RUSH: So the vote has begun, and we’re eagle-eyeing it, keeping a sharp eye on it. The candidates are Boehner, Louie Gohmert, Yoho, Daniel Webster of Florida, and Pelosi who was nominated by the Democrats. She doesn’t have a prayer. But nevertheless, the voting has begun. Again, the magic number’s 29. Gotta get that, and the conventional wisdom is that they had 25 going in. Only needed four. Then the conventional wisdom changed and they had 18, and only needed 11.

And then the conventional wisdom was all over the place. And what’s happening now is that there were a lot of people thinking of throwing their hats in the ring just to dilute the vote for Boehner, as a technique. So the conventional wisdom inside the Beltway with the mainstream media, the Drive-Bys, is that Boehner’s a lock. They’re a little surprised by all this opposition, but it isn’t gonna amount to anything. The Drive-Bys now, ladies and…

By the way, if you’re on hold, we’re gonna get to phone calls quickly in this hour. I didn’t get to any in the first, but hang in there. Be tough. So now the Drive-Bys thinking Boehner is a lock are already talking about the voting taking place and recalcitrant back bench, oddball people like Yolo or Yoho and Gohmert. But they don’t think it’s really… They think now… You can watch it. Turn on any network you want, and you’ll see accredited analysts of the Drive-By news media networks now saying the focus is really on the Senate.

Yes, because here’s the conventional wisdom on the Senate. For the last four years, the Democrats have run the Senate, and therefore the Republicans have been bellyaching and complaining and whining and moaning that Harry Reid buried everything that the House (run by Republicans, of course) passed. And it wasn’t fair. Republicans kept complaining and kept whining. And, as such, Reid succeeded in making it look like the Republicans were a bunch of extremists. The House Republicans are passing a bunch of extreme stuff that Reid was killing because it only made sense.

But it also meant that the perception of gridlock, where Washington doesn’t pass any bills, which allowed Obama to do everything by executive action, which was a strategy. Conventional wisdom is that gridlock was the fault of the Republicans, ’cause Reid just didn’t approve. Reid’s a normal guy. Reid, we can work with him, and he looked at the legislation coming from the House and it was outrageous, and he buried it.

And so the conventional wisdom was, “Republican legislation was extreme. Harry Reid had to bury it. It didn’t go anywhere. And that meant if anything had to get done, Obama had to do it by executive order.” See how this works? So Obama really didn’t want to do the executive action stuff; he really didn’t want to do the executive orders. No, no, no. He had to ’cause the Republicans were so weird and so extreme, and Harry Reid — to save the country — had to just basically had to kill every bill that came from the House.

Now, that’s not what really happened. What really happened was that Harry Reid was killing any and all anti-Obama legislation the House passed. And then it got to the point the House stopped passing anything because it was clear nothing was ever gonna happen in the Senate, that Reid had effectively shut it down. There were no amendments to any bills. There were precious few votes. There were nuclear options enacted and all it did was clear the decks for Obama to pretend that there’s no Constitution.

Well, now that’s all changed, see, because the Republicans now run the Senate. So now the take from the Drive-Bys is, “The pressure is on the Republicans because they can’t hide anymore behind the fact that Harry Reid’s blocking everything. Now the pressure’s on the Republicans! If anything is to go to done in Washington, the Senate Republicans have to step up now, and they can’t fall back on this luxury of complaining about Reid.”

Now, there’s another way of looking at that, however. All of this time… I think even the whole six years of the Regime, not just the last four. But let’s focus on the last four. The last four years, the Drive-Bys and the Democrats have succeeded in portraying the Republicans as the reason nothing’s getting done. Now, low-information people, that matters to them. Low-information people think the definition of success is all kinds of stuff happening in Washington: Bills being passed, new benefits accruing, whatever it is.

The low-information crowd or the liberal base thinks that everything in the country revolves around Washington, that Washington is the axis, that Washington’s the sun — and that everything happens in Washington — and that if nothing happens in Washington, we’re all in trouble. This is what a lot of people believe. Drive-Bys, Democrat base voters, and the low-information crowd. And if nothing’s coming out of Washington, then it’s “broken,” see? That’s how they define it as “broken,” and since nothing was coming out of Washington, it was broken.

Because the Republicans — mean SOBs! — were just striving is to stop Obama and they were engaged in gridlock. So now, the Republicans have a chance. (I can’t believe I’m even saying this.) The Republicans have a chance now to expose for the Drive-Bys (not that it’ll matter) to the Democrat base (not that it’ll matter) and the low-information crowd that they haven’t been the ones stopping things. What happens if the Republicans in the House send some legislation over to the Senate and the Senate passes it?

Voila! And then it goes to Obama, and let’s say it’s something Obama detests and hates, and he has to veto it. Now who’s gridlocking Washington? Now who is the obstructionist? Now who is it? So there is some thinking inside the Beltway that Republicans have. Here’s the bad thing about this. The Republicans have an opportunity now to demonstrate to America that it’s not been them shutting Washington down; it’s been Obama and Harry Reid and the Democrats. And the way they can do it is by passing all kinds of bills.

Oh, yeah! Isn’t that cool?

So the Republicans now think that they can start passing a lot of bills from the House to the Senate. Send ’em up to Obama, he’ll veto ’em, and, voila! The American people will finally, after six years, realize it’s about Obama and the Democrats all along who’ve been gridlocking Washington and not the Republicans. Does anybody have a problem with that besides me? I mean, look, isn’t that whole way of thinking somewhat defensive? Why even worry about all of that?

