RUSH: Last night’s CNN, Erin Burnett OutFront. She spoke with “The Forehead,” Paul Begala, about the impact of the government shutdown. Now, I don’t want to get too far gone here. You know, as the mayor of Realville, you stay real. But I have been opining that I think — let me put it this way. The Republicans are not losing the way the inside-the-Beltway media is portraying it. It’s a far different reality throughout the country.

I think that some of the Drive-Bys are starting to crack. We had Wolf Blitzer yesterday, who was not buying what he was hearing. We had Stewart with Sebelius. And here now is Erin Burnett talking to The Forehead about the shutdown. What they’re all saying, “Wait a minute, everything’s still functioning here except what you guys won’t permit. You guys won’t permit the veterans to go to the memorial. You guys won’t permit national parks to open, but other than that, everything seems kind of fine and dandy here.”

BURNETT: What about the shutdown? The media notices the Amber Alert website isn’t working, it goes back up. Ninety percent of the civilian Department of Defense employees are now back working. If the government was really shut down there wouldn’t be money to do all of this so it does sort of create this atmosphere of maybe they oversold this. This was supposed to be the end of the world, and it’s not, so then maybe the debt ceiling won’t be the end of the world.

RUSH: Oh, so maybe the debt ceiling won’t be the end of the world. This isn’t. And Y2K wasn’t. The financial crisis of ’08 wasn’t. All the other debt ceilings have not been. Maybe this isn’t. So a technique has maybe exhausted itself here. Here is The Forehead’s reply, who of course sticks to the Democrat line.

BEGALA: I saw Warren Buffett saying that it would be a nuclear bomb. Go pass the debt ceiling, go ahead and do it! Just like, let your kids play baseball in the middle of a crowded street. Maybe they won’t get hit by a car. I think it’s preposterous. It’s crazy. It’s walking into a risk, an enormous risk if you listen to the experts, that we don’t need to have.

RUSH: A non-answer. Walk into a street, you may get hit, you may not, that’s where we are with a shutdown. Warren Buffett said it would be like a nuclear bomb. Warren Buffett is on the record as saying Obamacare is a disaster. All the way back as far as 2009 Warren Buffett advised Obama to pull it back and redo it. So let’s move forward to this morning, CNBC Squawk Box, the co-host Joe Kernen talking with Sam Zell. And full disclosure. Sam Zell used to own Jacor Communications, which, for a while, was the syndication partner of this program, although I never met Mr. Zell. Of course I know of him, real estate investor.

He used to own — maybe still does — the LA Times and Tribune company. I know he wants to sell it, if he still does. I lost track. But he’s a multibillionaire financial whiz. And Joe Kernen said, “The stock market is QE juiced in your view.” Meaning they’ve overdone it with QE, it’s just not real. “This is just going to make the QE last even longer because maybe it hurts the recovery. So the stock at this point is how much of a bubble in your view, even though it’s come down a little?”

ZELL: I would raise the question as to whether or not the events that are going on right now are an excuse for the stock market to correct. I mean, I ran a lot of businesses. It’s true business is better than it was in ’09, but that’s like comparing, I don’t know, leprosy to cancer. You know, I mean, ’09 was horrific. It’s definitely better today, but we’re a long way from any kind of robust recovery.

RUSH: Did you hear that? Yeah, business — (laughing) — it’s better than it was in ’09 but it’s like comparing leprosy to cancer. You don’t want either one. By the way, Jimmy Carter has come out, and he’s now bellyaching about the poor economy and the widening gap between the rich and the poor. Has somebody told him that we’ve been running Democrat policies for the last five years? It’s amazing to me.

Anyway, so here’s Sam Zell, this is no recovery going, even with QE3 and 5 and infinity, there is no real recovery going on out here, only if you compare it to how bad things were in 2009. And then Joe Kernen, CNBC, said, “Do you blame the Tea Party for this?” Now, stop and think of that question. The Tea Party? How in the world could the Tea Party be responsible for the stock market? Especially given all the pumping that the Federal Reserve has been doing. The Tea Party — and he was serious with this question. Do you blame the Tea Party for this poor economic recovery? That is such a disjointed thought, much less a question. Here’s what Zell said.

ZELL: No. I think the Tea Party is a reaction to an imperial White House. The president is elected to negotiate. That’s his job.

