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Dec. 14, 2005 - Rush Limbaugh Program
36:21
December 14, 2005, Wednesday, Hour #2
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Time Text
Slash your oh, a slasher Santa.
I thought you said, have you seen the posters about slash your Santa?
There's a slasher Santa in New York.
Are we surprised?
That's the way you get away with the crime.
Go out and do it to Santa Claus.
Everybody hates Christmas in New York.
These liberal enclaves.
Greetings, folks.
Welcome back.
El Rushbo, America's anchorman.
Serving humanity, executing assigned host duties flawlessly.
Great to be back with you.
Telephone number, 800-282-2882.
Email address, rush at EIBnet.com.
Well, the New York Times out with a bogus story today that the forged ballots were pouring into Iraq.
Reuters, though, says, nope, it's not true.
The head of Iraq's border guards denied police reports on Wednesday that a tanker truck stuffed with thousands of forged ballot papers had been seized crossing into Iraq from Iran before Thursday's elections.
This is all a lie, said Lieutenant General Ahmed Al-Khafaji, the chief of the U.S. Trained Force, which has responsibility for all of Iraq's borders.
I heard this yesterday.
I checked all the border crossings right away.
The borders are all closed anyway, he said to Reuters.
Interior Minister Bayan Jabur also denied the reports, which the New York Times ran prominently, quoting a single unnamed Interior Ministry source, and said it was an attempt to discredit the election process.
And of course, here we're faced with this dilemma.
Reuters says, no, it didn't happen.
And the New York Times says it did.
Who do you believe?
Neither of them are trustworthy.
Turns out in this case, Reuters is right.
And the New York Times was totally bogus.
I was hoping for it to be true, because if it were true, it'd be the Democrats who are behind it.
This is a typical Democrat election ploy.
And I saw this last night.
I said, well, it's going to have some fun tomorrow, but it turns out it's not true.
So this ballot story is all phony.
The New York Times gives it prominent coverage.
Imagine, my friends, if the New York Times was in charge of pre-war intelligence.
I guess these people can't be trusted on anything.
I mean, honestly, folks, how many more false stories from the media before there's unanimous disgust with these propagandists?
Now, we trust the CIA to get intelligence right.
Oh, look, there's Mirtha up there.
This guy on his 45th 15 minutes of fame here.
And he's probably still talking about how the 80% of the Iraqis don't want us there.
These guys are suffering dementia.
They have to be.
At any rate, we trust the CIA to get intelligence right.
All the elites trust the New York Times to get the news right, presumably.
Let's see to what extent they criticize the Times for its repeated lies and errors.
The elites.
Let's see if the elites will jump on the New York Times for being wrong about this.
Just as they jump on the CIA, just as they jump on the president.
Will that happen?
Hell no.
But it ought to.
Let's give you a couple soundbites on this.
This was this morning on CNN.
Miles O'Brien interviewing a member of the Multinational Corps of Iraq, U.S. Army Colonel Brian Stevenson, live.
And Miles O'Brien said, Colonel Brian Stevenson, one of the people charged with securing these elections.
Colonel, good to have you with us.
First of all, let's talk about these phony ballots.
What do you know about that truckload of ballots and the possibility there might have been others out there?
We received that report very early this morning.
And as with any report like that, we'll get to the source and try and confirm whether or not it's true, which we have not been able to do yet.
So O'Brien says, well, how good were these counterfeits?
I mean, is there some concern they could easily be mistaken for real ballots?
Well, we haven't even confirmed that the story is even true, so we can't assess how valid the ballots might be.
Uh-oh, so you're personally unaware of the story.
We've been reporting it.
Other news media have been reporting it.
You're not aware of it?
Oh, I'm very aware of it.
We just have no corroboration that it's true.
And we're trying to confirm and do just what you mentioned is find out are there, in fact, ballots there and could they be used as counterfeits.
Again, we have a lot of steps in place to prevent that, even if it were to come through the country.
See, now, what the Colonel didn't say, but said, is that just because you are reporting it at CNN and the rest of the media doesn't mean it's true.
Now, as you heard, Miles O'Brien read the New York Times.
It's gospel.
Asks this guy, well, these ballots coming in, they look forged.
We haven't even seen them yet.
Or do you think they're pretty good-looking forgery?
