RUSH: Jonathan Weisman. There is a bit of a controversy brewing among the Drive-Bys. Some of the Drive-Bys are getting… (sigh) How should I say this? I think they’re starting to fall off the wagon here when it comes to Obama. Some of them are beginning to see some signs we have always seen, and are now becoming doubtful. Jonathan Weisman, Washington Post blog called The Trail: ‘In his closed-door meeting with House Democrats…’
Oh, by the way: ‘The House of Representatives issued an unprecedented apology yesterday to black Americans for wrongs committed against them and their ancestors who suffered under slavery and Jim Crow segregation laws. ‘Today represents a milestone in our nation’s efforts to remedy the ills of our past,’ said Rep. Carolyn Cheeks Kilpatrick, a Michigan Democrat and chairwoman of the Congressional Black Caucus.’ Yeah, right. Okay, so can we move on now? Okay, can we move on, or does this set the stage for reparations? When the House of Representatives officially apologizes, then we’ve set the stage for reparations here. I wonder if the House of Representatives would apologize to me for the actions taken by Senator ‘Dingy’ Harry Reid using the power of the federal government to intimidate my syndication partners into essentially silencing me? It’s certainly not slavery, not Jim Crow laws, but clearly a giant footprint of the federal government into the private sector attempting to silence one figure — and we beat it back. You want to sit there and start apologizing for all these things, how about apologize to me?
At any rate, Obama is traveling around Washington like he’s already the president: multiple-SUV motorcades, intersections shut down for blocks and blocks so he can get by. Dana Milbank today at the Washington Post has a mocking piece on how all of this has just gone to Obama’s head. It’s just getting too much to bear. Jonathan Weisman at his blog at the Washington Post says ‘In his closed door meeting with House Democrats Tuesday night,’ this is yesterday, ‘Obama delivered a real zinger. According to a witness [he] was waxing lyrical about last week’s trip to Europe, when he [said], ‘this is the moment, as Nancy [Pelosi] noted, that the world is waiting for.’ The 200,000 souls who thronged to his speech in Berlin came not just for him, he told the enthralled audience…
”I have become a symbol of the possibility of America returning to our best traditions,’ he said.’ I, Lord Barack Obama, The Messiah, ‘have become a symbol of the possibility of America returning to our best traditions.’ Now, at first blush it seems like staggering arrogance. Besides favoring high gas prices and not acknowledging the success of the American military in Iraq, his arrogance is tamping down his poll numbers. This is the breezy arrogance of a person who has never earned anything. Like an irresponsible young adult who has unexpectedly inherited millions of dollars, there’s nothing attractive about arrogance in a public servant, especially one who has endorsed high gas prices. The only thing, Obama said, that bothered him about gas prices is how fast they got to four bucks. However, there now is controversy over this interpretation of Obama’s remarks.
Jake Tapper at the ABC News blog says the Washington Post has an interesting quote this morning from the meeting Obama held with house Democrats yesterday afternoon and they quote the statement, ‘I have become a symbol of the possibility of America returning to our best traditions.’ However, Democrats in the room ‘suggest that the quote is out of context and that it twists Obama’s meaning to mean the complete opposite of what he was saying. A House Democrat staffer said, ‘His entire point of that riff was that the campaign’s not about him. Left out of the first half of the sentence, which was something along the lines of ‘It has become increasingly clear in my travel, the campaign, the crowds, the enthusiasm, 200,000 people in Berlin, is not about me at all. It’s about America. I have just become a symbol,” and Jake Tapper said other staffers with whom he spoke with and a Democrat congressman — who isn’t a particular fan of Obama — agrees, saying that Obama ‘preceded that quote with something along the lines of:
”These people in Germany, they weren’t excited about me. They were excited about the prospect of America getting back to being all it could be.” I don’t care which is true. I really don’t care which is true. I think it is presumptuous as hell to say either of these things. I mean to say that I ‘have become a symbol of the possibility of America returning to our best traditions’? What best traditions? Massive, massive tax increases, massive growth of government? Who the hell…? I’m so frustrated at times to listen to this guy, Obama, and other Democrats run around and basically kiss the rear ends of these Europeans, particularly citizens so he can say, ‘I have become a symbol. Yes, I’m a symbol because I represent these people being excited at the prospect of American getting back to being all it could be,’ which brings me to another subject.
Obama’s campaign: real change, change that makes a difference, ‘a change that’ whatever his campaign slogan is. Got me to thinking, what would be real change in this country? ‘Cause Obama ain’t it. More liberalism is not real change. Bigger government is not real change. New entitlements, that’s not change. What would really be change? I think any of us could answer that question, and our answers would show that it’s nothing Obama is talking about. ‘These people in Germany were excited about the prospect of America getting back to being all it could be.’ Once again, Obama meeting with Democrats has to slam his own country. He did it in front of that German crowd, he did it to the House Democrats, and they were raucously applauding. Doesn’t it irritate you that the Democrat Party’s presidential nominee gets his biggest applause lines when he rips this country to shreds in any number of ways?