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July 7, 2006 - Rush Limbaugh Program
36:32
July 7, 2006, Friday, Hour #1
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Welcome to today's edition of the Rush 247 podcast.
I'm I'm sort of embarrassed today.
I gave Altamont this big send-off two weeks ago.
Oh my month's leaving.
It's great to Griffin.
And he's back.
Aldermont's doing the broadcast engineering today.
Greetings, folks.
Rush Limbaugh here, EIB Network Golden EIB microphone Friday.
Live from the Southern Command in Sunny South Florida.
It's open line Friday.
It's gonna be a doozy.
Oh, an open line Friday.
We're loaded with stuff, and we're still working on a couple of sound bites.
The president made mincemeat of a reporter.
No, no, no, I didn't hear Suzanne Malvaux.
I heard I don't know who the reporter was.
It was during the press conference.
And the uh So you're your promising on a rock in your career is so inconsistent.
How do you explain it?
It's over.
And Bush just slammed dunked the guy.
Well, what did Suzanne Melvo say?
Did she ask a question?
Mm-hmm.
Well.
Oh.
Oh, okay.
Oh, okay.
Well, hey, cookie, go find the Suzanne Malvaux question and answer next.
I missed that.
I've been busy.
I've been doing stuff.
I mean, it's been incredible this morning, and and uh about 80% of it has had nothing to do with the program.
Anyway, greetings, folks.
Great to have you with us.
It is Open Line Friday.
Phone number is 800 282-2882.
The email address is Rush at EIBNet.com.
Uh open line Friday, the show is yours.
Will we go to the phones?
Whatever you want to talk about, questions, comments, feel free.
As you know, Monday through Thursday, we restrict this.
I'm a benevolent dictator.
We only talk about things that I care about or am interested in, are interested in, yeah, am interested in.
But on Friday, if uh, you know, blow that off.
And uh whatever you want to discuss, uh, feel free.
I'd start with a couple of funny audio sound bites today.
Uh USA Today, uh, I guess uh have uh the C I guess C-SPAN held a panel today uh with uh uh wait a second.
It was on June 29th.
I'm sorry.
That's I remember I got a I got a notice about this.
Um they did a panel on June 29th on the preview of the 2006 elections from the Close Up Foundation and USA Today Susan Page and the Close Up Foundation vice President of Broadcasting and Communications John Meluski and an unidentified student stood up and said in 1994, the Republicans, when they had a resurgence in the House and Senate, they had a contract for America.
Why can't the Democrats pull themselves together and come up with something like that that would really say this is who we are as a party, and you don't have these disparate voices all over the place like Mertha and Hillary Clinton?
I realized you were probably a preschooler in 1994, but do you remember?
Do you remember when the contract was sixth grade actually?
Yeah, sixth grade.
So do you remember when the contract for America came out?
Yes, I do.
In September.
It came out in serious grade, are you remember that?
There's something very wrong.
I just remember the Republican victory.
I remember listening to Rush Limbaugh and him talking to you.
Now, see the he thing putting down his kid as a student, a six-year-old, and he remembers the contract with America.
And I don't know if you heard this guy Meluski say, you were in sixth grade, you remember that.
There's something very wrong.
Uh sixth grade.
How old are you in sixth grade?
Eleven, twelve.
How old are you in sixth grade?
I've forgotten.
I got there on time.
I've just forgotten what it was.
At any rate, put the kid down, and can you imagine the shock?
Can you imagine the uh uh the the the cold shivers up and down the spines of journalists when a guy says, I remember Rush Limbaugh talking about it when I was in the sixth grade.
While they try to put the kid down.
I I tell you what, I I'd be embarrassed.
Speaking of kids, they can't let go of little Mr. Apricot out in uh in Sacramento.
This is a this is a little blurb from KO V R CBS Channel 13 in Sacramento.
The small town of Patterson is surprised that a flip of the bird by a four-year-old pageant winner is still drawing attention, this time on the national level.
Matthew Burgess was crowned little Mr. Apricot about a month ago and was stripped of his crown after he raised his middle finger to the crowd.
Well now the news is buzzing across the country.
This is what radio host Rush Limbaugh had to say about it yesterday.
Here's the thing.
If my mother, when I was four, had made me enter something the little Mr. Apricot pageant, I would have been flipping everybody off.
