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Sept. 6, 2007 - Rush Limbaugh Program
31:24
September 6, 2007, Thursday, Hour #2
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And greetings, my friends, and welcome back.
Rush Lindbaugh here and the EIB network.
We are high atop the EIB building in Midtown Manhattan, one of the most frequently visited tourist locations in all of the Midtown area here of the city.
It's a telephone number if you want to be on the program 800-282-2882.
And the email address is rush at EIBnet.com.
All right.
I've had two or three people mention this to me so far today, and that is Apple cutting the price of the iPhone by 200 bucks, 33%.
Well, the original price was what, $5.99 for the 8 gig.
And they're basically getting rid of the 4 gig.
Nobody bought the 4 gig.
So you can go out and get one of those now for like $2.99, $39 or $199, and done with it.
And I've had two people come to me today, said, doesn't this just make you mad?
You went out.
Well, they know, but you don't.
I bought about 40 iPhones to give away staff members and friends and so forth.
And within, I guess, the first month of the release of the iPhone, I think they're cool.
And everybody I've sent one to just absolutely loves it.
So they came to me and they said, you aren't you just living?
I said, no, it doesn't matter to me at all.
I knew this is going to happen.
I knew the price is going to come down.
Anybody in the world should know it.
The first VCR was $1,200.
By the time you, they don't even need one anymore, but they were $129 at the end of their lifespan.
I knew the price is going to come down and I knew it would come down in time for holiday gift giving.
And they asked Steve Jobs about it.
Steve, he said, well, it's technology.
Everybody knows that price is going to come down on these things.
Here's the bottom line, folks.
The reason why it doesn't bother me, it shouldn't bother anybody.
If you are one of the first to go out and buy one of these things and you think that you have been slapped with disrespect, you can't be this naive.
You have to know this is how these things work.
Do you think that they're going to improve?
What do you bet that by Christmas there'll be a whole new different version of the iPhone with maybe some different software, faster network capability, maybe smaller with fewer services?
What are you going to do then?
I mean, you can't run around and be mad about it.
When you volunteer, when you make the choice to be the first to buy the first issue of a product, you've got to know that it's going to get cheaper and it's going to get revised.
In two months, Mamon, give them a break here, 67 days before they lowered the price.
But you see, my perspective on this is perhaps a little different than most, ladies and gentlemen.
And we've discussed this on the program before.
There are suckers like me who will go out and finance the ultimate lower price that the vast majority of American consumers will then pay for the product.
Like I will go out there the first time some brand new gizmo is issued, I'll go out and buy it, and others like me will go out and buy it at the first price.
Doing so gets the process started, gets the product in the market, gets the production line ramped up, and that's what brings prices down.
People like me are actually owed a debt of gratitude because suckers like me going out paying the full price is what enables people like Apple to drop the price by 33% two days, two months.
So, but I, at some point, people have to learn how this how this stuff operates.
All right, what else we have?
Oh, as you know, I'm a nominee for the Nobel Peace Prize.
And the winner of the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize will be announced in Oslo on October 12th, just a little over a month from now.
from the Norwegian Nobel Institute today.
The secretive five-member Norwegian Nobel Committee will select the winner of what many consider the world's most prestigious accolade from a near field of a record field of 181 nominees.
It is showdown time, ladies and gentlemen.
Now, the committee does not disclose the names of nominees, but those who make nominations sometimes publish their choices.
And this year's include former U.S. Vice President Al Gore for his efforts to raise awareness of climate change.
My name is not mentioned in this Reuters story as a nominee, but we did choose to announce movement.
In fact, I almost renounced my own nomination and took it away when I found out that Al Gore was over there lobbying a member of the committee for the prize while giving some speech or presentation on global warming.
Ladies and gentlemen, we've had quite an active first hour of the program.
Grab Audio Soundbite 15.
People are irate over this.
This is Chuck Schumer.
This is the Democrats that set this up.
The Democrats doing everything they can to discredit General Petraeus and his report next week.
