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Sept. 10, 2007 - Rush Limbaugh Program
36:26
September 10, 2007, Monday, Hour #3
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Greetings to you once again, ladies and gentlemen.
Rush Limbaugh, your highly trained broadcast specialist.
Meeting and surpassing all audience.
Why are you looking at me that way?
She's looking at me in a strange way in there.
Like, oh, no, here it comes again.
Meeting and surpassing all audience expectations on a daily basis.
Great to have you with us.
Here's the phone number if you want to be on the program.
800-282-2882.
The email address, rush at EIBNet.com.
And we welcome back to the EIB network Tony Snow, who just left the White House as the press secretary.
So now I guess, Tony, you're free to get partisan.
Well, I'm partisan anyway, Rush.
I understand that.
Have you been watching any of the hearings so far?
No, I just got out of the Oval Office, but I got back in time to see this Code Pink demonstration.
Did you see this?
Yeah, I did.
I did.
I saw the Code Pink demonstration, and I tell you, I just kept saying, if people see this, that's Democrats.
That's Democrats.
And there's Ike Skelton saying, we will not tolerate this.
Well, they just did.
We will prosecute them fully under the law.
It's a circus.
And I loved what Petraeus said.
For a week, Tony, they've been maligning this guy.
I'm sitting here in a boiling rage.
He's sitting up there at his four stars in full dress uniform.
They're calling him a liar.
Well, I don't blame you.
I started blasting today, both at our off-camera briefing and on-camera here at the White House.
The idea, you know, what's happened is that there's been good news out of Iraq, and that is just politically unacceptable to some people.
So they've decided that in the absence of the ability to ignore the facts or to change the facts, what they're going to do is to try to trash the messenger or the person responsible for many of the good facts, and that's David Petraeus.
Boy, these guys, I mean, it is just totally crazy.
Tony, they've been doing that for as long as I've been hosting this show because they can't win in the arena of ideas.
They have been trying to trash and discredit the character, the honor of anybody politically with whom they disagree because you can't beat them in an argument.
But I thought it was particularly unseemly of Tom Lantos.
He's a pretty refined gentleman.
But what he did today, opening this thing up, by basically saying he's not going to believe anything Petraeus says because he's been sitting up there, essentially, I'm paraphrasing here as a puppet with the White House.
This is in the middle of a war.
This is just, to me, it's worse than unseemly.
I don't know how you guys keep your sanity up there.
Well, simple.
You and I talked about this before.
I said, what, in July when everybody said August was going to be a nasty month, I said, we're going to have a surge of facts.
And when the facts come out, people are going to take a look and they're going to say, well, wait a minute.
It's completely different than it's been reported in Iraq.
It looks like we do have the most capable military on the face of the earth.
It does look like we have success.
It does look like freedom is the kind of ideal that people embrace.
And lo and behold, it has come to pass.
So what happens is if you maintain fidelity to your principles and to the facts, you're going to be fine.
If you allow yourself to be bent out of shape when people say crazy things, you know, then you're never going to survive.
But the fact is, if you stick patiently and faithfully to your points, again, have fidelity to the truth, you're going to be fine.
What about the, you know, I've been mentioning this a couple times today, and I want to get your take on it because I may be overstating it.
But I kept hearing all month, August, a big, big tet-like offensive from al-Qaeda to precede the appearance today of General Petraeus and Ambassador Crocker.
It didn't happen.
It tells me it's hard to be offensive when you're on defense.
They are on the run.
Yeah, absolutely right.
Well, as the president was quoted, we're kicking their ass.
I love that, by the way.
You know, the fact is, but it's not just us, it's the Iraqis.
You can't do this without help from the Iraqis.
And the one thing that people have not grasped is that the moment Iraqis figured that the Americans were not going to cut and run, that we were not going to bail on them, that we were not going to break the faith, then they said, you know what, we can go after these guys, and they're a total nuisance.
And lo and behold, in Anbar province, the tribal chiefs turned around.
And according to one of the guys that I've talked to over there, he said, basically, these guys have said, your blood and our blood are together in this fight.
I mean, they talk in deeply emotional and personal terms about what the Americans have done in terms of liberating the Iraqis to take on the bad guys, whether they be al-Qaeda or they be other terrorists within their midst.