Especially if I had suffered the embarrassment of winning the thing.
Who wants to have it known about them that they were little Mr. Apricot?
Can you imagine what somebody could do with this information with his kid's eighteen?
Hey, what you once little Mr. Apricot, and he'd be flipping them off.
Good thing.
I'm glad the four-year-old had the presence of mind to understand that this was ridiculous.
And then the San Francisco Chronicle today.
It's a piece.
Am I going to read the whole thing?
Mark Morford.
San Francisco Chronicle.
The question is whether we can hold on for two more years.
It's like some sort of weird, painful rash on your face that makes you embarrassed to walk out the door.
So you sit there day after day, waiting for it to go away, slathering on ointment and Bactine and Scotch, and the rash still lingers.
Some days the paint is so searing and hot, you want to cut off your own head with a nail file.
Other days, it's numb and pain-free.
Seemingly okay to the point where you think it might finally be all gone, and you allow yourself a whisper of a positive feeling right up until you look in the mirror and then you scream.
George W. Bush is just like that.
And this whole piece is about how even Republicans in San Francisco are fed up with Bush and his environmental destruction, and they don't know if they can put up with two more years.
The question is whether in San Francisco they can hold on for two more years.
I guess the news of 9-11 hasn't made it out to the left coast yet.
Maybe Mr. Marford or Morford uh hasn't heard yet that there are Muslims that want to cut off his pretty little head with a rather dull nail knife.
And then uh and then uh Lori Bird, the syndicated piece at Town Hall.com, entitled Sh The President is coming.
That's the message in the subject line of a recent John Kerry fundraising email.
Listen to this.
In the message from Kerry to his supporters about the president appearing at fundraisers for Jim Talent in Missouri and Mike DeWine in Ohio.
John Kerry wrote, The Republicans think they can sneak President Bush and Vice President Cheney in and out of these states under the cover of darkness, and that vulnerable Republican candidates will pick up GOP special interest campaign dollars, not Bush Cheney baggage.
Make them pay a price for this most cynical of political calculations.
So Bush was Bush asked about this in this press conference today.
Not this particular he was asked about being invited by some female candidate to go there, and the reporter wanted to know does she really know what she's doing?
Your approval ratings are so it was what?
Yeah, so low you could hurt the candidate.
Do you sure you want to go in for these people?
But look at what Carrie say.
Somehow it is a trick.
It's a dastardly dirty trick for Bush to go campaign for Jim Tallant and Mike DeWine, sneaking in under the cover of darkness, thinking that they're gonna actually raise money, but instead they're gonna leave these candidates with uh Bush Cheney baggage calling this cynical, cynical political calculation for Bush to go into Missouri and Ohio to fundraise.
I mean, you know, the Looney Tunes are getting insane.
They are literally becoming insane.
Joe Biden, uh by the way, grab the audio soundbite for this Altamont.
Let me uh let me find this.
Yeah, he already got a number nine.
Here's here's Joe Biden.
This is internet quality.
You've probably heard all about this now.
Uh he was he was well, he was walking around somewhere and he ran into some constituent of his.
As you know, I've got a lot of support from this Indian.
That's where more to come like this.
So I've I've had a great relationship.
In Delaware, the largest growth in population is Indian Americans moving from India.
You cannot go to a 7-Eleven or Duncan Donuts unless you have a slight Indian accent.
Not much out there.
Right.
Here's from the compassionate, open-minded, tolerant, never bigoted Democrat left Joe Biden, who is now out of the presidential race.
He doesn't have to worry about it.
He can stay at home, make love to his wife while his kids are asleep.
He's out of the presidential race.
He got what are you saying he's not going to pay much of a price for this?
Snerdley can't believe it.
He's a Democrat.
He's not going to pay any price for this.
Well, um, they say the main thing standing between uh Joe Biden and the White House is his mouth.
The would-be presidential candidate proved it again.
Recent trip to New Hampshire, C-Span cameras caught him telling an Indian American activist that Indian Americans.
Well, anyway, the the the Indians are looking into this.
They were none too pleased.
The chairman of the Indian American Republican Council, himself a surgeon, responded to Biden's racist remarks with this statement.
It is amazing to know that we don't all work at Dunkin' Donuts at a local 7 Eleven.
The contributions to America by Indian Americans in the fields of medicine, education, science, and business have been well documented.
