All Episodes
Previous Next
Sept. 10, 2009 - Rush Limbaugh Program
36:36
September 10, 2009, Thursday, Hour #2
| Copy link to current segment

Time Text
Greetings to you, music lovers, thrill seekers, and conversationalists all across the fruited plain.
Rush Limbaugh, the bulwark, a household name in all four corners of the world.
Meeting and surpassing all audience expectations every day.
Phone number if you want to be on the program, 800-282-2882.
And the email address L Rushball at EIBNet.com.
Obama met with his cabinet.
This afternoon, they always let the press in there before the cabinet meeting actually starts.
We have two sound bites from the cabinet meeting.
Here's number one.
I am confident the plan that we've put forward is the right plan for the American people.
I continue to be open to suggestions and ideas from all quarters.
House members, Senate members, Democrats, Republicans, outside groups.
Well, uh, he has no plan.
Whatever he mentioned last night doesn't exist.
The plan he talked about last night does not exist.
There is no plan.
He couldn't hold it up and show it to us.
He's not lobbying the House or Senate to change what's in their plans to reflect what he said last night.
He's not open to any other plan.
He's not open to it.
He's just saying, in fact, before we go to 34, grab soundbite eight.
The president of the United States called Sarah Palin a liar last night.
The President of the United States called me a liar last night.
The president of the United States called the American people, the majority of the American people liars last night.
Given all the misinformation that's been spread over the past few months, I realize that many Americans have grown nervous about reform.
So to tonight I want to address some of the key controversies that are still out there.
Some of people's concerns have grown out of bogus claims spread by those whose only agenda is to kill reform at any cost.
Stop the taping it, stop tape.
There are no bogus claims.
We are spreading the truth, Mr. President, to save America.
We are spreading the truth to save the country from you and your czars and your administration.
We are spreading the truth about you to save the institutions and traditions that have made this country great.
You are the one lying.
You are the one with bogus information.
You, sir, are the one without a plan.
Nothing you said last night is reflected anywhere in any bill that's been put forth in the House of the Senate.
Zip zero nada.
So where is this plan of yours?
Here's the rest of the bite.
...is the claim made not just by radio and cable talk show hosts, but by prominent politicians...
That we plan to set up panels of bureaucrats with the power to kill off senior citizens.
Now such a charge would be laughable if it weren't so cynical and irresponsible.
It is a lie, plain and simple.
Is not a lie, plain and simple.
You're gonna cut $500 billion from Medicare.
You claim you're gonna do it by finding fraud and waste.
Well, if you can do that, do it now.
If you're gonna cut $500 million to Medicare and claim there's gonna be no reduction in service.
You're lying.
It's mathematically impossible.
There are Medicare panels.
It's in the bill.
You want them run out of the White House.
They are going to determine who gets treated and who doesn't.
It just takes a little common sense to understand that this is going to be health care rationing when you and your buddies in Washington are in total control of it.
So we're not lying.
We're not spreading bogus claims.
You call us out, we're gonna hit back twice as hard.
Isn't that how it goes, Mr. President?
You call us out.
We're gonna hit back twice as hard.
Sarah Palin's hit back today on her Facebook page.
She's not backing down at all from anything she said, and she's continuing to point out that the president's misrepresenting and lying to people.
Now, this next reporter at the cabinet meeting asked Obama if he accepted the apology of Joe Wilson.
Yes, I do.
Uh I'm a big believer uh that uh we all make mistakes.
Uh he apologized quickly uh and without equivocation, uh, and I'm appreciative of that.
We have to get to the point where we can have a conversation about big important issues that matter to the American people without vitriol, without name calling, uh, without the assumption uh of the tape.
He says we have to have a conversation about big important issues that matter to the American people without vitriol without name calling.
Oh, you mean like when Nancy Pelosi called us all Nazis.
When your buddy Van Jones is out saying the kind of things he's saying.
When your buddy Bill Ayers is saying what he said, when your buddy Jeremiah Wright says the things he says.