Not just discredit the report, but discredit him, the general they voted for in unanimity and the general for whose efforts they funded.
Now they're trying to discredit him by saying he's nothing more than a puppet of President Bush and going to write a report that's not true.
The Democrats know the truth, and that is that we are losing.
And we're losing bad, and our military is just incompetent.
Here, listen to Senator Schemer.
Let me be clear.
The violence in Anbar has gone down despite the surge, not because of the surge.
The inability of American soldiers to protect these tribes from al-Qaeda said to these tribes, we have to fight al-Qaeda ourselves.
It wasn't that the surge brought peace here.
It was that the warlords took peace here, created a temporary peace here.
This is just outrageous.
The U.S. military is incompetent.
U.S. military can't do anything right.
It's the warlords of Iraq who finally came together because of our incompetence.
Well, wait a second.
I thought the original complaint was that the U.S. military was so incompetent that it couldn't forge alliances with these various tribes or the sects, if you will, the Shiites and the Sunnis and so forth.
And yet every report is to the contrary what Senator Schumer said.
This is just outrageous.
So what has become of the Democrat Party?
The song.
The song.
We have a new song.
Here it is.
Not exactly EIB, but we'll make up for it down the road.
Just listen to this.
It all makes sense here, folks.
Okay, let's go to the phones.
People have been patiently waiting.
We'll get to the debate audio soundbites here in mere moments, ladies and gentlemen.
Bernie in Indianapolis, where Where the NFL season kicks off tonight, by the way, the team defending the Super Bowl champion, the Indianapolis Colts, and the team the NFL thinks will be the next champion, the New Orleans Saints.
Go ahead tonight, 8:30.
Anyway, Bernie, welcome to the program.
Thank you, Rush.
I appreciate this.
I've been listening to you for years, from one Road Warrior to a radio warrior.
I thank you for everything I've listened to and everything you've done.
Well, thank you, sir.
I just got to say, after hearing what you had just told me about Schumer being an ex-Vietnam vet, I have got to tell everyone who ever has had a brother, a sister, an aunt,
an uncle who has died for this country in every war prior to Iraq should listen and say, how can this man discredit and dishonor and disrespect everything those people have done prior to Iraq to cover his butt, his family's butt and everybody else's, and gave them a good life?
That is so appalling.
And about Pelosi and about Mirtha, I mean, where are these people coming from?
They are Democrats.
Bernie, they are Democrats.
That's the simplest way to explain this to people.
They are Democrats, and this is what Democrats have become.
It's the simplest way to explain it.
I mean, it's, look, I probably can't possibly be as outraged by it as you are, but I'm plenty angry about it.
And I don't know why there is not a nationwide outrage on the part of people wanting Senator Schumer to have to be made accountable for this statement.
It is just beyond the pale.
I don't know how to describe the depth of rage that I feel about this.
I mean, it's despicable.
It really is.
And the fact that people hear these things, and yet they still don't really listen.
All they do is they listen to other people telling them things that absolutely makes no sense.
But to protect this country from all of this terrorist acts and everything else that's going on right now, I mean, my God, how blind can this country be?
Well, it's ridiculous.
I don't think, you know, I was talking to some people about this yesterday, Bernie.
I don't think that there is that much apathy in the country.
I think far more people than you know, when they hear what Senator Schumer said, are in fact as outraged by it as you are.
Now, he said this on the floor of the Senate.
Grab the biting and let's hear the, this is on the floor of the Senate.
Now, I don't know, if you didn't, if you're not watching C-SPAN 2, and I don't think too many of you are, if you're not watching C-SPAN 2, the drive-bys are not going to play this.
I haven't seen this much in the drive-by media.
We found it.
We're playing it.
This is the kind of thing.
The drive-bys are going to cover the guy by not playing anything like this, but we have it, and here it is again.
Let me be clear.
The violence in Anbar has gone down despite the surge, not because of the surge.
