RUSH: Audio sound bite time. This very funny, the greatest press secretary ever, remember that? Robert Gibbs, smartest, most competent press secretary ever, did not like being questioned yesterday afternoon about Obama’s campaign lie about broadcasting the health care negotiations on C-SPAN.
VIQUEIRA: Does the president think it would be more helpful if this process were more transparent, that the American people could see —
GIBBS: Mike, how many stories do you think NBC’s done on this?
VIQUEIRA: Speaking for myself —
GIBBS: Just a guess.
REID: That’s not the issue. The issue is whether he broke an explicit campaign promise.
(cross-talk)
GIBBS: Hundreds? No, come on. The answer is — so the answer is hundreds? Do I hear that correctly?
VIQUEIRA: That has nothing to do with it. I deal with the information however — however much or little of it there is. I’m saying, would people benefit by having more information?
GIBBS: Have you lacked information from those hundred stories? Do you think you’ve reported stuff that was inaccurate based on the lack of information?
VIQUEIRA: Democrats ran against the very sort of process that is being employed in this health care debate.
GIBBS: We had a discussion yesterday, I answered this yesterday. Is there anything else?
REID: But the President met with members of Congress in the meantime and asked them–
GIBBS: Do you have another question? Okay.
REID: –short-circuit the process.
RUSH: Does not want to answer. Does this not illustrate the folly of these press briefings anyway? Nobody ever learns anything. These things are just dog and pony shows to fool the press into thinking they got access. Gibbs didn’t want to answer, starts insulting them. ‘How many hours did you spend on this on NBC?’ ‘That’s not the point. Obama promised there would be televised hearings and negotiations.’ Gibbs wanted no part of it. Campbell Brown last night on her CNN show interviewed Byron ‘Helmet Head’ Dorgan out of North Dakota and said, ‘Why are you leaving?’
DORGAN: Well, Campbell, I started at age 26 in statewide elective office. I’ve served now ten years in the State Capitol and 30 years in the US Congress. That’s 40 years. It’s a rare gift to be able to serve in Congress, and I’ve always enjoyed this, but it’s time to do some other things.
RUSH: That did not satisfy Campbell Brown.
BROWN: I probably don’t have to tell you this, a lot of Democrats are pretty angry at you tonight. Your seat was considered safe and your decision has put their control of the Senate in jeopardy. How do you respond to them?
DORGAN: Well, again, I served 40 years in statewide elective office. One of the news people said, ‘Do you think you have betrayed your state by leaving?’ I said, ‘After 40 years? I mean, that’s a pretty sizeable career.’
BROWN: But, you know, this is that rare moment where Democrats have a supermajority and are able to get through what they wanted to accomplish, and so there are people, fairly or unfairly, who are saying, ‘Why are you doing this to us now?’
DORGAN: But Campbell, first of all these are six-year terms, so a decision now means that this year, the last year of this term plus another, you’re making a commitment for seven years.
RUSH: She just doesn’t like this, she doesn’t like it. The truth is she’s mad. But like all journalists, she puts her words in the mouths of anonymous other people. (imitating Brown) ‘You know, I don’t have to tell you this, a lot of Democrats are pretty angry at you tonight. Why are you leaving? Why you are leaving? I mean we’re on the verge of a supermajority; why are you leaving?’ He’s leaving, Campbell, because he’s gonna get skunked! He’s leaving ’cause he can read the polls and he’s just the first of many Democrats that are going to get skunked in November. Civil war may be breaking out in the Democrat Party. Obamacare, like I told you yesterday, Obamacare is destroying this party. Obama is destroying it. He doesn’t care. All these people are falling on the sword for him.
I’ll tell you, folks, at some point all these people being forced to resign, big people, Chris Dodd, Helmet Head is not a small guy, he’s been there 40 years, reliable Democrat. All these people being asked to take a hike, at some point — I don’t think it’s going to be like Clinton where we still haven’t had the tell-all book of what really went on in there — this guy is selling his party out. Clinton always built his party up and protected everybody. He never threw people under the bus. Obama is. He’s an arrogant little narcissist and he doesn’t care who gets harmed here. It’s his agenda and if you can’t hold your seat, we’re going to get Democrats in there who can. It’s all about saving him. So you got a bunch of Democrats here aware that all of this health care stuff, nobody in the country wants it; it’s destroying the party. This morning in Pittsburgh, the Pittsburgh Tribune Review newspaper interviewed Joe Sestak, Democrat, Pennsylvania, and a reporter said, ‘There’s sort of this unease among Democrats out there, and that’s coming out of what you said about Washington.’