We gotta we gotta stop the name call with the things that you say, spreading bogus claims, assuming the worst in other people's motives.
Nancy Pelosi calling us all Nazis, showing up with swastikaws at the town hall meetings, your very own White House, referring to the American people at town hall meetings as an unruly mob.
Mr. President, if you're gonna stop the name calling, look inward.
Look inside the White House and the old executive office building, and you tell your people to shut up.
You tell your people to stop it.
You get hold of Paul Bagala, you get hold of James Carver, and you tell them to shut up.
You get hold of your buddies over at M SNBC and you tell them to shut up.
That's where the name calling and the victory all is coming from.
The people you're talking about are simply trying to save their country from you for their children and for their grandchildren.
The president then concluded his comments with this.
In other people's motives, I hope that some of the fever uh breaks a little bit.
The media can always be helpful by not giving all the attention to the loudest or shrillest voices and try to stay a little bit more focused on uh the issues at hand.
Well, that's as castro-like.
In fact, I thought that whole speech was Castro-like last night.
This is certainly Castro like.
Well, I hope the fever breaks a little bit.
Media can be helpful by not giving all the attention to the loudest or shrillest voices.
They don't.
The media ignores Jeremiah Wright, the media ignores Van Jones, the media ignores Mark Lloyd, the media ignores Jeremiah Wright and Bill Ayers and all your other buddies.
The media ignores the loudest and shrillest voices.
Who regardless, he already controls the media, so here he's giving them marching orders.
Oh, Mr. President, you have to understand the media has not covered the tea parties as they've happened.
The media has besmirched people.
They have lied themselves about what's going on at these tea parties and who's there.
They have not told the truth that it's your union thugs that have shown up to beat up people at these town hall meetings.
You talk about vitriol.
You talk about name-calling.
Then you instruct the media not to uh give all the attention to the loudest or shrillest voices.
You ask the media to stay focused on the issues at hand.
They aren't.
They have lost their ability to stay focused on the issues at hand.
Were it up to the media and we're were it the case that we didn't exist, you'd have smooth sailing, sir, and nobody would know what's in your plan because it wouldn't be reported.
We haven't seen in our lifetimes a media so slavish to a single politician.
The media, thanks to you, sir, has met its Waterloo.
They've lost all integrity just like you brought none to the House chamber last night.
There was no integrity in that speech, there was no dignity in that speech, there's no integrity or dignity in these comments.
There is just an arrogance, elitist condescension.
Complete with lie after lie after lie.
By the way, here's John Boehner.
I mentioned that I saw this on Fox this morning.
Uh you know, the Joe Wilson apologized for calling Obama a liar when he said that there was not anything in the bill that would grant coverage to illegal aliens.
Here's Boehner.
H.R. 3200 does not contain any restrictions on non-citizens Participating in and paying for coverage available uh through the exchange, whether the non-citizens uh are legally or illegally present or in the United States temporarily or permanently.
And this CRS report makes it pretty clear.
Secondly, uh, there were two opportunities in committee for House Democrats to make clear that illegal immigrants would not be covered by putting in uh requirements uh to uh to show citizenship.
Uh both of those amendments were in fact rejected.
Exactly.
So Wilson told the truth, Obama was lying, and now we're harping all over Wilson.
Wilson apologized quickly.
And Obama said, yeah, okay, I accept it, you know, that's nice.
How fast did Obama apologize to the police officer in Cambridge?
I don't think he has yet, has he?
He never apologized to the police officer in Cambridge after calling him stupid.
Now the White House is out there reporting that one million jobs have been saved and created.
More lies, more jobs have lost.
We're approaching 10% unemployment.
If there's anything saving jobs, it's private sector employers who are busting their rear ends to stay in business, fighting against this administration to do so.
If anybody's saving jobs, it's American citizens trying to make their country work.
Mr. Obama, sir, you are doing nothing but destroying jobs and the opportunity for more to be created.
