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Aug. 16, 2006 - Rush Limbaugh Program
36:38
August 16, 2006, Wednesday, Hour #1
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Welcome to today's edition of The Rush 24-7 Podcast.
It's the Twilight Zone today, folks.
Practically every story in my one, two, three, four, uh, four stacks of stuff today is the Twilight Zone.
It's surreal.
I mean, it's it's got it's absurd.
It's it's to the point where all you can do is laugh and cry at the same time.
Greetings and welcome.
It's great to be with you.
Great to have you with us.
Middle of the week, hump day.
The EIB network, Rush Limbaugh, living legend, well-known radio rack and tour with three hours of broadcast uh excellence straight ahead.
The uh telephone number 800-282-2882, email address rush at EIB net.com.
Gotta ask you guys something.
I got an email from uh from a woman who said that uh she was saddened listening to the program yesterday that I sounded drunk.
Did I sound drunk on the radio yesterday?
I was still tired, maybe a little hoarse, but uh drunk.
Oh no, I didn't uh well it wasn't, so I don't know what she was uh what she thought she was at.
She's listening on the podcast.
Maybe the maybe the maybe her her iPod or something's got a bad chip in it.
At any rate, uh phone number if you want to be on the uh program, ladies and gentlemen, 800 2282, and the email address rush at uh Brian's all worried gonna start rumors.
Yeah, well, she might have been listening to Robin Williams, I don't know.
Uh anyway, phone number again, 1800-282-2882, and the email address is rush at EIBNet.com.
Let's talk about what's going on in Boston here.
This is the oddest thing.
This uh United flight 923 from London to Dulles in Washington, diverted to Boston Logan.
Uh, and the first reports were that there was a hysterical woman aboard suffering from claustrophobia.
Says they're reporting this.
We're watching the plane be uh uh deplane, the passengers being deplaned uh and all the luggage being spread out on the tarmac.
And the uh uh news media uh drive-by media assuring us, nah, nothing here, there's just a woman, a little claustrophobia, uh claustrophobic uh pilot made the decision uh better deal with this on the ground than go all the way to uh Washington and so forth, and then the reports came, uh, she was carrying a screwdriver, a jar of Vaseline, uh, matches, and a note, something about Al-Qaeda.
And then there's no no no, there's no confirmation of that.
Uh we're we're get we're getting conflicting information while all this is going on.
Well, they are denying that, and we don't know anything about the ethnicity of the woman, which tells us probably exactly what it is, uh, given our PC treatment of things today.
And I know that's a ryebald and bold assumption.
Uh, but I'm just exercising my first amendment rights here for as long as those last.
Uh we've we've got the the dogs out there sniffing the bug the luggage.
The luggage is put out on the tarmac, and the dogs are out there sniffing for bombs.
Yet we're being told, ah, she's just a claustrophobic woman.
Poor passengers, you know, they they they were gonna clear customs in um uh in in Dulles.
You get a customs problem when you set down early like this.
They had this buses out there, these people's luggage on the tarmac.
Uh, how do you clear customs without your bags?
Uh you so it's just it's just a total mess, and we still don't know uh the details of this because all of the um uh the information conflicts.
Different sources are saying different things, but I'll tell you what, uh when I see bomb-sniffing dogs out there, uh, I have to assume that the that there's something more than meets the eye here as far as what is being reported.
Now, what's interesting about this is that today was supposed to be the day, according to British authorities, for a um uh uh those missions of blowing up planes from London to United States in mid-air, August 16th was the day for that to happen.
Dry run.
Uh Members of the terror group who were arrested in a series of raids by anti-terror police yesterday were due to mount a dry run today to check if they could smuggle components for liquid explosives through Britain's airports.
United Airline tickets dated uh today were found by police at the home of one of the raided addresses.
This is a story from um the eighth, uh the eleventh of uh of August, so this is about five days ago.
Uh one U.S. intelligence official told the evening standard the bombers were a couple days from a test and a few days from doing it.
Well, one of the airlines targeted was united.
