All Episodes
Previous Next
Sept. 10, 2007 - Rush Limbaugh Program
33:48
September 10, 2007, Monday, Hour #2
| Copy link to current segment

Time Text
And greetings to youth real seekers, music lovers all across the fruited plane.
Rush Limbaugh doing not a slow burn today, but a rather actively rapid burn.
As I watch what I'm watching on television regarding the Petraeus and Crocker presentation of their report as required by Congress, by the way.
These two gentlemen have been sitting there for 36 minutes and 20 seconds.
They haven't said a word.
The pontification that started it all with Tom Lantos from California has been followed by a rebuttal by Duncan Hunter.
And now Ileana Ross Leighton from Florida is uh is getting into the act.
And it's amazing to see a four-star general in full dress uniform, a man, you know, duty, honor, country, we know the oath that the military take.
A man unanimously confirmed by the Senate for his current position.
It is just stunning to sit there and watch a Democrat congressman from California essentially tell him that we're not going to believe a word you're going to say to us when you start speaking.
The man's wearing his four stars in full military dress uniform.
A man who prior to this day has been touted as the best for this job this country has.
And Tom Lantos essentially said to him, You're going to come up here and you're going to lie to us because you're being told to by President Bush.
You're going to tell us that there's progress.
And Tom Lanto says, I don't buy it.
Lantos then went on to tell, General Petraeus, that this is that maybe we can get rid of a brigade, which is like 4,000 troops.
By the end of this year, the first of next year is meaningless and doesn't get anywhere near what Congress wants or what the American people want.
This morning, ladies and gentlemen, as I was delving deep into my show prep, I kept running across drive-by stories.
Unnamed Democrat Senator in one of these stories said, No, no, no, we are not going to come out and call General Petraeus a liar.
We have our surrogate support groups to do that.
Those surrogate support groups would be move on.org, Media Matters for America, a Clinton front group bought and paid for by Hermione, George Soros, and any number of these other left-wing anti-American anti-war activists.
But I guess Lantos didn't get the memo.
Or else they just can't control themselves.
Here we've got Lantos.
We have uh 20 seconds of what he said, and this is the essence of it.
You have cut 17 standing by there.
All right, well, here it is.
The fact remains, gentlemen, that the administration has sent you here today to convince the members of these two committees and the Congress that victory is at hand.
With all due respect to you, I must say, I don't buy it.
And he went on to talk about how the um well, that's the essence.
The fact remains the administration has sent you here today to convince the members of these two committees.
Can I give you the lowdown on what the law says here?
And who, by the way, who writes the laws in this country?
People like Tom Lantos, members of the United States Congress, the report that General Petraeus might deliver today if these windbags could ever shut up.
The report that he will deliver today was required by the U.S. Congress.
And the words in the law say the president shall present to Congress.
Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
The report on the surge, whatever they're calling it officially.
Well, the Democrats know this.
They wrote the law.
But when the uh when the surge was reported as working, when there was progress, immense progress to be reported.
The Democrats started changing tune, and they came out with this notion, among many other things, that the uh the president's writing a report.
The president's writing it's the Bush reports, the Bush report.
The president is required to present it, and Petraeus and Crocker originally were not going to appear in public testimony.
The Democrats howled and screams, and the administration said, okay, we'll send them up there.
That's what you want.
And I am hoping, and I will admit even to those of you on the left who don't like God and like there is no separation of church and state, by the way, on this show, this show being the state, uh, for its three hours.
I am praying that Petraeus ends up running rings around these arrogant, condescending snobs.
These Democrats have descended further than even I, Il Rushbow considered possible.
They are nothing more than national disgraces.
It is it is just startling to watch this.
I can't describe for you the depth of rage, emotion, anger, frustration, all of those things that I feel.
When I see a four-star general in full military dress being told he's a liar, being told that he is a puppet, being told that nothing he says is going to be considered truthful, and he sits there and he doesn't flinch, stares right back at them.
I I just I laugh when a four-star, decorated four-star general in full military dress, unanimously confirmed by the U.S. Senate.
