Welcome to today's edition of The Rush 24-7 podcast.
Yes, yes, yes.
I watch a little bit of it.
I well, I didn't watch it live.
I had other things to do, but I watched some replays of that press conference last night with the Democrats, and I'm there there.
Sorry, bars are down.
I'm sorry, I I they were down.
I hit that button by mistake when I was hitting something.
Anyway, sorry, ditto cameras.
Didn't need to send you to panic out there.
Anyway, it's Friday, and you know what that means.
Live from the Southern Command in sunny South Florida.
It's open line Friday.
Yes, sir, Rebob, folks.
This is the day of the week that we all look forward to here at the one and only EIB network.
One of the greatest risks taken in all of big media is taken every Friday by me.
And that is when we go to the phones, I turn the content of this program over to you.
Lovable and I adore you, but you are rank amateurs, and I am a highly trained broadcast specialist.
Monday through Thursday, this program is exclusively about what I am interested in, but on Friday I throw that out.
And if you want to talk about something I don't care about, you will be allowed to.
There is no First Amendment here.
This is a benevolent dictatorship.
But by now you all know how the rules are.
You know what all that.
So the telephone numbers 800-282-288-2 and the email address rush at EIBNet.com.
I uh went to a new restaurant in New York last night, had dinner at a place called a Kobe Club.
And it's uh it's one of Jeffrey Chotaro's restaurants, China Graily owned show.
He did that TV show at Rocco Desperito or Desperado, whatever whatever.
Um this is all Kobe and Wagyu beef, but it's it's steakhouse, but it's it's not like any other steakhouse, but you can mix and match all the different cuts and the sauces.
It was just it was it was it was i uh indescribably good.
Great, great time in there.
And and uh I'd been in there about an hour, hour and a this giant entourage of people.
What are you what are you complaining about now, Snerdly?
You're supposed to show start.
No, I went off the time.
I I went off the diet.
Uh I I've been doing that.
Go back I go off a diet for a day back on it for five or six.
I got this less social stuff I gotta take care of.
But you know, everything's cool.
I've in fact I've lost a couple more pounds.
I don't know how it's working, and it is.
Anyway, we're been in there about an hour, and uh this giant entourage of people comes in, and among the entourage is one of the judges of American Idol, Randy Jackson, was in there, and they uh they they got seated, and then the waitress came over and said, uh guy in a cowboy head over there would like to buy you an adult beverage.
And I looked on, so who is it?
And uh she said, uh big rich.
Big Rich.
I don't know any big rich.
Well, it turned out it was John Rich of Big and Rich.
Uh the uh the country crooners.
Turns out it's a big fan.
So uh had a had just had a good time anyway.
Got out of New York late.
I probably got home, but uh rolled into the house at two in the morning.
So I'm flying home last night, and I'm watching replays of this press conference of the Democrats called a debate.
And what what struck me about it, uh first, and we got some sound bites.
Frankly, I went through the roster.
There's nothing worth playing.
Uh the fact the most important soundbite from last night was 10 to 12 seconds of nothing.
When when the Bret girl was asked who is his moral leader, who who does he look to for moral guidance, and ten to twelve seconds went by, he didn't say anything.
Had to stop and think about that.
Uh then he finally said, Well, his wife is Jesus.
He said, My lord, and then his wife, and then uh somebody else.
Uh Mrs. Clinton being roundly praised for being the only candidate when asked the question if a couple cities get nuked by Al Qaeda tonight during the debate.
What's your reaction?
We're gonna retaliate, she said.
Obama said, Well, we gotta get the first responders out there.
He started trashing Bush on on Katrina.
We gotta get first responders, we've got to do it.
The last thing he said he would do was retaliate.
He just used it, all of them did.
They ran they were running against George W. Bush last night.
And that's the that's one of the things that uh uh didn't surprise me, but they're gonna have to figure out that Bush is not on the ballot anymore, and it it it it it really doesn't matter.
We have some survey USA results of who the people in South Carolina thought won this press conference.
Uh did did you watch it, Mr. Snertley?
You didn't.
Can't believe that.
Did you, Brian?
Well, no, I don't even shouldn't have asked.
And I know Dawn didn't have time.
Well, here are the results.
Survey USA news poll.
Who won the South Carolina Democrat presidential debate?
They uh they used 1250 South Carolina adults interviewed by Survey USA immediately following last night's uh presidential press conference among those eight candidates.
