RUSH: A little pop quiz. What holiday are we celebrating this weekend? Mr. Snerdley? Okay, gold star for Snerdley. Well, you think everybody knows this, but I’m not so sure. This is the Memorial Day weekend. How many people know even what that is? You know, this is backyard barbecue holiday number one of the summer. Fourth of July — Independence Day, for those of you in Port St. Lucie — is number two. And Labor Day is where you wrap up the outdoor barbecues officially. Memorial Day, of course, we all know what it is, but there will be some people celebrating something else on Monday. I looked it up. Monday is 40 days from Obama’s birthday. That is exactly right, my friends, 40 days and 40 nights until we celebrate the birth of The Messiah, Barack Obama. That is Monday, and that is what a lot of people are looking forward to as the weekend progresses.
President Obama was delivering the commencement speech at the Naval Academy today, McCain’s son graduating there. And he did his usual hit piece on capitalism, individual liberty, individual achievement and accomplishment. Did a hit piece on it, which has become a staple of his commencement addresses, but he also said this, for the second day in a row. He said, ‘As commander-in-chief, I will do whatever it takes to protect the American people.’ This was actually at a White House signing ceremony; it was not at the Naval Academy. Now, this is the second day in a row he’s assuring us that he will do whatever it takes to protect the American people. If you have to say it, there must be some doubt. I think Vice President Cheney has put Barack Obama on total defense. I think the whole White House is on defense about this. You know, yesterday Obama said, hey, we got super max prisons, nobody’s ever escaped from one of our super max prisons. Well, there’s no room in the one out in Colorado. They’re going to have to move some people out of there if we’re going to move some terrorists in there, because the super max prison is overflowing.
I’m beginning to think here, after listening to Obama and his speech yesterday and a lot of public speeches that he has made, comments, there’s something running true, and it’s beginning to irritate me and I think a lot of people, and that is he’s blaming everything on the previous administration. Jay Nordlinger at National Review Online even pointed this out. He said, (paraphrasing) ‘I can’t recall in my lifetime a president berating Supreme Court based on the party of the president who nominated the justices in question.’ But he held up some Supreme Court decision, even though the majority of the justices were nominated by Republicans. And Nordlinger said, ‘It got me to thinking, yeah, you don’t hear that kind of partisanship extended over the Supreme Court.’ This guy is a 100 percent total partisan. And you know what his secret is? I listened to that speech again yesterday that he gave at the National Archives. You know what it really is? You know why people think he’s so smart? ‘Cause he doesn’t say anything that we don’t already know. That whole speech on terrorism was how bad terrorists are and how we need to keep these people in jail. Everybody agrees with that. I have a little bit more detailed explanation of this.
We have some excellent sound bites today. Liz Cheney continues as a guest on any cable network to show how it is done if you are a Republican going on any of these networks, how it is done. Every question in the sound bites we have today, every question that she was asked, she says, ‘There’s so many errors in your question I don’t know where to start.’ Or, ‘Anderson, the premise of your question is something I just don’t accept.’ It’s a lesson. It’s close to my heart because my whole premise when I go on these programs is — even if I don’t go on a program, just dealing with liberalism in general — don’t accept the premise that’s advanced and go on defense that way. If the premise is wrong, then stay away from it, don’t even answer the question based on the incorrect — and it’s a trick the left and the Drive-Bys have been using for a long time. Liz Cheney is showing how it’s done and you’ll hear it as the program unfolds today.
But I got to thinking — you know, I’m a big football fan, and the organized team activities are taking place now in the National Football League. The owners meetings were this week, the spring owners meetings, and we’re getting close here to training camp. You get into June, you start thinking training camp in July, preseason games in August. And I always like to relate things happening in politics to sports as a way of making an ever larger number of people understand it. If you look at the economic news today, it is horrible. Unemployment in Ohio has reached 10%. I think it’s a Reuters story about how many malls in America are becoming ghost towns. It was just yesterday that somebody called and said, ‘When are we going to revive the misery index?’ And I, of course, responded very intelligently and cleverly with the question, ‘Well, if there’s no misery reported, how can there be a misery index? If nobody thinks there’s any misery going on.’ And, of course, the depth of economic harm, some might say disaster that is occurring in the country, is not being reported.
