{"id":9752,"date":"2014-03-28T16:35:07","date_gmt":"2014-03-28T16:35:07","guid":{"rendered":""},"modified":"2014-03-28T16:35:07","modified_gmt":"2014-03-28T16:35:07","slug":"who_to_believe_barry_or_il_papa","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/admin.rushlimbaugh.com\/daily\/2014\/03\/28\/who_to_believe_barry_or_il_papa\/","title":{"rendered":"Who to Believe, Barry or Il Papa?"},"content":{"rendered":"

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

RUSH: So we have Il Papa hosting the president.<\/a> Still not convinced that the president thought he was going on vacation. When they rolled up to the Vatican he said to the Secret Service (impersonation), “Where are we?” They said: “We\u2019re at the Vatican, sir.” <\/p>\n

“Oh, I thought it said ‘vacation.\u2019 Oh. All right. Well, let\u2019s go in.” <\/p>\n

And there are two versions of what happened in the meeting between Il Papa and Obama. Of course now we\u2019re forced to have to make a choice as to who we believe. Obama says that he and the pope talked about — it\u2019s just a coincidence — things that Obama talks about: income inequality, contraception. The Vatican says that the pope kind of took Obama to school on the social issues and gave him some homework reading assignments. That\u2019s right. <\/line><\/p>\n

There are two distinct, different versions of the meeting between the president and the pope. And as Dr. Krauthammer pointed out (paraphrasing), “Well, here we go, what do we have here? We\u2019ve got a man who is the spiritual leader of a billion people who believes he is infallible versus a man who said, ‘If you like your doctor, you can keep your doctor, and if you like your plan, you can keep your plan.\u2019 Who we gonna believe?” It kind of comes down to the pope, when you put it that way. (interruption) Well, no. No, the bloom is off the Messiah rose. I don\u2019t think there\u2019s anybody, well somebody, but, I mean, the number of people that think Obama\u2019s still this Messianic figure, that\u2019s all by the wayside. <\/p>\n

BREAK TRANSCRIPT<\/p>\n

RUSH: Andrew Malcolm writing at Investors.com: “President Obama, whose poll approval numbers hover weakly around 40% among Americans, met Thursday with Pope Francis, whose approval numbers among the same people are 76%. Now, you know why the [Obama] sought the meeting.” He wanted to bask in the glow of the Vicar of Christ. “The two elected leaders exchanged gifts. The Vicar of Christ gave the ex-state senator a copy of his book, ‘Evangelii Gaudium,\u2019 or ‘The Joy of the Gospel.\u2019<\/p>\n

“The 44th president,” and 1st American Messiah, “gave the head of the world\u2019s Roman Catholic Church a box of fruit and veg[table] seeds from his wife\u2019s garden.” Did you know that? Did you just hear me say that? The pope gave Obama copy of his book, The Joy of the Gospel. The president gave the pope “a box of fruit and veg[table] seeds from his wife\u2019s garden. <\/p>\n

“The first meeting of the new pope and lame-duck president was closely-watched because of the Democrat\u2019s concerted efforts to bring religious institutions to heel in his country, primarily through requirements of his botched Obamacare legislation forcing some to violate their conscience. … According to Obama\u2019s version of the Vatican meeting, their discussions focused on poverty and income inequality, two concerns which, if true, would fit well with Obama\u2019s professed political programs domestically. … <\/line><\/p>\n

“On his papal discussions, Obama was vague on healthcare details. ‘We actually didn\u00c2\u2019t talk a whole lot about social schisms in my conversations with His Holiness,\u2019 Obama claimed. ‘In fact, that really was not a topic of conversation.\u2019 Obama stated that the pope ‘did not touch in detail\u2019 on his Affordable Care Act. Note the fudge words ‘in detail.'” Obama said the pope “did not touch in detail” on Obamacare.<\/p>\n

“The Vatican\u2019s version of the Obama encounter was strikingly different. The two men had a ‘cordial meeting,\u2019 a spokesman said. Importantly, their talks involved ‘a discussion on questions of particular relevance for the church in that country, such as the exercise of the rights to religious freedom, life and conscientious objection.\u2019 <\/p>\n

“Neither side mentioned the Obama administration\u2019s legal prosecution of the Little Sisters of the Poor for the nuns\u2019 opposition to birth control mandates. And the Vatican version said nothing about the alleged Obama-Pope Francis income inequality [discussion].” What do you bet that they didn\u2019t discuss income inequality? What do you bet? Look, we have two completely different versions of what happened here. We really do. <\/p>\n

