RUSH: Andrea Mitchell, NBC News, Washington, was on MSNBC this morning with Joe Scarborough, and Scarborough says, ‘How will this economic news impact the campaign?’
MITCHELL: It is focusing everyone’s attention on the economy. It has stopped all of the attention being paid to Sarah Palin. For Democrats, this ought to be a good thing, these pocketbook issues ought to be good for Democrats, just generically. But this year not so much, so far at least, Barack Obama with this new two-minute ad today trying to get people to focus attention on what is at stake here. So far people still seem to be not quite clear on what their choice should be.
RUSH: She just can’t figure out why Obama isn’t gaining. They’re all flummoxed. They have this cliche that says Democrats automatically win big on economic issues, and they’ve had that cliche for 30 or 40 years, and when the cliche, and the template, the narrative isn’t reflected, they’re stymied. Why should they be stymied? They are reporters. It’s their job to go out and find out. They don’t find out. They just sit there and cry over spilled milk on television about it. So she referenced this Obama two-minute ad trying to get people to focus attention on what’s at stake. This ad, I have watched it, I have previewed it. It is boring. If I were to play this without start-stop commentary, you would tune out. You would go to another station. Well, no, you never do that. I own you. But you would get bored, and I can’t stand for you to get bored. It might end up hurting the economy of this show. Obama is going to destroy it anyway, the rest of the country’s economy if he’s elected. The biggest job I’m going to have is not having the economy of this show destroyed if he’s elected. It’s like I said, staff in there, I just discovered they’re worried about their retirement accounts. And I said, ‘Well, vote Obama.’ It seems like the natural thing to do if you’re worried about what’s going on, vote Obama, right? That’s change. Obama had nothing to do with this, right? It’s all Bush and McCain, vote Obama. I think it’s a pretty good contrast. Okay, let’s get started here, it’s two minutes, start-stop. I don’t know where I’m going to stop it each time. It’s where I get fed up with it.
OBAMA: In the past few weeks Wall Street’s been rocked as banks closed and markets tumbled, but for many of you, the people I’ve met in town halls, backyards, and diners across America, our troubled economy isn’t news.
RUSH: Stop the tape. Okay, the dictator is now speaking. And as we can clearly deduce just from this little open, he’s going to use all the skills that he honed as a street agitator, as a failed state senator, and as a 143-day US Senator to bear on these economic problems.
OBAMA: 600,000 Americans have lost their jobs since January, paychecks are flat and home values are falling.
RUSH: Stop the tape. Now, this is an illustration, this whole ad is an illustration of the veritable simplicity of Obama’s campaign. The economy’s bad, your paycheck is flat, people have lost their jobs since January. If Obama were to submit this as a written essay to a competent high school or college English composition professor, he would get an F on it for not explaining any of this, just making these wild assertions without explaining how this happened, who’s responsible for it. Paychecks are flat? No, they’re not. Wages are up. We had the story last week. Home values are falling. Yeah, but that’s not all bad for some people, like people getting in the market for the first time, but if you just want to deal with why home prices are falling, ask Obama. Ask the Democrats. Ask his economic advisors, Jim Johnson and Franklin Raines, who steered Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac into the ground, took $100 million out of it, Franklin Raines did, for himself, they’re now economic advisors on Obama’s campaign. Obama ought to be able to tell us why home prices have gone south is because people like him saw to it that people who could not pay mortgage loans were given those loans anyway as ordered by the Clinton administration back in ’94, ’95, when they started this. And, of course, with every liberal plan, the problem doesn’t show up immediately, but in ten years, 20 years, it does: Great Society, war on poverty. It takes a while for their failures to catch up with us, but they always do. So here’s Obama saying, I had nothing to do with it, but just my presence alone is going to fix all this.
OBAMA: It’s hard to pay for gas and groceries and if you put it on a credit card, they’ve probably raised your rates.
