RUSH: I want you to listen to President Obama as he inaugurated the health care summit this afternoon in the White House.
OBAMA: There are a lot of people out there who are desperate. There’s a lot of desperation out there. Today I want them and the people like them across this country to know that I have not forgotten them.
RUSH: Stop the tape. Why does he have to say that? Now, I’m not surprised he’s saying a lot of people out there are desperate. There’s a lot of desperation out there. That’s what he’s creating. President Obama is the author of this desperation. I know that there are those of you in this audience who voted for Obama who listen to me, and you just can’t believe I would say something like this, and I understand why, because you can’t understand a president who would want something like the US economy in its current state to happen, and I understand you not understanding that. And let me tell you why you don’t understand it, it’s because you don’t understand, intellectually understand, liberalism. If you who voted for Obama and a lot of other people in the country understood liberalism, I mean it’s happening right in front of you, but if you understood it, you would never vote for these people.
It’s like Jim Cramer. He’s got this big post at MainStreet.com, ‘My Response to the White House.’ Jim Cramer thought McCain would be disaster for the US economy. Jim Cramer thought McCain equaled depression. Jim Cramer is stupefied. Jim Cramer, CNBC, Mad Money, Jim Cramer was a huge Obama supporter. He’s a huge Democrat, or liberal. I’ll say Democrat in this case. Jim Cramer could not wait for Obama. Now, a lot of the so-called smart people on our side, David Brooks of the New York Times who thinks he’s a moderate conservative, he wrote a piece this week, he’s stunned, Obama’s not the person that he turned out to be. Christopher Buckley, my good friend, now and then, said he also misjudged Obama. ‘If the guy goes far left, I’ll be disappointed.’ My question to people like this, with all due respect, is how come you didn’t see who Obama is when it’s right in front of your face and people like me and millions of Americans did? How come it is that I, without the great Ivy League education, am not surprised at all? Not only am I not surprised, I’m rather frustrated that so many Americans don’t see Obama as who he is.
I understand getting cowed by speeches. I understand getting cowed by the messianic approach to things. But I don’t understand people who are ignorant of liberalism, of left-wing — I don’t understand it. Now, those of you who voted for Obama who are listening to me, you think I’m just trying to irritate you, you think I’m just trying to have fun here and get you all revved up so you get all mad. Not true. We conservatives love people, we love our country, we want the best for everybody. We want a market that allows people to use their God-given traits: freedom, intelligence, compassion, passion, desire, ambition, to go pursue whatever it is they love with excellence to whatever degree they want. Barack Obama is now a shock to a lot of people. I am saying Barack Obama wants people to be desperate. He likes the crisis, he likes the anxiety, he likes the lack of confidence that Americans have about their own country. Well, you’ll only understand me saying that, you will only understand and agree with me if you understand liberals and their objectives and their desires. But if you’re going to look at President Obama as somebody who’s non-ideological, who is neither a conservative or a liberal but who is a moderate, you are going to miss who Barack Obama is.
He had the single most liberal voting record during 143 days of work in the United States Senate before he announced that he was running for the presidency. We know who his friends and associates and mentors were, the people that influenced him. What made anybody think that, given his background, his foundation, his voting record, what made anybody think he was going to change? The really smart people on our side, the intelligentsia, ‘He can’t govern from the far left, he’s gotta govern from the center because that’s where most Americans are.’ That is the biggest misunderstanding of liberalism of all, is that they care about people. Liberals care about their own power, and they hide that objective behind their so-called compassion. So let’s now go back and listen to this sound bite where Obama says, ‘A lot of desperation out there,’ and he likes it. Rahm Emanuel, his chief of staff, the ballerina, talked about how a crisis is a great thing ’cause there’s a whole lot of things you can do. Do you think Emanuel is thinking about good things he can do for people? No, he’s thinking about good things that can happen to liberals in the Democrat Party.
Even on our side, I’m stumped by people who refuse to admit what liberalism is, where it goes if left unchecked. What happens to people under liberalism? Go to Michigan. Go to New Orleans. Go to Louisiana, pre- or post-current Hurricane Katrina, go there, go to New York, go to where the wards of the state, the people who are cared for, provided for by liberals in any city, go see how they live, go see South Central LA, go see the boroughs of New York City, go to any of these places. It’s not racial. It’s ideological. Go to any city where the primary supporters of liberalism live, the vast majority of them — Philadelphia, Detroit, Chicago — go look; you’ll see what happens to people led by liberals. Hugo Chavez. Now, just to use this as just an illustration, Hugo Chavez is all upset. He’s upset at the media, and now Hugo Chavez is taking over food. Hugo Chavez, the socialist dictator in Venezuela, has announced that he’s taking over food because he doesn’t like the profit that some agriculture people in the food business are making. He’s going to take over food and he’s going to set prices.
Well, when the government is in charge of what you eat, where you eat, what it costs you, they really have control over you. Now, Hugo Chavez is a good example of what could happen because Hugo Chavez is a liberal in addition to being a socialist. If you look at who the enemies of Hugo Chavez are in Venezuela, you will find that they are free market capitalists in the media and other areas in the means of production. So he likes crisis, too. He’s going to shut down the media because he wants his approval ratings at 80% in Venezuela. So now here’s Obama announcing his health care summit today, twice acknowledges that you’re desperate, that there’s a lot of desperation out there, and then he says he wants you to know he hasn’t forgotten you. Now, that, to me, is quite telling. Why say that, ‘I haven’t forgotten you’? There are many aspects to that I can sit here and parse. I haven’t forgotten you? That means that in his mind he is the savior. It also means that in his mind, he believes that most Americans think he’s the savior. It’s very creepy. It is creepy. The third way to analyze this — ‘I haven’t forgotten you’ — is that he knows there’s some trouble bubbling up out there. Things aren’t getting any better and listening to the people at his town meetings talk to him, people thought this was not going to be the way it was. So Americans are desperate, Barack Obama has not forgotten you. Here’s the entire sound bite.
OBAMA: There are a lot of people out there who are desperate. There’s a lot of desperation out there. Today I want them and the people like them across this country to know that I have not forgotten them. We have not forgotten them. They are why we’re here today, to start delivering the change they demanded at the polls in November, that they have continued to demand since the election, and if we’re successful, if we can pass comprehensive reform, these folks will see their costs come down, they’ll get the care they need, and we’ll help our businesses create jobs again so our economy can grow.
RUSH: Classic illustration of how liberals operate. Again, I have to say, I’m stunned and dumbfounded at the number of people who do not understand liberalism and what it portends, the so-called smart people on our side. Okay, so he has acknowledged those of you out there who are desperate, he knows you’re desperate — and he likes that — and he knows that you’re wondering whether he forgot you, but he hasn’t. You are to be comforted because your supreme leader has not forgotten you. You are in your supreme leader’s thoughts. Your supreme leader cares so much about you that in order to answer your demands in the polls and to start delivering the change that you demanded in November, he is going to start a process today that will take at least a year-and-a-half or two, if it gets done at all, to reform health care as part of you finding a job, as part of the cost of living you experience coming down. So while you’re desperate, while you’re hanging on, your supreme leader knows that you’re desperate, and he’s thinking about you, and he’s starting work on a plan today that might fix something in a couple of years.