I dare say that the reporting of the US economy in 2004, ‘5, ‘6, and ‘7 made people think the economy then was worse than it is now. And it worked. Even people whose economic circumstances were hunky-dory and fine still thought the economy was in bad shape ’cause the news reports made ’em think their neighbor was in trouble or somebody across town was in trouble. But we’ve got the Treasury secretary, we’ve got the world out there. The dollar is plummeting, our AAA rating is in question here as a good place to invest. There’s no good economic news anywhere. The Federal Reserve yesterday says that unemployment is going to reach 10% even if the economy starts rebounding in the latter part of this year, unemployment’s going to drag, GDP is going to go down, there’s no good economic news anywhere, zilch. Well, I can’t say none. But I mean the fundamentals do not look good, and we’ve got another story, Geithner today making an even bigger play to determine and define compensation on Wall Street, even more involvement in banks and institutions that took TARP money and whether they can pay it back and what happens if they don’t and what happens if they do.
To me, in the real world, forgetting how the media is portraying the Obama administration — in the old days a president was inexorably linked to the performance of the economy. I believe Barack Obama’s like an 0-4 NFL head coach, brand-new head coach, first time, first season, and he’s like he started out 0-4. The economy is going nowhere, despite all these grand promises, our allies won’t give Obama anything he wants; Guantanamo Bay is now a mess, made so by Obama. Guantanamo Bay was fine, functioning just as it was designed ’til Obama brought a political calculation to virtually every national security issue that he can. That’s what that speech was yesterday, nothing more than turning national security into an issue of politics, which it’s not. Obama is destroying business after business after business. So, given the mess that Obama has made, what does he do? He trashes Bush. He blames the previous administration. He blasts them all over the place. He smears ’em. He slanders ’em out there.
He makes everybody think that he’s got nothing to do with the 0-4 start. Even though he picked the team; he calls the plays; he conducts the practice sessions; he’s the one that talks to the media. He didn’t come in mid-season, no, no, no, no. He came in the off season, he put his own team together, got his own coaching staff, did it all, and we’re 0-4. The US is out of the starting gates, if we’re a National Football League team, at 0-4. Yet, his approval numbers remain sky-high. People love him. Now, I want to address all of you rookie coaches in the National Football League. Josh McDaniels in Denver, Jim Schwartz in Detroit, Tom Cable in Oakland, Eric Mangini, new coach in Cleveland, Rex Ryan, new coach at the New Jersey Jets, and Todd Haley, the offense coordinator from the Cardinals hired as the head coach for the Kansas City Chiefs. And there may be some other new head coaches out there for the first time this year. Oh, Mike Singletary, but Singletary took over with four or five games left in the Fort’iners’ schedule last year. I think I’ve covered it. So all of you rookie NFL head coaches — Josh McDaniels, Jim Schwartz, Tom Cable, Eric Mangini, Rex Ryan — take notes, especially those of you who have barely coached before.
If your team — if the Broncos, if the Lions, if the Raiders, if the Browns, if the New York Jets instantly implode, if you open the season 0-4 or 1-3, it’s very simple what you do. You blame your predecessor. Todd Haley, head coach, Kansas City Chiefs, you new coaches, Obama is showing you how to survive if you come out of the gate 0-4 like he’s brought the country out of the gate 0-4, you just blame ownership, you blame the previous coach, you blame the previous coaching staff, you blame the players. That’s the equivalent of Obama blaming Americans for being greedy. I mean, blame Bush. Yeah, blame Bush, in addition to the previous coach. (interruption) What do you mean it won’t work? The fans are going for it with Obama, why wouldn’t they go for it with a new head coach? Okay, Jim Schwartz, the Detroit Lions. Let’s look at him. Jim Schwartz, he’s coming off a season where the Lions went 0-16. They did not win a game. They’ve got the number-one draft choice. They’ve got that big QB, Matt Stafford, all right? Say they come out 0-4, Jim Schwartz, all you gotta do is blame Rod Marinelli, previous coach, and then blame Matt Millen, the previous GM, blame everybody on his staff for rotten drafts, lousy game plans, blame the training facility, blame the owner, and then blame George W. Bush for added measure saying the Bush administration depressed the whole organization.
Blame the pregame meal. Blame anything. Blame the nutritionist. That’s all you have to do. Get off to a bad start, blast away at the prior coaching staff. It’s the team the hometown loves. They still have jerseys from last year’s players, bad form, it might keep the heat off you if you bash everybody else saying, ‘Look, it’s not my fault.’ Make speeches all the time. Instead of holding team meetings make speeches out there, address the media every day on how rotten the situation was you inherited, how none of this is your fault. Trade away the number one draft choice the next thee years. That’s what Obama’s done by putting us all in debt. So the blueprint is there for any of you who get a new job and you flunk right out of the starting gate, you blame the person who had it before you, and George W. Bush. And you blame the organization. And, hell, blame AIG. That will work.