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RUSH: I think he’s in trouble, and I think, ladies and gentlemen, he knows he’s in trouble. Now, you would never know it unless you have a highly trained and experienced eye and ears like mine. Watching the Barack Obama press conference… Well, it wasn’t a press conference, because he didn’t take any questions, but watching his appearance this morning in the White House with a couple of CEOs, I have an entirely — and of course, what’s odd about this… I have an entirely different take from those who analyzed this event in the White House that happened just mere moments ago. Greetings and welcome to the fastest week in media and the fastest three hours in media, the Rush Limbaugh Program, and we are ensconced firmly here behind the Golden EIB Microphone. The telephone number if you want to be on the program today: 800-282-2882.

On January the 9th of this year — What would that be? Nineteen days ago — Barack Obama said, ‘There is no disagreement that we need action by our government, a recovery plan that will help to jump-start the economy.’ How would you interpret that? And, by the way, prior to that, he said, ‘Government is the only entity that can get this going.’ Cookie, I’m sorry I didn’t think of this until just now, but see if you can find that. I don’t remember if that was an audio bite that we played or if it was a quote we took from somewhere. It was a quote out of the paper? I coulda sworn I saw him say it. I know I saw him. I don’t know whether we had the sound bite. Cookie, search the archives. We’ve got great archives. We got a really great archival system (and we back it up, by the way, so that we never lose it), but find it, when he said it. It was this month. ‘Government’s the only entity could do this.’ ‘Cause it relates to what’s coming next.


Then he said on January 9th, to repeat, ‘There is no disagreement that we need action by our government,’ comma, ‘a recovery plan that will help to jump-start the economy.’ Today, it’s an entirely different tune. Today, Barack Obama morphed into Ronald Reagan. He stood aside from the podium while two CEOs, one from IBM and one from Honeywell, sang his praises. There were no small business people up there with him, just major corporate people, and of course IBM and Honeywell probably will benefit greatly from whatever government action there is, with Internet wiring and updating technology and computer networking and this sort of thing, but I don’t want to

besmirch the CEOs. I mean, this is a con game. They gotta go up there and pay the protection money, but they sang this guy’s praises. ‘He’s a great leader. Oh, this is going to be the greatest thing in the world,’ and Obama got up there and sounded like Ronald Reagan.

This, to me, is the signal that he knows he’s in trouble. Now, he’s not in trouble in terms of getting his bill eventually passed. But I’ll tell you, more and more people are now starting to see that this is not a stimulus bill at all, it’s what we’ve been calling porkulus. It’s just a standard budget bill that has a 30% increase in the budget, is what it is. It’s all it is, and if you look, there’s been a conservative analysis of the bill suggests that only 12¢ of every dollar will go to genuine stimulus things like creating jobs and so forth. But they are part-time jobs. They’re static jobs that have a start and end time. They’re not career jobs, which is a big difference. And, of course, the news is getting out about just how filled with pork this is, how typical it is of the way Washington spends money. The Republicans in the House seem to be holding firm.

He doesn’t need a Republican vote at all. I think the pressure… The result of the meeting was he knows he’s in trouble ’cause he desperately wants Republican support, ’cause when this goes down the tubes, he wants to be able to say that all of Washington was complicit. He doesn’t want Republicans to be able to run reelection campaigns in 2010 and 2012 saying they opposed this when we’re in the mess that’s even deeper than it is today. So he wants Republicans there. He doesn’t want a repeat of what happened in 1993 where not one Republican voted for the Clinton budget, which then led to the Republicans’, partly a factor, taking over the House in 1994. He doesn’t need the Republicans at all. As I said yesterday, why in the world…? If this is so great, if this is so wonderful, if this package of his is going to reignite an economy like we’ve never seen before, why wouldn’t he want all the credit?

Do you realize he could destroy the Republican Party forever? If his plan works, and none of them vote for it, can you imagine what he could say four years from now? It would be the end of the Republican Party. And if that’s the case, why not do it? Because we know that in politics the objective is to wipe out your opponent. It just is. Well, the Democrat objective is. It used to be ours, but we’re going to get that back. We’re gonna get that back. So there’s a lot going on here that is underneath the surface. We’ve got perception galore today, because the picture that Obama wanted was these two CEOs and a bunch of other CEOs in the audience singing his praises, suggesting we’ve gotta get this done. They’re smiling, and they’re talking about how competent he is, how open he is, how much he listens — and he goes out and sounds like Reagan.