Uh 403 said they had listened to the debate and were included in the survey.
Um out of 1250, 403 watched it.
The margin of sampling error for the 403 debate watchers, plus or minus 5%.
That's pretty big.
Um so anyway, uh uh of of their sample, did you watch?
32% said yes, 67% said no.
Uh asked of those who said yes, who won the debate?
Obama at 31%.
Next, uh Mrs. Bill Clinton at 24%.
Uh after that, it looks like it's uh the Bret girl at 14, then not sure at 13.
Uh see, where are we here?
Uh Biden at six.
Gravel and Dodd at 2%.
Oh, I'm gonna let that uh Kucinich at 3% in there, and Bill Richardson at 4%.
So Barack Obama came up came off as the as the winner of the press conference last night.
Uh, he's a former former senator from Alaska or something.
He's a kook.
He's out.
We got some Gravel comments.
He's he's a kook.
He was uh you know, they're not turning anybody down on one show.
Because the the the the whole point of the these debates right now is to not screw up.
Uh just don't say anything.
It's it's it's better to not even get noticed this early on than to commit some huge gaffe.
And so you got Gravel up there, you've got an immediate graph committer or gaff committer.
I mean, he opened he committed a gaff every time he opened his mouth, and there's no way anybody could look bad with him on the stage.
Kucinich tried.
Uh Kucinich tried to be as kooky as Gravel.
And it's a close toss-up.
Uh, but it's it's uh comic religion.
Here about the Saudis, the uh Saudis have arrested over 170 suspected terrorists, including foreign-trained pilots, to uh to end a plot against their oil fields.
A terrorist allegedly planned to use commercial airliners to smash into the oil facilities and disrupt the entire global economy.
172 Islamic militants arrested by the Saudis, some of whom had trained abroad as pilots, so they can fly their aircraft into those oil fields over there.
Spokesman said that all remained in the plot uh was to set the zero hour.
They were they were ready to go.
The only thing they hadn't decided on was the uh was the time.
Now, uh, ladies and gentlemen, uh there's some uh serious questions uh that that we need to ask about this about how the Saudis did this.
First off, uh, was there a legal seizure and search involved here in in in capturing these people?
These are questions I would love.
Wish this had happened yesterday, so the Democrat candidates at the press conference last night could have been asked these questions.
Were any of the civil rights of the uh of the Islamo fascists violated?
Uh and were was torture used.
We have to know these things.
We have to know whether or not the Saudis are violating the Geneva Conventions in thwarting this attack on their oil fields.
How did they get to these guys?
What did they do?
Did they break into their homes?
Did they violate the Fourth Amendment?
Did they violate the U.N. Charter?
Did they violate the Geneva Conventions?
And of course, you know, if they use torture on them, folks.
I don't know.
We may have to let these people go.
These these are just people that are trying to be heard, and we don't know.
All we know, all we can tell is what the Saudis are saying.
We don't know if the Saudis are telling you the Saudis could arrest anybody and say, yep, they planned to do this, they were down to everything but the zero hour, all they had to do was determine the time, and everybody's going, yay, yay.
But we don't know if any of this is really true.
Yeah, Saudi royal family's got some problems over there.
They might have staged this whole thing just to shore up support among a Wavering population.
You never know.
But I mean, torture.
Do they have their own version of Club Gidmo over there?
Now, what's gonna happen to these prisoners now?
Will they be given proper legal defense counsel?
Will they get lawyer?
Oh, you think they'll be beheaded?
You think they'll be beheaded?
Well, that that is that's uncivilized.
That violates the UN, that violates the U.S. Constitution, it violates the Geneva Convention.
You can't behead them.
You gotta be, they're just they're just, you know, the next thing you're gonna tell me to have them stand on their heads on underwear.
You know, you the uh the the we the world has got to start paying attention to this kind of thing.
These guys, we don't know for sure they're gonna blow up the oil wells, is just what the Saudis are telling us.
I've learned, folks.
I've learned from watching the civil rights activists and the and the uh and the liberals in uh in this country.
I just I'm just telling you, you know, we know how to run a uh uh uh uh uh well a resort for these jihadists who get caught and need a break from it all.
So I hope these guys, wherever they are, if they still have their heads, I hope they get good lawyers, hope they each get a clean cell, a new Koran, uh a prayer rug, unlimited contact with Amnesty International and any other lawyer they want to go over there, hope they're allowed to face Mecca and pray five times a day.
