RUSH: An AP-GfK poll: “Obama Faces Trouble with Key Voters — Whites and Women…” It’s an AP story, by the way. “Whites and women are a re-election problem for President Barack Obama. Younger voters and liberals, too, but to a lesser extent. All are important Democratic constituencies that helped him win the White House in 2008 and whose support he’ll need to keep it next year. An analysis of Associated Press-GfK polls, including the latest survey released last week, shows that Obama has lost ground among all those groups since he took office. … The nation’s high unemployment is weighing on Obama, dragging down his marks for handling the economy.”

Dragging down? It’s justified! “Sixty-three percent disapprove of the way Obama’s handling the economy.” That’s justified. It makes total sense. “His overall standing has slid, too, after a difficult summer marked by contentious negotiations over the country’s borrowing limit” blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. But it goes on to say: “White independent voters … may be the president’s biggest challenge now. Just 3 in 10 white independents say Obama deserves to be re-elected and only 41 percent say he understands the problems of people like them.” You know, folks, let’s be honest about something that happened in 2008. White guilt was what propelled a great percentage of the white vote for Obama. (interruption)

All right, tell me, El Snerdbo, why are you laughing at that? (interruption) Well, it is! White guilt. It wasn’t me. By the way, it was Shelby Steele who said it. Thomas Sowell has said it. White guilt. Shelby Steele wrote several columns, I think even a great book about it. White guilt propelled the vote for Obama, the white vote for Obama! White guilt, that was the source of the “Magic Negro” column in the LA Times if you’ll recall. White guilt — and the white guilt, of course, is over what? Discrimination, slavery, this kind of thing. “We can assuage our guilt by voting for a black candidate and proudly telling everybody we did and that sends the signal, ‘We’re not racist,'” and they get rid of their guilt.

Well, you can’t count on that, but they’re gonna rev it up, I guarantee you. Well, I can’t guarantee it. My wild guess is that the White House, the president’s campaign, is gonna be oriented around trying to gin that back up. I don’t know how they’re going to do it, but I would not be surprised if they do. White guilt. They’ll try to revive it. I think they’re gonna try to re-create as much in 2008 as they can. Messiah, coupled with Republican obstructionism, all that. Here. I got a sound bite here. I have a sound bite here. This is from yesterday morning, C-SPAN, Washington Journal. The guests are Michelle Bernard, president and CEO of the Bernard Center for Women, Politics & Public Policy; and the author Leonard Steinhorn, the book is By the Color of Our Skin: The Illusion of Integration and the Reality of Race.

It was a discussion about the Tea Party and race. Now, I could be mistaken — I don’t have the video, so I haven’t seen this — but I think I know this Michelle Bernard. If it’s the Michelle Bernard that I know, she used to run the Independent Women’s Forum, which is a conservative, or is a conservative group of women; and if it’s the Michelle Bernard I know, she’s a commentator on PMSNBC; and if it’s the Michelle Bernard that I know, I’ve been around her several times, and she has been extremely… Well, I’ve always thought we’re on the same side, let’s put it that way. I’ve always thought she was a conservative, with a couple of instances where I might have doubted it. I don’t remember what they were. But, anyway, get this. Washington Journal yesterday, Leonard Steinhorn (his book again: By the Color of Our Skin: The Illusion of Integration the Reality of Race). They’re talking about the Tea Party and race. Steinhorn says, “The Tea Party really does represent this very partisan side to the Republican Party. They are very angry their country is changing, and they don’t want to let it change,” and here’s Michelle Bernard.

BERNARD: If you look at Rush Limbaugh, who I believe went on his radio show and said that he doesn’t want the president to succeed — all of us have a moral obligation as Americans to respect the president and to respect the presidency and how you go out and say, I don’t want this president to succeed, it’s beyond explanation.

RUSH: Now, I hope this is not the same Michelle Bernard I know. Maybe… (interruption) It is the same one? Okay, then she’s done a 180. She passes herself off as conservative? Okay, she still passes herself off as conservative and she’s saying this? She knows exactly what I meant by that, “who I believe went on his radio show and said he didn’t want the president to succeed.” Do I have to explain this again? Everybody and their uncle knew what I meant at the time. Nobody, nobody really thought that I meant that I wanted the country to fail. I wanted the country to be saved from the guy by virtue of his policies failing. I didn’t want him to succeed in implementing his policies, and I think I have been vindicated.