And I think last time I looked, as Duncan Hunter said uh unanimous is pretty close to a majority in the Senate.
Uh the last the the the I I look at him just not flinching.
I look at Lantos telling him that his strategy of withdrawing a brigade is nothing.
And I want to ask myself, where is the military expertise of Tom Lantos?
Who is advising him?
Has he been there?
How long ago?
I don't know, but I can tell you that the Democrats' message on this is all over the board.
Three weeks ago, you had Jim Kleiburn of the Congressional Black Caucus said, you know, if this report is good, it presents problems, us.
Meaning the Democrat Party.
You had Durban, a number of others, and House Democrats have gone over to Iraq and say, this is really working.
This surgeon Al Anbar province, six months ago, Democrats are using that as evidence that the war in Iraq had failed and was already lost, uh, is now safe.
And I want to repeat a point that I made in the previous hour of today's stirring and memorable program, ladies and gentlemen.
It's this.
You remember all during the past month, the experts told us that we can expect a Tet type offensive.
Just like happened in Vietnam, that the Al-Qaeda terrorists in Iraq, knowing full well this report was coming out, would start launching attack after attack after attack.
Nothing but bombs, bombs, blood, and guts, and burning cars and personnel carriers on the news for three straight weeks.
And then something funny happened on the way to the Petraeus report.
The Al Qaeda Tent offensive never happened.
And we would have to suggest, ladies and gentlemen, that of all weeks for such an offensive to occur, it would have been last week on the eve of this report, but it didn't happen.
Why?
Could it be that they are much weaker than we have even been made to believe?
In my estimation, no question about it.
There's no Tet Offensive, and yet the Democrats, despite the fact that they said they were going to let their surrogate groups call Petraeus a liar, opened today with Tom Lantos essentially doing it.
I want you to hear this again.
Tom Lantos in his opening remarks before the Petraeus testimony, which, 45 minutes into it, still has yet to begin.
The fact remains, gentlemen, that the administration has sent you here today to convince the members of these two committees and the Congress that victory is at hand.
With all due respect to you, I must say I don't buy it.
We'll be back after this.
Hi, welcome back.
I'm Rush Limbaugh, and this is the excellence in broadcasting that we're coming to you from the Limbaugh Institute for advanced conservative studies.
I just remembered who Tom Lantos' military advisor is.
It would be Basher Assad.
The last time he went on a foreign trip, it was with Nancy Pelosi to Syria.
Remember that trip.
By the way, here's Duncan Hunter.
I mentioned to you that he had responded to Tom Lantos.
This is how he did it.
The last week or so has been spent uh attacking your credibility with major attacks uh here in the United States, some of them emanating uh from right here.
Uh saying essentially that your testimony today is going to be, and I I quote my uh friend from California, Mr. Lantos, uh, not your testimony, but the but testimony which is written by uh quote political operatives.
Uh in fact, I know that's not the case.
I haven't reviewed your testimony, but I know this.
Duty, honor, country.
Those are the principles by which uh our great officers in the United States uh Army and the other services derive their careers and base their careers on.
It's an outrage that we've spent the last week uh prepping the ground, bashing the credibility of a general officer whose trademark is integrity, uh, who was unanimously uh supported by the U.S. Senate.
Uh so there was response to Tom Lantos by Duncan Hunter, who's also running for the Republican presidential uh nomination when he got uh when he got his turn.
Petraeus uh still not speaking yet.
It's uh we're about 50 minutes and thirty-five seconds into this.
Uh, and I it's it looks like they've taken some court of a recess.
I can't really tell with the sound down.
From the politico today, Mike Allen.
Now, this is interesting.
A well-known anti-war leader has gone public with the transcript of a private conference call that shows peace activists are exasperated with the Democrat congressional leadership and at a loss for a long-term strategy.
This call took place on August 29th.
It highlights divisions in the Democrat Party that Republicans are gearing up to try to exploit as Congress debates its response to the Petraeus report.
Republicans say that the call reflects the degree to which war opponents have failed to gain the advantage that many in both parties thought they would build over the summer.
