RUSH: I forget if it was last week or the week before, there was either a call asking my opinion or else I just launched into it based on something that happened in the news. But I was trying to explain why the Republicans were not fighting back on anything having to do with Obama and the Democrats, and I said, “‘Cause I think they’re shell-shocked. I think they’ve got PTSD. I think they’re scared to death. They don’t see Obama plummeting in the polls, and if they do, they don’t believe it. They’re just shell-shocked, and this government shutdown, the fact they got blamed for it ’cause they’ve been called racist, I’m telling you, they’re shell-shocked. They’ve got posttraumatic stress disorder.”

And then that begot a call from a guy who said, “That’s not what it is, Rush. They agree with all of this. They’re not shell-shocked. They believe in Big Government, too. They don’t really oppose Obamacare.

I said, no, that may be somewhat true, but I do think — I’ve talked to them. You don’t have to talk to ’em to know. You can see they are shell-shocked. They are scared to death to say anything critical of Obama and the Democrats. And they’ll do anything to avoid a government shutdown, including giving Obama what he wants, which we just saw. Well, today, in the Washington Post, there’s a column by a man named Marc Thiessen and the headline: “Budget Deal Shows the GOP Has PTSD.”

Now, I made this point back on December 12th. That’s when it was. That was five days ago. So it would have been last week. And just joining Mr. Thiessen’s piece in progress: “So why are Republicans agreeing to reverse their only fiscal victory of the Obama era? Simple. The GOP has PTSD. Republicans emerged from their last budget battle with a bad case of post-traumatic stress disorder. Scarred by the government shutdown, they are terrified of having another fiscal fight with the president in January. So they are unilaterally conceding before it even begins.”

Well, there you go. (interruption) No, no, no, no. I’m not accusing him of plagiarism. Is that what you asking me? No, no, no. I don’t think Mr. Thiessen listens here. I’ll tell you what happened. It’s either great minds think alike, or somebody did listen and tell him what that person thought, not mentioning me. Somebody listened to this and said, “You know, it sounds good,” somebody Thiessen knew, a friend of Thiessen’s. Folks, this happens to me all the time. I’ll give you an example. Let me reverse it to explain it. Somebody, a friend of mine, will give me a point of view on something that they want me to think they thought of.

Then I will use it and I find out they heard it said by somebody else but didn’t tell me that. They wanted me to think it was theirs, and then I end up being accused. This is why I no longer use anything anybody else tells me. So I would lay you 10 to one this is not that. He would not blatantly steal. This is not…

If anything he probably agrees, obviously agrees. They are shell-shocked. They’re scared to death, and it’s not good.

There’s no reason to be.

They gave up the sequester gains.

They have financed Obamacare.

All because they’re afraid of another government shutdown.

Whether they’re responsible for it or not, they’re scared stiff that they’re gonna get blamed and there’s nothing they can do about it, and so there’s no reason to oppose Obama. They’re scared to death to do it. Now, the fact that there are two people now accusing the Republicans of being in posttraumatic stress, that’s cool. But I don’t… People are in my ear right now, “What? He stole it from you!” He didn’t steal it. If anything, somebody he knows said, “Hey, Mark, I’ll tell you what it is! I’ll tell you what it is,” and he thought, “Yeah, that makes sense,” and it inspired — or he came up with his own, regardless.