RUSH: To the audio sound bites we go. State-Controlled Media advising the White House, ‘Tell the Democrats to pass health care or they’ll lose.’ This is the mantra of the day. ‘Look, you’re gonna get hammered anyway, you may as well pass this thing.’ That’s the message coming out of the White House. Democrat pundits are all advising their pal Rahm Emanuel to tell Democrats they’ll lose if they don’t pass it.
BEGALA: Democrats had better decide whether they’re more likely to lose their seat, will they lose their job if they don’t pass health insurance reform or are they more likely to lose their job if they do?
MATTHEWS: If you don’t do this, you will lose. He’s gotta threaten them with that.
MADDOW: Health care must be passed. Unless the Democrats want to commit suicide, they’re going to have to pass something.
DEAN: We gotta be tougher. Democrats haven’t been tough enough.
TODD: Failure would make it even worse in November.
MADDOW: This is the time to hit the gas if you don’t want to be thought of as failures.
WILLIAMS: This is Vegas, Baby, double down. They’re going to go for this nuclear option. They’re going to say, ‘This is it. We’re doing everything.’ And you bet they are going to the wire, Baby.
RUSH: That’s last night when the emotions were fresh and raw after the shock and awe and the surprise of Scott Brown’s victory. These pundits are literally advising them to just take a full-fledged dive off the cliff. When you got Jim Webb and Claire McCaskill and Barney Frank and Bill Delahunt, ‘We need to stop what we’re doing right now,’ but they’re just urging them, urging them to just go commit suicide. And of course we hope that they do. Anthony Weiner in New York last night, CNN, he’s not buying it. He doesn’t like this. Here’s what he said.
WEINER: They’re talking as if like what our deal and what our negotiations are at the White House. Yeah, if then the last line is pigs fly out of my ass or something like that. (laughter) You know, I mean it’s just — it’s just we’ve gotta recognize we’re in an entirely different scenario. When you have large numbers of citizens in the United States of America who believe this is going in the wrong direction, there’s a limit to which you can keep saying that, ‘Okay, they just don’t get it. If we just pass a bill, they’ll get it.’ No. I mean, I think that — that we should maybe internalize it that we’re not doing things entirely correctly.
RUSH: So he’s not buying what the pundits are saying. He says, ‘Yeah, this is going to help us like pigs flying out of my ass.’ He actually said that on CNN. And Lawrence O’Donnell last night on PMSNBC was asked this question: ‘How is this going to end? How is it going to end?’
O’DONNELL: Every scenario people come up with, I can sit here and tell you why it won’t work. But I don’t know, maybe this is the time they land the plane on the Hudson. I just have never seen anyone — any process that could get beyond what’s happening tonight. Losing that 60th vote, as far as every maneuver I know, loses you the bill.
RUSH: Loses you the bill. I guarantee you, it’s easy for these pundits to tell these elected Democrats, ‘Hey, yeah, you better pass it, you better pass it, you’re in deep trouble if you don’t.’ But the people whose jobs require being elected are looking at this in an entirely different way, folks. They’re looking at maybe if we don’t sign this we’re safer. If the American people don’t want it and you pass it anyway, where does that leave you with the American people? Hmm?
BREAK TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: Ladies and gentlemen, if you want to know what the conventional wisdom is in Washington, DC, you listen to one guy. There is one go-to guy for the conventional wisdom, if you want to know what everybody is really thinking in Washington, whether they’re saying it or not, you go to David ‘Rodham’ Gergen. He is the personification of Washington conventional wisdom. And last night on CNN’s coverage of the Massachusetts massacre, Wolf Blitzer spoke with David ‘Rodham’ Gergen. And Wolf Blitzer said, ‘We’ve talked before about how it’s taken them so long, the Democrats, without any Republicans to try to get some health care reform passed. The longer and longer it went on, the more difficult it would become.’
GERGEN: We’re probably seeing the obituary written tonight for universal access on health care, and it’s been a dream of Democrats now for, you know, 70-plus years. This vote is going to be a vote heard around the world because it’s going to have enormous implications. I think health care is very unlikely to pass in its current form. Cap and trade on energy and environment, I think that now has — it’s extremely difficult to get that done in this Congress. Immigration reform I think is probably dead this year. Regulatory reform is going to be very watered down.
RUSH: Folks, he just said that the entire Obama agenda — well, not the entire Obama agenda, he’s going to nationalize banks, he has nationalized Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, he’s nationalized car companies. And he’s nationalized the school loan program. If you want a student loan you gotta go to the government to get it now, where there’s no competition, by the way, for interest rates. Ahem. But David ‘Rodham’ Gergen in crisis. I mean these are the four biggies. Health care reform, done. Immigration reform, done. Cap and trade, done. Regulatory reform, done. That’s David ‘Rodham’ Gergen.
Here’s Vic in Binghamton, New York. Nice to have you on the program. Hello, sir.
CALLER: Hello, sir. Very much of a pleasure to finally get through and talk to you, a longtime listener. Mega dittos. I’m glad you’re doing real well.
RUSH: Thank you very much, sir.
