RUSH: See? Look! Right there. CNN, right now, they’re doing a discussion on the following topic. “Developing Story: Obama, GOP Search for Common Ground.” No! There is no search for common ground.” That’s not what the election was about, and yet there’s CNN, that’s how their portraying for their audience, “Developing Story: Obama, Congressional Leaders Are Meeting Now Seeking Common Ground.”
You know what that meeting’s gonna be? Obama is gonna repeat the meeting that he had in 2009 after he won that election, he’s gonna listen to what they say and tell them, “I’m still president. You guys might have won this, I’m still president he’s not gonna concede anything.” He’s not gonna… Ah, this is so repetitive. I’m sorry to put you people through this. You listen every day; you listen faithfully.
You’ve heard this over and over and over again, and I’m sorry to be redundant, but, in this case, this is important. We don’t have a whole lot of time to make sure the right — and this is not spin. We have got to do everything we can to make sure the correct interpretation of this election is what settles in, and there is no “search for common ground.” That’s not what the voters want. Search for common ground?
If they would have wanted common ground, they would have returned Democrats in the Senate and the House of Representatives. These are battles! There is a battle on for the heart and soul of this country. I can’t help it if I’m energized to want to be in it. I’m not saying, “Do nothing.” I am not saying, “Say no.” I’m not saying any of that. I can’t be any more crystal clear than I’m being.
Since a number of commentators, including on Fox, are getting wrong what I said yesterday — for example, Neil Cavuto. And God bless him. Don’t misunderstand. I know how misunderstandings happen. He read somebody else’s interpretation of what I said. I did not say, “Ignore Obama and shove something in his face.” I said, “The mandate Republicans have is to stop what has been going on the past six years.”
But I didn’t stop there. I offered a strategy, if you will, for the Republicans to do whatever they could to tell the American people what they stand for now. They didn’t run on an agenda, so let’s announce one now. How do you do it? By sending bills to Obama that we know he’s gonna veto, that spell out what we would do if we were in power. Make him veto it. But, here, rather than me say what I said yesterday, let me get it out there again. It’ll only take a couple of minutes, and here it is from yesterday.
BEGIN ARCHIVE CLIP
RUSH ARCHIVE: So you come up with whatever your legislation, say it’s repeal part of Obamacare, whatever it is, repeal the medical device tax. Fine. Send it up there and accompany it with a letter from McConnell and Boehner to President Obama complete with polling data showing this is supported by the American people by whatever percentage the poll says and then publicize it, release it.
“Today we sent legislation up to President Obama in our effort to get along and our effort to get something done and our effort to compromise,” whatever gobbledygook you want to say, and then include the fact that 60, 65, 67% of the American people support this and want this, and then make Obama react to it. “But, Mr. Limbaugh, Obama will say he doesn’t care because that means two-thirds didn’t, and he’s got to stand for all Americans.”
It doesn’t matter what he does! What you do is what matters. His reaction, we know he’s gonna veto it anyway. The point of this is not for Obama. You assemble this package, this bill and the letter and the polling data for public consumption, so that the public knows what Obama is doing when Obama vetoes something. It’s not a War on Women bill. It’s not something the Democrats and the media lie about and concoct. You submit the bill, a letter explaining it complete with polling data showing massive public support.
Release that so that the American people know what Obama is vetoing, so the American people know what Obama and the Democrats oppose. Thereby putting gridlock on their shoulders. Thereby putting opposition to getting things done on their shoulders. Thereby making them the obstructionists. The Republicans are simply representing the will of the people.
The people want the medical device tax removed. Here’s a piece of legislation that will do it. Sign it, Mr. President! (Obama impression) “Hell, no, screw you, and Michael Jordan, too.” He vetoes it. Case closed. What’s so hard about this? Not even confrontational. It is a great idea. That’s not confrontational. There’s no racism in it. There’s no bigotry. There’s no homophobia. There’s no sexism. There’s no War on Women in it. It would go a long way to rebranding the party, all kinds of things to recommend it.
