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RUSH: This is just classic for you Obamaites, for you Obama supporters: ‘President-elect Barack Obama and his inner circle fear that some voters expect him to turn around the economy, wind down the war in Iraq and, perhaps, cure cancer — all by the Fourth of July.’ This is a CBS story. ‘President-elect Barack Obama and his inner circle fear that some voters expect him to turn around the economy, wind down the war in Iraq and, perhaps, cure cancer — all by the Fourth of July. They know they must manage and lower those expectations, CBS 2 Political Editor Mike Flannery reports. A top economic advisor to Obama had a glum warning for the rest of us Thursday morning: Neither the job market nor the stock market will be turning around any time soon.’ Here is David Axelrod, the campaign director for Barack Obama, last night in Chicago on CBS 2 Eyeball News.

AXELROD: We are inheriting a, um, array of problems unlike any that any president has faced, maybe since Franklin Roosevelt —

RUSH: BS.

AXELROD: — in 1932. It’s not going to be easy, and it’s not going to be quick. One of his great strengths is he’s never too high, he’s never too low, he’s very focused.

RUSH: Ronald Reagan inherited problems in 1980 that were far worse than the problems we have today, not that these won’t replicate the problems of Jimmy Carter, but until we get to interest rates at 14%, unemployment at 23% or whatever it was, and everybody being told to wear sweaters, I can’t see — I mean, to compare themselves to FDR. And they knew what was coming, they lifted everybody’s expectations on purpose. They played The Messiah game. Here is former Labor Secretary Robert B. Reich-h-h-h-h-h-h-h-h-h-h-h-h-h-h, also yesterday in Chicago on the incoming Obama administration.

REICH: This may be a long haul. 2009 is going to be a very, very hard year. Some economists are saying we’re not going to get out of this for two years. Others are saying it’s going to be three or four, maybe five years. We all have to be very careful about the expectations that we are putting on this man, our president-elect. If we all assume that it’s going to be the first hundred days, we’re going to be disappointed.

RUSH: What the hell is this? I’m serious about this, I’m not trying to tweak you Obama voters, but I know that you’re out there. By the way, you Obama voters may not know, Robert B. Reich served in the Clinton administration and David Axelrod ran Obama’s campaign. I mention it because exit polls of Obama voters show that they know diddly-squat about anything. Obama voters are the new Rio Linda. Rio Lindans have IQs three times as high as Obama voters. We know this. Exit poll data, not mine. Now, we are not going to let these people get away with lowering expectations like this. We have to lower our expectations? Promises were made, Obama. What was this mindless chant at that creepy acceptance speech? ‘Yes, we can, yes, we can, yes, we can,’ and now all of a sudden it’s become ‘no, we won’t, no, we won’t, no, we can’t.’ Expectations were set, Senator Obama, promises were made. And, by the way, your buddies are still making promises. You’re Lincoln, you’re FDR, you’re Martin Luther King all rolled into one. You’re the reason the world loves America again and you haven’t even assumed office.

Obama said that he was the one we were waiting for, that he was going to lower the seas, fix the earth’s weather. He was going to transform America. He could have stopped the dramatic erosion of the stock market a week ago, if he wanted to. All he would have to do is say that he’s going to suspend his tax increases, just give some indication that there is going to be stability in government when he takes over, and you can watch this bottom out and start to rebound, but he’s not going to do that because he is going to raise taxes, he is taking advantage of this crisis. Everybody got upset with me when I was telling them that he wants this crisis, that he’s thriving on this crisis. Let me just play for you Rahm Emanuel again Tuesday night in Washington, DC, at the Wall Street Journal’s CEO council. Here is Rahm Emanuel basically saying this crisis is made to order for the Obama campaign to advance their agenda.

MANUEL: You never want a serious crisis to go to waste. And what I mean by that, it’s an opportunity to do things that you think you could not do before. This is an opportunity, what used to be long-term problems, be in the health care area, energy area, education area, fiscal area, tax area, regulatory reform area, things that we had postponed for too long that were long-term are now immediate and must be dealt with. And this crisis provides the opportunity for us, as I would say, the opportunity to do things that you could not do before.

