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April 17, 2006 - Rush Limbaugh Program
36:11
April 17, 2006, Monday, Hour #1
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Welcome to today's edition of the Rush 24-7 Podcast.
I trust everybody had a fine weekend, and you're back here in fine form of normalcy.
And ready for us to rev it up here on the Rush Limbaugh program, The Excellence in Broadcasting Network, and three straight hours of broadcast excellence, all of them destined for our best of archive, as well as the future Limbaugh Broadcast Museum.
Great to have you with us, folks.
Telephone number 800 282-2882, the email address rush at EIBNet.com.
We'd like to welcome back Brian Johnson to the uh EIB Southern Command after a blissful honeymoon in the rainforests of Puerto Rico.
Yes, Brian told me went down to the rainforest of Puerto Rico where he got lectured on the dangers of global warming.
He did come back with the wedding rings still on.
That was a um a heartwarming sign.
And you don't look like you gained any weight out there, so um, you know, that's uh it's it's cool.
Great to have you back.
The management trainee only screwed up two or three times, but it was all internal and nobody knew it because of the professionalism of uh others uh all the way around.
We got the whole crew here ready to go, and you know the uh the Rumsfeld thing is heating up, drive by media doesn't let this go.
The Iranian nuclear situation, a fascinating column on this today in the Chicago Sun Times uh Sun Times by the the brilliant ingenious Mark Stein that I want to uh uh share with you.
Um we have immigration news, not as hot and heavy today.
Uh stunning news out of General Motors.
I read something the other day about about what it is that do you know how many hundreds of thousands ex-employees they are still paying full boat at a hundred and thirty, hundred and forty thousand dollars a year, maybe it's tens of thousands, I'm not sure.
I found out General Motors as part of their health care plan.
Out of the five point six billion dollars in health care costs that they uh that they have uh they spend 17 million dollars annually for impotence drugs like Viagra or Cialis as part of their health care plan.
Seventeen million dollars.
That's it.
These kind of things uh all begin to add up.
I mean, there's uh there's a reason why they are having trouble.
And we've we've created an entitlement mentality across so many people, and you you hear the details of this, and it's it's somewhat shocking.
But let's start here with oh, and we've got a a uh school principal in Inglewood, California who who misinterpreted a uh uh uh policy manual and forced uh students to uh uh to uh uh use buckets in the classroom classroom instead of instead of uh going to the bathroom, uh they had to use buckets in the classroom.
Elementary school principal trying to prevent student walkouts during immigration rallies, introduced a lockdown so strict that the kids weren't allowed to go to the bathroom.
They instead had to use buckets in the classroom.
Worthington elementary, it's elementary school to boot, um, is the school principal Angie Marquez imposed the lockdown on March 27th as nearly 40,000 students across Southern California left classes to attend immigrants' rights demonstrations.
Mark apparently misread it's a woman, by the way, and I'm just throwing it in.
Uh the identify who the principal is.
Mean nothing by it, folks, nothing whatsoever.
By the way, hi to those of you watching on the Ditto Cam today.
Mark Quez apparently misread the district handbook and ordered a lockdown designed for nuclear attacks.
Uh I don't know if they ducked and covered or not, but uh at any rate, this this is it's comical.
We have and we have a lot of comical news out there.
But let's let's start with uh with Secretary Rumsfeld.
You know, the uh we've got these six or seven generals uh that have it's I I think it's actually seven because we have to throw uh we have to throw Ashley Wilkes in there.
Uh uh Wesley Clark uh uh so it's it's seven generals out of it's either it's it's forty, seven hundred or nine thousand uh ex-current generals uh that we haven't heard from.
But the drive-by media all revved up.
Oh, and the drive-by media is lined up in droves across the street from the uh from the courthouse down in Durham, North Carolina, where the the political hack prosecutor is expected to uh indict two of the lacrosse players.
The uh drive-by media just can't wait uh for this.
Find out who the two are so that they can drive by all over again, throw some more bullets and mortar fire in the crowd and create a general havoc.
But I want to talk about these generals from the standpoint of their uh uh uh strategic thinking.
We touched on this a little bit last week, and we also have some audio sound bites here from uh media types, a couple of montages to demonstrate how the uh the six or seven generals who want Rumsfeld to resign are being treated versus the people who've come out recently over the weekend in support of him.