But I guess you may be right, Snurdly.
The media making a big deal out of this.
Uh no.
Uh not Native American Indian, Indian, like the nation.
Are you thinking this is about Native Americans all this time?
No, this is no, no, this is a this is about people from the country of India.
For crying out, where where are you been?
I don't know if I can count on you today.
Let's go back to the archives.
You got number 10 ready there, Altamont.
All about Hillary Clinton, January 3rd, 2004, St. Louis.
I love this quote.
It's from Mahatma Gandhi.
He ran a gas station down in uh St. Louis for a couple of years.
Mr. Gandhi, you guys still go to the gas station?
A lot of wisdom comes out of that gas station.
I don't even get the joke, but here she's making fun of Indians, particularly Mahatma Ghana.
Now, according to Democrats, Indians, you can't go to a Dunkin' Donuts or a 7-Eleven or a gas station without having an Indian accent.
And yet, President Bush was actually in a Dunkin' Donuts Alexandria, Virginia on Wednesday and said this.
Altamont.
President Bush was in Alexandria, Virginia.
He doesn't care, he's leaving again, I guess.
Owned by two Iranian American brothers.
They're small business owners, they are entrepreneurs, they are employing people.
And then I met with the district manager who works with the two Iranian American brothers.
Happens to be a Guatemalan American citizen.
She is learning business.
She is taking on additional responsibilities.
Then I talked to the store manager who is a Salvadorian American.
These people uh remind me that one of the great features of our country is that people are able to come here and realize dreams.
Yeah, and that's that's of course Bush represents the bigoted, small-minded, unsophisticated uh racist sexist homophobe in our politics, and yet there's Hillary and Joe Biden.
And uh I I uh Mr. Snerdley is apparently correct.
Uh uh no fallout for Senator Biden on this, at least from the drive-by media.
A little pot-bellied uh dog eating dictator in North Korea, Kim Jong-il, actually was aiming his uh tape o'dong missile at an area just off of Hawaii.
We'll take a break.
Lots to go.
Intercepted some lunatic terrorists trying to blow up the Holland tunnel, and New York Senator Chuck Schumer's no big deal.
Back after this.
Stay with us.
And we are back, America's real anchor man on open line Friday, the one and only excellence in broadcasting network.
Well, we keep learning more and more about uh uh Kim Jong il's uh uh uh intentions.
A North Korean missile that was launched on Wednesday was aimed at an area off the ocean close to Hawaii, uh Japanese newspaper reported.
Uh today.
Experts estimated that the Tapodong 2 ballistic missile, otherwise known as the Ding Dong, uh might have a range up to six thousand kilometers, putting Alaska within its reach.
Wednesday's launch apparently failed shortly after takeoff.
The missile landed in the sea between the Korean peninsula and Japan, a few hundred kilometers from the from the launch.
The president uh has said, I think it's at the press conference today that uh we were prepared to shoot it down, we have the ability to do so, had it gotten any uh any further.
Uh in case you weren't with us uh yesterday, ladies and gentlemen, uh uh President Kim, dictator Kim, whatever his title is, issued uh uh a statement.
The following is an official North Korean communique to the Pissant American government.
And happy fourth of July, you terrorist dog mothers.
By now you are aware of our own fireworks display with the launching of our four powerful ding dong missiles.
They will fly even faster and farther next year.
With the addition of more bottle rockets.
We launched these in protest of outlaw Bush administration who dares insult our impetuous leader Kim Jong il by taking a rogue Asian leader to Elvis Home instead of Kim.
Oh, yeah.
This has created a global crisis of great proportion.
However, in the interest of peace, we are willing to have a face-to-face talk.
With Hattie Madeline Albright.
No bomb.
In exchange for a state visit to Graceland and Neverland Ranch.
Well, look at aspirin and certain hair care products and three four million metric tons of rice.
And if you respond immediately, we could also possibly agree to exchange technology on nuclear triggering devices.
With Jimmy Carter as well.
Call soon.
Unless you want to incur the wrath of another tantrum.
Love.
Kim.
I hear that right.
He uh he called Madeline Albright, the mother of their bomb.
Ooh.
I like that.
Anyway, greetings, uh, my friends.
Open line Friday.
Uh it is with El Rushball behind the uh controls here, the golden EIB microphone 800 two eight two two eight eight two.
