And Obama never once said "uh" or "er." Rush said that, over Obama's voice.
Here's what the transcript has, though:
OBAMA: We came in because, uhhh, the folks, uhhh, over on the other side of the Atlantic been, uhhhh, oppressing folks without giving reputation.
[Those UHHHs were said by Rush Limbaugh, talking over Obama's voice!]
RUSH: What is he talking about? Folks --
OBAMA: The problem with the debate that's taken place, uhhh, and, uhhh, with some of these Tea Party events I think they're misidentifying who the culprits are here.
RUSH: Uhhh. Uhhh. Uhhh.
[Again, I was listening to Obama speak, and he never said uhh, and uhh!]
OBAMA: We had two tax cuts that weren't paid for, two wars that weren't paid for. We've got a population, uhhh, that's getting older. We're all demanding services but our taxes have actually substantially gone down, and so the -- the challenge I think for the Tea Party movement is to identify specifically: What would you do?
RUSH: They are. That's why they are growing in popularity. The deficit was going down sharply until January of 2007. The deficit was going down. The national debt wasn't going down, but it wasn't being added to as rapidly. Unemployment was down. This man has here...? The American people are not buying this, Mr. Obama. If tax cuts got us in this position, why aren't you succeeding with all of your economic ideas in landslide numbers? .....
Having heard Rush and Hannity criticize and mock Obama's usage of "uh" and "er" all the time, I was listening closely to Obama's soundbytes as played on Rush's program, and all I can say is, I never heard Obama say them. All those "uhs" in the transcript were said by Rush, not Obama.
And I can only reiterate, there are enough things to criticize Obama for, without criticizing him for something he doesn't really do all that often, i.e., his speech pattern.
(I'm reminded of the warfare that used to take place between the UConn Huskies women's basketball team message board, the Boneyard, and the Summitt, which is the Lady Vols message board. Back in the day when the two teams played twice a year, each message board would have a game thread. And if you read the Boneyward, they were always complaining about how biased the refs were toward the Huskies - how Tennessee was getting every call.
Then, you'd read the game thread on the Summitt, and it was the exact opposite. The Huskies were getting all the calls!
Two different fan bases, both watching the same game, each seeing it with a skewed eye and probably believing that they were seeing it perfectly fairly, too.
I remember a few days ago, and unfortunately I did not copy it at the time, and I don't have time to go back and look for it, where Rush was commenting on how the mainstream media is always hanging on the words of TeaParty candidates, wanting to blacken their name if they make one mistake in their words, because that's what the mainstream media does.
But it is also what Rush and Hannity do against Democrats and Obama! For example a few days ago Obama appeared at a press conference without his wedding ring. It ha been sent away for repairs. And Rush was all up on that, as if he were hoping that there were some kind of rift between Michele and Obama, when actually the explanatoin was very simple. So, he's never brought that up again. And he's always called Obama henpecked, with no evidence for it that I can see. Presumbably Michelle's forthright manner leads him to assume she gives orders to Obama, I don't know. But it's just another "slight" on Obama that is really unworthy of Limbaugh, and its the kind of thing that leads some people to not take him seriously.
"Oh, Limbaugh says Obama's henpecked. I've never seen evidence of that. The guy will grasp any straw. Frankly, that's pretty much proof that anything he says against Obama isn't true."
And that's how Rush damages his own cause. People "on the bubble", who don't know what to believe, may listen to Limbaugh, hear him complain about these petty things, and be driven away at the trivialness of it and the pettiness of it.
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