Obama came out and made it sound like the conversation was all about Obama\u2019s political agenda and how much the pope is in favor of it, indirectly.<\/p>\n

BREAK TRANSCRIPT<\/p>\n

RUSH: As I observed yesterday, isn\u2019t this interesting. Here\u2019s President Obama, he shows up at the Vatican yesterday, spends, well, a few minutes with the pope, the media\u2019s all over it. They want to know everything that was said. What did Obama say? What did the pope say? What did the president say when the pope said what he said and what did Obama say when the pope said what he said? What did the pope say when Obama said what he said? All this happened in less than two hours, and yet for 20 years Barack Obama was in Reverend Wright\u2019s church and not any interest whatsoever in what Obama heard in that church. I find it fascinating. <\/p>\n

Let\u2019s go to the audio sound bites. This whole notion of income inequality and so forth, Obama comes out and says basically we talked about my political agenda. He didn\u2019t use those words, but income inequality and all these other things are Obama\u2019s agenda. You know what Obama knows? I\u2019m gonna tell you what I think Obama and his handlers think. I\u2019m a little out on a limb here. Actually, Friday, I do want to start with sound bites four and five, instead of skipping them. I am admittedly out on a limb here. I\u2019m going to tell you what I think based on my intelligence guided by experience, coupled with how flawlessly I am able to perceive, understand, know, and predict liberals. <\/line><\/p>\n

The pope\u2019s at 76% approval; Obama\u2019s sitting there at barely 40% and plunging. Twenty-six percent approval for his signature piece of government reform legislation. So in a major twist — it used to be that world figures wanted to get near Obama and bask in his light and benefit by association. Yesterday it was the other way around. It was Obama attempting to bask in the light of the pope. But I don\u2019t think Obama has much love for Christianity, the Catholic Church. I say that based simply on his total disregard for their religious beliefs when it comes his health care plan, and particularly abortifacients and contraception. It seems like Obama is enjoying sticking them in the eye. And I think as is the case with a lot of leftists, the Catholic Church is reviled and hated because you can\u2019t move \u2019em. <\/p>\n

They are not a political organization that responds to external pressure and either modifies, modernizes, changes, or what have you, according to the political and cultural mores of the day. The church is what it is. The left hasn\u2019t been able to move it at all on the things that they think are crucial to eliminating all judgment. They haven\u2019t been able to move \u2019em on female priests, priest marriage, gay marriage, abortion, you name it, the church doesn\u2019t move. Even this latest pope, when they thought they had a reformer \u2019cause the guy\u2019s out there spouting economic policy that is very much collectivism, “Oh, wow, maybe we got a guy we can work with here,” and he\u2019s not working with \u2019em. <\/p>\n

So I think there\u2019s some resentment. I don\u2019t think there\u2019s any doubt about that, but Obama\u2019s still gotta bow down and go in there because he\u2019s in deep trouble. But I also think that they really believe that they can come out after this meeting and characterize it however they want, and the Vatican\u2019s not really going to embarrass them by calling them liars or maybe even something softer. They figure that the Vatican will put out their version, but they don\u2019t think the Vatican will pick a fight with \u2019em. They don\u2019t think Pope Francis will pick a fight, so Obama can say, “Oh, yeah, we talked about income inequality and poverty and raising the minimum wage, and the Tea Party,” whatever else he wants to say that they talked about. He knows that the Vatican is gonna put out their version, it may be totally different, but they\u2019re not gonna pick a fight. <\/p>\n

Obama knows he\u2019s got the domestic media on his side so whatever he says happened in there they\u2019ll dutifully report and he\u2019ll carry the day. And it didn\u2019t work, and it didn\u2019t work because Obama and the Democrats and his political party today have nowhere near the moral stature of Pope Francis, nowhere near the moral stature of the Catholic Church. And they know it. And it frosts them, I think. I think it really, really bugs them. <\/p>\n

Now, we\u2019ve got a couple of telling sound bites from Obama. While Diane Sawyer was speaking with Chris Christie for seven minutes on a five-month-old story about Bridgegate, Scott Pelley, CBS Evening News, was interviewing Obama, and they aired it today on CBS This Morning. We got two bites. Scott Pelley said, “Can you give me a sense of what it\u2019s like to be in the presence of Pope Francis?” Now, do you think that question irritates Obama? Do you think Obama says to himself, “What are you talking about? Why aren\u2019t you asking the pope what it\u2019s like to be in my presence?” But of course you can\u2019t say that. So he takes the question, sees it as an opportunity to portray the pope as Obama wants the pope to be seen, i.e., a fellow Democrat. Here\u2019s how the first sound bite sounds.<\/p>\n