CALLER: I’m calling to I guess join in the passion on the theme for today, which is after watching the victory speech last night, hesitantly turning to MSNBC to watch — I’m still astonished by the spin. I know you’ve touched on it today but it’s just absolutely astonishing to me. I can’t figure out if these folks are just plain in denial or if there’s a deeper, more heinous deal in the works. I mean it’s unbelievable, they couldn’t even admit to the very platform he ran on. The folks in America, you know, myself —
RUSH: Let me jump in and help out. You are trying to accomplish the impossible. You are applying rational thought to entirely irrational behavior and thought. There’s no way you’re going to understand this. There’s no way a reasonable person will understand anything on MSNBC.
CALLER: I can appreciate that. I mean basically —
RUSH: It’s fun to try to analyze it. It’s fun to try to figure it out. It’s fun to come up with all the possibilities but you’ll never know for sure unless you join the ranks of the irrational.
CALLER: Which I’m not going to do.
RUSH: Good. Because it will all make sense to you if you do that. Do you think doctors understand insane people or are they just trying to treat them?
CALLER: Just trying to treat them.
RUSH: Okay.
CALLER: I have a little bit of an understanding but, yeah, I understand.
RUSH: Yeah. Anybody insane been cured?
CALLER: (laughing) I don’t believe so.
RUSH: Doesn’t happen. (laughing) So I mean it’s an exercise in futility if you’re trying to be serious about it. Make it an entertainment project, tune in to laugh. If you’re going to tune in and watch this stuff and get all hot and bothered and lathered up, big mistake.
CALLER: Well, I appreciate that. But it still astonishes me. I mean the folks who voted for the current administration and then they see the folks turn on them like you’ve talked so diligently about, ‘We’re going to reach across the aisle and have this on C-SPAN and have everyone involved,’ and then they go lock themselves in the back room like cockroaches in the dark, it’s been just pathetic and I think folks like myself are just furious about this.
RUSH: Well, one thing you’ve gotta understand. I can help out a little here. If you’re gonna watch these people at MSNBC, and to a slightly, ever so slightly lesser extent at CNN, particularly on their analyst stuff, you’ve gotta understand one thing. They are more oriented, they’re more animated, they are more focused on defeating and criticizing, impugning conservatives than they are advancing their own agenda. They really are. They will pass a rotten piece of legislation just to keep us from stopping it more than they think it’s good. That’s why you’re hearing all these pundits say, ‘You gotta pass the bill!’ What’s unsaid is, ‘We can’t let them win. You gotta pass this bill. It’s going to be worse for you if you don’t. You gotta pass this bill!’ What that means is, ‘We can’t let the Republicans, we can’t let the conservatives win! Not when we have these majorities.’ That’s what animates them. Look we’re a bigger enemy to these people than Al-Qaeda.
CALLER: But yet they turn on Republicans and say we don’t have, you know, free market solutions for some of the same problems, which are presented all the time on this program and Hannity. It’s unbelievable to me.
RUSH: Well, look at Chile. Have you seen what’s happened in Chile? They have had a huge turn to the right. We may all be moving there someday, folks, instead of New Zealand. I’ll find the story here in the stack. This is from the Investor’s Business Daily: ‘Chile’s Shift To Right Is A Bellwether — There’s nothing like success to breed a taste for it. Chile’s dramatic shift from left to right in Sunday’s election is that of an already prospering country preparing to soar. Word of this will spread far in the region. … Instead of blaming the gringos and waging class warfare in Che T-shirts, they balanced their budget and respected private property. Instead of squandering a $19 billion state windfall from soaring copper prices, they managed it. They continued Pinochet’s free-market privatization of pensions without reflexively opposing its origins, and signed free trade pacts with any nation that asked. Result: poverty cut by two thirds from 45% to 15%, and per capita income up from $1,400 in 1986 to $15,000 in 2009. This built a tax base for Concertacion to do what it valued: expand social services.’ So I mean Chile is rebounding, and they are doing so by moving right. The evidence is all over the place, including in this country. They don’t want see it because they want the power of statism. They want the power of control over people’s lives. Believe me they’re not interested in a roaring economy. If they were they wouldn’t be doing what they’re doing to the slush funds. It’s just simple.
CALLER: Yeah, it’s amazing. Hey, can I add one more quick point?
RUSH: Of course. Absolutely.
CALLER: Actually, I just wanted to say as an individual, first Republican, legitimate, that has inspired me. I mean this gentleman is the first one that has ran that was not ashamed, he was unapologetic about his belief system. I mean most of the folks we’ve had in our leadership position have either, as you’ve mentioned many times, tried to kind of walk the middle line or reach across the aisle or what have you. This man finally, he came out and said, yes, I support, you know —
RUSH: Exactly right. He was not afraid to say what he believed and he learned how to articulate it in a persuasive, confident way. He wasn’t worried about what the people in the salons of Georgetown and on the Upper West Side would think of him. He wasn’t worried what they would think of him in the Back Bay. He just, ‘Here’s who I am,’ with no embarrassment or self-consciousness about it at all. There are so many lessons to learn here, so many lessons, lessons that are taught daily on this program. Thanks for the call out there. I appreciate it, Vic.