And I hope maybe some of them will get a shot on Larry King Life.
We've got to be fair about it.
Yeah, I have to admit, some of you people hurt my feelings yesterday.
Toward the end of the show, I start looking at some of the email I got in the subscriber mailbox, and uh there must have been ten of these, and and and they were worded differently, so I don't suspect the campaign.
And they said, you know what?
You've been saying you've been losing all this weight.
Frankly, I haven't believed you.
Because I look at you and did okay, and you don't look that different.
But now that you're in New York, something's really happened because now you do look like you've lost a lot of weight.
You might want to change cameras down at the Southern Command.
Um So now I'm one uh I'm wondering if uh if those of you who sent me those notes yesterday are watching today and think I've put the weight back on.
Uh well, you did go off the look, you're not gonna gain 50 pounds in one meal.
I don't care who you are.
It uh it can't be.
Anyway, we've got we've got the answer.
The soundbite here with John Edwards uh that I referenced here a moment ago from the uh from the press conference last night.
Uh here here is Edwards.
I'm telling you, this is his response to a question about who his moral leader is.
I don't I don't think I could identify one person that I consider to be my moral leader.
Uh my lord is important to me.
Uh I go to him in prayer every day and ask for both forgiveness and counsel.
Oh my wife, who I think is the finest human being I've ever known, is a source of great conscience for me.
My father, uh, who raised me to believe that every human being on the planet, no matter who they are or where they live, or uh what color of their skin or what family they were born into has exactly the same value.
Well, you had to stop or think about this for 10 to 12 seconds, and m most people ask yours if you were asked that question, uh would would would it take you that long to come up with an answer?
You yeah, you've either got one or you don't.
I mean, you you've got somebody who's inspired you morally, or you don't.
You've got something that has taught you right from wrong.
You've got some sense of it.
You don't have to think about it.
I was uh I was just totally stunned and swamped by the question.
Uh at any rate, uh moving on, uh Mr. Snerdley wanted to know who uh who Mike Gravell is.
Well, here well, let's listen to the uh little soundbite.
He got a question from Brian Williams.
Senator Gravel at a forum earlier this year, where it says soundbite two here, Mike.
Um, and I want to get this right.
You said it doesn't matter whether you are elected president or not.
So then why are you here tonight?
Shouldn't debates be for candidates who are in the race to win it.
You're right.
I made that statement.
But that's before I had a chance to stand with them a couple three times.
It's like going into the Senate.
You know, the first time you get there, you're all excited, my God, how did I ever get here?
Then about six months later you say, How the hell did the rest of them get here?
And I gotta tell you, after standing up with them, some of these people frighten me.
They frighten me.
When when you have mainline candidates to turn around and say that there's nothing off the table with respect Iran, that's code for using news.
Nuclear devices.
I gotta tell you, I'm president of the United States.
There will be no preemptive wars with nuclear devices.
In my mind, it's immoral.
Let's listen to another one.
Uh, Senator Gravel, that's that's a weighty charge.
Who who at who at this stage exactly worries you so much?
Well, I would say the top-tier ones, top tier ones.
They made statements.
Oh, Joe, I'll include you too.
You have a certain arrogance.
You want to you want to tell the Iraqis how to run their country.
I gotta tell you, we should just play get out.
Just play get out.
It's their country.
They're asking us to leave, and we insist on staying there.
And why not get out?
What harm is it going to do?
Oh, that you hear the statement, well, my God, the soldiers will have died in vain.
The entire deaths of Vietnam died in vain.
And they're dying in vain right this very second.
You know what's worse than a soldier dying in vain?
Is more soldiers dying in vain.
That's what's worse.
There is uh Gordon Gravell, the uh man who admits he has no prayer of becoming president, but he was nevertheless allowed to attend the press conference last night for the for the reasons that I say you get him up there, and it's impossible for you to make a gaffe.
If uh if you are one of the of the uh of the other seven.
Uh let me grab a quick phone call since it's open line Friday.
Where are we going?
You start in Detroit.
Oh Sacramento, California, my adopted hometown.
Doug, welcome to the EIB network.
Hello.
Thank you very much for taking my call.
I really appreciate it.
Nice to have you, sir.
Uh it's an honor to talk to you.
Hey, um, sometimes you refer to cookie as a male, and sometimes you refer to cookie as a female.