So I have no doubt that uh what what we're seeing here is probably due to that fact uh as well as whatever the flight crew has informed, and the witnesses on the plane have informed uh authorities as to the condition and attitude and uh actions of this deranged claustrophobic wacko woman.
Um's on airplanes are a dangerous thing.
They're very frustrating, and they're out there.
Uh and in this heightened uh uh intense time, it makes it even worse.
You gotta feel bad for these people that were on this airplane and got thrown off of it.
Who knows where they are at Logan right now, waiting for their bags and go through custody.
You don't feel sorry for them?
You don't, yeah, I've you've got to feel sorry for these people.
This is just who knows what's in those luggage bags either.
I mean, it's sitting out there in the hot sun, shaving cream and stuff, exploding in there all over the clothes.
Uh you can't put toiletries in checked luggage.
They got their check stuff out.
The checked luggage.
They they they check like the bomb sniffing dogs are.
Okay, it's time to start with the surreal stuff.
Time to start with the Twilight Zone.
President Bush has avoided repetition of a term that angers Muslims.
Responding last week to the foiling of an alleged plot to blow up flights between Britain and the U.S., the president said this nation is at war with Islamic fascists.
That triggered immediate objections from the Council of American Islamic relations, and another objection today from the government of Saudi Arabia.
In a statement after its weekly meeting, the Saudi cabinet warned against labeling Muslims with accusations of terrorism and fascism.
Bush did not repeat the reference to Islamic fascists at the State Department today, referring instead to individuals that would like to kill innocent Americans to achieve political objectives.
Okay, that's that's that's um surreal Twilight Zone story number one.
Number two, Hezbos.
They are already reconstructing Southern Lebanon.
Um this means that they're gonna win the hearts and my doing all the social work down there.
Um the the Lebanese cabinet is just now meeting on the idea of sending in their 15,000 troops here, but nobody is gonna disarm the Hezbos.
Nobody's gonna disarm them.
This this is um I don't know, folks.
I go through all this stuff.
You if if I read this stuff to you word for word, you would not believe it.
Uh on the front page of USA Today, Condoleezza Rice, the Secretary of State, is backtracking on the uh disarmament of Hezbollah.
The headline, Rice, not UN's job to disarm Hezbollah.
Okay.
Uh so apparently we have uh we have voted for a ceasefire that didn't require the disarmament of the Hezbows, but merely urged it.
Uh and and then of course, um, throughout the interview, Condoleezia writes, and she has an open the Washington Post today, um, praises the agreement, praises the ceasefire, and now the hard part begins, and that's implementation.
Well, yeah, uh that's always been the hard part, implementation, and then none of these resolutions ever has been uh implemented.
Uh let me just let me just give you a little excerpt from her interview in uh USA Today.
Uh little excerpt of the story plus her answer here.
The 15,000 member UN force being created for Southern Lebanon will keep the peace and enforce an international Arms embargo, Secretary Rice said today, actually yesterday, but it won't be charged with disarming the Hezbollah guerrillas.
That political agreement will be the responsibility of the Lebanese, Rice said, quote, I don't think there is an expectation that this force, the UN force, is going to physically disarm Hezbollah.
I think it's a little bit of a misreading about how you disarm a militia.
You have to have a plan, first of all, for the disarmament of the militia, and then the hope is that some people lay down their arms voluntarily.
I just don't believe that.
I I just are terrorists.
There's already a resolution saying they got to be disarmed, and that Lebanon's supposed to do it.
1559.
Of course we've ripped that up.
I haven't even ripped it up.
We just pretend it doesn't exist.
We've got this new one now, and we are investing our hope that some people lay down their arms voluntarily.
She continued, if Hezbollah resists international demands to disarm, one would have to assume that there will be others who are willing to call Hezbollah what we are calling it, which is a terrorist organization.
Okay.
So this is this robust international force that we've been hearing about.
It's a robust international force, led of course, by the brave and the courageous French.
They're not going to want any part of Hezbollah.
And to say that this is the political job of Lebanon.
This is a government that said it is too weak to protect its country.