And it's a huge thing because it means that in the battle of hearts and minds, a lot of those hearts and minds have been changed simply by the realization that George W. Bush is not going to leave them there.
Tony, I want to get political here with you on something because the Democrats have made it to that.
All weekend long, we saw Joe Biden and John Kerry and Dianne Feinstein, Dick Durbin, all claiming that Petraeus was a liar, that he was a puppet, that the surge isn't working, that it's a failure.
Harry Reid and so forth.
And nobody ever asks these people their qualifications.
Who are their experts?
Who's saying this?
The drive-bys just report this.
Who's going to question these people, Tony, about their positions on Iraq over the last 12 months?
They tell us, their presidential candidates tell us they are the best to run American health care, not the health care professionals in this country.
They, the Democrats who are invested in defeat, are the best people to run the military.
What is the White House going to do about this political?
The American people, Tony, there is spitting rage in my audience today over what's happened up on Capitol Hill today.
And how's this going to be dealt with by you guys?
And there should be.
Well, for one thing, look, there has to be a certain dignity to the office, and the idea that the president is going to get down in the mud with people who've been trying to trash David Petraeus, you do not have the president descending to the same level as moveon.org.
Inappropriate.
Now, I can do it.
I can take shots at him, and I do, and I will.
But I think what has to happen is not only will we continue to press hard and correct the record and make sure that the factual record is brought to light, but I think what's also started to happen in Russia is that a number of Republicans who had, let's face it, sort of gone into the tall grass before the August recess have come back out now, and they've seen what's going on here, and they realize the extent to which people have tried to not only politicize the issue,
but also to engage in a failure narrative that is not worthy of the United States of America.
This is a country that is embarrassed.
We didn't start the war on terror, but we cannot walk away from it.
We didn't start the hostilities when it came to going after the United States.
We're not the ones who attacked the free people or people who voted for freedom in Iraq.
Al-Qaeda had, we are the ones who have been standing up.
We have been waging the fight.
We have been demonstrating exactly what it takes to win.
And here in the United States, if you have members of Congress who are suddenly trying to engage in this smear tactic, you've got to push back.
And I'm heartened to see, for instance, Duncan Hunter having a very strong opening statement today.
You know, it is time for Republicans also to stand up and defend the honor not only the administration, but of this country.
I agree.
When I said White House, I actually meant if they're going to direct anything, RNC, the whole structure or whatever.
I mean, there's a lot of people who are people need leadership on this, and they'll respond to it.
Well, what's happened is the president has provided leadership.
Quite often, people remind him, well, the polls say X, Y, and Z. President understands that it doesn't matter what a poll says, if we walk away from our obligation to keep this country safe, nobody is ever going to forgive this White House, and nobody ever should.
And so I think you're absolutely right.
Not only is there spitting rage, but it now gets followed up by something more constructive, which is a galvanized public saying to people, will you stop rooting for failure?
This is a time to guarantee security.
The idea that people love freedom, that is not simply some sort of gauzy, happy talk.
It is, in fact, the hard reality of this world.
Countries that believe in freedom are going to be our friends.
And those that believe in despotism and tyranny, they're the ones that are going to be trying to kill us.
Well, if we don't take care of these clowns, now we're going to have to sometime down the road.
They're not going away.
And it is going to cost us far more in the way of blood and treasure than it does right now.
Absolutely right.
Every time it looks as if the United States is going to walk away, they take more risks.
They go after more people.
They try to practice terror more aggressively.
And it makes it even more difficult.
What you need to do now is continue to press the fight and make it absolutely clear that the Terror Network isn't going to win, is never going to win, and also that the American people are behind the military and behind the great principles.
What needs to be made clear, and I'm handling this.
Thank you.
I don't even know what it is, but I'll just thank you, David.
What needs to be made clear is that the ally that the Democrat Party has in this fight is Osama bin Laden.
He puts that tape out.
It's Democrat Party talking points.
They go on television over the weekend.
I laugh myself silly.
Stephanopoulos asked John Kerry to respond to bin Laden, and Kerry said in a defensive, hey, we only got 60 votes here.
We're doing everything we can.
It was literally stunned.
Look, before you go, I need to.
When is your last?
I'm serious about this.
Tony, I know you can't say it now, but when is your last day there?
Friday.
Friday.
And do you have plans that you can tell us about?
