RUSH: If you’re just joining us on Rush Limbaugh and Open Line Friday, ladies and gentlemen, you should know that all of a sudden now the Barack Obama transition team is trying to lower everybody’s expectations. David Axelrod (who ran the campaign) and Robert B. Reich are out there saying, 
‘Look, we’re encountering problems worse than perhaps at any time in American history since FDR.’ My reaction is, ‘Well, you’re telling us he is FDR! You’re telling us he’s Lincoln. You’re telling us he’s JFK. You’re telling us it’s Camelot. So what the hell is this lowering expectations crap? You can’t do that. You got elected on lowering the sea level and making everybody love us and unifying everybody.’ Lowering expectations? Reich said it could be three years, by the way. Three years up to five. It’s not worse than what Reagan inherited, folks. I don’t care what anybody says, it’s not worse than what Reagan inherited. Reagan didn’t go out there lowering expectations. Barack Obama said he could unify the world! It’s not time to lower expectations now that he’s won. He should start doing what he said he could do: unifying. He should start explaining the reality of the situation in the auto industry: their employees, their retirees, their suppliers.
By the way, how many of you people are in favor of bailing out hedge funds? A hedge fund bought Chrysler! Chrysler is privately owned. Do you know who runs that hedge fund? John Snow, the former Treasury secretary (or at least he was in charge of it). Cerberus. Now, the CEO, Bob Nardelli, this is a soldier and a warrior. They tried to destroy this guy’s life over the course of his career in the auto business and other places. They’re trying as hard as they can here, but where’s Obama? He had the fixes for all this stuff. He can send signals. Reagan sent signals during his transition period to the Iranians: ‘Don’t mess with our hostages. Don’t you dare mess with our hostages.’ Where’s Obama? He needs to fill the void here. People are waiting on him. They’re not waiting on Bush, and they sure as hell aren’t waiting on Pelosi and Reid. He went around the world! He went around Europe and the Middle East while campaigning, having private meetings, saying anything he wanted. He was trying to arrange troop withdrawal deals when he was in Iraq.
If this guy is a true leader, where is he? He can at least project his image, his vision. Who would object if he did? Nobody would object. Obama is voting ‘present’ right now. Barack Obama is voting ‘present.’ This is his track record: Avoid the tough things as long as you can; vote ‘present.’ This is a time to do something. Look what Pelosi did to the market yesterday. It was up 200 points, then they went on television with Reid and the rest of the gang. They announced the auto deal fell apart, bammo! They started issuing orders and instructions to the auto companies, and, bam! We end up down 400 yesterday. We’re not up much today, but we’re not down, I don’t think. Citibank is now thinking of selling itself to the Somali pirates. The Somali pirates AAA bond rating just came in from Moody’s. The Somali pirates are a better bet financially than some of our own institutions. Where is Barack Obama? Has Obama spoken with Pelosi about this calamity? Are they working off different playbooks? Are the Democrats in Congress running the show or is Obama going to be running this show? He’s The Messiah and he’s the guy that raised all these expectations.
I’ll tell you what. He’s backing out so that none of this touches him. That is the plan. It’s time for Obama to step into the conversation. He’s sitting on the sidelines out there and he’s making himself out to be phony. Everybody voted for change, unity. How long will it take them to become disappointed? Well, this is going to be the scenario, I fear, for the four years. They’re going to enact the agenda they want on their timetable, independent and without concern for what is happening elsewhere in the country. For example, there’s no way — there’s no logical reason to even talk about raising taxes right now. He wants to do it. There’s no reason to talk about nationalizing health care. He wants to.