That Hezbollah is part of I have to take a break.
I'm just, I don't know what happened.
Uh than just the fact that the Israelis uh weren't able to complete the mission.
Uh there's there's I have no doubt now that one of the reasons this ended the way it did is because the uh the Olmert government uh was simply unprepared and and did not did not prosecute the war as it was hoped it would be by uh by allies such such as the United States, but I'll be back here in just a second, folks.
Uh don't go away.
All right, let's see if I understand this, according to the Secretary of State's interview in USA Today.
We have the Hezbollahs.
The Hezbollah people have killed Israelis and Americans for 25 years now.
They are an acknowledged, very proud member in good standing of the terrorist club of the world.
And it thinks it's winning now.
I mean, they're celebrating, they're dancing in the streets.
There's no question at the Hezbows that the Syrians and the Iranians think they won big here.
They won.
And so they're gonna lay down their arms voluntarily.
And guess what we're gonna do if they don't?
We're gonna call them names.
Yeah.
We're gonna make sure that they are officially referred to around the world as terrorists.
Uh a name that they are infinitely proud of.
Uh I'm putting myself in uh Tehran right now in the office of Mahmood Ahmadinejad, and wondering what the hell he thinks when he reads this.
And then little Basher Assad in Syria, and what he thinks of this.
And if bin Laden is still alive, what he thinks.
We're gonna call them names if they don't voluntarily disarm.
I this folks, I'm telling you, this is very, very difficult.
I I've I've I have so much respect for Condoleezza Rice, but I don't understand.
I just well, I think I do.
I'll I'll get to that just a second.
In addition to this interview in USA Today today, she has an op-ed in the Washington Post uh trying to explain why we pressed for the ceasefire agreement that was uh unanimously adopted by the UN Security Council, and she says that it delivers the means for a lasting peace if fully implemented.
Well, there are those words again, if fully implemented.
Name for me a United Nations Security Council resolution that is implemented, uh, other than by us taking action somewhere.
Here's a few lines from that op-ed.
The agreement we reached last week is a good first step, but it's only a first step.
Though we hope that it will lead to a permanent ceasefire, no one should expect an immediate stop to all acts of violence, a fragile ceasefire, and all parties must work to strengthen it.
Our diplomacy has helped end a war.
Now comes the long hard work to secure the peace.
I'm sorry, but I don't think diplomacy has ended this war, and I and even now the Israelis say, hey, we're not leaving until this international force gets in here and until a Lebanese army moves into South Lebanon.
Well, hell.
The Lebanese government is just now having a meeting to figure out how to get their army down into South Lebanon.
Meanwhile, uh the people who live there are streaming back home to their rubbling buildings and being provided aid and assistance by Hezbollah.
Um who are they going to be loyal to?
Who are they loyal to anyway?
Looking ahead, Ms. Rice writes, our most pressing challenge is to help the hundreds of thousands of displaced people within Lebanon to return to their homes and rebuild their lives.
Sorry, we're how are we going to do that?
Obviously, we could send in aid and this kind of stuff, but we have a huge bureaucracy, and uh it's going to be a long time before we pass the legislation or pass the authorization or what have meanwhile, the Iranians have already sent in a bunch of aid, and that's what the Hezbollah people are using to rebuild, quote unquote, the war-ravaged portions of southern Lebanon.
Um I don't think it's the most pressing problem either, but that's what she writes.
I mean, the most pressing problem here is to uh help the hundreds of thousands of displaced people within Lebanon to return to their homes.
Already we hear Hezbollah trying to claim victory, but others in Lebanon and across the region are asking themselves what Hezbollah's extremism has really achieved.
Hundreds of thousands of people displaced from their homes.
Houses and infrastructure destroyed, hundreds of innocent lives lost.
The blame of the world for causing this war.
All of this being said, well, the Hezbows are out there proclaiming victory.
The people of Lebanon uh uh reportedly supporting the Hezbows.
And I just we're gonna call them names.
If they don't uh voluntarily uh disarm.
