Be sure to catch John LeBoutillier on "Imus in the Morning," Wednesday, March 25, 2009 at 6:30 AM

Check out www.imus.com - a great site - and you can listen on the 'net, too!

1. THE BIGGEST DISGRACE OF THE WEEK: is not the AIG bonuses (more on that below). No, President Obama’s inane and insane plan to force our wounded vets to pay for their health care through their own insurance - in an effort to save $544 million in this year’s budget - will go down as the most lame-brained idea floated in DC in a long time!!!

It will not make it through Congress. The organized Veterans’ lobby will kill it - thankfully.

But the bigger issue is how General Eric Shinseki, now the Secretary of Veterans Affairs, and the President could agree to this plan.

If ever there was a legitimate function of government it is to provide medical care for our soldiers. It is part of the social contract made when you agree to serve.

What were they thinking when they came up with this idea?

2. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner is in over his head. He is not up to this job. It is obvious. It began with the revelation that - along with not paying his taxes - he also tried to write off the cost of his kids’ sleep away camp!!!

He is President Barack (Abe Lincoln) Obama’s General George McClellan, the young Union Army officer who Lincoln hoped could win the Civil War for him. Instead it became obvious that the General - like Geithner today - was simply not capable of taking on such a monumental task. He diddled and did nothing - for the first two years of the years of the Civil War! Finally President Lincoln was convinced to make a change. But those were wasted years. And it still took the Lincoln Administration another year until they finally found the right man - U.S. Grant - who then stormed through a weakened Confederacy and won the war.

The Obama Administration needs to get rid of Geithner - even though that will not happen for at least a year because of the political embarrassment - and find a power house figure to re-inspire some confidence in the Obama Program.

3. THE LATEST CAUSE DU JOUR: is these AIG retention bonuses - agreed to a long time ago. But because the American people have had it with these massive government bailouts and the correspondingly huge Wall Street bonuses (for executives who seem to be ripping the taxpayers off while doing a lousy job) this issue has reached the tipping point.

And the President and Congress are all scrambling and falling over themselves to deny they are responsible for these bonuses.

This illustrates why the US Government cannot and should not be running companies.

These huge bailouts have opened Pandora’s Box - and the result is Barney Frank and Chuck Schumer hoping to micro-manage the paychecks of corporate executives.

A Big, Big mistake.

4. CONGRESS ONLY CARES ABOUT TODAY. Yes, they are hot-to-trot about the AIG bonuses today. But a week from today they’ll be off on some other issue - and today’s white hot issue will long have been placed in the rear-view mirror.

That is one of the (many) things wrong with Congress. They are into today’s headlines - period!

Actually digging in and solving a problem?

Forget it!

5. CONGRESSIONAL HEARINGS: do you wonder why they are called that?

Because the Congressmen and women do all the talking - and everyone else has to hear them!

The witnesses are mere foils for our elected Representatives to play off of.

6. The President's latest trip to california is yet another campaign trip - even though there are three years until the next campaign!!!

Why isn't he in DC - while Congress is in session (the normal protocol) - doing his job? He is the President - not the Campaigner-in-Chief!!!

And using taxpayer's money to fly Air Force One to L.A. to go on a late night comedy show?

He should be in the Oval Office getting the economic program working right - not out reading from a TelePrompter.

7. Talk of these AIG bonus babies committing suicide is outrageous - and shows how over-the-top Washington has become when it comes to the economy.

Who can take these clowns seriously when they talk like this?

Where are some grown-ups?

There is no question that Rush Limbaugh is the single most influential leader of the Conservative Movement in the United States today.

But Rush took a bad step 17 years ago and he thus is partly responsible for the disarray we find ourselves in today. An explanation:

Late 1991 and early 1992 President George H.W. Bush - Bush 41 - was running for re-election and had Big Trouble on his right flank from Pat Buchanan. Bush had reversed his No-New-Taxes-Read-My-Lips pledge and indeed allowed a tax increase - a big No-No to the Reagan Wing of the GOP. And he had blasted some on the Right as “extra-chromosome conservatives.”

With Buchanan scoring well in the polls and getting a good vote in the New Hampshire primary, the Bush Team needed help on the Right - and quick. So they invited Rush for an overnight stay in the White House Living Quarters.

Rush has told this story on his show many, many times. He was greeted by the President. “Rush, Rush, is that you?” The voice preceded the President’s arrival in a waiting area where Rush was sitting with his suitcase, which the President of the United States picked up and carried to Rush’s bedroom.

