My favorite line today comes from Ed Morrissey with this one:
Obama fiddled with Rush Limbaugh while Wall Street burned.
This is after Ed learned the White House attacks on Rush are a deliberate strategy to get everyones minds off of the real issue’s of the day:
So far, Obama’s attack machine — and there’s no other term for it — has mostly succeeded. While the markets have lost 18% of their value in the six weeks of his leadership, all Democrats can talk about is Rush. Newspapers and media have followed suit, and so have the blogs. Usually excellent sites like The Moderate Voice and Political Machine have turned themselves into almost nothing but anti-Limbaugh sites, where Jazz Shaw’s light satire of the trend gets completely subsumed in the overwhelming focus on someone who has no direct power on policy or enforcement. Instead of focusing attention on the real policy leaders in Washington — all Democrats — whose every move has received a resounding vote of no confidence from investors, they have allowed themselves to get distracted by a deliberate strategy of misdirection originating in the highest levels of the White House.
It’s reminiscent of Nixon’s enemies list, and it comes from the supposed messiah of Hope and Change.
And Rush is telling the White House to bring it on:
RUSH: It is on the record — thanks to Politico.com — since last fall, the White House, led by Rahm Emanuel, the chief of staff to Barack Obama, has been targeting me, your host, your harmless, lovable little fuzzball. Their standard operating procedure: they need a demon to distract and divert from what their agenda is. They need a demon about whom they can lie so as to persuade average Americans that they’re the good guys, the benevolent good guys, and the mean SOBs are their enemies trying to stop this great young little president from doing miraculous and wonderful things.
Here is a new ad that this union bunch is running in Washington, DC, ladies and gentlemen. And, of course, it’s been picked up all over the Web.
~~~RUSH: That’s the union bunch. Can you just see…? (laughing) “Call the Republican leadership and say no to Limbaugh.” (laughing) Now, ladies and gentlemen, the Politico story today. I got an e-mail last night from the writer of the story, Jonathan Martin, who did not tell me the full details of what the story they were working on was. He did not tell me that they have discovered that there is a team inside the White House targeting me and that they’ve been doing this since last fall, when they went out and did some polling data and found out I’ve got very high negatives among certain groups. So they thought, “Well, this is the guy to demonize! Since Bush is leaving, we need somebody,” and so this is being led from the White House. There is an orchestrated attack, daily drumbeat on me from the White House. The participants here are James Carville, Paul Begala and Rahm Emanuel.
But make no mistake about it. Emanuel is the leader of all of this. Carville and Begala are just trying to ride my fame into their fortune and become relevant again. Begala and Carville, don’t confuse them with the power brokers that are managing this. It all Emanuel. Begala and Carville are second-rate talking heads on CNN. CNN has no audience. Rahm Emanuel is the power behind the throne — and don’t let his effeminate nature and his ballerina past mislead you on this. He may look effeminate (he was a ballerina at one time) but he has the feral instincts of a female rat defending its young. Well, take a look. When Emanuel and Carville and Begala are together (and I’ve seen pictures) it looks like a reunion of the Village People. (singing) Y! M! C! A! They are really the official greeters in Roswell, New Mexico, in Area 51 where Carville was born.
My point here is that these are really odious, empty, nasty people who are feasting on their own arrogance. They are power hungry. But, you know what? They’ve never had a serious debate over ideas. Their goal is to destroy opponents, which is what they’re trying to do now. They don’t want to engage opponents. Their idea of victory is the destruction of the opponent. They’re not for a level playing field. They want to clear the playing field so that their ideas do not have to undergo any scrutiny. So what do they do? They leak stories to The Politico intended to create impressions about their own importance and their brilliance, when in fact they aren’t even bit players on the nation’s stage. This is Emanuel, and this is Obama.
But I have an idea. If these guys are so impressed with themselves, and if they are so sure of their correctness, why doesn’t President Obama come on my show? We will do a one-on-one debate of ideas and policies.
~~~Just come on this program. Let’s have a little debate. You tell me how wrong I am and you can convince the rest of the Americans that don’t agree with you how wrong we all are. You’re a smart guy, Mr. President. You don’t need these hacks to front for you. You’ve debated the best! You’ve debated Hillary Clinton. You’ve debated John Edwards. You’ve debated Joe Biden. You’ve debated Dennis Kucinich. You’ve debated the best out there. You are one of the most gifted public speakers of our age. I would think, Mr. President, you would jump at this opportunity. Don’t send lightweights like Begala and Carville to do your bidding — and forget about the ballerina, Emanuel. He’s got things to do in his office. These people, compared to you, Mr. President, are rhetorical chum.
~~~But I’ll cover the cost. I will cover the cost, Mr. President, so that the taxpayers do not have to pay for it, as they did your Super Bowl party, and as they do your Wednesday afternoon cocktail party. So you have no excuses. Your flunkies are demanding this debate. Your flunkies are targeting a private citizen with an enemies list that so far has three or four names on it: Mine; Rick Santelli; Jim Cramer at CNBC; and let’s not forget Joe the Plumber, who your allies in Ohio also tried to destroy. The difference is that Joe the Plumber does not have his own microphone every day. They’re shutting Santelli up at CNBC. They’re going to shut Cramer up pretty soon, too, but he’ll go down with a fight. That isn’t going to happen here, to me.
I’m calling. I’m ready. I’ll do everything I can to facilitate it. You’re a very courageous man, Mr. President. I am, after all, just The Last Man Standing. If you take me out, if you can wipe me out in a debate and prove to the rest of America that what I say is senseless and wrong, do you realize you will own the United States of America? You will have no opposition. You have America’s media in your back pocket. It’s amazing. In 1972, Richard Nixon had an enemies list, and the media was outraged by this. They were outraged. At the same time, those who weren’t on it were a little jealous. But they were outraged that a president would engage in this kind of behavior toward the media. Now they go after a private citizen.
Rahm Emanuel is leading the team going after a private citizen, and the Drive-By Media applaud, get on board and help further the mission. We live in different times. So if you can wipe me out — and, by the way, Mr. President, and Mr. Emanuel: Don’t make the mistake of assuming I’m wiping myself out here in the process. I want to thank you guys for elevating me beyond the stature I already earned and achieved, because now more and more Americans have the opportunity to learn who you really are, what your ideas will really accomplish, and what damage and harm I think your policies will bring for a very, very long time to them and to this country. So I want to thank you for the opportunity. Obviously, it’s a threat targeting me. I’ve extended the invitation. I’m looking forward to hearing back from whoever in your cabal one way or the other on accepting my offer.
Obama is doing a bang up job of changing the tone in Washington eh?
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