RUSH: Let’s move on to Barack Obama. The media today, the Drive-Bys, are having their Obama orgasms. He announced on his website he’s going to be deciding to run for president by February 10th. It’s actually a video announcement. Here is a portion of it.
OBAMA: I believe in you, and that’s why I wanted to tell you first that I’ll be filing papers today to create a presidential exploratory committee. For the next several weeks I’m gonna talk with people from around the country, listening and learning more about the challenges we face as a nation, the opportunities that lie before us, and the role that a presidential campaign might play in bringing our country together — and on February 10th, at the end of these discussions and in my home state of Illinois, I’ll share my plans with my friends, neighbors, and fellow Americans. In the meantime, I want to thank all of you for your time, your suggestions, your encouragement, and your prayers, and I look forward to continuing our conversation in the weeks and months to come.
RUSH: Now, one of the things that I’ve noticed about Obama when he speaks, is he uses a lot of clich?s — and the reason why I think this reverberates and resonates with people is that in large number (I don’t know if it’s a majority or not; I fear that it is) is that we have a country that is basically settled into passivity, and they are mollified by meaningless words that they think are coupled with good intentions. Of course, we are told that people are “tired and weary” of the constant confrontations that are the by-product of partisanship, and of course Obama comes along, and much like Clinton, tries to convince them that he’s not a partisan, that he’s an American, and we’ve gotta work together, and I’m going to include you in my planning, and I’m going to include you in my thinking. This makes people feel comfortable without ever having to get into the substance of it, or whether or not they have to even examine whether or not Obama is being substantive and being serious.
One of the things we don’t have in the audio clip, but this is a classic example of the speaking in clich?s: “But challenging as they are, it’s not the magnitude of our problems that concerns me the most, it’s the smallness of our politics. America has faced big problems before, but today our leaders in Washington seem incapable of working together in a practical, common sense way. Politics has become so bitter and partisan, so gummed up by money and influence,” and boy, see? People are going to hear that, they’re going to say, “Yeah, yeah! Get rid of the lobbyists. Get rid of the rich! Get rid of people with all the influence! I don’t have a chance of having what I want passed because I am edged out and shoved out by all the wealth in politics.” He goes on to say, “It’s become so bitter and partisan, so gummed up by money and influence, that we can’t tackle the big problems that demand solutions, and that’s what we have to change first,” and here comes the clich?, or the clich?s:
“We have to change our politics.” Oh, yes! Yes! Let’s change our politics. Okay, done, and “We have to come together around our common interests.” Oh, wonderful. Well, let’s come together around our common interests. In fact, you and I will do that today on this program: we will come together on our common interests. Done, “and we must come together around our concerns as Americans.” Well, people are going to go, “Yeah! Yeah! That’s what we ought to do. That’s what we ought to have,” not realizing that we had a guy here whose liberal voting record is close to 98%. There’s no such thing as “compromise;” there’s no such thing as “changing our politics.” There’s no such thing as “coming together around our common interests,” because the way the left looks at things is there’s only one common interest and that’s theirs! “Bipartisanship” means Republicans and conservatives shut up. “Bipartisanship” means conservatives cave — like it appears two-thirds of the Republicans in the House want to do!
Then Obama goes on to say, “This won’t happen by itself. A change in our politics can only come from you, from people across our country who believe there’s a better way and are willing to work for it. Years ago as a community organizer in Chicago, I learned that meaningful change always begins at the grassroots and that engaged citizens working together can accomplish extraordinary things. So even in the midst of the enormous challenges we face today, I have great faith and hope about the future because I believe in you.”
Now, that’s going to resonate, too, and in fact, if he meant it, I would support him on it! I would applaud this! These are the kind of things, frankly, that… You know, people have asked me, “Rush, would you ever run for president?” I said, “No, my campaign wouldn’t last after my first speech, and my first speech would basically say, ‘Look, you’re looking to me to fix all the problems, and I’m not the guy that made the country great. You are. What makes the country great is you, pursuing excellence, being the best you can be, overcoming obstacles in life. My job’s to get as many of those obstacles out of your way, but it’s not to get you over the obstacles. You have to do that.'”
You realize how I’d be torn to shreds on that? But Obama says it, and it’s going to be appreciated and applauded. I did an NPR interview yesterday, and it was about talk radio. The guy, David Folkenflik, he was interested in talk radio, and he kept asking, “What’s your purpose? How do you view your purpose,” and I said, “Well, I’ve been stating this for 18 years. It’s interesting that you don’t know it, but I’ll tell you again: my purpose is to,” and I gave him the business definitions of success, and I said, “After that, because if that doesn’t happen all the rest is academic. I’m just trying to create as many informed citizens as possible who want to participate in the process so that when they vote we’ve got more of them on our side than the other side has on its side.” Essentially this is what Obama is saying here. Since your question is whether he really means it or whether he’s just speaking in clich?s and platitudes — yeah, it was David Folkenflik of NPR. It was a good interview.
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One more thing about Barack Obama here. He says the New Orleans football season is all but over. I don’t know if he realizes how insensitive his comment here, that the Saints are going nowhere in the playoffs against his Chicago Bears really is. This is a man who wants to be president. He’s no longer an alderman, a state senator, or a United States senator from Illinois. He’s a citizen of the world, and as such, you have to understand in his position what the United States Saints mean! They’re not just the New Orleans Saints. As Gregg Easterbrook calls them, they are “the United States Saints,” and they are playing not for championships, they are not playing for personal reward, they are playing to save and rebuild a city, not only infrastructurally, but in terms of the self-esteem. 
For Barack Obama, a — well, he’s a half minority, to come out there and not identify with and bond with the suffering victims still scattered all over the fruited plain as a result of the unfair attack by Hurricane Katrina, orchestrated by Bush, Cheney, Halliburton and FEMA; for him to callously just disbarred the Saints, knowing full well what they represent to the Democrat Party because of their ties to New Orleans and Katrina, shows an unsophisticated lack of understanding of just what his responsibility is as a Democrat presidential candidate. He said it. “New Orleans football is all but over.” He said it. “‘The Bears are going to the Super Bowl,’ a gleeful Obama told reporters Monday outside a church in suburban Chicago. He said, ‘I’m happy for New Orleans and I think it’s a wonderful story for their city, but this fairy tale ends when they come to Chicago.'”
A-ha! It’s a fairy tale as far as he’s concerned. That means it’s not even real. The Saints are not real; what they’re playing for is not real! I am stunned. If Barack were really Barack Obama, do you know what Barack Obama would have done? You people think I’m kidding out there. Barack Obama would have come out for the Saints. I know you think it’s just a football playoff game and he’s gotta show favoritism because his home team is the Chicago Bears and so forth, but he’s seeking the leadership of the free world, and Katrina and the Saints and New Orleans are a Democrat cause. But more than that, identifying with suffering and misery, starvation, thirst-ation, death, that’s what the Democratic Party is all about! For him to just basically say to you people in New Orleans and your football people (raspberry) and to gleefully predict your demise, shows a parochialism on the part of this man that is somewhat curious to me, given the lofty heights and the wide horizons that he seeks.
A true liberal Democrat here, an understanding liberal Democrat, even though he’s from Illinois, would pick the Saints while saying great things about the Bears, while hoping it’s their turn next time, say, “It’s really hard to pick a team here,” but he “understands how the country can come together, with the Saints winning the Super Bowl, and pulling New Orleans out of the muck and showing what can happen when people hang together and work together and put aside their differences. They can come together and win the Super Bowl — out of the ruins of Hurricane Katrina.”
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