RUSH: Jennifer Rubin at Commentary magazine: ‘How bad is the Ground Zero mosque story for the White House? Bad enough that Obama advisers are pointing fingers at the president and trying to absolve themselves of the fiasco. Politico reports: Prior to the decision, [Rahm] Emanuel and Obama’s communications staff vividly — and presciently — predicted that Obama would be handing Republicans a weapon to batter Democrats as weak-kneed on terrorism three months before the midterms, according to several people familiar with the situation. In other words, not our fault! Valerie Jarrett and David Axelrod, the president’s most devoted cheerleaders for the most extreme liberal positions, were all for it, you see. But not Emanuel and the communications team because they are smart enough — they remind us — to tell Obama what a harebrained idea this was. But it wouldn’t look good, especially for Emanuel, who had his own bout of ‘not my fault’ media coverage early in the year, to look so blatantly disloyal. So he throws in an e-mail: ‘Give me a break,’ Emanuel e-mailed POLITICO when asked about a press report that he had opposed the move. ‘We all stand behind and support the president’s decision.’
‘But on background, you guys should know: ‘not my fault!’ What is clear is that Axelrod and Jarrett, arguably the most powerful of Obama’s team, also possess the worst instincts: No one supported Obama more forcefully than Jarrett, Obama’s close friend and the administration’s liaison to the civil rights community, who told people she thought the mosque issue was a matter of core Democratic principle, according to several sources familiar with her actions. And Axelrod, a canny tactician with a keen sensitivity to political danger, didn’t dissuade his boss from jumping in, citing his own parents’ experiences with religious persecution as Jews in Europe.
‘Well,’ Jennifer Rubin says, ‘I guess his sensitivity to political danger was on the fritz. And his disgusting invocation of the Nazi analogy — make no mistake, the American people get the role of the Nazis in this one, and the Muslims are awarded the status of potential Holocaust victims — suggests his undiluted leftism has rendered him…’ Anyway, the bottom line is that they’re divided at the White House over this. So I take you back to the audio sound bite we played of Mark Halperin who, with Scarborough today, was worrying on the air, (paraphrasing) ‘Why did he just leave this incomplete and unclosed as he goes on vacation? Why did he leave the wound of the mosque at Ground Zero wide open?’ Maybe because he wants to. Does anybody ever stop to think that this man does what he intends to do? That he has intended to inflict damage on the American private sector? Look, somebody who advocates trying Khalid Sheikh Mohammed in Manhattan and giving him a two-year forum to bash America, it’s not a big stretch to see the same guy not having a problem with a mosque at Ground Zero.
These people are in denial. They’ve got this image of Obama that they constructed as brilliant, smarter than everybody else in the room, and then when it doesn’t fit, they can’t double back and say, ‘Boy, what a stupid tone deaf guy.’ They have to blame us, ‘Rush Limbaugh, calling him Imam Obama, that’s why people are starting to wonder whether he’s a Muslim.’ No. It’s because he said that he’s a Christian and people don’t believe him. (interruption) What is it, Snerdley? All right. You’re asking the same question that Mark Halperin asked: ‘How could Obama not know?’ My point is he does know, he did know. I don’t know that he wants to blow up the Democrat Party. I think he’s willing to blow up the Democrat Party in order to get done the other things he wants to do. I mean, when’s the last time he was concerned about a Democrat winning reelection anyway other than himself? I mean he’s been blowing up the Democrat Party chances ever since he started insisting on the Porkulus, every legislative agenda item. If Obama cared about his party he woulda stopped them from doing everything they’ve done. But he’s been in there pushing ’em from behind and putting their name on it.
