RUSH: You know, there he is. Obama’s on Fox right now, “I’m happy to have negotiations with the Republicans.” No, he’s not! But I’ll tell you, this whole talk about “negotiations” bothers me anyway. Now, not that maybe you can make Obama look like the stonewaller. That’s fine. Don’t misunderstand. ‘Cause on the one hand, I can see as Obama not talking. I wouldn’t talk to these guys if I were him. Why?

I mean, knowing who he is — knowing the kind of authoritarian, quasi-dictator mentality he has — why should he negotiate with these schlubs? I mean, it’s his way is his way or the highway. Why should he negotiate? I don’t know that bellyaching about Obama not negotiating is a way to force him to negotiate. That isn’t gonna work. It’s going to require what’s already happening, and that is action and deeds.

All of this bleating about, “He won’t negotiate! We want him negotiate.” Well, don’t expect him to. It’s not who he is. He said I don’t know how many times in five years that he’s not gonna talk to these people; he doesn’t like them. He’d much rather be talking to Bashar Assad right now. He would much rather be talking to whoever’s on the agenda for the Asian trip that was canceled. He’d much rather be talking to the guy that runs Iran. He’s running around saying, “Well, what are we gonna do? We just want to talk.”

That’s not the point. He’s going to have defeated, he’s going to have to be forced, and it’s not gonna happen at the negotiating table. You’re not gonna go into a meeting and have a negotiation, a debate or whatever and have Obama sit there and the lights go off and he says, “Oh, yeah. You know what? You’re right.” That isn’t the way this is gonna happen. Now, if all of this bleating about Obama refusing to negotiate works, in terms of persuading the American people of his obstinance, then I’m all for it.

Don’t misunderstand. I understand the optics here and the objectives, because it is important. Remember (I’ll emphasize this again), Obama was elected by dreamy-eyed utopian idealists who thought that all of this angst and all of this fighting — oh, God, can we just stop the fighting? — was gonna end. There is a heavy contingent of the Rodney King crowd out there, folks, the “Can’t we all just get along?” crowd.

There’s a famous conservative columnist who could lead the movement.

I’m not gonna mention the name. I don’t want to get into any little shouting matches over that, but this person is governed by the, “Oh, I just hate the arguing. Can’t we just stop fighting? Can’t we just stop arguing?” That’s not gonna appeal to Obama. The fact he’s not negotiating, that’s not gonna appeal to Obama. But if, as I say, people can be these dreamy-eyed utopian idealists who thought Obama was the solution to this, and this stuff wasn’t gonna happen anymore…

You know, if harping on it makes that case for them and persuades them, fine. I think people are showing up at these exchanges. You know what’s happening? This is not being reported. A bunch of Obama voters are showing up and they’re getting sticker shock on these premiums. I’m telling you, this is happening at these exchanges. It has to be. That’s the law of the land. There isn’t any $2,500 reduction in your premium. There isn’t any “you get to keep your doctor.” There isn’t any you get to keep your plan.

That was all bogus.

Do you realize how bad it is when they’ve only got two they can highlight and say, “Hey, these are the poster people,” and one of them happens to be an Obama volunteer for Organizing for America? One of them is part of the volunteer organization that runs around, supports Obama day in and day out? I guarantee you there are people — some of them young people, idealistic utopian little people — not little people, but young people walking in, and they really thought that health care was gonna be plentiful and cheaper.

Sticker shock is happening and we’re starting to get the end-of-the-world predictions about the debt limit and all that. Thomas Sowell has a piece today, “Who shut down the government?” You know, Sowell’s brilliant. He’s at the Hoover Institute, which is a conservative outpost. It’s hidden. It’s out there in the Stanford campus, but you practically need GPS and special permission to get there. These people practically bunker out there.

Sowell writes, “Even when it comes to something as basic, and apparently as simple and straightforward, as the question of who shut down the federal government, there are diametrically opposite answers, depending on whether you talk to Democrats or to Republicans. There is really nothing complicated about the facts. The Republican-controlled House of Representatives voted all the money required to keep all government activities going — except for Obamacare.

