RUSH: I mentioned this yesterday, I think, and the day before. This sequester really is chump change in terms of the amount of money being talked about and the possible negative impact of the sequester happening. It’s chump change compared to the continuing resolution fight, which comes up at the end of March. I think the one thing here, if the regime is surprised by anything — and I don’t know that they are.

But it wouldn’t surprise me if Obama and the White House really expected the Republicans to come to the table and cave in order to save the cuts to the Department of Defense. The Republicans, so far, have not done that. So if the sequester happens and it’s minuscule, people are paying no attention to the fearmongering. The fearmongering and the threats that Obama has promised, even he’s backing off now. He’s dialing it back. He’s saying, you won’t even notice it for a month.

So this impact is, in real terms, minuscule.

But the continuing resolution fight, that’s the whole government being funded. That’s not just $45 billion that we’re talking about. That’s the whole ball of wax, and this has been to set it up. I’m convinced this sequester is too much in front of us. It’s too big. It’s too much a focal point. It’s a distraction. But at the same time, it’s also there to condition people. It is there to build up support for Obama and the notion that this country cannot survive without government.

Even if the government does without a penny one day, we can’t survive; you can’t go on. And the big stakes are the effort to fund the government again at the end of March. I’ve often spoken here of how I try to avoid the conventional wisdom and the media narrative of the day that everybody gloms onto and everybody gets sucked into and they all end up discussing it in the same way. You have the big thing which is the sequester and then you have the subsets of it, and the latest subset is the Woodward business.

So today everybody’s talking about whether Woodward was threatened or not, and, “What does that mean as far as the way the regime operates and what does it mean for the media?” Of course, everybody’s focusing on it. My point is, they get you focused on what they want you focused on while other things are taking place. It’s not new. It’s not a new strategery. It’s just something that I’m constantly wary of, and I’m just telling you: The sequester is not what Obama is actually attempting to achieve here.

It’s the elephant in the room that everybody can see and is dealing with, to hide other things on the agenda. But in the process, I do think that the Republicans were supposed to cave. I think the strategery was that the Republicans were supposed to cave in order to stop defense cuts. They haven’t so far, and I think the regime is surprised by that. I think they’re a little shocked. I don’t know to what degree. They may be forced into making a minor recalculation as they move forward for the continuing resolution.

But regardless of that, this is standard operating procedure for the way our affairs are managed, crisis to crisis to crisis, panic, fear, end-of-the-world, Armageddon kind of stuff. And never forget, never forget: Low-information voters really do want compromise. They really do want bipartisanship. That’s what they thought they were getting in ’08 when they voted for Obama. Gergen just admitted it. There isn’t any way that’s ever gonna happen.

Obama’s not gonna compromise.

He’s not gonna put his name on anything.

He wants these problems continued and continued ’til the Republican Party is effectively eliminated as any form of viable opposition. That is the objective — and, as such, he needs constant turmoil, constant chaos, people constantly in a state of unrest, unhappy, dissatisfied — ’cause it doesn’t attach to him. None of it attaches to him. His policies are not seen as having anything to do with conditions on the ground in the country. The Republicans get the blame, and he wants to maintain that. So he’s constantly campaigning, never governing.

There’s never gonna be a bipartisan agreement on anything, not of any substance.