RUSH: There’s a big, long piece, I guess coming Sunday in the New York Times Magazine, Peter Baker wrote it, it’s about Obama. And, folks, I saw a story at the National Enquirer, I guess it was a week or two ago, I don’t read it, somebody told me about it, that there were marital problems, and 
Michelle was laying down the law of the land, telling Obama you are not running for a second term. I don’t want any part of this. I don’t like living here. Of course we pooh-poohed the story at the time. And there were reports of marital strife in the relationship, and of course you pooh-pooh all of that. Now this New York Times story, I wouldn’t be surprised if Barack and Michelle have some marital problems. ‘Cause after reading this it’s obvious they’re both in love with the same guy, and I don’t know if there’s room for that. We shall see. It’s an incredible piece. It really is. Democrats are saying you don’t do this kind of navel-gazing three weeks before the election. And we were told that Obama arrived the most brilliant, the most aware, we’ve never had anybody trod the soil like Obama. He was gonna unify everybody, great postpartisan, postracial, ‘posteverything.’ This piece talks about the education of Obama. He’s gotten to Washington, he didn’t know anything about it and he’s still learning. It’s just incredible because they’re doing everything they can in the State-Controlled Media to limit the damage.
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RUSH: We mentioned this yesterday, and other people are just now picking up on it. President Obama reveals in this New York Times Magazine article that he is weighing what to do if Republicans win the House majority next month. He’s come up with a novel approach, and that is to make the Republican Party work with him. If the Republicans win, it’s going to be up to them to move in his direction.
Folks, I have to tell you, I’ve spoken in the last week or so to several additional ranking Republicans, in addition to what I told you about last week, and they all without exception expect Obama, if there’s this big Republican sweep, expect Obama to moderate, move to the center as Clinton did, and I’m stunned that they still have this neophyte vision of who and what Obama is. If he was gonna move to the center he could have gotten health care passed a lot sooner than he did. He couldn’t get it even after he lost the Kennedy seat when Scott Brown won, he easily could have given the Republicans two or three things. He could have found two or three of them that woulda gone along with it, and he coulda claimed he had a bipartisan bill, but he didn’t. He dug in, and he wanted to do it without ’em. We’re faced with a different animal here, and Republicans are running around telling people, ‘Look, we’re not going to control the government, we’re not going to have that much power, we’re not going to be able to repeal things.
There’s even a story out, Bill McInturff, pollster: (paraphrasing) ‘You gotta be real careful on this repeal stuff, gotta be real careful, Republicans, because there’s some stuff in this health care bill that people like.’ What? What in the world is in this that people like? Every story we’ve got about it, premiums are going up, kids are not being kept on their parents’ policies. Hospitals are shutting down. What is in this that people want so far? Nobody’s out there celebrating and talking about aspects of it that they like.
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RUSH: Back to this New York Times piece. I mean, this is epic. This prints out to 16 pages. It’s going to run Sunday in the New York Times Magazine. It’s all about how Obama’s got a lot to learn and Washington’s not what he thought it was, and it’s proving to be a bigger task than he thought. I read this, and I’m struck by the very same people — New York Times, Peter Baker, you name ’em — all told us this man was so brilliant, was gonna lower the sea levels! He was going to unite people, the world was going to love us, the terrorists would lay down their arms. The whole planet would heal! We would be postracial. There would be no racial strife, no division, postpartisan. There wasn’t going to be any partisanship.
We’re a more divided country than before, especially along racial lines. We’re being led by somebody who has to govern against the will of the people, knowingly. We have somebody whose policies are, for whatever reason, accident or design, destroying the private sector — the job creation engine of this country. And the Drive-Bys rebuke the State-Controlled Media, the flacks are very much concerned. Here’s a very typical example. Richard Wolffe was on MSNBC last night. Their new slogan, ‘Lean Forward.’ Lean Forward: This Won’t Hurt Much. Keith Olbermann talking to Richard Wolffe about Obama about this New York Times article. Question: ‘Is there not the potential for deenergizing the base included in much of that interview with the New York Times?’