Uh, you want to hear another uh surreal story?
Muslim leaders yesterday called Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger disrespectful and insulting for ignoring their request to meet about the war in Lebanon so he could explain his appearance at a rally supporting Israel that was attended by thousands.
Schwarzenegger and Los Angeles mayor Antonio Villarigosa spoke on the uh 23rd of July in front of the Jewish Federation of Greater Los Angeles building on Wilshire Boulevard.
On August 6th, two days after Muslim leaders held a news conference to complain that the mayor and governor had ignored several requests to talk.
Villa Rigosa met privately with ten Muslim leaders and apologized for initially disregarding their invitation.
Schwarzenegger and his aids have not returned repeated phone calls asking him to explain his appearance and get the other equally important side of the Lebanon-Israeli conflict, said Shaquil Sayed, executive director of the Islamic Shura Council of Southern California.
So again, we are we're we're now um politicians have to account to the Muslim lobby for their support of Israel.
Uh uh out in California.
And then there's this story in a Wall Street Journal, and this was from Monday.
Uh the U.S. has spent millions of dollars in Yemen to help the government crack down on Islamic extremists who want to wage violent jihad against non-believers.
There's just one problem with the strategy.
It's not clear that jihad is illegal in Yemen.
Last month a Yemeni judge sitting on the state's special terrorism court ruled that 19 defendants who had traveled to Iraq to kill American soldiers and fight alongside Al-Qaeda there had done nothing wrong.
The defendants made no attempt to deny their connection to Al Qaeda in Iraq.
They openly praised bin Laden.
They bore wounds from fighting American and Iraqi troops.
Yet the judge Mohammed Al Badani, a 40-year-old jurist with family in the U.S. and a history of handing out prison sentences to Al-Qaeda fighters, plotting attacks in uh Yemen, acquitted the defendants.
His argument, Islamic Sharia law permits jihad against occupiers of Muslim lands.
Okay, the judge's ruling prompted an immediate appeal from Yemeni prosecutors and an outraged senior officials at the U.S. Embassy in uh in Yemen.
Uh I personally raised the issue with the President of the Republic and the Ministry of the Interior, said Nabil Kore, the deputy chief of mission at the U.S. Embassy.
So jihad's legal.
Uh couldn't convict these guys for acts of terrorism because it's legal.
And keep in mind here, folks, that uh the State Department, when uh when uh preparing the constitutions uh that they helped draft for Afghanistan and Iraq, uh preserved Islamic law in those constitutions.
It is just hard to comprehend all this today.
I but I will, folks, I'll make sense of it.
Half my brain tied behind my back just to make it fair, Rush Limbaugh.
Causing grief and panic on the left.
Daily and the EIB network.
Ladies and gentlemen, it's it seems to me, I I I think my problem here is that I took everybody seriously when we declared war on terrorism.
I uh I remember the Bush doctrine.
We were gonna go after states and areas that harbored and promoted terrorists.
And the question now is what has become of the Bush doctrine.
It's obviously changed.
It's it's it's uh uh become something else.
And I don't know, I I I have no I'm no wonder I don't know why, but uh that there it seems to me that they're just an increasing number of voices who offer nothing but defeatism uh and refuse to make the intellectual and political case for winning this war.
In fact, I'm I'm becoming uh concerned that there are more and more people who don't even want to think of this as a war, and I understand that.
Uh mention it uh quite frequently.
But these people who offer nothing but defeatism, and I mean the media, the Democrats and so forth, uh, they clutter the truth with idiotic arguments and theories, and they're all aimed at defeat.
They're all aimed at blaming America.
Uh and they think defeat is uh inevitable, and some of them even think it's something we deserve.
And I don't buy any of that, which is why all of this stuff today appears so surreal to me.
From the from the get-go, um, the whole point has been victory, and victory means summoning the will to destroy the enemy by going after its head, not by fighting off its uh its appendages.
We can do that, and we can we can you know nibble away at the margins, so to speak, but we must be resolved to destroy its head, and it's clear that we're not.
And I thought that we were.
