RUSH: I don’t think they were ever serious about repealing health care, the Republicans. I don’t think they ever were. I think that it has been lip service from the get-go. The votes to stop — I mean, the leadership, House and Senate, I don’t think they’ve ever really been serious about repealing Obamacare, especially since the Supreme Court decision. I don’t think so. Well, here’s why. I was gonna get into this later, but now is as good a time as any.
If you go back and remember, soon as Obamacare was signed into law, every Republican running for office promised we’re gonna do everything we can to repeal this, right? It’s what the Tea Party wanted. It’s what most Americans today still want, is for this bill to not go full-fledged effect. Most Americans still don’t like it, and it’s an increasing number. And now the unions are joining the chorus, the anti-Obamacare chorus. Then the Supreme Court decision happened, and the Republicans ramped up again. But now the Republican leadership in Washington is saying, “Nah, there’s not really anything we can do now.”
You have Mike Lee, senator from Utah, who has a plan to defund large elements of Obamacare in the continuing resolution fight coming up in September, and a bunch of Republicans are saying, “We really shouldn’t, dumb idea, can’t do it, wouldn’t make any sense.” So I’m wondering, did they ever mean it in the first place, then? And I have to tell you, it’s easy to see this in hindsight. I always have had my suspicions about this, but have you noticed in the last, I guess week to 10 days, an increasing number of Republicans, House and Senate both, in leadership and high-ranking, are just totally caving on it? And they want no part of Mike Lee’s effort, and they’re out laughing at it or making fun of it or saying it doesn’t have a prayer or it’s dumb or it’s stupid or what have you.
That’s what has led me to question how serious they were at first when they talked about trying to repeal it. I know that they were saying what people wanted to hear, politicians do. But there was a little bit of me that thought that they meant it. They’re Republicans. Nobody ought to be in favor of this. I mean, it’s a disaster. But now the energy has gone from the opposition and something’s happened. Something has changed that has taken the wind out of the sails of all these Republicans who opposed it.
Now, I know polls have been taken, and the polls that the Republicans see — who knows. Maybe they’ve got a misleading poll that’s got them thinking the country doesn’t — well, I don’t think that’s true. I don’t think they were ever really — let’s put it this way. It may be incorrect to say they were never serious about repeal. Maybe the more accurate thing to say is they were never really serious about rolling up their sleeves and following through on the fight. That may be more accurate. Because if they were, what’s happened?
More and more Americans are signing on to opposition. You would think that the opposition party would want to link up with that, for political reasons alone, just to curry favor, just to be on the side of the majority. But it’s just the exact opposite. As more and more people, at least as expressed in polls, want Obamacare repealed and oppose it for one reason or another, it seems like more and more Republicans are throwing in the towel on it.
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RUSH: Snerdley, I think what happened is somebody took a poll, and the results of the poll, they asked, “Are you in favor of health care reform?” and of course like 80% said, “Yeah, we’re in favor of health care reform!” So the poll was shown to Republicans, and they interpreted that as meaning 80% are in favor of Obamacare. They did not ask about Obamacare. The poll asked about “health care.”
It was American Crossroads or something. I don’t know who. I don’t know who. But that’s one of the explanations that I have heard that would explain this. ‘Cause really, you go back to when Obamacare gets passed, and there’s outrage from the Republicans as to how the whole thing happened in Congress. The whole process to get the bill signed into law was an exercise in corruption.
Everybody said, “Okay, well, Supreme Court will fix it,” just like they were gonna fix campaign finance reform. But everybody was continuing to profess their opposition to Obamacare, and saying, “You give us a chance and we’re gonna repeal this,” and people ran for office on the concept of repealing Obamacare. Romney, it was a huge deal. The first thing Romney was gonna do was repeal Obamacare, remember?
The second thing he was gonna do was get to the bottom of Benghazi, and the third thing he was gonna do was fix the economy and get rid of as much of Obamaism as he could. But one of the first things he said he was gonna do was sign a repeal of Obamacare, and a bunch of Republicans signed on to that. Then the Supreme Court comes out and John Roberts says, “You know what? They gave me a call the other night and I guess it’s in the Constitution now, this whole thing.”
The wind went out of everybody’s sails for a while, and then the Republicans came right back. “We’re gonna repeal this thing, we’re gonna defund this thing,” and it wasn’t two or three. It was a lot of Republicans. Now, when a way has been presented of doing this, they’ve thrown in the towel. The leadership and others are saying it’s a dumb idea, stupid idea. It would wreck the Republican Party.