RUSH: So Tuesday night you got Rahm Emanuel in Washington going, yeah, yeah, baby give us this crisis. A crisis is a terrible thing to waste. So whereas we couldn’t get national health care because it was too big a step, now it’s going to be easy ’cause people are panicked and they want solutions right now, and we want to raise taxes, and we want to regulate even more, we want to control education even more, and this crisis is going to give us the opportunity to do so and that’s why Obama is not going to come out and offer any words of encouragement to the stock market or the economy in general by offering a promise of stability when he takes office. This volatility is going to continue because nobody knows what’s going to happen, and there are great fears. The stock market, the greatest historical plunge, the largest historical plunge in the stock market postelection has now occurred after the election of Barack Obama, it is down 20%, and that doesn’t count how much it was down prior to that, anticipating Obama’s election.

So now we’ve had all these expectations. He was going to lower the seas; he was going to fix the weather; he was going to transform America; he was going to unify everybody. And now they’re saying, forget that, forget that, you heard Reich. It could be two to four years of this misery. They have no answer. So now that Obama, for the first time — this is important — for the first time in his life, is responsible for something. He’s the one lowering expectations. He was a community agitator. Now he’s a financial market agitator. Our expectations for this country and our economy — you know, I never have been able to understand why it is that the left wants to continue to trample on this whole notion of American exceptionalism. They don’t believe it. And they got elected on that basis. Maybe because we didn’t have a candidate who believed in it, either, or wasn’t able to talk about it that well, but here these guys are actually telling the American people that voted for them, hey, hey, hey, drop all these messiah expectations you had. We’re not going to get this fixed. We’re in for the long haul. This is going to be really, really, really bad.

And it need not be that way at all. This is the United States of America. If you just get Barney Frank and Chris Dodd and Harry Reid and Pelosi, get them out of the way, cut some taxes or at least say that the tax rates that we have now are going to be maintained, the Bush tax cuts are not going to be tampered with, give some stability and let the people who make this country work begin this economic rebound.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: Here’s Mary Ellen in Rehoboth, Massachusetts. Hey, Mary Ellen, is that near the Mass Turnpike?

CALLER: No, it’s not.

RUSH: Okay.

CALLER: It’s actually about 40 minutes south of Boston.

RUSH: Oh, great. Okay. Well, it’s great to have you on Open Line Friday. You’re up first, and you know what that means.

CALLER: Oh, I know Rush, I’m going to say something that’s probably not so respectful, but I don’t know why you got your shorts in a knot over this Obama and backtracking and Robert Reich. It doesn’t matter what he does. He’s going to be the best president we’ve ever had, barring none because there are too many people who have too much riding on this. He’s the first black president. They will not let him fail.

RUSH: Yes, I’ve made that point. Are you an Obama supporter?

CALLER: No. No. No.

RUSH: I didn’t think so. But I must tell you, Mr. Snerdley thought that you were.

CALLER: Oh, God no. No, no, no. They will not let him fail. He will be a hero.

RUSH: Well, you’re right. I had a famous journalist who was writing a book send me a couple questions yesterday afternoon asking my thoughts on a couple things. He gave me a couple questions, he said, ‘How long is it going to be before the Drive-By Media turns on Obama?’ I said they never will. They’ve got too much invested. He is too big to fail. They have made too much about this, he’s The Messiah. They got him elected, they think, this is historical, first black president and so forth. They’ve got four years to blame Bush for everything that goes wrong during the Obama four years. So, yeah, I know what you mean.

CALLER: And, you know, I’m Italian, I’m a hundred percent Italian, and in the summertime my skin get very dark. So, you know, I may not be black enough to attack Obama, but in the summertime I’ll call back and say this again and make it really work.

RUSH: (laughing)

CALLER: But, you know, he’s black. That’s the end of it. It’s like anything else, when you have people who are in a job, who cannot perform the job, but they are of color, they get preferential treatment.

RUSH: No, no, in this case it’s not. It’s far more than that with Obama. Sure, the fact that he’s the first African-American president is major factor, and that’s what, as far as the media is concerned, makes his candidacy historic. That’s why it didn’t matter who he is, what he is, what he’s accomplished, which is nothing, it didn’t matter what his experience is, which is dubious, because here was an opportunity for an historical achievement. What you have to remember is that most of the Drive-Bys that have big influence grew up in the sixties and they were informed and influenced by the civil rights battles back then and they have trained the younger Drive-Bys. This election was about a lot of something else, too. The Drive-By Media lost their monopoly in 1988. This was a chance for them to prove that they could still move public opinion and make a candidate of their choice win. Now, how did they do it? They did it by hiding every bit of information about Obama that was damaging.

