RUSH: What an important program yesterday was in terms of detecting the latest Democrat strategy in which they are going to try to absolve themselves and President Obama any responsibility for what’s happened to the economy of the country. They are basically accusing the Republicans of sabotage. George W. Bush, John Boehner, Paul Ryan, any elected Republican you can name, has for the last 
number of years been sabotaging the economy, intent on destroying the housing market, making sure that there are no job opportunities for you. Yes, ladies and gentlemen, this has been the singular purpose of the Republican Party as made clear yesterday. And they had one media acolyte that got on board. Remember, now, when I mentioned this yesterday I said it’s gonna be fascinating and fun to keep a sharp eye and see which members of the media, State-Controlled Media, start spreading this spin.
Jonathan Alter was first, and it happened even before the program ended yesterday. We knew that Alan Colmes, late of Fox News Channel and the Hannity program, would also be following suit. I don’t know that he did ’cause I, frankly, didn’t have a TV on last night, so I don’t know if anything happened. I’m sure some of you do. But the New York Times has picked it up today in a lead editorial, and of course what they’ve picked up here is Chuck-U Schumer. Schumer and Durbin had their press conference yesterday in which they expressed great sadness and a modicum of shock over the fact that the Republicans would actually purposely sabotage the US economy and how unhappy that made them, how sad that made them, when they finally realized it.
So here is the New York Times piece called “Their Temper Tantrum — Congressional Republicans, who played a major role in piling up the government’s unsustainable debt in the first place, have thrown a tantrum and walked out of the debt limit talks.” This is about Eric Cantor who said, (paraphrasing) “Look, until you guys get serious about tax cuts it’s pointless to sit here and discuss this.” So he’s out. “Congressional Republicans, who played a major role in piling up the government’s unsustainable debt in the first place, have thrown a tantrum and walked out of the debt limit talks. This bit of grandstanding has brought the nation closer to the financial crisis that Republicans have been threatening for weeks. But, at least now, their real goals are in sharp focus.”
So now the New York Times, thanks to the great work of Chuck-U Schumer and Dick Durbin, now the New York Times knows what’s really going on. Republican sabotage. There’s a little part of me that’s a little disappointed that the New York Times and the rest of the media went ahead with this today knowing that we had blown the cover, knowing that we know what they’re doing. They shoulda waited a couple of days. They shoulda taken a weekend here and given this some rest, maybe come back in the middle of next week. But, no, here they are today doing exactly as predicted which tells me that, to them, time is of the essence, they don’t have a lot of time to waste here. But they have just — hey, Lark, how you doing? Broadcast engineering showing up late as usual. I say that with all affection. Lark is engineer management, not really hands on, of course meaning he doesn’t do anything, so he couldn’t be late. It’s great to see you nevertheless.
The point is, here they’ve gone and made me right, folks, they have just confirmed that everything I said today, yesterday, is true, illustrating for you that I indeed am on the cutting edge. “The two Republicans in the talks, Representative Eric Cantor, the House majority leader, and Senator Jon Kyl, the minority whip, had no intention of actually negotiating.” Yes, it says here right in New York Times, the Republicans had no intention to ever negotiating. “Negotiations require listening to those on the other side and giving them something they want in exchange for some of your goals.” This is actually an editorial in the New York Times today. “Negotiations require listening to those –” I mean the New Castrati guy could have written this. (imitating New Castrati) “Negotiations require listening to those on the other side, Mr. Limbaugh, and giving them something that they want in exchange for some of your goals.”
The Republicans are very clear on what the concept is supposed to be mean. The problem is they have spent five decades watching the Democrats cram down stuff, like the Obamacare negotiations. Remember all those negotiations? You remember all the times the Democrats put together pieces of legislation and welcomed the Republicans in to sit at the negotiating table? No, you don’t, because they didn’t happen. Back to the Times editorial: “It has been obvious all along that cutting government services alone is not a solution to either the budget deficit or the mounting national debt. The Democrats, at least, acknowledged that reality at the bargaining table by saying that along with the cuts the Republicans cherish, there would have to be increases in revenue — an end to unnecessary tax loopholes for corporations or the rich.