The inability of American soldiers to protect these tribes from al-Qaeda said to these tribes, we have to fight al-Qaeda ourselves.
It wasn't that the surge brought peace here.
It was that the warlords took peace here, created a temporary peace here.
It's only a temporary peace.
The U.S. military was incompetent, couldn't protect these tribes from al-Qaeda.
So the tribes finally said, well, to hell with you, U.S. military.
You can't protect us.
We're going to protect ourselves.
It's absurd.
It's patently absurd on its face.
So much is wrong with this, but The context in which it's said is just as important as what was said.
The Democrats are doing everything they can, folks, to discredit the coming Petraeus report next week.
I want to remind you once again, they're calling it the Bush report, the Democrats are, because what they're trying to just do is discredit Petraeus saying he's just a puppet.
And this is an assault on his character and his credibility as well by saying he's just going to roll over for Bush, and Bush is going to write whatever he wants to write.
The law that the Congress passed requiring this report says that the president shall report to Congress.
And so that's why the president is doing it.
Petraeus is writing it.
And it's been, you know, it's been writing it for the past month.
This is not the kind of report you put together a couple days before it's due.
This is such an ongoing process.
It's just these comments in the context of trying to destroy the ability of the U.S. military to win the war, destroy the ability of this general, who they all voted for to do his job and to have any credibility after doing his job.
This is no different than what they try to do to judicial nominees, from Robert Bork to Clarence Thomas to you name it.
They will destroy people's lives, ladies and gentlemen.
That's the modern-day Democrat Party.
They will destroy people's lives, their character.
They'll do everything they can to ruin people in order to keep their agenda from being threatened and in order to advance their own sense of power.
Terry in St. Peter's, Missouri, near St. Louis.
Welcome to the EIB network.
Rush, God bless you.
I'm a Vietnam vet, want a bronze star in Vietnam.
I'm unequivocally outraged to keep using the treason word that is the only thing that can describe these people.
Jennifer Petraeus is an honorable man.
He's doing the job.
And I have never, I'm 62 years old.
I've never in my whole life seen anything to compare with this behavior, not even the Vietnam.
I was going to ask you, I remember Vietnam.
I don't remember being like this in my life.
I'm 56.
And I don't remember in my life, any political party being so opposed to its own country.
I have never seen it.
It is breathtaking.
I have written to Reed, especially, saying if it was in my power, I'd have him up on treason charges.
And I intend to send the same things to Schumer, to Pelosi, and to every one of these people who are, I have never seen anybody work so hard to undermine the United States.
And not only that, to bring personal discredit upon honorable people.
I lost friends, guys I used to play poker with.
Let me tell you that's not new.
I know that.
That's not, now they're doing to military people.
That's what's new about it.
That is.
That is.
And that's what concerns me.
I mean, this is the most fantastic country on the face of the earth.
We do more.
We give more.
We work hard.
And not only are they working to discredit us on the battlefield, but what they're doing, trying to do economically to turn this into a socialist state is entirely beyond the pale.
I'm at a loss for words.
You take it from here.
All right.
Well, I appreciate your call.
I tell you, the thing that I won't help you understand it.
I don't really want to help you understand it.
But an observation, nevertheless, is that the Democrats looking at this as though it's just a debate on some domestic policy, like the Social Security Reform Act or some health care provision or some such thing.
They're looking at the war in Iraq, the war on terror, as just a political issue.
They're treating it that way.
And I have to assume they know exactly what they're doing.
I have to think that they know exactly that they trashed the U.S. military.
I think the Democrat Party today is made up of so many radical leftists.
It is supported by so many radical leftists.
They are suffering from a derangement syndrome that can be traced back to the fact that they think they had the election stolen from them in 2000.
And if there is any justice, if there is any semblance of justice and standard traditional values remaining in this country, the Democrat Party today is in the midst of destroying itself in terms of credibility with a majority of the American people.
I think they're going far worse and far more dangerous territory for them than McGovern took them.