It just makes me question how serious they were from the beginning on repealing it versus how much of what they were saying is simply saying what they thought people wanted to hear. I know. I’m not naïve. I know that that’s a lot of what politics is. I’m just saying, here’s a chance… I’m just stunned, when you get right down to it. We have an opposition party. Forget liberal versus conservative, and we know the Republican Party leadership does not want it to be a Conservative Party.
We know that, but they are still the Republican Party.
And I thought they still wanted to beat Democrats. I thought the Republicans wanted the chairmanship of all the committees in the Senate, and that’s why they didn’t like Christine O’Donnell and Sharron Angle ’cause they thought they would lose, and the Republicans are missing out on their chance to get the committee chairmanships. I always thought the Republicans at least wanted to beat the Democrats.
Maybe they don’t want to be a Conservative Party, but there doesn’t even seem to be any push-back by the Republicans against the Democrats in Obamacare and amnesty. It appears there’s acquiescence, doesn’t it? Well, it does. I mean, I hate to say it. Don’t misunderstand: I’m not sitting here reveling in this, but this is what it appears to me. “We gotta be like the Democrats. We gotta go out and we gotta get the Hispanics!
“They hate us, you know? Whatever the Democrats say about us, we accept as truth, and then come up with a policy based on that. Oh, slow walk it! You know, cane walk it, whatever.” They still want amnesty. They still want it. There’s no push-back. Are you seeing any push-back on it? Well, there is some. I don’t want to say that everybody has caved, but it seems like it’s a lot of work.
The thing that’s guiding the Republican Party today is just abject fear, and they’re afraid of the wrong things. I mean, fear can be a good thing. It can be an incredible motivator. Anyway, just my observations off the top of my head.
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RUSH: The American Crossroads poll also asked, Do you think the government should be shut down? Is it a good idea or bad idea to risk shuting down the government in an effort to get rid of the law, and a majority of Americans in this poll, said, “Nope, don’t shut down the government,” and that has iced the Republicans. Since they’ve seen a poll that most Americans don’t want the government shut down, that’s it.
“Over. No more question. We’re outta here. Done. Stop talking to us about Obamacare.”
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RUSH: Here’s Albert, San Jose, California. Hi, Albert. Glad you waited. Great to have you on the EIB Network. Hello.
CALLER: Hi, Rush. I’m not sure you’re aware, but I saw a movie over the weekend, and your book was actually in the movie. It was The To Do List. In the movie, the father was actually a judge. He was a judge. He was actually reading your book. Anyway, I thought that was pretty interesting.
RUSH: What’s the movie?
CALLER: The name of the movie is The To Do List.
RUSH: The To Do List?
CALLER: Yeah.
RUSH: That’s a current movie?
CALLER: Yeah. It just came out over the weekend. It’s not a really good movie, has nothing to do with your book not being a good movie.
RUSH: So the judge in the movie is reading one of my books?
CALLER: Reading your first book, right.
RUSH: Yeah.
CALLER: The Way Things Ought to Be? Back in 2003?
RUSH: Okay, so 19 years ago.
CALLER: Anyway, I just wanted to mention that to you if you hadn’t heard.
RUSH: All right, thank you very much. I appreciate heard that. I’ll get a bootleg copy of the movie and check it out.
CALLER: My question was something partly you talked about earlier today, talked about on Friday. You know, Tom Coburn over the weekend was pretty critical of Mike Lee’s defunding Obamacare, saying it’s gonna destroy the Republican Party in Utah. Earlier about polls, I guess that’s where the Republicans are thinking that it would destroy the Republican Party. So my question — maybe you can answer it — is if the Republicans do pursue defunding Obamacare, I’m not sure how that would destroy the Republican Party in the fact that they’re also pursuing immigration reform, and truly that would destroy the Republican Party. So how do you differentiate the two? ‘Cause either one, the base is gonna be destroyed.
RUSH: Let me answer this this way: Have you heard all of your life that America must reduce its dependence on foreign oil, particularly that from the Middle East?
CALLER: Yes.
RUSH: Right. So we got a chance to do that, don’t we? And guess who’s not doing it? The United States. It’s not just Obama, but Obama’s not going along with the Keystone pipeline. The Democrats are also opposing fracking, wherever fracking happens. If we would authorize fracking we could put the Middle East out of business. We wouldn’t need their oil. For 30 or 40 years, all I’ve heard is, “We’ve gotta reduce our dependence on foreign oil!” Now we’ve got a way to do it, and we won’t.
Well, it’s the same thing here.
They say one thing that they don’t really mean, and then when the chance to do it comes up, they cave.