RUSH: Now, as we mentioned, Hugo Chavez gave our president, Barack Obama, an American-bashing book, blaming America for all of the problems from colonialism to the CIA to all the economic problems, all the political problems of the Western Hemisphere. He gave Obama the 
book. There’s a picture of Obama smiling, accepting the book, looking at the cover of the book. And, of course, the book shot up the Amazon list. I think he looked at the cover of the book because he had a copy. He probably had a copy of the book already, says, ‘Jeez, how do I…? Okay, I gotta act like I don’t know what this is,’ but I’m sure it’s in his library somewhere. I’m sure Obama has already read this book. He went down to the Summit of the Americas and pretty much repeated the theme of this book. I don’t have the title of it in front of me, but it zoomed up the Amazon.com list. Now, we have a montage here of the Drive-By Media in America. George Stephanopoulos, Chuck Todd, Savannah Guthrie, just a whole bunch of them. They’re excited as hell about this.
TODD: (outside) It was at 54,000-plus in the Amazon.com rankings, now up to number seven.
GUTHRIE: (outside) That book is now at number two on the Amazon best-seller list. Its previous position, 54,295.
JAKE TAPPER: Its Amazon.com sales rank was 54,295. Just now I checked, it’s seventh!
SAM DONALDSON: It was 58,000, something like that, on Amazon.com. It’s jumped to 20th.
STEPHANOPOULOS: Top ten this morning!
JULIE BANDERAS: It is the (sound effect) number two best-seller on Amazon.com, it was 54,295th position.
DON LEMON: It’s number two — number two! — on Amazon.com’s best-seller list tonight.
FREDRICKA WHITFIELD: Now it is number two, that book, on Amazon.com!
GERALDO RIVERA: Ranked 54,295th, it is now number two on Amazon.com! An astonishing climb!
RUSH: Can you believe this? Can you believe the excitement in the Drive-By Media that an anti-American book, filled with lies, given to our president by Hugo Chavez? The Drive-Bys are excited at how rapidly it climbed the Amazon list. But do you know there’s something interesting they left off of this in their report. Yes, it went from 54,000-plus up to second place. But do you know what it failed to unseat at number one? Mark Levin’s Liberty and Tyranny. Despite this all-out effort by the Drive-By Media to push this book after Obama had accepted it from Chavez, the leftists in this country start buying this book. Look at how many people had to buy this book to move it up that much — a book that blames America for all of the problems in the Western Hemisphere — and it shoots up to number two, but not even Fox News — not even Fox News, who was part of the montage here with Julie Banderas and Geraldo Rivera — could bother to mention that it failed to unseat what was at number one (what is at number one, and it’s been this way throughout the weekend) Mark Levin’s Liberty and Tyranny. And so a book that is devoted to the principles of the American founding — liberty and freedom, American exceptionalism — a book that talks about people’s love for their country, is at number one. And the Drive-Bys can only talk about what a mammoth, mammoth increase: 54,000-plus to number two, thanks to Hugo Chavez and Barack Obama. Here’s also a montage. This is from yesterday. This is various members of the administration dismissing the handshake between Obama and what’s-his-face, Chavez.
DAVID AXELROD: Words and handshakes are — are nice, but they’re not enough.
LARRY SUMMERS: Relationships depend on more than smiles and handshakes.
NSC SPOKESMAN DENIS MCDONOUGH: While handshakes and photographs and smiles are important, they’re certainly not good enough.
GOVERNOR ED RENDELL (D-PA): The noise I hear is all about, ‘How did he shake hands with Hugo Chavez? How did he accept the book?’ What was he supposed to do?
RUSH: It’s just a handshake, what’s the big deal? Maybe… You know, here’s the thing: Why are these people putting it down? These are all Obama supporters. ‘Oh, what’s the big deal? He shook hands.’ Why are they making mincemeat out of it? They know it’s not good politically. They know that it doesn’t make any sense. ‘What’s he supposed to do when Chavez hands him a book?’ These are the kind of things you take care of before you get there, before the photo-ops happen. If you don’t want them to happen, they won’t happen. They wanted this to happen.
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RUSH: Here is Obama. This is yesterday in Port of Spain, Trinidad and Tobago, and the White House correspondent for CNN Dan Lothian asked the president this question: ‘During the campaign were up criticized by some within your own party for perhaps not being able to be tough on foreign policy matters. Now you’ve had this friendly interaction with Chavez. Are you concerned at all about how this might be perceived back in the US as perhaps going soft? Already one Senator is calling this friendly interaction ‘irresponsible,’ and as a quick follow-up, if I may, when you got the book from Mr. Chavez, what did you really think?’
