RUSH: Here is me. This is right at the time Operation Chaos was launched, which was our attempt here to keep the Hillary Clinton presidential campaign alive through the Democrat convention. April 21st, 2008. My point here was trying to convince you in the audience of Obama’s — oh, I don’t know — arrogance, superiority, that he’s above being questioned. He’s above being challenged. He never has been and he doesn’t react to it well, and this is how I said it.

RUSH ARCHIVE: When this guy’s not got a teleprompter, when he doesn’t have a speech written for him by Axelrod or somebody, he can’t take a punch. He’s got a glass jaw. He’s got a sense of entitlement about him that says, “I do not and will not be criticized. I’m too important!” The media people, Drive-Bys, that are going to shield him in that regard. He’s so important, no criticism is worth it. It’s not valid. It’s all in the past. So whoever is going to be in charge of the campaign to defeat Obama is going to have to find a way to trip him up so that he exposes the fraud that is this mystic, messianic personality that he has.

RUSH: And nobody had the guts to try, but I’m playing that for you because it feeds into what the Drive-Bys are admitting when asked, “Why won’t Obama go to the border? Why won’t he go visit his own refugee camps? Why won’t he do a photo-op? “That sound bite for me explains partially why, and you’ll hear media backup when we get back.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: Here’s F. Chuck Todd. This is this morning on the Today Show. Savannah Guthrie talking to F. Chuck about Obama not going to the border, not being seen with his new Democrat voters-in-waiting, staying away, fundraisers just a few hours away, but no border appearances, no photo-ops. She said, “Chuck, what’s the harm for Obama in visiting the border? Is there something larger going on here that you and I aren’t bright enough to see, Chuck?”

TODD: You know this president well, you and I covered him together. They get stubborn sometimes. They don’t like getting bullied into a decision. They made this decision about 10 days ago that he would not go to the border. They’ve gotten a ton of pressure, Democrats and Republicans, and they’re digging in their heels. They are acknowledging that the photo-op, I think, might be bad politics on either side of this issue, so they want to stay away.

RUSH: So he’s basically saying they decided 10 days ago that they’re not gonna go, and that’s it. They’re not gonna be bullied. They’re not gonna be questioned about it. Nobody’s gonna give ’em any better idea because they know everything. They’re not gonna go. They’re not gonna be bullied. They’re not gonna do it. And that’s point that I was making. I recognized this about the guy back in 2008. That’s all I’m saying. But even there, see, the answer is politics. Everything is politics to these people, even in the context of genuine misery and suffering.

You know, we had a caller yesterday, an African-American, I think from Charlotte, North Carolina, who accused Obama and the Democrats of using these kids, exploiting for his own, their own political gain. And he’s got a point, I think. So he’s not gonna be bullied. Now, let’s grab sound bites seven and eight. This is David “Rodham” Gergen. There’s a lot of Democrats that are very, very worried about the political impact of all of this on Obama. Of course there are Republicans that are offering their own political analysis of this, but the Democrats are as well, and there’s a lot of concern out there. Gergen was on CNN last night with Erin Burnett who said, “One Democrat expressed that this could be the president’s Katrina moment. Obviously those are strong words. Should the president be worried about that, Mr. Gergen?”

GERGEN: Absolutely. And this has become a humanitarian crisis. As president, he ought to deal and step up to the crisis at hand and go to the border and send a clear message: “Parents, do not send these young children on 2,000 mile trips that take 45 days and put them on top of trains, subject them to assaults from rapists that leave them out in the wilderness.

BURNETT: Right.

GERGEN: There are terrible things going on to these poor children.

RUSH: Is that why they want him to go? They want him to go down there to send the message not to come? Do they not know what really is happening? That’s the last thing Obama is gonna do is tell ’em not to come. I mean, he’ll issue a tweet or he’ll have somebody in the White House say that he thinks that they shouldn’t come. He’s not gonna go to the border with a bullhorn or whatever and say, “Go home! Don’t come!” He’s not gonna do that.

