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Dec. 2, 2009 - Rush Limbaugh Program
36:43
December 2, 2009, Wednesday, Hour #1
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Welcome to today's edition of the Rush 24 7 podcast.
All right, admit it, uh folks, nobody really knows what to think about this speech until I weigh in on it, right?
And I mean, you're all, even though you all have your opinions.
The most often asked question across the country this morning is, well, what is Rush think about it?
Well, I thought it was incoherent.
I thought it was incoherent because his policy is incoherent.
He didn't even announce a policy other than to get out of there.
This is all about satisfying it's all political.
The whole thing's he didn't use the word victory.
He didn't talk about winning anything.
He talked about bringing it to a successful conclusion.
But what do you what's the conclusion?
Greetings anyway, my friends, Rush Limbaugh here, the EIB network and the Limbaugh Institute for advanced conservative studies.
The telephone number if you want to join us, 800-282-2882, the email address, L Rushbow at EIB net.com.
If there's a policy for the use of these troops, we didn't hear it last night.
Now, normally when presidents announce military action, they don't give away the game plan, but they are at least as some inspiring motivation to send the troops off to war to explain what the objective is.
I don't know what the objective is.
I mean, I know what it should be, but I don't know that we heard the objective last night.
What we heard as far as you have to know how to listen to Obama.
You have to know how to listen to liberals.
And I do.
And this speech last night was all about placating as many sides of the political spectrum as there are.
The last thing it was about was military victory.
And you could tell by looking at the faces of the cadets that they thought the same thing.
And man, did they assemble one diverse group of cadets?
I mean, I saw it all.
They were all there, those that were awake.
The senior military people, I mean, they had looks on their faces that that that uh you could tell Douglas MacArthur wasn't in the building.
You could tell Ike was not in the building.
This speech, in fact, from a from a from an Obama supporter point of view, uh, they probably loved it.
It was a it was it was a relic of the campaign speech, a soaring he read the teleprompter well.
But it was it was typically dead.
There was no emotion.
There was no inspiration.
He used the word I 36 times.
He placed a cost on national security.
We're gonna scrutinize the cost of war versus our budget deficit, more than that we've ever done before, and I'm gonna work with Congress very hard on the you don't.
There's not a price to U.S. national security.
This is a rounding error what we're spending here compared to what he spent elsewhere in the federal budget.
It was just it was incoherent.
But if you if you're looking for uh a sign that this guy's gonna do the right thing by sending some troops, and there are many people on our side who are saying, all right, well, you know, he sent some troops, he finally came to the right conclusion.
We're gonna go back.
He could have he looked bored last night because he gave the speech in March.
I went back and looked at it.
I've got it here in the snack.
The same speech.
In fact, he was more committed to success in Afghanistan in March than he was last night at the United States Military Academy.
He had far more powerful things to say.
He had far more damaging and critical things to say of Al Qaeda.
But uh we we he didn't talk about victory, because remember, he said he's uncomfortable with the concept of victory.
He has said this.
And in Obama's world, and I cannot I know some of you are not gonna like this, but if you haven't learned yet not to doubt me, learn now.
Do not doubt me.
Barack Obama believes Al Qaeda has a point.
Barack Obama believes our enemies have a point.
He even admitted, again, last night, our mistakes.
National mistakes, targeting the Bush administration, apparently lying about Rumsfeld denying troop requests from 2001 to 2006.
Rumsfeld has issued a statement.
What do you mean, Rush?
In Obama's world, America is guilty.
Or was until he was elected.
America is unjust.
America is immoral.
America has plundered the world and stolen resources for our own selfish capitalistic use.
Don't forget, in one of Obama's books, just as an aside here, when he's talking about the first job he had in the private sector, he felt like he was behind enemy lines.
He doesn't like the private sector, just like Chris Matthews last night referred to West Point as the enemy camp.
He referred to Obama going into the enemy camp, the United States Military Academy.
And people are livid and outraged by that, as they as they well should be.
You're not livid and outraged by it.
Well, well, you sh of course he told the truth about what he thinks, but it's an outrageous truth.
Why should we be why should we okay?
You want to praise him for being honest, fine, but the United States Military Academy is not the enemy camp.
The enemy camp MSNBC.
The enemy camp is the White House right now.
The enemy not to us, for the country.
The United States Military Academy is in no way the enemy camp other than to these people.
And it is quite instructive that they say so.
As they panic, they get more honest.
As they panic, and as they acquire more power, they become more hateful.
Now, Al Qaeda has a point.
Our enemies have a point.
Obama has run around the world apologizing for this country at every every chance, and he did so again last night.