No, we haven't seen it.
We haven't confirmed it's true.
Well, what do you think there are more that you haven't found?
Oh, no, we haven't confirmed it is true yet.
Well, what about the, how many of them are there?
Well, we haven't confirmed that it's true yet.
But we're reporting it at a media.
The media says it's happening.
Well, we're trying to do what you're doing to confirm it.
How many times did the guy have to say we haven't confirmed the story?
And yet every question was oriented around the fact the story's true.
Now we know the story was bogus.
Now, I can tell you, I ask the question, to what extent will they criticize the New York Times for its repeated lies and errors?
They won't.
We know the answer.
They'll say, well, no one died.
But when Bush lied, people died.
But no one died when the New York Times lied.
That's not the test.
If a surgeon screws up an operation and no one died, that's not a defense.
If a lawyer screwed up on a capital murder case and his client's convicted, that's not an excuse for the lawyer's conduct in all cases.
But the bottom line here is that the New York Times will come under no criticism from the very people who believe them and were misled by it and embarrassed themselves all morning by reporting this stuff.
I want to go back to one thing the president said in his speech about morale and how when the Democrats and these critics, and what did he, he referred to them as irresponsible, irresponsible comments coming from the critics, and he means Democrats.
He said these irresponsible comments have a deleterious effect on morale.
You might remember that it wasn't long, a couple weeks ago, a week ago, I got an email from the commander of the 447th Expeditionary Operations Support Squadron, basically the Air Traffic Control Group at Baghdad International, the military air traffic control crew.
I got an email from a man known as Taz, who is their commander.
And the email talked about how their morale was way up and they appreciate all of the support that they're getting from all of you here at home.
And Taz told this funny story about how they had this French-made refrigerator in the control tower.
And as the thing cycled on, you know, refrigerators, after they cool down, then they shut off.
And when the temperature inside gets too high, they come on and start cooling the contents.
Now, when this thing came on, started recycling the cool, it emitted all kinds of noises.
And when the air traffic controllers in the Baghdad control tower would key their microphones to talk to military flights, these noises could be heard.
And at first, everybody thought that the signal was being jammed, that people were toying around.
And they figured out eventually it was the refrigerator made in France.
So the crew took the refrigerator out on the catwalk outside a control tower, just threw it overboard.
And it landed 200 feet down there and it exploded.
And now they were out of refrigerator in the control tower.
They had all these contents in there, and it looked like it had all become yogurt when it exploded, and they hadn't gone down to inspect it yet.
They made sure nobody was down there to get hit by it, but they dumped it overboard.
I read that email on the air, and I've gotten another email from the commander, the air traffic control squadron at Baghdad International.
Mr. Limbaugh.
Words from Halliburton regarding the death of our Baghdad control tower refrigerator, made in France.
Halliburton, Kellogg Brown, and Root executives told me here that they're going to try to get us a new fridge for the Baghdad control tower.
This one's going to be American-made.
So apparently the story of the faulty French-made refrigerator to Baghdad control tower was heard.
And Halliburton is going to provide them with a new American-made refrigerator.
Taz writes, I know it'll stand proudly in our tower cab and it'll stand proud.
And I know it won't produce a loud and annoying chronic squeal like our former old dilapidated refrigerator made in France did.
And I know it won't suck the electrical power out of our tower radios whenever it powers itself on like the old refrigerator made in France did.
And I know it won't have any adverse impacts on the safety of coalition air operations like the Made in France refrigerator did.
But I will be sure the water condensation drip tube from our new American refrigerator doesn't create any puddles inside my tower cab like the French-made refrigerator did.
I just hate it, Mr. Limbaugh, when you have to splash through puddles of refrigerator water on the way to the air control tower microphones.
And I don't want to have to explain refrigerator water puddles to my chain of command.
I'll ensure my senior NCOs appropriately route the drip tube of our new fridge outside the control tower windows.
We'll do our best to respect the grave of our former refrigerator made in France.
That's the fridge I wrote you about earlier.
That's the fridge that cartwheeled all the way down after being launched from our control tower's catwalk.
It exploded on impact on the pavement 200 feet below.
But it's still there.
We're afraid to touch it.
We try not to look at it.
But it's resting peacefully in its grave now.
