know. I had to explain it, but that’s as much as I’m gonna say. The only construct where Obama is in
over his head. (interruption) Yeah, I was right again. But then I’d have to remind people about what I was right about, and that’s the problem, I’m not gonna do that. I’m just saying, whoa.

You know where I come down on this Obama business. And Giuliani’s right. This guy’s an Alinskyite. He has been taught, he’s been raised, educated, whatever, he’s got a deep resentment for this country. You know me, I have told you, I’m willfully naive, I guess. I can’t get my arms around the fact that there are people born in this country who hate it. I know they do, and they can explain to me the differences in ideology and so forth, I’m never going to intellectually or emotionally understand it. Even though I can explain it, it still makes no sense to me. Yet I know that those people exist and I know that they are the people that taught Obama. They are among those who educated him, both in his family and at the institutions of higher learning and academe that he attended.

I know that he thinks this is an unjust country, that it was immoral in its founding, for reasons including but greater than slavery. He thinks it was economically unjust and immoral. He thinks a bunch of rich white guys, this 1% versus 99% stuff, that’s how he thinks the country was founded and that the 1% has maintained themselves in total control of all the wealth since the days of the founding and that they take purposeful steps to keep everybody out of that club. He believes it. He thinks the only remedy for it is to take everything the 1% has and give it away to everybody else.

Now, the ulterior motives to that are entrenching his own power. I don’t think there’s benevolence in this. In other words, I don’t think Obama runs around every day feeling genuinely sorry for the 99%. I don’t think he’s motivated by altruism. I think he’s motivated by anger. He’s got a chip on his shoulder, a number of them. But I guess when you’re running for office against the guy you can’t say that. They can say it about us. The Democrats can say whatever they want about us, and there’s never a concern from anybody that they are going to frighten away independents or any other voters. Romney has to say, “Ah, he’s just an incompetent boob, you know, he’s really got good motivation. He’s trying. He’s just in over his head. He doesn’t know what he’s doing, he just didn’t know what to do.”

Well, he’s got three years in, and if he’s supposedly this smart guy. After three years of trying what he thought would work, wouldn’t a smart guy who’s trying to get it right try something different? Wouldn’t it be about time now to admit, “Hey, you know, my ideas didn’t work.” “Mr. Limbaugh, ego is not going to –” Okay, I understand. But still, all I’m trying to do is construct evidence here, present evidence to refute this notion that Obama’s in over his head and doesn’t know what he’s doing. I believe he clearly does, and I don’t know why we can’t say it, especially when it’s the truth. What’s wrong with educating people?

See, this is where, when I say we have a group of people who don’t think the country needs to be, quote, unquote, saved, the people who want to accurately portray Obama, like me, the people who want others to honestly understand who Obama is and why he’s doing what he’s doing and why he’s gonna continue it. We think the country’s imperiled, and we think something needs to happen to save it, and we think Obamacare is ball game, and we think that every freedom that we take for granted is gone once the government gets that fully implemented. It’s serious. But I’m left to wonder, does Romney look at it that way? He may not. I don’t know too many Republicans in the establishment who really do. In the so-called conservative media establishment, I know there are people who think that the view that the country’s in peril and that we are facing a forever transformation from which we can’t come back, they don’t think that.

To them, $16 trillion of national debt’s no different than five trillion. As long as we keep making the interest payments we’re cool. They don’t see any danger for their kids and grandkids because of this. In fact, they want — I’m including some Republicans — they want to win the election to be in charge of the money and its spending. So when I hear Romney say, (paraphrasing) “This has been a failed presidency. I don’t think he’s tried to make it bad, he just didn’t know what to do, he’s in over his head.” I guarantee you a pollster or a consultant has gotten to him and said, “Look, Obama is personally liked, and if you go out and accuse him of these terrible motives, you’re going to lose people.” I know that’s what this is. So the reason I couldn’t run for office and do politics apparently is ’cause you’re not allowed to be honest.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: I just had somebody send me a political theory, a political philosophy as articulated by a famous Reagan consultant named Arthur Finkelstein. Here it is. You remember Arthur Finkelstein. Arthur Finkelstein is credited with saying, “When you allow people…” He’s talking about voters. “When you allow people to choose between the corrupt and the stupid, they will go for the corrupt.” So maybe, maybe Romney thinks that they’re going to cast him as corrupt so he can beat the stupid. Maybe he’s trying to cast Obama as stupid rather than corrupt, because this Reagan consultant says people will choose corrupt people over idiots every day of the week. So Romney doesn’t want to appear to be corrupt. He does want to appear to be corrupt instead of stupid. He’ll have Obama cast as stupid. “He’s stupid! He doesn’t know what he’s doing. He’s in over his head.” So that might explain it, according to the theory here of Finkelstein, that might explain it. It’s a stretch, I know, but it may be the case here to explain what Romney’s doing.