The ones that want him to resign are heralded and lauded as great patriots, the ones supporting Rumsfeld are suspected of being put up jobs, being forced almost at gunpoint by the administration and the Pentagon to go out there and defend the guy.
Some people are asking uh uh where were those generals three years ago?
Uh well, they were they were, and where were their comments then?
Well, they were enlisted then, they were working, they were not retired.
And as such, um they had to follow the party line.
Some are now saying that they're out there finally able to speak honestly and that they've always believed this.
This is the this is the spin.
Jim Pinkerton, by the way, the columnist for Newsday, has a really fascinating take on what may really be behind this.
And by the way, folks, as you've come to expect, it's something that I speculated on as a possibility last Thursday and Friday discussing this.
It's all coming up here in due course.
These are strange times.
There's no question.
We've got seven retired generals.
Um, and there's no question these retired generals were generals.
There's no question they did serve the nation.
Now I'm not wise enough to know their motives, but I've got a pretty good idea.
There's a there's a there's enough possibilities out there now that you might be able to come up with one or two really good ones.
Uh, whatever their motives, though, you have to wonder about their strategic skills.
Now let's stop and think of this for a second.
These these are the best and brightest.
They've retired, they're being held up by the media, the drive-by media is the best and brightest, so let's examine their strategic skills.
And you'd have to say that they're not very good.
Aren't generals expected to be pretty good strategirists?
I mean, that we depend on them, right?
Now they've got a strategy here designed to bring down Secretary Rumsfeld.
And in plain English, folks, and I want everybody, so those in you are real, I won't have to explain this to you.
In plain English, their strategy sucks.
As I pointed out Friday, uh, their announcement is counterproductive.
The president, if anything, will be more supportive of Rumsfeld and is.
Rumsfeld, if he wanted to retire, couldn't.
He can't now because it can't be made to appear that these people, these six generals or seven, have this kind of power.
The White House's not going to buckle to this.
So you have to want what's the game plan?
What's the strategic thinking?
If they really want to get rid of Rumsfeld, all they've done is ensure that he's gonna stay.
The criticisms are not new.
They're old.
Uh what did or should we have done three years ago?
Everybody knows you don't fight the last war.
You always plan for the next one.
The last thing a worst thing a general can do is fight the last war.
Ashley Wilkes ran on it in 2004.
You've heard the phrase cut and run.
Well, Ashley in 2004 ran on undercut and run, and look where it got him.
John Kerry ran on it, and look where it got him.
I know uh Ashley did get a gig on Fox News, he got higher speaking fees.
I don't know if he got a book deal or not.
But in terms of winning his prize, the Democratic nomination, he didn't get anywhere.
Now I'm wondering if any of these uh these general strategists have calculated the risk assessment of their assault.
We're always hearing about Rumsfeld that he calculate the risk assessment of the plan any good.
Does their get rummy battle plan bring them victory?
What is victory to them?
Is it Rumsfeld's head or is it something else?
Or does it do more harm than good, these strategists, these ex-generals?
And I'm, by the way, I'm not challenging their patriotism that don't anybody misunderstand this.
But I mean, this is uh this is this is obviously a political occurrence, and I am responding to it and analyzing it in a political context.
So they wanted Rummy's head, ostensibly if we're to believe what they say, but they're not gonna get it.
So how good is their strategic thinking?
Have they calculated the risk assessment of this assault?
Other words, does it do more harm than good?
Does it perhaps damage troop morale?
Does it energize our enemies?
Does it disquiet our allies?
Is it aiding and abetting the anti war crowd?
Is it weaponizing the anti Bush media?
I'd say yes.
It's doing more harm than good.
And you have to say, did they calculate that?
Is this their intention?
Did they want to damage troop morale?
Do they want to energize our enemies?
Do they want to disquiet our allies?
They want to aid and abet the anti-war kooks in this country, and they want to give weapons to the drive-by media.
Somebody has to ask why are these six ex-generals getting all the coverage?
Because I'll bet you there are a lot more than six ex-generals supporting Rumsfeld.
I'll bet you a lot more than six supporting him, so this small number, even though it wasn't coordinated, yet it was coincidental.
Now they say it wasn't coordinated, but I told you last week how this happens.
Let me repeat this.
Because this couldn't happen without the drive-by media, and this is why I say they've been weaponized by these six generals.
A general will call a reporter.