Back in a moment.
Now look at this.
Look at this.
Uh the fascinating story here in the Wall Street Journal.
Joe Wilson's U Lie provides fundraising boon for opponent.
Proof that one man's loss is another man's gain in the hours following Joe Wilson's you lie outburst.
His 2010 Democrat opponent has raised about a hundred thousand dollars from three thousand people.
Now they've updated it to say that uh he's raised two hundred thousand dollars from 5,000 individual grassroots contributions.
But if you this guy's name is Rob Miller, that's the Democrat that's going to oppose Joe Wilson in 2010.
Uh from Miller's last filing with the FEC on June 30th of this year, he had $57,000 of cash on hand.
He had $440,000 of debt.
So all of these nuts that are contributing are simply retiring his debt, which they've got about half of the debt retired.
He still doesn't have a net plus in his count for campaigns.
And what they're not figuring here, you can't get into Joe Wilson's website.
You haven't been able to get into it last night.
It's overwhelmed.
I will guarantee you before this day is out, the number of contributions and the amount of money that Joe Wilson's going to find had been donated to him is going to dwarf whatever it is Brad Miller guy gets.
This is where there is a total disconnect.
And even exists for the Republican Party, not knowing the attitude, minds, and hearts of their own voters.
Now, this is incredible.
Andrew Breitbart, BigHollywood.com started a new website recently, Biggovernment.com.
And uh filmmaker James O'Keefe, 25-year-old independent filmmaker, has uh his own theory about how to expose people on the left, and he's using a Linsky rules.
One of the uh Sol Olinski rules in dealing with your enemies is making your enemies live by their own rules will destroy them.
So O'Keefe's theory is hey, just calling attention to their corruption and disagreeing with it and demanding that it stop isn't going to accomplish anything.
We've got to go encourage the corruption and illustrate how it happens.
And so what happened was James O'Keefe posed as a pimp with a 20-year-old woman named Kenya, who posed as a prostitute while visiting Acorn's office in Baltimore.
The couple told Acorn staffers that they wanted to secure housing where the woman could continue to maintain a prostitution business.
Now, Acorn advised the woman on two things how to avoid being caught paying taxes, how to avoid paying taxes on her business, how to cheat the IRS, and how to get away with running a prostitution business.
In Baltimore.
We have a couple sound bites that illustrate this.
They walked there's video of this, uh, the whole video runs about an hour.
Um They got two long segments of it on O'Keefe's site at biggovernment.com.
But here's the this is your tax dollars at work, by the way, Acorn employees.
Acorn four to five billion dollars in the stimulus package directly to them.
And remember, Acorn is Barack Obama's training ground.
When he got to Chicago, he became a community organizer with Acorn.
He taught them how to do things.
They taught him how to do things.
We now have an Acorn type community agitator as president of the United States.
So in this bite, this is the videotape.
James O'Keefe posing as the pimp, his woman Kenya posing as the prostitute, the Acorn uh uh Baltimore office.
And in this bite, the Acorn employee advises the cameraman on how to hide a prostitution business.
Can we make sure there's a code for it?
Okay.
A code for prostitution.
You might have to name it something else.
We can do this.
How about if you want to do that?
Okay, other amusement and recreational services.
She knows her stuff because she was saying that what we can do is classify this not as prostitution.
Exactly.
No, no, uh performing arts.
Performing arts.
If anyone asks you, your business is a performing artist.
Performing artists.
Which you are.
Okay, so you're not lying.
Now, O'Keeffe, uh, in a in a brief passage, brief little uh post that accompanies the video uh at BigGovernment.com says, he figured out Acorn is not so much ideological as they just hate things as they are.
They're all about just ruckus and change and disruption and chaos.
Just for the sake of it.
It's all about overturning the system.
Now I think they are ideological.
I think they're full-bred radical leftists.
But regardless, he's also right when he says they're just anti-status call and they'll do anything to bust it up.
Angry, bent out of shape.