WOLFFE: (shouting) Yes! Of course there is! You don’t engage in this kind of navel-gazing for a piece that is gonna come out three weeks — or less — before an election like this! This is the kind of reflection you want to do after an election! This isn’t a sort of a third-party analysis! He is theeeeee central figure in this election and I cannot for the life of me understand why the White House would want to engage with this kind of article at this point!
RUSH: Well, let me tell you. To me, I think this is fascinating. These are the guys, again, that told us that we have never seen anybody like this. We’ve never seen anybody this smart, nobody this competent. The One we had all been waiting for! Nobody had ever trod the soil like Obama, and now, Richard Wolffe says, ‘I can’t for the life of me understand why the White House would want to engage in this kind of article at this point’? Grab sound bite 19. This will help explain it. This is Douglas Schoen last night on Fox talking about the New York Times interview of Obama.
SCHOEN: It’s pretty clear to me based on this interview that the president is saying, ‘I’ve given up. You’re on your own.’ Right now what I’m hearing from Democrats is the president is only useful for fundraising.
RUSH: And not much of that. So the answer for Mr. Wolffe, ‘I can’t for the life of me understand why the White House would engage in this kind of article at this point,’ is it’s all about him. The party’s going down the tubes and he doesn’t want to go down the tubes with him. And he’s not going to try to help them. In fact, he’s facilitating them going down the tubes. Do you realize not one Democrat running for reelection is running on any of their accomplishments. Not one Democrat running for reelection is proudly talking about what they’ve done. They’re not bragging about the new health care law, they’re not bragging about the stimulus, they’re not bragging about all the shovel-ready jobs they’ve created. They’re not bragging about ending the recession. In fact, Democrats are running away from all of that and a lot of Democrats don’t want Obama in town.
They don’t want him. He’s actually not even that useful as a fundraiser. Now, it’s interesting. The Drive-Bys are trying to tell themselves that it isn’t that bad. They have some internal polling results, and they’re sending these results to each other. I have spies on their networks and I get copies of e-mails they send to each other, and here’s one: ‘Hey, I wanted to get you these just-released polling numbers. There are 20 days left, races are breaking in our direction. Pennsylvania’s Sestak has pulled ahead of Pat Toomey 47 to 40 after the Democrat Senatorial Campaign Committee went on the air with TV ads.’ They’re trying to tell themselves that now that they are spending on TV ads that the polls are turning in their favor. I hate to tell you this, but Pat Toomey has pulled into a double digital lead over Sestak in Pennsylvania.
‘In Nevada Harry Reid’s margin has jumped four points. He’s now leading Sharron Angle 47-45.’ Nope, that isn’t true, she’s up by one. It’s in the margin of error. ‘In West Virginia, Joe Manchin continues to increase his lead over John Raese. Latest poll has him up five points since the DSCC went on the air. Our investments, your investments are paying off.’ So they’re lying to each other. They’re trying to raise money by telling people that they’re already changing their fortunes at the polls simply because money is being spent now. There’s no indication at all. I mean, they’re making up the polling data about this. And in West Virginia, let’s talk about this. Joe Manchin is the governor. This is the Robert Byrd seat. Remember…?
As long as I live, I will never forget the Clinton eulogy for Robert Byrd. (doing impression) ‘Yeah, you know something? He’s a good man. He’s a good man. He came from the hills and the hollers of West Virginia — and back then when he ran for office, he admitted the rest of his life he had to do some things that he really wasn’t comfortable with. He spent the rest of his life apologizing for it. But, you know what? He did it for you! He did it. He had to do it to get elected.’ What was Clinton talking about? He was talking about Byrd as a member of the Ku Klux Klan, the Grand Kleagle or Cyclops or whatever. He was a recruiter. Byrd was a recruiter, and here’s Clinton at the eulogy talking about how he did it for you.
He had to become a member of the Klan to get elected for you. Now, you would never have any… If a Republican tried to say anything like that about a candidate, someone in a eulogy or whatever, the press would have been all over it. Of course with Clinton, the press is swooning. So Joe Manchin, the governor, wants the Byrd seat, and they’re putting out news he’s running ahead of John Raese. What’s he doing? Have you paid any attention to the Manchin campaign? He’s running against cap and trade; he’s running pro-miner; he’s running away from Obama. If you didn’t know better, you would think Joe Manchin is a Reagan Republican. John Raese is a Reagan Republican, and that race is much closer than the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee would have you believe. That race can be won by John Raese.