As Eric Cantor said, “We gotta stop relitigating the last six years.” By the way, did the left ever stop relitigating gay marriage? Did the left ever stop litigating amnesty? Did the left ever stop litigating Obamacare? No. The left never stopped litigating their agenda. Why do we always have to be the ones that do that? Anyway, this thinking says, “Okay, now Harry Reid can’t stop all these House bills that come to the Senate, so McConnell and the boys can pass ’em and the pressure gonna be on Obama to veto.”

What if…? God forbid, what if the Republicans pass legislation Obama likes? Not out of the realm of possibility, given everything else. But even besides that, the whole idea! It’s just defensive in nature, and it’s rooted in this obsessive idea or obsessive thing where you get caught up in what people think of you. I understand perception’s important. I really do. I understand image is important. I understand all that. But, for crying out loud, at some point you have to just move forward. There are things that we really need to do here.

We need to stop this agenda of Obama’s. We need to stop the destruction of this country and its transformation. If that means nothing continues to get done in Washington, then that’s what it means. If the only way to stop Obama’s agenda is to shut it down and make sure nothing happens, then that ought to be what the agenda is, not passing a bunch of a bunch of bills just to show that Obama is the one gridlocking Washington all this time and not the Republicans. That’s the defensive nature.

“See? See? It hasn’t been us! It hasn’t been us! The media’s been lying to you. It’s always been the Democrats and Harry Reid that was gridlocking. It hasn’t been us.” Why waste time proving that? Time is too precious here. There’s precious little of it to go here. We have two years where Obama now thinks there’s nothing in the world that can stop him. He have to run for election ever again. Doesn’t matter. And he’s relying on the fact the Republicans have said they’re not gonna impeach. They’re not gonna do anything to stop him.

So why should he stop? The only thing the Republicans could do, it seems to me, is take action to stop this agenda. It’s what they were elected to do; it’s what this election in November was all about. It wasn’t so that the town can start “functioning and working,” i.e., passing legislation Obama likes. That’s exactly opposite of what this election was about.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: Well, well, well, well, the opposition had 23 votes, 23 votes, the magic number is 29. This 23 votes has already surpassed the expectations of the conventional wisdom wizards Inside the Beltway, mainly the Drive-By Media. That would be 18 or 19. We’re up now to 23 votes in opposition. And remember the magic number is 29.

Dana Milbank at the Washington Post has called this vote for the House Speaker a Republican freak show. Dana Milbank is at the Washington Post. Now, that is pretty amazing, given the people who run for House Speaker when the Democrats control. I mean, you got Pelosi, talk about freak show. Pelosi is an entire three-ring circus freak show. But, of course, the Drive-Bys would never characterize a Democrat vote as a freak show. But Dana Milbank right in there now, the Republican vote is a freak show.

Obama’s gonna veto the Keystone pipeline. That is gonna be a piece of legislation the House and Senate Republicans are gonna pass. That will demonstrate their desire that people see Obama as the responsible party for gridlock. But I tell you what worries me about the strategy here of finally passing bills out of the Senate to show all these nincompoops out there that it’s not been the Republicans gridlocking. How do you do that? You have to pass things Obama will sign. No, you don’t. You could pass things he would veto, but the scary thing is that the Republicans might pass laws that Obama will sign in order to prove they can govern.

That’s what scares me about this whole line of thinking. And I’m telling you that Inside the Beltway, this line of thinking, I just detailed it before the break, is fast becoming conventional wisdom, as brilliant. “Yeah, let’s pass some legislation here, and let’s send it up. They’ve been telling the people for six years that the Republicans can’t govern, they can’t work together. Well, let’s show ’em we can,” and then pass a bunch of stuff that Obama will sign just to show that we can. The problem with this is all of these allegations against Republicans are lies. Why engage — better asked, how in the world do you engage in behavior to counter lies? There’s no positive end to this.

Do they really think — let’s play this out. Do they really think the American people, the low-information crowd, Democrat voters, whatever, are gonna wake up one day, “Oh, my God, wow, we’ve been wrong about these Republicans for six years. Why, we believed everything the media said about ’em, and now we know the media has been lying. It hasn’t been the Republicans stopping this. It’s been the Democrats. Wow, were we dumb.” Is that what they think they’re gonna create?

People are never gonna admit they’ve been fooled by anybody. The Republicans are always gonna be a bunch of boobs. They’re always gonna be a freak show with the Drive-By Media. Nothing’s gonna change that. Why it is not just do what’s right? I’ve never understood this fear. I’m gonna tell you something. There’s a great place in today’s Stack from The Economist, which is a UK magazine along the lines of TIME, and it’s all about one of the great pitfalls that has descended on this country, and it’s called fear. And they look at things in the news. The news reporting that it’s getting cold in Chicago. Have you heard that they’re not gonna allow sleigh riding in Chicago in the snow, no sledding. Well, liability, but it’s dangerous, too, the kids might get hurt. They might sled too far down the hill and go into the street and get hit by a car.

The opposition up 25 votes, far exceeding the conventional wisdom of the Drive-Bys. Four votes to go and Boehner’s vetoed and we’re on to the second vote.

Now, The Economist is saying that this new characteristic in America, this fearfulness is resulting in less entrepreneurism, less risk-taking, and that we’re raising a bunch of kids afraid to do anything, and leading the pack is the modern-day Republican Party illustrating what it’s like to live in fear every day. In their case, of the media, or the bogeyman of low-information voters or whatever. I don’t understand it, as one who’s not fearful. I mean, I’m still here. I get up every day. I come to work. My job’s still here, still prospering, still growing the audience. What is there to be afraid of? Okay, so some people may call you names. Big whoop!

Now, I know getting votes is different than getting an audience. But doing things people like will trump all that. I just don’t understand it. I really don’t. I mean, I do, it’s one of those dichotomy things, I do understand it, but it’s frustrating ’cause it’s so necessary.