Rabbi Michael Lerner, the editor of Taccoon Magazine, and a long ago deeply involved supporter of Hillary Clinton, posted the transcript of this phone call on Friday on the website of the Natural uh Network of Spiritual Progressives, which he is a co-chair.
The transcript shows that opponents of the war in Iraq plan to try to convince freshman Democrats from conservative districts that they might not get re-elected unless the party produces something serious in the way of resistance to the war.
But the call shows that uh war opponents are having little success because of fears about the impact on next year's elections if the party is seen as defeatist.
And I'm telling you that what's happening here, these these freshman Democrats are being called into Pelosi's office and they're being told you're gonna vote with us on these resolutions or else.
Now, I I uh folks, there's there's there's either they're being bribed or they're being blackmailed.
I don't know which it is.
Uh but clearly uh the the the anti-war activists are not getting their money's worth out of the Democrat Party.
And the Democrat Party, I mentioned this in my stirring monologue in the first hour.
Why don't we get in the reports on the numerous conference calls between Harry Reed and Nancy Pelosi with the people at Moveon.org and the Daily Cause and the rest of these literal lunatic fringe websites.
Because that's who's pulling their strings.
And who knows what they're being told, but we had stories out this morning that the Democrats were not going to personally call Petraeus a liar, going to leave it to their surrogate groups.
We've got them for that, said one identified, unidentified Senator.
Well, apparently uh the surrogate groups are not happy with that.
They want to hear these words come out of the mouths of Democrats, and so right on cue, Tom Lantos today called a four-star general sitting before him in a House Committee hearing room in full military dress, a liar with no credibility, a puppet.
Trying to discredit anything and everything that is said, I am sitting here, and I am praying that there is some sort of um.
Petraeus is a smart guy.
I'm hoping that these Democrats with this have once again opened the door right into their nose, and I'm going to be walking out of this committee hearing room this afternoon a bit bloody.
Uh if it happens, the American people will not know about it, because the drive-by media will not report that.
You remember last Friday in the second hour.
It's amazing how prescient I am, even when I don't know it.
Last Friday in the second hour of this program, ladies and gentlemen, while sitting high atop the EIB building in Midtown Manhattan.
I explained efforts last week when I had had conversations with liberals about why this country in such a few short years compared to the lives of other nations in human civilization has outrun everybody.
Why we are the greatest by far, not even close.
There is a column today in the Los Angeles Times by David Reif.
I hope he pronounces it right.
That's uh R I E F F. Guess what it's entitled?
Fading Superpower.
Like all empires before it, the U.S. will slip from the top of the heap.
Let's start getting ready.
More doom and gloom defeatism from a left.
Wing American.
They have no concept of American exceptionalism.
Let's get ready for the United States to suck is what this piece.
I don't use that word lightly, folks, as you know, when I conduct this host, this program as host, uh I try to keep my language above board as often as possible.
But sometimes you need to get expressive in order to get the point across.
In Washington these days, the people talk a lot about the collapse of the bipartisan foreign policy consensus that existed during the uh the Cold War.
But however bitter today's disputes are about Iraq or the prosecution of the so-called global war on terror, there is one bedrock assumption about foreign policy that remains truly bipartisan.
The United States will remain the sole superpower and the guarantee of international security and global trade for the foreseeable future.
In other words, whatever else may change in the decades to come, the twenty first century will be every bit as much of an American century as the twentieth.
This assumption rests in turn on two interrelated beliefs.
The first is that because no country or alliance of states has shown any great desire to challenge U.S. preeminence or demonstrated the means of doing so, no country is going to.
China's interests are regional at most, the argument goes, and the European Union's too divided, too unwilling and too weak to rebuild its once formidable military machine.
As for Russia, believers in the durability of a world order anchored in Washington exist that its declining population and excessive reliance on its energy wealth will in the long run preclude it from playing a central role in global affairs.
The second is the world needs the U.S. and appreciates the role that it plays.
Whatever the merits of this case, surely it is significant that it is most often made by U.S. policy analysts and government officials.
