There Was No Deal

If there was no deal (and there wasn't) what happened in the White House Thursday?

RUSH: Now, folks, I want to tell you what happened at the White House meeting yesterday, and you are going to be stunned. You wouldn't believe it. Well, sadly, you will believe this. At the meeting, you had McCain and Obama, you had John Boehner, you had Dingy Harry Reid, you had Barney Frank. Chris Dodd was in there. Pelosi was in there. There were some others, but these are the principals. The meeting ostensibly was requested by McCain. Well, no, the meeting was originally requested by Paulson. Remember, Paulson -- and this is crucial here. Paulson, the Treasury Secretary, called Lindsey Grahamnesty. This according to Bob Schieffer of CBS. Paulson called Lindsey Grahamnesty and said, "Look, I need the House Republicans. I need Republicans on this. We can't get anywhere without them. You've gotta call McCain. He's the only one that can do it." So that's why McCain goes to Washington, and they end up having a four o'clock meeting at the White House yesterday. They all think they're going into a negotiating session. The president, in order to let everybody be heard, deferred to various Democrats, and every one of the Democrats -- Pelosi, Reid, Dodd, and Frank -- declined to speak and deferred to Obama. So Obama became the official Democrat spokesman in the meeting. This was to hype Obama's leadership and presidential aura and so forth. What happened next, the first thing out of Obama's mouth -- Paulson is in the meeting -- is he starts ripping the House Republican proposal and asks Paulson what he thinks of it. This led Boehner and the other Republicans in there to think they have been sandbagged. We found out this morning that Obama had no clue -- because he was in transit doing other things, he had no clue -- what the House Republican position was. What happened was that on the way to the meeting sometime during the day, Obama's staff received an e-mail from Treasury Department employees who work for Paulson detailing the House Republican plan. So when the Democrats deferred to Obama, he launched into that. He had no clue what it was. That's why he asked Paulson for his comments. I don't know what Paulson said, but this is what led to the fireworks. This is what led to everything breaking down in there. This is why Dingy Harry walked out, 'cause it didn't work. It ended up with Obama essentially chairing the meeting, with the meeting falling apart. The president was described as "beleaguered," trying to regain control of the meeting. McCain didn't say hardly anything. Everybody was yelling and screaming in there. McCain did not. He said, "We've gotta put these differences aside, work together," you know, typical McCain. "According to an Obama campaign source..." and this is from the American Spectator blog today. "According to an Obama campaign source, the notes on the Republican position, House Republican position were passed to Obama via senior aides traveling with him who had been e-mailed the document via a current Goldman Sachs employee and Wall Street fundraiser for the Obama campaign. The Obama campaign source said, 'It was made clear the memo was from friends and it was reliable.' The memo, which basically briefed Obama on the Republican position..." You see, Obama did not defend the Democrat position on this. He led off with an attack on the Republican position, as though it was a shock and a surprise, under the auspices that this deal had already been agreed to. When of course there's no surprise about what House Republicans believe and there's no surprise what conservatism is. "The memo allowed Obama and his fellow Democrats to box in Republican attendees and essentially took what President Bush had billed as a negotiating meeting off the rails." Now, "'Paulson and his team have not acted in good faith for this President or the administration for which they serve,' says a House Republican leader who was not present at the White House meeting" and told the American Spectator. Paulson -- Goldman Sachs -- is a Democrat. He's very close to Chuck Schumer, and obviously close to Obama. So this whole meeting yesterday essentially was established to show off Obama's leadership skills and negotiating skills, and he blew it! People who disagree with him, he has no idea how to negotiate with. Even Obama ended up last night on TV. I think the Democrats were so frightened that the truth would come out about what happened in this meeting. Obama started flooding the TV networks about 6:30. He was on Fox News with "Brett" Hume. He called him Brett. He was on World News Today. He was all over the place, doing a bit of a CYA without explaining why he was doing a CYA. But I want you to listen to what he said to "Brett" Hume on the Fox News Channel last night. It was a bit of a press conference. It wasn't that he called the networks and said, "I want to be on." But he held the press conference and listen to what he said. OBAMA: Well, h--h- here's my, uh... -- RUSH: Number two! OBAMA: I think that the way that I've been working over the last week, constantly in contact with the