And we've made some mistakes.
Fix them.
Whatever he said.
They have a point.
You know, America's done some pretty horrible things.
He we're not gonna torture.
Oh, I'm sure the cadets love that.
He did just he just slams the Navy when he talks about torture at Guantanamo because that's who runs Guantanamo.
The Navy runs its naval base.
So and he's sending some of these people in that room last night and maybe deployed.
They're all in the they're all gonna be graduated as officers.
And uh I'm telling you, that's that's there was no, I don't know what the strategy is, but Crystal obviously has one.
Here's his question for him.
Remember now, all during the Iraq war, the Democrats and Obama said Afghanistan's where we ought to be.
Afghanistan's where we dropped the ball.
Afghanistan, Afghanistan, Afghanistan.
They didn't really mean it.
That was just a way to make their political attack on Bush and on Iraq.
And during the Iraq surge, remember Betraeus was a liar before he said a word.
It wouldn't work.
This war has lost, said Harry Reid.
A surge, it won't work.
Obama said the surge won't work, and even after it has worked, Obama denies that it's worked.
And so one might say, well, if it didn't work in Iraq in his perverted, polluted mind, why is he doing one in Afghanistan?
But then is it a surge?
Or is he just sending these people over there to stand around and make sure the Taliban doesn't take over the cities?
Most of them are gonna go Kandahar and Kabul.
I mean, that's where their Kandahar is really the hotspot over there.
I was I've been to Kandahar, and it's a southwestern region of the of the of the country.
And that's where a lot of the warlords are holed up, and I mean it's it's pretty testy there, and it's close to the border with Pakistan.
So, what are we gonna do?
The troops gonna stand in order, the rules of engagement.
We've had phone calls from military personnel the past week on this program.
The rules of engagement are pretty uh tight.
They're pretty tight.
So, what we have here, we have 30,000 troops when the original request was 80, the original was 80.
That was the optimum.
Forty was okay.
Twenty, it doesn't matter.
So we're at 30.
We're at three.
What is the policy?
What is the plan?
We got broad philosophical terms.
We've got the the word I used 36 times.
It took three months to conceive, sending 30,000 troops.
The cadets were used as pawns.
You could see half of them either falling asleep or trying to keep their heads up so they wouldn't nod off.
Their applause was sporadic and enthusiastic, and the only time, the only time that there was real robust applause was when Obama started sounding what today are traditional conservative values, like freedom.
When he sounded Bush like near the end of the speech, that's when the audience came alive.
And I knew when the left is watching that segment, that's what they hated.
They hated that moment when the audience comes alive with the concepts of freedom being mentioned.
Now, okay, the snerdly just sent me a little prof note here on the on the timing of the withdrawal, 2011.
Summertime 2011.
But now that see, now, see, here's something else, Snodley, you need to know this.
During the speech last night, Obama did say, I'm gonna send them over there.
We're gonna bring it back.
Summertime 2011.
Just in time for what?
The elections.
Satisfying his left word base, provided the conditions on the ground are whatever.
Now he mentioned that.
Now today, like the AP has a story, administration officials now running out across the country selling the speech, selling the plan.
Victory is not something you ought to have to sell.
So victory is not what they're selling here, folks.
Nobody has to sell the United States winning, but he didn't talk about winning.
He didn't use the word victory.
And if you have to run around and sell whatever that was last night, then you know you've got problems.
And one of the things that Gates, the Secretary of Defense, is saying, at 2011 thing, a 2011 thing, that's totally dependent.
That totally, that's not a hard and fast date.
They're all out there saying that now.
So the speech last night, nobody's gonna hear that.
What they heard last night, we're getting out of there in 2011.
And the question is why go in the first place?
Yeah, you go in the first place because you politically can't afford not to.
You get out in the first place because that's the most politically advantageous thing for you if you're president and your re-election is uh is coming up.
See, here's this is not a campaign.
This is not a persuasion seminar.
This is life and death.
The president of the United States is ordering people and deploying people into a war zone.
And God knows if they know what they're supposed to do.
God knows if they know what their objective is.
And this is all treated uh as, you know, a speech to the nation on selling social security reform or whatever health care.
There was no passion here, it was professorial.
I'm sure the cadets said, My God, I just took notes on this today.
We have to get another class here.
I thought the president was coming up to speak to us.
It was a classroom lecture by a community organizer.
And in that context, I found this whole thing appalling.
It was he read the teleprompter better than he has in months.
There's no question about that.
And he had the godlike glance, you know, looking up over the teleprompter and everybody, and they made sure there was reverb and echo in there, so that he sounded godlike or out of this worldly.