He will say, Hey, tire this Rumsfeld guy, Rumsfeld has to go.
I can't handle anymore.
Reporter, eager beaver drive-by media thinks he's got a big story.
Pants like a thirsty dog.
Sweaty, hot, thirsty dog.
And the general then says, you know, and I got some other people too, feel the same way.
Are they generals?
Oh, yeah.
You want some names?
The names are given, and bam, the media calls the generals, and all of a sudden you get six that apparently at the same time have come to the same conclusion.
Must be something going on.
Now this could not happen without the drive-by media.
But they're probably countless more than six ex-generals that support Rumsfeld.
There are four of them in today's Wall Street Journal plus Tommy Franks.
Mike DeLong in the New York Times or Washington Post, I forget where his piece runs yesterday, but I guess the New York Times.
So, whatever the original intent of the get Rumsfeld generals, it sure has morphed into a drive-by Saturday night Sunday special for the drive-by media.
Because get this, the Pentagon, the Pentagon put out a memo attempting to counter Rumsfeld's critics, and the drive-by media is outraged over this.
They are now complaining the Pentagon had the audacity, the audacity to provide fact sheets for ex-generals to defend Rumsfeld on television.
They're up there's a drive-by media, actually say, What's this?
The administration has the gall to give its side of the story.
Don't they know that they have no side of the story once we, the drive-by media, get going?
There is no other side of the story.
Ours is the story, and the story is that everybody hates Rumsfeld and he needs to go, along with Bush, along with Rice, along with Rove, and everybody else, the administration.
How dare the drive by media's out there asking, how dare the White House and the Pentagon try to set the record straight?
Why, why, this is as almost as criminal as contradicting the Joe Wilson story.
How dare they do this?
How dare they challenge our action line?
How dare they challenge our template?
Ours is the only story.
Aside from all that, these ex-generals, supposed to be military strategists.
They're complaining their strategy was ignored.
Here's what they fail to compute.
If the Secretary of Defense steps down, the most qualified American to succeed him is Donald Rumsfeld.
So if Rumsfeld steps down, the best guy for the job is still Rumsfeld.
At any rate, we'll talk more about the memo and Jim Pinkerton's piece, because it's fascinating.
And we've got audio sound bites of the usual suspects suggesting Rumsfeld needs to go.
This is how it works in drive-by media.
We'll show you all of this when we come back.
Stay with us, my friends.
Don't panic, folks.
Always on top of things, knowing exactly when to return to resume broadcast excellence here on the EIB network.
The Defense Department has issued a memo to a group of former military commanders and civilian analysts that offers a direct challenge to the criticisms made by these retired generals about Secretary Rumsfeld.
A one-page memo was sent by email on Friday to the group, which includes several retired generals who appear regularly on TV, came as the Bush administration stepped up its own defense of the Secretary.
Memo begins by stating U.S. senior military leaders are involved to an unprecedented degree in every decision making process in the Department of Defense.
Says Mr. Rumsfeld has uh had 139 meetings with the Joint Chiefs of Staff since the start of 2005, and 208 meetings with the senior field commanders.
It's not uncommon for the Pentagon to send such memos to this group of officers whom they consider to be influential in shaping public opinion.
But it is unusual for the Pentagon to issue guidance that can be used by retired generals to rebut the arguments of other retired generals.
The memo quickly followed the president's uh statement on Friday, in which he gave a strong endorsement of Mr. Rumsfeld.
And as I say that drive-by media is outraged that they would do this.
Why, it's unusual.
It's uncommon.
How dare they have the audacity to challenge our story?
There is no other side to the story.
Rumsfeld sucks, and he's got to go, and these six generals are it.
It doesn't matter to the drive-by media how many other hundreds, thousands of generals support Rumsfeld.
that they've got this six, these six, and it just advances their action line on this.
It really is comical to watch these people get upset when the White House fights back.
How dare they?
How dare they present their side of the story?
Now here's Jim Pinkerton's piece.
Jim is a uh columnist for Newsday.
He appears on the Fox uh uh uh news show on Saturdays that analyzes the media every week.
I forget why Fox, Fox, Fox, Fox, I don't know what if doesn't matter.
He's on there with Jane Hall and and this uh lunatic Neil Gabler, uh uh Eric Burns is the host of this program, and if somebody else on this, oh, Cal Thomas is on this program.