The same people that were all bent out of shape about spying on terrorists are the some people that encouraged government officials in Ohio to investigate a private citizen who couldn’t do anything to anybody, Joe the Plumber. Government computers were used to investigate this guy, and all he did was ask a question, and the Drive-By Media joined in trying to destroy Joe the Plumber because he represented a threat, since Obama had made a gaffe and admitted to everybody what his ideology is: spread the wealth. Call it what you want. Socialism, collectivism or what have you, they had to protect him. And so you’re right, it goes much more than just the skin color. What it also has to do with is full-fledged, undiluted, raw liberalism. These people have been thwarted ever since Ronald Reagan. They have been dying to amass power in the White House and Congress that they will have for years, like FDR did, so that they can implement a pure leftist agenda, and Obama is the vehicle for that. And as such, he’s too big to fail. The Drive-By Media will not abandon him. They will coach him, but they will not abandon him. They are starting to get concerned, however.

From the Chicago Tribune blog — thanks, by the way, Mary Ellen, for the phone call — from the Chicago Tribune blog, it’s called The Swamp, William Neikirk, ‘Obama Should be in White House Sooner.’ I cannot tell you how amazed at myself even I sometimes am, being on the cutting edge of societal evolution. Yesterday I began the chant, ‘Where’s Obama?’ And so today in the Swamp at the Chicago Tribune, ”Obama Should be in White House Sooner’ — President-elect Barack Obama is having to wait more than two months before taking charge as the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression rages. He has said little while a lame-duck president and divided Congress try to cope.’ You go to the end of the story, it says, ‘It seems strange to have Obama sitting there in Chicago for so long with so much going on. It leaves the lame-duck government in place entirely too long. Dec. 1 might be a much better inauguration date in times like this.’

Not all times, just in times like these when we have Obama in waiting, and then the New York Times today: ‘Looking to Washington Amid Turmoil, So Far in Vain.’ Obama, in resigning from the Senate before the latest session, has missed an opportunity to exert leadership. They, too, are asking, ‘Where is Obama?’ The Drive-Bys want him there. And then let’s go, ladies and gentlemen, to the audio sound bites. The Drive-Bys, as I said, they’re starting to get a little nervous about where’s all the change because all they’re seeing is Clinton people being appointed to the cabinet. Here is the Today Show today, a montage of David Gregory’s report about the Obama transition.

GREGORY: Well, you remember the campaign slogan for President-Elect Obama that he was going to turn the page in Washington. Well, critics and allies alike are looking at his appointment so far and complaining that he seems to be stuck on the same old chapter. A lot of his most stalwart supporters, a lot of liberals in the party beginning to wonder whether this is what they signed up for, whether they’re getting enough change as he promised.

RUSH: Well, he’s not even there yet and he’s lowering expectations. He sent Axelrod and Reich-h-h-h-h-h-h-h-h-h-h-h out to lower expectations, saying it’s going to be a big problem, two or three more years at least, we’re in deep doo-doo here. And now they’re worried about the change. But they’re going to find ways to cover for this because he’s too big to fail. Another one. This was on MSNBC’s 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. David Gregory the host speaking with Michelle Bernard of the Independent Women’s Forum. The question, ‘Now, this is a line they’ve been threading all week and last week, too, is they’ve named these Clinton veterans to positions of prominence, and of course if Hillary becomes Secretary of State, doesn’t get any more prominent than that, the Clinton era is back.’

BERNARD: Absolutely. This is, I believe, could be a socially very significant problem for the brand-new Obama administration. I mean, think about it, we just had the election on November 4th. Most of us are talking not so much about the president-elect but about former President Bill Clinton and about Hillary Clinton. The same thing happened after Barack Obama won the Democratic nomination. All of the media was talking about Hillary Clinton. You know, there is so much drama surrounding the possibility of Hillary Clinton becoming the next Secretary of State that for anyone who ever suffered Clinton fatigue, they now have it in a very major way.