Here's the second uh bite in which the acorn employees advise this couple to use underage prostitutes as dependents for tax write-offs.
There's another variable here that we should talk to you about, which is may complicate our taxes, is that we got a couple girls overseas coming over, you know what I mean?
And they're very young.
And we don't want to we don't want to put them on the on the books.
They're from El Salvador.
Okay.
There's like 13 of them.
You can use them as a dependent because they live in your house, especially if they're under 16.
Okay.
Because they you're taking care of them.
Yeah.
So you can use them as a dependent.
What if they're making money because they're performing tricks too?
If they're making money and they're underage, you shouldn't be letting nobody know anyway.
What?
You shouldn't be letting anyone know anyway.
You can use them on your taxes as dependents to help lower your now.
There's much more of this if you want to go to biggovernment.com and uh uh see the entire video.
But here basically what you have is Barack Obama's group being fooled here by a filmmaker who goes in posing as a pimp with his prostitute and wanting advice on how to set up a business.
Acorn advises them how to set up a business, how to avoid taxes, and at the same time.
Acorn had no problem with the forced slavery of underage girls from El Salvador.
So the point that O'Keefe's making here is look, we know that Acorn's corrupt.
We know that there are a bunch of frauds.
There are 11 of them arrested or indicted down in Miami yesterday.
Or vote fraud and so forth.
Of course, Acorn said, well, we didn't want to no engage in votes for we're happy these people got caught, blah, blah, blah, blah.
It is a totally corrupt organization.
They exist to overthrow the system.
They made up of people just as angry at this country as Barack Obama and Van Jones and Mark Lloyd are, and Valerie Jarrett and all the rest of them.
So they go in there and they pose as degenerates.
They go in there and pose as human debris, reprobates, a pimp and a prostitute.
And here's Acorn.
Oh, yeah, we loved it, because Acorn knows this is one of the fastest ways to rot the community.
And rotting communities is what they're all about.
Causing the rot.
It creates chaos.
It creates a need for welfare, creates a need for big government.
So here come a man and a woman, a pimp and a prostitute showing up, wanting to know how they can set up a business and get away with it.
Acorn right there to advise them.
Acorn right there.
Oh, you want to bring these women in?
Fine and damn it.
We got no problem with you slaverizing young girls underage.
Yes, I made up the word.
I can do that, I'm host, slaverizing.
Enslaving young girls from El Salvador.
In a way that you can get away with it and make money.
Welcome to the community, Acorn is saying.
Well, uh I d the acorn people are not commenting yet.
Uh they're withholding at least they hadn't before the program started, until they've seen all the video, but but they um they think the whole thing was a setup.
Not a woman's not going to be fired.
I wouldn't be sh I wouldn't imagine.
People have been patiently waiting, as they always do, to appear on this the most listened to radio talk show in America.
And Meridian Mississippi, Cindy, your next.
Thanks for your patience and hello.
Thank you.
And I wanted to say that I think Joe Wilson was a real life example of the little boy in the children's story, The Emperor Has No Clothes On last night.
It was the perfect setting for him to draw attention to all America that what Barack Obama is saying is really just trying to sell us a bill of goods when in reality he has no clothes on whatsoever.
Uh, exactly right.
That was snake oil.
That was snake oil all night long last night.
Amy in Medina, Ohio.
Hi, and welcome to the EIB network.
Thank you, Rush.
Mega Dittoes.
Um, I just think it's interesting to not only look at the president's words, but the argument approach that he is using.
The president used the classical Hegelian dialectic process, and basically it is guiding people's thoughts by using a thesis and an anti-thesis, pitching two groups against each other to come to a predetermined outcome.
And I was just, I was I was in shock because the president said we have two extremes.
We have the single pair system, and then we have the free market approach where we just have competition.
And, you know, he's pitching these two groups against each other to get to his predetermined outcome, which everyone's gonna think, okay, it's a synthesis, but it's not a synthesis where uh Congress and the Senate are gonna sit down and hammer out the details.