“Those demands were modest — too modest — and Vice President Joseph Biden Jr., who is leading the talks, said they were making progress. But any compromise at all proved too much for the Republicans. Mr. Cantor said that because he and the House would not support a tax increase, he was walking out of the talks until President Obama ‘resolved’ the tax issue himself with House Speaker John Boehner. In other words, Mr. Cantor and Mr. Kyl preferred striking a Tea Party pose to the hard work of reaching a deal.” So, you see, the Republicans sabotaging the economy, sabotaging the circumstances necessary for you to become prosperous, economic opportunity, sabotaging the job market.
So the Republicans are doing all this. It’s amazing. It literally is amazing. It is one of the most, as I said yesterday, bold, most audacious lies and attempts I have ever seen. It really is, folks. I got to thinking about it when the program ended yesterday, and I realized that everybody says when something unusual happens, “My gosh, I’ve never seen anything like it.” And oftentimes we’ve all seen many things like it, whatever. I’m just trying to think, is there anything this audacious? We’ve had two and a half years of undeniable — it’s certainly undeniable now. (interruption) Well, Newt’s shutdown of the government, no, the Republicans were involved with that. There was a desire on the part of the Republicans to shut down some of the government. They wanted to make a point. Now, the way they were going about it was not at all the way Clinton and the Democrats portrayed it, so I’ll give you that. But this, for two and a half years we have wanton, blatant economic sabotage or destruction of the private sector.
By the way, we know that’s what it is now, because that’s what the Democrats are accusing the Republicans of doing, purposely sabotaging. That’s the little piece of information that tells us exactly what the Democrats think they are doing. It is sabotage. But what they’re counting on is that their buds in the Drive-By Media will simply pass along their view of things, carry their water with no questions, no curiosity, no attempt whatsoever to correct them in any way. We did a parody of something like this during the Ken Starr era of Clinton-Lewinsky. And you remember Carville was running around saying, (imitating Carville) “Yeah, he’s like a space alien. He comes here and he wants to sell your children cigarettes. He’s a pervert. He’s from Mars.” And so Larry King says, “Ken Starr, are you from Mars?” Gee, Larry. (imitating Carville) “See, I’m telling you, he is from Mars, he just admitted, you see how this works, Larry? It’s Ken Starr,” and this is what they’re expecting to happen here. They make this accusation, Republicans are sabotaging the economy. The next thing that happens, on a Sunday show, David Gregory or somebody will ask the Republican guest, “Are you sabotaging the economy?” That’s what’s gonna happen. That’s what they’re counting on happening.
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RUSH: Here is that parody in case you haven’t heard it or haven’t heard it in a long time or if you’re not a subscriber to RushLimbaugh.com and you don’t hear these parodies. We feature them sometimes during commercial breaks on the Web, which do not ever make it to air. This is the Clinton-Lewinsky era, and this is when the Democrats (under the direction of Clinton) were destroying Ken Starr as a means of discrediting him and his allegations about Clinton and Lewinsky and a blue stain and this is the exact strategy. Well, it’s a parody, but parodies are good. They’re funny because they got a grain of truth in them, an element of truth.
This is exactly what the regime is hoping to happen, a variation of this on the Sunday shows regarding their allegation made yesterday that the Republicans are attempting to sabotage the United States economy. (playing of parody) So that’s a variation on what they’re hoping to happen on the Sunday shows this weekend. David Gregory or some other tool of the regime (Chris Wallace will not do it; Wallace is not a tool), Christiane Amanpour or any of the crowd at CNN will get poor old Cantor in there or whoever shows up on the Republican side. “Is it true? Is it true you are sabotaging the US economy? You’re doing this on purpose? You want the economy to tank? You want peopletolose their jobs to help perhaps fuel your reelection efforts?”
