"Why their messaging is off, you know, it could just be as simple as they aren't as conservative as we are. It could be no more complicated than that. Might surprise people, but it could be nothing simpler than that. They're just not as conservative. It's just not in their heart like it is in yours or it is in mine. We hope that it is and we expect it to be, but maybe it isn't." ~ El Rushbo
After that sham of a ‘deal’ and the disgust of millions over the weekend with the folding of the Republican leadership, many like-minded conservatives anticipated a couple of opening monologues on Monday. First came Rush:
Do you remember, ladies and gentlemen, when talking about the budget was considered deadly boring? I remember back in the early and formative years of this program if I were gonna talk about the budget, I mean it was death. I might as well be putting up the test pattern. I mean it was the last thing. It was esoteric. It was not sexy. There was no drama in it. It was something you just avoided as a radio talk show host at all costs. And apparently the Tea Party has changed all of that now. I never thought I would see this day, where the budget is the primary focus of interest in the United States of America. I know that a record number of people are tuning into this program today to find out what to really think on this budget, and that is such a remarkable evolution in this program and in public sentiment. In just 22 years, and the Tea Party has changed all of that, and the November elections last year changed all that. We wouldn't even be having this conversation today, there wouldn't even be this roiled debate going on if it weren't for the Tea Party and their victories in November. Elections really do have consequences.
He continues to setup the scenario that involved his departure from home to give a speech to a Heritage Foundation audience, listening to Fox News on the radio the whole way, and then upon his arrival, “last number I heard as I arrived at the front of the Four Seasons was $38 billion, and I got out of the car and I practically slammed the door.”
Thirty-eight billion dollars? What happened to the campaign promise of $100 billion? Okay, that got prorated down because months have dwindled. That $100 billion was supposed to cover 12 months. That got prorated down to $61 billion was the promise, and now I'm hearing going into my speech $38 billion. So when I got in there, and at the point in my talk where I got around to this subject, I told the audience, it's about 250 people in there, Heritage Foundation guests and members and officials, scholars, thinkers, I could see them sitting there thinking as I was speaking. Think tank, that's what people do, and I told 'em, "If $38 billion is it, there's gonna be hell to pay here. This is not gonna be satisfactory." Not when we accrue $38 billion in debt in two and a half days, to run around and start talking about $38 billion in cuts as though it's some great achievement? This is not gonna cause people to celebrate and raise the victory flag and so forth.
Rush went on to acknowledge that yes, the deal is done, and it is what it is; however, the ‘first step’ that Rush describes is a little different perspective from what we’ve heard Boehner or the celebratory talking heads discuss: “the debate has shifted from spending to cutting as we sit here today…” Rush continued with the sentiment of millions:
I don't know if there's a giant ruse going on here, but it's tough for me to believe the Democrats are really feeling defeated over $38 billion of cuts. I think what's going on, they got Obama's plummeting numbers, Obama races to the Lincoln Memorial on Saturday to say, "Hey, it's still open, see what I did?" He didn't do diddly-squat. There's no leadership from Obama here. He stayed out of it until the last minute and we got all the stories that he did at the last minute to make it happen, but I think a lot of this reporting about how the Democrats took it on the chin, the Democrats are nervous, the Democrats are depressed, what a great strategic move, you know, I know these people in the media. I know liberals like every square inch of my glorious naked body, and I'm telling you that my instinct tells me that most of this is structured in such a way as to fire up the Democrat base because Obama's numbers are plummeting, because you and I both know that to the American left, the Democrat Party, we conservatives are the number one enemy they face, not the Taliban, not Al-Qaeda, not Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, none of these real threats to the country. We are the biggest threat.
Rush then moved to address another ‘red flag’: “…the Speaker himself is saying it, he says, "Look, we have to temper our expectations. We are only one half of one-third of the legislative branch here,"…"
However, folks, there's something crucially missing in that analysis and that is that not a dime can be spent unless it originates in the House of Representatives. We have far more power than just being one-third of one half or whatever the ratios are. Not a dime gets spent before the House of Representatives authorizes it, or appropriates it. And that's us. So we have a lot more real power. Now, that's obviously going to be tempered with other political realities, what can be expected to be signed into law by Obama and vetoed and so forth. But it doesn't mean we can't have the fight. It doesn't mean we can't throw our spear in the ground and stake out our territory and say, "This is it." I know the next fight's the debt limit, and they're saying, yeah, this was chump change, this was billions. The next one's over trillions. But we've shown that we'll cave. We have demonstrated that we will cave if they threaten something like government shutdown. Now, debt limit expansion, May 14th I think is the deadline. That does offer greater opportunities because that is actually much more of a government shutdown than what this would have been if the debt limit is not raised.
