RUSH: Ladies and gentlemen, there is at this very moment an impromptu press conference going on at the White House with the president and our microphones are there.
(BEGIN PARODY)
REPORTER: Mr. President, you say the Republicans simply will not cooperate with you. You thought they might after you won your second term. Why exactly won’t they help you?
OBAMA IMPERSONATOR: It’s Rush Limbaugh’s fault. Uhhh, Chris?
REPORTER: It has been learned that the IRS did indeed target Tea Party and other conservative groups for tax audits and harassment during applications for tax-exempt status. Did you know about this, sir, and, if so, when did you learn about it, and what do you intend to do about it?
OBAMA IMPERSONATOR: That was Rush Limbaugh’s fault.
REPORTER: A follow-up, sir. It’s also come to light that the IRS officials in Washington were involved in the targeting of conservative groups, not just some low-level employees from Ohio. Could that imply a direct connection to your administration?
OBAMA IMPERSONATOR: That was Rush Limbaugh’s fault, yes.
REPORTER: Sir, you said yesterday that the talking points on Benghazi had not been altered, that they were only done at the request of the Republicans in Congress.
OBAMA IMPERSONATOR: No. That was Rush Limbaugh’s fault. Uhhh, Bill?
REPORTER: Susan Rice went on five Sunday morning television shows and claimed that the attack in Benghazi was due to a YouTube video making fun of Islam. It has since been learned that your administration knew well in advance of her appearance that the attack was a planned, orchestrated terrorist attack. Why was Susan Rice sent out so many days later to continue to say it happened because of the video?
OBAMA IMPERSONATOR: That was Rush Limbaugh’s fault. Uh, Ed?
REPORTER: Sir, the Justice Department has secretly collected two months of phone records of the Associated Press reporters and editors, ostensibly to find the source of a leak. The White House says it has no knowledge of the investigation, but isn’t the press protected under the First Amendment?
OBAMA IMPERSONATOR: It’s Rush Limbaugh’s fault. Matt, then David.
REPORTER: Mr. President, some Obamacare premium cost estimates are skyrocketing to as high as 400% of current premiums. Can you still honestly say health care costs will come down under your plan?
OBAMA IMPERSONATOR: That was also Rush Limbaugh’s fault.
REPORTER: Sir, the recession will have ended four years ago this summer, yet this is the weakest recovery since the Great Depression. Why haven’t you done more to promote economic growth?
OBAMA IMPERSONATOR: It’s Rush Limbaugh’s fault. Thank you for being here today.
(END PARODY)
RUSH: Now, for those of you wondering what in the world that was all about, let me fill you in. Yesterday, I’m at home. I’m already working on today’s program, in fact. I’m minding my own business, bothering no one, and I get an e-mail from a friend: “Obama just told Justin Timberlake and Jessica Biel and Harvey Weinstein that the reason he can’t get anything done is because of you.” And then the next e-mail contained a link to that story, and it was from the Atlantic Wire, and it was indeed what I had been told.
Obama was at a fundraiser at the West Village townhouse of Harvey Weinstein, the famed movie producer. He had in the audience Jessica Biel and Justin Timberlake, newly married man and wife, and, in fact, Obama’s talking about his stalled second term. And he’s saying that he can’t get anything done. And he’s blaming me. He told everybody in that audience that he expected, after he won reelection, that the Republicans would say, “Okay, let’s cooperate with the guy,” because he won and he’s essentially a lame duck, and we can’t beat him again, so let’s go ahead and work with him. “But they will not work with me,” Obama told ’em, and the reason they won’t is because of Rush Limbaugh. And the reason that it’s my fault is that the Republicans are afraid of me.