Who wouldn’t be impressed by a President carrying your bags?

The dinner that night upstairs with the President and Mrs. Bush - very kind and hospitable hosts when they wanted to be - was wonderful as was the after-dinner conversation. In sum, Rush was hooked. The Bushes had seduced him.

Indeed, from that night on, Rush Limbaugh became a key backer of Team Bush. Just a few months later - after Bush 41 had vanquished Buchanan and virtually secured the nomination - he faced yet another dire threat - this time from Ross Perot. And who came along and savaged the little Texan day after day, week after week with the most humorous and to-the-point parodies but Rush Limbaugh.

That fall in the general election again Rush did his damndest to ruin Bill Clinton, the Democrat nominee, and Perot who by that time had re-joined the race. But it wasn’t enough. And Clinton was our new President.

Rush Limbaugh believes in loyalty. And he remained loyal to the Bush Family, never forgetting his night in the White House. In 1999 and 2000 as another George Bush geared up to run for President, Team Bush made certain to get Rush on their side from Day One.

Thus Rush became one of G.W. Bush’s strongest advocates - and helped get him elected in 2000.

Throughout the eight years of Bush 43 Rush was always there for President Bush - always shoring up the GOP and the Right for him. But as things began to deteriorate - as the Republican Congress spent money like crazy - with nary a word from the Bush White House - and as the Bush Administration took the GOP and the Conservative Movement farther and farther from the political mainstream Rush only occasionally expressed veiled reservations over what was happening. But by 2008 he was tired of it all. He didn’t like McCain and didn’t want to have to support him. But there wasn’t an acceptable conservative in the race. So Rush, like many on the Right, swallowed hard and supported the GOP ticket.

And thus we have Obama - and a totally Democrat-controlled Congress today. The GOP and the Conservative Movement have become almost irrelevant.

Rush Limbaugh got suckered by the Bushes back in 1992. He fell for their patrician shtick. He then remained loyal to them. And he then fell for the G.W. Bush is the Son of Reagan campaign to secure the 2000 GOP nomination. He used his incredible clout on the Right to enable the Bushes to take over the conservative movement - which they did and then they drove it right over the cliff.

As much as Rush today is trying to right the ship, it will take years to get real conservatism back on track. Rush acolytes like Bobby Jindal are not the answer. And while Rush himself has become more beloved to his core audience, he has become radioactive to everyone else.

He cannot and will not be able to lead the conservatives back to power. He can help in that effort, but cannot be the Front Man for 21st century Conservatism.

Until a new leader of the party and the movement emerges - on his or her own and not as a puppet of anyone - we are going to remain in the wilderness.

Amid all the back and forth over the Obama Budget, Rush Limbaugh, the C-PAC meeting, the Jindal Meltdown, the GOP opposition in Congress and the new leftward direction we as a nation are taking, no one has yet raised another important - political, economic and historic - consideration:

What happens if, after the Obama Plan is adopted and becomes law - which it will in large part with a few tweaks here and there - and then by 2011 or early 2012 the economy starts to rebound?

• First of all, President Obama and his crack PR/campaign team will take all the credit and proclaim him a transformational, historic President - and he would most likely be re-elected;

• The Democratic Congress will also stay in the majority;

• But equally as important - massive government spending, trillion dollar annual deficits, a new, more interventionist federal government - will be seen as the reason the economy is recovering - even if it was not!

• (After all, at some point the economy will bottom out and begin - on its own - to rebound and recover. The Obama Plan may actually hinder and delay the recovery. But we will never know the causes and effects - if it recovers during Obama’s first term);

• Liberal economists will be vindicated!

• They and their political followers will all proclaim, “Big Government works!”

• Historians will also proclaim Obama the Second Coming of FDR - and, in fact, in retrospect the New Deal will again be credited with ending the Great Depression (an interpretation that has lately come under fire);

• The Republican Party will be consigned to the back bench for a long, long time;

• Conservatism - or what has lately come to be called conservatism (it hasn’t been truly conservative since the Bushes seized control of the GOP - oh why did Ronnie Reagan ever pick G.H.W. Bush in 1980!!!??? - will be blamed for creating the Bush Depression; we will not see a resurgence of the conservative movement for years, maybe even decades;

• Western European- style socialism will be the model; cradle-to-grave government programs will be the order of the day;

• And all of this because the economy shows signs of a rebound - even if the Stimulus and Obama Budgets have nothing to do with the recovery. After all, how does anyone really know why the economy recovers?