Uh all right.
Uh let's see.
All of my uh let's go to audio soundbite number one.
What we have here, ladies and gentlemen, is uh last week.
A little montage.
After the Supreme Court ruled in favor of terrorists at Club Gitmo, the uh drive-by media played it as a loss for the Bush administration.
This is a major defeat for the Bush administration.
This is uh another defeat for the Bush administration before the Supreme Court.
The court has delivered another defeat to the President.
It's a very, very big defeat for the Bush administration.
Okay, so today we busted a terrorist plot in New York City, the FBI, which is a federal uh agency, by the way.
Let's check the drive-by media today.
Matt Wauer of uh NBC, Bill Weir of ABC, Renee Siler of uh CBS, somebody from CN.
Let's see how they played uh this story today.
The federal authorities have uncovered a plot to blow up the Holland Tunnel here in Manhattan.
The FBI has uncovered a major terrorist plot in its initial planning phase overseas.
The FBI uncovered the plot.
The FBI uh tells us they've uncovered this uh alleged plot by jihadists.
So last week when the Supreme Court issues its ruling, a major defeat.
Big, big, humiliating, terrible dis uh defeat for President Bush today.
It's uh no mention of President Bush.
No mention of the successful operation uh part of the Bush administration.
No, just a uh few kudos there to the FBI.
Senator Chucky Schumer, Democrat New York, said this is one instance where intelligence was on top of its game and discovered the plot when it was just in the talking phase.
One instance.
This is just one instance.
He has to put it down.
We have some sound bites from Senator Schumer today on uh American morning, uh Carol Costello, anchor at info, babe.
So what are you hearing about the plot, Senator?
There's no evidence in any way that anything was done, either purchase of explosives, even the sending of money.
Uh, it was caught by the terrorists talking to one another.
So this is one instance where intelligence was on the ball.
Second, uh, these don't seem to be the brightest bulb in the terrorist lot.
Um their plan made no sense.
Uh the Lincoln Tunnel is below sea level.
The walls are below sea level.
And if you were to blow up the Lincoln Tunnel, God forbid, you would not flood lower Manhattan.
This was uh c well, now wait a minute.
It was the Holland Tunnel, wasn't it, that they were targeting.
The facts may be true about the uh Lincoln Tunnel as well.
Um who who got it wrong?
The the daily news Daily News it was subway tunnels, it was not the Oh MSNBC is saying it was subway tunnels now.
Well, did you notice that Schumer said uh we found out about this uh by uh by uh tal listening to them talking to one another.
Well uh uh excuse me.
You mean we were monitoring them in chat rooms?
Uh uh what about their civil liberties?
When is Senator Schumer going to say that these terrorist civil liberties uh might have been violated?
Was there a warrant to monitor their chat room chats?
On Open Line Friday and to uh London.
Paul, I'm glad you called, sir.
Thank you for waiting, and welcome to the EIB network and open line Friday.
Thank you.
Mega Limey Disco from a 24-7 um subscriber here in London.
Thank you, sir, very much.
Um it's uh 7th of July.
We're commemorating the biggest terrorist outrage on our shores um today.
And you know, I was listening to a caller yesterday to um your show who was blaming basically the Korean missile crisis on American pop culture.
Right.
Uh I don't know exactly how McDonald's or Elvis or whatever have to do with um you know, Kim Jong-il building a missile.
But it struck me, you know, I've been to America three times.
I love the place.
I'm a European novelty, uh, you know, somebody that you know appreciates and loves America.
Um what I really liked about the place was the pride that you have in your country, the fact that I can go to rich areas or not so rich areas and see, you know, American flags flown.
You do that in the UK, and they'll think you're basically a Nazi.
Um, there's some Americans who think that we who fly our flags are, you know, warped as well.
In fact, it was the the French agency, French news agency did a story, Paul, um, a couple of days ago.
I forget the exact terminology of the headline, how insufferable it was uh and how over the top it was to see all these American flags in this country.
It was really getting to be too much.
Yeah, well, this is it.
I mean, you know, after World War II, Britain used to be a superpower.
We used to be where America is, basically, for years, centuries.
We lost that after World War II when we developed um kind of self-loathing and and guilt and all of those nasty things we felt ashamed to be patriotic, as though because of the you know debatable sins of the empire, uh we have to be nice to everybody and play ourselves down and not promote ourselves and not be proud or anything like that.