Then the Drive-Bys dutifully point out that while this wonderful Kumbaya meeting is going on in the White House; the evil, mean Republicans in the House are getting ready to vote ‘no’ on the whole thing — and look who’s for it! Why, American business is for it! So this is perception, and that’s why he knows that he’s in trouble here. He’s not in trouble that this thing isn’t going to pass someday. He’s in trouble because he knows the Republicans are starting to stand firm and not join up with it. He’s trying to create this perception here of using conservative language to advance his leftist agenda. It’s a total… It really was pretty smart, and he’s very good at creating this perception, ’cause that’s exactly what’s happened. Let’s go to the audio sound bites and I’ll show you what I mean here. The first one. This is a portion of his remark where Obama keeps his promise to meet with people that you wouldn’t think would be on his team. He sat down with American business leaders today. Here’s the first of two bites. A portion of his remarks.

OBAMA: I’m very grateful that all of these individuals have taken the time to come. Uh, these are some of the leading, uh, CEOs in the country. These are people who make things, who hire people. They are… uh… on the front lines in seeing, uh, the enormous problems in our economy right now. Their ideas and their concerns have helped to shape our recovery package —

RUSH: I don’t buy that.

OBAMA: — and I’m grateful that they’re here today to talk about why it’s so important that we act and act swiftly, uh, in order to get this economy back on track.

RUSH: ‘Their ideas or concerns have helped to shape our recovery package’? Unh-uh. I’m not buying this, folks. This is not how business operates. Well, make sure. Maybe I’m wrong. Business now does go to Washington with their hand out. They do. Here is Barack Obama, whose plan is pure Franklin Delano Roosevelt, pure New Deal, pure grow-government-as-large-and-as-fast-as-we-can, sounding like Ronaldus Magnus.

OBAMA: In the end! The answer to our economic troubles rests less in my hands or in the hands of our legislators than it does with America’s workers and the businesses that employ them. They are the ones whose efforts and ideas will determine our economic destiny just as they always have, for in the end it’s businesses — large and small — that generate the jobs, provide the salaries, and serve as the foundation on which the American people’s lives and dreams depend. All we can do, those of us here in Washington, is to help create a favorable climate in which workers can prosper, businesses can thrive, and our economy can grow.

RUSH: Keep that in mind. Let’s go back to January 8th, George Mason University, Fairfax, Virginia, Barack Obama.

OBAMA: Only government can provide the short-term boost necessary to lift us from a recession this deep and severe. Only government can break the cycle that are (sic — is) crippling our economy. That’s why we need to act boldly and act now, to reverse these cycles. That’s why we need to restart the flow of credit and restore the rules of the road that will ensure a crisis like this never happens again.

RUSH: That’s Barack Obama 20 days ago suggesting ‘only government can provide the short-term boost necessary to lift us from a recession this deep. Only government can break the cycle that are,’ he said, ‘crippling our economy.’ Play number 1A again, Mike. Keep in mind… In fact, I want to do this back to back. Let’s do this chronological order. Play 19, and then 1A back to back, nothing in between. Are you ready? Here we go.

OBAMA JANUARY 8: Only government can provide the short-term boost necessary to lift us from a recession this deep and severe. Only government can break the cycle that are (sic — is) crippling our economy. That’s why we need to act boldly and act now, to reverse these cycles. That’s why we need to restart the flow of credit and restore the rules of the road that will ensure a crisis like this never happens again.

OBAMA JANUARY 28: In the end, the answer to our economic troubles rests less in my hands or in the hands of our legislators than it does with America’s workers and the businesses that employ them. They are the ones whose efforts and ideas will determine our economic destiny just as they always have, for in the end it’s businesses — large and small — that generate the jobs, provide the salaries, and serve as the foundation on which the American people’s lives and dreams depend. All we can do, those of us here in Washington, as to help create a favorable climate in which workers can prosper, businesses can thrive, and our economy can grow.