RUSH: Stop the tape. Okay, so it’s time now to do the simplistic thing, blame capitalism. It’s hard to pay for gas and groceries? Why is that, ’cause the gasoline price went up. Why is that, Obama? Because you want to give people tire gauges. You don’t want to have new sources of energy discovered. So you want them to go out there make sure their tires are inflated, and that leads to no new energy, no new supply, and so when market fluctuations are such that prices go up, people have no recourse and you do not want them to have any recourse to find lower prices via more supply because you have no interest in producing any of it. So everything he’s complaining about here can actually be pointed back to him.
OBAMA: You’re paying more than ever for health insurance that covers less and less.
RUSH: Ah, stop the tape. Right, and who was it that was going to fix this? Who had eight years to deal with this? Your party, the Clintons, 1993 made it the seminal feature of their administration in the first term. You Democrats have run the House and Senate for a while now, and you’ve had ample opportunity to do something about this as a state senator, as a street agitator, and as a part-time US senator, and yet you advanced no legislation on this, you have shown no leadership whatsoever in the whole notion. Everything here is about ripping capitalism. Everything here is about ripping the private sector so that people will eventually fall into line in turning all of these decisions over to people like Obama.
OBAMA: This isn’t just a string of bad luck. The truth is while you’ve been living up to your responsibilities, Washington has not.
RUSH: Stop the tape. Who’s been in Washington for the last 143 days, Obama? You. So you’re saying you haven’t lived up to your responsibilities? Washington hasn’t? And yet you want Washington to have more control over all this while you admit that they’ve botched it. More on this straight ahead.
OBAMA: That’s why we need change, real change. This is no ordinary time, and it shouldn’t be an ordinary election. But much of this campaign’s been consumed by petty attacks and distractions that have nothing to do with you or how we get America back on track.
RUSH: Stop the tape. Yes, they most certainly do, sir. These are not petty attacks and distractions. These are genuine arguments over how we solve the problems that exist today. Does government get more power to fix these problems after having learned they caused the problems and made ’em worse? Or do we get rid of people like you and put people who believe in the private sector? You talk about people living up to their responsibilities. Let them do it. The people who make this country work, the people who are living up to their responsibilities just need people like you out of their way. They can fend for themselves. You will bollix it up. It’s been demonstrated that Democrats in charge of all these things blow it and then they protect themselves when the examination comes and try to ask for even more power to get in charge of the chicken coop when you’ve already killed all the chickens.
OBAMA: Here’s what I believe we need to do. Reform our tax system to give a thousand-dollar tax break to the middle class instead of showering more on oil companies and corporations that outsource —
RUSH: All right. Stop the tape. We’re back to George McGovern. George McGovern wanted to give a thousand dollars to everybody back in 1972. Obama, go back and check your history. He lost in a landslide. And this business, reform the tax system to give a thousand-dollar tax break to the middle class, showering more on oil companies and corporations that outsource our jobs, again examine Obama’s enemies list. It is the private sector of this country that has created all the wealth.
OBAMA: End the ‘anything goes’ culture on Wall Street with real regulation that protects your investments and pensions.
RUSH: Stop the tape. I can’t let this go on. There’s already overregulation on Wall Street, overregulation from Washington, and now you guys are in total charge of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. You can’t get more control than you already have. You’re the ones that destroyed those institutions, and now you have total control over them. So obviously what’s happening here is that Obama’s tapping the expertise of Jim Johnson and Jamie Gorelick, Chris Dodd and Barney Frank and Franklin Raines, throwing a little Marxist ideology in for guidance here. He’s running on a series of lies, first that we’re in a Depression, second that governments have no role in promoting bad influences in the economy, and third that he has the capacity to do something useful about it. His point on all this, and we’ll finish the ad if you want to hear the rest of it after the break, but his point here is that government hasn’t done enough, government’s been too lax, we need more government to fix these problems. Government has been the problem.
BREAK TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: Okay, back now to the Obama two-minute ad that is designed to look like, it does look like an address to the nation, a presidential address to the nation, and we are start-stopping this. We now resume the Obama two-minute address to the nation.
OBAMA: Fast track a plan for energy made in America that will free us from our dependence on Middle East oil in ten years and put millions of Americans to work.