Well, I know I'm going to be out speaking.
I'm going to be doing some writing right away.
I'm going to be working on a couple of book proposals.
And then after that, I've got to sort through media stuff and boards and commissions and corporate work.
I mean, I've got a lot of options out there, but right off the bat, I'm going to take one week off, and then I'll be out speaking around the country starting the following week.
I am planning on having some pretty high-profile print stuff out as early as next week.
And trust me, I'm going to be, just because I'm leaving the White House doesn't mean I'm leaving the field of battle.
I'm going to be more engaged than ever.
Oh, I know.
That's why my opening question is going to get partisan now.
What about your health?
People ask me about this all the time, and I just want to let you answer it.
Yeah, I'm doing well, and I'm feeling great.
You know, the chemo I had that I went through that ended about a month ago, some of that really did kind of knock me for a loop, and people were looking at me and saying, man, you look terrible.
Well, I kind of felt terrible.
I'm still on chemo on what they call a maintenance dose, but it's something that's very user-friendly.
I'm growing my hair back.
I'm getting my weight back.
And I just, you know what happens when you start to regain your strength?
You just feel so good.
So I'm feeling great, and man, am I eager to get at it?
Well, that is great to hear.
It really is.
Perhaps if things work out, and if you have time, we can bring you back as an occasional member of our guest host roster, Tony.
Well, we'll see.
Snerdley mentioned it to me during the break.
You don't have to commit here.
I'm not putting you on the spot with it.
I'm just throwing it out there somebody to put in your hopper.
There you go.
That's a pretty good thing to have in the hopper.
All right, it is.
Hey, it's where it's after the Fox News Sunday, which is where it all started.
Anyway, you can go home again.
All right.
You can go home.
We love you here, and everybody is thankful for the loyalty and the great work that you've shown up there.
And we're looking forward to what you're doing when you leave.
Well, I can't wait to see you guys soon.
Okay, Tony, have a great day, and thanks for the time, as always.
Thanks, Rush.
You bet.
We'll be back, folks.
I know I've been short-changing you on your time on this program with phone calls, but we'll take care of that and discuss it.
Are other things going on in the news, but I still haven't explored all of the sound bites of Democrats securing and hoping for defeat.
We'll get to all that right after this.
Don't go away.
By the way, a little FYI for you here.
We're going to post the transcript of the interview with Tony Snow as soon as we can so the drive-by media can misquote it and take it out of context accurately.
Said some pretty tough stuff for a guy still in the White House.
So we'll have that transcript up.
By the way, just to sum up General Petraeus, the Democrats fuming today, General Petraeus told members of Congress the Iraq troop buildup had met its objectives in large measure.
Said he believed 30,000 troops could be withdrawn by next summer.
But that didn't sit well.
There was Code Pink in there.
You heard Tony Snow refer to it.
We discussed it.
Code Pink, the communist sympathizing anti-war group in this country, was in there, along with Cindy Sheehan.
She was arrested as part of the group, too.
She's either arrested in the room or near it.
It's not clear whether she was in there.
Now, how did Code Pink get in there?
We all know how Code Pink got in there.
Democrat staffers.
Democrat staffers.
There were about five or six of them in there.
And here's how it sounded.
We have the, this is the first of two soundbites.
It is increasingly apparent to both coalition and Iraqi leaders that Iran, through the use of the Qutz force, seeks to turn the Iraqi special groups into a Hezbollah-like force to serve its interests and fight a proxy war against the Iraqi state and coalition forces in Iraq.
The most significant development in the past six months likely has been the increasing emergence of gentlemen suspended, with the entire group that's back there supporting that person be removed.
The most significant development.
Just a minute, General.
Now, folks, I'm not joking here.
I'm not trying to be funny, even though I know I am.
I'm one of the most entertaining entertainers there is.
But I'll tell you this.
We have the, I've got the drive-by stories in the stack here to Democrats.
There's an unnamed senator out there saying, we're not going to call a guy a liar.
We have our surrogate groups for this.
Now, Code Pink just didn't walk in there and get tickets.
And they were all dressed up, and you couldn't miss these people looked like deranged jacks in the bucks.
Totally deranged, miserable, unhappy, fat women.
Ugly, fat women.
Thank you.
And they didn't get in there by accident.