RUSH: Imperial White House. Sam Zell. The Tea Party is a reaction to an imperial White House. I.e., the Tea Party exists because we’ve got near authoritarian dictatorial crap happening here. They’re not responsible for the market. That’s the president, Joe.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: Bill in Billings, Montana. You’re next. Great to have you. Hi.

CALLER: How you doing?

RUSH: Good. Good. Great to have you with us.

CALLER: Hey, I wanted to call and get right to the point. I’m one of those nonessential furloughed federal workers who happens to be a budget analyst. I’m also a retired 20-year Navy veteran, and I wanted to clarify what (unintelligible) the Speaker of the House, Boehner doesn’t even know what it means when you go past the debt ceiling. Default means you can’t pay your interest on your debt. Our interest is about $220 billion a year.

RUSH: Yeah.

CALLER: This year, we’re gonna take in more money in revenue into the Treasury than ever before, about $2.5 trillion. And that’s with a $700 billion tax increase in January. We’re still gonna be short $700 billion.

RUSH: 2.25. So your point is we won’t default. Even if we default, we still would collect enough tax revenue every month to pay the interest on the debt.

CALLER: You only have to pay about 20 or $30 billion a month and take in somewhere between $250 and 300 billion a month.

RUSH: Right.

CALLER: That’s gonna force President Obama and his cabinet —

RUSH: Wait a minute. Did you say Boehner doesn’t know this?

CALLER: He comes out and says we’re gonna default, you know, if we go past the debt ceiling, we’re gonna default to the country. We’re not gonna default to the country. If you can pay the interest on your debt, you do not default. That means the money that comes into the Treasury, just like what comes into your pocket every month that you earn, you have to live on. And that’s what President Obama and his cabinet are gonna have to do if we default. They’re gonna have to live within their budget, they have to make cuts ’cause they don’t have any borrowing authority.

RUSH: Well, now, Obama —

CALLER: Does that make sense?

RUSH: Well, yeah, that makes total sense except Obama said that raising the debt limit does not mean we go into more debt.

CALLER: It does. We do go into more debt. (crosstalk)

RUSH: No, no, I know that, I’m just telling you what the president says. The president says that raising the debt limit shouldn’t bother anybody. It doesn’t mean that we’re gonna add to the debt. It just means we’re gonna pay our bills.

CALLER: Well, he’s inhaling again.

RUSH: What?

CALLER: He’s inhaling again.

RUSH: Oh, inhaling. Inhaling.

CALLER: Yeah. He doesn’t know what he’s talking about. He’s trying to fool the low-information voter.

RUSH: You’re saying that Obama’s out with the choom gang again, eh?

CALLER: He must be, because that is what a default is and if you borrow more money you go into more debt, just like me and you, except the greatest things the Republicans could do is stick to their guns, don’t borrow any more money, don’t approve the debt limit, and force them to live within a budget.

RUSH: Since you brought this up, I’ve got conflicting information. I read two things this morning, I don’t know which one’s accurate, and I hope one of them is. The thing I read was that Boehner was gonna do what I suggested yesterday — and not because of me, don’t misunderstand — but he was gonna come up with a short-term debt limit thing of a couple of months so as not to lose momentum that they’ve got going on Obamacare. And then I read that he had pulled back from that and was gonna combine the two, which I think strategically is a mistake. I think they need to stay separated.

CALLER: I think they should combine the two and go play golf. The House of Representatives. And don’t say another word —

RUSH: Well, okay, look. I appreciate that, too. Just get the hell out of Dodge and spare us all. I understand that. But one thing before we go ’cause time is short. He is exactly right, folks. We will not default. We have plenty of tax revenue coming in. Even without this new tax increase, we have tax revenue sufficient every month to pay the interest on the debt. We will not default. And that’s the definition of it. We will not default. We will pay our bills. This is just panic, crisis creation by the regime.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: I provided a number of things I think are evidence of this during the program today.

Obama’s doing a presser, everybody is sitting around waiting for his press conference to start. You know, all of this, Obama’s saying (imitation), “I’ll negotiate with anybody, any time, anywhere, as long as they come to the table ready to agree with me.” Republicans do not seem like the crazies here. The Republicans do not seem like the uncompromising whatever negatives are usually attached to them. Democrats are the ones that have come off mean and heartless here. And Obama voters, this fiasco at the Obamacare website is a biggie, and there are some fascinating things that have been written.