From Pax Romana through Pax Britannica to the current Pax Americana, empires have justified their own power by insisting they were not simply serving their own interests, but rather the common good.
Looking back at the British Imperial High Watermark in 1900, H. G. Wells wrote that the sprawling British Empire still maintained a tradition of free trade, equal treatment, and open-handedness to all comers round and about the planet.
American who grow up, Americans who grow up in believing their country's exceptionalism, are not predisposed to believe that American predominance could possibly be coming to an end.
And yet it seems more like wishful thinking than rational analysis to believe that the U.S. can continue indefinitely to play this role.
The truth is that whether it's Imperial Rome, Imperial Spain, or Imperial Britain, economic strength and political strength Have always gone together because no one denies the U.S. will decline in comparative terms economically.
The only way one can believe that geopolitics will not also become multi-bipolar.
Or multipolar is to believe the U.S. is somehow exempt from what seems one of history's few ironclad laws.
And that's not just analysis, that's faith.
It goes on.
I've no need to give you the word by word conclusions here, but this writer suggests that we are a fading superpower.
We will slip from the top of the heap.
And it's time to start getting ready.
This is exactly what I was talking about last Friday.
This is not the kind of attitude that built and maintains the greatest nation in the history of the earth, and there are active people on the left who want to destroy that.
That's exactly what we do here.
We make the complex understandable.
We've got one more audio soundbite here from Duncan Hunter responding to Tom Lantos.
By the way, Petraeus is now reading his prepared testimony.
Mr. Chairman, let's let's lead off this hearing with this stipulation.
That the gentlemen who are appearing before us, and particularly General Patraeus, whose credibility has been attacked all week long by the left in this country.
Uh represents the very best in military tradition.
But he's going to testify with an independent, candid view, and he's going to give us the one thing we ask of all of our military officers.
And that's a candid independent assessment given with integrity in the same tradition of MacArthur and Eisenhower and Schwartzkopf.
That had a that had to make a med.
Can we start with that?
He didn't say this, but if they prove they're not honorable, we'll go there.
But let's not start with the assumption that they're wires.
Let's not start with the assumption that they're just a bunch of puppets.
But that's exactly where the Democrats want to start.
Uh has has made public between Democrats and anti-war activists.
He says, right now we would write the story of this Congress's profiles in cowardice.
There's a great deal of frustration with the with the Democrats in the Congress.
A sense almost of betrayal.
And by the way, you can s you could sense that in Osama bin Laden's tape.
Osama bin Laden was frustrated last week with the Democrats.
And did you notice, by the way, that after bin Laden's tape came out, the Democrats ramped it up?
That's when they started hitting Petraeus even harder.
We know who they're responding to.
Look at it is not extreme to say that in a question of allies here, the Democrat Party is much closer to Osama bin Laden than the American people.
In terms of what they want.
Bin Laden comes out.
And Kerry was asked a question by George Stephanopoulos about, oh, Biden, Bin Laden says you're not doing your job right.
And Kerry says, Well, well, we don't have sixty votes.
George actually responded to it.
He actually responded to it from a defensive posture.
Upset that bin Laden was upset with him, perhaps.
Upset with them.
By the way, we have the real translation of that tape, ladies and gentlemen.
We had our own Arab translators dig deep into the salient points of this, and I would like to share that with you once again.
The following is an official transcript of the Osama bin Laden video.
Democrats.
Democrats of America.
The world is waiting for you to end this war.
Praise Allah.
But you Democrats haven't made a move worth mentioning.
Soros has kept me informed of your net attempts to wield power in your newly gained majorities in the House and Senate.
You have the power to end this, but do nothing.
Harry Reid.
Harry Reid Hamma.
You make me long for the good old days of Tom Dash.
May his name be cursed forever.
And though Pelosi is pretty hot for an infidel.
What am I thinking?
I have been in this cave.
For far too long.
You know, I do all I can from here.
But how can we win if you don't hold up your end of the bargain?
Don't forget.
We're a team.
We need each other to win the game.
Except for Carrie, that is.
He's a loser.
Don't you remember a disaster?
But that's the minimum in 2004.
Two thousand four.