RUSH: Stop the tape. Not possible. He’s running around saying this all over the place that in ten years we’re going to have new alternative sources of energy, not oil, that will free us from the dependence on Middle East oil in ten years. Not possible. It isn’t there. It isn’t going to be there in ten years, someday it will be, may not happen in our lifetimes. Someday it will be, but it’s not going to be there in ten years. False hope. This is no different than John Edwards telling the audience in a debate that if John Kerry is elected, Christopher Reeve will walk again. That was just as irresponsible, just as big a lie as this is.
OBAMA: Crack down on lobbyists once and for all so their backroom deal-making no longer drowns out the voices of the middle class and undermines our common interests as Americans.
RUSH: Stop the tape. More middle class pandering here. This guy is loaded with lobbyists. He’s loaded with Washington types, Franklin Raines, Jim Johnson from Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, undermining the common interests as Americans. This guy is not of America. This guy is of Washington and he’s simply pandering here from the Democrat Party playbook.
OBAMA: And, yes, bring a responsible end to the war in Iraq, so we stop spending billions each month rebuilding their country when we should be rebuilding ours.
RUSH: Stop the tape. This is brazen, because we now know that Barack Obama, when he was in Baghdad in July, sought a deal with the Iraqi foreign minister for them to suspend any plan on the withdrawal of US troops until after the presidential election. He has been running around campaigning he’s going to get these troops out of there, he’s going to get ’em out of there now, this is the first thing he’s going to do, it was unjust war, shouldn’t have been fought. He raised a lot of money on this basis from the kook fringe. He goes over to Bagdhad and says, hey, wait a minute, can you guys wait? And this borders on treason. This is something that McCain ought to be hammering. He is not allowed to do this. He is not entitled to do this, to go negotiate on behalf of the United States as a presumptive president, which is what he was on that trip. He went to Berlin as a presumptive president, president-in-waiting. And to go strike a deal to tell the Iraqis, hey, hang on. Now folks, let me tell you something. I mentioned this the first day I heard the story, and it’s been confirmed, Amir Taheri reported this in the New York Post and he confirmed it in another column today. The Obama campaign confirmed it as well when they sought to deny it.
It’s now been revealed that they spent five hours trying to figure out how to respond to this, because they were caught. There was a man named Gary Sick, highly respected at Columbia University back in the early nineties who wrote a book filled with abject lies that George H. W. Bush had flown to Paris on the eve of the 1980 election, struck a deal with the Iranians to make sure the American hostages were held until after the election and then released when Ronald Reagan either had been elected or was inaugurated. The Drive-By Media and Tom Foley, the speaker of the House at the time, this was before he started stealing food off of airline flights he was on when he retired, he said the seriousness of this charge is such that we must investigate it. He said, ‘Despite the fact that there’s limited evidence here, the seriousness of the charge means we must investigate it.’ Well, we not only have a serious charge, we have confirmation of a serious charge. There needs to be an investigation of what Obama was doing.
Now, I don’t know when he put this together, this two-minute ad. But if he put this ad together after this Iraq story came out, this is foolhardy, because there are enough people out there that are going to blow smithereens this whole concept that we need to get out of Iraq, we need to get out now so that we can start saving money that we’re spending in Iraq and spending here. He wants to keep the troops of the United States in Iraq until at least 2011 or 2012. And why? Because he wants to be able to claim he brought victory. That’s what all this is about. Before Bush leaves office, if they can secure defeat they’ll do it if they could blame it on Bush. They tried for a year and a half, but there’s a guy that got in the way of that. His name is General David Petraeus and they tried to destroy him as well. So now that their attempt to secure defeat failed and hang the noose of failure around the neck of George W. Bush, now all of a sudden what does Obama want? He wants us to stay in Iraq, and he went over and talked to the Iraqis about it, in violation of US law. He wants to be able to thus get credit for bringing the troops home, he wants to get credit for victory, bringing the troops home. It’s all a scam, folks. This is a great example of the fraudulent, phoniness, total plastic banana, good-time rock ‘n’ rollerness that is Barack Obama.
OBAMA: Doing these things won’t be easy, but we’re Americans. We’ve met tough challenges before, and we can again.