They are McGovernizing themselves.
They're trying to harken back to what they considered to be their glory years of successfully getting us out of Vietnam, which was considered to be a loss and led to a genocide in Southeast Asia.
And for some reason, they harkened back into those.
That's a glory day.
That's one of their glory years.
They're hearkening back to it now.
And they are, folks, I'm promising you this.
They are heading for a landslide defeat of magnitude proportions we haven't seen in politics.
I don't know when, but it is going to happen.
They can't survive.
A man, a living legend, a prophet, a national treasure, a Nobel Peace Prize nominee, serving humanity simply by being here, the one and only Excellence in Broadcasting Network from the Limbaugh Institute for Advanced Conservative Studies, Pat in Huntsville, Alabama.
I'm glad you waited.
Welcome to the EIB network.
Glad to talk to you, Rush.
A longtime listener.
Thank you, sir.
Schumer is a disgrace to America.
I'm a Vietnam vet, served in Korea, served my whole life in the military.
And I'm sure if he claimed he was a Vietnam vet, I bet you he was a Vietnam vet in Brooklyn and never left Brooklyn.
Well, I don't know what his military service is, but that doesn't, you know, that actually doesn't matter to me.
He is a United States senator.
He voted to confirm General Petraeus.
He is one of the elected officials who takes an oath to defend and protect the Constitution and the United States.
So whether he was a member of the military to me is irrelevant.
You don't have to be a member of the military to have a sense of their contributions and the risks and the devotion and all of it.
You don't need to be a member of the military to know that.
And I just, I think it's disgraceful.
I'm looking, folks, I'm literally amazed.
They are committing suicide.
By all rights, these kind of statements and acts are suicidal if they were widely known.
But they are not widely known.
They are widely known amongst this audience, which is significantly huge.
And, of course, the remarks may make it beyond the bounds of this audience now.
But when they start revving up like they are with the Petraeus report coming out, believe me, we are not alone here, folks.
We are not a little cadre niche of the population who is outraged by this.
There are far more than you ever know who are feeling the same kind of outrage.
Now, a little research here during the break, because the substance of Schumer's comment, and let's listen to it again.
Let's listen to it again because I want to try to counter the points that he is making here, which I really shouldn't even have to spend any time on this.
This is so outrageous.
It is just insulting and it is demeaning and it is demoralizing.
Here's what he said on the left-hand side.
Let me be clear.
The violence in Anbar has gone down despite the surge, not because of the surge.
The inability of American soldiers to protect these tribes from al-Qaeda said to these tribes, we have to fight al-Qaeda ourselves.
It wasn't that the surge brought peace here.
It was that the warlords took peace here, created a temporary peace here.
Now, wasn't the objective from the get-go to get the Iraqis to be able to take care of themselves?
Wasn't the objective to see to it that the Iraqis could provide for their own security?
The Iraqis were going to stand up, and it was time they started dying for their own country along with our guys and girls, women, that they were supposed to be able to defend themselves, which would enable us to get out of there.
It looks like the first vestiges of this are happening.
And what's happening with Senator Schumer?
He is trying to tear it apart and say, well, it's only because the U.S. military is a bunch of incompetent boobs and fools, and we got a lying president, and we can't trust anything they say.
Yet the end game, the result, is actually happening.
And Senator Schumer and his pals in the Democrat Party cannot permit one aspect of this operation to be seen as successful.
And so demean the men and women in uniform.
Demean the commander.
Demean the commander-in-chief.
Do whatever it takes to protect your investment in defeat because it is so total you can't pull back from it.
And that's, you know, they've been panicking ever since the first reports of success on this surge started pouring in.
Now, how does a counterinsurgency work?
This is the operation that is actually underway.
The surge is a counterinsurgency.
Surge is just a one-name word for it.
There's a man well known, was well known, Lieutenant Colonel David Galula.
He was a RAND consultant, and he served as a French commander in Algeria from 1956 to 1958.