You know, and with the bombings today, everyone's still kind of like looking, is it our fault somehow?
You know, is it Islamophobia?
Did we provoke these people with going into Iraq?
You know, instead of saying, no, it's a loopy cult group who believes that killing people sends them to heaven, well, they'll get virgins or whatever.
You know, it's still like looking to us for the answer.
And I I just sincerely hope that America doesn't go further down that route because we need you protecting, you know, the world.
We can't look to the UN.
You know, there's no other superpower.
We, you know, I appreciate you guys.
Paul, thank you very much.
Uh I can't tell you how uh uh ecstatic and proud uh all the people in this audience are to hear you say what you just said.
That's that's uh that this terrific of you.
And uh and I I uh you know that there are Americans that worry about uh the very questions you raised uh after the two thousand eight election, depending on who wins it.
Um you know it's a it's an ongoing uh it's an ongoing process.
You talked about the uh the whole the whole business of uh of uh uh you know being uh introspective.
Uh uh is it is it our fault that these Al Qaeda terrorists blew up our subway a year ago in London?
Uh same thing happened here after 9-11, and our State Department actually convened the panel.
Why do they hate us?
I think it comes uh I'm sure if you listen regularly on uh 24-7, you've heard me recommend Sh Shelby Steele's book entitled White Guilt.
If you haven't and you haven't gotten it, go get it.
Because he talks about not just American white guilt, but British white guilt.
Um your colonialism, our so-called imperialism, and how we somehow have been made to feel guilty for our power, our superpower status, uh, and how uh we need to make amends uh for for all the uh destruction that we wrought and all of the civil rights that we violate, all the human rights that we violate, all the crime that we committed, all the plundering of the earth that we have done, uh we we have to uh we have to understand that uh there are people hate us and we have to give them uh a little leeway in hating us.
They should hate us, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
Uh it's uh it's frustrating.
I don't know what the status in the UK is, uh but over here those people are a minority.
Uh I don't think they're very large, but they are amplified by our drive by media and made to look like a much larger contingent than uh than they actually are.
But they're still sizable and it's still it's being this stuff is being taught in universities.
It's a it caller you heard yesterday is a product of the American education system.
I am convinced uh and as of what he was that it's what he was taught growing up in uh various levels of education in his life.
Uh and it it continues today.
It's the last area here that uh the libs in this country basically have monopolistic control over although great inroads are being made.
I can't tell you how much I appreciate you subscribing to the website listening in every day over there in London.
It's terrific to have you call.
Thank you so much.
Open line Friday, 800-282-2882.
I want to go back to the Chuck Schumer soundbites and then get on with some of the great back and forth with President Bush in the media at his press conference today in Chicago.
You know, when we last left, Senator Schumer, he had just said, well, you know, this is one instance where intelligence was on the ball, thwarting this plot to blow up a tunnel connecting New Jersey to Manhattan.
he said it was caught by the terrorists talking to one another and of course I wonder if he realizes the irony one instance of intelligence working well we were monitoring these clowns in their chat room who cares if they're dim bulbs or not some of the stupidest people in the world are the ones that commit violent crime after violent crime uh so anyway the next question from Carol Costello,
InfoBean CNN are our tunnels and bridges protected enough, Senator Are they?
Are we gonna die?
This once again shows that Homeland Security and Secretary Cherdoff's view that New York shouldn't get funding and shouldn't get funding for personnel makes no sense whatsoever.
The only way you would have stopped a clot like this is added personnel.
This idea that it should there should be a preference for mechanical devices and detection devices important as they are over uh manpower uh it doesn't make any sense at all.
Uh to to take the occasion of a successful thwarting of a plot and blame Homeland Security New York enough money it's just no funding.
They're getting the lion's share of the funding, but here's he saying, no funding, we're being cut out, so forth and so on.
I know he's playing to a New York audience here, and I know that's all he cares about in terms of his own...
Well, actually not.
He's running the Democrat Senatorial Campaign Committee, trying to take back the Senate for the Democrats.
But this is just...
it's ridiculously banal, as some pronounce it.
All right.