END ARCIVE CLIP
RUSH: Somebody tell me, how do you translate that into, “Limbaugh said ignore Obama and throw things in his face”? That is a strategy for Republicans. You want to repeal Obamacare? You tell us you do. Okay, here’s what you do. Send the individual repeal bills up to Obama with polling data attached showing the American people support it and make him veto it, which he’s going to do anyway.
By the way, let’s go back. This is October 17, 2013, at the White House. President Obama was speaking about the agreement to end the government shutdown. Oh, that’s another thing. I don’t even know if I want to bother get. There are Republicans who are trying to say that this election, the results of this election — they were saying it before the election, by the way. They were.
Honestly, they were spinning a potential loss and blaming it on the government shutdown. I kid you not. There were some Republican strategists or consultants or whoever that were actually writing pieces claiming that the Tea Party and Ted Cruz and the government shutdown of 2013 was so abhorrent to the voters, it could well explain why the Republicans may not do as well as they should.
I kid you not.
So intense is the war within the Republican Party on the Tea Party. And, by the way, you can’t get rid of the Tea Party. The Tea Party’s organic. It’s not the result of a meeting, and there isn’t a series of position papers that people have to sign on and agree to. There is no leader. The Tea Party is the American people. It’s organic! You can’t ever get rid of it.
The sooner the Republicans come to understand that and embrace it, the better off they’re gonna be — and, yes, embrace it. But before the election they were actually telling themselves that. “If we don’t do as well as we should, it’s ’cause Ted Cruz and the government shutdown.” They wanted to blame that, if they didn’t do well. Now, that’s gone. It’s off the table because we won big, so nobody’s talking about the government shutdown.
But I’m telling you, I heard before the election people were telling me, “Yeah, Rush, you know, if we don’t do as well, it’s ’cause the voters, they don’t like this government shutdown. The Tea Party, it can really hurt us.” It didn’t matter, did it? In fact, it might have even helped. Well, anyway, back during all of that, October 17, 2013, this is the ceremony at the White House, some meeting with the president’s speaking about the agreement to end the government shutdown and raise the debt ceiling again.
I want you to listen very carefully to what President Obama said that.
OBAMA: You don’t like a particular policy or a particular president? Then argue for your position. Go out there and win an election. Push to change it. But don’t break it! Don’t break who our predecessors spent over two centuries building. That’s not being faithful to what this country’s about.
RUSH: Okay, done, Mr. President.
We went out there and we won an election.
It’s your move now.
We didn’t just win an election; we swamped you and your party. I mean, skunked! I mean, it is massive. I don’t think the full depth and breadth of this defeat for the Democrats and victory for the Republicans, I don’t think it’s even fully understood now just how massive it is. And it would be a mistake to rush into an early analysis without realizing just what this election really means.
So, “The government shutdown, the precious government shutdown — oh, we can never shut down the government!” Government shut down all the time. We shut it down during the year for all kinds of reasons. But we can’t afford for that to ever be known by the public. No, the government must be first and foremost always operating, it must be number one in everybody’s life.
So here’s Obama: “You don’t like a particular policy or a particular president? Then argue for your position. Go out there and win an election. Push to change it. But don’t break it! Don’t break who our predecessors spent over two centuries building.” Who is breaking what our predecessor spent over two centuries building, sir? We are not. We are trying to save it.
The irony of this is rich. Obama telling Republicans, don’t break what our predecessors — you don’t even like the predecessors. They’re all slave-owners or bigots or what have you. But, man, when it comes time to speak of them with great reverence, why, he can pour it on. “Don’t break what our predecessors spent over two centuries building,” as though a government shutdown could do that.
No, government shutdowns don’t break what’s spent over 200 years to be built. Ignoring the Constitution is what does that. Legalizing millions of illegal immigrants as citizens with the stroke of a pen, that’s what breaks what our predecessors spent over two centuries building.
Coming up with a gunrunning program to put American guns in the hands of drug cartels in Mexico for the express purpose of attacking the Second Amendment, that’s what breaks what our predecessors spent over two centuries building. Spending money that we don’t have and creating a welfare state compromised of people whose lives are being destroyed by turning ’em into permanent waifs and wards of the state, that’s what breaks what our predecessors spent over two centuries building.
Not a little three-week government shutdown.
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