RUSH: As you know, Obama at a fundraiser blamed me for the fact that nothing is getting done in Washington. He said that his agenda is stalled because of me. He told a bunch of people, donors at a fundraiser at Harvey Weinstein’s house that included Justin Timberlake and his wife Jessica Biel. The designer Tommy Hilfiger was there. Obama told ’em that he expected, after he won reelection in 2012, that the Republicans would throw in the towel.
They would realize, “Okay, Obama won, and we can’t beat him any more because he’s not running any more. So let’s go ahead and work with the guy.” But they’re not, and they’re not because of me, because they’re afraid of me. They’re afraid of what I will say if they are cooperative with Obama. They are afraid of what I will be able do to their base and their electoral chances if they cooperate with Obama. So it’s my fault. As far as Obama’s concerned, I am too powerful.
I’ve offered to meet him.
I said, “Whenever you like, Mr. President…” I extended the invitation yesterday to help advise him on a way past this, advise him on how to get the cooperation of Republicans, how to move the country forward. I’d be glad to sit down with the president and discuss this, to help to begin moving the country in the right direction. I don’t expect him to reply, but I just want to reiterate that I have extended the invitation. Well, this has caused some comment in the mainstream media.
Let’s start with ABC’s World News Tonight and Jonathan Karl.
KARL: The White House insists it had no idea any of this was going on. Conservatives aren’t buying.
RUSH ARCHIVE: Obama’s objective is to eliminate all opposition.
KARL: All of this comes as a White House that takes pride in being scandal free has been hammered by a series of controversies.
RUSH: Jonathan Karl. That was World News Tonight and on Good Morning America yesterday, all over ABC yesterday. Whenever there was a story about Obama and scandal, they threw me in it, because I personify the opposition to Obama. As far as the White House is concerned, and as far as the State Controlled Media is concerned, I, your beloved host, El Rushbo, I am the opposition to Barack Obama. I’m not making it up. He said that at the fundraiser. That’s exactly what he said. If it weren’t for me, the Republicans would be going along with him. If it weren’t for me, the Republicans and he would be able to work together and they’d be able to move Obama’s agenda.
So, in his own words, I personify the opposition to Obama. Let’s now go to The Five at Five on Fox. Eric Bolling took his spin at cohosting yesterday, talked to Bob Beckel about Obama blaming me for the gridlock. Eric Bolling said, “The commander-in-chief of the most powerful nation in the history of man blamed Rush Limbaugh for his failure to get anything done in Washington. And Rush, being the great guy that he is, offered to help out, Bob. I’d like to be at that table right there, Mr. Beckel. How about you?”
BECKEL: You know, I’m sure the president of the United States, Rush, just spends all day long, from the time he gets up ’til the time he goes to bed, thinking about you. I think you’re overstating your influence here good old boy.
BOLLING: Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, hold on.
BECKEL: Did Obama say that at —
BOLLING: Last night. At a fundraiser last night.
BECKEL: — at a fundraiser, he said it. That doesn’t mean he thinks about it all day long, as Rush suggested he does.
RUSH: Yeah, I don’t know if I said that. I said I live rent free in Obama’s head. I was the first person he mentioned at the White House Correspondents Dinner. This is the third or fourth time, Bob old boy, that Obama has blamed me. Remember the first two weeks of his regime he had that congressional leader meeting in the White House and he told John Boehner and the boys, “Look, you gotta stop listening to Rush Limbaugh. That’s just not the way things get done in Washington.” This is the fourth or fifth time that Obama has singled me out. Next up Eric Bolling said to Andrea Tantaros, “Rush Limbaugh’s actually stopping Republicans from agreeing to work with President Obama. Do you buy any of this stuff?”
TANTAROS: President Obama is enabling himself — or preventing himself from being able to work with Republicans. It’s not Rush Limbaugh’s fault, but I think the president believes that he has a good enemy in Rush Limbaugh. It’s a great way for him to raise money. I will say this. The left and President Obama’s cronies sit around and they think of ways to defund talk radio. They do this all the time. They thought that they were going to get a talk radio host during the Sandra Fluke controversy. They got, in their minds, a big fish with Rush Limbaugh. That is why they’ve targeted him. That is why they continue to do it.
