{"id":7764,"date":"2014-11-18T17:19:07","date_gmt":"2014-11-18T17:19:07","guid":{"rendered":""},"modified":"2014-11-18T17:19:07","modified_gmt":"2014-11-18T17:19:07","slug":"my_response_to_chris_cillizza","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/admin.rushlimbaugh.com\/daily\/2014\/11\/18\/my_response_to_chris_cillizza\/","title":{"rendered":"My Response to Chris Cillizza"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Listen<\/a><\/p>\n

RUSH: Ladies and gentlemen, we are loaded once again here with yet another Jonathan Gruber video and audio discovery, and this one confirms one of my earlier contentions, that the purpose of Obamacare is the elimination of private sector insurance. Gruber has been discovered to have admitted this in 2011 in Boston. We already have Obama admitting this on tape that we played all during the presidential campaign. He made his promise to his union buddies at the SEIU in March of 2007. <\/p>\n

<\/a>That\u2019s when he told them it might take some time to get to government-run health care because people are not gonna put up with it overnight. We\u2019re gonna have to just slowly but surely evolve to where there isn\u2019t any more private sector insurance. We have a giant See, I Told You So<\/a> of me explaining and predicting that that\u2019s what this is all about. And the Gruber gifts just keep on coming. <\/p>\n

But before I get to that, I need to share something with you. Chris Cillizza at the Washington Post sometimes sends me copies of the stuff that\u2019s gonna be in the paper. Sometimes I repeat what he says. Sometimes I quote from his pieces. Sometimes I ignore them. But he\u2019s a good guy. He sends me his stuff, and he\u2019s always been, compared to most of the Drive-Bys, he\u2019s been — I\u2019ll use the word “fair.” <\/p>\n

So he sent me a piece today. He says, “I thought this might interest you.” His piece today is entitled: “Why Jonathan Gruber is Conservative Catnip.” Now, hang on. ‘Cause I wrote him back this time. Normally I respond to him on the air, if I respond at all. But this time I wrote him back, and I debated, it\u2019s not a big deal, but I thought, should I lead with this or do the Gruber audio sound bites that I just talked about and then come back to this? No, I\u2019m gonna start with this, because this is the Washington Post, and this piece is not about Gruber. It\u2019s not about Obama. It\u2019s not about Obamacare. It\u2019s not about anything we\u2019ve learned. <\/p>\n

It\u2019s all about conservative reaction to Gruber. Why is Jonathan Gruber such a big deal to us? And let me share with you some excerpts before I share with you my reply. My reply was perfectly gentlemanly and respectfully nice, so don\u2019t get your expectations up for any fireworks here. You\u2019ll like it. <\/p>\n

Cillizza begins his piece: “Watch Fox News Channel or listen to Rush Limbaugh these days and you will get a very large helping of Jonathan Gruber, the MIT professor whose comments about the ‘stupidity\u2019 of the American people in relation to the passage of the Affordable Care Act has reignited political debate over the law. Gruber is quite clearly conservative catnip. But why?”<\/p>\n

Now, what does that tell you? I mean, this guy is writing a piece in the Washington Post about why Gruber is such a big deal to us, and he explores it. This ought to be a no-brainer. It ought to be automatic. <\/p>\n

“The key to understanding why Gruber has become a cause celebre — but not in a good way — for conservatives is that his comments about the ACA confirm two things that the right has long believed about Democrats and the law: (a) The ACA was made purposely vague to keep the public in the dark about its depth and breadth, and (b) liberals think conservatives are stupid.” And that number two is what he focuses on. He believes, honestly, he believes that me and all the rest of us in so-called conservative media, Fox News, are reacting to Gruber because we think that Gruber proves that liberals think we\u2019re stupid, and we\u2019re not stupid, and this proves it. <\/p>\n

