RUSH: Sierra Vista, Arizona. Hi, Linda, great to have you on the EIB Network. Hi.
CALLER: Hi, Rush. How are you doing?
RUSH: Very well. Thank you very much.
CALLER: I apologize. I’m on my cell phone. I’m driving. I wanted to talk to you about what I think is maybe theoretical justification for your Limbaugh Theorem, and that’s the fact that this Article 2 of the Constitution is very, very clear. It says that executive power shall be vested in the president of the United States. The other two articles are not that clear. You know, “legislative powers herein granted belong to the two houses.” Even the judiciary, it says, “judicial powers shall be vested in a Supreme Court and inferior courts,” et cetera.
RUSH: Yeah.
CALLER: Hamilton said the reason for that, when he justified a unitary executive, is because they have to have the power to do what they need to do and then they have to be held accountable for doing those things. So I think that your point is that, well, he wants to stand back and pretend he’s not a part of it, but we need to hold him accountable and say, “That’s not how the Constitution works.” The executive power is invested in the president, and the president alone, so that he has power and so that the people can look at it and see who’s at fault when something goes wrong.
RUSH: Right. That’s exactly right.
Except the problem is you’re looking at it from legalistic constitutional sense, and the guy you’re talking about resents the hell out of the Constitution. Even Chris Matthews last night on MSNBC — Chris “Tingle Up His Leg” Matthews — is in real distress because the Limbaugh Theorem has finally hit him. He’s just realized it, although he doesn’t know that. He’s not saying that. But he’s finally realizing Obama doesn’t appear to like the job.
(impression) “This guy doesn’t like people. He doesn’t want to forge relationships. He doesn’t like the work on Capitol Hill. He doesn’t like it! He doesn’t like being an executive. He doesn’t like being an executive. He doesn’t really like it,” and that distresses people like Matthews, who savor this job. They sit around and dream about having this job. They look at this guy, and he’s conveying that he doesn’t like it, that it’s a problem, that it’s all too much red tape and stuff.
What they do not understand is that this is a purposeful construct. To illustrate this, if I must say, it’s rather… In a political sense, folks, this is rather genius. I don’t know of any other president who has been successful in detaching himself from the events of his own administration. I have never seen that happen. This last presidential election was the first in my lifetime — and maybe the first in many, many (and maybe all) elections — where the economic circumstances of the country were of no concern to the voters.
In most cases in the economy, the president owns it. Good or bad, it’s his. He gets the credit when it’s great; he gets the blame when it’s not. Obama has managed to pull off this detachment in a very (to get down to brass tacks), very easy way. He is constantly campaigning. His campaign never ends. He’s presidency is not one of governance. In fact, in one of these AP stories today there’s even a reference to the fact. Obama’s even quoted as saying, “Maybe it’s time for me to start governing.”
I mean, he’s admitting what’s going on here. He has purposely structured his presidency so that it doesn’t appear that he’s governing. He is not the executive in charge and responsible for what’s happening. All of this that’s happening is happening despite him. He has managed to create in the minds of low-information voters that elected him that he wants lower deficits, that he wants greater job creation, that he wants economic growth, that he wants all the things that aren’t happening.
The truth is, he’s getting everything he wants. The truth is, he is marching through this country like a hot knife through butter. His agenda, he’s putting notches in his belt every month. Stimulus, Obamacare, tax increases, blowing up the Bush tax rates, whatever the agenda item is. The only major thing that he wanted that he hasn’t got is Card Check, and maybe some environmental stuff. But for the most part…
How many of you think he’s not getting what he wants?
How many of you think his agenda stalled?
How many of you think that Obama’s not succeeding in advancing his agenda?
You know damn well he is! That’s what concerns you. That’s what scares you. Yet he structured it in such a way that the people of this country, in majority numbers, oppose his agenda — they oppose what he wants to do, they oppose what’s happening in the country, they don’t like the direction the country’s going — and in those same polls, they do not associate him with any of the problems. Because he’s always seen as opposing everything that’s happening and trying to fix it in the permanent, never-ending campaign.
No authorship.