All of the elected Republicans in the House of Representatives and all of the elected Republicans in the Senate are afraid of what I will say about them if they cooperate with Obama. This is what Obama told Timberlake, Jessica Biel, Harvey Weinstein, and whoever else was at the fundraiser. Now, let me tell you what he’s doing, folks. He is essentially begging any Republican to denounce me. He is fixated on me. He simply cannot get me off his mind. I live rent free in his head. And he is using me as his convenient excuse for not being able to get anything done. He really thinks the Republicans would work with him if it weren’t for me. So he’s telling these Hollywood people — and you gotta understand, they’re sitting there and they’re very sympathetic, and they love Obama, and they want Obama to succeed. I’m the guy who said, “I hope he fails.”
So Obama’s sitting there and he’s telling these Hollywood people, “You know, this Limbaugh guy, this Limbaugh guy… If it weren’t for this Limbaugh guy, Good Lord, look what I could get done!” The Hollywood people are supposed to hear that and say to themselves, “Hmm. Let’s figure out a way to help. What can we do, in dealing with Limbaugh, to help our president?” He’s also sending out a similar message to the Republicans.
He’s just begging one of them — just one! He’s just begging, enticing one of them to go to the microphone and agree with him — and if not agree with him, to denounce me, because that’s his objective. Obama’s objective is to eliminate all opposition. Now, let’s be honest, folks. Who am I? I’m a guy on the radio. I am your beloved host, El Rushbo. I’m a guy on the radio. The fact remains that the truth of the matter is, by his own admission, I am the opposition to Barack Obama.
Not the Republican Party.
Not any of the Republican think tanks.
Not any of the Republican consultants.
Not any of the Republican political action committees.
I, your beloved host, El Rushbo — soon to celebrate 25 years behind the Golden EIB Microphone — I am the obstacle. I am the Mister Big. I am the wall. I am the obstacle. I’m the one thing in his way, and he’s very comfortable in telling people that I’m it. So, ladies and gentlemen, the president of the United States is in trouble. As you know, this IRS scandal is blossoming. We know now that it was not a low-level bunch of people in Cincinnati who directed this. We know it was the Washington, DC, office of the IRS.
This from no less than the Washington Post. We also have the Associated Press, which has acknowledged that the Justice Department of the regime, Eric Holder, illegally monitored and tapped a number of their telephone lines to procure information that they thought the AP had. The AP has written a letter of protest and anger over this. The Benghazi scandal does not go away. It continues to percolate, primarily because of the president’s treatment of it.
He continues to go to the microphones and essentially say things which everybody knows to be untrue, about what happened at Benghazi and what happened in the aftermath of Benghazi. When he opened the White House Correspondents Dinner (What was that, now, a couple of weeks ago?) the first thing out of his mouth when he’s introduced as he’s sitting there on the dais? He’s introduced, they start playing a rap tune, and Obama says, “Rush Limbaugh warned you of this. Second term, baby!”
I don’t know how many times it is that Obama has blamed me. You remember the first time this happened was two weeks into his administration in 2009. There was a meeting in the White House of congressional leaders from both parties. Near the end of the meeting, the president looked to John Boehner and said, “You know, you guys just can’t listen to Rush Limbaugh anymore. That’s not how things get done in Washington. You’ve gotta stop listening to Limbaugh.” That ended up being reported.
I had a meeting with Boehner, coincidentally, a few short weeks later here in my humble EIB Southern Command offices, and Boehner told me about this. He said, “I don’t know why. I don’t know why he would say that to us, Rush.” I said, “Let me tell you why, Mr. Speaker. It’s because he was hoping that just one of you would leave the White House, stroll to the microphones outside, and agree with him.”
He has been hoping for five years that just one, just one elected Republican somewhere, will stand up and agree that I am the problem. So let me do this. In the spirit of doing whatever I can to move things forward in this country, I would like to make myself available to the president of the United States to sit down and talk with him at a place of his choosing — and discuss the problems facing the country, and maybe working together.
Since I am the opposition, since I am the obstacle, since I am the reason he can’t get things done, I’ll be glad to sit down with him any time, anyplace that he wants. Perhaps we can hash this out and come to a — I don’t know — mutual understanding or agreement of how to get things off the dime and to move things forward.