RUSH: Now, Andrea “Tarantula” is a radio talk show host now. She has her own radio talk show. And so she now understands what’s going on with Obama. They are targeting talk radio, which, they’re targeting me, because it is the most concise, on-point, factual opposition to Obama out there. Obama has a singular objective, a singular political objective, and that is to eliminate all opposition. And he does. He’s admitting it. His opposition is me. His opposition isn’t Boehner. It isn’t McConnell. It’s not elected Republicans. It’s me. We oppose Obama specifically in a wholesale way here, not retail, not the standard, ordinary, “He’s a Democrat, we don’t like him kind of way.” We are specific and effective. So up next Eric Bolling said, “Okay, we have Benghazi breaking. We have the IRS. We have the AP scandal breaking all at once, but Obama goes to New York, he does his fundraisers with the 1% –” meaning the rich “– and he has to blame Rush Limbaugh again.” And Dana Perino then weighs in.
PERINO: One thing you gotta give President Obama is that he knows his audience. Okay, so his audience loves to get fired up and riled up against somebody, and Rush Limbaugh has been their favorite punching bag for years. It’s kind of boring and tired. If President Obama really wanted to achieve something in Congress, there is a way to do that, and it’s to be persuasive and to have a good argument, lay out the facts, and get someone to come on to his side.
RUSH: Dana, they don’t debate in the arena of ideas. That’s not how Obama does things. The left cannot win in a debate of ideas. That’s why they have to stifle opposition, to shut it up, to intimidate it into nonexistence. That’s why they impugn and destroy people like Mitt Romney or whoever they can, because they can’t beat us in the arena of ideas. They’re a minority. We’re being governed by a minority.
BREAK TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: So Dana Perino just got through saying, that if Obama wants to get his ideas moving, if he wants to advance his agenda, then he ought to be persuasive and have a good argument. That’s not what the left does. They can’t persuade people on their ideas. The left almost always has to discredit their opposition. That’s how they advance themselves. They do not win debates in the arena of ideas. Liberalism does not persuade people over conservatism when both are properly, energetically presented and explained.
Beckel, after Dana Perino made her comment, came back with this.
BECKEL: Well, it also is true that every time a Republican wants to try to do something in a bipartisan way, they get threatened with a primary —
PERINO: But, they do.
BECKEL: — on their side. And Limbaugh and these other purists who want to keep them this way, say, “Okay, you do that, then we’re gonna primary you.”
RUSH: I do not threaten to primary anybody. I don’t get involved in primaries, endorsing anybody in primaries or any of that. And they lump me in with this purest business. But that’s Beckel. It was left to Greg Gutfeld to wrap it up.
GUTFELD: President Obama’s right. He’s right. Rush Limbaugh is probably the most significant Republican in the country. When you think about it, the Republicans have yet to put forth a strong, polar opposite, our version, they would say, of Obama. They haven’t done that yet.
BECKEL: Herman Cain.
GUTFELD: Like I said.
RUSH: (laughing) Beckel said, “Herman Cain.” And Gutfeld said, “Like I said.” So I just want to remind everybody that my invitation was serious. I’m the opposition. I’ve been named as the opposition. Obama is telling people closest to him, he’s telling people that give him money. Those are the people you tell the truth to. Union people, he told them what his real plans for single payer health care were, for example. The people that give him money expect results.
He’s telling them, “Okay, yeah, I got a problem with Rush Limbaugh. Republicans won’t work with me. I’ve got a gridlock problem ’cause of Limbaugh.” Now, they’re Hollywood people, he knows they’re influential. He’s sending them a message, maybe other people, but I just want to say, I’m willing to meet with the president any time to advise him, to help him. My mother said, as I said yesterday, “Talk these things out, son. That’s the way you solve these things, talk it out.”