I thought that was um that was the mission.
The intellectually bankrupt among us, they see defeat and hopelessness at every turn, just as they viewed the expansion of the Soviet Union and communism as inevitable.
They didn't think there was anything we could do about that except appease and hopefully uh find some way of getting along.
And along came Ronald Reagan, he said, hell with that.
We can defeat the Soviet Union and stop the advance of communism that occurred under Jimmy Carter.
Um, and he set out to do it and accomplished it.
Now, sometimes uh defeating an enemy like this can be accomplished through economic and technological advancements, as in the Cold War, uh, although even there we didn't shy away from a fight.
But I I don't think sanctions against Mahmud or any of these other terrorist nations are gonna have uh much of an impact on anything.
When you when you're dealing with the likes of the Nazis or these Islamo fascists, um the only option is the military option, and this is where liberals and and some pseudo-conservatives missed the boat.
Uh, you know, the old Clinton administrator argument.
Well, we got to we can only do this with law enforcement.
And that really worked in the 90s, didn't it?
Dealing with terrorism, and some people are pointing to this London business and saying, see, there wasn't a military operation there.
This was just good old-fashioned police work.
This was police work at its best.
This was law enforcement at its best.
Yeah, well, we needed some changes from the nineties to make this possible, right?
We needed something like the the uh Patriot Act, and we needed something like the uh foreign surveillance uh of terrorists from the National Security Agency, none of which we were allowed to do in the 90s, and none of which we did.
The nineties weren't even allowed to share information agency to agency.
Um but if we think that we're going to stop every act of terrorism before it occurs, especially with so much of the world aligned for the terrorists because of Bush hatred or whatever, uh, we have another thing coming.
I don't know what kind of police work is going to defeat Al-Qaeda in Iraq, and I don't know what kind of police work is going to defeat Mahmud Ahmadinejad and the Iranians, and I don't know what kind of police work uh and law enforcement is going to deal with the Hezbos.
Uh we're just we're just gonna call them names if they don't disarm voluntarily.
Yeah.
We're gonna make sure the world knows that they're terrorists.
You'll contain them, whatever.
We don't even know we're not even gonna contain them.
We don't have a policy of containment even.
Uh uh that that's that's the that's that's the crazy thing.
Uh the Islamo fascists are not going away.
They're not gonna shrink back into their little enclaves and caves and just hang out uh and pray every day.
I mean, they're they're on the march, they're on the attack.
Uh they're they're attacking India, they're attacking in the Philippines against the Russians, against the Israelis, the Spaniards, the Somalians.
They're there they really are on the march.
And when people say that we can't win the war, what are they saying?
If we can't win the war, are they saying that we are doomed, that our way of life is over?
If we can't win it, then all you can do is deny there is one, unless you're prepared to admit that at some point all that is in the United States is finished.
It's just a matter of time.
Look, folks, here's the bottom line.
The Hezbos are not going to disarm, and we are now even acknowledging it with uh the Secretary of State's statement.
They aren't uh there aren't enough international forces to send in there fast enough to stop the Hezbos from backfilling into the area.
There isn't enough uh counterweight to all the money from Iran and aid from Iran that's going in.
This is this this ceasefire is uh is shaping up to be as uh a disaster, as we said it would be.
And now the Israelis, the the Israeli people left and right, is so wonderful to see unity in a country.
They are all livid over the way this war was prosecuted by their government.
And now you got a bunch of libs running the Israeli government right now, and they're having they're gonna have meetings.
The uh Israeli government's gonna put together a commission to study what went wrong.
Well, that's that's cool.
You don't need a commission to figure out what went wrong.
Uh it's very simple.
The generals were not listened to.
The Prime Minister didn't have the guts to pull the trigger and go all the way.
I'm convinced he had the full pledge of support from this administration and this country to do what he had to do, just wouldn't pull a trigger and do it.
I mean, when you start dropping leaflets uh and and warning people and so forth, uh that that's that's an indication of change that we might think, well, how sweet, how nice, how how compassionate and so forth.