Remember the White House is out there saying it’s not Obamacare. The bill originated in Congress. We have somebody here who was raised and educated to believe the worst things about this country. And he thinks this country has a lesson or two to learn, that we’ve been imperialists, aggressors, oppression, we’ve spread it all over the world. Look at what his pastor said of 9/11, ‘America’s chickens have come home to roost.’ His pastor. Look, we’re not stupid. We do not believe a man who tells us he doesn’t hear what his preacher says for 20 years. For 20 years we don’t believe somebody doesn’t hear the preacher. Sorry. Too big a stretch. President Obama, Senator Obama, what about when Wright said… ‘I never heard that when I attended services.’ Well, you heard it now. ‘Well, those are videotapes.’ No, they’re released by the church. ‘Oh, well, no, I really haven’t heard that.’ We don’t believe this. Most normal people, when they choose a church, want to hear that what pastor says and they remember it. This guy chooses a church and then tells us he doesn’t remember anything the guy said or he didn’t hear any of that? Sorry. We don’t believe it. So when the pastor of Obama’s church, the man who Obama says mentored him to Christianity, said of the 9/11 attacks, (paraphrasing) ‘America’s chickens have come home to roost — this is what happens when you murder and kill around the world.’ Well, if that’s who mentored you, if that’s your pastor, forgive us, we think you heard him say it.
So it’s not, therefore, a stretch to believe that Obama might think America has a couple lessons to learn. Has he not apologized every chance he’s had when on foreign soil for this country? Has he not? He must think the country’s guilty. He’s out there apologizing. Is it a big stretch to believe that he would support the building of a mosque at Ground Zero because we need to be taught a lesson? It has nothing to do with whether he’s a Muslim or not. Given the way he’s raised and educated, look, it’s clear this man does not believe the concept of American exceptionalism and if you don’t believe that, you don’t believe in America. It’s just that simple. You believe in something else, and you may want America to be something else other than America. Do you hear him talk about the greatness of the country? Do you hear him trying to inspire people to continue the greatness of the country? You don’t hear that. You hear them talk about an America in decline. You go to the G20, the G8, the G-Whiz convention and they say the days of Americans leading the world economy are over. Well, sorry. We hear that, and it has a specific meaning.
When his attorney general is hell-bent on bringing the mastermind of the 9/11 attacks, who wants to be executed, to New York City for a trial which would be near Ground Zero, we all know what this mastermind’s going to do, he’s gonna rip America to shreds, gonna end up blaming America for it, might find some jurors in New York who agree, it’s not a stretch to believe that he didn’t mean it when he said he supported the mosque at Ground Zero. But he did mean it. What’s hard for me to believe is the way the left wants us to believe, that he doesn’t mean what he says. Not just in this instance but a whole lot of other things. He’s got a communications problem. How can he be the best communicator ever and have all these problems? How can he be the best communicator in the world and have a prompter everywhere he goes? And if it’s on the prompter it was meant to be said. And it was on the prompter at the Iftar dinner, so it was intended. If you videotape a TV show and you review it before it airs you intend for what’s seen to be seen. Otherwise you’d edit it out. You put it on the prompter, make it clear you think they have a right to build this mosque near Ground Zero, the hallmark of American openness for it to happen. You mean for it to be said. So after meaning it, then these guys like Halperin come along and say, ‘I can’t believe he went on vacation and didn’t fix this mess.’ It’s a mess he made on purpose, and now he’s on the links, Our Lady of the Fairways, and you people are blaming me for all of it, which is exactly what he wanted to happen.
BREAK TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: Steve in the Cape…? Which ‘cape’? Cape Girardeau? It could have been Cape Cod. We talked about Cape Cod. Cape Girardeau, Missouri, Steve. That’s my hometown. How are you, sir?
CALLER: Good. Greetings from the ‘City of Roses.’
RUSH: Thank you, sir.
CALLER: First-time caller.
RUSH: Thank you, sir, very much.
CALLER: I was six years behind you in school, but I used to listen to you on KGMO.
RUSH: (laughing) Is that right? (laughing) Wow.
CALLER: I was the one that called every day and said, ‘Man, play In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida, will ya?’
RUSH: (laughing) I’ll search my memory archives. In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida.
CALLER: Yeah. Iron Butterfly.
RUSH: I remember. A lot of people thought it was ‘In the Garden of Eden.’