Now, I have tried this before. If you recall, ladies and gentlemen, when the president first presented the stimulus proposal, I offered a counter in the form of an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal.
I said to the president, “Okay, you won the election. Let’s just pretend that you won by 60 to 40. You want to spend, basically, a $1 trillion on your stimulus.” I said, “I’ll offer you a counterproposal. You take $600 billion of your stimulus and you do with it whatever you want, and I’ll take $400 billion and do it my way, and we’ll see which way actually leads to more economic growth.” The Wall Street Journal published this op-ed.
I, of course, heard nothing from the White House after my gracious offer to help, because everybody who listens to this program knows that my fervent interest is this country and its growth — its economic growth, its spiritual growth, its cultural growth, its advancement. Yet the president of the United States, once again, has told loyalists (this time in Hollywood) that I am the one thing standing in his way of success.
Now, the president has had beer with a cop from Boston. There have been numerous summits. I am offering to make myself available to the president at a summit so that we can hash this out, so that I can explain to him why it is that I oppose what he’s trying to do. Maybe we can come to some sort agreement. My mother always told me, “Son, talk it out with people. Don’t go off mad and don’t get all uppity and don’t get angry. Talk it out with people and see if you can solve it with him.”
I’m offering that today here on the EIB Network, since I am the obstacle.
This is the third olive branch that I have offered in this spirit of cooperation, assistance, and help.
So I offer it again.
BREAK TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: I, ladies and gentlemen, would be happy to advise the president on how best to proceed. You remember, ladies and gentlemen, I even extended an invitation to play golf with President Obama. The invitation was extended via Zev Chafets, the author of the book An Army of One, that book about me. Zev Chafets extended the invitation to Obama via David Axelrod. He called Axelrod, and he said, “Rush would love to play golf with President Obama and hash things out.”
Now, the president of the United States says constantly that he’s eager to work with Republicans. He said he was eager to work with Republicans on the stimulus. He was eager to listen to people, Republicans, who had good ideas on any number of the debt limit deals, budget deals, any number of things. I even offered, in my op-ed in the Wall Street Journal on his stimulus, that if my plan worked, I would give him all the credit for it. He’s the president of the United States.
Had he been gracious enough to let me have $400 billion of his stimulus and do with it what I thought would generate economic growth — if it worked — I would give him the credit for it. I heard nothing. All I hear is how I am the problem. This is the fifth or sixth time now the president has told supporters that the one obstacle to him moving his agenda forward is me, Rush Limbaugh, because the Republicans are afraid to agree with him.
He paints a picture of the Republicans in Congress eager to work with him. They really want to help him. But they are more afraid of me and what I would say about them if they did help him than they are eager to work with him. So he continues to do what he can to have the Republicans — just one! It would be the crowning achievement of his administration, if just one elected Republican would stroll to a microphone and denounce me in the same terms that Obama has denounced me.
If a Republican would stroll to the mic and say, “You know, the president’s right! Rush Limbaugh’s a problem in this country. We just can’t get things done as long as he’s on the radio.” Of course just last week, folks, I was irrelevant and about to be thrown off the radio because I’m so insignificant. This changes, seemingly, on a weekly basis. So I continue to make the offer and I’ll make it again today. I’d be happy to advise the president on how best to proceed, given current circumstances.
BREAK TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: Ladies and gentlemen, a very, very minor correction. When Zev Chafets extended the invitation to play golf with me to the president, he called David Axelrod, but it was not Axelrod who responded. David Axelrod did not call back. Zev Chafets got a message from somebody very high in the Democrat Party with connections to the White House, and the reply was, “Tell Limbaugh to play with himself.”
By the way, Snerdley just said to me during the break, he said, “Nobody does a radio bit better than you.” This is not a radio bit, folks. Let me read it to you. This is from TheAtlanticWire.com, and it’s from late yesterday afternoon.