• In 1984, Reagan took credit for the recovery - Morning in America - and attributed it to his massive 3-year 25% across-the-board tax cuts. He was not only massively re-elected, but Reaganomics (supply-side tax cuts to spur economic activity) became the accepted lifeblood of the GOP and has remained so until today.

• But it might have been Fed Chairman Paul Volker’s inflation-squeezing tightening that was the real reason for the 1983/1984 recovery. We will never know for sure;

All of this is what is at stake here.

And the Republican Party and conservative movement - they are not necessarily one and the same - can do nothing politically to affect the outcome. We are on the side lines now - thanks to Bush and his acolytes and lackeys - including some famous radio talk show hosts who checked their objectivity at the door and became suck-ups to the Bush White House - who drove the GOP right over the cliff.

If the basic tenet of conservative thought is correct - that massive government makes things worse, not better - then the Obama Plan will fail. And he will then fail politically. And then all of the above will not matter.

But we have a long four years ahead of us.

Some quick-hit thoughts and reactions to last night’s speech and rebuttal:

• Our new President is a nice guy. The more he loosens up and relaxes himself - and smiles that huge and friendly and sincere smile - the more time he buys himself to cope with these cascading fiscal and banking problems;

• Because he fought for the Stimulus Plan and the Republicans did not join him, the economy now becomes Obama’s sooner than if the GOP was a part of it. In other words, Obama took ownership once his own prescription and protocols were implemented; blaming G.W. Bush won’t last much past this year.

• That is not to say that the Republicans escape the consequences of the ongoing financial meltdown; in fact, they have the blame painted all over them. And this taint will last for years to come.

• The GOP brand has lost its one-time luster as the party better able to cope with fiscal and national security matters. It will take years to get that special mantle back - if we can ever get it back.

• The Obama Administration is going to have more trouble with their fellow Democrats up on the Hill than they are with the Republicans. Yes, that is true. The GOP is - for the next 2 years anyway - almost completely inconsequential; but the leftist Democrats are feeling their oats and will soon want to move ever farther to the Left than Obama.

• Thus a new tension will soon arise - between these long-time House and Senate bulls who have been waiting for years to have un-checked power - and the Obama Administration which will soon realize their agenda is too much, too soon.

• Barack Obama is spending all his political capital now; he is speaking and travelling at a furious rate for a new president. Indeed, he does risk wearing out his welcome and suffering overexposure. At some point the public gets sick of the same speech over and over again and they begin to tune it out.

• Already the polling shows his numbers among Republicans falling quickly (to be expected) and among Independents to be slightly eroding (somewhat worrisome for Team Obama). And the markets tank after every big speech he makes!

• After a month it is clear that Obama fancies himself as the Salesman-in-Chief - much more than a hands-on administrator who is on top of everything in the Executive Branch. We have already seen break-downs in this model in the Daschle, Richardson and Geithner vetting procedures and the lard inside the Stimulus Bill, which Obama should have written instead of having Nancy Pelosi do it.

• Everything - EVERYTHING - for the Obama Administration depends on solving the ongoing banking problem.

• It is startling that so far neither Obama nor Geithner has come up with a bold, innovative plan to fix this mess and get people feeling better about it.

• Nor has the GOP offered up anything but Nays.

• Why not this simple, bold plan: the US Government - acting as a surgeon operating on a deteriorating patient - goes to the heart of the problem: the toxic, cancerous tumors in each bank - these securitized (bad) mortgages - and cuts them out of the patients’ balance sheets. All these cancerous tumors are gathered up into one federal bank - in the model of the S&L mess of 20 years ago - and held there until their value increases.

• Presto, the banks’ balance sheets are free and clear of the debts that were inhibiting lending - (their MRIs are suddenly clean of cancer now!)

• The Federal Government holds these toxic assets for as long as it takes for the housing market to recover - which it will because there will be pent-up demand for housing in the long run. We are a growing, now-over-300 million people population - and the demand for housing will eventually drive home values up again - although maybe not back to where they have been.

• We need a bold plan like this. Instead, Team Obama is following Team Bush’s approach - and it isn’t working.

• As for Louisiana Governor Jindal’s response last night: he seems like an earnest, nice young man. But his body language is weak, he diction makes it difficult to hear him - plus there were audio problems with his transmission last night.