“This is not a matter of opinion. You can check the Congressional Record.” This serves a great purpose. This strips all the confusion out of it. The Republicans, I think now, folks, it’s four times… The Republicans in the House have voted four times to fully fund this government as Obama wants except for Obamacare. It is not the Republicans who shut the government down. It is not the Republicans who are denying kids treatment for cancer at the NIH.

It’s not the Republicans keeping people out of the World War II Memorial. It just isn’t. The Republicans have passed legislation four times to keep the government running. As usual, the Democrats and the media have jointly shut down the government because all that matters is Obama and his legacy and his reputation and his image and his optics and everything but reality. That’s all they’re concerned about: How does it look for Obama?

They believe that this association of Obama and the Democrats with their friends in the media, that alliance can destroy the Republicans, destroy the Republicans’ resolve. It can cause them to cave, because it can make the American people believe the Republicans are reprobates, mean-spirited, extremist racists and all that — and it’s not happening this time. I would say to you today what I said to you yesterday.

If all you’re doing is watching cable news, including Fox, you think I’m full of it, because if watching “the news” — again, there isn’t any. If you’re watching the media, the Republicans are getting hammered. If you’re watching the media, Boehner is within a gnat’s eyelash of caving. If you’re watching the media, Ted Cruz is a lunatic who practically deserves to be put in prison. If you’re watching the media, Rand Paul and these Republicans are an absolute bunch of wackos.

If you’re watching the media, they’re just getting hammered left and right. If you’re watching the media you’ll see stories of people being hurt and harmed by this, losing their jobs, losing this and losing that, and it’s all because of Republicans. That is not the perception. Obama’s approval numbers are down. I think it’s Gallup, but I saw one poll that his numbers are down four points since the shutdown began. Obama’s approval numbers are down four points. It’s a major poll, I just don’t have it right in front of me.

I can’t tell you which one it was, but it’s big, something like Gallup or CBS, I forget which. But it’s not working, and you know why? You know the best evidence of this? The government’s still shut down. That’s the best evidence. Ted Cruz is still doing Ted Cruz. Obama cancels his trip to Asia. You know why? Somebody figured out it really wouldn’t look good. Here’s a guy refusing to sit down with the Republicans and talk about this, but he’s eager to sit down and talk with some who might consider them to be enemies of America.

So somebody figured out wouldn’t look good.

Somebody also figured out about might look better if Obama took it seriously and hung around and make it look like he’s actively working on it. But it is not a matter of opinion that the government’s been fully funded except for Obamacare, and therein lies where the area of negotiation is. The area of negotiation is, “Look, Mr. President, you’ve exempted these people, and you’ve exempted that group, and you’re giving that group a subsidy, and you’re giving this group a subsidy and members of Congress a subsidy.

“Why not us? Why not the rest of the American people? Mr. President, you have exempted the employer from their mandate to provide insurance. How about no mandate on the individual to have it? Just for a year, Mr. President, just like you did for other people.” Those are the things to negotiate about. That’s what Obama won’t talk about. Obama will not talk about the unfairness that he has instituted.

Remember, again Betsy McCaughey: What is being implemented is not what Obama signed. The health care bill that was signed into law long ago ceased to exist. It didn’t have subsidies for members of Congress. It didn’t have a one-year delay on the employer mandate. It didn’t have 2,500 waivers. It didn’t have all of these things that Obama has extra-constitutionally decided to do. What is being implemented is not the law of the land.

What’s being implemented is not the law that was heard and argued over at the Supreme Court. There’s every reason in the world to hold this up. There’s every reason in the world to keep further implementation from going forward because lawlessness is taking place. So all Mr. Sowell here is saying is: If you want to start talking about who shut down the government, it isn’t the Republicans. They’ve offered four different times full funding for every aspect of the government — women, infants, and children — so that the mother of the four-year-old fat baby can have her formula.

That’s not me. That’s not AP story from earlier in the program. So that whoever needs whatever, it’s there. So that the kids can go to the NIH hospital and get their cancer treatment, it’s funded. The Republicans have offered to open every park. They’ve offered to fund everything to do with the VA, the military, you name it. It’s the Democrats who are refusing it and it’s people like Harry Reid saying, “Why would we do that?