Now, full disclosure: I happen to know John Raese. He’s a part-time resident here in Palm Beach, and he’s got a locker right across the bench from me at a prominent local club. I’ve never played golf with him, but I’ve met him. And he’s a real deal. He has a tremendous amount of humility, but he’s extremely competent, very successful private sector businessman. And he’s not afraid to tackle controversial things. He said yesterday or the day before, had it in the stack yesterday, I didn’t get to it, he wants to eliminate the minimum wage. He actually said it’s been counterproductive. Now, that’s the kind of thing most Republicans are afraid to go anywhere near because the minimum wage is actually seen as a welfare program for the poor, and if you talk about eliminating it they can say that you’re being cold-hearted and mean-spirited to the poor.
But the bottom line is that it’s telling the truth. It hasn’t helped. We have fifty years of evidence. How’s it helping now? The minimum wage, what’s it doing? Is it helping the unemployment problem? Not a whit. So in these races, the Democrats are telling themselves, ‘Yeah, we’re getting closer. We’re pulling ahead.’ This is just an attempt by them to raise money and try to limit the losses. Here’s some reality. Reuters: ‘September Home Foreclosures Topped 100,000 for the First Time.’ Yep, it’s getting closer! It’s looking better for the Democrats. There’s a reason to vote for them: September home foreclosures top 100,000. ‘Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee Scales Back in Missouri … According to a Republican source who tracks ad buys, the decision removes from across the state an estimated $1.3 million reservation for television ads against [Roy] Blunt.’
They’re taking money away from the Widow Carnahan’s family — and they’re giving it to Harry Reid! That’s the next story. Way to go, Snerdley. That’s exactly right. They’re giving it to Harry Reid. They’re taking the money from the Widow Carnahan’s family in Missouri and they’re funneling it to Harry Reid. They’re sending money and people into Delaware. Now, they’re supposedly up by 20 points over Christine O’Donnell and they’re sending people in there and you hear the reason they’re sending Obama is, ‘Well, this is just too great an opportunity to make the Republicans look like idiots, make ’em all look like a bunch of Christine O’Donnells.’ (interruption) Yes, we’ve got sound bites from that debate. Did you see any of it, did you watch any of it last night? (interruption) I didn’t, either, so we’re going to be listening to this together for the first time.
‘DSCC Makes Large Ad Buys on Reid’s Behalf.’ ‘Senator Harry Reid Hit With Ethics Complaints.’ That’s a yawner but it’s still a headline out there. So they’re trying to tell themselves that all this movement is taking place in the direction of Democrats when it’s not. It’s a feeble attempt at fundraising. And here: ‘Dozens Charged with the Largest Medicare Scam Ever.’ I mean, the news on Obamacare every day is worse and worse and worse. Now, Harry Reid is the second highest ranking Democrat in the land; Obama being first. Harry Reid is second, and the Democratic National Committee has to parachute money into him. They have to take money out of Missouri, parachute into his home state to save him, and he’s running against a supposedly wacko Tea Party person who woulda killed all the miners if she’d a-been down in the mine shaft with them, according to Chris Matthews.
These people are becoming unhinged. And you would be, too. I mean, if you had dreamed all of these years of finally, finally these kinds of supermajorities, and you’ve got your Messiah, ‘The One we’ve all been waiting for’ — supermajorities, to implement every socialist, Marxist, idealistic, utopian idea ever — and you get a bunch of ’em passed, and it doesn’t work, and the country hates you, you’d be deranged too. You’d be coming unhinged. You’d be questioning your own existence, which is in truth what Matthews is doing. It’s fun to see it. You know, I’ve always said that liberals are really fun and deranged when they’re out of power; when they’re in power, they’re dangerous. But now it’s a combination. Because they know they’re going to be out of power pretty soon and they’re coming unhinged. It’s a very entertaining thing to watch.
