RUSH: Let’s go to the audio sound bites because I promised. April 25th, 2005, at the National Press Club, Senator Obama spoke about changing the filibuster rule.
OBAMA 2005: A change in the Senate rules that really, uh, I think would change the character of the Senate, uh, forever. [snip] Uhhh, and what I worry about would be th-th-that you essentially still have two chambers, the House and the Senate, but you have simply majoritarian, uhhh, absolute power on either side, and that’s just not what the Founders intended.
RUSH: Then he cared about what the Founders intended. He doesn’t care a whit what the founders intended now. This was about, just to review, the ‘nuclear option’ on judicial appointments. The Republicans controlled the Senate and the House. And remember the battle cry back then was, ‘Remember the rights of the minority! Remember the rights of the minority! It’s not right. We shouldn’t have one party running every branch is bad.’ They were whining and moaning. They have the exact situation now and everybody everything they said back then about filibuster rule is no longer operative. Let’s go back, November 2, 2004, election night, CBS TV, Obama said this about passing legislation in the Senate.
OBAMA 2004: My understanding of the Senate is is that you need 60 votes to get something significant to happen, which means that Democrats and have to ask the question: Do we have the will to move an American agenda forward, not a Democratic or Republican agenda forward?
RUSH: Now, what he’s saying here is that if you’re going to have a massive agenda move you gotta get 60 votes in the Senate. You have to have a supermajority here to make it legitimate. He was all for it back then. July 12th, 2006, at the Center for American Progress Convention…
OBAMA 2006: Those big-ticket items, fixing our health care system. You know, one of the arguments that sometimes I get with, uhh, my fellow progressives and — and some of these have — have flashed up in the blog communities on occasion — is this notion that we should function sort of like Karl Rove, where we — we identify our core base, we throw ’em red meat, we get a 50-plus-one, uhhh, victory. See, Karl Rove doesn’t need a broad consensus because he doesn’t believe in government. If we want to transform the country, though, that requires a — a sizeable majority.
RUSH: So once again here is Obama as a Senator wailing, whining, and moaning about how the Republicans were trying to get things done with 51 votes, and if you’re gonna transform the country, you need 60. You can’t just trash the Senate rules. This is from 2007, Obama in Chicago at the Change to Win Convention.
OBAMA 2007: The bottom line is is that our health care plans are similar. The question, once again, is: Who can get it done? Who can build a movement for change? This is an area where we’re going to have to have a 60% majority in the Senate and the House in order to actually get a bill to my desk. We’re going to have to have a majority to get a bill to my desk that is not just a 50-plus-one majority.
RUSH: This is Obama. Now, this is just three years ago in the early, early days of his potential campaign. ‘We’re going to have to get a 60% majority.’ He wasn’t saying he wanted that. He was saying it was necessary, that it was necessary. Well, of course now, none of this matters. All of this is nothing new, either. It’s just more blatant, pure hypocrisy which these people do and commit daily, multiple times each day. October 9th, 2007, Concord, New Hampshire, the Concord Monitor editorial board interviewed Obama.
OBAMA 2007: You gotta break out of what I call the sort of 50-plus-one pattern of presidential politics. Maybe you eke out a victory with 50-plus-one but you can’t govern. You know, you get Air Force One and a lot of nice perks as president but you can’t — you can’t deliver on health — we’re not going to pass universal health care with a — with a 50-plus-one strategy.
RUSH: So there you go. Numerous times, Barack Obama saying, ‘It’s not right, 51%, a 51-vote majority? No. We’re going to be transformative. We’re going to need a supermajority.’ Now, all this is in the context of wailing, whining, and moaning at the Republicans by saying, ‘Well, they may have these majorities but they’re not strong enough to do everything that they want to do. Bush doesn’t have this kind of power. He shouldn’t be allowed to get away with this. He doesn’t have that kind of power.’ Well, guess what? Obama had it. Obama had his 60 votes in the Senate, and he still couldn’t get this done. He’s got 59 votes in the Senate. He still can’t get this done. Unless he blows up the very rules he was suggesting should never, ever be violated five years ago, four years ago, three years ago, and even two years ago.
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RUSH: I really want to apologize, ladies and gentlemen, for playing Obama’s words. I feel horrible about that and I sincerely apologize to all of you for playing Obama’s words. They were never intended to be taken seriously back in 2005, ‘6, ‘7, ‘8, they were only meant to sound serious. Nothing that Obama says is meant to be taken seriously. I really apologize for playing this.
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RUSH: By the way, from the Congressional Record, December 20th, 2005, then Senator Barack Obama: ‘Under the rules, the reconciliation process does not permit that debate. Reconciliation is therefore the wrong place for policy changes. In short, the reconciliation process appears to have lost its proper meaning: A vehicle designed for deficit reduction and fiscal responsibility has been hijacked.’ Barack Obama talking about what he’s going to do to pass his health care bill.