Right On, Rush Limbaugh!

The First 100 Days handed populist President Barack Obama a high-five regardless which poll happened to cross your eyes. A CBS/The New York Times poll of 973 adults presented a 68% approval rating while a USA Today/Gallup poll shows that of the 1,051 Americans polled, 79% view his performance as having been at least "okay."

But what of Obama’s acclaimed nemesis, Rush Limbaugh? On January 16, in response to an invitation to express, in writing, his hopes of the new Administration, the talk-radio host decided to go loco-vocal, saying, “I would be honored if the Drive-By Media headlined me all day long: ‘Limbaugh: I Hope Obama Fails.’ Somebody's gotta say it.”

He expressed this hopelessness of the 44th President, “I know what his politics are. I know what his plans are, as he has stated them. I don't want them to succeed.” He then added, “….what is unfair about my saying I hope liberalism fails?”

At the 2009 Conservative Political Action Conference in February, he discussed 50 years of Democrats bridling Americans with a welfare system that has held so many back from being successful members of society. “… I want everyone in this room and every one of you around the country to succeed. I want anyone who believes in life, liberty, pursuit of happiness to succeed. And I want any force, any person, any element of an overarching Big Government that would stop your success, I want that organization, that element or that person to fail.”

During a March broadcast of Fox News Sunday with Chris Wallace, the host offered his interpretation of the Limbaugh broadcast that, instead of wanting the president to fail, it’s the policies to which Obama adheres that Rush wants to fail. Mr. Wallace was affectively chastised for his statement but, when taken in context, Limbaugh pointed out his personal concern for the country and the kids and grandchildren of Americans when he questioned, “Why in the world do we want to saddle them with more liberalism and socialism? Why would I want to do that? So I can answer it, four words, ‘I hope he fails.’”

On his April 22 radio show, Limbaugh said of the First 100 Days, “I'd like to refer to it, my friends, as “finals week.” And his take on Obama’s performance? “It's embarrassing incompetence and inexperience.”

He rattled off a roll call of Obama embarrassments: “Fidel Castro, one of Obama’s idols, call him superficial.” “We had the nomination of tax cheats to his cabinet… five tax cheats in the Obama administration.” “He has run around the world and apologized for the greatest, the most compassionate, the most innovative and freedom-loving country in world history.”

Speaking on behalf of his American followers, Rush said, “Obama doesn't know what he's doing. He doesn't know all this that's happening in his administration.”

Of DHS Secretary, “Janet Napolitano said the 9/11 hijackers actually got into our country through Canada. So now the Canadians are up in arms and the National Post in Canada today has a piece asking how in the hell did this woman get her job?”

Right on, Rush! You could justly question how other members of the Obama Administration were chosen for such high profile positions.

Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner is said to be the “wonder boy” but Paul Volcker, former Federal Reserve chairman and now head of the Economic Recovery Advisory Board, of which Geithner is also a member, told Congress during a February hearing that it was “shameful” Geithner has no assistants. Not so. Former Secretaries Lawrence Summers, his mentor, and Robert Rubin, a protégé, Geithner’s policies are anything but void of others’ influences. His experience relies on that of others.

Just as the president is pressing UBS to hand over a list of American companies guilty of tax evasion in Swiss bank accounts, the same should be pursued by Geithner for the billions of dollars handed over to Fed chairman Ben Bernanke and his cozy attachment to American bankers.

As a member of the White House Council of Economic Advisers, Austan Goolsbee appeared more juvenile than an American Idol contestant with his wrinkled nose and a childish grin during an interview defending the President’s intent on closing tax loopholes and tax havens for American companies. With achievements as a debater and an acclaimed economist, he remains an inexperienced cabinet member.

Perhaps most questionable of Obama’s appointments is that of Robert Gibbs as Press Secretary. If ever a person were in need of a teleprompter, Gibbs is the prime candidate; a robot would be a welcome improvement over his inexperience as a public speaker.

However “un-American” people view his repeated hopes for Obama to fail, I respect Rush Limbaugh for upholding the most precious of our freedoms: the First Amendment.
“Right” on, Rush!