RUSH: Can I translate that for you? That’s right out of my mouth, except I say it in a different way. It’s the people who make this country work. What government has to do is get out of their way, eliminate obstacles, regulations, cut their taxes, unleash the creativity and the entrepreneurial spirit born of individual freedom on which this country was founded and get out of the way. Let the economy recover and let it happen right before our very eyes. Now, I know what he told these business leaders. What you just heard is what he told the business leaders. Do you think — grab cut 19 — in his meeting with business leaders before this appearance today, he said this?

OBAMA JANUARY 8: Only government can provide the short-term boost necessary to lift us from a recession this deep and severe. Only government can break the cycle that are (sic — is) crippling our economy.

RUSH: Stop tape!

OBAMA JANUARY 8: That’s why we need to act —

RUSH: Or, did Barack Obama tell his business leaders this morning in his meeting the following?

OBAMA JANUARY 28: In the end, the answer to our economic troubles rests less in my hands or in the hands of our legislators than it does with America’s workers and the businesses that employ them. They are the ones whose efforts and ideas will determine our economic destiny just as they always have, for in the end it’s businesses — large and small — that generate the jobs, provide the salaries, and serve as the foundation on which the American people’s lives and dreams depend.

RUSH: Stop the tape! Blunt-force comment: He doesn’t believe a word of what he said there, because his plan has none of this in it. Folks, there’s a game going on here, a giant con game right out of Saul Alinsky’s Rules for Radicals. It is clear that he is in trouble. He thinks he’s in trouble in getting what he wants here. He’s using conservative language to a conservative group of people to promote a socialist, leftist agenda. It’s all intentional. It is all contrived. The key here is perception. He is creating perceptions. He’s a likable guy. He speaks well. But he conceals his real politics with his language. So you’ve heard two Barack Obamas separated by 20 days. You might say, ‘Well, how do we know which one’s real?’ Go look at the stimulus plan and tell me if you can find anything in there that does anything to strengthen business, to get government out of people’s way. You will not. So what we just heard at the White House today was smoke and mirrors, a 100% show. And of course the Drive-By Media that analyzed it after it was over fell for it hook, line, and sinker. I, of course, didn’t; which is why I remain Enemy #1. Pioneers take the arrows, folks, and I have a thick skin and am eager for them to keep aiming.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: ABC News, a blog, reported this exchange from the meeting Tuesday between Barack Obama and Republicans. Roscoe Bartlett, a Republican: ”Mr. President, I probably come at this from a slightly different perspective. I remember when FDR beat Hoover in 1932. So I remember the Great Depression very well. I don’t remember any of the many government programs affecting the course of the Depression. Government programs didn’t work then, I don’t know why we think they would work now. Mr. President, I think our obsessive borrowing has fully mortgaged my kids and my grandkids. Now we’re working on mortgaging my two great-grandkids. Mr. President, I think it’s more than a little bit selfish to try to solve our economic problems which we created by burdening future generations yet to be born.’ This prompted applause. ‘The only reason I am pursuing this plan is because if we don’t get the economy moving again soon, the situation future generations will inherit will be worse,’ the president said.’

So the Republicans in private (at least Roscoe Bartlett), some were standing up to The Messiah. This… (laughing) I have a really hilarious story here of audacity. It’s on FoxNews.com, and try this headline: ‘Obama Urges GOP to Keep Politics to a Minimum on Stimulus — President Obama said he respects philosophical differences with Republicans but wants to keep politics to a minimum so they can get the economy back on track.’ Now, this is audacious as you can get, suggests there is a minimum of politics in the biggest political stimulus plan in history? He wants to keep ideology out of this. No compromise, by the way, he said. No compromise on taxes. He said, ‘I won.’ Now, one of the things that the Republicans have to do, it’s not going to be sufficient just to say ‘no.’

They have to have an alternative — and the alternative, obviously, must be rooted in conservatism. Now, as you know, ladies and gentlemen, earlier this week I presented to you my serious (and if I do say so, quite brilliant) bipartisan stimulus plan, the Obama-Limbaugh Bipartisan Stimulus Plan. It took me an entire monologue to recite this to you. Essentially, it is to use the election returns as a means of dividing up what we do here. We have a trillion dollars that we’re going to spend on this stimulus before it’s all said and done. Obama gets 54% of the vote; McCain got 46%. So 54% of the trillion dollars, let Obama spend it however he wants. The 46% represents 460 billion of the trillion dollars. We on our side will begin a plan of immediate tax cuts.

