Dingy Harry: Wait ‘Til Next Year

RUSH: I want you to listen to Dingy Harry in Washington yesterday on Capitol Hill, had a press conference. Reporter said, ‘You think you can pass health care reform this year?’

REID: First of all, we’re not going to be bound by any timelines. We need to do the best job we can for the American people. We want quality legislation and we’re going to do that. We’re going to do this legislation as expeditiously as we can, but we’re going to do it as fairly as we can also.

RUSH: Now, wait a second. Wait a second. What was this big press conference about last week announcing this thing? Done, sent over to the CBO to have it scored. Pelosi, going to have a vote Friday. And now Reid can’t commit to it being done this year. There’s an ABC story by Jonathan Karl: ”Senior Congressional Democrats Now Say Reform Before End of Year is Highly Unlikely’ — Senior Congressional Democrats told ABC News today it is highly unlikely that a health care reform bill will be completed this year, just a week after President Barack Obama declared he was ‘absolutely confident’ he’ll be able to sign one by then. ‘Getting this done by the by the end of the year is a no-go,’ a senior Democratic leadership aide told ABC News. Two other key Congressional Democrats also told ABC News the same thing. This may come as an unwelcome surprise for the White House, where officials from the president on down have repeatedly said the health care bill would be signed into law by the end of the year. ‘I am absolutely confident that we are going to get health care done by the end of this year, and Nancy Pelosi is just as confident,’ Obama said Oct. 27 at a fundraiser for the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee.’ But after Reid made his comments, other spokesmen out there are saying, ‘We’re not going to be finished this year.’

‘The delay is causing some frustration among Reid’s fellow Democrats, but Reid said of his colleagues, ‘They want us to do this the right way, not the fast way.” Well, now, something doesn’t jibe here, folks, because last I heard about this there was going to be this giant vote Friday in the House, Harry Reid was getting his bill back next week from the CBO, and that it was a pretty done deal. I’m wondering if all of this is not just a giant, big bluff that’s been called to try to make people think something was a fait accompli next week when it’s not. Now all this talk about not getting it done before the end of the year, I wonder if the purpose of that is to sort of tame the crowd that’s going to show up tomorrow in Washington. Folks, don’t believe anything you hear coming out of this. We’re dealing with Democrats, we’re dealing with people that do not care what you think, but they don’t want to stare you in the face when they hear you tell ’em that you don’t tell what they’re doing. But to all of a sudden have this news out that they’re not going to get this done by the end of the year? Obama has said, by the way, that if it doesn’t get done by the end of the year it doesn’t get done. I mean, that’s how precious the timeline on this is, and now Dingy Harry not committing to it.

And here’s something else. Dingy Harry sent his bill, his health care bill, over to the CBO to have it scored. And everybody’s been commenting about the contents of the bill and the cost. The Republicans haven’t seen it. So the Republicans sent him a letter: ‘Could you please release the text of the bill to us?’ And Dingy Harry wrote back and said the bill does not exist. It hasn’t been written yet. ‘Apart from my decision to include a public option from which states may opt out, no final decisions have been made — and none can be made until we get more information about how CBO would score different combinations.’ This is all in quotes from Harry Reid’s response letter. ‘No final decisions have been made. There is no bill to release publicly. It does not exist.’ There is no bill in the Senate, the Baucus bill was not a bill. It was a draft and it had phony numbers in it. It got scored by the CBO a certain way, didn’t have the public option. That’s how Olympia Snowe was brought on board, Dingy Harry getting heat from the left: we’re going to have a public option with a state opt-out. I think we’re being hosed. I don’t think they’re anywhere near where they want to be on this, but they want us to think it’s imminent.

Regardless, this rally in Washington tomorrow, you know, Levin is going to be there and Jon Voight, and people from all over the country are showing up at this thing, and I just wonder if all this news here isn’t designed to make people relax and think they don’t have to go. Don’t fall for it, folks. There’s something about this, I’m really not comfortable saying they’re bluffing, because when you say they’re bluffing, you allow yourself to be convinced that they’re not close. But I know how desperate they are to get this, and I know that they will do whatever they can to get this. I also know that the ‘no’ votes on this will be influenced by people in person, in Washington, shaking your finger and saying, ‘No, you don’t. We don’t want this.’ Now Dingy Harry won’t commit to it the end of the year. White House is upset, concerned. What is going on? Anybody got any ideas?

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: ‘Joe Lieberman says Harry Reid lied is in fact true,’ that Fox has reported it. ‘Yesterday Senator Reid’s office reported that the Majority Leader and the Connecticut Senator reached a secret deal where the Senator will not vote for a filibuster but will continue to vote against the bill in the final roll call: But sources said Reid’s staff is telling liberal interest groups that Lieberman (Conn.) has assured Reid he will vote with Democrats in the necessary procedural vote to end debate, perhaps with intentions to change the bill. ‘Lieberman keeps assuring Reid that he’s OK,’ said one source. ‘But he’s one of those characters — you never know with Joe.” But ‘A spokesman for Sen. Joe Lieberman refuted a report Tuesday that the Connecticut senator struck a secret deal with Majority Leader Harry Reid in which he promised not to block a final vote on health care reform. The Hill newspaper reported Tuesday that Reid’s staff told liberal interest groups that Lieberman had assured Reid that he will vote with Democrats… Lieberman spokesman Marshall Wittmann vehemently denied reports of a clandestine understanding between the two lawmakers, telling Fox News, ‘If you believe this story is true, you will also believe that I am replacing A-Rod in game six of the series.” So Harry Reid is just lying about it. Just lying about it. So that’s that. I’m happy I was able to straighten that out.