And his recollections of his work have a remarkable and almost timeless resonance nearly 50 years later, striking parallels to our recent experiences in Iraq.
Now, there's an essay here from Lieutenant Colonel David Galula, and is drawn from a RAND report that he wrote in 1963.
He died in 1967, by the way.
He was very young.
We were deprived of his guidance at a time when we were becoming more deeply involved in Vietnam.
And basically, there are a series of laws involving counterinsurgency.
The first law, the objective is the population.
The population is at the same time the real terrain of the war.
Destruction of the rebel forces and occupation of the geographic terrain led us nowhere.
He's talking about Algeria, as long as we didn't control and get the support of the population.
Well, hell's bells.
The news the last three to four months has been nothing but how we have gotten the support of the population.
Hell's Bells number two.
Katie Couric went out to a farmer's market in Baghdad the other day and she was stunned.
The citizens are trading little vegetable carts and their beef and everybody's going in there as like it might as well be Gristitis in New York.
And she couldn't believe it.
And so she said, well, this is what the military wanted me to see, but nevertheless, there's signs that the surge is working.
So the population is beginning to support us and probably for much longer than we know.
The second law from Galula, the support from the population is not spontaneous and in any case must be organized.
It can be obtained only through the efforts of the minority among the population that favors the counterinsurgent.
The third law, this is where it gets really interesting.
This minority will emerge.
It will be followed by the majority only if the counterinsurgent is seen as the ultimate victor.
If his leadership is irresolute and incompetent, he will never find a significant number of supporters.
Well, Petraeus and the U.S. military are resolute and they are competent, and that is why, finally, both the majority and the minority are joining us in the counterinsurgency effort.
We're talking about the Sunnis and the Shiites.
Everybody said they would never work together.
Everybody said they couldn't get along together.
And they may ultimately not down the road when we get out of there, but they are coming together, joining us to fight Al-Qaeda because they're fed up.
We've had the stories here.
They're fed up with the barbarism of Al-Qaeda.
They're fed up with the extreme, over-the-top Islamo-fascism that's coming out of Al-Qaeda in Iraq.
And so this is all working.
And so Schumer cites these warlords deciding to stand up for themselves, blaming the U.S. inability to kill al-Qaeda.
So these warlords say, OK, fine, if you're not going to do it, we're going to...
Even if he's right about that, which is insultingly wrong, but even if he was, it's the objective.
The objective is to get these people to stand up and defend themselves, and they're doing it.
So he's got to make sure that that's not seen as anything successful.
Here's the fourth law from Lieutenant Colonel David Galula.
The fourth law seldom is the material superiority of the counterinsurgent so great that he can literally saturate the entire territory.
The means required to destroy or expel the main guerrilla forces to control the population and to win its support are such that in most cases, the counterinsurgent will be obligated to concentrate his efforts area by area, province by province.
You can't go countrywide.
You can't.
You have to go province by province.
And this is why it's going to take another year and a half, perhaps.
And it's succeeding.
Anbar, you used to not be able to go to.
Now the president can fly in there, bring his war team, his war cabinet.
Maliki can go up there, and they can have a peaceful meeting.
And it was Anbar, by the way, that Democrats were saying six months ago was proof we'd lost.
I'm telling you, folks, if any of you ever vote for Democrats with national security on the table, and you deserve whatever lack of protection we, these people are demonstrating they cannot be trusted, that they have no interest in U.S. national security, and that they do not take this enemy seriously in any way, shape, manner, or form.
And there are other enemies we face out there other than Islamofascists, by the way.
We have to keep this in mind, too.
Our only enemy these days is not a bunch of terrorists.
We've got a lunatic down in Venezuela.
We've got instability all over Central America.
Who knows what the CHICOMs might ever do?
You never know about that.
These Iranians are a whole different matter.
Who knows?
Russians are flying their bear bombers all over the place.
We are a great nation at risk in a dangerous world.
And we need the right kind of people with the proper temperament and understanding and willingness to face this threat, leading the country.