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RUSH: I’ve been talking about this New York Times interview that prints out to 16 pages. The best way to express this, my favorite part of this interview, let me just read this to you. I want you to keep in mind that Barack Obama, as president, has had a slavish media. He’s had literally no criticism from so-called mainstream media. The mainstream media has propped him up; they have looked the other way; they have created an image of him unlike anybody else. He’s had a supermajority in the House of Representatives; he had 60 votes in the Senate; he had virtually everything in place to get accomplished everything he wanted. The Republicans could not have stopped him, no matter what. They did not have the votes. The Republicans could not have stopped anything Obama wanted to do. He arrives in Washington with this aura of promise, almost messianic. Supporters think that magic is about to happen, that all the things that make ’em unhappy is going to be swept away, that all of the disagreement and the partisanship and the angst and all of the arguments are gonna vanish. The world is going to once again love us. They’re not going to hate us, as they supposedly did because of Bush and Iraq and Afghanistan. Their terrorists will lay down their arms.
This is the way he was positioned, it’s the way he rode into town, this is the way he was immaculated. There was only one voice of dissent throughout this whole country, publicly. It was I, El Rushbo, who said, ‘I hope he fails.’ I mean everybody else on the Republican side was scared to death. They were afraid of any criticism whatsoever because they would be charged with racism. And, by the way, again it was I who said that racism would only get worse, the racial divide would only widen because the left would see to it that any criticism of Obama would be said to be racist. Nobody wants to be called a racist. Nobody wants to run the risk of having that stick, so they didn’t criticize him. Only I said I hope he failed. The bottom line is he had everything. No president has arrived in office with a greater chance, with more support from key areas and a skid totally greased for success. No president has ever been inaugurated with the trappings of power, electorally, politically, that Obama had. Now, keep that in mind.
My favorite part of New York Times interview: ‘In their darkest moments, White House aides wonder aloud whether it is even possible for a modern president to succeed, no matter how many bills he signs. Everything seems to conspire against the idea: an implacable opposition with little if any real interest in collaboration, a news media saturated with triviality and conflict, a culture that demands solutions yesterday, a societal cynicism that holds leadership in low regard. Some White House aides who were ready to carve a new spot on Mount Rushmore for their boss two years ago privately concede now that he cannot be another Abraham Lincoln after all. In this environment, they have increasingly concluded, it may be that every modern president is going to be, at best, average.’
Oh, for crying out loud, grab me the Kleenex, the gusher of tears. If I can’t be great, nobody else can, but even this. Everything seemed to conspire against the idea, an implacable opposition? That’s the Republicans. With little, if any, real interest in collaboration? They couldn’t have stopped him. He had 60 Democrat votes in the Senate. All he had to do is unify his own party. He had a supermajority in the House. The Republicans couldn’t have stopped a thing. And there were several Republicans he coulda co-opted, the RINOs, some of the northeastern Republicans, just give ’em a couple bones, he could have had their votes on health care. He didn’t want their support. This is why, folks, I think he’s actually happy the Republicans are going to have a big sweep. I think he wants Republicans running the House. I think he wouldn’t mind if Republicans run the Senate. I think he’s eager to run against the Republicans. He can’t run against his own party. He can’t blame his failures on his own party. They had every advantage. I mean this is sophistry. An implacable opposition with little, if any, real interest in collaboration. Why is it that collaboration only works in one way? Why isn’t it a shame that Obama did not want to collaborate with them? They had some pretty good ideas.
Why is this collaboration, this bipartisanship, it seems to only work one way? We have to cross the aisle, compromise what we believe, agree with them, and that didn’t happen this time, ‘Oh, poor Obama, there’s no collaboration.’ He didn’t need it. The dirty little secret is that our young boy president couldn’t even unite his own party. A news media saturated with triviality and conflict? How about a news media slavishly devoted to reporting absolute lies and falsehoods about the success and the goodness of his ideas? For crying out loud, the guy hasn’t had one shred of opposition in the so-called mainstream press. There’s nothing but a bunch of people whose tongues are on the ground — (panting) — ‘please choose me!’