However, every once in a while, a pack of protected wild dogs comes along and sniffs around that refrigerator.
But military necessity will take priority, and the correct decision regarding the drip tube of our new American-made refrigerator will be made.
We'll analyze the ballistics of the water as it drips from the new fridge, and we'll try not to allow the condensation line drip tube water from our new fridge to desecrate the grave of our former refrigerator, made in France.
We will send you a picture when we get the new fridge in the Baghdad International Airport Control Tower from Halliburton.
If you want, please send an EIB sticker and photo, and I'll slap it on the front door.
That's the opposite side of the drip tube.
This is from Taz, the commander of the Air Traffic Control Squadron at Baghdad International.
Sounds to me like morale doing okay.
I wanted to share that with you because it's hilarious.
You can visualize these guys tossing their French refrigerator 200 feet overboard, and it's still there.
Nobody's had the guts to go down and move it or touch it.
We'll be back.
Stay with us.
Okay, time to go to the phones.
We'll start in Redlands, California.
Matt, I'm glad you waited, sir.
I appreciate your patience.
And hello.
Hello, Rush.
It's an honor to speak with you.
Thank you.
I just wanted to say that things are going much better in Iraq than the Democrats and the liberal media wants us to know.
Now, everybody admits that both the northern and southern parts of Iraq are pretty secure and stable.
And everybody knows that most of the problems in Iraq are coming from some of the Sunnis in central Iraq.
The good news is that the Sunni resistance cannot succeed because it doesn't enjoy popular support from the average Sunnis.
And this will be proven by the fact that millions of Sunnis will go to the polls tomorrow at the risk of their own lives in order to vote for democracy.
Right, which they didn't do early on.
They were intimidated, or some of them did.
But as time has gone on, more and more of them want to get in on the process because they see that it's real and they see it's happening.
And this is the way, the best way they're going to have a voice in the future of Iraq is if they participate in it.
Exactly.
This is the only way that the average Sunni can participate and have a life for themselves.
There's no other way for Sunnis to have a chance to win.
Let's even imagine a few years from now that, let's say, a Democrat was elected president and the United States cut and run.
Even if the United States left, the Sunnis would still be destroyed by 80% Shiite and Kurd majority.
They could not win a civil war against the Kurds and the Shiites.
The Sunnis would be destroyed.
So the Sunni resistance has no hope for winning through violence.
Their only hope is through what they're going to do tomorrow, which is coming out in droves voting.
I have to ask, on behalf of the audience, who are you in terms of your knowledge base on this and from where does your confidence arise?
Well, are you just an informed citizen?
Yeah, I majored in history and religious studies, and I just follow politics real closely, and I'm just a student of history.
And one of the things I've learned from history is that when you're facing a really evil force, whether that be the Nazis, whether that be the communists, the one thing that never works is appeasement.
The one thing that doesn't work is just turning the other cheek.
That will work, like Gandhi in India.
Gandhi was able to succeed by freeing the Indians from the British through nonviolence.
That's because he was dealing with the British, a higher evolved culture, a more civilized culture.
Nonviolence will work when you're working with a more peaceful culture like the British.
But when you're dealing with the Nazis, communists, these fascists, terrorists, the insurgents, these Sunni crazies, then you have to use more violence and you have to use more aggression.
But the good news is the Sunnis, I think the average Sunni realizes that they have no way to succeed unless they get into the political process, come out to vote.
There's no way that the Sunnis.
Let me ask you this, though.
You know that there are people agitating for a civil war.
Iran's trying to impact this.
Even Democrats in this country are hoping there's a civil war.
Where does that play into this?
Well, the thing, I think the average Sunni is going to realize that it's in their best interest not to support a civil war.
Because let's face it, most of Iraq is pretty secure, the north and the south.
And the average Sunni, they know they cannot win a civil war.
How can they defeat the United States, the Kurds, the Shiites in the South?
How can they win a civil war?
They will be defeated.
Even if the United States left, the Sunnis could not defeat the Kurds in the North and the Shiites in the South.
The Sunnis' only hope for a peaceful, better life is through a peaceful getting involved in the political process peacefully.
They cannot win a war through violence.
That's why they're going to come out and vote.
Because I think the Sunni people realize their only hope is through voting and the democratic process and peaceful activities.
What do you think?
