RUSH: Let’s go to the audio sound bites.
I want to illustrate what, apparently, has been voted on as the single best message that Kardashian can use here for reelection. This afternoon at the White House, at the press briefing, the spokesperson, Jay Carney, got a question from Jacob Tapper of ABC News. Tapper said, “James Carville, in an interview in a memo that he wrote with Stan Greenberg, expressed concern that the president — when he talks about how the economy’s improving — risks leaving the impression among voters that the economy’s doing well, when it isn’t. I’m sure you disagree. I just wanted to give you an opportunity to respond.”
CARNEY: This country has been through the worst economic cataclysm, uh, of our lifetimes. That is what was taking place in 2008 when, uh, the last election happened and, uh, in January 2009 when President Obama was sworn into office. And that has… Stopping that cataclysmic economic slide, that decline — reversing it and beginning to climb out of the hole that the recession dug for this nation — has been the principal mission of this president and this administration.
RUSH: So it’s the same strategy.
It’s 3-1/2 years old.
“It’s Bush’s fault,” coupled with a bunch of lies.
Reversing the decline? Nobody thinks the decline’s been reversed! Everybody thinks we’re sinking deeper. If these people want to lie to themselves, I’m more than happy to let them, folks. I am content and happy to let ’em lie to themselves. If they want to continue to live in a little cocoon that is devoid of reality, that is fabulous. It’s gonna taint everything they do going forward. If they want to sit there and actually believe that what they’re doing is helping, let them think it. They’ll do more of it.
Then the Q&A. This is Jay Carney again. He wasn’t content just with that answer. He continued here with his answer to Jacob Tapper.
CARNEY: Look, we are highly cognizant of the fact — and understand deeply the fact — that the American people are still hurting. This economy and the recession that we went through resulted in something on the order of nine million jobs lost. We saw recently in the survey by the Federal Reserve about the wealth of the median American family being devastated by the recession. Devastated! From the fourth quarter of 2007 until the first quarter of 2008 we saw a 40% decline in median wealth. That’s a fancy way of saying that the bottom fell out, and the American people paid a huge price for the recession and the policies that led up to the recession.
RUSH: All right. So it’s Bush’s fault. I’m through picking that apart. I just want to establish that’s their big message. That’s what they’re gonna hang their hat on. Here’s more evidence. Last night, CNN’s Erin Burnett. Oh! By the way, CNN? They canceled John King’s show. “John King, USA.” They canceled it. They’ve announced that it’s over. They’re gonna extend Wolf Blitzer an hour from two hours to three hours. So what’s that called? That’s right, “The Situation Room.”
Wolf Blitzer’s gonna expand from two to three hours. John King’s show is gone.
I don’t know. I think it’s very strange. Of all the problems they’ve got, to cancel that? But that’s just me. And they called King’s show hard-hitting. They thought it was a hard-hitting political show. It’s a strange show to cancel in an election year, but like everything else over there, nothing makes sense. Really! I mean, you could make the case that everything ought to be canceled and blown up over there and start fresh. And that’s what they’re trying to do with Erin Burnett. Last night on her program, OutFront, Gene Sperling, the National Economic Council director was on. And they were talking about Carville’s new paper saying that Obama better not go out and tout the economy; it won’t work.
She said, “Do you see James Carville’s point?”
SPERLING: Not really, unless you put it in a very simplistic way. I think the American public is smart enough to understand three points at the same time, that this president inherited the worst financial recession, the deepest recession and downturn that we’ve had since the Great Depression, so that we are in a very deep hole. I think we can recognize that we have made progress.
RUSH: Okay. You on board with that, folks? Bush’s fault, Obama’s making progress, working hard, first 200 years of America stunk up the place, never worked. Sperling continued.
BURNETT: When you look at average hourly earnings, what people just earn from their jobs, the number outpaced inflation, but then when President Obama took over in 2011, that stopped. Inflation started to rise more quickly than wages. Now, who can he blame that on?
SPERLING: Well, you know, Erin, I mean we went through the worst financial recession in our country. Obviously the president inherited that midstream.
RUSH: It must be slim pickings at the campaign, if that’s all they got. And it’s clear, Carville has shaken ’em up. Carville’s told ’em, you can’t talk about the economy, people aren’t gonna buy it. Don’t tell them the economy’s coming back, because it isn’t, they’re living it, they know it’s not. So they’re heeding the Carville message where the only thing they think they can do is blame it all on Bush. Everything happening today is the result of what happened three-and-a-half years ago and further back. We’ve had nothing to do with it. We are valiant fighters. We have done everything we can to reverse this trend, and it’s all Bush’s fault. It’s worse than we knew, and they lied to us about how bad it was and our brave, courageous President Kardashian is doing everything he can. He talked to Sarah Jessica Parker about it just the other day. He’ll be talking to Anna Wintour about it next week. We’re working very hard on getting this all reversed, but it’s Bush’s fault. We’ll see how that works out for ’em.
BREAK TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: This blaming everything on Bush stuff, don’t forget, by this government’s own definition, the Bush recession ended in June of 2009. Now, the reason that’s important is because by June of 2009, Obama’s stimulus had yet to be implemented. It was signed into law in March. In other words, the recession ended before Obama did anything. Not one substantive Obama policy started before the recession ended. Blaming this on Bush, in a technical sense, and of course in a practical and real sense, is bogus and a nonstarter. The recession was over. By definition, we were coming out of it. And then Obama’s policies kicked in, and look what happened. We made a beeline for the gutter again.
I’m gonna predict. It isn’t gonna be long, maybe tomorrow, maybe tonight, New York Times, Washington Post, cable news network, whatever, somebody out there is gonna say they don’t like this business of blaming Bush, that this isn’t gonna work. It’s old and tired and worn out, and there’s no evidence that it ever did work. They’ve been blaming Bush since before they were immaculated. And it’s obvious blaming Bush doesn’t work, and yet they’re circling back to that now, and you watch. Troubled supporters of Obama in the State-Controlled Media are gonna gently try to say, “Get off of this.” Like Carville saying, “Don’t tout the economy,” now others are gonna say, “Don’t blame Bush. It will be almost four years, don’t, it’s not practical.” You watch. I wouldn’t be surprised if I’m reporting that on tomorrow’s program.