RUSH: Romney, by the way, is out with a charge. When I first saw this, I thought, “What’s the big deal about this?” And I thought about it, and it is a big deal. I woulda put this a different way.

But Romney’s charge (and it’s got legs) is that Obama basically punted the economic recovery so that he could focus fully on getting health care passed, that there was a greater historical legacy opportunity in being the first president to get nationalized health care in America than reviving a economy (which is gonna happen anyway). So Romney is accusing Obama of purposely ignoring the plunging economy and focusing exclusively on health care for purely personal aggrandizement and (of course) policy reasons.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: Now, I mentioned earlier on this program, Romney is out with a new line of attack on Obama. He’s basically saying Obama purposely disregarded the state of the economy. After he passed Porkulus, that was it. He didn’t care anymore about it, despite what he was saying about caring about job creation, all he focused on was Obamacare, that was it. He chose a legacy. He chose being the first guy in history to get national health care. He thought that would be a much greater historical legacy than economic recovery because those happen all the time. We have recessions; we have recoveries. It’s gonna happen. We have Romney making this point.

You know, when I saw this, I’ll be honest, my reaction was kind of ho-hum. Yeah? Not news. But then I started seeing everybody’s reaction to it, primarily in the Drive-By Media, and they’re scared. The Drive-By Media thinks this is a great hit. They’re worried about this. They’re surprised. They didn’t think Romney would be doing stuff like this. I didn’t think that. It’s just so obvious to me that it’s not news. But to them it’s big news. Romney’s getting a lot of positive feedback on this. In San Antonio yesterday, during a campaign appearance, we have two sound bites. Here’s the first.

ROMNEY: They concluded that we would all forget how long the recovery took once it had happened. So they decided to go ahead. The idea that they knowingly slowed down our recovery in order to put in place Obamacare, which they wanted and they considered historic, but the American people did not want or consider historic, is something which I think deserves a lot of explaining. Because I think the president’s responsibility is to put people back to work and to get people out of poverty and to help people have good jobs and have prospects for a brighter tomorrow.

RUSH: So he’s saying Obama purposely slowed the recovery, not just forgot about it, not just didn’t pay attention to it, that he purposely slowed it down because somehow that would help him get Obamacare. People in greater need, the economy, they’re getting fired. Romney is accusing Obama of purposely slowing down the economy so as to worsen people’s economic circumstance so that they would demand health care since they were losing it because they’re getting fired. That’s what he’s saying. And that is a bold criticism. That is something that we would say and have said. But to hear a Republican presidential candidate say it, is kind of cool.

The Republican establishment is shocked again for the second time in three weeks. The first time they were shocked was when they realized, “You know what? Maybe we can win.” They were shocked yesterday when they realized they can. And they want to. Wow, they actually might want to win this thing. Here’s Romney again.

ROMNEY: They concluded that we would all forget how long the recovery took once it had happened. So they decided to go ahead. The idea that they knowingly slowed down our recovery in order to put in place Obamacare, which they wanted and they considered historic, but the American people did not want or consider historic, is something which I think deserves a lot of explaining. Because I think the president’s responsibility is to put people back to work and to get people out of poverty and to help people have good jobs and have prospects for a brighter tomorrow.

RUSH: There you have it. So it is a bold criticism. Romney’s made it, and people heard it, and they’re reacting to it.