Now, what was the plot?
plot we are told and I'm now confused because Schumer said it was the Lincoln Tunnel the New York Daily News which broke this as an exclusive today said the Holland tunnel and now MSNBC PMSNBC is saying no it was subway tunnels they were going to blow I don't know now.
We we're gonna have to we've got we got a senator we got a New York tabloid and we've got a cable network that nobody watches disagreeing here on what the actual plot was who do we believe a senator a Democrat senator or uh tabloid newspaper or uh PMS NBC it's a toughie so um who would you believe Mr. Snerdley who would you believe in this case sound like you believe MSNBC all
right the snerdly tends to believe it's MSNBC.
It's something that we will learn later.
But what was the plot?
The plot was to blow up a tunnel.
Now, I don't know if you people know it.
Some of these people, I've been with them driving through the tunnel and get all scared.
I have this fear that the tunnel's gonna collapse and water's gonna inundate us.
I said, You think the tunnel's going through water?
No.
The tunnel was bored under the water under the uh under the bed of the river.
There's no water around it.
Now, if somebody, you know, if the if the uh if the river bed, you know, collapsed or something because of global warming, uh, you know, then all bets are other tunnels not in water.
At any rate, their plot was to blow up the middle of the tunnel, which would cause the tunnel to flood with water from the Hudson River, which then would in turn flood lower Manhattan, the Wall Street area, and render the primary economic engine of Manhattan uh defunct.
Now, where would they get an idea like this?
Perhaps let's go back to May 24th of this year on the Today Show, Katie Courick was interviewing Al Gore, uh, who is of course the world's foremost authority on uh on global warming.
And all he is is a politician, running for re-elections.
All he is.
Uh, but yet he's the world's foremost authority.
Katie said, what do you see happening in, say, 15, 20 years, even 50 years if nothing changes?
Of course, Florida and Louisiana and Texas are particularly vulnerable, the San Francisco Bay area, Manila, and we have seen the impact of a couple of hundred thousand refugees from an environmental crisis.
Imagine a hundred million or two hundred million.
Even Manhattan would be in deep water, right?
Yes, in fact, the World Trade Center Memorial site would be underwater.
All right, now you may say, well, well, what's this got to do with anything?
Well, let me explain this, folks.
Uh, you may remember to name Ted Kacinski ring a bill.
Ted Kacinski was a human bomber.
And when they went into that little shack of his, they, among other things, they found Al Gore's book, Earth in the Balance.
So the Unibomber and his manifesto, published by the New York Times, by the way, uh uh was influenced tremendously by Al Gore's book, Earth in the Lurch.
Uh therefore it's not a stretch to assume that uh the these terrorists in their caves in Afghanistan and Pakistan might have seen Al Gore's movie in which he shows in his slideshow Manhattan being flooded, not by a bomb going off in a tunnel, but rather by global warming.
So uh it's not a stretch to suggest that this whole plot.
Uh and you know, Gore's slideshow has been around for a number of years, long before the movie came out.
And then we've had this scene depicted in um uh the day after tomorrow, which is environmental destruction movie.
So it could well be that either Al Gore or Hollywood provided the inspiration uh for these uh terrorists whose plot to flood Southern Manhattan uh was thwarted.
The brief timeout here, ladies and gentlemen.
Open line Friday continues right after this.
Why do I think Cindy Sheehan, every time I hear this in the uh bumper rotation?
All right, you've got to hear this.
By the way, those of you on hold, please be patient, I'll get to you, but I've been promising the uh sound bites from President Bush today, press conference in Chicago at the Museum of Science and History.
Here's a question from a local Chicago reporter.
A lot of people here in Chicago tell us that they see an incongruity in your foreign policy.
Stop the tape, stop the tape.
I don't believe that for a minute.
I think the reporter, if there are other people, it's other reporters at the bar who are lamenting and whining and moaning about the uh lack of congruity in the policy, foreign policy.
And it's a typical journalistic trick.
I am hearing and people are saying, your critics suggest blah, blah, blah.
That's just a way of getting their own opinion in the question while appearing, they think, objective.
All right, Aldermont, let's hear the rest of it.
Shooting war in Iraq.
Yep.
We have a leader in North Korea who has announced his affection for nuclear weapons and no hesitation to use them against the United States.
Is your is your policy consistent between the way you have dealt with Iraq, the way you have dealt with North Korea, and if so, are we headed toward a military action in North Korea?