OBAMA: I-i-it was a nice gesture to, uh, give me a book. I’m a reader. (pause) We had this debate throughout the campaign. I mean the whole notion was is that somehow if we showed courtesy or opened up dialogue, uh, with governments that had previously been hostile to us, uh, that that somehow would be a sign of weakness. The American people didn’t buy it, and there’s a good reason the American people didn’t buy it. ‘Cause it doesn’t make sense.
RUSH: What doesn’t make sense? ‘We showed courtesy or opened up dialogue with governments that had previously been hostile to us, somehow it would be a sign of weakness’? What else would you call it to run around the world and apologize for your country? By the way, the name of the book that Chavez gave Obama is: Open Veins of Latin America: Five Centuries of the Pillage of a Continent. And the pillaging was done by the United States in this book. It’s by Eduardo Galeano. And he didn’t say what he thought of the book. He didn’t answer that question. Well, he did. He continued the answer with this…
OBAMA: Venezuela is a country, uh, defense budget is probably one-600th of the United States. They own CITGO. It’s unlikely that as a consequence of me shaking hands or having a polite conversation with Mr. Chavez that we are endangering the strategic interests of the United States. Even with this imaginative crowd, you think you would be hard-pressed to paint a scenario in which US interests would be damaged as a consequence of us having a more constructive relationship with Venezuela. So if the question, Dan, is, ‘How does this play politically?’ I don’t know. One of the benefits of, uhh, my campaign and how I’ve been trying to operate as president is, I don’t worry about the politics. I try to figure out what’s right in terms of American interests, and — and on this one I think I’m right.
RUSH: He’s not representing American interests. He’s representing his interests. This is all about him. It’s not about the United States. The Obama theme song…
(playing of Obama spoof song ‘I’m Sorry’)
RUSH: ‘White comedian’ Paul Shanklin, the official Obama theme song, I’m Sorry. He says, ‘Even with this imaginative crowd you’d be hard-pressed to paint a scenario in which US interests would be damaged as a consequence of us having a more constructive relationship with Venezuela.’ ‘How does that more constructive relationship happen?’ is the question. Does it happen by converting an enemy to an ally? No! It happens by virtue of Obama going down there and agreeing with Chavez and his opinion of the United States of America. ‘Yeah, we were wrong. Yeah, we’ve done horrible things. Yep, everything in that book that you gave me? Yep, that’s true. We gotta show these people we don’t mean them any harm. We gotta apologize to them.’
So the whole concept of American exceptionalism doesn’t even exist. I want to add some more to this. I remember mentioning this during the campaign. It didn’t matter then, and of course it may not matter now. But back in November of 2006, there was an education forum in Caracas, Venezuela. President Hugo Chavez was there. He had invited Bill Ayers, the man who introduced Barack Obama to Chicago politics. Bill Ayers is a good friend of Barack Obama’s. Chavez invites Ayers to come down and attend an education seminar, an education forum in Caracas. And this is what Ayers said. The first thing he did is he ‘proclaimed his support for ‘the profound educational reforms under way here in Venezuela under the leadership of President Chávez. We share the belief,” Bill Ayers and Chavez, ”that education is the motor-force of revolution. . . . I look forward to seeing how you continue to overcome the failings of capitalist education as you seek to create something truly new and deeply humane.’
‘Ayers concluded his speech by declaring that ‘Venezuela is poised to offer the world a new model of education — a humanizing and revolutionary model whose twin missions are enlightenment and liberation.” Now, Ayers and his buddies at the Annenberg Project and whatever educational projects that Ayers is a part of, he believes that the purpose of education is to indoctrinate public school students in the belief that America is a racist, militarist country, and that the capitalist system is inherently unfair and oppressive. That’s Barack Obama’s buddy, Bill Ayers (about whom nobody cares during the campaign) in November 2006, getting an award from Hugo Chavez, our new friend in Caracas, Venezuela, praising Chavez for reforming education, turning it into a means of social revolution, opposing capitalism and militarism. And that is what Ayers’ curricula here in the United States attempts to do.