Capital gains tax cuts, perhaps even elimination of capital gains, slashing the corporate tax rate in half. Throw in some real estate tax relief as well. And we’ll just see, side by side, which works. It would be true bipartisanship. It would be true compromise. I have reduced, ladies and gentlemen, that monologue to 750 words. As of now, it will run as an op-ed in tomorrow’s Wall Street Journal, which is a perfect publication in which for it to run so that people in the business world see it. People are going to look at this perhaps and say it’s an economic op-ed. It’s not an economic op-ed. This is a political op-ed. But what’s happening here is we’re all getting sidetracked because this is not about the economy. It’s about Big Government. It’s not about creating private sector jobs. This whole dog and pony show today at the White House was a total sham.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: Remember, folks: Despite the Reaganesque language from President Obama about 45 minutes ago, back on January 8th, he said only government can fix this, only government has the means, only government. Only government can do it. So it’s pure perception today, trying to make it sound like you, the people who make the country work, are going to be the ones responsible. They’re going to get outta your way and government’s going to get out of your way. It’s the exact opposite. This was pure perception. It’s not about the economy. This whole stimulus bill is not about the economy. It really isn’t. It’s not about the economy at all. It’s not about your job. It’s about Big Government. It’s not about creating private sector jobs, as the president intimated today; it’s about expanding government jobs and expanding the size and reach of the Democrat Party. It’s not about growing the economy. It’s about controlling the individual. But he says what he says very well and a lot of times people don’t care what he says. What he says doesn’t matter; it’s how he says it.

BREAK TRANSCIRPT

RUSH: So I was in Mr. Snerdley’s office at the top of the hour. It’s always fun. It’s always interesting going in there because Snerdley will say something that’s a brain starter and he said, ‘You know, this stimulus bill, this is like you said. There’s nothing stimulus! It’s just a budget bill that’s 30% larger than any budget bill we’ve ever had.’ It’s just incredible. He said, ‘This is a reporter’s dream, to go though this, and point out all this stuff that’s in it, but nobody’s doing that.’ I just had to sigh (sighing) and I looked at him, and I said, ‘Don’t you get it yet? They don’t care what’s in it! It’s His, with a capital ‘H.’ It’s Obama’s, and all that matters is that it passes.’ You see, ladies and gentlemen, we are in a paradigm in which everything rotten in this country, George W. Bush is responsible for it — and this is Change! This is the Change! This is the New!

So it’s good, and so it doesn’t matter what’s in it. It’s Obama’s and it’s got to pass. They’re not going to break this stuff down. He’s too big to fail. Snerdley, I’m stunned that you still have this lingering expectation that the media will perform its constitutional task. Why do you still think that? There is no way they’re going to perform their constitutional task here. It is up to me to hijack the Obama honeymoon, and I’ve done it! We have hijacked Obama’s honeymoon. Do you realize, folks, he’s supposed to get a hundred days of a free pass? How are we hijacking it? Well, if you missed Obama’s little appearance today in the White House with big corporate CEOs — who I thought were the enemy, by the way. I thought Big This and Big That, I thought they were the dirty, rotten scoundrels that had caused all this, but there’s Obama meeting with them, and I watched it.

Obama sounded like Ronald Reagan. It was pure perception. He’s using conservative language to sell his socialist, leftist agenda — and, remember, it’s not what he says, it’s how he says it. So I remembered earlier this month, he said something the exact opposite. Twenty days ago, Barack Obama was speaking at some university, talking about the necessary to get this going quick, and he said that ‘only government’ can get this done. So here’s what we’re going to do. We’re going to play Obama from January 8th and right behind it we’re going to play Obama from this morning — bam, bam, side by side, back-to-back, just to illustrate the different Obamas there are. And I maintain to you today that reason Obama went out there and sounded Reaganesque — and, by the way, it sorta irritated me a little bit because we don’t have a Republican who will do it. We don’t have a conservative in the media who will go out and sound Reaganesque. Our conservative media people are suggesting the era of Reagan is over, and yet here is President Obama using Reaganesque language today to try to move his proposal forward while be surrounded by a bunch of big business CEOs. Here are the two sound bites.