Democrat staffers, no doubt, arranged for them to get in there and cause this little protest to call Petraeus a liar.
By the way, he was exactly right.
This has always been a proxy war with Iran.
And make no mistake about it.
I'm stunned he admitted that.
I'm glad he did because it's been one of the earliest assertions made by me on this program many, many moons ago.
Here's the second bite.
All Americans should be very proud of their sons and daughters serving in Iraq today.
Thank you very much.
Let me make this announcement.
Please remove them.
Will be prosecuted under section 1050316 of the District of Columbia, and we will prosecute them under the law.
That was Ike Skelton, the Democrat leader on the committee there.
He's from Missouri.
General, the American people don't believe you anymore.
Really?
Whose talking points are those?
That sounds just like Tom Lantos to me.
Sounds just like Harry Reid.
Sounds just like Feinstein sounds just like Nancy Pelosi to me.
Sounds just like John Kerry to me.
Democrat talking points emanating from code pink.
Not so much Democrats in the hearing.
It gets even better.
Let's go back to last Friday.
This is one of the things I was describing, the drive-by media reaction to the Osama bin Laden tape.
See, Bush has failed.
We haven't killed bin Laden.
And until we kill bin Laden, we haven't avenged the deaths of 9-11.
Until we kill bin Laden, we haven't won the war on terror.
And how can we kill bin Laden when we're in Iraq?
And that's the thought process.
They love seeing bin Laden show up.
They do.
They love bin Laden because that's the fastest way for them to point and say, see, Bush was a failure.
So, Bob Schieffer, a portion of his commentary on Slay the Nation yesterday.
When we have to ask, are we winning?
We're probably losing.
Victory is always obvious.
We haven't lost this war, but we're not winning it.
We're hanging on.
Victory would be obvious.
Iraqi families would be strolling the streets of Baghdad, and Osama bin Laden would be walking out of a cave somewhere with his hands up.
My gosh, how dumb and stupid these people are.
I'm thinking back to the Battle of the Bulge.
Did we think we were winning?
Was it obvious we were winning at the Battle of the Bulge?
No, this is preposterous, folks.
It's absolutely preposterous.
By the way, Iraqi families are strolling the streets of Baghdad, Bob.
Katie Couric discovered it last week when she was over there.
She went to a market, and people in there buying vegetables and falafel and couscous or whatever else.
And they had their little kids in tow and she was stunned.
And she said, oh, this is what the military wanted me to see, but it's still.
It was on your own network, Bob.
What you said wasn't happening is happening.
And then, of course, the swimmer was on Slay the Nation, Senator Kennedy.
Bob Schieffer said, every indication now is that General Petraeaus is going to come before Congress tomorrow, say the policy is working, just needs some more time.
How are you going to respond?
American servicemen and women in Iraq are being held hostage to Iraqi politicians.
That has never been the circumstances.
This is a cockamame policy.
We have a policy that has put on its head.
Why we are putting our servicemen and women to be held hostage, effectively, to what Iraqi politicians are going to do, and they're going to continue to lose lives over there into the future is completely unacceptable.
We are being held hostage.
American troops are being held hostage.
And this administration is playing for delay.
They want to delay this until some future president is going to be on there.
And that's completely unacceptable.
All right, a bunch of rambling answers.
I got a question for Bob Schieffer and the Democrats.
If we kill bin Laden, who is going to be your most effective spokesman?
You have to think about that.
We'll be right back.
Don't go away.
Ah, you want the truth.
You want real.
You want it is what it is.
And you are in the right place.
The Rush Limbaugh program, the man running America.
You know it, and I know it.
Telephone number 800-282-2882.
I don't know why I'm giving the phone number out.
I'm not taking any calls.
But we'll.
I mean, I'm going to get there.
But I just, I'm not, I'm not kidding.
Bob Schieffer and the rest of you Democrats, you want bin Laden dead?
You need to ask yourselves a serious question.
If you get rid of bin Laden, who will become the most effective spokesman you have for your cause?
It's something you have to consider.
And I'd also ask Bob Schieffer this.
Bob, sounded like in that sound bite that you really want victory as opposed to defeat.
So what do you propose, Bob?
What do you propose?
Pull the troops out, Bob?
Is that how you define victory?
If you think, Mr. Schaefer, that people walking in the streets without fear is victory, then let's leave the country to the mass murderers.