Now, again, we’re probably going, ‘Well, Obama didn’t know anything about that! Obama didn’t know that Ayers went down there. Obama doesn’t know what Ayers’ curricula construction is all about. Obama doesn’t know this.’ Of course not. No, Obama doesn’t know, he just goes down there and yuks it up with the guy who honors his friend, Bill Ayers. He goes down there and accepts a book (Open Veins of Latin America, Five Centuries of the Pillage of a Continent.) Oh, but Obama doesn’t know anything about this. ‘No, no, no, Rush. He can’t possibly know anything about this at all.’ Basically what you got, is you got Bill Ayers down there applauding Hugo Chavez for teaching Marxism in the public schools and agreeing that this is what needs to happen in the United States to get rid of the capitalist system and to get rid of the notion of American militarism.
So if you’re going to say, as he did to the press, ‘I think you’d be hard-pressed to paint a scenario in which US interests would be damaged as a consequence of us having a more constructive relationship with Venezuela.’ Mr. President, if you’re going to go down there and you’re going to yuk it up and laugh it up with the guy, and if you’re going to accept his premises as a means of forging a new relationship — as a way of getting rid of the ‘failed ideologies of the past,’ which has now become a trademark line. If you’re going to accept the premise of every nation that hates this country as a means of forging a new relationship with those countries, then in the end you yourself, if you’re going to accept their premise, are agreeing with it, that the US is the one that needs to change.
The United States needs to be cut down to size. The US needs to reform its education system. The US needs to be made smaller, the US is guilty. Well, hell’s bells, anybody could form new relationship with the Crips and Bloods, if that’s all you had to do. I could forge a new relationship with the American left. Do you realize how big and popular I could be if I called the American left leaders and say, ‘You know what? You people are right, and you’ve been right all this time and I’ve been wrong, and I want to apologize for Ronald Reagan. I want to apologize for every talk show host that’s ever come before me, including Larry King. I want to apologize for everybody!’ They would love me! They’d love me, and they might doubt it at first, but it wouldn’t take me long, couple days, to prove my sincerity, if that’s where I really was.
I mean, that’s easy to make friends that way. It’s easy as hell to make friends with your enemies by telling them they’re right and apologize to them and say, ‘Please don’t hold me personally accountable. Please don’t hold me accountable. Go ahead and blame Roger Ailes! Roger Ailes is responsible for Fox, I’m not — and don’t blame me for all of talk radio. Don’t blame me!’ I could easily become the most favorite liberal personality in media. It’d be easy. Just go apologize, prostrate myself, bow down, kiss the ring, accept some of their books, promise to get my mind right. It would be easy. Would I be forging new relationships? Yeah, between me, not my country, and not my ideological brethren, between me and them — and that’s what Obama’s about. It’s all about him.
By the way, he’s out there saying he doesn’t worry about the politics of this? That’s absolutely crazy. What’s Al-Qaeda’s defense budget? He says Venezuela has a defense budget one-600th of ours. What’s Al-Qaeda’s defense budget? He doesn’t worry about the politics? So he’s canceling those daily morning meetings with all these left-wing groups? Is that what this means? He doesn’t care about this anymore? Was the election about Barack Obama meeting with every nut-job in the world? I seem to recall he flopped all over the place on that point after first saying yes and then saying he would require preconditions. What were the preconditions? There aren’t any preconditions. He didn’t even establish as a precondition, ‘Don’t give me an embarrassing book at a photo-op.’
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RUSH: Saratoga, New York, let’s grab some phone calls here. This is Mel. Nice to have you on the program, sir. Hello.
CALLER: Yes. Good afternoon there, Rush, how are you today?
RUSH: Just fine, sir. Thank you.
CALLER: I agree with most of what you say, but a lot of times it turns out to be right-wing spin. When you take Chavez and you take Barack Obama, don’t say for one minute just over a handshake that Chavez doesn’t know if he steps out of line, that this great nation of the US of A will crush him like a bug. But the fact of the matter is that Obama’s not a fool, either. If he knows that what Chavez has on the ground over there in his country, that that affects how we live our way of life here and how much we have to lay out each month in our budgets, our personal budgets, our household budget, to get by. And that oil is the linchpin of economic prosperity here in this country, or pressure, personal pressure on individual families and corporations —
RUSH: Wait — hold it a minute. Are we talking about Venezuela or the United States here?
CALLER: I’m talking about Venezuela. Hugo Chavez has as his natural resource to sell to us at a lower rate because — I mean Barack Obama is — you know, he’s not going to ostracize this guy, he knows he has what we need, and we’ve got what Chavez wants, money. To keep the pressure off individuals here in this country, and if — what I mean is by doing that, is having cheap — cheap —
RUSH: Wait a minute.
