RUSH: Slate.com, Jacob Weisberg: ‘How the Republican Congress will abandon Tea Party ideas and legislate toward the center.’ He starts out this way: ‘In the likely event that Republicans capture control of one or both houses of Congress next week, the new leaders will face a strategic question. Should they pursue the agenda of the Tea Party movement that brought them to power? Or should they try to mollify their party’s base with gestures and symbols, without taking its radical ideology too seriously?’ There’s nothing radical about constitutional government. It’s just being portrayed that way. Now, Mr. Weisberg says, ‘While they’ll never discuss the problem honestly, indications point to the fact that Republicans will… try to mollify their party’s base with gestures and symbols, without taking its radical ideology too seriously.
‘That is, the GOP congressional leadership will feint right while legislating closer to the center.’ I have no doubt. When talking about the Republican establishment, I have no doubt that that’s what’s going on. Now, this story here from Slate and this Politico story: ‘Next for the GOP: Stopping Palin,’ and you’re seeing stories like this all over the place, about how Tea Party, ‘Ah, even if they win big it’s not gonna be big enough. It’s gonna be played down. They don’t have any real representation. These are rubes,’ and so forth. There’s panic. The Democrats, the media are in sheer panic over what’s gonna happen. The Republicans are, too, in a way, the establishment types, GOP operatives. I have tried to make clear, folks, that I don’t expect the Republicans to take this lying down. Too many times, I will admit, in my naive past…
You know, I’ve always believed that elections matter, and I’ve always believed that people in politics are honorable. I’ve had a lot of late awakenings. I’ve had a lot of late-in-my-life realizations. I’m not embarrassed to admit it, either. I’m not embarrassed to admit that, more often than not, election results are viewed with contempt by professionals, in both parties. Particularly the Democrats because they obviously govern against the will of the people while actively lying. Republican establishment does it for different reasons. Liberalism, by definition, holds people in contempt. Republicans by nature don’t, but when it comes to the establishment types Inside Washington where the pros live and breathe, any outsider — I don’t care what they think, where they come from, how much money they have — it really doesn’t matter.
So I’ve come to realize here, they’re not gonna get it. When ranking Republicans tell me they expect Obama to move to the center, I literally just laugh. ‘Cause they don’t even think he’s gonna move to the center. If they tell me that, I don’t believe they believe it. I’ve got a story that just cleared right now about how Obama’s sharpening the veto pen, how Obama’s preparing to bludgeon Republican opposition with his veto pen. He has no intention of compromising with the Republicans. Obama’s not gonna sit there and say, ‘Gee whiz, you know what, I really misjudged the American people. They really don’t like what I’m doing. I may be wrong.’ He’s not gonna do that. He’s gonna hold voters in even more contempt. It’s the same with the Republican establishment. They’re not gonna sit there and take this lying down.
They’re not gonna say, ‘Gee, you know what? We really misjudged those pro-lifers. We really misjudged those Tea Party people. We really misjudge our own voters. I guess we’re gonna have to change and reflect what our voters say.’ No. They’ll try to make you think that’s what they’re doing, which they’ve done in the past, but in terms of who I’m talking about, the elite establishment (not the whole party at large, don’t misunderstand, just the elite inside-the-Beltway establishment) they’re gonna try to obstruct all they can. It’s all about power of them just like it is for the Democrats. It’s all about who gets to take their turn in charge of the federal Treasury and buying whatever and whoever they can with it. Republicans pay off their cronies, Democrats pay off their cronies and supporters, Republicans get their turn every four or five years.
Voters resent all of that. Voters, particularly Tea Party people, far more idealistic, far more originalist in their interpretation of the Constitution, far more civic minded. I really believe one of the reasons so many people eventually in the general public grow tired of politics is they eventually realize that for the elites of both parties, it isn’t about ideas. They’ll try to make voters think it’s about ideas but at the end of the day it’s about money. It’s about taking care of their cronies and paying off their goodies, and the Democrats get their turn at it. So I say this with the intent here of just, again, letting you know that the Washington establishment — I don’t care if it’s Republican, Democrat, or from Mars; the Republican, Washington, Democrat, Republican, Democrat establishment, whatever — will do their best to undermine whoever wins from our side.