OBAMA JANUARY 8: Only government can provide the short-term boost necessary to lift us from a recession this deep and severe. Only government can break the cycle that are (sic — is) crippling our economy. That’s why we need to act boldly and act now, to reverse these cycles. That’s why we need to restart the flow of credit and restore the rules of the road that will ensure a crisis like this never happens again.

OBAMA JANUARY 28: All we can do, those of us here in Washington, is to help create a favorable climate in which workers can prosper, businesses can thrive, and our economy can grow.

RUSH: Is that it? I thought there was more to 1A. Do we have a computer problem up there? Okay. Well, anyway, that’s the nub of it. So you heard Obama say, 20 days ago, only government can do this. ‘Only government can provide the boost necessary to lift us from a recession this deep and severe.’ Today he says, ‘In the end, the answer to our economic troubles rests less in my hands or in the hands of our legislators than it does with America’s workers and the businesses they employ.’ He went on to say that they’re the ones whose efforts and ideas will determine our economic destiny just as they always have. So he’s saying what I’ve always said. You’re the ones who make the country work; his job is to get out of the way.

Twenty days ago, Barack Obama says, you are a nonfactor. You have nothing to do! Only government can do it. This, I believe, indicates that he thinks he is in some trouble, not in getting a bill, but in getting Republican support for it. He desperately wants cover on it. He desperately wants Republicans to vote for this so that when it bombs out Republicans have no electoral advantage or reelection advantage because he doesn’t want them to be able to go out and say they opposed it, that they knew it wouldn’t work. He doesn’t deserve that cover. He’s not giving the Republicans anything. He’s rejected the notion of tax cuts. He’s rejected any of their ideas and he’s lauded it over them by saying, ‘I’m going to trump you on that, Congressman Cantor. I won. I’m going to trump you on tax cuts. I don’t believe that’s the way to go.’

He’s throwing some little tidbit tax cuts in there that are not stimulative and such just to be able to say so. Let’s not forget, here’s another thing. How did Barack Obama end up winning the election? He ran on what, ladies and gentlemen? He ran on tax cuts: 95% of the American people were going to receive tax cuts. We know, just as has been the case for every Democrat, when it comes down to nut-cracking down, when it comes to getting over the hump and winning, you go conservative. You go Reaganesque. You talk about tax cuts for 95% of the American people. Today you talk about how you, the people, are the ones that are going to make this work. We’re gonna get out of your way. We’ve always determined the state of this economy, and you will in my new plan, which is…

I’m sorry, folks, it’s a lie. Barack Obama is lying, because I happen to believe that what he said 20 days ago is what’s operative, because it matches identically the plan that they’re trying to get through the House today and later on through the Senate.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: Now, you have sound bite number 1A ready to go in its entirety? Okay, so I want to do 19 and 1A. We want to do Obama 20 days ago, Obama this morning, back-to-back, straight into the commercial break. Here we go.

OBAMA JANUARY 8: Only government can provide the short-term boost necessary to lift us from a recession this deep and severe. Only government can break the cycle that are (sic — is) crippling our economy. That’s why we need to act boldly and act now, to reverse these cycles. That’s why we need to restart the flow of credit and restore the rules of the road that will ensure a crisis like this never happens again.

OBAMA JANUARY 28: In the end, the answer to our economic troubles rests less in my hands or in the hands of our legislators than it does with America’s workers and the businesses that employ them. They are the ones whose efforts and ideas will determine our economic destiny just as they always have, for in the end it’s businesses — large and small — that generate the jobs, provide the salaries, and serve as the foundation on which the American people’s lives and dreams depend. All we can do, those of us here in Washington, as to help create a favorable climate in which workers can prosper, businesses can thrive, and our economy can grow.

RUSH: I also… My memory, ladies and gentlemen, is dancing quite rapidly here. Snerdley, help me out. Didn’t Obama say at some point that he would not sign a stimulus bill that had a lot of pork in it? He said line by line, he will not sign a stimulus bill that has pork in it — and 80% of this bill is pork!

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