RUSH: Stop the tape. The biggest challenge — and I mean this from the bottom of my sizable beating heart — kaboom, kaboom, kaboom — the biggest challenge we Americans will face domestically will be if this guy gets elected. It will be a battle to hold on to the private sector, capitalism and our freedom versus a bunch of people who want to socialize and nationalize this country. And, by the way, I have a couple of important monologues coming up on that subject as the program unfolds before your very eyes and ears, because we are on the highway and we are exceeding the speed limit toward the city of socialism, toward the nationalization of businesses, and it’s happening right before our eyes under the pretext of, we’ve got no choice, these companies, we can’t let them go south, too many people involved here, be too much pain, we gotta bail ’em out. So the biggest challenge you and I will face will be stopping this guy and this band of liberal socialists that he’s going to bring to Washington with him. And we Americans are up to it, but it’s a damn shame we even have to be faced with this. Here’s more from this ad.
OBAMA: I’m Barack Obama. I hope you’ll read my economic plan.
RUSH: Stop the tape. Who reads people’s economic plans? Why don’t you instead of doing a two-minute ad go out and do a speech or show up and do a town hall and tell us the specifics of your stupid plan? ‘I’m Barack Obama, and I hope you’ll read my plan.’ Yeah, you know what Barack, I hope people will read my radio show tonight, rather than listen to it, I hope they’ll go to my website and read my transcripts. Why don’t you tell us about your economic plan? This is not a plan. This is nothing more than a complaint of capitalism. This is nothing more than an enemies list of the people you intend to get even with. And guess what? They happen to include American corporations and employees of those corporations, the American people in general. What economic plan? You don’t have an economic plan. You’ve got change, change, change. Change? Change? You’re hobnobbing with Hollywood last night for nine million bucks, Barbra Streisand headlining, that’s change? You said you didn’t want to go back to the nineties, you wanted to go forward. You’re heading backwards, sir, you’re backpedaling. You’re backpedaling as fast as Deion Sanders.
OBAMA: I approve this message because bitter partisan fights and outworn ideas of the left and the right won’t solve the problems we face today, but a new spirit of unity and shared responsibility will.
RUSH: Unity and shared responsibility? That sounds like socialism to me. And, by the way, sir, Senator Obama, could you give us an example of unity that you have brought about? Is your campaign team unified? The Democrat Party unified? Still got a lot of women out there that don’t like you. Have you unified the Republicans to vote for you? How come your preacher is so damn mad? Your wife’s mad all the time. All these people you hang around with, you got these wacko terrorists you hang around with, you’ve got these flake priests you hang around with. They’re all mad as hell. Everybody around you is mad as they could be. What unity? What shared responsibility? By the way, outworn ideas of the left and right, your ideas are outworn, sir. They absolutely are. Ours aren’t. Ours are built on the foundation of individual freedom, individual liberty, and guess what? Individual liberty and individual freedom are not outworn. They never go out of style, Senator Obama. There are people in this country who will pay whatever price is necessary to hold on to their freedom and their individual liberty, even if the enemy that seeks to take it away is people like you.
BREAK TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: Let me just make it simple for you, folks. This whole two-minute ad that is disguised as a presidential address to the nation, and Obama’s entire economic plan, is nothing more than an attack on capitalism. It is nothing more than that. It is an attack and a complaint on capitalism. By the way, Obama, I notice here that you want to give people another $1,000. Does that mean the stimulus package failed? Didn’t some of you people get a stimulus check? What was your check, Brian? Did you get a check? You didn’t, none of my employees. I pay them too well. They didn’t qualify for a check. Did you get one, Snerdley? It was 600 bucks? Whatever it was, it failed, apparently, because Obama wants to pass out another $1,000. Yeah, $1,200 a couple, a family, does that include people that live together, same sex, opposite sex. Just move on with it. You made the point. Let me tell you something here, folks. Obama is desperate. That’s what this ad is all about. He’s desperate to make everybody think they’re on the brink of economic ruin. Don’t forget this. The power of perception is crucial in politics. Politics, you’ve heard the cliche, is often about perception, and this is a great illustration of it. Obama wants you to think that you are on the brink of economic ruin, and not because of government’s failure, not because of government’s bad influences on the market, but because there’s not enough government. This is the insult. This is the thing that infuriates me. He wants you to think that the reason you’re on the brink of financial economic ruin is there hasn’t been enough government.