“We’re not gonna do this piecemeal. Ted Cruz doesn’t get to run this government.” Oh, really? So there’s another element: “We can’t let Ted Cruz win anyting! Ted Cruz is an idiot. Ted Cruz an extremist. Ted Cruz a wacko. Ted Cruz is insane! We can’t let Ted Cruz win. Cruz is the Tea Party! We can’t let the Tea Party in there.” I mean, they’re quaking, folks, because the Republicans aren’t caving. Here’s a pull quote from Thomas Sowell’s piece:

“Perhaps the biggest of the big lies is that the government will not be able to pay what it owes on the national debt, creating a danger of default.” As we pointed out the last time this came up, there will not be any default on bills. Do you know why? Because the government continues to collect tax revenue, and the income to the government of tax revenue is sufficient to pay bills for a while.

So the magic, the drop-dead date is October 17th, and Obama’s out there saying, “Well, we gotta pay our bills! If we don’t pay our bills by October 17th, there’s no money for Social Security checks and there’s no money for Medicaid, and there’s no money for anything!” I think it, by the way, it’s another sign of panic. It’s a little early to throw the Social Security card out, but he did. I mean, that’s ’til two weeks away. But Thomas Sowell says, “Tax money keeps coming into the Treasury during the shutdown, and it vastly exceeds the interest that has to be paid on the national debt.”

The monthly tax revenue collected by the government — income tax, you name it, whatever. All tax revenue that comes in is still enough to pay interest on the national debt, even during a shutdown or a debt limit freeze. “Even if the debt ceiling is not lifted, that only means that government is not allowed to run up new debt.” It doesn’t mean the government can’t retire present debt. “But that does not mean that it is unable to pay the interest on existing debt.

“None of this is rocket science. But unless the Republicans get their side of the story out — and articulation has never been their strong suit — the lies will win.” This is what Mr. Sowell says, and he’s right. Republicans, their biggest problem is they are convinced they’re losing. They are convinced, as usual, they’re gonna be racist, sexist, bigot, homophobes and obstructionists and all this. So they’re having little factions that want to cave and get out of this right now.

The moderate Republicans, other Republicans that want to destroy the Tea Party. The thing to do is to hang in here and to point out that Obama and the Democrats and the media are lying when they offer all these scare tactics. The country isn’t going anywhere. The country isn’t gonna shut down. The economy isn’t gonna shut down, the government isn’t gonna shut down. We’re not gonna stop paying our bills. We’re not gonna stop paying the interest on the debt, even if the debt limit isn’t raised.

It wouldn’t be hard for Republicans to go out and say that, and I think some of them are. We played the sound bite of Mitch McConnell and Rand Paul in Paducah, Kentucky. They didn’t know the mic was on but they’re mic’d and it’s live and they’re talking very quietly to each other and they’re sharing with each other the idea, “You know, we actually could win this. I think we might be winning.” They couldn’t believe it. They actually couldn’t believe it. “We might be winning this thing.”

Yeah, they could very well be winning this.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: So the spokeskid, Jay Carney, just said that the regime, Obama, would not sign measures passed by the Republicans through their gimmicky piecemeal approach. Gimmicky piecemeal approach. He probably doesn’t know it, but that is the way the congressional budget process normally works, is the piecemeal approach. But since Obama’s never had a budget, they might not know that. Even with the continuing resolution, that’s still piecemeal. In fact, that is the definition of piecemeal, the CR. Obama said something the other day, can you believe (paraphrasing), “You just can’t have people shut down an enterprise simply ’cause they don’t get what they want.” Hey, Barack, you ever heard of the AFL-CIO?

Here’s Tim in San Diego. Hi, Tim. Great to have you on the program, sir. Hello.

CALLER: Hi there, Rush. Yeah, a gimmicky piecemeal approach. So, you know, that’s what we call kids with cancer. They’re just little gimmicky piecemeal parts of the pie we don’t really care about. You know, on Tuesday something unprecedented in American history occurred. The first official United States death panel was convened. When Harry Reid was asked if he’d be willing to save the life of a single kid with cancer, and his response was, “Why would I do that?” And in a single pronouncement, heartless Harry and the death panel Democrats denied this kid treatment for cancer, and guess what? It only took two days after Obamacare was implemented for the death panels to begin.