RUSH: And then this morning on C-SPAN’s Washington Journal, the guest is Michael Isikoff of Newsweek. An unidentified caller from Georgia says, ‘I understand that the various arguments made for needing people with prior experience. Even so, I was hoping we would see new and fresh faces with The Messiah. And I’m starting to fear that we won’t get the change that we were hoping for.’ Now, this is an Obama voter. And here’s Isikoff’s reply.

ISIKOFF: Look, I think that is a very legitimate point that, uh, you’re gonna hear, uh, more and more. Um, uh, Hillary Clinton as Secretary of State; Rahm Emanuel as Chief of Staff; Eric Holder as Attorney General. These are all people right out of — Jim Steinberg, who is being talked about as national security advisor, although that hasn’t been confirmed yet. But these are all people right out of the Clinton administration, the second Clinton term in particular, and, you know, when Obama campaigned as an agent of change. Uh, uh, so I think if you see a cabinet and White House staff overstocked with — you know, with Clinton retreads, um, you’re gonna hear criticism about where’s the fresh thinking, where are the fresh faces that we had hoped for when we elected Barack Obama?

RUSH: Well, here you have it. So there’s some rumblings here of disquiet over The Messiah not fulfilling this promise for change. But they will end up covering for him ’cause he’s too big to fail. But here we go. I know it’s very unseemly and it’s really sometimes not very classy to remind people I told you so. I told you, there’s no change. He’s a hack liberal Democrat. Barack Obama has less experience than any other Democrat that’s ever been nominated, if you look at who his friends are, who his alliances are, the things he’s written about and says he wants to do, he’s a hack leftist, almost radical. Why anybody is surprised — there’s no change. Liberalism isn’t change. We’ve had liberalism since FDR. We’ve had collectivism since FDR. We’re just going to get more of it. That’s going to be the change. And we’re going to have ostensibly a president who can speak and people are going to be comforted by the fact that he doesn’t sound like an idiot, even though they’re going to ignore what he says.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: I want to go back to this Rahm Emanuel bit because another thought hit me last night about this. This is Tuesday night in Washington at the Wall Street Journal’s CEO council, Rahm Emanuel, the new Chief of Staff for Barack Obama.

EMANUEL: You never want a serious crisis to go to waste. What I mean by that is it’s an opportunity to do things that you think you could not do before. This is an opportunity. What used to be long-term problems — be they in the health care area, energy area, education area, fiscal area, tax area, regulatory reform area — things that we had postponed for too long that were long-term are now immediate and must be dealt with. And this crisis provides the opportunity for us, as I would say, the opportunity to do things that you could not do before.

RUSH: Now, basically again what Emanuel is saying here that this economic crisis is the best thing that could ever happen to us because no crisis should ever go to the waste. You never want a serious crisis to go to waste, so we’re not going to let this go to waste. We’re going to let this get as bad as it can get and that will give us an opportunity to fix everything. If these guys ever do get national health care done, folks, do you realize if they get national health care done, the prospect of rolling that back, i.e., conservatism, that is going to be a major challenge. This is going to have to be stopped. National health care is going to have to be stopped. If it happens, that’s going to be a long time rolling that back, even amongst all the failures that will result from it and all the harm. I know we haven’t rolled back Social Security, that’s the big one. If they get that done, we are in heap, heap big trouble. Here’s what Emanuel is saying. This crisis, this economic crisis, your suffering, your anxiety, that’s going to help us get our agenda forward.

Now, can you imagine the reaction if John Boehner in the House had said that a recession would help Republicans in 2010? Can you imagine if any Republican came out, imagine if Sarah Palin said, ‘We’ve gotta take advantage of this crisis. You can’t let a serious crisis go to waste. This crisis is an excellent opportunity for us to have it demonstrated just how rotten the Democrats are.’ Can you imagine what the media would be doing to any Republican who was applauding, eagerly anticipating economic tumult and chaos? And it’s not the first time. I remember back in 2002, Dick Gephardt in the House of Representatives, every time the stock market fell during the dot-com bubble 100 points, he’d clap and say, ‘Oh, boy, that’s another seat in the House of Representatives for us.’

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