That’s the regime is hoping. Here’s the way the New York Times editorial today concludes: “The deadline for raising the debt limit or facing a default is August the 2nd. Republicans cannot walk away from their responsibility to pay the bills and keep the economy out of further crisis.” You see how this works? Folks, I’m sitting here (chuckles) and I’m really in a state of disbelief here. I know I predicted it. I know I told you it was gonna happen. Now that it’s happening I’m still not believing it. It’s like trying to tell everybody the sky is green, when everybody is looking up and seeing it’s blue. It’s like trying to tell us the sun never sets at midnight — and then there’s the fascination: What kind of success, if any, will they have with this?
You know they’re going to have some. All it’s going to take is for somebody in the Drive-By Media on Sunday, a Sunday show, to say, “Yeah, the Republicans are sabotaging the economy.” I’m gonna get a phone call on Monday from somebody who doesn’t know anything about this yet. They’re gonna be watching a Sunday show, they will not have heard anything I’ve said today or yesterday, and they’re gonna be outraged. “Rush, you won’t believe what I just saw! They’re actually trying to do this.” I’m gonna sit here and say (chuckles), “Yeah, I know. We talked about it for two days last week, because there will be people who buy it. Which is always a frightening thing. The risks here on this, I don’t know if they’re big or not. What if this backfired on them? What would be a backfire if they try this?
They are trying it.
What would constitute a backfire? A backfire would be a State-Controlled Media host asking the Republican the opposite question, do you believe what they’re asking you? They’re saying that, and then giving the Republican a chance to explain.
“Yeah, thanks for the opportunity, Dave. I’m gonna tell you what’s really happening,” and blame it all on Obama.
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RUSH: Okay, the New York Times lead editorial. Here, again, is how they close: “Republicans cannot walk away from their responsibility to pay the bills and keep the economy out of further crisis.” I read the first 50 comments of New York Times readers hosting a reaction, a response to the Times editorial. There is not one that does not attack the GOP. Fifty different comments to the New York Times lead editorial, and all 50 agree with the Times: The GOP is sabotaging the economy. (laughing) Sorry, I have to laugh. (silence) Rarely am I, El Rushbo, rendered speechless. I predicted this. Even I’m still stunned at this. We have a couple of other examples, Ron Reagan Jr. last night on Hardball, MSNBC. Ron Reagan Jr. was filling in for Chris Matthews. He spoke with the deputy White House editor of The Politico, a guy named Joe Williams, about the breakdown in federal budget negotiations, and this was the question that Ron Reagan asked The Politico guy.
REAGAN: Chuck Schumer and Richard Durbin, duh, Democratic senators, both came out yesterday and said that they believe the Republicans actually want to tank the economy, basically, for political reasons. Uh, could this be part of that larger strategy?
RUSH: Now, folks, see? It’s already happened. It happened last night, Hardball. It’s predictable, predictable there. Now we may know why the Democrats have not come up with their own budget in, what, 700-some-odd days. Eighty-five. The Democrats have not offered a budget of any kind for 785 days. You know what I think? I’ll tell you what I think. We’ve all missed this. We think that they didn’t present a budget because they didn’t want to make themselves even more vulnerable during the election. In the midterms in 2010, they figured if they had submitted a budget that people would find out what socialists they are. Better not to write anything down so as not to make themselves targets. Better to leave it just that the Republicans will make those allegations.
But with no formal presentation, why, just a bumbling of allegations and nothing more. So two budget cycles have gone by and the Democrats have not presented a single one. Now, in the long-term thinking of political strategery as engaged in by the Democrats, this makes perfect sense now. It has been a political calculation from the beginning not to present a budget because at some point these people have known that their president and their policies are destroying the nation’s economy. They have known for the longest time that that was going to be the debate, that that was going to be the subject around which future elections occurred. Around which future elections were won and lost. So they are attached to their policies and their ideology in inseparable ways.