They'll walk the streets without fear.
I'll tell you, the idiocy that passes for learned education and understanding in the American drive-by media.
Breathtaking to behold.
So's this.
This is from a blog at the Washington Post by William Arkin.
And basically, I'll just sum this up for you.
He basically says he reviews bin Laden's tape.
He says, this guy's a communist.
And of course, yes, okay, the communists.
You get the Democrats that think bin Laden's right on the money here with his criticism of the Bush administration.
You get bin Laden and throw you get three P's in a pod here.
Same agenda.
You know, it's getting close, folks, to the point where Osama bin Laden could deliver the keynote speech at a Democrat National Convention.
I mean, they have got to see this at some point, but they don't.
Let me give you selected excerpts here from William Arkin on national and homeland security.
By the way, this guy's not a favorite, a lot of people.
He's been trashing the troops for a long time.
Bin Laden saves his vitriol for corporate interests.
He claims that the major corporations are behind a long history of American killing, the Red Indians, Hiroshima, Nagasaki, Iraq, and Afghanistan.
It's all those corporations, he said, also those corporations, he says, that have prevented the Democrat majority in Congress from changing the course of the war in Iraq.
He did.
He said corporate interest threw out that tape.
And he said, that's why the Democrats aren't able to do anything.
It sounds just like John Edwards.
It sounds just like the way socialists and communists talk about corporations in the private sector.
Big corporate interests.
Hell, all the Democrats.
Hillary Clinton wants to take all the profits of big oil.
He talks of Americans reeling under the burden of interest-related debts, insane taxes, real estate mortgages, global warming and its woes, the abject poverty, the tragic hunger in Africa.
All of this is but one side of the grim face of this global system, bin Laden says.
And then Arkin writes, I love this one.
Life of all of mankind is in danger because of the global warming resulting to a large degree from the emissions of the factories of the major corporations.
Bin Laden says that America should liberate itself from the deception, the shackles, and attrition of the capitalist system and to embrace Islam.
As soon as the war-mongering owners of the major corporations realize that you've lost confidence in your democratic system and begun to search for an alternative and that this alternative is Islam, they will run after you to please you and achieve what you want to steer you away from Islam.
So your true compliance with Islam will deprive them of the opportunity to defraud the peoples and take their money under numerous pretexts like arms deals and so on.
So Mr. Arkin says, what's with all this communist rhetoric?
Bin Laden's new message seems directed towards the Islamic, African, and Asian middle and lower classes, ripe, at least he thinks, to see corporate interests and globalization as the source of all evil in the world.
By not attacking the Middle East governments as he has in the past, perhaps he's seeking a greater following in the Arab world.
Perhaps the reason for the shift is that he anticipates victory in Iraq and Afghanistan and thus is looked.
This was not the tape of somebody who thinks they are winning.
Mr. Arkin, I don't think Mr. Arkin realizes what he's written here.
What he's written here is that Osama bin Laden sounds like Democrats, corporate interests, and Osama bin Laden by Mr. Arkin's own assertion here is sounding like a communist.
So this is a great circle to try to complete here.
The tie-in between communists, the Democrats, and Osama bin Laden.
Thank you, Mr. William Arkin of the Washington Post.
Couldn't have done this today without you.
All right, now to the phones.
Dan in Madison, Wisconsin.
I'm glad you waited, sir.
Welcome to the EIB Network.
Thank you, Rush.
Great show.
A listener since you first started.
I'm a 74-year-old conservative that lives in Metro Madison.
Yeah.
Yesterday on Meet the Press, by the way, my name is Don, not Dan.
I don't speak too clearly.
On Meet the Press yesterday, Tim Russert made a statement that I felt was unbelievable, so I verified it on the transcript this morning.
He said, can the Democrats say, excuse me, Republicans, you had your chance.
You decided the Iraq war was the way to go after the war on terror, and that was wrong.
We have a different way, a better way.
We did not go to war in Iraq for terror.
We went to replace a brutal regime.
And it was passed by over 90% in the House in 1998 and 100% agreement in the Senate.
There's a sentence that Bill Clinton made in his write-up on that Iraqi Liberation Act in 98.
I think it's worth repeating.
I read it about every month.
He said, the United States favors an Iraq that offers its people freedom at home.