Well, you are more informed on I than this, but your scenario fits my limited understanding of this.
My only concern is when you say that no one group can be the other, beat the other in a civil war.
You have Iran lingering there on the border, and if they choose sides, they have the ability to make any side they choose cause real trouble.
And so, you know, whether it be the Sunnis or the Shiites, I know one of those choices would be very odd, but you never know.
The last thing that Iran wants is a democratic government regime on its border.
The last thing Syria wants is that.
The last thing any of these nations over there want is that.
Saudis as well.
Yeah, I think so.
And there's been all this talk and talk about civil war, but I really think that if there was going to be a civil war, it would have happened by now.
I mean, the bottom line is...
Let me tell you, like I said earlier, a civil war, it could happen.
If you have, if one of these factions ends up being like the Democratic Party in this country, trying to divide that country on race and gender and income and gets into radical egalitarianism, they start trying to engender all kinds of, you could end up with one.
We had one.
We had a civil war after the idea that there shouldn't be one.
These people on the left in this country demanding perfection, and they demand it in practically every aspect of life, and it's not possible.
It simply isn't possible.
There may be a civil war.
It depends.
But the fact that it hasn't happened now is a good sign.
And even if there is a civil war, it doesn't mean failure.
It didn't mean failure for us.
It didn't mean all is lost.
We just have people agitating for defeat in this country.
You've got people all over the world agitating for defeat, and they are liberal socialists who have a contempt for freedom and democracy.
They want elitist rule.
And it's in this country and everywhere else that they can foment it.
So I just, I look at all this and I think I don't understand the people who are invested in defeat and negativism and doom and gloom.
American history, world history is such that that attitude doesn't propel you anywhere.
I mean, even if you look at the tyrannical regimes, look at Saddam or look at Mao or look at Stalin or any of the, the last thing they were was negative about what they believed.
I mean, they were very positive that they loved killing millions.
They have a very positive attitude about it.
Now, I'm not trying to sound contradictory here, but attitudinally, achievement is not the result of doom and gloom, negativism, and pessimism.
It never is.
And so these people agitating for it are quite obvious in their desires and where their hopes and dreams actually lie, and it's not with U.S. victory.
One quick note here before we have to go to the break.
This is a Chicago Tribune story.
As Iraq, just listen to the first paragraph.
As Iraq moves toward crucial legislative elections on Thursday, homegrown Iraqi insurgent groups are reaching out to the United States in the hope of launching a dialogue that would draw them into the political process and end their two and a half year rebellion.
This, according to U.S. officials and Iraqis close to the insurgency.
Insurgents who see themselves fighting for an Iraqi nationalist cause are looking for ways to distance themselves from the religious radicals and the hardcore Bathists who have dominated the insurgency in the public eye with a view to establishing a foothold in Iraq's political landscape.
This is exactly what the guy from Redlands, California is saying.
They want to get in on the action.
These homegrown Iraqi insurgency groups are reaching out in the hopes of launching a dialogue that'll make them mainstream.
The news coming out of there continues to improve day to day, which you would never know about unless you listen to programs like this.
The saga continues, and your taxes just went up.
Yes, they did, folks.
Congress will not address the growing reach of the alternative minimum tax this year that will leave more than 15 million of you people subject to the alternative minimum tax for the first time next year.
Senator Friss told reporters Tuesday that legislation addressing the ATM, or I'm sorry, AMT, will not be completed this year.
Lawmakers can act next year to make retroactive changes that ensure taxpayers don't pay more in 2006, but millions will start the new year in the grasp, 15 million of you people, in the grasp of the alternative minimum tax.
As you may know, the alternative minimum tax was designed to stop the wealthy from avoiding all taxation.
But because it hasn't been modified, and it goes back to, what, 1971?
61 or 69?
It's a long time.
It's 30 years ago.
It goes back 30.
Things have changed in 30 years.
Snaring millionaires 30 years ago snares average Americans today.
You may not believe this, a lot of them.
But Congress is too busy debating how we are barbaric and torture.
We torture people.
We are barbaric, and we are debating.
We don't have time to confirm a Supreme Court justice, or we don't have time to deal with the alternative minimum tax.
They keep trying to patch this thing with the most recent patch, holding back the tax from hitting these 15 million additional people expires December 31st.