It's a synthesis where he's gonna have this outcome that is going to be brought into the bill.
Well, you know, that's a good point.
Uh and the uh the Hegelian dialectic uh is something that that a lot of people might not know about.
It's this is Mark Single's uh a common approach that the Soviets use, the communists around the world use to advance ideas.
And basically what you're saying is if I could translate, what you're saying is the president's out there saying, no, no, no, no, no, there's not gonna be a government plan, no no, no, no, no, no.
At the same time, he's trashing the insurance companies and the private sector and saying he's gonna bring them to he's gonna bring them up and he's gonna raise them right and he's gonna make sure they do right and so forth.
He's gonna run them.
He said he's admitting that there's gonna be a public plan while denying there's gonna be a public plan.
That's the whole point.
Exactly.
And he wants to pitch the two extremes so that they look like uh, I don't know a better word, idiots, so that people say, Well, no, we don't want this, and we don't want the single pair, and we'll come to this result.
Yeah, but you see that the point is that the the free market is not an extremist position.
I know, but to him it is.
But it's not to the majority of Americans.
This is I I don't think it's it's it's going to work uh to paint.
Look at since this guy's come into office, look at who he's demonized, and look what he's taken over.
He's demonized big oil.
Well, though I say constantly, the Democrat Party's enemies list is anybody that makes profit.
But he personally's demonized doctors, he has demonized hospitals, he has demonized insurance companies.
This guy never says one thing about the greatness of this country ever.
He doesn't have one single concept of American exceptionalism.
He doesn't buy into that at all.
He hasn't said one thing about the greatness of our health care system and the things that does good.
In his mind, it's a horrible mess.
It's causing people to die.
And if we don't do his plan, more people are gonna die.
And it's just ridiculous.
Now let's let's go back.
June 24th, the ABC Obama infomercial.
I will never forget this.
He says more people are going to die if we don't do my health care plan.
Remember?
Jane Sturm, the audience member whose mother was now over 105, still alive.
At age 100, she needed pacemaker.
And uh specialists refused to do it.
Too old.
But she went to another specialist.
She had the option to do that because the free market health care system allows for that.
One specialist said, no, I'm not going to waste my time.
Your mother's too old.
The other specialist saw her.
The other specialist saw a spunk, a joy of life.
So you know what?
I'm going to go for it.
I'm going to put the pacemaker in.
So she's still alive after getting the pacemaker, fine and dandy, hunky dory.
Jane Sturm asked this question to the President of the United States.
Outside the medical criteria for prolonging life for somebody who's old.
Is there any consideration that can be given for a certain spirit, a certain joy of living, a quality of life, or is it just a medical cutoff at a certain age?
Now remember, Obama says there is no death panel.
There's no, no, well, we're not, we're not going to be off in grandma.
Well, here's a woman who brings in a grandma, talks about a grandma.
Look at are imagine this, folks.
In our country, a citizen asks Fidel Castro.
Barack Obama, will you spare my mother if you see that she has a a joy for living?
Will you spare my mother?
If she has spunk, will you spare my mother if if she has a great quality of life?
And here was the answer from the President of the United States.
I don't think that we can make judgments based on people's spirit.
That'd be uh a pretty subjective decision to be making.
I think we have to have rules that uh say that we are going to provide good quality care for all people.
End of life care is one of the most difficult sets of decisions that we're gonna have to make.
But understand that those decisions are already being made in one way or another.
If they're not being made under Medicare and Medicaid, they're being made by private insurers.
At least we can let doctors know, and your mom know that you know what, maybe this isn't gonna help.
Maybe you're better off uh not having the surgery, but taking uh the painkiller.
So Barack Obama, who says more people are gonna die if we don't do his plan, just answers a woman, nope, no, we're not gonna save your mother.
And it's none of his damn business whether her mother gets a pacemaker or not.