I categorically reject arguments that this is unattainable due to Iraq's history of its ethnic or sectarian makeup.
Iraqis deserve and desire freedom like everyone else.
I call my senators about once a month and repeat that statement.
When did he say this?
He said it in the Iraqi Liberation Act that was passed on October.
He signed it into law on October 31st, 1998.
Okay, all right.
And in his statement.
That's right.
Now, we've played all those tapes.
We've got all the audio soundbite.
We've gone back to the newspapers of every Democrat said basically the same thing.
Right.
The drive-by media reported it, and the drive-by media amplified it.
But now the narrative is different.
The template is different.
Exactly.
And keep up the great work.
A loyal listener, very conservative.
And I thought I needed to see a psychiatrist before your station came on because I didn't think I thought like anyone else.
But then I listened to other people, millions of people, say the same thing I was thinking.
So thank you for saving me that medical bill.
Dan, thank you.
I appreciate it.
It was very nice.
I wanted one thing about Iraq, though.
It wasn't just the liberation of an oppressed people that caused us to go in there.
And this is important because just as people have forgotten how fervently for Iraqi freedom Bill Clinton and the Democrats were in 1998, so have they forgotten probably the primary reason for going into 9-11.
And let me, in explaining this, and by the way, went to Afghanistan first.
Don't misunderstand.
The first place we went was Afghanistan.
We set up bases of operations there.
We went into Iraq later.
It took us 14 months at the United Nations trying to get allies around the world to go in.
We know why now that they didn't support us, and that's because they were all on the take.
Most of them were with Saddam Hussein's oil for food program of the United Nations.
But I want you to try to put yourself in the position of George W. Bush and Dick Cheney.
And you're going along, you're cruising.
You get up on the 11th of September of 2001.
In the case of the president, you're down in Florida visiting a school.
If you're Cheney, you're in your office in Washington.
You have the TV on.
The president didn't see this till later, but Cheney's watching it.
You have the TV on, and you see the first plane hit the first tower.
Was that some kind of an accident?
You're trying to gather all the information you can, and the second plane hits that tower half hour later.
You are the president and the vice president of the United States of America.
You have one really important charge, and that is the defense and the protection of the United States of America, its people, and its Constitution.
You have just witnessed an attack unprecedented on American soil.
And then the Pentagon gets hit.
Then the fourth plane goes down in a field in Pennsylvania.
Then you realize that in Iraq, the Middle East, where there are terrorists, you have Saddam Hussein, who the world thinks and knows had weapons of mass destruction and has been bragging about building more and bigger and powerful weapons of mass destruction.
And he's lying to the U.N. Security Council about it.
And he's producing phony reports and he's kicked the inspectors out.
You've just seen your country hit.
The whole concept that I'm leading up to here is that of preemptive action.
You have somebody who is actively seeking more powerful weapons, is giving $25,000 per family to Palestinians who blow their own kids up in terrorist acts or allow their kids to blow themselves up, teach them how to do it.
And you say, I'm President and Vice President of the United States, and I just took this oath.
I'm into my ninth month here of service.
Go out and you give speeches, and you tell the American people, you're going to go wherever it takes to stop this.
This isn't going to happen again, and whoever's behind it is going to pay for it, blah, Can you sit there and just ignore the intelligence and the threats that are being boastfully made from Baghdad and take your job seriously?
I think this is what people miss about Iraq.
You go out and talk to a bunch of liberals.
They've got it through their thick heads that Bush lied about weapons of mass destruction and that they just wanted to go.
They can't tell you why he wanted to go into Iraq other than some silly reason, Halliburton and oil.
But it's plainly simple to me, and the president made this very clear, as did the vice president in their speeches about this, the need for preemptive action.
And in fact, that became a big bone of contention in a debate shortly afterwards because preemptive action, you know, people, oh, Iraq hadn't done anything to us.
Yes, they had.
Kuwait demonstrated they were on the march for the Saudi Arabian oil fields, weapons of mass destruction, and all intel agencies around the world knew it.
The idea that Bush lied.
For what?
Why go to war?
The oil?
We're already in Qatar.
Just tell them, hey, gang, we're taking over.
Your oil's ours.
Take over Saudi Arabia.
What the hell?
We defend them.
It was asinine.