Oh, and by the way, the National Mall is closed, except it’s not. They opened the National Mall for a rally for amnesty today. It’s closed for standard, ordinary, everyday American citizen use because of the shutdown, but Obama, the regime opened it up today for use by pro-amnesty immigration forces, and there’s a big mob out there, a big crowd out there. I’m just telling you, folks, these are things that the low-information voters, they see it. This is not something they have to be led to and have to be told. They see this stuff.

We had Erin Burnett telling The Forehead (paraphrasing), “You know, you guys overshot this. You’re predicting end of the world on the shutdown, and it isn’t the end of the world. You predicted the end of the world on the sequester, and it isn’t the end of the world. It’s actually pretty good.”

And so on Anderson Cooper last night he had Republican strategist Ana Navarro, Daily Beast editor-in-cheap Tina Brown. They’re talking about the shutdown, and Ana Navarro said, “There has to be a solution that saves face for the Speaker, the Republicans, and the White House. That’d be a good solution, a good way to do things.” I don’t know what she’s talking about here, but regardless, Anna is solid GOP establishment. She is big on immigration reform and so forth, and she would be among people inside the Beltway who think the Republicans are getting creamed. And probably you do, too. I get e-mail from people who think I’m full of it. “Come on, Rush, have you had the news on lately? Republicans are getting their clocks cleaned.” I’m telling you, I think the perception outside the Beltway is not that, but we’ll see. Anyway, Tina Brown had this to say about Democrats winning and losing and all that.

BROWN: What we’re seeing now in the polls is that the blaming of the Republicans alone is now also shifting to Democrats in the sense that now people just want the government just to work together and get it down. And there may be now actually a very good moment, I think, for the Democrats to start negotiating over the budget before the debt ceiling and before all of that rather than continually taking the stance that, you know, we’re not gonna just give in to hostages.

RUSH: Well, now, there’s no other way to read this. This is, again, as I posited yesterday, it is this one word: “negotiate.” Apparently what’s happened is the Democrats are seen as refusing, and as much as it might bother me, the American people want this to happen. They want there to be this negotiation and getting along. Don’t forget, they who voted for Obama thought that’s what his election meant, among many other things. Because he promised it. The media told them that this is a new kind of politician, and he exploited that. He promised everybody that the old politics of constant bickering was over, and there was a new day, a new era of cooperation and all that rotgut. And it’s not happening.

So here Tina Brown, Democrats, polling is shifting. The Democrats are now seen as the ones who are obstinate and refuse to talk. Tt’s in the polling data. Sixty-one percent disapprove of Democrats on this, folks. On the plus side, 70% for Republicans. Sixty-one percent blaming the Democrats on this. That’s why Obama’s doing the presser and that’s why all of these people are starting to panic. Frank Rich, another regime stalwart, he was on with Piers Morgan last night. Frank Rich used to be at the New York Times. Now he’s over at New York Magazine. This is the guy — ah, never mind. Doesn’t matter. Well, it does. You may not know. Frank Rich left his family for a year to live with a gay couple, to experience it, to be able to relate. No, he did. As a means of being more able to write about gay issues.

At any rate, he was on with Piers Morgan, and Piers Morgan said, “What does it mean for the future of the Republican Party, midterms are coming up, you have the big election in 2016, it can’t be helpful, can it, that their chances of doing well in either of those two elections if they are seen to be absolutely ideologically at each other’s throats?”

RICH: Like it or not, they have a long game in view, and they see themselves as revolutionaries. And of course Republicans do control a lot of statehouses, and so there’s the local fights which are completely different from the national fight. Americans tend to look at the marquee event, which is the presidential election, and there they’re definitely hurting themselves, and they may well hurt themselves in representation in Congress, but they have a longer view. They have a very strong ideology that’s persisted for decades, arguably stronger than any that’s uniting the Democratic Party at any time, at least since the new deal.

RUSH: He’s all wet about the substance there in terms of what this might mean electorally, but nevertheless he’s cautioning old Piers Morgan here against dismissing what’s going on on the conservative side. You might think they’re a bunch of crazies, but they’re not losing the day out there.