• He is not the next great conservative leader. Period. He is no dynamo, no firebrand, no passionate leader who can rally a dispirited Right and bring the shattered GOP back to power.

• He is too young, too inexperienced and lacks the Big-Ego confidence it takes. Just the meek way he approached the microphone last night told us much about him: he is not ready - and may never be.

• But that is OK. The next few years are try-out time for men and women who want to lead the GOP Rennaissance. Many will try, most will fail - and perhaps some new leader with new ideas will emerge.

• Until then, we conservatives are in the wilderness. And we better get used to it for a while. We earned it by following the Bushes over the cliff.

While reading Joe Torre’s book, THE YANKEE YEARS, written with Sports Illustrated’s Tom Verducci, a few things came into focus:

• Steroid use really does make a player hit, throw and run better;

• Pitchers can throw appreciably harder and hitters’ eyesight, reflexes, fast-twitch muscles and reactions are markedly improved by using the right steroid for the right athlete;

• The proof is in the pudding: take the one-time Mets catcher, Todd Hundley. In 1996 he hit 16 home runs and earned $1 million. That off-season he asked Mets clubhouse attendant and on-the-side steroid dealer, Kurt Rodomski, for “something” to elevate his game. Rodomski complied and began shooting Hundley up; yes, Hudley worked out in conjunction with the steroids to maximize their effect. Rodomski told him, “You’re going to hit 40 homers now.” Sure enough, in 1997 Hundley hit 41 homers - the most ever by a catcher up to that point - and went on to earn another $37 million in his career!

• From the Torre-Verducci book it is clear that steroids and Human Growth Hormone (HGH) have become unbelievably widespread throughout baseball.

• Just look at old ESPN Classic games from 30 years ago and see how thin-waisted and scrawny and wiry the players used to be. Now they are hulking monsters!

• Yes, this was - and is - cheating. Even if prior to 2004 the rules of Major League Baseball did not prohibit steroids, the laws of all the states prohibited possession and/or the purchase of these drugs. Yet the players - through their so-called ‘personal trainers’ - tried to circumvent the law and get injected with these powerful drugs.

• As a result of this cheating, the players made gobs and gobs of money!!!

• And, in the process, they have cheated. Period.

• You know what? In America - even if it takes a long, long time - cheaters and liars get exposed. The truth always comes out.

• And from A-Rod to Barry Bonds to Roger Clemens to Mark Maguire - they all have been or are being exposed as the cheaters and liars they are.



OK. That is baseball. Our one-time National Pastime. Just a sport. Not anything of any real substance.

Oh yeah?

Guess what?

The very same pattern has overtaken us as a nation.

Cheating and lying are all over the place in the leadership class.

From politicians to lawyers to doctors to business titans to leaders in the entertainment industry.

Madoff, Enron, no-WMD-in-Iraq, the“I never had sex with that woman - Miss Lewinsky,” soldiers ripping off our aid to Iraq, mortgage-lenders ‘teasing’ home-buyers with deceptively low rates and then jacking them up, wide-spread Medicaid fraud, famous historians committing plagiarism and getting away with it, self-centered business leaders taking huge bonuses while laying off their lesser-paid subordinates, overpaid executives spending $1.2 million to decorate an office while the bank is going bust - we could go on and on and on.

The point is clear: like the ballplayers who - while blessed with incredible, superior athletic talent - still wanted to cheat to do even better - these societal leaders also want to cheat and lie about it to make even more money; more money than any one person could ever reasonably spend.

This Super-Sized greed and drive is out-of-wack with our values of fair play, hard work and treating all people fairly and equally.

And these privileged people - in key positions of leadership across the spectrum - are dragging down our country, making awful decisions that harm thousands of people, and are helping to destroy the once-glorious image of the good old U.S.A.

The only good thing about this recession is that it will “shake out” the system and flush many of these greedy jerks down the tubes. Unfortunately, along with them go many, many good people.

America is a self-correcting nation. We do address our problems - sometimes a little too slowly for many of us - but we do face up to things. In this case, we need widespread condemnation of the lying and the cheating and the rip-offs.

And we need to re-instate a long-lost sentiment in our society: shame.

Until these crooks and cheats feel genuine shame for what they have done, they will continue to do it.

They need that kind of shame where you hide your face on the perp walk - not smile into the mug shot camera as if you are proud of what you have done - and can’t face your friends and family and instead you’d rather jump off a building.