And the very idea that an American citizen who've gotten to the point has to ask the President of the United States to save her mother ought to be a telltale sign that we're on a wrong road and in a going in the wrong direction.
We're on the wrong road in the wrong car, we got the wrong driver, and we're headed in the wrong direction.
And Obama says, nah, take a pain pill.
And we're not gonna take into account anybody's spunk, joy of life, spirit.
No, we can't do that.
Well, we have different criteria.
And he has the audacity to lecture us on scare tactics.
Listen to this from last night.
Everyone in this room knows what will happen if we do nothing.
Our deficit will grow, more families will go bankrupt, more businesses will close.
More Americans will lose their coverage when they are sick and need it the most.
And more will die as a result.
And he lectures us about scare tactics.
It's Barack Obama's health care plan that will cause more people to die.
President Barack Obama's health care plan.
Well, he doesn't have one.
I he was just making it up last night because what he was saying last night doesn't exist anywhere in Congress.
But the plans now before Congress Will end up killing more people than the private sector health coverage or private sector health business ever has or has contemplated.
Michael Tanner uh has made a good point at National Review online with uh Obama caught lying about nothing in the health care plan requiring you to change the type of coverage you have or your doctor.
Virtually every appearance that Obama makes, he says nothing in this plan will require you or your employer to change the coverage of the doctor you have.
Said a last night.
Nothing in our plan requires you to change what you have.
It's just not true.
The president favors a requirement that everyone must carry basic health insurance, which is right out of the barcas bill and say you've got to have it.
But the individual mandate that he favors, that is in the bills before Congress, doesn't just say you have to have insurance.
The mandate in the bills before Congress specifies what benefits your insurance must have, even if you don't want those benefits, or they boost the cost of your policy.
It is going to change.
It's in the bills.
It cannot help but change.
Change is mandated.
This was despicable, it was demeaning, it was totally lacking in integrity, honesty, and even decency in class last night.
It was as fraudulent as the CNN poll that came out last night that said two-thirds of the people who watched the speech changed their mind favorably toward Obama's plan.
Well, the sample of 427 adult Americans, phone survey, the sample was 45% Democrat, 18% Republican.
That's more than twice.
Almost three times as many Democrats as Republicans in the poll last night.
And that poll was taken just so the media could jump on it last night and this morning to write and tell the story of how Obama turned it around.
We'll be back, sit tight, don't go away.
There are other things going on out there, folks, and one of them is the National Football League opening up tonight.
And this is something you can watch without consequence.
One of the great things about sports is you can vest, if you're a big fan of it, too, you can vest all the passion you have without consequence.
I mean, the team may lose, but the team will never kick you out.
The team will never divorce you.
The team will never tell you to go to hell.
You can just, you can unload.
You can share every emotion.
You don't have to keep any guard up whatsoever.
Just unload it all and without consequence.
That's one of the beauties of sports.
I've been asked if we got sound bites of uh McCain this morning on the Today Show.
Let me quickly look here at the soundbite roster.
I don't believe so.
Uh see.
Let's see.
We don't have any McCain in it.
What did McCain say on the Today Show?
What did he say?
Hmm.
Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm.
He threw Palin under the bus.
Well, that's because Obama gave him a big compliment last night.
See what McCain out there giving him a thumbs up.
Uh anyway, back to the phones we go.
Marty in Virginia Beach, you're next on the EIB network.
Hi.
Hi.
Um, one of the things that I thought was the most important thing that Obama said last night that we should pay attention to, is he said, we'll make sure you have the health care you need.
He did not say you want.
And who's determining what we need?
The government.
Of course.
But that's, you know what, what he was the trick in that, you're good.
That's a good catch on your part, but what he what he wants people to take from that is, well, we all need health care.
We all need it.
I'm going to make sure you get it.
Uh it's a need.
It's a right, and I'm going to make sure you get it.
Uh, and it's it's um, and by the way, I'm gonna make sure you get more health care than you got now.
I'm gonna make sure you've got better insurance than you've got now.