What that means is that nearly 19 million individuals and families can expect to pay the alternative minimum tax next year, and more than 15 million taxpayers would face it for the first time, most of them married couples.
These extra taxes would come due in 2007 when returns must be filed to the IRS.
The AMT exists as a second system of taxation.
It forces some individuals and families to figure their taxes twice and pay the higher amount.
It's more likely to ensnare taxpayers who have multiple children or pay high state and local taxes, because that's high state and local taxes equal to deduction.
And I'm going to take the deduction away.
Your taxes just went up.
I don't have time to deal with it.
You know, when the alternative minimum tax first was passed and signed into law, you know how many people it affected?
Remember, I told you two weeks ago.
You know how many people it affected?
22.
22 millionaires.
22 people.
Now we're up to 19 million with another 15 million affected by it beginning next year.
Your taxes just went up.
Toledo, Ohio, this is Paul.
Glad you called, sir.
Welcome to the program.
Yes, Rush.
Good afternoon.
Just to clarify, this is Paul Joseph, and I came from Ramadi about 10 days ago.
I'm on the first page of your Club Getmo pictures there, I believe, towards the top, I believe.
Really?
Yes.
You're on the front page of our Club Gitmo photo gallery.
Yes.
Well, it's a pleasure to talk to you, sir.
Welcome back, by the way, from Ramadi.
Thank you very much.
It's a great fun back here in America and have my feet on soil, and I just ate my first Whopper today from Burger King, so life is good.
The reason I'm calling today, Rush, is a couple things you've mentioned already.
I couldn't help but overhear the 80% of how the Iraqis do not want us there at all.
It's a bogus poll, and Murthy keeps citing him.
It's a bogus poll.
Yes, nothing could be further from the truth there.
I came from probably the worst place in Iraq, which is Ramadi, just less than two weeks ago.
I drove the streets of that town.
I saw folks out doing what they do best, and that's living our lives day to day.
They're coming out in numbers to vote, and we were there for the last election as well, and we saw that as well.
Those people are not afraid of wanting the truth and looking for democracy as well.
It may not be our form of democracy, and that's okay.
The fact is that they're going to decide their outcome of this election in their future as well, and that's what this is all about.
Well, Paul, it's great to hear from you.
How long were you over there?
I spent a year over there, a few months up north near Spiker, and then spent the rest of the year about 10 months down in Ramadi.
Just to clarify here, Rush, I am not a spokesperson for my unit, nor do I even protest to be or profess to be.
But I think you've got some folks from Rio Linda who did enlist and were in echelons above me who obviously took offense to our picture that was taken and sent to you.
Just for their benefit, there is no Getmo East.
Is a satire on life, and as we were trying to make the best of our situation there.
But we can't thank you enough for what you did for us and saying those sharks and bugs over there.
I remember your picture now.
Club Guitemo East.
So you had some Rio Linda recruits that were offended by it, huh?
Yes, they were.
And I wasn't sure.
Just a few of us, and they never did mention who they were.
But that's okay because they're Americans and they have their right to voice their opinion.
Just a week ago, I was met by a two-star general down in Kuwait who was talking to us.
And he told us, go home and tell your story.
Talk to your friends.
Talk to your families and tell them what happened and what you know.
And you were the first person I've called since I've been home here in regard to this.
And the bottom line is that we are there doing the right things.
Well, we're honored.
We're really honored to hear from you.
And I think it's great that you were able to get through and give us the story.
I find it fascinating, too, that you had some people who didn't like your Club Gitmo picture.
That's fine.
You know, if you listen to people in this country who think only Republicans volunteer to go to the war anyway, apparently there's some Democrats over there fighting war in an all-volunteer force.
Now, I know what they would say, or not they, but I know what I know what people say.
Well, they're only there because they don't have any economic future in this country.
It's the only way they can get an education.
And so the attempt to impugn their intentions would be in full display.
But, Paul, congratulations again, and thanks so much for your service and your Club Guitmo East photos.
And we understand that you speak for yourself and you don't speak for the whole unit, just the guys in the picture.
Talking about this, the polling data, the Murtha is out there again today, citing this bogus statistic that 80% of the Iraqis don't want us there, and it's just not supportable by the facts.