SESTAK: There should be. I think the Democrats have failed as much as the Republicans have failed in order to be erstwhile servants and public servants. What Senator Ben Nelson did and others closing that health care bill was a disgrace. To think that you would hold out to close a deal for a special interest I think is absolutely wrong.
RUSH: Now, this guy’s running against Specter in the Democrat primary for the Senate seat that Specter holds in Pennsylvania, this is Joe Sestak, and he went on to say that the Democrat caucus is not transparent. The reporter said, ‘When it comes to trust there was a big push during the campaign to have made this whole process with health care and everything else transparent and broadcast with C-SPAN, has been played over and over again, when the president had said that on the campaign trail. Are you supportive, do you want these hearings and negotiations to be on C-SPAN?’
SESTAK: I do about seven, eight radio interviews now every day, and one of the ones this morning, Snyder County, asked me that same question; I’ll answer it the same way. They said it would be transparent. Why isn’t it? At times I find the caucus is a real disappointment. We aren’t transparent. Not just to the public, but at times to the members. You’re always going to know where I stand.
RUSH: What he’s talking about here is that Pelosi and Reid are working on this thing in the background and members of the House who are not in the leadership don’t know what Pelosi and Reid are cooking up and Pelosi is out there saying, ‘We’re very close here to reconciliation, we’re very close to getting this done.’ A lot of leftists in the House, and they don’t like some of the stuff in the House bill. They’re probably going to get something here but nobody at the end of the day except Obama is going to be happy with it and I include the American people. Even Schwarzenegger who’s been out there trying to curry all kinds of favor with Obama on global warming and all these other nefarious issues is urging California Senators, hey, look, if Ben Nelson went out there and got that money you should do the same thing.
SCHWARZENEGGER: Health care reform, which started as a noble and needed legislation has become a trough of bribes, deals and loopholes. You’ve heard of the bridge to nowhere? Well this is health care to nowhere. California’s congressional delegation should either vote against this bill, it is a disaster for California, or get in there and fight for the same sweetheart deal that Senator Nelson of Nebraska got for the Cornhusker State. Because he got for the Cornhusker State the corn and we get the husk.
RUSH: That’s Arnold Schwarzenegger, State of the State message out there in California yesterday. Vote against it or get the same sweetheart deal. There you have it. So there’s all kinds of acrimony all because of this, and Obama is inflicting tremendous damage on his party, exactly as I told you.
BREAK TRANSCRIPT
To Troy, Illinois, this is Gary. You’re up, sir. Hello.
CALLER: Hi. Dittos, Rush. It’s an honor to meet you and talk to you.
RUSH: Thank you. Thank you.
CALLER: I was just wondering, maybe you can help me, could it be that this is part of the Democratic strategy to have some of these vulnerable Democrats retire so that the one that runs against the Republican can say, ‘Well, I didn’t vote for that?’
RUSH: Well, that’s certainly part of it. But in Dodd’s case, for example, he’s got more than just voting for health care. He’s got a big corruption problem. He’s in bed with AIG. He was in bed with Countrywide’s Angelo Mozilo. He got one of these ‘Friends of Angelo’ VIP mortgage interest rates, a couple of them, and there’s some other problems that he has, and I think that because of that he was in big trouble anyway. But you’re right. The guy that they’re going to have run against him, [Richard] Blumenthal, the current attorney general who is… I mean, it’s safe to say that Blumenthal is further left than Dodd, and he’s the attorney general. This guy was a leader in the anti-tobacco company lawsuits of way back when.
CALLER: Uh-huh. Well, I’m just sitting here in Jim’s Barber Shop in Maryville, Illinois, and we just wondered if that might be part of the strategy that was more a Democrat effort to keep control of Congress rather than a deal that protected Obama.
RUSH: Well, they’re one and the same. Protecting Obama is allowing Obama’s agenda to go through. Look, they need 60 seats in the Senate. If they don’t have 60 Democrats in the Senate, then Obama’s agenda is in jeopardy. So protecting Obama is protecting his agenda, and they’re just getting started. I mean, they’ve got card check on tap. They’ve got cap and trade. Obama is not through changing this country. He’s not through wrecking it. He’s not through ‘remaking’ it. He needs 60 Democrats in the Senate to do it. So of course if they can put Democrats up instead of ‘Helmet Head’ Dorgan and say, ‘Yeah, this guy, he didn’t vote for health care.’ They’ll do anything, whatever it takes. But that clearly is part of the rationale.