secretary and the congressional leaders, um, uh, eh, you know, may end up creating an environment in which you can actually get somethin' done. RUSH: So he's admitting nothing got done in there. It's probably not good for him to be in things like this. It's better for him to be away, somewhere on the sidelines in constant contact with everybody on the phone. Obama said, "You know what? It's just better if everybody else gets in the room and then I arbitrate on the phone." I watched his statement when he got on his campaign plane today and heading down to Oxford, Mississippi, for the debate, he said same thing. "Well, anymore constant contact. I have been talking with," and he mentioned all Democrats. "I've been talking to them all morning today. I'll continue to talk to them and I'll continue to be available if necessary." This, ladies and gentlemen, I think it's a tremendous indication. I don't know why... Pepole ask, "Why didn't the White House put this out?" (sigh) The White House is interested in the deal getting done. They don't want to insert themselves in presidential politics. Dana Perino was asked about this in her press conference this morning or her White House briefing. She was asked about the White House meeting and then what happened. "Well, you know, we're gonna protect things that are going on. We really don't want to insert ourselves into presidential politics" and so forth. But I'll tell you what: This disaster that was Obama attempting to take over and chair the meeting yesterday, makes sense of what's happening today. The Democrats have unleashed this blitzkrieg of insults and bizarre accusations directed at McCain. "He shouldn't have shown up. We could have gotten this done without presidential politics. He came in here and blew it up." McCain did put some stuff out last night to the people in the press on their mailing list, and from the sounds of the things from McCain's campaign. Obama was off -- they're confirming this, too, but not in as slam-dunk a way. But they're confirming that without the prompter he doesn't know what he's doing in there; things broke down quickly after his first point was raised. It was a disaster with Obama at the helm, and he probably made a fool of himself in that room, and the Democrats are running interference today trying to lay all this failure and all this off on McCain. It is no wonder he didn't want to be in Washington when the sausage was being made, to use a cliche. It's no wonder. McCain forced him there, dragged him there kicking and screaming. That post-meeting statement -- by the way, it took a few hours to come up with this, you know? He and his 300 PR advisors had to craft that statement. Play sound bite number two again. Listen to this. OBAMA: I think that the way that I've been working over the last week, constantly in contact with the secretary and the congressional leaders, um, uh, eh, you know, may end up creating an environment in which you can actually get somethin' done. RUSH: I can't get over that. He's admitting something can't get done with him in the room, in charge of things. He's admitting it here! He was in charge and the meeting ended in chaos. Apparently Obama works best when leaders get their hands dirty and he can talk to them by phone. Because that way when he's on the phone his thinkers can sort out what his reaction should be to what he is hearing on the other end of the phone. BREAK TRANSCRIPT RUSH: Something interesting, ladies and gentlemen, from The Politico today, posted last night about all of this: "And the whole sequence of events confirmed Treasury's fears about the decision by Bush, at the urging of McCain, to allow presidential politics into what were already difficult negotiations." Now, wait a minute. Treasury's fears? There wasn't a deal. There was never a deal all day long yesterday. The Democrats lied through their noses about this. There was never a deal. There was an attempt to pressure McCain, or to make it look like McCain was irrelevant to getting a deal. They announced they had a deal before McCain got there. The Republicans in the House had been cut out of all the discussions. Now the Democrats are desperate for the House Republicans to come back and give them cover on what they're telling us is a wonderful bill. I still don't understand why the Democrats won't just go ahead and sign this thing or pass it. They've got the votes to do it. Well, I understand why. I explained it in the first half hour. But Treasury's fears? They had no deal. It was bleak going into this White House meeting. Even before presidential politics, quote, unquote, was inserted. Bob Schieffer said it was Paulson who contacted McCain through Grahamnesty in order to get him there, yet The Politico is reporting that it was McCain who wanted the meeting and so forth. Regardless, what you have to know here, there was no deal on the table that had any consensus. It was all setup, folks, to make it look like McCain wasn't needed. It was all posturing to prevent dialogue, to prevent the opportunity to bring an improved piece of legislation to all of this. Obama's post-meeting comments said he thought a