‘Some White House aides who were ready to carve a new spot on Mount Rushmore for their boss two years ago privately concede now that he cannot be another Abraham Lincoln after all.’ He can’t be great. Greatness will elude even Obama, and if Obama can’t be great, then no one can be great. Well, this is narcissism. We live in a time, the country is going through economic problems that are almost unprecedented, and even now this 16 pages, it’s all about him and how, oh, he’s been denied his chance for greatness for all of these nefarious reasons. Like you may have forgotten this, but shortly after the 9/11 attacks, some Democrats actually went public and said, ‘It’s a shame this didn’t happen when Clinton was president so he could have had a chance for greatness.’ I mean they make it all about themselves.
There’s a great piece today in the American Spectator, George Neumayr, and I just want to read to you a couple of opening paragraphs because we’re sitting here, we’re always trying to come up with the flawless, perfect, succinct explanation, definition of liberalism, and this is pretty good. ‘The political success of liberalism is parasitic, feeding off order and prosperity that the implementation of liberal policies couldn’t possibly create.’ In other words, Ronald Reagan, conservatism, private sector, low taxes, investment, entrepreneurism, a growing private sector, a growing economy, only that can allow liberalism to steal from it. Only that can allow liberalism to fleece the golden goose. Liberalism doesn’t create the golden goose. It depletes it. It’s like government cannot create wealth. It can only confiscate it. Liberals do not have the slightest idea about creating wealth — only confiscating it.
‘Bill Clinton’s recent bragging on the campaign trail about the budgets that he balanced in the 1990s is an illustration of this: Where did those budgets come from? Not from the policies of liberalism. Take away the significant reductions in defense spending that came from Ronald Reagan winning the Cold War, the wealth from an entrepreneurial economy that an era of tax cuts generated, and the check on Democratic spending schemes from Newt Gingrich’s Congress, and those budgets would never have been balanced.’ It’s a great way of putting it. They’re a bunch of parasites. They cannot take and transfer and redistribute ’til somebody else earns it, and it’s not their policies that facilitate the earning it, as we are living and witnessing now. Name one Obama policy leading to economic growth or employment. Name one thing Obama has done that has changed the direction the country is headed economically. Not one thing. All he’s done is continue to plunder it. He has no idea how to replace it. And in the midst of all of this, in the midst of 85% of college graduates moving home with their parents, that, frankly, as an American embarrasses me. Eighty-five percent of children moving home with their parents, and we get 16 pages in the New York Times about woe is us in the White House, ‘Oh, it’s so bad. Obama can never be great.’ It’s always about them.
Every event, how will this play out for Obama? The new unemployment numbers, how can we spin this, what does it mean for Obama? And that’s the great contrast with the Chilean president. Not one thing the Chilean president was doing in the last week had to do with him. You know, if a mine collapsed like this in China, the miners are sacrificed. They’re dead. The government cares not a whit about them. And a couple of Chinese miners wrote on a blog, ‘Thank God these miners lived in Chile. If this has happened in China, we woulda been abandoned to die a slow death. No effort to rescue us would have been made.’ The Chilean president didn’t make anything about him; he didn’t rip the mining industry; he didn’t try to find somebody to blame. It was just what do we have to do to fix this? He actually told the miners after contact with them had been established, he said, (paraphrasing) ‘Don’t worry, bureaucracy will not get in the way. We’re gonna get rid of all that and get down there and get you out,’ and he did. And that produces comments from liberals saying, ‘Yeah, yeah, Tea Party, those people would be killing each other.’
Folks, there’s a cultural divide, a political divide in this country right now. The things, the traditions, the institutions that made this country great are under assault, and they constitute a threat to the existing power structure of the American left, just as this movie Secretariat represents a threat. The mine rescue is a threat. Oh, my God, rugged individualism, it actually worked. So now we have to disparage rugged individualism, and we have to compare rugged individualism to the Tea Party. So they’re on the run. All these people, their opponents, Tea Party, are raising unprecedented amounts of campaign money from average citizens, in small amounts, a hundred dollars or less, not going through the Republican National Committee. There is a conservative ascension, an earthquake taking place. And we got 16 pages in the New York Times this Sunday, ‘Oh, it’s so bad for Obama, oh, he was going to have a place on Mount Rushmore, oh, no, if he can’t be great, nobody can be great.’ Narcissistic, everything about him, everything about them.
