RUSH: Romney not backing down, here, grab audio sound bite 16. This is a new TV ad from the Romney campaign. It’s titled “No Evidence.”

ROMNEY: I’m Mitt Romney, and I approve this message.

ANNOUNCER: When a president doesn’t tell the truth, how can we trust him to lead? The Obama outsourcing attacks, misleading, unfair, and untrue. There was no evidence that Mitt Romney shipped jobs overseas. Candidate Obama lied about Hillary Clinton.

HILLARY: So shame on you, Barack Obama.

ANNOUNCER: But America expects more from a president. Obama’s dishonest campaign, another reason America has lost confidence in Barack Obama.

RUSH: You don’t do that. You do not do that to The One. You don’t go there. You don’t call him a liar. You don’t call him on all these things he is lying about. He’s out there saying that Romney outsourced all these jobs. You look at all the outsourcing of jobs the Obama administration’s engaged in, it dwarfs whatever Bain Capital has ever done, which is minuscule. So point-blank, Romney’s out calling Obama a liar and even using Hillary Clinton to help him do it.

Now, Obama doesn’t like getting booed. Remember when he was in Boston and he told that joke about the trade of Kevin Youkilis to the White Sox? He got booed. He genuinely didn’t understand it, didn’t like it. This guy’s led a charmed life. He’s had a shell around him where he’s been protected from criticism. And not only has he been protected from criticism, he’s been built up in his own mind to be almost messianic, and he’s bought into it. He’s supposed to be able to say whatever he wants ’cause he’s Barack Obama. He’s better than everybody else, smarter than anybody else, and when you challenge… you don’t do that. And Romney did it.

So the regime is responding. It’s in The Politico today. “Obama deputy campaign manager Stephanie Cutter suggested that Mitt Romney may be a felon.” Obama campaign manager, Stephanie Cutter suggesting Romney may be a criminal. She said this in a conference call with reporters today, about a Boston Globe story that showed that Romney stayed at Bain Capital three years past when he said he’d left. “Cutter said that there were two ways to interpret the story. The first: Mitt Romney was ‘misrepresenting his position’ at Bain to the Securities and Exchange Commission, ‘which is a felony.’ Or, he was ‘misrepresenting his position at Bain to the American people. If thatÂ’s the case, if he was lying to the American people, thatÂ’s a real character and trust issue,’ Cutter said.

“The Obama team’s charges against Romney extended all the way to his handling of the Salt Lake City Olympics, which Cutter described as ‘less than wholesome.’ ‘These arenÂ’t just campaign tactics, this is important information,’ Cutter said. … Cutter called on the Romney campaign to clear up the issue by releasing the candidate’s tax returns,” to prove that he’s not a felon. To prove that he’s not a criminal. “‘If the SEC filings arenÂ’t accurate, then prove it,’ she said. Earlier today, Romney spokeswoman Andrea Saul said in a statement that the Boston Globe story was ‘not accurate.’ She did not specifically respond to a request for comment regarding the ‘felony’ statement by Cutter.”

Okay, Romney calls him a liar in a TV ad, an effective ad, so they come out (crying), “Well, you’re a felon ’cause you lied about when you left Bain. You broke the law. You better release your tax records so we can see.” Childish. I’ll tell you what. I know a lot of you in this audience don’t like Romney. I’ve heard from you. I know you don’t like him. I know you think he’s not conservative. I know you think if he gets elected he’s gonna cave. I know you think this. We’ll see. But I’m just telling you his whole campaign is sticking to substance. I would like, as I said earlier this week, a little bit more feistiness. But this ad, this is the kind of stuff I was talking about earlier in the week. Treat Obama like you did Newt and Santorum. Well, there it is.

You’re a stinking liar, and I’m gonna call you on it. Nobody else had the guts to call you a liar, you little protected president, but that’s what you are.

Oh, yeah? Well, you’re a felon.

I don’t think the regime’s coming off well here. And if you note, the regime is now on the defensive. It’s the regime that’s reacting to the premises that are being set by Romney.