deal was done. Of course it wasn't done. I don't know what he really knew or what he had been told. I don't think the guy knows much of anything until somebody tells him. So I don't know if he was told there was a deal and this is the way to play it in the meeting and in the post-meeting press conference. I really don't. But it wasn't done. McCain was never part of any deal, neither were House Republicans, and probably not Senator Shelby and DeMint, either. So Obama wanted a quick and dirty piece of Bush legislation to fly through, he could taste the money available from the sale of those assets and going to his ACORN buddies. He didn't even pretend not to be obsessed with getting his hands in that deal. He ran to it like half-starved animal, but when he got there, he indicated and illustrated that he hasn't the slightest clue in handling a meeting. More of a press conference here. This is on Fox News Channel's Special Report with Brit Hume. After Obama's press conference, Obama did make some rounds of the TV networks. One of them was Fox. Brit Hume said, "Look, if tomorrow midday we are where we are, meaning today, and we still got an outstanding problem with a package that isn't agreeable, so you can get majorities of both parties, both houses, would it make sense for you to go down to Mississippi, or would it be better for you to stay here and try to do what you could?" OBAMA: Well, here -- here's my observation, "Brett," and I think it may have been confirmed in the meeting today. When you inject presidential politics into delicate negotiations, uh, sometimes it's not helpful. For us, precisely at this difficult time, to be able to say to the American people, for 90 minutes, that it's possible to fly down to Mississippi and back fairly quickly, that this is where we want to take the country, and this is what this potentially means for you, I continue to think that's the most important thing we can do. RUSH: All right. So once again, Barack Obama admitting that his presence in the White House meeting was a disaster. That's what he's admitting. Now, you wouldn't know that watching last night, if you didn't know what happened in there. But now that you do, it's easy to interpret the sound bites. "Well, it was my observation, may have been confirmed at the meeting today, when you inject presidential politics into delicate negotiations." McCain didn't say much in the meeting, folks. The yelling and screaming took place, and it broke down, but McCain was not part of it. By the way, what is this insertion of presidential politics? We have a president involved in this. Now, yeah, he's a lame duck, but he's still in there, it was his meeting. It was a courtesy call to bring McCain and Obama in there. Why does presidential politics screw this up? To me, it's the insertion of congressional politics that's making a mess of this. It's the insertion of Democrat Party hack politics. They're not interested in a good deal here for the country. That's not what this is about. This is about power. This is about securing the White House for themselves and their majorities in both houses of Congress. They're looking at this purely through a political prism, and as usual, the Republicans here are trying to stay tried and true to their principles which is based on what's best for the country. Again, for my liberal and moderate listeners, if this bill that the Democrats and Paulson and Bush crafted is such a great bill for the country, why don't they say so and sign it and then point fingers of blame at the Republicans? "See, you didn't want to help us help the country. We're gonna get all the credit for this, Boehner, we're going to get all the credit for this, Senator Shelby, and you're going to be left out in the cold." That alone should answer the question why they will not continue, ladies and gentlemen, to go ahead and make this bill a reality with their own votes. They want Republicans so the Republicans can share and take the heat, so it will be bipartisan heat, because, remember, the messages coming into there are a hundred to one from the public against this, and the Democrats need cover. As a side benefit, if they can get the conservative Republicans to repudiate conservatism and get the conservative Republicans to repudiate their base, well, then they get a twofer. Now, since Obama performed so inadequately, caused a meeting to blow up and could not regain control of it, after basically one or two questions that he raised, or points that he made, the Democrats starting last night had to circle the wagons and get the spin out, and they're being pretty successful at this. I mean, from how many other places have you heard what really happened in the White House meeting? You want to know why, by the way? Hank Paulson practically begged everybody in that meeting not to say a worded about what happened. I wonder why? I wonder why?

Considering the debate (tie? LOL) it ain't looking good for dingdong unless the press continues to keep anything negative about Obama (Ayers, etc.) under wraps - which is of course what they'll do. He's unelectable, but that doesn't mean the people can't be fooled.