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.