Now, the irony of all this is that the nation will face dire economic circumstances down the road if the government does not reverse its current course, if it does not pare down entitlements, its involvement in the private sector, its abuse of the taxpayer, and Obama’s fix, his plan, his attack on capitalism would in the long run create the depression he claims not to want and also claims that we are in. Barack Obama would give us the depression. Barack Obama and his appointees and his associates, Democrats, liberals on Capitol Hill, in both houses of Congress, you want a depression, and you don’t, then this is your team. Now, I need to ask also another question here, just to give you something to ponder here. Oil executives are once again being skewered by Democrats for being profitable. Obama in his ad, once again, they keep going back and forth, it’s either the big oil execs or the speculators. Now that the oil price is down to, what is it, 92 to 95, I haven’t looked at it today. Now we’re back to blaming Big Oil. They want you to pay more taxes under the guise that you’re going to be getting even with Big Oil. But, hey, look, let’s compare Big Oil and the way it’s operated to Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac and AIG.
Now, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac and AIG, they’re going to get taxpayer money. Big Oil gets investigated. Clinton cronies are given millions of dollars from failed institutions like Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. Now, let me ask you a question, based on what you know without me having to tell you, what is the better business model, Big Oil or Big Mortgage? Where is the real fraud? Let the private sector succeed or fail. Stop harassing, Obama. Stop harassing those who are productive, who are producing energy, who are doing it at an affordable price, who are fighting obstacles placed in their way by people like you. Stop getting in their way. You Democrats put on a huge, big show trying to slander an industry making about 8% net after tax profit, all legally, while allowing Clinton laws and Clinton cronies to virtually rape the mortgage industry. Maxine Waters threatened to take over the oil industry in a congressional hearing. She let the cat out of the bag. That’s what socialists want. And when they do, they’re going to rape that sector, too. They’ll destroy it just like they destroyed the mortgage business, same thing for health care. You had the government in charge of your mortgages, folks. You had the government making sure that people who could not pay ’em back got loans. All of that had effects in the private sector ’cause when money got cheap then a whole bunch of people started deciding to buy three or four houses at a time, never live in them, just flip ’em and then it all went south because it always catches up with you at some point when there’s no money to pay for outstanding debt.
So your precious liberal thinking, government, Democrats, and so forth, they gave you the mortgage crisis. They gave you the plummeting value of your homes today. They did all of this, starting back in the nineties with the Clintons, and they attack Big Oil for ripping you off. They attack Big Pharmaceutical for ripping you off. They attack Big Health, hell, they attack Wal-Mart for ripping you off. Again, look at the Obama’s enemies list and you’ll find it’s likely the place you have a job, even if it is a small business. And yet the very things that they have claimed to fix and to protect you from the tentacles and the poison of Big Oil, the very things they have taken over to provide you insurance, they have destroyed. Your house has lost its property value because of people like Barack Obama thinking government can do it better. They have raped the mortgage business. They will rape the health care business if they get hold of that.
Any other business they try to nationalize, the same thing will happen, they’ll botch it. The lesson in the mortgage industry is that the government should be investigated. The people at Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac should be investigated. This is what started all of this. This subprime lending, getting involved in derivatives and packaging various kind of financial products with leverage ratios of one dollar on hand versus $30 in debt, because they thought with the government involved the golden goose would never be cooked. But with Democrats in charge, look what happened. Big Oil is your enemy, Wal-Mart’s your enemy, Big Health is your enemy, Big Insurance is your enemy. The place you work is your enemy. The place that provides you food is your enemy. Your savior is the government, and they’re the ones responsible for your home losing whatever value it has. And they now want to be in charge of more and more of the things that you need on a daily basis, and they’ll botch that, too.