CALLER: — pay less money.
RUSH: I’m not getting your point. What’s the point here?
CALLER: Well, the point here is that, you know, Chavez, you have to talk with one another, you have to talk to people, regardless if they’re your enemy or not. I’m sure when you were coming up as a young man, and today, you know, you got people that really don’t like you, and you have people that you don’t like, but you don’t go out and bare knuckle them every day. You have to deal with them, you gotta talk to them, you’ve gotta be around them, even though you don’t like them. You know, vice-versa.
RUSH: Well, if that’s your point, Mel, I don’t talk to my enemies, I don’t talk to them. I don’t have to talk to them to know what they think. I don’t have to talk to them to know what they believe about me. They say it anyway. My enemies are not to be gotten along with. I’m not out to show my enemies that I care about them. I’m not out to show my enemies that I’m not what they think I am. I’m out to defeat ’em. I don’t run around apologizing for myself. I don’t run around apologizing for my success. We need what Chavez has, oil? If we would drill our own — this is what’s stupid. We go kiss the hand of the Saudi king, and we go down there, bow down to Hugo Chavez. Why? Because they both have oil? We have oil, too! We just don’t have a president that wants to go get it. We don’t have a Democrat Party wants to go get our own. We rather have a Democrat Party that would like to see their president run around and kiss the ass of people like the Saudi king and Hugo Chavez who is a blatant anti-liberty communist and socialist dictator!
I don’t want to get along with people like that. We could squash ’em like a bug, you say? Who have we squashed like a bug recently? The last time we tried to squash anybody like a bug, the president and his people get sued for committing torture. The last time we tried to squash people like a bug were the people that killed 3,000 Americans, and your party tried to do everything it could to stop us from succeeding in defeating that enemy. Now your party has a president that’s now kissing ass with people who hate the United States of America, and accepting books from people who have written how this is the worst place in the world, the United States — you can have it, but I’m not going to try to become friends with ass — people like that.
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RUSH: Okay, so we have to talk to each other, right? When was the last time President Obama spoke to me? He doesn’t speak to me. He’s directed his hacks to attack me while he makes friends with enemies of the United States of America. Talk to your enemies? Don’t fall for it, you saps.
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RUSH: We go to Philadelphia, Rich, I’m glad you waited, sir. You’re next. It’s your big show biz break.
CALLER: I was looking at these pictures over the weekend, and I got just a sick feeling in the pit of my stomach. It was just awful to see this man hobnob with tyrants and be so comfortable with them. And as far as I’m concerned, what he says is no different than Jeremiah Wright except he says it in a more socially acceptable way, but his ideas are exactly the same.
RUSH: Well, it certainly matters who his mentors were, and it certainly matters who his associates are. Well, it’s amazing how much Obama doesn’t know despite how smart he is. ‘Well, he didn’t know Reverend Wright was saying all that. He didn’t know that Bill Ayers was doing all that bombing. And he didn’t know Blagojevich was doing anything wrong in Illinois. He didn’t know that Mayor Daley was doing — he didn’t know anything. He’s such a nice guy, couldn’t possibly have known.’ Here, listen to this, Friday night, Port of Spain, Trinidad and Tobago, President Obama, after Ortega’s remarks.
OBAMA: To move forward, we cannot let ourselves be prisoners of past disagreements. I’m very grateful that president Ortega — (applause) I’m grateful that president Ortega did not blame me for things that happened when I was three months old. That too often an opportunity to build a fresh partnership with the Americas has been undermined by stale debates. I didn’t come here to debate the past. I came here to deal with the future.
RUSH: Yeah, but on what framework? ‘I’m glad he didn’t blame me for things I did when I was three months old.’ It sounds like he said that Ortega was right about America before the arrival of The Messiah. (paraphrasing) ‘I’m glad he didn’t blame me for things happening when I was three months old, but we don’t want to think about the past anymore, with stale ideas of the past, stale debates. I didn’t come here to debate the past. I came here to deal with the future.’ Yeah, but on what basis? Do you come to debate the future accepting the premise of these tyrants and dictators of the United States, their premise of us as a mean-spirited, dangerous, murderous country? The last famous person who said ‘I didn’t come here to talk about the past, I want to deal with the future,’ was Mark McGwire of the St. Louis Cardinals before a congressional hearing on steroids.