And I'm sure that in my absence, again, for those of you wondering, people saying I'm not being forthcoming about why I was absent the past two days.
And folks, issues of medical privacy here I have to deal with because of a bunch of snoops.
But the bottom line is, I had an intestinal tract problem, and it was diagnosed by the doctors as I was eating.
It was toxic.
And they asked me, you've been eating anything unusually.
I said, I've been having a lot of Democrats for lunch.
I've been eating Democrats for lunch and I've been eating their lunch.
Well, it's poisoned you.
It's toxic.
And you're going to have to change your diet.
And I said, well, that's tough because I eat Democrats for lunch each and every day.
He said, well, you're going to have to find a way to live with this if you can't change your diet.
And I said, I can't.
A country needs me.
And the doctor was understood and totally supportive in this.
So we hopefully have found a workaround.
But here, when I was gone, there was a poll that came out from ABC about our popularity in Iraq and the optimism of the Iraqi people.
Deborah Oren wrote about it yesterday in the New York Post.
She says, Iraqis are surprisingly optimistic about their lives and future, despite violence and terrorism.
Most of them say they feel safe and a growing majority supports democracy.
This according to an intriguing ABC News poll.
Most Iraqis also want U.S. forces to stay until security is better, even though they don't like being occupied.
Some 71% of Iraqis say their own lives are going well now, and they're also very bullish on the elections tomorrow.
An impressive 76% say that they expect the vote to pick a stable Iraqi government.
The poll found 45% of Iraqis want U.S. troops to leave fast.
26% say now.
Another 19% say after the new government takes office.
But a bigger number, 52%, want U.S. troops to stay.
And that includes 31% who say stay until security is restored.
15% who say stay until the Iraqi security forces can operate on their own, and 5% who say stay even longer.
Now, the fact that a majority want U.S. troops to stay for now comes despite the fact that 65% oppose the presence of those troops, suggesting they see it as a necessary thing for security, but they don't like it.
So they're realists about it.
And I think that's where this don't like being occupied aspect of the poll enters into it.
By the way, not only have your taxes gone up because of the failure to deal with the alternative minimum tax, a story from the Newark Star Ledger, after vowing during his campaign that he would not raise the gas tax, Governor-elect John Corzine said yesterday he will now reconsider the idea now that gasoline prices have eased and the state's budget gap has ballooned more than $5 billion.
And I sit here and this is nothing new.
This happens.
I don't care who in New Jersey as a candidate promises what.
It's worthless.
And you wonder how, will you Democrat voters in this state ever learn?
In October, Corzine said flatly, and I quote, there will be no gas tax hike in a Corzine administration, particularly after we've seen a dollar and a half rise in the price of gasoline.
Two days later, under pressure from union leaders who support it, he said it had to be on the table, but should be a last resort.
Bottom line, all liberals must bow to union thugs.
And speaking of gasoline prices, let me dig deep here in the stack because I should have put this next story that I want to find right after this Corzine story, but I didn't.
But it's about gasoline prices and how they're now being reported as going up.
Gasoline, I think I just, yes.
For the past few weeks, as gas prices have gone down from the $3.50 a gallon range to $2.09, and even in New Jersey, you people in New Jersey, you thought you were scoring big.
I have people of New Jersey bragging and email.
Hey, Rush, I live on the East Shore.
I live down in the Atlantic City area.
My gas, $1.88 a gallon.
It's coming back to bite you.
Because your governor, who promised not to raise the gas tax, sees it going down, says, guess what?
We can raise the gas tax because you people got used to paying $2.50 and $3.50, so we're going to raise the gas tax.
There hasn't been a peep in the media about falling prices because the template and the action line from the Democrats has been that gas prices are so high that we're all in economic depravity.
We are economically deprived.
We don't have any future.
The gas price is choking us.
We've got to all drive these stupid little hybrids.
We've got to get rid of our SUVs.
But the price has been plummeting.
But it hasn't been reported.
But this morning, you look around and look at the right places.
I was driving in today and I had the radio on, and I've seen it on some of the cable news channels today.
You can hear the headline, gas prices increasing.
The story said the average gas price was now $2.19, that it's gone up 3 cents in the past week.
No mention of the fact that $2.19 is actually lower than pre-Hurricane Katrina gasoline prices.
We're still lower than what the price was before that hurricane.
