RUSH: Haley Barbour, Christian Science Monitor, sponsored a breakfast. Haley Barbour, governor, Mississippi, was a guest. A reporter asked him, ‘Why do you think Americans are so confused about Obama’s religion? Why do so many people think Obama was born outside the United States?’ This is what Haley Barbour said.
BARBOUR: This is a president that we know less about than any other president in history. But, I mean, I have no idea why. You know, I accept just totally at face value that he’s a Christian. He said so throughout the time he’s been in public life. That’s good enough for me. Do I think there’s a vast right-wing conspiracy? No, ma’am.
RUSH: Well, there’s Haley Barbour. (imitating Barbour) ‘Do I think there’s a vast right-wing conspiracy? No, ma’am. I accept at face value he’s a Christian. Said so in public life.’ But what really ticked ’em off about the Haley Barbour comment is when he said, ‘This is a president we know less about than any other president in history.’ That does not send tingles up their legs. That sends shock up their spine. That just bugs the people on the left, it just bugs ’em all. You know why it bugs ’em? Because all these liberal people on the left, these media people, they are the ones who have obscured who Obama is on purpose. They’re the ones who told us it didn’t matter. ‘We’ve never had somebody like this in American politics before! Post-partisan, post-racist, post-accomplishment, post-American, post-everything! We never had anybody this smart, this well-spoken, this clean, this articulate. We’ve never had somebody that can bridge all of the gaps.’
So it didn’t matter who Obama was. All that mattered to the American left was that he was African-American. That’s what mattered to ’em because that, to them, was a way they were going to assuage their guilt — their collective guilt — over our civil rights transgressions and our slavery past and so forth. They didn’t want to know who Obama was. And now, because they shielded from people just exactly who he was, Obama was not required to go through the usual media anal exam. Now people know who he is, and the media is upset. ‘How can anybody say this?’