CALLER: Rush, I want to tell you: You have a brilliant mind, and I’m so grateful you are on our side.
RUSH: Thank you very much, sir. I appreciate that.
CALLER: Listen, one quick comment before I ask my question. I can tell you that as a pastor of a fairly large church that I am held accountable for literally every word that comes across the pulpit, and I have been scrutinized for one offhanded remark for weeks, and it is not reasonable to think that the president did not know what was being preached by Jeremiah Wright.
RUSH: Of course.
CALLER: Only unreasonable people and people that are willfully blind would accept that argument.
RUSH: Right. For 20 years he didn’t hear any of that stuff.
CALLER: It’s just not credible.
RUSH: It wasn’t the Jeremiah Wright that he knew. Sorry, it’s not believable. Exactly right.
CALLER: My question is, I really view these upcoming elections in November as probably the most important at least in my adult lifetime. I feel like it’s our last chance to turn back the tide of socialism. My question to you is do you think — number one, do you think — we can take back the Senate; and number two, which races do you feel the mosque issue might play a key role in?
RUSH: I think… Yes, I think we can take the Senate. I actually think — and I will go out on a limb because in the big scheme, it’s early. In politics, anything can happen at any time. And it’s just, what, the middle of August, just past the middle of August. But on the House side, I think it’s going to be a bigger blowout than any of the inside-the-Beltway experts think. I think it’s going to be bigger than ’94. I think the morning after people who are already expecting this to be a big blowout are going to be shocked. I mean on the Democrat side. They’re already trying to condition the fall here by saying, ‘Well, ’94 was a surprise. We know it’s coming this year.’ That isn’t going to stop anything. It’s going to be bigger than they think.
They’re going to be shocked. They really believed, in 2006 and 2008, that those elections meant that we had become a leftist — not a center left, but a leftist — socialist country. They really thought that’s what that meant. And then they create this perfect character of Obama. They create a resume that’s perfect, that doesn’t require any proof. ‘Smartest guy in the world!’ We never saw the grades. ‘Law Review!’ We never saw anything he wrote. I mean, they create created a character; a perfect, perfect figure in every way. ‘He’s smarter than everybody else! He’s brighter, better spoken. Better resume. Unique! Unlike anything we’d ever seen,’ and they got 53 or 54% of people to buy it, which is really not a big number, considering all of the advantages they had, all the bias, all the unified approaches in the media.
But they still thought that this meant one of two things: Either they had cowed the country into believing leftism-socialism was the best for them, or that the country had actually become that. Now they’re learning and they’re shocked and angry and mad that that’s not the reality — and they lash out, as only they can, at the people. It’s not Obama’s fault for being unacceptable. It’s not Obama’s fault for not representing the greatness of America. It’s our fault for not understanding greatness of Obama. It’s our fault for not understanding and accepting the perfect, phony baloney resume of the guy that they created (and that he lived off of, by the way). So here’s this guy who’s Mr. Perfect! His words alone were going to change the world. We find out that his words haven’t changed diddly-squat. Obama has found out that the magic that he had in university that turned a C into an A — that made him a special person and put him at the top of every class he was in — is gone.
He found out that that magic does not hold, that this job requires work, and he’s really never had to work. He’s been a chosen one for a whole host of reasons (which I’m not gonna bother getting into here) for most of his life. Now he finds out that’s not enough. It’s not enough to make all the socialist Europeans love him, not enough to make all of the Muslims around the world love him, certainly not enough to make the American people bow down and just thank him for being alive. And so he says, ‘Okay, the heck with it. I’m gonna enjoy the perks. I’m going to go play golf, and I’m gonna screw this place up as bad as I can, and I’m gonna write books about it when I get outta here and I’m gonna make more millions — and if I serve a second time term, I’ll screw it up even more. If I don’t, so what? I’ll enjoy the perks as much as I can.’
