Abu Wabu

Not only that: they would want Obama to fail.

Rush Limbaugh discusses it here, and Byron York here.

First, here's Byron York:

In the Federalist Papers, written 221 years ago, Madison addressed the need for a Senate to accompany the more populist House of Representatives. An upper body, he wrote, 'may be sometimes necessary as a defense to the people against their own temporary errors and delusions.' For the times when a political leader would attempt to capitalize on those errors and delusions, the Founders prescribed the Senate, with its members elected to terms three times the length of those in the House, originally chosen not by the people but by the state legislatures. From Federalist 63: 'There are particular moments in public affairs when the people, stimulated by some irregular passion, or some illicit advantage, or misled by the artful misrepresentations of interested men, may call for measures which they themselves will afterwards be the most ready to lament and condemn. In these critical moments, how salutary will be the interference of some temperate and respectable body of citizens, in order to check the misguided career, and to suspend the blow meditated by the people against themselves, until reason, justice, and truth can regain their authority over the public mind?'

Now is the time for the salutary interference of temperate and respectable citizens, otherwise known as the 41 Republicans in the United States Senate. It is their job to help the president in areas where there is widespread agreement that he should be helped, and hold the line on everything else.

Of course the economy is in crisis. But if Obama had his way, everything would be treated as if it were a crisis. Health care is a crisis. The environment is a crisis. Education is a crisis. In truth, those other areas are not crises, and the Senate’s job is to delay action on them until Obama’s power to stir popular passions fades. Then, whatever legislation is truly needed on health care, etc., can be undertaken in a more reasoned and measured way.

Five years ago, in the 2004 presidential race, Democratic pollster Stan Greenberg did some research on behalf of candidate John Kerry. Greenberg wanted Kerry to be more bold in advocating wholesale change, so he convened a series of focus groups to test the public’s reaction to a number of aggressive policy proposals.

Greenberg found that voters would accept boldness on an issue or two, provided they were really important. But when a candidate promised bold action across the board, the people balked. “While voters are clearly open to bold initiatives to major problems, they may be less attracted to the candidate who wants to act boldly in every area, without exception,” Greenberg concluded. “All together, that may have suggested an expanding scope for government beyond what people felt they could trust.”

In our current situation, the people elected Barack Obama and large Democratic majorities in Congress. They didn’t elect them to do nothing. When action is needed to deal with the economic crisis — it would be nice to have a financial stabilization plan, Mr. President — they will support it.

But they didn’t elect Obama to change everything, either. With Pelosi eager to go along with the president’s every wish, it’s up to temperate and respectable citizens to distinguish the crisis from the non-crisis, and act accordingly.

In other words, it’s up to the Senate to slow things down. Just like Madison planned.

Now Rush, speaking to the newcomers to his audience which, thanks to the machinations of the Messiah, Axlerod, Carville, Begala and Greenberg, is expanding geometrically:

If our nation was all about a single individual succeeding simply because that individual must succeed regardless, we wouldn't have the form of government that we do. Now, conflating the president and the country -- and by that I mean, assuming that the president is always the country, assuming that the president always has the country's best interests at heart, such as the founders did, turns a functioning democracy into a robotic cult. I fear that that's what we have right now. We have a cult of fear and celebrity, a robotic cult, that is epitomized in Warren Buffett, it's epitomized by Jack Welch, it's epitomized by Barton Biggs and Jim Cramer and anybody else who knows what they see is devastatingly wrong, is horribly wrong, but because there is a fear to oppose, because the assumption is that Obama is the country, that Obama equals the best interests of the country simply because he's Obama, that's what gives you a cult. The worst part of it is that many of these people who are making hay over this Limbaugh-wants-Obama-to-fail garbage know full well, ladies and gentlemen, that what I just told you is the case.

This is not an honest debate going on here, as we have demonstrated in the first hour of the program with the Warren Buffett sound bites and the Barton Biggs sound bites and the Jim Cramer sound bites. It's not an honest debate. What's happening here is the most cynical kind of down and dirty politics by people who not only wanted George W. Bush to fail, but worked night and day to ensure that he failed. I say to you again, if the Founders wanted a situation where the government was about one official succeeding, then George Washington would have accepted the role he was offered as king. But we have separation of powers. We have division of powers. All of this is designed to ensure that a president fails when he is wrong. The Framers wanted the country to succeed.