So I'm I'm wondering, is cookie transgender or what's the other thing?
I do not refer to cookie as a male.
Where do you get that?
I heard that one time about uh three, four weeks ago.
You said he by mistake, I guess.
Uh yeah, the the cookies the the there's we don't have any transgenders that I know of.
I mean, it could be some people on the staff that have been through that, but they haven't told me.
Okay.
Um, that cookie is uh straight down the line, female.
Okay.
Well, uh, if I misheard, I apologize, but I'm pretty sure one time you did refer to Cookie as he.
No, I didn't.
Okay.
I'm just I'm just gonna tell you, I've never referred to cookie as a as as a why would I do that?
Uh you'd have to ask him.
You know what?
You might be confusing cookie with Coco.
Oh, you might be right.
Coco, Coco is married to Cookie.
Coco runs the website.
Oh, I was thinking Coco was the gorilla.
Uh Coco is the gorilla.
Coco was the gorilla of the talk at the TV show, as now runs the website.
It's the webmaster.
Okay, you're probably right.
There you go.
My bad.
What a great open line Friday call.
That's the kind of stuff we're looking for here.
Open line Friday.
By the way, it's a great day for the Democrats and the drive-by media.
Here's the headline.
Economic growth has worst performance in four years at 1.3% in the first three months of 2007.
Experts blame housing slump.
Oh, right after the after the Dow hits 13,000 and unemployment numbers were in a two-month low yesterday.
There was there was down in the dumps time for the drive-by's of the Democrats.
But now, ladies and gentlemen, they can celebrate the economy.
Economic growth can be reported as in the tank.
And I will note, ladies and gentlemen, as no one else will, that this is the first time we've had a Democrat Congress in four years.
This is just a little sample of what you can expect if these guys take power and keep it.
More economic slumps, more economic uh well, tax increases that will lead to slumps, by the way.
Democrats left last night.
They kept they kept talking at their at their press conference where the American people spoke in 2006.
But what did they speak about?
The Democrats ran on a slogan, a culture of corruption.
Let's be honest.
Democrats won the Senate with one word, Macaca.
They won the House with one dirty trick, the Foley scandal.
And I'm here to tell you that Macaca and Foley are not an Iraq message or a tax increase message or a universal health care message.
They're getting away with all of the reestablishing of these mandates that they supposedly are claiming from the election results.
and it was uh it was on parade last night.
If for example, you know, when when Iraq came up, uh all these candidates sincerely wanted to follow the will of the American people.
When partial birth abortion came up, they sincerely didn't want to follow the will of the American people.
They selectively follow the will of the American people.
They sometimes even make up the will of the American people, as they're doing result of the uh November elections.
Now, the moral of this whole thing last night was that once you can fake sincerity, you've got it made.
So all the pundits and all the debate graders, all the measuring other they're just measuring one thing, which candidate best fakes sincerity.
Which one came off as the most sincere?
And according to South Carolina uh debate watchers Barack Obama won the thing hands down last night.
Having more fun than a human being should be allowed to have its open line Friday.
By the way, ladies and gentlemen, the views expressed on this program by me, Rush Limboy, your host, are not necessarily those of the staff management nor sponsors of this station, and definitely are not the views of the staff management nor sponsors of WJR in Detroit.
Our telephone number is 800 282-2882, and Keith in Redmond, California, your next.
Welcome, sir.
Hello, Rush.
Yes, sir.
Yeah, um Michael Ware is a CNN reporter who's been living in Iraq and reporting.
I'm very familiar with his uh with his work.
Yes, and he's consistent anti-American effort in Iraq.
So no one can accuse him of being a pro-war conservative.
But yesterday on CNN, Michael Ware told uh Kira Phillips that if U.S. troops leave Iraq, then Iran and Al Qaeda will take over and own Iraq.
And he said, you know, whether you were for the war in Iraq or against it.
Basically, the United States has broken Iraq now, and if the the United States is responsible for fixing it, and he thinks that the Democrats' plan to just leave Iraq is absolutely d delusional.
And maybe you can find that sound bite if you get a chance, but uh Well, I've you know, he said this twice.
Uh he this is the second time he said this.
Uh you know what I f I find this is what's interesting about this to me is that there are a lot of people saying what he said.
General Petraeus is saying it.
President Bush has said it.
Joe Lieberman has said it.
