RUSH: Okay, back to the phones to Austin, Texas, next. Gerald, hello, sir. Thanks for your patience. I’m glad you waited. Hi.
CALLER: Hi. How you doing, Rush?
RUSH: Very well, sir. Thank you.
CALLER: Thanks for taking my call.
RUSH: You bet.
CALLER: You are a master of critical thinking.
RUSH: Thank you very much, sir. I appreciate that.
CALLER: I wanted to talk about the fact that right now the greatest chance of a compromise bill in the Senate does appear to be in the Senate Finance committee, and there are five Republicans in that committee. They have a habit of compromising with the Democrats. And I see a lot of people at the town hall meetings protesting against the Democrats. I’m not hearing a lot of people protesting against these Republicans.
RUSH: Well, name these five Republicans in the Senate.
CALLER: I will do that. Chuck Grassley of Iowa.
RUSH: Well, now, Grassley is being pretty vociferous against this.
CALLER: That’s true. That is true. Olympia Snowe, Susan Collins of Maine.
RUSH: Yeah, it’s always a problem there.
CALLER: Yeah. Michael Enzi of Wyoming, and Lindsey Graham of South Carolina.
RUSH: Yeah, Grahamnesty is a problem. I don’t know what Grahamnesty’s objective is here. Enzi… Yeah, but are these people having town meetings?
CALLER: That is a good question.
RUSH: I haven’t seen a Grahamnesty town hall. I’m not saying they haven’t. I just haven’t seen any. But as a result of your call today, if any of them do have town meetings about this, people will show up.
CALLER: Absolutely. And on the 22nd there’s a national recess rally. You know, they could make their voices heard then as well.
RUSH: It’s not these five Republicans in the Senate. We have to figure… Look, even if these five Republicans go along with it, it doesn’t matter, because the Republicans don’t have the votes to stop this in the Senate anyway. We’re talking about using ‘reconciliation,’ which only requires 51 votes, which is a typical ethics violation that Harry Reid has said they’re thinking about doing so the Republicans in the Senate are really not where the action is on this ’cause they can get 60 or 51 votes without ’em. It’s the Blue Dog Democrats. It’s in the House of Representatives where this thing lives or dies. It’s these Blue Dogs. I’ve been harping on this for the past couple of weeks and they’re going to have to decide how they want to be seen by their constituents.
Do they want to be seen as far left, out-of-control, wild-spending radicals no different than Barack Obama or do they want to be seen as the ‘fiscal conservatives’ that their voters think they are. That’s going to be their question. The question they’re going to ask themselves is: ‘Do I succumb to the threats of Rahm Emanuel and Pelosi in exchange for reelection assistance and maybe some vote fraud assistance from ACORN, or do I remain true to my constituents and what I promised them I would do when I came here to represent them?’ and that is be fiscally responsible, conservative. With Rahm Emanuel and these guys in there saying, ‘You go ahead. You can go ahead and be responsible to your constituents and we’ll find somebody to run against you and we’ll make sure you lose in the primary. Or you can vote with us. Your constituents can hate you but we’ll protect you from them. Because, remember, we don’t care about our constituents, either. This isn’t about constituents. This is about President Obama and what he wants, and if you help Obama get what he wants — which is a monument to himself — we will take care of you but you never better betray us or it’s Fort Marcy Park.’ Figuratively speaking. This is the question that the Blue Dog Democrats are going to have to decide.
BREAK TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: Here’s Grassley. He was at a Winterset, Iowa, health care town hall meeting. This is a very short bite, it’s about eight seconds, but this is what he said about Obamacare.
GRASSLEY: You have every right to fear. We should not have a government program that determines you’re gonna pull the plug on grandma.
RUSH: ‘You have every right to fear,’ he said. ‘We should not have a government program that determines you’re going to pull the plug on grandma,’ which is exactly what we’re going to have to. Now, Ben Cardin, another town hall meeting in Hagerstown yesterday. A woman stood up.
WOMAN: What are you going to do to restore trust and faith in the American people that you know what you’re doing and that you’re not putting us and our children and grandchildren in debt over health care, cap and trade, and creating of (sic) the illegals to get out of our country? What are you going to do?
AUDIENCE: (wild cheers and applause)
CARDIN: We’re — We’re going to have a — There’s — there’s going to be some disagreement in this room and I understand that.
AUDIENCE: (laughter)
CARDIN: I — I think that the President Obama administration has already started to restore trust in health care by being —
AUDIENCE: (wild booing)
RUSH: These guys! Of all the things to say! Obama’s already starting to restore trust in health care? The numbers continue to plummet. It’s like Claire McCaskill asking yesterday, ‘Don’t you trust me?’ ‘No-o-o-o-o,’ and went on and on and on. ‘You gotta understand, I think Obama’s already started to restore trust in health care…’ Booooo’! Scott Rasmussen. Cookie just flashed me here. Scott Rasmussen just posted this on Facebook. New poll result: 44% trust the Republicans more than Democrats at 41% on health care. The public trusts Republicans 44 to 41% over Democrats on health care. That’s the first time that the Republicans have ever had an edge on health care. (interruption) No, it’s not yet time to get giddy. Everybody keeps asking, ‘Is it time to get giddy?’ You get giddy when we beat it back, when it doesn’t happen, when it’s stopped. Don’t get giddy. Giddiness is for when it’s over. Hang in there with me, folks. I mean, this is getting good. It’s getting better. Ben Cardin, ‘I think Obama’s started to restore trust in health care by…’ and the place blows up.