One particular cloud on the horizon might be no bigger than a fist right now, but everyone in the Pentagon knows that this cloud could explode with reputation shattering thunder and lightning.
The cloud has a name, H. R. McMaster.
On PBS's Washington Week in Review show earlier this evening, and he wrote this, this is from uh Friday, the 14th, uh John Hendron, the military correspondent for NPR, was asked about the general's revolt against Secretary Rumsfeld.
Hendron and other panelists speculated that additional generals might soon be climbing on the anti-Rumsfeld bandwagon, but why now?
Why speak up more than three years after the start of Operation Iraqi Freedom?
Hendron said that one reason the top brass might be positioning themselves against Rumsfeld is that they're worried that H. R. McMaster is writing another book.
Now, do you know who the name H.R. McDonald do you know H. R. McMaster is the name ringabell?
Yeah, Snertle, I know you we've all heard the name, but it it it if you can't figure it out, we'll come to the rescue here.
H. R. McMaster is the author of a 1997 book, Dereliction of Duty Johnson McNamara, the Joint Chiefs of Staff and the Lies That Led to Vietnam.
Zeroing in on 1965, the hinge year of escalation for the Vietnam War, McMaster wrote in his conclusion, quote, Lyndon Johnson, with the assistance of McNamara and the Joint Chiefs of Staff, had set the stage for America's disaster in Vietnam, quote unquote.
Hot stuff, especially since dereliction of duty rings bells inside the armed services.
It is, after all, a specific term of legal art, punishable according to the Uniform Code of Military Justice.
The book was one long indictment.
It had zero legal force, but maximum moral force.
Even hotter was the identity of H.R. McMaster.
He was no college prof or foreign service officer, 1984 graduate of West Point, held a combat command in the 91 Gulf War, and at the time of his authorship was an active duty Army officer.
Even so, he was fierce in his criticism of top two Army men, General Earl Wheeler, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, and General Harold Johnson, Army Chief of Staff, they were among the five silent men, quote unquote, the five being the Joint Chiefs as a body whom McMaster savaged in his book.
You have to remember, too, that McMaster was not writing as a dove.
His book begins from the proposition the Vietnam was winnable, and that these people in the Johnson administration had joint chiefs of staff blew it.
Well, you know the story of the book, now that I've told you who it is.
The total indictment of Johnson and McNamara and the whole way the uh political establishment ran the war.
But here's what's hottest of all.
Nearly a decade after the publication of his book, McMaster's still in the army, and uh uh he's he's uh he's been promoted.
He's now a bird colonel.
He's on duty in Iraq right now, commanding the third armored cavalry regiment.
Reporters know exactly who he is, but so far at least he said nothing that might shake things up, and who knows, maybe he never will.
But the if if the word is out that H.R. McMaster is writing another book, it could be, according to Pinkerton's theory, the reason these generals are speaking up now, because like I speculated last week.
If there is to be some future declaration of total failure on the part of the country in the Iraq War, these guys want to remove themselves from it.
It's all about themselves.
It's not about Rumsfeld, that's the theory.
Now we're gonna we're gonna throw even more ingredients in this soup and stir it up of the six or seven retired generals from the American Spectator today.
The views expressed by retired military leaders John Batiste, John Riggs, Anthony Zinney, Charles Swanick, Paul Eaton, Gregory Newbold, that Rumsfeld should resign may not have been coordinated per se.
I've told you how this happens.
There's no question how this all happened but the generals in question, in fact, often do speak to each other, and some are even coordinating political activities with colleagues in the United States, according to Pentagon sources.
Some, in fact, are involved as we speak in a very quiet group of retired military officers who are behind a draft Colin Powell effort to see him run for the presidency in 2008.
The operation, well funded, say sources familiar with the group, to the point that they are regularly polling the public on issues and even ticket makeup for a Powell run.
They more often than not have him running as a Republican, so the polling is almost exclusively with other Republicans on the ticket, and almost always with Powell on the top of the ticket, says a source who has seen sampling from the polling.
The retired senior military leadership, these six generals, are much more politically astute than people give them credit for, says another retired military officer who's dealt with both Newbold and Eaton.
Given their experiences with the war, these are men who understand both the political and military dynamic at play here.
Shouldn't be surprising that these fellows are inserting themselves into the political process, whether it's Rumsfeld and Bush or looking ahead to 2008.
Source was unaware if either Newbold or Eaton was involved in the Powell operation.
