RUSH: This is so predictable. Guess who just took the podium in Washington to explain the unemployment numbers today? President Obama. Right when this program begins. And you know what he’s saying? We’re never gonna get where we want to go if we go back to the policies of yesteryear. As though we’re getting where we want to go with his policies now.
JOHNNY DONOVAN: And now, from sunny South Florida, it’s Open Line Friday!
RUSH. You know what else Obama said? He said we have too many folks out there who are looking for work. It’s great to know the president’s on the case. Did you know that, folks? We have too many people out there looking for work. The president just said so at a… well, it wasn’t a press conference. It was a press availability surrounded by all kinds of people. Maybe 8.3% is where he wants to go, because he says his plan worked. He says his plan worked. He says his plan is working.
I didn’t hear all of what Obama said. If the White House is happy, or if they’re satisfied, or if they’re okay with the jobs report today, maybe Obama could tell us what policies led to this good news today. The media is so predictable. The unemployment rate goes up. Of course, when the rate goes up, you know what they focus on? The total number of jobs created. But the total number of jobs created is just a guess. You know, once a month we go through this, how this all happens, the seasonal adjustment, and I’m going to do it again, but I’m not gonna lead off with this. I’m not gonna lead off with the numbers. Well, I’m not gonna lead off with the in-depth explanation of what the numbers mean. I want to go at this a little bit of a different way, as I did maybe three weeks ago, maybe last month. ‘Cause it really irks me how impersonal all this is, as it’s reported, as though it’s just statistics.
There are people’s lives behind these numbers, destroyed, ruined, harmed lives behind these numbers. And all the media can do is look through that prism of, “Gosh, how can we massage this so that it helps Obama?” And it really is maddening. While people’s lives are being destroyed. I had a 24-year-old young man on the program yesterday. He was talking about his career, wanted to have a career in writing. He talked about how much fun it is at age 24 with all the stuff, all the material Obama and the Democrats are providing him. He was worried that the material would vanish if Obama happened to get beat, and I assured him that wouldn’t be the case because liberals are liberals, and they’re everywhere, and they’re even more uproariously funny when they lose, when they’re out of power. That’s when they get really, really wacko fringe.
But I wanted to talk to him about the fun aspect of it. It’s a generational thing. It’s fun. I don’t want anybody to misunderstand, but it’s also very serious. I mean, the country as you and I know it’s hanging in the balance. I want that young man to be able to have the chance to accomplish what I accomplished. I don’t want to be one of the last people to be able to pull off what I pulled off. I want everybody to be able to. It’s what bothers me about this. I don’t want that guy living with his parents at age 35. I don’t want him facing a tax rate, making it impossible for him to acquire wealth and to be self-reliant. I don’t want him on food stamps. I don’t want this guy to have to be dependent on government for his needs, much less his wants.
Obama: “We can’t go back to the policies of yesteryear.” Why can’t we? You want to hear Reagan economic recovery numbers? I have ’em for you. That’s the way out of this. The way out of this is ditching this and ditching this guy and going back to free market capitalism. That’s the way out of this. His way digs us deeper into this with no way out. If this man gets four more years, the whole concept of digging out is going to take on a whole new meaning. It’s not going to be impossible, but it’s going to take a tremendous amount of time. Dingy Harry is tripling down on Mitt Romney.
You know what I think? I think that Harry Reid is doing for Mitt Romney what Rahm Emanuel did for Chick-fil-A. We’re not yet at that degree, but what’s happening here, it’s obvious. No, it’s not obvious. It is apparent to some that the Romney campaign was on the defensive about this tax return business. I don’t think they ever should have been, but I know that the Republican establishment — you know the names — over the past three weeks, they’ve been urging Romney, “Just release the tax returns and get this issue off the table. You got nothing to hide; get ’em out there.” We say, “No, no, no, don’t do it. All they want is a piece of paper or a whole bunch of pieces of paper they can make things up on and take you out of the race like Obama does to every opponent he’s ever had. Don’t release the returns.”
Harry Reid is going so over the top that Romney can now say something to the effect, “I’m not reacting to a lunatic. It is obvious you’ve got a lunatic leading this effort to get me to release my tax records.” It’s allowed Romney to go on the offensive about this, is the sense I’m beginning to get about it. Dingy Harry doesn’t have a whole lot of defenders. And the question is, did somebody assign this role to Dingy Harry, or did he decide to do it on his own? Did he draw the short straw, or did they ask him if he would do it and he eagerly accepted? It’s not out of the realm of his character to do this kind of thing. This is the kind of stuff Dingy Harry loves doing, throwing out baseless, ridiculous, slanderous accusations, and then hiding behind the fact that he’s a member of the Senate and can’t be sued, or any number of other protections. But if the Democrats thought they had something with this, Dingy Harry is destroying it for them in the process of doing so. So we got audio sound bites on that and further in-depth analysis.
And the Olympics, ladies and gentlemen, the Olympics, I don’t know if you heard this, but the Dream Team 3 or whatever they’re calling the men’s US basketball team, we creamed Nigeria by 83 points, 156-73. The US obliterated the African nation of Nigeria. And Coach K is very upset at the accusation that he ran up the score. Coach K is very upset that he would be accused of running up the score. (paraphrasing) “I was trying to hold my guys back. We were not trying to pound them into the ground. We couldn’t help it. They’re just not very good.”
It was an 83-point win. Coach Krzyzewski — Kazesky, Cazusky — however you wish to pronounce it. I’m trying to cover everything for the people in Rio Linda: “We didn’t play LeBron [James] and Kobe [Bryant] in the second half, and with Carmelo (Anthony) shooting like that, we benched him. We didn’t take any fast breaks in the fourth quarter, and we played all zone. You have to take a shot every 24 seconds, and the shots we took happened to be hit.” They’re accusing him of running up the score against the Nigerians. That woulda really irked Bob Costas if that had been happening. But it is what it is.
Are you watching any of this yet? (interruption) It was synchronized diving. It was men’s synchronized diving and I haven’t seen any more men’s synchronized diving. Mr. Snerdley, I did not sit there and watch men’s synchronized diving. I was fast forwarding. I saw it. I said, “What is this?” I stopped and looked at it for ten seconds, and I said, “Whoa, I didn’t know this was even an Olympic sport.” I never heard of men’s synchronized diving, and then I moved on to what I was trying to find. Anyway, Gabby Douglas won the all-around women’s gold medal for the Americans last night in the gymnastics competition. It was an amazing series of routines.
Okay. It’s Open Line Friday, which means we also try to squeeze a lot of your phone calls in, since it is Friday, try to start taking calls in the first hour when we usually don’t. So a lot is on tap here, my friends. I want you to sit tight, be patient; we’ll come back and get started with all the rest of it before you know it.