Any number of esteemed Americans have said exactly what Michael Ware said.
If we get out of there, it's a central theme of the debate now.
I mean the Democrats own defeat, they want to give up, they want to wave the white flag of surrender.
Uh and and people say, if we get out of there now, it is going to be hellbreaking.
Democrats, oh no, no, no, it's not going to get any worse.
It can't get any worse than we've made it.
But the point is this.
With all due respect to Michael Ware, why is it that when a journalist says it, everybody stops.
Oh, whoa, wait a minute.
And why is it when a journalist who happens to be a liberal at CNN says it, does everybody stop?
And all of a sudden start listening to this when when people have been saying this for months, ever since this pull out and withdrawal debate began.
Nothing against Mr. Ware here.
I what what interests me more is what it is that gets people's attention.
I'm not even talking about you, Keith.
Um as I noticed it too.
Uh but it doesn't get played beyond C and of course other networks are not going to air the commentary of uh of a competing reporter.
Uh there's no question that it may have with some people a little bit more credibility because the guy's well known anti-war and is is is not a big fan of the United States, and so, well, maybe you ought to listen.
But isn't that a little troubling?
In that the military generals and experts are automatically discounted because they're just they're just Bush Lapdogs.
I mean, they're they're just propaganda, so we can't believe General Petraeus.
He'd been trying to tell the media this for the past two days.
He's been trying to tell the Democrats in Congress it's the past two days.
They won't even go talk to him.
Nancy Pelosi won't even listen to Petraeus.
Uh the media's talking to him and a reporting what he said, but it just it's there's there's no sense that anybody believes what he's saying.
Nobody believes it when Bush says it.
And nobody believes it when any when Lieberman or any other elected official says it.
Uh so this is uh it in the in the in the sense, okay, who has to say what in order for people to believe it or be interested in it is uh even no matter what if if whatever said is correct and right, why is it that only a few people have any kind of credit?
And why is it this one guy has more credibility and gets more attention, stating the obvious.
Uh and you can take this uh same bit of thinking to the global warming argument.
You know, a lot of people understand the hoax that is global warming.
And yet it takes a certain two or three people who might speak up uh to convince anybody of this.
And yet the doomsayers and the hoaxers talking about this last night at at dinner.
How come how come people tend to buy into all this apocalyptic doom and gloom?
And I went through the riff.
Well, people are natural pessimists.
Pessimism and doom and gloom are the natural state of the human condition.
You know, optimism takes work.
Uh being upbeaten, happy, content.
Most people think those are things that just happened to them, and they're lucky when they happen, and the normal state of things is misery, drudgery, unhappiness, angst, tumult, chaos, insecurity, or what have you.
The positive human emotions are not things that uh seem to happen to a lot of people frequently.
And so they don't think they have any control over them.
No power to be happy, no power to be optimistic.
And that's only because people are waiting to be affected by things rather than living their lives in a way to make things happen.
And that's it's not a criticism, it's just it's just the way things are.
So when somebody comes along and says the earth is going to end in a hundred years and it's our fault, people I don't want that to.
I well, what can I do to save them?
That makes them feel happy if they go out and buy a hybrid or change light bulbs.
They actually think they matter.
People think that they're making a difference and so forth.
And uh how they feel, how people feel about themselves is going to trump uh most everything else uh when they're when everybody's trying to be content and achieve some sort of happiness.
But this statement about what's going to happen in Iraq if we pull out it's it's it's obvious to virtually anybody.
And the I'll tell you who else it's obvious too.
It's obvious to the Democrats when they say that it won't get any worse.
They know it will.
They just don't care.
Victor Davis Hansen has a piece.
I think it's National Review Online, it may be in his own blog, I don't recall where.
But he's getting the sense that the American people finally really are, tiring of the whole thing, the uh war in Iraq, and his theory is that uh if it's true that that we've reached now the point of no return where more people are just uninterested, have no passion left for it, it's because, in his opinion, he doesn't think the American people think the Iraqis are worth sacrificing for.
Doesn't think the Iraqis and their country are worth losing American lives for.
And if that's true, that means we've got a big communication problem because this is not about the stability of Iraq, and it never has been about the stability of Iraq.
It is about creating a beachhead of freedom and democracy there in that region.
This is a long-term view.
I was telling the person I had dinner with last night, you you think Bush is going to go down in history as the worst president ever.
Nope.