We're gonna make sure that you got greater coverage, you have more coverage, you have more treatment, anything you and it's gonna cost you less.
It's gonna cost you less.
McCain said that Wilson or said that Obama wasn't lying.
McCain, this was on the Today Show today.
And they asked McCain if they thought Wilson was lying, and he's Valor thought Obama was lying.
And uh well, McCain, remember we had audio uh sound bites of the uh McCain town hall, where the audience was wash, he's he's a gives you a great price AP.
He says, I should find me.
No, boom, yeah, my friends, my friends, calm down.
Uh that's just, you know, inside the beltway decorum.
Uh this that's why McCain lost.
Uh really no surprise there.
Dave in Omaha.
Nice to have you, sir, on the EIB network.
Hello.
Diddle Rush.
Last night when I listened to the president's speech, um, something became clear to me.
He says he's gonna pay for this health care by eliminating waste and fraud from Medicaid and Medicare.
He's been in office seven months.
It's evident he made the statement.
It's also evident that he must have known about the waste and fraud.
How come he hasn't done about done anything about the waste of fraud?
Well, exactly right.
If you're gonna eliminate waste and fraud, do it now.
Don't wait for four years when the program implements.
But look, that's not even the point.
Ladies and gentlemen, this this whole business about eliminating waste and fraud.
This is essentially what Obama said.
The waste fraud and abuse in government is going to be used by the government to pay for more government.
We're gonna cut Medicare $500 billion.
We're not gonna cut treatment, we're just gonna get rid of the waste and the fraud, and then we're gonna use that $500 billion to grow government.
I mean, it's it's nonsensical.
Nobody believes this.
Well, other than the condemned deadheads that make up Obama's base.
But nobody with any economic literacy or any common sense in general is uh is is going to believe that.
Daniel Henninger today in the Wall Street Journal, this could be America's greatest failed presidency.
It's been a long time since James Carville said the most famous thing he ever said.
It's the economy stupid.
That famous phrase was in fact part of a sign hung in the Clinton campaign headquarters in 1992.
There was a sense among the electorate in the fall of 1992, not entirely accurate.
The economy was foundering under George H. W. Bush.
Bush lost control of the public's perception of the economy, and he lost the presidency.
Why with unemployment heading above 10% was Barack Obama on TV last night draining a dwindling reservoir of presidential capital on health care.
Redesigning the 17% of the economy that is health care appears to be the siren song of Democrat presidencies.
Mr. Obama's crew has famously said it wouldn't make the mistakes the Clintons made on health care.
How calling forth both houses of Congress in prime time to join him in betting the ranch on health care qualifies as smarter politics than the Clintons is a mystery.
Even more so now than way back in 1992.
It is still the economy stupid.
To save himself and his party from enduring another health care debacle, Obama should put his agenda on a back burner, bend his efforts to raising the economy, rebuild his political capital by taking credit for the inevitable rebound.
That just might minimize the appending loss of house seats and allow him to revisit his wish list in 2011.
The alternative is promising big, accomplishing little and getting credit for nothing.
This could be America's greatest failed presidency.
The economy is Barack Obama's 9-11.
Now, Mr. Henninger is right here.
I think there's just one thing that he.
Well, he probably knows it, just doesn't want to address it.
Obama is not troubled by the state of the U.S. economy.
Were he, he would be doing something about it.
The state of the U.S. economy plays right into his hands.
More people losing their jobs every day means more people are losing health care.
And what are they care more about health care than their jobs occasionally?
And here's Obama promising to fix that.
So the higher the unemployment rate goes in his mind, the greater opportunity and chance he has to get his health care fixed.
Well, the uh latest Rasmussen poll is in on the um public opinion on health care.
Forty-four percent favor the president's health care plan.
Uh phone poll today, fifty-three percent oppose.
So take that, CNN.
Your bogus, fraudulent poll.
Forty-four favor, fifty-three oppose the latest Rasmussen poll on Obama's health care plan.
▲
Export Selection