RUSH: You know, that is an excellent point. Kind of like Hillary Clinton and Benghazi, “What difference does it make now?”

CALLER: Exactly.

RUSH: What difference it make? Well, why would I do that?

CALLER: You know, the essence of a death panel is a person weighing somebody’s life against other priorities, and Harry Reid weighed the life of the kid with cancer and he said, “I have 1,100 people sitting at home, and they have problems, too.”

RUSH: This is a great point. Folks, look at all this piecemeal stuff. Obama: you can’t open that park, you can’t do that, can’t go there, can’t go to your memorial, we’re not gonna open the Grand Canyon. And these people are running health care? Is that really what we want, people willing to cherry-pick day to day what’s gonna be open and what isn’t, based on their desire to inconvenience people or harm them. And they are the ones that are gonna run health care? Is that really what we want?

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: Let’s grab a couple of audio sound bites here. I got one here from Ted Cruz. He’s on Greta Van Susteren last night on the Fox News Channel, and he says essentially that it’s the Democrats who are scared. She said, “Senator, I read an article today which said that the Senate was off to sort of a snippy start. The reference was that Senator Reid is calling you the joint Speaker of the House, a reference that he thinks that you’re doing something over in the House or controlling them over there. What do you think? I mean, is it out of line, or sort of funny? What do you think about him accusing you of running the House?”

CRUZ: The more progress we have made, the more energy there has been from the American people behind defunding Obamacare, behind stopping the harms from Obamacare, the nastier the Democrats have gotten, the nastier Harry Reid has gotten. It’s gotten more and more personal. They have been using personal invective. They’ve been calling us anarchists and terrorists. That’s a sign of the fact that they’re concerned. For months they’ve been saying there’s no chance of stopping Obamacare. If there wasn’t any chance, they wouldn’t be this scared, they wouldn’t be this shrill, they wouldn’t be this nasty and personal. And I think what they’re scared about is the American people are energized right now, and personally I find that inspiring.

RUSH: You know, I have to agree with this in this sense. Pretend for a moment that we’re all Democrats, that we love Obamacare and it’s the law of the land. It’s there. And the Supreme Court has given its stamp of approval. It’s the law of the land. We’ve done everything to it they did. We’ve given waivers. We’ve allowed subsidies. Everything is the same except it’s ours, and we have the White House, and we have the Senate. Why would we be scared? It’s the law of the land. There hasn’t been an entitlement ever unraveled. The closest anything like this has ever happened, it only took a month when back in the Reagan years, the Medicare, or social something, seasoned citizens were gonna have to pay an additional dollar and a half or something, and they literally had a cow.

So that was written out after about a month when they attacked Rostenkowski in his car on a street in Illinois, a bunch of seasoned citizens did. Other than that, these things don’t happen. Why are the Democrats scared? Why is Harry Reid getting so nasty? Where’s the confidence? It’s their bill. They’ve got their president to sign it. It is the law of the land. The Supreme Court’s stamp of approval on it. So what are they afraid of? I mean, if they believe in it, if they love it, what are the odds that this bill is gonna be decertified? It isn’t gonna happen. The bill isn’t gonna be decertified. What are they afraid of? It’s a really good point. What is the point in getting all snarky? What is the point in getting insulting and mean? What’s the point of falling into a trap where you actually admit that you don’t care about kids suffering with cancer?

Something is going on. They’re afraid of something. I happen to have a pretty good idea of what it is, and it’s what they’re always afraid of, and that is the American people learning the truth about them. That’s something they live, I think, in constant fear of. And you understand that. If everything about you was a lie, that you have everybody convinced, everybody you wanted to be convinced believed every lie you’ve told ’em, if that ever began to crack, the veneer began to crack, you might be a little worried. And something has to explain this.

If they were supremely confident, if the Republicans were indeed the lunatics that they’re being portrayed as, Harry Reid and Obama would be laughing themselves silly, and Obama woulda gone to Asia, and they’d be talking about how sorry they feel for people like Cruz. “They just can’t accept that they lost. But this bill is being implemented. It’s a great thing for the American people,” blah, blah, blah. That would be the approach, but they’re not doing that. They are acting panic stricken, and they are in the process, telling everybody who they really are.