And they’re going to try to structure things so that when the Tea Party victors get to town, they are gonna be told, ‘Okay, here’s how the town operates, and here’s where you’re gonna go, and here’s who your staff is, and if you want to go anywhere this is how you’re going to vote.’ This time around I think it’s a battle that they can’t win. This is an even greater reason — this reality, a greater reason — to send even more conservatives to Congress, and then even more after that, and then more after that. Remember, this is just the first election. As I say: The DC establishment is not gonna take this lying down. They’re not gonna go, ‘Oh, wow, wow. We really misread the people. Look at what the people voted for. They really want smaller government. Okay, we’re gonna give ’em smaller government. We want to stay in office, we want to get reelected.’
If we know Obama’s not going to do that with the Republicans, why do we think anybody would do it with us, the country class? Now, don’t misunderstand. Our home politically is the Republican Party. The effort here is to reassert dominance and make the Republican Party the true home of the conservative ascension, and there will be a battle that ensues doing this. It continues after the election tomorrow. It doesn’t end. Tomorrow doesn’t end anything. You’ve heard that convoluted quote, ‘This is not the end. It’s not even the beginning of the end. It’s not the end of the beginning. It’s simply the beginning of the beginning of the end of the beginning,’ whatever, however that goes. However it goes (laughs), it’s true. So these stories: ‘Next for GOP: Leaders: Stopping Palin.’
As I say, this is a Politico story, if you read the whole story, there really isn’t anything in it that justifies this dramatic headline. The headline is trying to depress Tea Party people. When you get into the story (it’s very long), there’s not what I felt ‘there’ there. I’m sure you’ll find some Republicans opposed to Palin, but what’s new about that? There’s nothing new here. The very idea they have to stand up and stop her, they’re simply afraid — those that want to stop her, afraid — of her defining the Republican Party. It’s not that they’re afraid of her because she’s stupid. Tey’re not afraid of her because she’s a neophyte. They’re not afraid that she’s gonna lose big. They’re afraid that she could usurp their power, or lead a movement that could usurp their power.
Here’s Frank Rich in the New York Times: ‘The Grand Old Plot Against the Tea Party.’ Everybody is ‘plotting’ against the Tea Party here. This piece, I don’t have time to read the whole thing to you, and I don’t want to anyway, but trust me, it may be the single most condescending article yet written yet about the Tea Party, about all of us in the country class. By a guy who personifies, typifies arrogance and condescension as well as anybody does in Washington. No question whatsoever. So, folks, this is, again, meant only to fire you and to hit you with continued doses of reality. I’m not trying to depress anybody. You know all this anyway. Some of you may still have a lingering idealism that election returns translate into people seeing the light, and for a lot of people it does.
I’ll just remind you… When was it, was it 2002, the midterms or was it 2004 when the exit polls showed that Values Voters made the difference? Remember the Democrats for the first two weeks after that were all over television, ‘Yeah, you know what? We gotta get our act in gear on that. In 2004, we heard the voters on that. We heard the voters. We’re a little weak on values.’ So the Drive-Bys did their duty and started talking about how the Democrats are now seeing where they went wrong and trying to correct the mistakes that they made. For two weeks and that’s over. Have you seen any change in Democrats and their appeal to value voters? No. They still insult you. They still hold you in contempt, ridicule you and make fun of you, without exception.
BREAK TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: Yesterday morning on Fox News Sunday, Sarah Palin asked by Chris Wallace: ‘You’re saying local reporters in Alaska conspired with the Murkowski campaign to put out false information about Joe Miller?’
PALIN: We have it on tape that CBS reports in the affiliate up there in Alaska on tape are saying: Let’s find a child molester in the crowd as a supporter for Joe Miller. Let’s blast that. Let’s concoct a Ron Paul moment there. Let’s find any kind of chaos so that we can tweet an alert saying, ‘Oooh, there is chaos.’ Joe Miller got suck. That’s sick. Those are corrupt bastards, Chris. That is what’s wrong with the media today when they have their chosen one and nine times outta ten — heck, ten times outta ten in the liberal media — it’s gonna know gonna be the liberal is the chosen one. So we have a problem there with what Joe Miller has had to face.
RUSH: Those are corrupt bastards. She’s talking about local media in Alaska which did contrive to make up things about Joe Miller and his supporters and so forth. That’s standard, ordinary fare, but when’s the last time you ever heard anybody on television call the media ‘corrupt bastards’? And how many of you who heard it stood up and cheered when you heard it?