But um, you don't you don't waste time and jet fuel and everything else launching leaflets, uh, ladies and gentlemen, in uh in a war.
So, you know, when the libs get themselves into positions of power, you get nothing but political correctness, ringing of hands, touchy feeling.
I hope they understand, I hope they don't blame us, and you lose sight of the objective.
Uh, people who read this ceasefire terms uh and and and then say, hey, if this is enforced, it's not so bad.
My gosh, fundamentally don't understand this enemy, And it's sad to see some on our side speak so absurdly about their hopes for what a bunch of terrorists would do.
We are dealing with terrorists.
So I'm I maybe I'm just I remain alone, Wolf here as I say, I believed all that was said about this and what we intended to do, and I and I still say it's gonna happen at some point.
We just haven't gotten to that point where the will of the American people is such that we can uh we can make it happen.
So it's gonna take a lot more disaster.
It's gonna take a lot more suffering, a lot more bombing and a lot it's it's gonna take much more than what has happened to date to uh rally people to face the reality that is out there.
Tim in Cincinnati, I'm uh glad you called your first up today on the EIB network.
Hello.
Hello, Russ.
Great honor to speak with you.
Thanks for taking it.
Thank you, sir.
Thank you.
Uh yeah, I'm scratching my head over why we would support this UN resolution too.
And there's only two things that come to mind of why we would do this.
And the first is either A, yes, it's a complete blunder, and we just blew it completely.
And B, and and hopefully this is the one, and and I hope I'm just not being too optimistic and naive on this one, but I think that this was a potential setup, a prerequisite to enable more world support, or like you said, change the world of the American people, where we could eventually we know they're not gonna uphold it.
We know Hezbollah's gonna break it.
We knew they were going to from the start, but we agreed to the resolution.
When they break it, then maybe we could go after the heads of Syria and Iran.
As it stood right now, it was an Israel Hezbollah war.
We couldn't get involved, and even if they took them out, it was still just a band-aid.
It still left Iran and Syria.
So it's like the last two resolutions before the Iraq war.
They weren't necessary, but we had to do them in order to just get the couple prerequisites out of the way.
Um, well, we've got we've we had we we sat through 14 or 60 and ignored resolutions uh via, you know, about Saddam Hussein and Iraq.
And I've I've heard this argument uh advanced.
I don't I really don't think it's that complicated.
Uh it it it may end up working out that way by accident, but I don't think this is by design.
Uh I I think I think at the root of this uh really is the fact that the old government didn't have the guts to pull the trigger and go all the way and do what was necessary to um defeat Hezbollah.
And I think we saw that.
And the United States saw it and uh uh stepped in with this resolution to uh stop the uh stop the bleeding, so to speak, which is all fine and good up to that point.
I mean, if you're dealing with reality, you're dealing with reality, and if the old government is is not gonna go all the way when they've got the green light, uh then disaster awaits unless you just pull back and marshal your forces for another day.
But at that point, you don't have to go into this resolution and word it in such a way as it has been worded, and and and then it just doesn't make sense.
I the and the idea that we're setting them up uh to uh to violate the resolution that give us the worldwide support and backing to go in and finally take care of it.
My gosh, how many resolutions from the United Nations Security Council have there been in this region and so forth?
We don't need to wait for another one.
And the third part of this is uh this whole notion of waiting for world opinion is I'm really getting tired of it.
I'm really getting tired of it.
We don't have to go to United Nations to ask permission to defend ourselves, or we have to go to the world to get permission to defend ourselves.
It's absurd.
Quick time out, we'll be back.
Stay with us.
I just can't believe what I saw and heard.
I have on this idiotic CNN International, and the subject right now, how can Lebanon move forward after the conflict?
And they got they got David Rodham Gurgen on there, and David Rodum Gurkha said, Well, the fact that uh nobody is willing to disarm Hezbollah is a major, major stumbling block.
Uh, we have to figure this out so that we can move forward.
For crying out loud.
There was no Provision to disarm them.
It's in resolution 1559, and nobody had the guts to do it.