Somebody just sent me an e-mail that was pretty good. ‘Barack Obama is the parsley on the dinner plate. It’s decorative but you don’t eat it. You cast it away. It gets in the way.’ Barack Obama is the parsley on the dinner plate of America. So, yeah, I think the mosque issue is cumulative. It is just the latest in a long line of things that has told the American people: This is not the guy that they told us he was. He’s not the guy he told us he was, certainly not the guy he thought he was. I do think we can win the Senate, but (and there’s always a ‘but’ with these) then what do we do? The Republicans are going to win the House and win the Senate. What we need is for the dominant guiding philosophy in the Republican Party to be conservatism. We’ll see. The ruling class is the ruling class.
I’m not trying to throw cold water on anything here, folks. I’m trying to be realistic, and by ‘realistic’ I’m saying: This is the greatest opportunity conservatives have ever had to contrast themselves with anybody on the left. I mean, there is no greater illustration who they are than this guy, his regime, and this leadership in the Senate and the House. There’s therefore no greater opportunity to contrast Reaganism (for example, just to be brief) with socialism, and I don’t see the Republicans doing it. I see a couple doing it, like Paul Ryan, but I don’t see many. The Republicans are simply sitting around and waiting for the Democrats to be voted against when I think they’re a little bit… Their theory is: ‘When your opponent’s committing suicide, stand away. You know, stand aside and let it happen,’ which makes sense, to a point.
But at some point they’re going to have to stand for something so that their people have an issue mandate other than ‘We’re not Obama,’ other than, ‘We’re not Democrats.’ So the work will continue, is my only point, after the elections if things hold as they appear to. (interruption) Yeah, I know, I know, I know. No matter what I say, everybody wants to get in on the act. Everybody wants… (interruption) I know parsley is a digestive aid. I know it helps digestion and that’s the real reason it’s on the plate, and Obama doesn’t help digestion. I understand this. (laughing) But the analogy is the appearance. Obama is the parsley on the plate. Have you ever noticed that nothing is ever his fault? If the steak comes out too well done, you don’t blame the parsley. You blame the chef. Obama is just like parsley. He never gets the blame. Not on his side, anyway, and certainly not in the media. It’s always Bush’s fault. Even now.
Who’s next? Cameron in Hartford, Connecticut, you’re next on the EIB Network. Hello.
CALLER: Good day, Doctor.
RUSH: Good day, sir.
CALLER: I just wanted to follow up your comments and say that Juan Williams is being specifically consistent in character, but first I wanted to caution you on this. You’re falling into the same trap that everybody is thinking that there’s going to be any change in the November election. The polls in the last election, 2008, were co-opted by the 327 affiliates of ACORN. They found that they could get away with it, and that the culprits could walk and they would be given a free pass by Eric Holder. So don’t think that you’re going to have the opportunity to vote validly in this election unless somebody goes and cleanses the registrars of voter offices.
RUSH: Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, I think it’s going to be so big it’s gonna overcome all that. They can cheat all they want, but they’re facing such a depressed attitude on their side, they’re going to have to work harder than ever or pay more money than ever to get people out to vote. They’re going to have to put out more buses. They’re going to have to do a whole lot of things. There just isn’t any energy on their side of things. Besides, Joe Bite Me says that we are not going to take Congress, and Joe Bite Me is never right. He is always wrong. So you can put that in our column, too. But I understand your reason for being cautious.
CALLER: Back to Juan Williams.
RUSH: Yes?
CALLER: His comments are typically in character for him. As a matter of fact, you were away and Mark Davis was in for you at the time —
RUSH: Mmmm.
CALLER: — that he went on with Brian Lamb in a C-SPAN interview Sunday morning. I’m sitting there eating breakfast, and Juan Williams called for a new set of Founding Fathers and I almost dropped my scrambled eggs. I said, ‘Did I hear what I think I heard?’ and sure enough, he did. And the next day I had the opportunity to mention this to Mark, and anybody such as Juan Williams who calls for ‘a new group of Founding Fathers’ is doesn’t have a conservative bone in his body and has no place on any Fox News Channel that holds itself out as right-thinking, and —
RUSH: No. It’s fair and balanced. ‘Fair and balanced’ means you have to put some idiocy on the air.