Right now, there's not one Democrat presidential candidate who inspires any confidence whatsoever in me that that threat or this series of threats will even be taken seriously.
Finally, in the fourth law from Lieutenant Colonel Galula, destruction of the rebel forces and occupation, destruction of al-Qaeda and occupation of the geographic terrain led us nowhere.
He's talking about in Algeria, as long as we did not control and get the support of the population.
Well, play 15 again.
Play cut 15.
Tell me if it sounds like we've gotten the support of the population.
The violence in Anbar has gone down despite the surge, not because of the surge.
The inability of American soldiers to protect these tribes from Al-Qaeda said to these tribes, we have to fight al-Qaeda ourselves.
It wasn't that the surge brought peace here.
It was that the warlords took peace here, created a temporary peace.
Yeah, it's not even going to last.
It's so fragile, it's not even going to last.
The warlords are not good either.
They're just a bunch of incompetence along with the U.S. military.
But it sounds to me like if the warlords, as he wants to refer to them, are standing up and defeating Al-Qaeda.
I wonder how they were able to do this, by the way.
Somebody tells, ask Senator Schumer how the hell were they able to do this?
I mean, if they've been able to do it all along, why didn't they do it at first?
Could it be Senator Schumer?
They couldn't do it until we got there.
I wonder if that's possible, Senator Schumer.
Let me ask you another question, folks.
This soundbite from Senator Schumer, on a scale of one to ten, how would you rate it as better or worse or more harmful and damaging than George Allen's macaca comment?
George Allen's maca comment, for which he lost a Senate seat, for which the drive-by media led by the Washington Post hounded him out of office.
Zilch Zero Nada on a meter compared to the outrage, the damage, the danger, and the treasonous comments here of Senator Schumer compared to maca.
And yet a Republican who utters the word macaka gets roasted, tarred and feathered out of the U.S. Senate.
The drive-by media ignores Senator Schumer's words, proving that media bias is not just what they cover, but also what they ignore.
By popular demand, ladies and gentlemen, our phones are burning.
My email lines are smoldering.
People demanding to hear it again.
Paul Shanklin and a cast of thousands.
Fastest three hours in media, and it's just racing by.
Back to the phones.
Jerry and Anaheim in California.
Nice to have you.
Glad you called.
Hi, Rush.
Rush babe on board here and totally democratized from several years ago.
Congratulations.
Thank you.
I am absolutely furious today.
I am shaking.
I heard this soundbite yesterday, and I just, I was, you know, I can't believe it.
I have called the Capitol, tried to get through to Schumer's office.
Of course, his line is busy, and they won't let you hold or anything.
So they said, anybody else?
And all I could think of was Pelosi, right?
So I left a message with her because she's from this state of California, letting her know that they need to call for his immediate apology for what he has said.
You know, he's not in the military.
He's not in Iraq.
He doesn't know anything.
He doesn't know what's going on.
All he knows is that he needs to do everything that he can to hurt our president and our military in our city.
Right, and for that reason, do you think he's going to apologize?
Well, of course not.
Of course not.
Please.
You know, he's so hateful.
That's a good word to sum them all up.
They are just hateful.
They are enraged.
And, you know, for people who get up every day, try to go through life and make the most of it.
Be as optimistic as you can.
It's hard to understand from people who are as successful as Senator Schumer and so forth, why, how anybody can be so mad, so enraged all the time.
Why would anybody want to be?
Why would anybody want to think the things that the Democrat Party today thinks?
Beyond me, folks.
Beyond me.
Quick timeout.
Back with more in a moment.
Well, I don't know what's happening out there.
Der Spiegel has a story about two Tunisian men sent home to Tunisia after five years at Club Gitmo.
Thought they'd be free.
Instead, they faced imprisonment, abuse, threats, solitary confinement.
These two guys say things were better at Club Gitmo and they'd rather go back there than stay in their own country of Tunisia.
And this is in Der Spiegel.
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