By the time you and I are dead and the historians start writing the history of this period, George W. Bush in the area of foreign policy is going to be recognized as one of the top five presidents for actually taking a squalid and uh uh status quo American foreign policy and American view of itself in the world and transforming it in meaningful meaningful ways, as um James Monroe did and a couple of other presidents.
Now, this is not going to happen in our lifetime because the people who write immediate history are the people who hate Bush.
But when when we're all gone, folks, the the history of what has been attempted here in Iraq and what will work, by the way, uh uh eventually down the line is is uh he's he's gonna be credited with uh sticking to it with a great vision.
This is also about U.S. national security.
This is this is about doing what we can to make sure we keep these people aiming at us on the ropes.
And they are they're aiming at Saudi Arabia now, they're aiming at Great Britain.
Uh and I'm sure they're aiming at us and they hope to hit us again, but they haven't.
And there's that that, you know, you might say it's coincidence, but I don't believe in coincidence.
I don't I think so little that people think is coincidence is actually coincidence.
Uh that I don't think that the fact that we haven't been hit since 9-11 is coincidence.
There are reasons that we haven't been hit, and the reasons are a way we've taken it to the people that were responsible for hitting us on 9-11.
And that Rudy Giuliani is right.
Democrats want to retreat, go back on defense, wait for the next attack.
We've got the Obama bite.
You got the Obama soundbite on what of uh what Mike is what is it?
Cut 12?
Cut 13.
Let me let me play this for you.
See if I've got the I don't have the actual question.
I'm gonna I'm gonna have to uh paraphrase it.
But Brian Williams says, God forbid a million times, if tonight we're sitting here in two U.S. cities are obliterated by Al Qaeda attacks, what would you do?
And this Hillary Clinton's well, retaliate.
First thing, find out who did it and go after him.
Here's Barack Obama.
First thing we'd have to do is make sure that we've got an effective emergency response.
Something that this administration uh failed to do when we had a hurricane in New Orleans.
Uh and I think that we have to review how we operate in the event of not only a natural disaster, but also a terrorist attack.
Uh the second thing is to make sure that we've got good intelligence, a to find out that we don't have other threats and attacks potentially out there, and B to find out do we have uh any uh intelligence on who might have carried it out so that we can take potentially some action uh to dismantle uh that network.
But what we can't do uh is then alienate the world community based on faulty intelligence, based on bluster and bombast.
Uh instead, the next thing we would have to do, in addition to talking to the American people, is making sure that we are talking to the international community, because it's already been stated.
We're not going to defeat terrorists on our own.
We've got to strengthen our intelligence relationship with them, and they've got to feel a stake in our security uh by recognizing that we have mutual security interests at stake.
I know.
Do you realize how profoundly inadequate this answer is?
And do you realize how perfectly illustrative it is of the entire Democrat Party position on this?
This was a mixture of uh he was he was in a uh an improv and he was combining his improv with campaign speech rhetoric.
Campaign speech talking points.
His answer, we well, we we gotta make sure we don't have another Katrina did it.
First thing we have to do is make sure we've got an effective emergency response.
What did Rudy Giuliani say?
He said, Well, they they're they they want to take us back to where we're totally on defense.
They're not interested in stopping the next attack.
They want to take it back to the next defense.
And as I pointed out yesterday, where are their proposals for any of this?
They can sit there, they're the majority now, folks.
They can do anything they want.
They can propose anything they want.
They've got the votes to pass things in the Congress.
President may not sign them, but they're not doing that.
They're just sitting there continuing to act as they're the minority party with no power other than to complain and moan.
But to sit here and say the first thing we'd have to do is make sure we got an effective emergency response.
The question, by the way, was if here gathered here tonight, we learned that two American cities have been hit simultaneously by terrorists, and we further learned beyond the shadow of a doubt, it had been the work of Al-Qaeda.
How would you change the U.S. military stance overseas as a result?
So we the question contained, in fact, it was Al-Qaeda.
And yet Obama is going on and on and on.
Well, we got to get the intelligence up and around.
We got to call the international community.
We can't use faulty intelligence.
It was a bash Bush answer that had absolutely no comfort or substance to it in terms of the details of the question.
We can't alienate the world community based on faulty intelligence.
Question didn't say that the intelligence was questionable.
The question said, Mr. Obama, it's definite.
We know beyond a shadow of a doubt.
It's Al Qaeda that did it.