And if so, can this nation sustain military action on three fronts?
Iraq, Afghanistan, and North Korea.
Here's the president's answer to this impudent snob.
I have always said that um it's important for an American president to exhaust all diplomatic avenues before the use of force.
Committing our troops into harm's way is a difficult decision.
It's the toughest decision a president will ever make.
And I fully understand the consequences of doing so.
All diplomatic options were exhausted as far as I was concerned with Saddam Hussein.
Remember that the UN Security Council resolution that we passed when I was a president was one of 16, I think.
Sixteen, seventeen.
Give me a hand there.
More than 15.
Resolution after resolution after resolution saying the same thing.
And he ignored them.
And we tried diplomacy.
We went to the UN Security Council.
15 to nothing vote.
They said disarm, disclose, or face serious consequences.
I happen to believe that when you say something, you better mean it.
And so when we signed on to that resolution that said disclose, disarm or face serious consequences, I meant what we said.
That's one way you keep the peace.
You speak clearly and you mean what you say.
And so the choice was Saddam Hussein's choice.
He could have uh, you know, not fooled uh inspectors.
He could have welcomed the world in.
He could have told us what was going on, but he didn't.
And so we move.
And we're in the diplomatic process now with North Korea.
That's what you're seeing happening.
I mean, it it's uh it's amazing the narrowness of the vision of these reporters.
Um I know that they're trying to make news with uh what they think are trick questions, but uh the questions just only illustrate, I think their overall ignorance of the subject they're even talking about.
In this case, the disparity in our foreign policy.
Uh well, we're shooting in Iraq, shouldn't we shoot in North Korea?
Why aren't we doing that, you coward?
Whatever the implication of the question is.
The president wasn't through, though.
He then buried this reporter.
Remember, we put a coalition together at the United Nations that said disclosed disarm or face serious consequences.
It was 15 to nothing.
The U.S. one to fourteen.
It was 15 to nothing.
Other nations stood up and said the same thing we said.
So we're working the diplomacy, and you're watching diplomacy work, not only in North Korea but in Iran.
It's kind of painful in a way for some to watch because it takes a while to get people on the same page.
Everybody, not everybody thinks the exact same way we think.
There are different words mean different things to different people, and the diplomatic process can be slow and cumbersome.
Uh, that's why this is probably the fourth day in a row I've been asked about North Korea.
It's slow and cumbersome.
Things just don't happen overnight.
But what you're watching is a diplomatic response to a person who, since 1994, has said, you know, they're not gonna have a weapon.
Um, you know, have these people forgotten?
You know, they keep talking about how we rushed to war in Iraq.
There were 12 years after Gulf War I and Gulf War II, or the invasion of Iraq.
There were 12 years, and in those years were all these resolutions he's talking about.
And during those 12 years, nobody said, What are you gonna do about Iraq?
What are you gonna do about Iraq?
What are you gonna do about Iraq?
Nobody asked Clinton that.
1998, Clinton comes out and gives the same speech on weapons of mass destruction that Bush gave four years later, and nobody seems to remember that.
And nobody seems to remember all the Democrat senators agreeing with Clinton.
"It's a horrible threat that we face in this Hussein guy." We've got to do something about it.
No, the Iraq problem only began in 2002, and then we went to war in 2003.
That's what I mean about these people being ignorant, just purely ignorant.
If they're not ignorant, if this really escapes them, then you know it is it's proof of something else, and that is uh the agenda and the and the template.
Uh what I often call the action line in uh in uh drive-by media reporting.
The action line on a story is the ultimate objective.
And anything gets you there, you report.
Anything it doesn't, you ignore.
And the action line on our Iraq policy is it's a failure.
And uh too many people are dying, and it's not worth it.
And there were no weapons of mass destruction, and Bush lied.
That's the action line of this of that story.
So I think they can point out that Bush is a hypocrite by not just launching into North Korea with the same kind of military attack.
This This diplomatic crisis basically began recently because he's right.
All during the 90s, during Clinton, Kim Jong-il was lying to the world and assuring everybody he had no intention of developing nuclear weapons.
Now he's threatening to use them on everybody.
The guy running Phil Angelita's candidacy for governor in California has compared Schwarzenegger to Kim Jong-il.
Guy's name is Bob Mulholland.
Lots ahead on Open Line Friday.
Sit tight.
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