So we'll see. We'll see what transpires. But what really drove these negotiations was the 2012 elections. Despite my theory that a lot of the media coverage all weekend has been a ruse designed to scare Democrat voters back to life, the Democrats are scared spitless. They know the public wants cuts, and they know the Tea Party's not a bunch of fringe kook oddballs. They know that many Democrat voters are members of the Tea Party. The November elections, despite their public posturing, the Democrats know from the November elections what the mood of this country is, and they know, inside their own cloakrooms, their private conversations, not what they're gonna say publicly, but they know privately that there has not been a big shift in public opinion since November. The Tea Party has changed the terms of the debate, possibly for a long time, which is why the Democrats and their media minions hate them so, why they continually try to impugn them, mischaracterize them and so forth and so on.
So, on to Levin in the evening. We saw what he had to say about this deal with Cavuto on Saturday, and he continued with similar sentiment on Monday’s show:
Do you believe this nation is headed for the brink of financial disaster and collapse? Obama’s own debt commission does. The chief actuary of Medicare and Medicaid does. Real economists do. Then how the hell can you or anyone who is serious about avoiding this disaster and collapse consider $38.5 billion some kind of great deal that demonstrates John Boehner’s genius?
We have one political party, the Democrat Party, which is hell bent on driving this nation over the cliff and destroying any chance your children will have to live in a free and prosperous nation. And we have Republican leadership that has as its #1 objective, its own survival and power. Look at all the fawning media coverage of Boehner. And for what? What the hell did he and his team do to improve what is going on in this country? Oh, he changed the debate he said. No, he changed nothing. YOU changed the debate. WE changed the debate. It was called the November election blowout of the liberal Democrats. YOU went to the rallies; WE went to the rallies and organized and voted. Boehner and his team are the beneficiaries of your work. YOU, The People. YOU, The People, are taking your country back, despite the incompetence that’s in our way.
Boehner made a Pledge that if he becomes speaker – HE made the Pledge, nobody held a gun to his head – they will cut $100 billion from the 2011 budget. Then, “oh, we didn’t , we can’t really do that, we’re half way down the year.” Well then why did you make the Pledge in October, if you can’t do it?! So now we go to the Washington chalkboard, the math, “oh, well, if we pretend it’s a whole year, we break it out, $61 billion.” So then they dumbed it down to $61 billion. Well, they can’t do $61 billion; they just figured out that they only have the House. So even when they made the $100 billion Pledge, and the $61 billion…now they figured out, after the election, after they took over, they can’t actually do what they promised to do. And if you try and hold their feet to the fire, there’s something wrong with YOU. You seek ‘perfection’; you don’t know how to govern. You are, to quote Chuck Schumer, “an Extremist.” So, now we’re at $38.5 billion, and it looks like that figure is nonsense too. It may well include cuts already made in the prior Continuing Resolution. I’ve been trying for two days to get an answer, and I can’t. You want to know why? They haven’t figured it out yet! Meanwhile the deficit spending goes on…”
Mark then referred to an interesting piece from CNS News, which Rush also referenced earlier in the day: The debt jumped $54.1 billion in the 8 days preceding Boehner and Obama’s deal to cut $38.5 billion for the remainder of the year. If that just doesn’t take the cake! They’ve managed to create MORE in deficit spending, than what this deal has created in cuts! But wait, the icing gets thicker. This report also divulged that since the beginning of the fiscal year (Oct. 1, 2010), the national debt has increased by 653.4 billion! I concur with Mark, “This is suicide.”
So we’re only one half of one-third of the government, are we, Mr. Boehner? So if we can’t fight now, and the sentiment of the leadership has thus far been, “well, the next one,” and we’re still only ‘one half of one-third of the government’, should we continue to just anticipate defeat, while marveling over the House GOP’s lack of strategic leadership? No, if you can’t acknowledge that the Republican-controlled House CONTROLS 100% of the purse strings of spending per the Constitution, and you can’t effectively use a shutdown of nonessential services as leverage towards fiscal responsibility (as Levin clearly explains in his monologue, the federal government NEVER ‘shuts down’), and your strategy to politically maneuver is indecisive at best, none at worst, then it is absolutely time to allow someone else to carry the leadership reigns (and I’m not talking about Cantor!).
Remember, the statists NEVER relent; the statists march on. The conservative movement will not accept leadership that remains beholden to a statist reality, to the status quo. Conservatives will continue to seek reformation in the Republican Party, but if its leadership continues not to listen to the People, not to reform responsible governance, then its survival and power will be threatened by division, and worst, a growth of statist rule will continue to reemerge. And it won’t be the tea party’s fault, or Rush’s fault, or Levin’s fault. No, the Establishment need only look in the mirror.