And the media, you can just count on them.
Gas price coming back up.
Never reported that it went down.
So if you're an ignoramus, you think gasoline may now be $4 a gallon because you don't know that it's ever come down if you don't buy any.
So now that the prices have bottomed out, look for many screaming headlines about high gas prices, even though they are still lower than what they were prior to Hurricane Katrina.
It's just to me, I love doing this.
The media thinks that they can get away with this crap, and they can't anymore, folks.
They just can't because we are here.
One of my all-time favorite places, Woodstock, Connecticut.
This is Alex.
Nice to have you on the program.
Rush, how you doing?
Good, sir.
It's an honor and a privilege to speak with you.
I just wanted to thank you for getting the truth out.
There's more conservatives up here than you would believe.
I hope so because I run into them, but they're awfully, they're awfully, every time I run into conservatives up there, they're depressed as hell.
Well, we're encouraged by what you have to say and by the truth.
And I was particularly touched by the soundbite of the woman from Iraq who was thanking Americans for coming over here and doing what they were doing.
And I was so excited about that, I said, yeah.
And I wanted Rush, I said, Rush, you've got to play that tape over and over.
Well, I'll take the occasion of your call to play it again.
It's just a 10-second little bite.
And of course, what you have out there, you've got the Chris Matthews Brigade leading the charge that the term victory is a catchphrase.
It's just a catchphrase.
It's some sort of political trick to keep talking about victory, to make the American people feel good about things.
So we have this soundbite from last night in Baghdad.
It's an Iraqi voter, Betty Dawesha, weighing in on victory.
Anybody who doesn't appreciate what America had done and President Bush, let them go to hell.
Amen.
You stood up and cheered, did you, Alex?
Well, so did a lot of people.
This is something that is woefully absent from mainstream media coverage.
Anybody who doesn't appreciate what America's done and President Bush, let them go to hell.
Here it is one more time.
Anybody who doesn't appreciate what America had done and President Bush, let them go to hell.
Yes, yes, that's Betty Dawisha, an Iraqi voter, and more than likely a popular sentiment among many Iraqis.
We have a montage here.
I want to contrast that voter with the American media.
Chris Matthews, a montage.
This is Monday morning, before and after President Bush's speech, Matthews' remarks about the speech.
The word victory, that's the new sort of catchphrase that supposedly arouses positive feelings among Americans.
He used the word victory I candidate six times.
The only problem is all we've got now, Professor, is the word victory.
I wish there was a military guy or somebody who could give him some more useful information on how to sell this war.
But congratulations.
This is a bullseye for you guys.
So Chris thinks his side's losing because the word victory is taking hold.
It's just a term.
It's a political trick.
And it's not a concept.
The reason it's not a concept, because these guys think we've lost.
It's just a trick to try to trick the American people.
I mean, we've lost this war, but they're calling it a victory.
Matthews doesn't understand why.
It's a concept, Chris.
It's concept.
Matt in Louisville, Kentucky.
You're next on the EIB network.
Hi.
Mega Navy Dittos, Rush.
Thank you.
Hey, I have an idea here.
All this talk about a civil war going on in Iraq is moot because what we are witnessing right now is the end of the Iraqi civil war and the insurgency has lost.
This popular insurgency, I guess, is what we're calling it.
If you followed it from the very beginning, you'll notice that right after the invasion and whatnot, the insurgency was focused on military targets.
They were blowing up convoys and things like that.
And as time marched on, they didn't focus so much on the military, but they started focusing on each other.
They started blowing up police stations.
They started blowing up recruiting depots.
They started blowing up hospitals.
And now it's gotten to the point where the Sunnis completely understand we're not going to get anywhere doing this.
Let's stop it because we're just killing each other.
And they want to get involved in the political process now.
So, well, that's an excellent analysis.
I like that analysis.
It's sort of like, it's on a par with saying, hey, we have achieved victory.
The war in Iraq, we achieved that.
We're now fighting for the peace.
And we're on the verge.
And we got a soundbite or two of people talking about how important these elections are.
I'll let you hear that when we come back.
Don't go away, my good friends.
Two hours down, one to go.
Broadcast excellence rolls on.
El Rushbo, your host for life, serving humanity and loving every minute of it.
We'll be right back.
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