So we have a number of possibilities.
One of the possibilities is that they're just short-sighted and they're not politically astute, and they don't put together good strategies and battle plans.
They they they they semi coincidentally uh get all of their opinions on television at the same time.
And this forces Bush to defend Rumsfeld and forces Rumsfeld if he was thinking of stepping down to postpone it.
So demanding what they want has ensured that they don't get what they want.
That's lousy strategic planning, unless that's not the purpose.
If the purpose is to isolate themselves and distance themselves from what they fear will be an expose somewhere down the road of utter total failure, then they they come out, distance themselves with this Rumsfeld needs to go.
It's a lousy operation, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
There's that possibility.
Then the third now ingredient in this wicked soup is an attempt to get Colin Powell back into the presidential arena to set him up as a presidential candidate in 2008 on the uh on the Republican side.
So those are the um those are the three possibilities, and there may be more, but those are the three possibilities that are driving all this.
And of the three, two of them require at this stage the drive-by media.
The Powell option does not.
That appears to be going on uh in a clandestine uh covert manner, uh, ladies and gentlemen.
And there's no guarantee, there's no word here on whether Powell's is receptive to this, whether he cares, whether he would uh would actually do it.
Uh and you can draw your own inferences from what these guys supporting Powell means about their attitudes regarding politics, domestic, and uh foreign and the war, and war in general.
Now let's go to the way the media is treating this, and this is just illustrative.
We have uh last Friday from today's show, a montage of Katie Couric's questions to retired General John Batiste.
He was the I think the most recent to add his uh name to the list of the six who uh force uh try to force Rumsfeld out of office.
Now I don't want you to listen to the because this will demonstrate the media's action line on this.
Here's Katie and and her sympathetic uh fawning, if you will, compared to the way other generals are being treated who uh support Rumsfeld over Batiste.
Listen to the tone of her questions.
Uh in this montage, you can tell she's treating Batiste here as a brave and courageous war hero and almost a whistleblower who's trying to help his country.
You have quite a stellar military record of service.
You retired last November after 31 years serving your country in Iraq.
You led the Army's first infantry division.
You turned down a promotion to three-star general.
What do you hope to accomplish, though, General, with this criticism?
I know that there have been five other retired generals, General Batiste, who have stepped forward in the last few weeks calling for Secretary Rumsfeld to resign.
Do you find it just coincidental that that they're echoing your sentiments?
Obviously, everyone wants to succeed, but doing so is a vexing problem.
Well, General John Batiste, thanks so much for talking with us this morning.
We appreciate it very much.
All right.
Now, next up is uh this morning's Today Show, and Matt O'Hauer uh drew the uh opportunity to uh question uh Mike DeLong, uh, who has worked for Rumsfeld, believes he should stay, has a very laudatory op-ed piece that ran in the uh New York Times yesterday.
Here's a montage of questions that DeLong got from Matt Lauer.
You wrote an op-ed in Sunday's New York Times, basically supporting Secretary Rumsfeld, saying he listens to his military commanders and makes tough decisions based on their advice.
You are also obviously appearing with us this morning.
Have you been asked by Secretary Rumsfeld or anyone else in the administration to be here on his behalf?
These six and and by some counts, seven retired generals who've spoken out now calling for Secretary Rumsfeld to resign.
Doesn't it indicate that there's something very important in their minds going on that they would say the things they're saying?
Clearly, the war general has not gone as a lot of people hoped it would go.
There are daily insurgent attacks, an average of 48 American deaths every month in that country.
Isn't Secretary Rumsfeld, as the civilian leader at the Pentagon, responsible for that?
With the problems we've seen over the last couple of years, if this were a corporate situation, wouldn't someone be calling for the ouster of the CEO?
All right.
So you you can see just the the difference in treatment here of the way DeLong got uh got his questions today, the way Batiste was uh lauded uh and and and uh practically uh uh praised and thanked for doing great community service, public service.
Let's move to Soundbite Five.
Uh this is Diane Feinstein, late addition uh late edition with Wolf Blitzer yesterday.
And Wolf said l increasing calls uh uh on Rumsfeld from some retired military officers for him to resign.
Do you think he should?
Yes, I do.
The problem with Mr. Rumsfeld is that he is very stubborn, he is very determined.
I don't see the flexibility that a change of circumstances in Iraq, which has been happening uh following the first three weeks of the uh military operation.