Might as well put Mertha in charge.
I tire of cold goat and flatbread.
Hurry up.
Already following point may help you in your appeal to the American people.
In regards to the mortgage mess.
Tell the people that in Islam Ligandan.
We have no high interest home mortgage loans.
In fact, we do not charge interest in Islam.
And therefore have nothing decent to live in.
So it's a toss-up, I guess.
But we also have no taxes either.
But we can still agree to disagree on that one.
yes, Al Gore is right.
The world is getting warmer by the minute.
So So I must switch locations at this time.
Thank you for your gift of the Grecian formula.
Yours always Osama.
We hate the USA.
That was John Kerry Algore, Bill Clinton, the Reverend Zax, and the Reverend Sharpton.
All thrown in with others, of course, uh in the uh in the chorus.
You know, ladies and gentlemen, it's amazing, but Democrats, experts on the military.
They have no concept how to win.
They don't want to win, and they challenge the integrity and honor of General Petraeus sitting before them in full military dress with his four stars, and they tell him that he's come up to lie to them.
They also tell us they need to run our health care industry.
Not the doctors, not the medical professionals, not the highly trained specialists in medicine.
No, no, no, no.
Democrats need to run our health care.
People like John Edwards, the Breck girl, and Hillary Clinton.
They tell, and yet they are never questioned on their expertise.
Nobody said, Well, who the hell are you to run the health care of this country?
Who are you to determine military possible policy?
Who are you they never ever are questioned?
And we are going to stop giving them a pass on this, and we're going to stop laughing at them when they make these statements.
By the way, General Petraeus tells the Democrats what to do with their Bush report talking points.
At the outset, I would like to note that this is my testimony.
Although I have briefed my assessment and recommendations to my chain of command, I wrote this testimony myself.
It has not been cleared by nor shared with anyone in the Pentagon, the White House, or the Congress until it was just handed out.
As a bottom line up front, the military objectives of the surge are in large measure being met.
Take that, Lantos.
Pardon me, friends.
I'm I can't help it.
They have spent a week demeaning and impugning the integrity of the most gifted qualified four-star general we're told we've got for this particular mission.
They have said to his face this morning that he is a liar, that he is simply going to mouth words offered by the president.
He took it right back at them.
Now what are the Democrats going to do?
What will they do?
They'll call him a liar again is what they will do, ladies.
Exactly right, Mr. Snerdley.
They'll call him a liar again.
Back after this while I cool down with some soft music.org refers to General Petraeus as General Betraeus.
You remember, I'm sure you do, those of you that have been steady listeners for many moons, uh this program, little Indian lingo there.
This radio started the radio program started out uh being called hate radio, that it was a program for angry white men.
Uh this program was blamed for the Oklahoma City bombing.
There's a number of things.
There have been relentless assaults on uh on me personally, you too, as audience members, your mind-numbed robots.
But particularly about this hate radio business.
Can you imagine um why that term is not applied to move on.org and why it's not applied to the New York Times.
Hate activism, hate journalism.
With this ad, a a United States four-star general, who has been ordered by the commander in chief to achieve victory for his country and for his military forces in Iraq, is being called General Betrayus.
And it's all part of this uh this uh uh uh run-up to the fact that Petraeus is a liar, that he is not gonna tell the truth, that Bush has told him what to say.
And again, he said in his opening testimony it's his testimony, and nobody had seen it at the White House or the Pentagon until just before his appearance today.
There's also a piece in National Review Online today by Donald Kagan.
And I love seeing this piece because it echoes much of what I have uttered from my oral cavity on this program.
And let me give you just a concluding graph, because it illustrates something that the point that I've been trying to drill into people's heads.
You think the Democrats, the modern Democrats of today are unique in wanting to lose.
They're not.
Like the copperheads of the Civil War.
Today's defeatists have a huge investment in defeat.
And they live in dread success in the field.
That could turn in disaster for them at the polls.
In this, they would do well to understand that they are at odds with most of the American people who are tired of the war and deplore the casualties and expense that go with it.
They want peace, but not one that is an illusion and one that will not last.
