LIMBAUGH: Obama scapegoating Rush again

Once again, President Obama is personally attacking my brother, Rush, this time to shamelessly blame him for congressional gridlock. Nice try, Mr. President, but what really bothers you is that Rush has your number and daily shares it with his vast audience.

In an interview last week with CNN’s Chris Cuomo, Obama charged that most congressional Republicans oppose the move to defund Obamacare but are afraid of saying so publicly for fear of Rush’s public condemnation. Obama made the same type of charge prior to the 2012 elections.

Obama also glibly blames congressional Republicans for any impasse with him on budgetary policy, saying the least they can do is to pass a budget. “Congress doesn’t have a whole lot of core responsibilities,” he said, as if to suggest that passing a budget is a mere ministerial function.

Obama groused, “I’ve said before and I continue to say I’m willing to do whatever it takes to get Congress — and Republicans in Congress in particular — to think less about politics and party and think more about what’s good for the country.”

In fact, agreeing to a budget with Obama is next to impossible because of his bankrupting demands on the federal government. Contrary to Obama’s assertion, Congress would be acting irresponsibly if it rubber-stamped Obama’s reckless budgets. It acts responsibly when it opposes him tooth and nail.

Trying to rein in Obama’s profligate spending is good for the country. Efforts to defund Obamacare are in the best interests of the nation because Obamacare is a disaster. In addition to all the horror stories we’ve already heard about this disastrous program, we just learned that Delta Air Lines is reporting that Obamacare will increase its health care expenses by $100 million.

But Obama continued to dig a deeper hole of deceit in his interview, telling Cuomo that sometimes his Republican friends (who are these creatures, by the way?) tell him privately that they would support his agenda but for their fear of a primary challenge from a tea-party member, or they’re “worried about what Rush Limbaugh is going to say about me on radio.”

I seriously doubt that any such conversations took place between Republican congressmen and Obama, but if they did, it shows the type of Republican who would befriend Obama — the type who is dishonest with his constituency.

More likely, Obama is projecting. He is the one who strong-arms people — usually businesses — into supporting his policies even when they know they are not in the best interests of the nation. He’s the one who is always community organizing and employing the bullying tactics of his mentor Saul Alinsky. It is his thuggish friends who are the ones always on a mission to boycott their opponents, including people on the radio who seek to hold Obama accountable.

Rush Limbaugh has no power to blackmail people. He doesn’t have the federal coffers and millions of bureaucrats and staff and campaign hit men to do his bidding. His sole weapon is to shine the disinfecting light of truth on Obama’s policies and on feckless Republicans, in cases where that’s necessary. If he goes after Republicans, it’s to pressure them to do the right thing — not what’s politically expedient. If Rush doesn’t present the facts accurately, which he does, then these feckless Republicans will have nothing to fear.

People should be horrified and outraged that Obama uses the power of his office to try to intimidate — and effectively censor — a private citizen acting in the capacity of a national radio talk show host.

If Obama were truly motivated by the nation’s best interests, he wouldn’t be so dishonest about the effect of his policies on the economy and on the nation in general. He is perhaps as adept at eluding blame for the damage his policies have caused as he is inept as president.

The reason Obama fears Rush enough to go after him personally, as small as that makes him and as much as it diminishes the office he holds, is that of all the amazingly powerful voices of opposition to Obama in the conservative movement, none is more effective than Rush’s.

Rush developed his “Limbaugh theorem” to describe the phenomenon of Obama’s escaping accountability for the results of his policies by constantly campaigning as an outsider and deceiving large segments of the public into believing he is fighting the problems he is in fact causing.

Rush has recently added a rather chilling corollary to his theorem: By greatly damaging the country through his policies and then pretending he had nothing to do with it, Obama has caused people to begin to doubt the American system itself, a system that Obama’s abuses are undermining. Through this orchestrated treachery, Obama has turned people against our system instead of against him and his egregious agenda.

Obama knows that the more people who hear Rush speak, the less likely he will be to pull the wool over the public’s eyes, so he’ll keep going after Rush personally, as long as he can get away with it. He needs to man up and begin to own the results of his own agenda after five years instead of always scapegoating Rush and others.

Is that too much to ask, Mr. President?

David Limbaugh is a writer, author and attorney. His latest book, “The Great Destroyer,” reached No. 2 on the New York Times best-seller list for nonfiction. Follow him on Twitter @davidlimbaugh and his website at www.davidlimbaugh.com. To read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate Web page at www.creators.com.

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