Um I think there have been so many mistakes made, too few troops, borders not enforced, infrastructure not protected, security not guaranteed for the people.
The country is on the verge of civil war.
I think the president would be well served and the nation well served with the new team.
All right, so everybody now getting on this this this the actually jumping in the convertible that the drive-by media is uh is using to uh you know do their do their drive-by's.
Now, here's Diane Feinstein.
Rumsfeld's stubborn, and he's determined, and he doesn't have the flexibility that a change of circumstances in Iraq, which has been happening since the first three weeks of the military operation.
Well, we had some numbers uh in the past two weeks about the number of uh i.e.
car bombs, i.e.
Ds going off the number of deaths, Iraqi and American, and they are plummeting from August and October of last year to March of this year.
The downtrend is incredibly huge.
There are changes taking.
We're winning the war over there.
We're losing it here at home.
It might be timely to go to this DeLong piece for some uh for some ex uh excerpts of his piece.
He says, When I was at CINCOM, the people who needed to have access to Secretary Rumsfeld got it, and he listened carefully to our arguments.
Not to say he's not tough in terms of his convictions, he is, or that he'll make it easy on you.
He won't.
If you approach him unprepared, if you don't have the full courage of your convictions, he'll not give you the time of day.
He doesn't give in easily in disagreements either.
He will always force you to argue your point thoroughly.
Can be tough for some people to deal with.
I witnessed many heated but professional conversations between Tommy Franks and Mr. Rumsfeld.
Secretary always deferred to the general on war fighting issues.
Ultimately, I believe a tough defense secretary makes commanders tougher in their convictions.
Was Rumsfeld a micromanager?
Yeah.
Did he want to be involved in all the decisions?
Yeah.
But Rumsfeld never told people in the field what to do.
It all went through General Franks.
Mr. Rumsfeld didn't like waste.
That caused some grumbling among the military leadership even before 9-1-1.
In addition, let's talk about this troop level because this is something the Democrats who don't want to send troops anywhere.
Now say we should have had three to five hundred thousand troops.
This is why, this is de long.
This is why the much repeated claims that Rumsfeld didn't give us enough troops in Iraq ring hollow.
First, such criticisms ignored that the agreed upon plan was for a lightning operation into Baghdad.
In addition, logistically, it would have been well nigh impossible to bring many more soldiers through the bottleneck in Kuwait.
Doing so would have carried its own risk.
You can't sustain a fighting force of 300,000 or 500,000 men for long.
It would have left us with few reserves, putting our troops at risk in other parts of the world.
Given our plan, we thought we had the right number of troops to accomplish the mission.
The outcome and ramifications of a war, however, are impossible to predict.
Saddam Hussein had twice opened his jails, flooding the streets with criminals.
The Iraqi police walked out of their uniforms in the face of the invasion, compounding domestic chaos.
We didn't expect these developments, but they happened.
We had to deal with them as they happened.
He goes on to write a couple of other conclusions about this.
But uh his piece clearly demonstrates that the plan was approved of and negotiated and participated in by lots of people.
That it was not Rumsfeld saying, This is the way it's going to be, I don't care what you think, I don't care what you want.
The image of Rumsfeld has been put forth by the six retired generals, the drive-by media and others.
Listen to Chris Dodd.
He he he jumped into drive-by media converter convertible as well.
He was on Fox Sunday.
Chris Wallace said there are two points to the criticism from the generals.
One is that Rummi is mismanaged the war in Iraq, and secondly, he doesn't listen to the generals.
You buy either of those arguments and does the shape at all or shake your confidence in Rumsfeld staying on as secretary.
Yeah, it does.
This is not an insignificant event.
This is a the generals are not in the habit, even as retirees, uh, to go around and being critical of the civilian leadership.
This is a this is a very, very important event.
And the president would be very wise in my view, asking him to step aside.
Clearly, I think Secretary Rumsfeld needs to move on.
The more these people demand this, the more Rumsfeld is going to be secured.
But uh I have to laugh.
I have to laugh at at liberals.
All of a sudden now the most respectable people among us are generals.
They hate the military.
They distrust it, they despise it.
But all of a sudden, let the generals come out and apparently end up on their side of things.
Oh, we got to listen to the generals.
Bill Richardson said the same thing with Bob Schiefer.
Question, should Rumsfeld resign?