CALLER: Well, well said, and for him to call for Van Jones can be Kevin Jennings, the safe school czar to be a new Founding Father? Barack Obama.
RUSH: Oh, he named ’em?
CALLER: No, he was not specific, but he was talking about the current regime.
RUSH: I was gonna ask you ‘Who should be the new Founding Fathers?’ and if I was on the list.
CALLER: Well, it goes with Eric Holder; Van Jones —
RUSH: Yeah.
CALLER: — Kevin Jennings, the safe school czar, the most dangerous man in Washington today —
RUSH: Right.
CALLER: — if you understand what his mission is.
RUSH: Yes.
CALLER: And William Ayers and the whole gang of thugs in Chicago where politics is run the way it is, and now that’s national. That’s why there will be no change because the voting booths were taken over by these communists the last time and —
RUSH: Yeah, but let me tell you something. It’s really much harder to steal elections in the midterms. Without a presidential election on the ballot, it’s really harder. The turnout is much lower, and it makes fraud stick out all the more. It’s much easier to hide the fraud during a presidential election year. Anyway, Cameron, thanks much for the phone call.
BREAK TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: Greenville, South Carolina, this is Warren. Hi, Warren, great to have you with us on the program.
CALLER: Yes, sir. Appreciate you taking my call. I just wanted to say for starters that I’ve heard you say many times that you’re like 98.7% right —
RUSH: Point six. Almost always 99.6.
CALLER: Well, you’re talking to somebody that’s about 99.8% right most of the time. My wife calls me Mr. Right, and I call her Miss Can’t Be Wrong. But, anyway, I appreciate your taking my call. I just want to say that I’m neither Republican nor Democrat. I lean more toward the Democrat, but I’m somewhat, you know, in the middle, and I would like to say that there’s good and bad in every group of people, whether they’re Christians, Muslims, Islamic, that type thing. But I just want to say about the things that President Obama says, I think it’s important that we, you know, speak truthfully as to what he actually says. For instance, when you said that he supports the mosque, I’ve never heard him say he supports the mosque. He says he supports the right. Then you come back and say he backpedaled and said he wasn’t speaking on the wisdom of it. You know, I don’t think the mosque should be built there but I agree with the right and I just think it’s important that, you know, we speak what the — we report what —
RUSH: Well, then there shouldn’t be any controversy here because he really didn’t say anything. I mean everybody knows that they’ve got a right to build a church.
CALLER: Yes. Yes.
RUSH: And he said they’ve got a right to build a church there.
CALLER: On private property, yes, sir.
RUSH: It sounded like he supported the idea.
CALLER: Well, he just supports the right. And some people came back and said he’s defending the Constitution, and then —
RUSH: All right, fine. There’s no controversy, then, because he really didn’t say anything.
CALLER: And then later when you reported that he says hearing the call to worship by the Muslims is the most beautiful sound he’s ever heard, it’s one of the most beautiful sounds —
RUSH: He said it’s the most beautiful sound in the world, not that he’s ever heard.
CALLER: One, yes, one of the most, but not the most.
RUSH: Okay, he really didn’t say that, either, then.
CALLER: Well, he said it was one of, not the most.
RUSH: Well, that doesn’t mean anything. It’s one of, there could be a gazillion most beautiful sounds in the world and that’s just one them. It might not even matter even though he made a specific point of —
CALLER: Yes, my point is that when you report it, you’re saying that he said it was the most. He supports the right, not he didn’t support the mosque. So we’re distorting things that —
RUSH: Okay, so he really wasn’t for health care per se, he just likes people having it? Yeah. Okay. He’s not for green energy and cap and trade. He just thinks it’s smart. We got to be careful, that’s right, how we report these things. And, of course, the biggest problem that we’re going to have when we report these things is actually quoting Obama. This is the first time I’ve gotten in trouble for actually quoting him correctly. Normally I’m accused of making it up, which I don’t do. Now I’m in trouble for getting it right. Imagine that.