“President Obama told donors like Jessica Biel, Justin Timberlake … and Tommy Hilfiger that Washington gridlock is pretty much Rush Limbaugh’s fault on Monday evening at a fundraiser at Harvey Weinstein’s house in New York’s Greenwich Village. Obama admitted that his theory — that after the 2012 election, the Republican ‘fever’ would break, and they’d decide to co-sign some of his agenda — was wrong. ‘My thinking was when we beat them in 2012 that might break the fever, and itÂ’s not quite broken yet,’ Obama said, according to the White House pool report. … ‘I genuinely believe there are Republicans out there who would like to work with us but theyÂ’re fearful of their base and theyÂ’re concerned about what Rush Limbaugh might say about them. And as a consequence we get the kind of gridlock that makes people cynical about government.'”
RUSH: That’s what he told the fundraisers. It’s my fault. Let me translate this for you. What the president of the United States is really saying is, that Republican senators, Republican members of the House of Representatives, do not vote the way he wants them to because they’re afraid that I will tell the truth about them. If it were not for me, the news media would be able to protect them. In fact, what the president is saying is that these elected Republicans actually do want to help him. They do want to vote with him. They do want to join him in his agenda. But they can’t. Since I will actually report what they’re doing, they have to worry that their constituents will hear the truth from me and get mad at them. If I weren’t around they could vote for Obama, vote with Obama, and the media would cover for them and there would not be any criticism of them.
This is what the president is saying. The president is telling his donors that there are plenty of Republicans that can’t wait to help him move his agenda forward, if not for their fear of me. CNN has a headline on their website running at the moment: “Is Rush Limbaugh Sill Relevant?” They do. Let’s go back to the audio sound bites. This morning on Fox Business Network’s Varney & Company, Stuart Varney talking with Charles Payne, one of the Fox correspondents, about Obama’s denunciation of me, blaming me last night during the fundraiser at movie mogul Harvey Weinstein’s house. Varney said, “President Obama said that Rush Limbaugh’s to blame for the gridlock in Washington. He said that at a fundraiser at Weinstein’s house. Timberlake, Jessica Biel among the attendees. President told ’em that he thought his win in 2012 would break the Republican fever. The fundraiser was attended by more than 60 people, $32,000 per couple to the event. So, Charles, is it really all Rush’s fault?”
PAYNE: Rush must feel pretty good today. Imagine that, that he has more juice than Justin Timberlake, Jessica Biel, and all of these Hollywood couples that could fork over 32 grand to have dinner with the president. Here’s the real deal, and it really speaks a lot to the president and the idea that he thinks he knows everything, that he thinks he is 100% right on everything and that sooner or later, people — if you don’t come around to him, you’re suffering, you’re actually delusional, you are suffering from something that he calls a fever, and that perhaps if we beat you enough, if we beat you a second time you’ll have an epiphany and come out of your fever and see that I’m right.
RUSH: That’s Charles Payne at Fox Business and that’s pretty much exactly right. The president is saying the Republicans really do want to help him. They really want to help him advance his agenda. So just saying again, ladies and gentlemen, that I am sincerely offering myself, I’ll make myself available to the president to offer him advice on how to move things forward. Now, I wouldn’t be surprised if they responded and said, “It’ll cost you $32,000 to meet with the president,” at which point I would balk. But if the president thinks it would be worthwhile.
So I’m the obstacle, if I’m the one thing standing in the way of what he thinks is the best thing for this country. The president of the United States — let’s take him at his word. He thinks his ideas are the best thing to ever happen to this country, and there is one person standing in his way: me. If I weren’t around, smooth sailing, Republicans would be eagerly signing on to his agenda, agreeing with him, and the country would move in the direction Obama wants it to go. I am preventing him from getting cooperation from the Republicans, Mr. Snerdley. My presence, my microphone, my existence makes the Republicans fearful that if they agree with Obama, if they help his agenda, that I will criticize them. And that, he says, they’re afraid of.
He says the Republicans fear that I will criticize them for agreeing with him and that their constituents will hear about it and the Republican base will hear about it and that’s why they don’t do it. So if I weren’t there, if I weren’t here, then it would be smooth sailing.
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