Nor do they want a peace at any price that'll bring fearful consequences and disgrace.
If the defeatists of the Democrat Party have their way, that's the kind of peace we will get.
The American people will know whom to blame, and they won't quickly forget.
It's exactly right.
The American people in some numbers may want out of there, maybe war weary.
Although I've said countless times, and I will say it another countless time here.
I don't understand the weariness of most people who don't have a personal stake in it.
If you're war weary, stop watching CNN.
Stop watching ABC CBS NBC, stop watching MSNBC.
If you're war weary, stop reading the New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, and all these other papers.
If you're war weary, stop it.
Because that's why you're war weary.
Especially you who are not military families, you have no business being war weary.
There's no reason for it.
And uh Mr. Kagan is also right about this.
If we don't take care of this now, we're gonna have to at some point down the line.
How many of you don't understand that?
I I I'm sorry, I don't mean to insult you.
I know all of you in this audience do.
But I know that there are commie libs in this audience listening each and every day for talking points and how to take me out of context and misquote me.
And I regularly give them such opportunities because I love tweaking.
Them.
I'm on the verge of uh mild profanity here, folks.
Well, I was gonna say tweak their ass, but I'm sorry.
You want to bleep it, bleep it.
But I I just I'm I'm just it it's such common sense.
These these the this enemy's not going away, and they didn't first show up on 9-11.
If they're not dealt with now, especially they're on the run.
You know, this tet offensive.
This is a major, major point.
I'm gonna make it and make it again.
We kept hearing for a month that Al Qaeda was gonna have his big tete-like offensive, bloodbath.
It was gonna be the worst of the war.
Leading up to the report today delivered by General Petraeus.
Didn't happen.
Why didn't it happen?
Because they are on the run.
It's hard to launch an offensive when you are on defense.
And that's where we have them, and that makes what the Democrats are doing today and the last three weeks even more.
Abhorrent.
Back in just a second, folks.
I gotta correct myself yet again.
I was right the first time.
The New York Times poll showing people in favor of the surge is up from nineteen percent.
Uh July 20th through 22nd.
So 35% today, not 29.
The 29% was back in May, and 19% was uh was in July.
So it kept flumbling and plummeting, and then the word of the surge came came out despite the drive by his efforts to suppress it, and the uh poll numbers started going up.
By the way, Tony Snellby, our guest, first exit interview since leaving the press secretary's job of the White House, uh, was we kick off the next hour.
Here's Alan in Arlington, Texas.
Hi, Alan.
Welcome to the program.
Hello, Rush.
I just wanted to thank you for being the anchor and the mouth mouthpiece of America.
Today is has been the worst day of my life.
Up until today, 9 11 was the worst day in my life.
And as I sit here and listen to this congressional hearing, I have shaked, rattled and rolled and cried and everything else.
I can't believe our country.
What has happened to our Congress.
Uh it it's well, you know, it's not that hard to explain.
Well, I mean, the answers may be tough.
They may be tough to accept.
You might not want to believe them, but it's not hard to explain what's happened to the Democrats in Congress.
Well, I understand, Rush.
I've listened to you for 18 years, and I think you're the greatest man in this America, and I think you're one of the top five individuals that have walked this earth.
When I was in the third grade, I remember walking home from school the day that Kennedy was was killed, and I knew then right from wrong, and I cannot believe that these Democrats, not not the Democratic Party, but these Democrats do not know right from wrong.
They're evil.
Evil.
Evil.
And I don't know why Lieberman hasn't flipped and become a Republican.
Uh called being reelected in his uh Well, I don't care, but we helped him, and he uh I he needs to be on our side of the fence and get the things back to this.
Hey, hey, hey, he is on our side on this.
Well, I know, but he needs to be uh 50-50.
Uh well.
It's that look it it doesn't that that's not a big deal.
Democrats aren't able to get anything done.
I understand.
Their majorities aren't that's and that's why they're doing all this.
Their left wing lunatic fringe supporters are just livid and leading them around, you know, like like if anybody's being puppeteer, it's a damn Democrats.
▲
Export Selection