Harry Reid, the veneer, the mask, the camouflage, is gone. That’s really who this mean little man is. And it’s the same thing for Dick Durbin and the rest of these, that’s who they really are. They are mean, vindictive, selfish. Have you ever known people that delivered ultimatums like Obama does? What does it say about somebody that behaves and acts that way? You ever noticed that people who repeatedly give ultimatums, one of two things is at work. They’re either just arrogant, conceited SOBs, or they don’t know how to work with others and they’re insecure and they’re trying to bluster and cover up that.

I think people who give ultimatums, “My way or the highway. You’re gonna do it the way I want to do it. You’re gonna do it by that date or we’re not gonna do nothing.” People that do ultimatums, particularly in a governmental setting like ours, I’m not talking about a boss at a company. He can ultimatum you all day long, “You do this by then or you’re gone.” But I’m talking about somebody who routinely deals with people that way. They’re covering up desperation, inadequacies with bluster and this faux authoritative behavior. These are people who have not learned to deal with frustration.

Now, I’ve always believed that Obama has led a charmed life. Well, when has he ever had to work with others? I think that there have been people greasing the skids for Obama, taking care of whatever needs to be done. I don’t think he’s really had to compromise with people. He’s found ways to get rid of his opponents, get rid of his enemies. He doesn’t have to negotiate. He doesn’t have to talk. He doesn’t have to get involved in debates and all that. If he does that’s just for show.

I think to him this is all insolence. How dare they oppose me? How dare they try to stop my law? How dare anybody. And I think that’s one of the relevant characteristics that we are dealing with here, low frustration tolerance, arrogance, nobody’s good enough to even be in the same room, who the hell do you think you are. This is why Obama prefers speeches to celebrity-loving college kids. He goes out, purposely finds young people dazzled simply by his presence. He doesn’t have to say anything brilliant. He doesn’t have to do anything. Just show up to an audience that’s just dazzled and impressed and blinded by his presence and willing to act like he’s a rock star, even fake fainting if necessary.

Somebody who’s comfortable with fake, phony, glitzy applause, because of the optics of it. And that suffices for one-way communication, somebody who refuses to sit down and talk to people. If you really believe something, I’m just gonna tell you if it were me, if I really believed something and I had these opponents and I were president, I’d bring ’em in. I’d try to explain, even though I know who they are, I would try to explain to them. I believe in it so much, I’d try to explain to ’em. I don’t think he even cares about the details. I don’t think any of that matters. The fact that he got national health care, whatever it turns out to be, as long as it ends up single payer, whatever the hell happens between now and then doesn’t matter.

How dare anybody get in his way. How dare anybody stop him. So ultimatums and threats to walk out and “I bent over backwards to be fair with these Republicans.” Then he goes out and calls ’em names to these starry-eyed college kids in the audience. See, this is the problem. He’s a bully, and the Republicans act afraid of him, and all that does is enable him. All that does is propel him. Fear is what enables bullies, acting afraid of them and intimidated by ’em is what enables them. That’s when intimidation becomes an effective way to manipulate behavior. You know people like this. You’ve run into ’em. People who use fear and intimidation to get what they want.

Sometimes parents can create that in their kids. If they allow their young children to get whatever they want, whenever they want it, and if the parent decides that the solution to that is to become their child’s friend, well, big potential problems. And so we have all of this, I think, combined in a presidency. When things don’t go as planned and when people aren’t automatically respectful, and when there isn’t this bowing down and blanket accepting of what the president wants, when there’s all this obstinance, there’s this reaction to it that’s not good or healthy.

If Republicans would just stop enabling that bullying and intimidation by stopping being afraid of it, there would be a sea change. That’s what Cruz is demonstrating, if you ask me, fearlessness, and look at how they’re reacting to that. They don’t know how to deal with it. They don’t know how to deal with people that aren’t afraid of ’em. They don’t know how to deal with people they can’t manipulate or bully into shutting up and going away. There’s a lot to learn here, folks, a lot to learn.