Thursday, July 15, 2010

John LeBoutillier Was Mean to Imus. Boo-Hoo. It makes sense that when faced with an astute political guest like former Congressman John LeBoutillier, Imus would ask a question about the erection coming up in November. It makes even more sense that the scholarly LeBoutillier would be so focused on providing an intelligent answer that he didn’t notice Imus’s intentional gaffe.

“It’s huge,” said LeBoutillier, presumably about the election, which is just three months away. “It’s obvious that the Republicans have a big head of steam, the Democrats are in terrible trouble.”

The proof, he insisted, is in the pudding for President Obama. “The polling is down, the economy is down, we may be heading back down toward another recession,” LeBoutillier observed. “What good things do Obama and the Democrats have to brag about after a year-and-a-half in power?”

Imus hoped the question was meant to be rhetorical (it was), but LeBoutillier said he wouldn’t be able to answer it anyway, because nobody could. Not because Imus didn’t go to Harvard, like his guest.

“I was killing Viet Cong in the jungles of Vietnam so you could have a nice education,” he inaccurately told LeBoutillier, who became so distracted by Imus’s nonsense that he lost his train of thought.

It’s always safe to assume he had been railing on Obama, and so LeBoutillier continued down that road. “Everything they’ve done is at odds with the majority of the American people,” he said, ticking off the corporate bailouts, health care reform, and Obama’s position on Arizona’s immigration law as examples.

“He has deliberately chosen to be on the minority side of these hot-button issues,” LeBoutillier said, adding, “If you’re elected by the majority of people, as he was, and then you quickly flip around and side with the minority of people over all these issues, at some point you’re going to become a minority President.”

He predicted carnage in the House later this year, but isn’t sure the Republicans will gain control. Either way, Obama has to “adjust himself to the reality of things,” said LeBoutillier, who then provided some reality of his own on the BP disaster.

Having recently met with a South Korean business and science expert, LeBoutillier reported that when all is said and done, the environmental and economic damage from the spill will be “the equivalent of 14 Chernobyls.”

He added, “The damage to the land, the wetlands, the beaches, the sea bed—that’s going to last decades. The damage from the dispersants that have been used will be the equivalent of Agent Orange.”

LeBoutillier maintains that Obama should have set up camp on a destroyer in the Gulf of Mexico, “like a young Theodore Roosevelt would,” and brought down the Navy and the Marine Reserves to monitor BP’s clean up efforts.

“Even bugle players!” he said, referring to Imus’s designation in the Marine Corps. Thankfully, time was up, and LeBoutillier could insult the I-Man no more.

-Julie Kanfer

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LATER IN THE SHOW, IMUS TRIES TO CONVINCE CHRIS WALLACE TO PUT JOHN LEBOUTILLIER ON FOX NEWS SUNDAY:

John LeBoutillier, whom Wallace patently refuses to have on Fox News Sunday for some reason, made the point earlier that the Republicans could actually gain control of the House, and Wallace agreed. He was mum, however, on why LeBoutillier has yet to be invited on, but Imus had his own theory.

“We don’t want to cut into Brit’s time when he’s proselytizing for Jesus,” said Imus.

IMUS TALKS TO CHRIS WALLACE—AGAIN—ABOUT PUTTING JOHN LEBOUTIILIER ON FOX NEWS SUNDAY:

IMUS: You don’t put anybody on who I recommend that you put on, so I’m not putting on any stiffs who you want me to put on.

WALLACE: Well, who do you want me to put on my show?

IMUS: I forget who I recommended, but I’m sure Matt Taibbi was one of them. I think John Leboutillier was another.

WALLACE: Yes, you did mention John Leboutillier.

IMUS: Yeah, and so you…

WALLACE: We don’t have formers on. We generally have people who are in office.

IMUS: Well, ok, if that’s the attitude you want to have. They guy’s brilliant. You have that dope William Kristol on who’s as close to being a moron as you can possibly be.

WALLACE: Why do you have something against Bill Kristol?

IMUS: He’s a, he’s a jerk. And you, Leboutillier is brilliant. You know, he’s brilliant like Krauthammer’s brilliant.

WALLACE: Krauthammer’s pretty darn smart

Asked if he knew John LeBoutillier, the Conservative former Congressman who now writes for Newsmax and appeared one hour ago on this show, Wallace shrugged and said, “I know the name,” which was not the right answer. He should, Imus insisted, have LeBoutillier on Fox News Sunday instead of “the same stiffs” he has every week.

“We have news makers,” said Wallace. “Not news-maxers.”

—Julie Kanfer

John LeBoutillier Gives His Fellow Harvard Alum a Bad Time

Here’s why we like John LeBoutillier: he’s a prepared, informed, and insightful guest. The reason? Absolute and total fear. He knows the I-Man will “always find the weakness” if a guest is ill-equipped.

As such, LeBoutillier, a former Congressman who now writes for Newsmax, told Imus that the House needs 216 votes to pass the health care bill, a number they’re not going to reach anytime soon.

Unlike other bills, the House has no power to change this one and must pass the same version as the Senate. “They will never call a vote unless they have the 216,” LeBoutiller surmised.

If the bill doesn’t pass, he said, “It means that the public thinks the status quo of health care is better than what the changes would be.” One of those changes—fining people who don’t want to buy health care at all—goes entirely against an Obama campaign promise.

Politically, LeBoutillier has never seen a President not only shoot himself in the foot, as Obama has done by insisting on health care reform, but “take a 50-calibur machine gun out and blow both legs off, and blow his party’s legs off.”

Much like some of his predecessors, Obama’s obsession with one single issue could cause implosion, as LeBoutillier sees it. LBJ fixated on Vietnam; Nixon obsessed over what his enemies had on him; Clinton compulsively seduced women; and George W. Bush couldn’t shake the urge to off Saddam Hussein, telling members of Congress to support the war in Iraq because, “He tried to kill my dad!”

“Every one of these Presidents had an obsession that took them down,” LeBoutillier concluded. “Obama is obsessed with health care.”

The country, on the other hand, is obsessed with jobs—with creating them, finding them, holding on to them. Obama ignored what LeBoutiller called “a reminder” of this fact, when Massachusetts sent a Republican to the Senate earlier this year. Despite his book smarts, many are questioning Obama’s common sense, and that of his administration.

“What we don’t know and won’t know for years to come is, are they allowed to walk into the Oval Office and say, ‘Mr. President, we are off track,’” LeBoutillier said, referring to Obama’s top advisors. “And does he listen to that?”

LeBoutillier also faulted Obama’s youth. “I think in your forties, you really haven’t lived much and had a lot of things happen to you,” he said. “Rejection and heartbreak teaches us things as we grow older.”

Whether Obama health care obsession becomes law or not, LeBoutiller predicted a total wipe out for the Democrats come November.

Stay tuned.

—Julie Kanfer