And the last thing he says is retaliate.
But after we get the world's permission, and after we make sure the intelligence has not been fudged, and after all this, this is I I I don't know what what people think the magic is here in uh in this guy when it would with this answer's pathetic in terms of demonstrating presidential stature.
Just not ready yet.
Quick time out.
We'll be back after this.
Stay with us.
I have a good friend.
He's a curmudgeon.
He's always upset about something, always complaining, whining and moaning.
I call him a cynic American.
And he's got this theory.
He his his theory that the uh uh the only reason the Democrats really bash at Iraq is because that's the only thing they can bash, that if it were the economy, they would be bashing the economy, they'd be bashing Bush on the economy all day long, and they'd leave Iraq alone.
I kind of I don't believe that in total because the left-wing base out there would be directing the Democrats.
But when they when they thought they had a bad economy, and it wasn't that long ago.
You remember Pelosi's out there talking jobs, jobs, jobs, we're gonna create jobs, we're gonna create the we're gonna get this economy back where it's roaring for everybody and so forth.
But now there's they're starting to trickle out.
I'm looking at some of the news headlines of some some bad economic news.
Ford says auto sales in April are among the worst ever.
It's really slowing down.
The economic growth 1.3%.
Ah, these are happy days are here again.
They'll drive bys and the and the Democrats, and now there's somebody else in the Euro is uh it's its highest against the dollar.
If you're gonna go to Europe this summer on vacation, it's gonna cost you a little bit more.
Because the uh you have to spend more dollars to equal Euros, you're gonna have um uh the the that somebody's just put out a story of worldwide housing bubble.
Oh, folks, we could be on the verge of a primary genuine can't keep the glee out of their faces issue for the coming presidential campaign if if all they need is some news that says this is going to happen.
They don't even need the bad economic news.
Uh anyway, there's speaking of the news, uh it's happened again here.
It it's it it's happened again, this time in the UK Times, not in the Los Angeles Times.
Not in the Chicago Tribune.
This time it's in the UK Times and the headline here, and it's from today, the Great Black and White Hope.
Who do you think this is about?
It's about Barack Obama.
Here's the subhead Barack Obama, young, gifted, and mixed race, but can he really break the mold of racial politics?
By a guy named Tom Baldwin.
To understand all the fuss that surrounds Barack Obama, go back to the 2004 Democrat convention where wooden John Kerry with his gray hair and stiff salute was reporting for duty.
They had picked what is known as a resume candidate whose record in Vietnam in the Senate would, they thought give him a chance of beating President Bush.
Then along came the skinny figure of Obama with his jazz cool looks, his exotic name, and his caramel skin.
Though virtually unknown, not yet even selected to the Senate, his speech was by all accounts one of the best anyone had heard in years.
As good as Bill Clinton, they said, but fresher.
These days, Obama adopts a calmer, more discursive tone in most of his speeches, and though the applause at the end is warm, is it is sometimes shorter than it was when he entered the hall.
So why does this electrifying speaker feel the need to insulate his audience from the full force of his power?
Obama said recently that while I can gin up folks pretty well, it's not his objective right now.
Uh Abe later told the Times, a UK Times that everybody knows he can do a great speech, before adding with a knowing look, so could Jesse Jackson and L. Sharpton.
The implication is that these black candidates for president never made it to the White House because they were seen as over-emotional politicians who played into America's deeply embedded stereotypes.
Obama, by contrast, appeals to whites because he's exciting, not excitable.
The U.S. is nonetheless still a country obsessed by race.
I don't think that's true.
I think elements of our country are obsessed by race, such as the media.
And this guy in the UK in their media is obsessed by race, but I don't think the country is.
The evidence just isn't there.
Though polls suggest that Obama's doing well among African Americans, some still suggest he's not black enough.
Because his ancestors don't include those who experience the pain of slavery and segregation.
In other words, he's not down for the struggle.
He doesn't have roots to that which defines a genuine civil rights activist and African American in this country.
Now that he's not authentic.
This is the fourth time.
I keep being hit over the head for being a racist, talking about Obama when all I'm doing is regurgitating to you people what is appearing about him in white media.
The LA Times and the UK Times.
This is the fourth piece now.
On is Obama down for the struggle?
He's not authentic.
Is he black enough?
I have never asked the question other than to repeat it from the mouths of those who are.
There's a Reuters story here that says the French outpace us in bashing themselves.