RUSH: Bob Woodward, Washington Post, took a swipe at the Tea Party yesterday. He was on the Chris Matthews syndicated show. And Bob Woodward of Watergate fame — listen to this quote and see what you think. Woodward said, “We’ll see if the White House is going to realize it’s much better to have a Speaker Boehner with that mindset than somebody from the Tea Party or the more extreme right which would just lay down and, you know, let the country burn.” Tea Party, just lay down. Now, what does this mean? What Woodward is saying — I don’t think he knows what he’s said here. Woodward saying, lay down, means don’t do anything. Don’t negotiate with Obama. Let Obama have his way. Don’t oppose him. Don’t do anything.

Obama wants to raise taxes, let it happen. Obama doesn’t want to reform entitlements, that’s what laying down is. Going over the cliff is what laying down is. Does Woodward realize that what he just said is, essentially, letting Obama have everything he wants equals the country burning? It’s what he says. Obama is much better off with a Speaker Boehner who will negotiate with him than with a Tea Party person who wouldn’t. Boehner didn’t want to go over the cliff. The Tea Party would go over the cliff, and the country would burn if we go over the cliff, meaning if Obama gets what he wants, we go over the cliff.

Does Woodward realize that’s what he said? I’m not trying to make any of you nervous. I’m a bit passionate here. ‘Cause I think this is one of these lines that people hear and they miss it. They get caught up in the insult to the Tea Party, which, granted, is something to note. Who is the Tea Party? Do you know who the Tea Party is? I mean, when it first formed, the Tea Party is essentially senior citizens who’d never been involved in politics before. Not all senior citizens, but quite a few of them were and they were simply outraged at the level of spending that was happening in Obama’s first two years. Then Obamacare came along and they were beside themselves because they’re old enough, knowledgeable enough, mature enough to know what it means for their kids and their grandkids. They happen to care about the future for their kids and the grandkids and they saw this endless spending, the racking up of debt and what it would mean, and for the first time in their lives they started going to town hall meetings.

Now, from this, the mainstream media has confused them with an angry, armed mob going from town to town blowing up buildings and burning down institutions. But the Tea Party’s your neighbor. The Tea Party is the most unassuming, never had any fame, nobody knows anything about ’em, nobody knows who they are. They might have some guns. They might believe in the Second Amendment, but they’re not running around burning down the houses. That was Occupy Wall Street. It really is amazing, but the hard, cold reality is this is who they think the Tea Party is. There are millions of Americans who are totally misinformed about the Tea Party, but that’s who they believe it is.

Meanwhile, Occupy Wall Street, where rape and incest and filth, squalor, theft, crime happen at every Occupy installation, gets a pass as the modern equivalent of our Founding Fathers. And the Tea Party people, the kindest, mildest, most invisible people in the world are now portrayed as outright counterrevolutionaries. Occupy Wall Street people have been convicted of terrorism. They’re a given a pass. So here Woodward, comes along and says a Tea Party speaker would have let the country burn. Again, I understand you getting focused here on the insult to the Tea Party, but what Woodward’s really saying here is that a Speaker who would have let Obama have what he wants, go over the cliff, country would have burned.

Woodward, I don’t think he has any idea what he’s admitted to here. That Obama, left to his devices, will result in the country burning. Instead he wants to pass that off as what the Tea Party would make happen. There’s some genuinely — it’s more than misinformed people running around, but I thought that was striking. If Woodward thinks that going over the cliff would have resulted in the country burning, they all think it. And that’s why they’re praising Boehner. Boehner working with Obama didn’t help the country from burning, when in fact the country’s been on fire and in flames for a minimum four years.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: Speaking of the Tea Party, there’s a guy named Erik Jendresen. Erik Jendresen is the writer and the executive producer behind the upcoming National Geographic production of Ted Baxter’s book, The Killing of Lincoln. Get this, now. National Geographic, which I think News Corp has an ownership steak in, and it might even be majority, I’m not sure, but I know that News Corp, Fox News, whatever, Page Six, however you look at Fox, they’ve got an ownership stake. So National Geographic’s hired this guy Erik Jendresen to write and executive produce The Killing of Lincoln. And this guy, typewriter and producer of Baxter’s book, says that John Wilkes Booth would be a poster child for the Tea Party today.

Now, while you are incredulous, as you hear that, you gotta understand something, folks. This guy believes it, and this is what average, normal, if you can call ’em that, Democrats across this country, think about the Tea Party. The mainstream media has defined them as such, and this guy comes out and says John Wilkes Booth would be a poster boy for the Tea Party today. That’s not just political rhetoric. They believe this stuff. I have had to come to grips with it. They really believe it. It’s not that we can slough it off as a bunch of kooks. This is what a majority of people who vote in this country believe and think. That’s what they’ve been told.