It makes no sense, other than to examine it from the standpoint of here were two men who took seriously their oath to defend and protect the Constitution of the United States and the American people and the country.
Half my brain tied behind my back.
Just to make it fair, how have I done on the self-absorption scale today?
Very well.
There has been no self-absorption today.
Well, other than to tell people what I think about the news.
I know there's 10 minutes left, but I got to go to the phones.
People have been patiently waiting.
We have a disabled vet named Ed from York, Pennsylvania on the phone.
Ed, thanks for waiting and welcome to the program.
Welcome.
Yeah, back to you, too.
I enjoy hearing you.
Thank you, sir.
I do too.
Yeah, thank you.
I've heard you since August of 88, and I was a little rough on you then because I wasn't sure you were a conservative, but you are.
I'm running into people, tell me I'm too liberal for them.
It happens now and then.
You're okay.
You could be a little more conservative, but you're good.
Well, there's always room for growth.
Of course.
Hey, look at Joe Biden.
He doesn't want to be president for real.
He just wants to be emperor.
Anyway, the thing I was looking at is, you know, the media sort of is running this country, not the Democrats.
The Democrats are taking what to do from the media.
And it seems everybody's dancing to the media, and they're telling them what to do, just like they did in Vietnam.
And they're trying to screw with the country, but the country's gotten smarter for a change.
And it's starting to look at things realistically and saying, wait a minute, why are you saying these things when we see other things?
And it's not like you can tell us that red is blue anymore.
But these guys in the media are just trying to run this country and they're usurping our government.
You know, something, I wouldn't quite put it that way, but you have an excellent point in this.
It is questionable as to who gets marching orders from who here.
I mean, it really is.
The Democrats are entirely capable of giving themselves marching orders, but a liberal is a liberal, and they think alike.
And they really don't need to conspire other when they come up with these words like, Cheney brings gravitas to the ticket, and they'll all 15,000 of them use it.
Here's the real point about this, Ed.
You said it.
There are alternative points of view out there.
People no longer accept the fact that the sky is red when they're told it's red.
And that's because the drive-bys have lost their monopoly, thanks in large part to me and others who have followed.
And this causes a natural human reaction in people.
When you lose influence, lose power, and when it's been monopolistic, you don't like it.
And so you do everything and anything you can to prove to yourself you still have that power.
And that's what's going on here.
That's why all the extremism, that's why all the polls, that's why all the attempts to get us out of Iraq, that's why all the attempts to convince the American people we're losing.
The drive-bys are trying to convince people themselves that they still have that power.
And in the process, they're making it obvious where their biases are.
Democrats, of course, the same thing.
And as they fail at this, and they clearly are failing, the number of people supporting the surge and thinking it's working is rising.
The number of people supporting the original invasion, rising.
After six years, well, more like four years of a steady pummeling of America sucks.
It's Bush's fault.
Bush lied.
People are dying.
We're losing.
There's no chance of winning.
They have not been able to affect their policy like they did in Vietnam.
And that has been their objective, Ed.
You know it and I know it.
They have been trying to duplicate just so they can show themselves the power they still have to duplicate what happened in Vietnam, ditto with this administration.
They have been doing everything they can to convince this administration of the American people that this administration is Nixon and Watergate because those are the days of their greatest glory and they are trying to recapture them for themselves to prove they still have the power.
And as they do this and as they realize they don't have the monopolistic power that they used to have, they are going to continue to get even more extreme and more outrageous to prove to themselves they have this power.
In addition, I'm not saying that they're not motivated by true beliefs.
They are.
That's the second part of the equation.
But it used to be they hid them.
They wanted to put forth this notion that they were objective and fair and all that sort of stuff.
That's gone out the window now.
So you're very clever to observe that.
And I'm glad you called.
I appreciate it.
August of 1988, and I've finally proven to him that I am conservative.
Could be a little bit more.
And we're always working on it.
Quick time out.
We'll wrap it up after this.
You know, in a just political environment, these hearings taking place in the House right now of General Petraeus and Ambassador Crocker would be enough to nullify any future electoral victory on the part of Democrats.
What has happened up there today, ladies and gentlemen, so far is a complete disgrace and a total attitude, assaulting and impugning the integrity and character of a four-star general sitting in full-dress uniform by telling him before he's even testified that his testimony is a lie.
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