The Lebanese don't want to disarm Hezbollah.
They haven't got the courage nor the desire nor the ability.
What did people think that this is speaking from Harvard?
Typical.
A bunch of pointy headed, eggheaded elites.
All of a sudden now they realize, oh, wait a minute, we forgot the disarmament clause.
Uh no, we didn't.
We didn't forget it.
We didn't put it in there.
We hope that they will voluntarily disarm.
You see what I mean about this being in the Twilight Zone today.
This is now we've got a major stumbling block.
We were just celebrating this thing last week, and all right, we stopped the suffering, and we stopped the killing, and we stopped the bombing.
We are good people.
We have stopped the war.
Uh-oh, we've got a stumbling block.
What about disarming Hezbollah?
Yeah, what about disarming the Nazis?
Uh sorry.
I you just just have to laugh.
Yesterday we had a we had a caller, great caller, Jason from Fargo, North Dakota.
I got a lot of feedback on Jason.
Jason people loved you out there.
Uh and we we highlighted your call at Rushlimbaugh.com.
And during the conversation with Jason, I told him that I had his piece in the LA Times.
Uh uh Council on Foreign Relations, babe by the name of Julia Swag, and I guess Swag, and she was uh uh commenting an essay on why they hate us, and Jason said, I don't care why they hate us.
I don't either, but you've got to hear this.
Do you want to know why terrorists hate us?
I can just read you one little excerpt.
Bush is wrong to say that foreigners hate us because of our values and freedoms.
Oh, quite the contrary.
U.S. credibility abroad used to be reinforced by the perception that our laws and government programs gave most Americans a fair chance to participate in the middle class meritocracy.
But the appeal of the U.S. model overseas is eroding as the gap between rich and poor widens, public education deteriorates, health care costs soar, and pensions disappear.
That, ladies and gentlemen, is why they hate us.
Because our government programs aren't taking care of enough people anymore.
The Hezbos, they know how to do it.
Hezbollah's really got the great roads and the great schools and the great hospitals and so forth, but we don't.
And the middle class in this country is getting a royal screwed shaft.
They don't have a chance.
Public education deteriorates.
Yeah, who runs that?
The American left.
Pension costs, pensions are disappearing.
Yeah, why?
Because of the unions.
Uh, and health care costs are soaring.
Well, we were supposed to fix that in 1993.
Weren't we?
But do you believe this?
This is why they look at us, you know, Robert Mugabe down in Zimbabwe, looks at America as I hate that country.
Why their middle class doesn't have a chance anymore.
They have spiraling out of control health.
This is right out of central casting.
This is absurd.
And yet, this is an elitist and brainy organization.
The uh Council on Foreign Relations.
By the way, the Hezbollahs are now balking at withdrawing from Southern Lebanon.
Um get this.
The Hezbollah is this in a Washington Post today, Hezbollah indicated that it would be willing to pull back its fighters and weapons in exchange for a promise from the Army, the Lebanese Army, not to probe too carefully for underground bunkers and weapons caches.
I mean, another stumbling block in the Twilight Zone.
The Hezbollah say, yep, we'll pull back, we'll move out of the South as long as they don't find our weapons and bunkers.
And of course, the great thinkers of our time at Harvard, hmm, they start rubbing their chin with their hand.
Yes, a stumbling block, unfortunate occurrence.
Uh, how can we meet this uh this this problem?
As though we're dealing with rational, reasonable uh human beings.
Sometimes, folks, I think you and I are all that remains of that group of people.
Back here in just a second.
Stay with us.
David Gergen still wringing his hands over the fact that the people in Lebanon love the Hezbows and they don't want them disarmed.
It's a real stumbling block.
These are the people that are all for these resolutions.
Here's this headline in the New York Times is all you need to know.
Hezbollah leads work to rebuild gaining stature.
This story, no doubt, the source for Gergen's enlightened commentary today on CNN International.
All right, first hour is in the can.
There's a group of retired military people, by the way, get a letter saying that Iran it's not a crisis.
Bush is making it up.
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