I guess they don’t understand what’s happening here. This is what mystifies me. How in the world can anybody think that 300,000 illegal aliens, 300,000 people since April is simply coincidental. And the vast majority of them come from noncontiguous nations, which allows them to stay because of quirks in US law. How can anybody think that this just happened? So it’s a humanitarian crisis. It really is. You know, with all the money and compassion that Hollywood leftists have, maybe they wouldn’t have to do a telethon. You could start a Twitter campaign. You could donate with a simple tweet, donate with a simple text, donate by phone.

You could have a Sarah McLachlan song playing set to pictures of the suffering masses of children. “Dear Hollywood: Help the president, help the children, help America see for itself what Barack Obama won’t.” Oh, that’s why they won’t do it. Anyway, here’s David “Rodham” Gergen and the next question from Burnett is, “Why does it seem this crisis was such a surprise? It just seems from the way the reactions come out of the White House, that if they knew about it, they certainly weren’t talking about it. You get the feeling they weren’t even aware of it.”

GERGEN: I worry about that. I have a lot of respect for President Obama and his team, but even so, you know, why was it we were surprised by ISIS moving in Iraq when intelligence, a lot of other people noticed this and that thought this was coming? This problem on the border’s been building up for five years, as you pointed out earlier. It’s been coming a long time. These kids take 45 days to get there. We have a love time to pay attention to this and figure out what to do. Why has it suddenly become a surprise? I don’t understand that.

RUSH: Does that frustrate you or make you chuckle as much as it does me? “It takes ’em 45 days to get here. I don’t understand why they didn’t know.” They did! Why did we get snuck up on by ISIS in Iraq? And they don’t want to answer their own question. They’re afraid. I am hearing, by the way — and I don’t know how reliable this is because it comes from people I don’t know personally, just things I’m reading. Some of them I know personally.

I am hearing, ladies and gentlemen, that inside the Beltway, behind closed doors, people like Gergen and the media are just shocked and dismayed at how incompetent Obama is, but they’re so invested in the guy they cannot express it. They don’t dare because they’d be cutting themselves off at the same time. ‘Cause they are the ones that bought the hoopla back in 2007. They are the ones who believed in this whole messianic aspect. They’re the ones who believed that we got something magic finally in the White House that was gonna cure all of the evils and ills that Bush wrought. They bought it fully and now privately almost all of them are just beside themselves over how incompetent and incapable the administration is. But they don’t dare report it.

Now, that sounds like it’s a tough one to believe, but let’s pretend, let’s say that it is true. And then knowing that, we’re hypothetically knowing that, then we listen to David “Rodham” Gergen. Let’s just assume hypothetically that Gergen is part of this group of people I’m hearing essentially totally embarrassed about Obama, they’re just dismayed, cannot believe. In fact, we had a sound bite. I didn’t get to it yesterday, intended to but didn’t, of David Brooks, the quasi-conservative columnist at the New York Times. He’s the guy who, back in 2008, said that based on the crease in Obama’s slacks when they had dinner at George Will’s house that he knew he was destined for greatness.

Folks, I’m not making up a word of that. David Brooks actually said that. Obama had dinner at George Will’s house with some conservative columnist types that he asked to be there, and I told you at the time what that was about. Obama had chosen the conservatives he thought were malleable, that he thought he could turn into at least not opposing him. And Brooks was one of them. Larry Kudlow was there. Krauthammer was there. I forgot, there were five or six of them, and David Brooks actually said that when he saw the crisp crease in Obama’s slacks, that’s all he needed to know.

So we had the sound bite yesterday of Brooks basically admitting that he blew it, that he got caught up in all the hoopla of 2008. Now, I don’t remember the exact transcript. I don’t want to try to paraphrase it, maybe exaggerate it beyond what Brooks actually said. The point is, if Gergen is part of this group that’s feeling embarrassed, that they so misjudged Obama, that they just can’t believe, so incompetent, so incapable, so whatever, they’re never, by the way, gonna think all this is purposeful. They can’t go that far. They will never admit that. That’s why they’ll draw the line at incompetence. But they’ll never say it. Remember, that’s part of the story, too. They’ll never admit it.