<\/a>In other words, as far as Cillizza\u2019s concerned, this is nothing but personal for us. The reason Gruber is so interesting to us is because he admits that liberals think conservatives are stupid, and that\u2019s a point we\u2019ve been trying to prove for what? Years. And then he goes on to say: “The first point is somewhat obvious. Ever since then-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), way back in March 2010, said, ‘We have to pass the bill so that you can find out what is in it,\u2019 conservatives have been convinced that Democrats either (a) don\u2019t know what really was in the law or (b) more nefariously, Democrats knew exactly what was in the ACA and pushed it through Congress to keep the public from finding out.<\/p>\n

“If you believe ‘b\u2019 — as does virtually every member of the Republican base — then you see Gruber\u2019s comments, made in a panel discussion in 2013, as the smoking gun that proves you were right all along. (BREAKING NEWS: People like to believe their theories were\/are right.)”<\/p>\n

Then he quotes Marc Thiessen in the Washington Post and goes on to quote me, saying it just confirms how stupid he thinks you are, meaning I\u2019m talking about Obama on yesterday\u2019s program. So, anyway, he concludes here by saying: “So, it\u2019s not just that the Obama administration is trying to pull the wool over your eyes. It\u2019s that they think you, conservative American, are too stupid to even notice. That\u2019s a double whammy of outrage about a topic — the ACA — that already had a long history of inflaming conservatives. And that\u2019s why conservatives can\u2019t get enough of Jonathan Gruber.”<\/p>\n

So, according to Mr. Cillizza, the reason that we can\u2019t get enough of Gruber is that Gruber confirms what we\u2019ve always thought, and that is that liberals think we\u2019re stupid. So I wrote him back, \u2019cause I think this is really, really telling. <\/p>\n

It\u2019s not a surprise. It\u2019s just an opportunity to illustrate. I wrote back and said, “Thanks, Chris. Do you know what amazes me? That to you the story here is our reaction to Gruber. The story to you doesn\u2019t seem to be Gruber. The story to you doesn\u2019t seem to be Obama. The story is not, to you, their obvious lying and deception. You seem uninterested in the substance and the reality and the consequences of Gruber, Obama, et al. <\/p>\n

“The only narrative here is conservative reaction to this? It\u2019s flummery! Here we all are, Chris, and we\u2019re trying to persuade as many people as possible of the flaws, deception — in fact, disaster — that is Obamacare. And then along comes Gruber and confirms and proves many of our four-year contentions, and the story at the Washington Post is not that Gruber is confirming everything we\u2019re warning people about, but rather our reaction to Gruber? It\u2019s unreal.” <\/p>\n

<\/a>Quite politely, I said, “Chris, I don\u2019t even have that quite right. The reason Gruber is quote\/unquote ‘catnip\u2019 has nothing to do with our feelings being insulted about anything. The fact that they think we\u2019re stupid, that\u2019s got nothing to do with this. Gruber is what it is because Gruber is proof that we are and have been right from the get-go on all this. This is about substance. So Gruber offers another opportunity to persuade others — the low-information crowd, for example. <\/p>\n

“None of this is personal, Chris. None of this. My reaction, Fox News\u2019s, or any other conservative\u2019s, none of it\u2019s personal. It\u2019s that Gruber has come along and given up the ghost. Gruber\u2019s coming along and revealed the con. We\u2019ve been trying to warn people for six years about this, and Gruber comes along and proves it, and the only thing the Drive-By Media is interested in is our reaction to Gruber? <\/p>\n

“You\u2019re not interested in the substance of this? You\u2019re not interested in what the real meaning of Gruber is?” So I wanted to share that with you. Not that any of this is a surprise to you, but I think it\u2019s fascinating. Here we have the most transformative element of the Obama administration. You put this together with amnesty, “comprehensive immigration reform.”<\/p>\n

If you get both of those things done and fully implemented, then you have succeeded in your objective of transforming this country into something it was never founded to be. That\u2019s pretty big. But the only aspect of any of this that interests some in the media is our reaction to it? The substance, the literal transformation of the country — the successful implementation of the Obama agenda — is a ho-hummer and something irrelevant?<\/p>\n