The Secretary should step aside.
Besides the fact that the Iraqi war has been mismanaged, that a lot of brave American men and women over 2300 have perished.
Uh we should listen to what these generals are saying.
It's not important what I say, what political leaders say.
I think we have to listen to our military officers that are patriotic, that I believe are nonpartisan, probably most of them are Republicans, that are just totally frustrated with the way this war is going.
Isn't it amazing how uncurious everybody is about what the real motivations of these generals might be?
And here's another Democrat saying we've got to pay attention to generals.
Can't listen to politicians.
Last people, we got to listen to the generals.
Ha!
When's the last when's the last time you heard a lib or a Democrat endorsing generals?
And by the way, it's only six.
There are at least 4,000 to 5,000 retired and even more currents currently serving generals, and they've not joined this chorus.
Why do we have to listen to these six when they are but a few?
One-tenth of one percent of the universe of generals and ex-generals.
They're one-tenth of one percent, folks.
And that is causing all of this.
So just wanted to illustrate to you how this is nothing more than a drive-by media event that uh couldn't happen without the drive-by media being involved in it.
I'm not saying the generals are not being sincere, but I'm saying they're clearly a whole bunch of possibilities to explain their motives.
Back in a moment.
All right, just a few follow-up questions here, folks.
You know, the the the business of these uh these six generals and all of the uh the ruckus that they have caused.
You've got all kinds of people out there supporting Rumsfeld, and uh just to remind you the media is saying, well, there is no other side to the story.
What how dare the White House put out a memo advising people what to say?
Why that's that's that's outrageous.
Why, that's as outrageous as them trying to correct what we were doing on the on the on the Joe Wilson story.
Why, how how dare they challenge our story?
There is no other story but what we say.
But General Myers, the uh former chief of staff, says the critics of Rumsfeld are out of line.
The media could find plenty of generals to counter these six if they chose to.
I mean, in fact, you could say that we are listening to the generals.
We're just not listening to the generals that the media and the Democrats like.
And that's all this is.
There are countless generals that support Rumsfeld and that support, President Bush.
But since they don't move the action line forward, that Iraq is a bust and a failure and a disaster, then they're not they're not credible.
So you can ask the question, too.
How come none of them spoke up when they were in active service when Clinton was slashing the military?
They want to have it both ways.
They don't want to risk their careers, but now that they're tired, they want to influence policy and politics and perhaps save their reputations, if in fact they fear that a book is about to be written about this war, much like the war was uh Vietnam was written about by H.R. McMasters.
And then, of course, you know, here's something to think too.
If we have this story that that these generals are supporting a clandestine covert secret effort to uh get Colin Powell on the ticket, presidential ticket in 2008.
Now, what what are the odds?
Oh, ladies and gentlemen, you know, when you see a little morsel, you have to understand that there's always a curtain, and it's hiding things behind it.
So all of a sudden we've learned now that here's this covert effort to get Powell on the ticket.
What are the odds?
I don't know, but I wouldn't be surprised if I were to learn that Powell is himself working on the tell all.
That if Powell is working on a book to unburden himself of what he saw for whatever reason could be, Jay, I don't know.
I'm I'm I'm not I'm not I'm just speculating on a possibility.
Don't even know this.
I'm just saying I wouldn't be surprised if in coming months, year, whatever, we uh we learn that Powell has a book.
Now, I know we we might have heard about a book deal.
We may we might have, and we have it, I'm not familiar with it, but uh I'm just saying I wouldn't be surprised.
Uh there are no such things as isolated incidents inside the beltway, particularly when you learn that a covert, clandestine effort to get a particular person on the ticket is being mounted.
That's you know, what if Powell has told him, I don't want this?
Would you guys stop?
Obviously it hasn't happened, or they would have.
So there's you know, there's uh there's a lot more than meets the eye here.
Something else I just learned that Rumsfeld, when he went to choose his chief of staff, picked a retired general, guy named Sue Maker.
Uh as in my friend who wrote me the notes, it's a wonder Rumsfeld has any support if he went to the retired list to promote somebody to chief of staff.
Back after this, folks.
Stay with us.
Okay, uh we have a full bank of phones, and everybody's been waiting patiently.
We'll get to your phone calls in the next hour as uh as quickly as possible.
We still got lots to do, particularly on Iran.
That's uh that's fascinating to study from a number of different angles as well.
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