Barack Obama has destroyed, via his policies, the United States economy. I did not want that to happen! I wanted him to fail in the implementation of his policies. And if this is the
Michelle Bernard that I know, she knows that’s exactly what I meant and yet here… I think, folks, this is the beginning of the ginning up of the race machine. The translation here is: “Limbaugh wanted Obama to fail because he’s black.” I’m telling you, that’s where this is headed. That’s all they’ve got in this campaign. (interruption) Well, it may not fly, but they’re gonna play the card, and they’re gonna play it as often as they can. Any opposition to Obama is race-based or racist or what have you. That’s all they’ve got. And that’s how they hope to gin up the white guilt. Don’t doubt me on this, Snerdley. I know these people like the back of my hand. I know them like every square inch of my shrinking (again) and glorious naked body. I know what they’re gonna do before they do it. (interruption)

How are they going to face the people who are unemployed? They’re gonna blame that on the Republicans’ obstructionism. You know, again you’re getting lost in something. Forget truth. You are expecting them to say something that’s truthful. They are not going to be truthful. They are liberals. They are going to try to convince people of lies again. You say, “How can they convince the unemployed?” They probably won’t be able to, but they’re going to try to suggest that the unemployed are unemployed because of racist opposition to Obama and his policies; that there is a desire for him to fail because he’s black.

I am almost as certain as I can be that that’s what this little sound bite from Michelle Bernard is setting up. She knows what I meant. She knows exactly what I meant. I’ve had lunch with this woman! She’s a good friend or was of one of the most conservative people in the country, Heather Higgins. This is way, way off the reservation. I guarantee you I know what this is about. This is about, “The opposition to Obama is based on race and you people who don’t have a job, it’s because Republicans want to see a black man fail. Rush Limbaugh said so!”

That’s what that is. That’s what’s being set up here. Do not doubt me. Now, this is the same Michelle Bernard who commended me for Operation Chaos. That’s why I say something’s up here. Michelle Bernard of the Independent Women’s Forum, “Limbaugh did something positive which helped Barack Obama because he’s said to African-Americans, ‘Ask the Democrat Party what have they done for you lately,’ encouraged African-Americans to force Republicans and Democrats to compete for the black vote. I say to Rush Limbaugh, ‘Good job.'” We all know what’s coming here. Pure and simple.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: By the way, another thing. Michelle Bernard and all the rest of you who are out there purposefully mischaracterizing me and this whole “Obama fails” business, let me turn the question around on you. Do you want Obama to succeed in destroying the US economy? Is that what you want? Do you want more of this? Do you want Barack Obama to destroy the business climate in this country? Do you want Barack Obama to spend this country into such debt that even sperm cells face a tax rate of 78%? Is that what you want? You want this? You want this kind of decline for your country? Is that what you want? Do you want a president who punishes the successful and the achievers?

Here, I’ll give you another example of how this is all starting, how it’s all being set up here. This is last Monday, so week ago today, it was on NPR’s On Point, and the host there, Tom Ashbrook, interviewed Harvard Law professor Randall Kennedy. They were talking about Obama and the politics of race, and the host, Ashbrook, said, “Look at the whole spectrum of white response to this president of color. Where do you see evidence that we have evolved in some direction in terms of racial attitudes and where do you see evidence that we have not?”

KENNEDY: On Inauguration Day, a day when there were some people who did not vote for Barack Obama but who said, you know, this is a wonderful day and, you know, this Inauguration day we’re all joined together, a lot of people took that position, but you just played someone, pretty important personage, Rush Limbaugh, said on Inauguration Day he hoped the man failed. He wasn’t alone. He wasn’t alone.

ASHBROOK: But I’m sure Rush Limbaugh will say, not because he’s black, Randall Kennedy.

KENNEDY: Of course he will say that. The question is, is that true? And I don’t think it’s just because he’s black, but is blackness one of the ingredients of the opposition in the far right wing of the United States? Yes, it is.

RUSH: So that’s last week. Now, you couple that with Michelle Bernard, and I’m telling you, this is what this campaign is shaping up to be. Snerdley, don’t get bogged down in whether what these people are saying is true or not. Whether it’s true or not is irrelevant. It’s what they can make people believe. And so the effort is officially underway now. So I would once again ask the guest here, Mr. Kennedy, “Mr. Kennedy, do you want unemployment for blacks to be at Depression levels? Do you want, do you support black unemployment at 51%? I do not, and I hoped that that didn’t happen. Do you support the assault on the American business climate? Do you support the assault on success and achievement in this country? Do you want more of the economic destruction that we have had in the last three years?”

Turn the question around on these people. “Ah, Rush Limbaugh, said he hoped the president failed.” Okay, so you want more of what we got? You like what Obama’s doing? You are in the 38% who approve of this, according to Gallup, is that what you want us to know of you? You people can try this, but we’re not dealing with somebody who’s afraid of you and who’s gonna beg you to shut up and stop talking about me and gonna cower in the corner in fear over your attempt at branding me racially motivated. I don’t have to ask permission to be unleashed. You remember Maxine Waters, she went up there to Detroit, and she’s talking to some of her constituents, as a representative of the Black Caucus, and she had to ask permission to be unleashed against Obama because of the sad state of black unemployment in this country. And her audience said, “You’re unleashed!” Well, I don’t have to ask to be unleashed to ask questions of our president, pure and simple.