They’re egomaniacal. Their policies are who they are. They will never disavow them. They will never separate themselves. Not seriously. They will never condemn these policies. What they will do is admit that these policies sabotaged the economy and that they are Republican ideas, because where’s our budget? They’ll say we haven’t presented a budget. Yeah, we kind of screwed up there, but how can you say we did this? We don’t have a budget here; and the Republicans will be forced to say, “Well, Obama presented a budget.” Here’s the thing. If… This is very important, I think, because as you well know if you’ve ever had a fight with your wife or your husband — if you’ve ever had an argument with anyone — once you have to start explaining, you’re finished. Are you not?
Once you have to start explaining what you meant, once you have to start explaining what you did, pfft! You are kaput. At least you’re not winning. Now, what the Democrats hope to achieve here is a coordinated effort with other Democrats and the media of going to the Republicans and making them explain this destruction, this sabotage. It doesn’t matter to them if the charge is true. Remember, it’s never the “nature of the evidence” that matters. It’s always “the seriousness of the charge” that contains the gold mine. And we learned that during the Clarence Thomas, Anita Hill fiasco during his confirmation hearings. You know, the charge that he was engaging in sexual harassment, pubic hairs on cans of Coke.
I remember everybody saying, “Well, that’s ridiculous.”
“No, Mr. Limbaugh, it’s the seriousness of the charge! We must look into this.”
“But there’s no evidence!”
“That’s precisely why we must look into this, because there’s no evidence.”
This has happened before. You’ll remember that some sick history or political science professor from Columbia, a guy named Gary Sick, wrote a book. In the book he alleged that George H. W. Bush took a secret flight to Paris before the 1980 elections on board an SR-71 spy plane and met with leaders of the regime of the Ayatollah Khomeini, and the deal was struck to keep the American hostages until after the 1980 election so as to not give Jimmy Carter any kind of electoral bump. He actually made the allegation. Thomas Foley was then the Speaker of the House. He called a press conference. He said there was no evidence for this, that there had been countless investigations, and this is the first that anybody had heard of this.
But that the nature of these charges, the seriousness of these charges was such that the House had to look into it. The House must, he said, conduct an investigation. Which they did and, of course, turned up nothing because there never was anything, just as there’s nothing here. Republicans are not sabotaging the economy. But once you put ’em on defense, once the Republicans have to start explaining this, guess who it is that looks guilty? All the while I keep adding to this, people on our side say, “We’re not going to attack Mr. Obama; we’re only going to attack his policies.” Really smart! Really smart. The guy who is sabotaging the economy is being given cover by the wimps on our side who are afraid that leveling that charge will send the independents running to the Democrats. But somehow when the Democrats make the charge that the Republicans are sabotaging the economy, somehow the independents are gonna stay with the Democrats during that!
You see how this works? So they talk the Republicans into, “No, no, no, no! We can’t attack the president personally. No, no, no, no. Attack his policies, Mr. Limbaugh! We’ll stick just with that. We’re not gonna be mean-spirited and we’re not gonna attack anybody’s reputation. We’re not gonna do it the way you would do it, Limbaugh, to be blunt about it. We’re of a higher caliber than that; we’ll attack the policies.” Fine and dandy. Okay, you go ahead and take your so-called high road, and you watch. Just watch yourself be decimated all along the way ’cause that’s what this looks like it could be. Okay, so had Ron Reagan’s question of this guy at The Politico, Deputy White House Editor, Joe Williams. The question: Is the Republicans larger strategy here really to sabotage the economy? And here’s what this Williams guy, the White House editor at The Politico, Joe Williams, this is how he answered the question.
WILLIAMS: It would be a really, really bad thing — and it’s kind of a dangerous game because you actually are talking about people’s lives here! Polls indicate that the public blame them, or would blame them, if the debt ceiling does not get raised and the US defaults on some of their obligations. So it’s a dangerous game politically, and it’s a dangerous game to be toying with — with people’s lives this way who are already hurting; and to sort of raise the prospect that they could hurt even more because of some politics.