Look at the mining disaster and compare that to the oil rig explosion in the Gulf of Mexico. Did the Chilean president shut down the mining business industry in Chile? That’s a pretty big accident down there, 33 men buried, huge collapse. What did Obama do? The first 50 days he didn’t do anything other than shut down all drilling, so he shuts down an entire industry, only in America. The Brazilians continue to drill. The ChiComs continue to drill. The Mexicans continue to drill. Everybody continues to drill except us, shuts it all down after one accident. The contrasts here are stark and the solutions to the problems we face are clear as a bell. And they’re being seen by more and more people. That Reuters poll came out yesterday. Obama’s approval, the margin of error, he’s at 39% approval at the bottom of the margin, the numbers are 43, 53; 43 approve, 53 disapprove. Now we get 16 pages in the New York Times about, ‘Oh, oh, poor Obama, poor Obama.’ We got people that run out of unemployment checks after 99 weeks, they can’t find work, and we get 16 pages in the New York Times, ‘Oh, poor Obama. We’re not going to have his sculpted likeness on Mount Rushmore.’ Foreclosures at an all-time high. ‘Poor Obama,’ 16 pages about if he can’t be great, nobody can. While Moochelle Obama is over in Spain, 60 rooms at a five-star resort on us, on a vacation. Poor Obama.
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RUSH: All right. F. Chuck Todd. This is now the second effort here on the part of a mainstream, State-Controlled Media operative to express shock and dismay over Obama’s interview in the New York Times. F. Chuck Todd with Andrea Mitchell (NBC News, Washington) question: ‘Peter Baker did an interview with the president. It was in the New York Times Sunday Magazine. A lot of people in Democrat circles are asking, ‘What was the president thinking of? Doing an interview where he seemed to be talking about the mistakes he made?’ This is not the way he fire up the voters before an election. What’s he doing,’ F. Chuck?
F. CHUCK: Maybe he’s trying to get the postmortem out of the way before the election. This is the type of interview you’d expect the president to be giving, say, two days after the election. You know, and we are — the — the entire press corps and the — and the White House apparatus is leaving for India three days after the election. So maybe the White House feels as if they need to get some of this stuff out now because he’s going to be overseas for ten days during the postmortem period where a lot of this back-and-forth is normally — would be — a time for it to come out. But you’re right, Andrea, it was, uhhhh, certainly eyebrow-raising to a lot of Democrats that are out there right now wondering why.
RUSH: Eyebrow-raising to the Democrats? How about eyebrow-raising to the media? The media can’t figure this out. ‘Why is he doing this? This is not how you fire up the base. Why, he’s talking about all the things he did wrong! He’s talking about how stupid he is. He’s talking about how he’s got so much to do and so much he’s learning. Why do this now after all the help we’ve given him?’ That’s why they’re stupefied about. ‘After all the help we’ve given the guy, how does he do this?’ F. Chuck, it’s all about him. He wants to ‘get postmortem out of the way now’? That would make it a premortem. Obama’s doing a premortem! He just threw the Democrats overboard. It proves, folks, I’m telling you, he’s not going to be upset at all when the Republicans end up running the show.
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RUSH: David Corn. Where does Corn write now? He used to be at The Nation. He’s moved on to somewhere. At any rate, David Corn: ‘Could the White House have picked a worse time to open up to the New York Times Magazine about its mistakes?’ All these guys in the media are just flipping. And then Corn goes on his last paragraph, Obama (summarized): ‘What you ought to be doing is swinging at the opposition. This is not the time to be navel gazing, this is not the time for self-analysis, this is not the time to be admitting your mistakes. It’s time to go after the opposition. We’re gonna end up with a bunch of right-wing kooks in the Senate if you’re not careful. Rand Paul is gonna end up in there and Sharron Angle is gonna end up in there, and they’re gonna blow you up!’ These media people are paranoid. They’re obviously on Obama’s side. They can’t understand what he’s doing. David Corn is Mother Jones Washington bureau chief. Big deal. Big whoop. But it’s still fascinating because he’s a great illustration of the State-Controlled Media. They’re just apoplectic over this New York Times piece. Deservedly so.