They’ll take it out on other Democrats, they’ll take it out on other people, but they are not gonna take it out on Obama. He’s always gonna get a pass because of the racial component. They just can’t afford to come down on the first black president. They can’t afford to come down on him because they were so supportive. It make themselves look bad if they admit they got it wrong.

So when you hear Gergen say, “I worry about how they didn’t notice this was happening. I mean, I got a lot of respect for Obama.” When you’re gonna criticize somebody in Washington you always say, “Look, I like so-and-so, one of my best friends, but…” That’s how you get away with really slicing and dicing them. Here’s what Brooks said. There were two bites, but I think this will cover it.

BROOKS: People had the sense they could be transformed through politics. And a lot of us spent a lot of time thinking about politics, but if you’re looking for salvation in politics, you’re barking up the wrong tree. The 2008 Obama campaign could come along, and believe me I’m as guilty as anybody about this, and you get caught up in the fervor of the thing, and when that fervor doesn’t come through you get this emotional crash of disillusionment, and I think we’re a bit living through that, as well.

RUSH: Boy, you could barely hear what he’s saying. He’s admitting here he blew it, got caught up in the emotional fervor, come crashing back down to earth. So there may be some truth to it, what I’m hearing about how collectively the Drive-Bys are just beside themselves. But then, again, getting back to Gergen, “I worry about that. I have a lot of respect for President Obama and team, but.”

And that’s how you do it in Washington. You start out praising them, talking about how much you like ’em, and then, “Because I like ’em so much, I have so much respect, that’s why I don’t understand why we were surprised by ISIS and 45 days for these kids to get here. They’re on the top of trains and they’re being set upon by rapists, I don’t understand it.” It may well be that this is how they are expressing it without trying to be too critical, for their own credibility and so forth.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: Here is Joe in Coral Springs, Florida. Hi, Joe. Great to have you on the program. Hello.

CALLER: Hello, Rush. Great honor to speak with you. Gotta admit I’m a little star struck. I listen to you very briefly during the daytime when I can and I learn more from you than anywhere else.

RUSH: I appreciate that, really do appreciate that. Thank you.

CALLER: Okay. I was going back to the — David Gergen bite. I was just wondering when you think that Al Sharpton and maybe Rachel Maddow are going to start calling him out as a racist for jumping off the plantation and, you know, I just don’t understand these liberals. I know you do, and I’m starting to think like you because I can tell one a mile away.

RUSH: Congratulations. That’s key. That will stand you in so much good stead the rest of your life, you do not know. If you’re able to do that — I wish everybody, Joe, and I’m not kidding, I wish everybody could learn to do that, and know what it means. Now, as to your question. We had a sound bite earlier, David Gergen — actually two sound bites — David Gergen, David “Rodham” Gergen, who is the arbiter of conventional wisdom inside the DC Beltway, expressed great frustration and curiosity over the breakdown at the border and the breakdown in Iraq.

He was just very, very troubled that the administration didn’t see any of this coming. Why, it takes these kids 45 days to get here from El Salvador, Ecuador, Guatemala, often traveling on the tops of freight trains. How could we not see them coming? He doesn’t understand, and he voiced this, he was very, very concerned about it. So Joe wants to know why isn’t he being called a racist and a bigot for questioning the competence of the Regime. And the answer is obvious. He is of the tribe and is therefore permitted.

Now, if he keeps it up and if he — see, Joe, he was interrogatory in his observation, not accusatory. That’s a very, very fine distinction. He was not accusing the Regime. He was hurt and questioning and wanting to know what the obvious answer was, as though it escaped him. Had he accused them of incompetence or something worse, then you might have gotten a reaction from that circus, that freak show that is the cable network you mentioned.

But that’s the answer. And in the future you’ll be able to answer that yourself because you are on the way now to being able to spot a liberal when you hear one sentence. And oftentimes when you see one, you can do that, too. That’s when you’ve really gotten good. You can spot ’em just by looking at ’em, particularly liberal women. I’m probably gonna get in trouble for that, but it’s often foolproof.