RUSH: Oh, yeah. So it’s fait accompli now. Politico last night. Jonathan Alter yesterday afternoon. Sunday shows even more. Yep: Republicans are sabotaging the economy, playing with people’s lives. Really! Really! They’re already hurting, and here come these Republicans playing with people’s lives!
You see what’s happening now.
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RUSH: Steve, Farmingdale, New York, you’re next here on the EIB Network. Hello.
CALLER: Thank you very much, Mr. Limbaugh —
RUSH: You bet, sir.
CALLER: — for taking my call. And congratulations on your Two If By Tea.
RUSH: Thank you, sir.
CALLER: I just wanted to say it’s so simple, all you have to do is go opposite of what liberals say. If they say the Republicans ruin the economy, that means they did. Just like when they say Sarah Palin’s stupid and can’t win, that means she’s brilliant and can win. So it’s all kind of easy to figure out. Just go opposite of what they say.
RUSH: Well, I know, it’s easy for you to figure out. I mean you’re open-minded to it, you’ve had great guidance. You have been a regular listener to this program. You’ve been taught how to spot these things. You’ve been taught how to read the stitches on the fastball. But you have to understand, not everybody gets it. I’m telling you, the first 50 comments posted in response to the New York Times editorial today blaming the Republicans for sabotaging the economy, every one of the first 50 agrees with the Times, agrees that the Republicans are sabotaging the economy, purposely want people to lose their jobs, purposely want the price of gas to go up, housing prices, all of it. They firmly believe it. It’s what they’ve been taught and they’re angry as they can be to boot. The Democrats know they’ve got a base of people out there that will buy into this and a media that will promulgate it.
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RUSH: There’s a reason now that the Democrats have not presented a budget in 785 days. There’s a reason for so much of what they’ve been doing. They want to blame all this on the Republicans. It’s a tantamount admission that what has happened has been done on purpose. They just don’t want to take the heat for it. They want to shift the blame, and they know they’ve got a willing accomplice media to help promote this concept. They also know that the Republicans are a bunch of wusses. They also know that the Republican presidential candidates are running around saying, “Well, you know, we’re not gonna attack the president personally, no, no, no, no, no. We’re gonna stick to the issues. If we stray off the reservation and we start being critical of Obama personally, the independents are gonna leave us and gonna go just running fast as they can back to Obama.” Right. But if the Democrats, if they go get personal, if they accuse us by name of sabotaging the economy, well, the independents are gonna stay with the Democrats.
The Democrats like lies, and they like misrepresentations, they like fallacies. The Democrats like mean-spirited extremism, as long as it comes from the Democrats. But they don’t like even the truth coming from Republicans if it happens to be said about Obama. This is what they tell us. Not the independents; the Democrats. So anyway, go access the first hour. It explains so much of what’s going on now, and the pitfalls that the Republicans are about to step into. Some already have. A further illustration of the point. August 1st, 2008. Now, on August 1st of 2008, the unemployment rate, I’m pretty sure, I gotta check this out, double-check this, and confirm this, but according to the piece of paper that I at present hold in my formerly nicotine-stained fingers, unemployment rate 3.3% August 1st of 2008 with the presidential election just a couple of months away.
The New York Times had a story by Peter Goodman: “More Arrows Seen Pointing to a Recession.” The New York Times — and even if you go back to 2006 you could get the same story. The New York Times was carrying the Democrats’ water even then, when we were not in a recession trying to convince you that we were. Sabotage. Now that we are in one they go overboard trying to tell you that we’re in recovery, that there are hopeful times on the job front. You see it each and every day out there. They will not report that we’re in a recession. They will not say that we are not in recovery. Just the exact opposite. “Why, this recovery’s robust. Ah, a couple of speed bumps along the way, but the economy is doing pretty well,” they say, with 9.1% unemployment. Back in the days of 3.3 to even 5% they were warning of a recession, it might even become a depression.
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