Today’s frauds and crooks and cheats revel in their notoriety.

That needs to change - and fast.

Prediction: America is undergoing a whole lot of “change” right now - most of it forced by the crumbling economy. In ten years we will be a stronger nation and a better-behaved people than we are today.

The “rush” that hurts us all is - not Rush Limbaugh - but rushing into a massive almost-$800 billion spending bill - without the proper hearings, time to consider and debate.

Yes, the so-called Stimulus is almost the law of the land. But that does not make it the best possible stimulus bill to help revive a sick economy.

In fact this is the third time in the last 6 ½ years that a President - twice G.W. Bush and now Barack Obama - has basically held a gun to the Congress’ head and forced them to short-circuit their normal way of doing legislative business - a ‘way’ that has served our nation well for over 200 years.

But in the 2002 vote to authorize the use of force in Iraq, the September/October 2008 TARP votes and now this massive stimulus spending bill, the Congress has been “rushed” into making fork-in-the-road decisions that will affect the country for decades to come.

Mistakes are made in this situation. No Member of either the House or Senate has yet read this huge over-1000-page bill; nor will they before they vote on it. Hand-written additions - of huge consequence - will be snuck in - and few if any Members will even know about them until it is too late.

Now, the basic thought behind this Democratic-written bill is simple: Democrats and liberals believe that any and all government spending - no matter what it is spent on - is a good thing. The Left loves government spending - on everything!

They truly believe the more government spends, the more it gins up economic activity. Thus they blatantly put all those pork elements in there because they believed even those wasteful, ridiculous items will help spur a sick economy. They are the true practitioners of Trickle Down (from DC) Economics.

(Republicans - before the profligate and budget-busting Era of G.W. Bush and a GOP Congress - used to be fiscal conservatives; and we believed that the best stimulus was not government spending but tax cuts to allow increased consumer spending; this is From-the-People-Up Economics. That was what happened in 1981 and revived an economy that was much sicker then that it is today.)

Only because of Republican opposition and the news media/talk radio world exposing these spending items did some of them get removed from the bill. However, there are still many in here. And you have Senator Charles Schumer saying that these wasteful pork items are not a big deal! Oh how the Democrats mis-understand the anger of the American people about government spending!

Had the normal legislative process been followed, the rest of this junk would have been exposed. But by “rushing” this bill through, the wool has been pulled over the taxpayer’s heads.

The Democrats hope that the economy turns around by 2010 and 2012. Conventional wisdom is that if the economy is still mired in a recession, the Democrats will - again - be thrown out of office. President Obama has admitted he will be a “one-termer” if he can’t get the economy turned around.

But what if the Democrats have a plan to eliminate- as a political force - the Republican Party?

Let us look at a few seemingly small news items that lead us to a big conclusion:


• Senator Debbie Stabenow (D. Mich.) floated the idea - again -of re-imposing the Fairness Doctrine; Nancy Pelosi has already supported this move;

• The White House is contemplating moving the 2010 Census out of the Commerce Department and into Rahm Emmanuel’s White House Office;

• Preliminary talk out of the House about “normalizing” the immigration status of the 11-20 million illegals now in the country;


Here is the Democratic plan to eliminate the GOP and thus guarantee one-party rule for decades to come:

• Stifle and dilute and weaken Rush/Sean/Savage/Ingraham and so many others who act as a counter-weight to the left-leaning so-called Mainstream Media by re-imposing the so-called Fairness Doctrine;

• Change the Census counting procedure to “estimate” the count in heavily Democratic areas and thus allow most states to re-draw Congressional and state legislative districts to guarantee Democratic majorities for at least the next decade;

• Give amnesty to the millions of illegals - and then hand them registration forms and register ‘em all as Democrats!

• (The moving of the Census out of Commerce is because a Republican - Judd Gregg - is about to become Commerce Secretary and he obviously wouldn’t support rigging the census; but Rahm Emmanuel - the former Clinton White House Political Director and House Congressional Campaign Committee Chairman - is a totally political creature who will try to use the Census to expand the Democratic majority in the House.)




The Republican Party - already limping after the 2006 and 2008 elections - is on the verge of political annihilation if the Democrats have their way.

The Democrats believe in payback - Big Time - and they are not going to risk another 1994 Republican Revolution. Instead, they will now try systematically to crush the remnants of the GOP.