He's being praised.
The usual pundits are saying he can't please the left or the right, which means he must be doing something right.
Some are saying he has more Republican support than supporting his own party, and he probably does.
Republicans are interested in victory and they think that's what this is about, but I don't.
Uh it this is treated as a game last night, a political game, just the next step and the political progression of Obama's takeover of this country.
It was all nonsense.
Now, Afghanistan was rightly said to be crucial.
The liberals used to say that it was crucial when they were undermining us in Iraq.
They said we should focus on Afghanistan.
So now they have their president, they run the military.
We're pulling out of Iraq, and what are they doing?
They're pulling out of Afghanistan.
They're saying, it's just not that.
The left is complaining he's not pulling out fast enough.
But forget them because the left has never seen a war worth fighting or a war worth winning.
The left is dangerous to the nation.
They always have been, they always will be, but that does not mean Obama's not pulling out, which he is.
And he announced it.
You just don't do this.
Wait till you hear some of the audio sound bites from the state-controlled media.
They don't think it made any sense last night.
Why would you, Bob Schaefer?
Why would you tell anybody when you're leaving?
All they gotta do is Sit around and wait for you to leave and tell anybody that lives there that if you help the Americans when they pull out, you're dead.
We're gonna burn you and hang you in the in the streets.
We're not gonna have any allies for the time we are there.
This is pure sophistry.
And then to put a price tag on it.
Folks, I don't know about you, I was insulted by this.
I was profoundly insulted.
I was not impressed with how well he read the teleprompter.
I was not impressed with the soaring rhetoric and the so-called oratory.
The enemy now knows to hold on.
The enemy knows to threaten villagers.
That they are going to be around forever when the Americans are going to leave.
You better be allegiant to us.
So Obama's sending in these 30,000 troops not to win anything, but to lay the foundation for pulling them all out.
And the other troops that are there, not just these 30,000.
This is the policy of a left wing politician, not a serious commander in chief, who leaves the strategies to the experts.
When it is said, and I heard this this morning and some last night that he can't please anyone.
We're not talking about pleasing anyone.
It's a war for crying out loud.
There's a goal in warts to win it.
We win, they lose the hell with pleasing people.
This is what I mean.
The Al Qaeda has a point.
Why we have a policy that supports Israel and they don't like Israel.
No wonder they're mad at us.
They have a point.
That's how he views the world.
It can't please everyone.
We're looking at this to a political prison.
This is a war.
The goal's to win it.
Those who oppose victory are not morally equivalent to those of us who support it.
There's no this is the thing that frustrates me the most.
There is no moral equivalence between victory and defeat.
Just because somebody wants to lose does not mean they have an equal morality right to sit at the table and debate this.
We're not about losing.
If we're gonna lose, don't send the troops.
The people on the left are wrong about this, and we are right, and we don't have to worry about how they feel.
It's not a strategy for winning anything.
Obama did not use the words victory or win.
Now here's what is victory, Rush?
What is victory?
Come on, folks, or we've descended to the point that we're gonna argue with ourselves over what victory is.
I'll tell you what it is.
Victory is preventing our enemy, which killed nearly 3,000 Americans on 9 11 from using Afghanistan again to hit us.
And it was the Taliban that gave Al Qaeda the safe haven that they needed.
I gotta take a break.
I'm not through, but I gotta take a break.
The nation waits until 12 noon Eastern every day to find out what's really going on, and let me wrap this up here about the speech last night.
You do not, if you're serious about winning, you do not create artificial deadlines like this.
18 months, why not 20?
Why not seventeen months?
At no time last night did President Obama explain why 18 months.
At no time did he explain why 30,000 troops rather than 40, rather than 60 rather than 80, and no time last night did he say how many additional troops our allies and NATO would add.
We say we learned today they're adding 5,000.
He simply said they would because they've not committed to 10,000 more troops.
On top of all of this, most of the speech had nothing to do with Afghanistan.
Do you realize that?
Most of the speech had nothing to do with Afghanistan.
Most of it was another patronizing lecture about America, about the failures of his predecessor, exactly as I predicted, by the way.
About the failures of past policies.
At least three dozen references to himself, how I did this, how I did that and so forth, and how the nation I really want to build is our own, while he is in the process of tearing it apart.
Near the end, he had a few kind things to say about his country.
He did talk about freedom, and that is when the cadets came alive.
But it was almost as though it were an afterthought.
Now I understand why some conservatives and libertarians are saying, look, Obama has no intention of winning the war, so we need to get out now.
That will not make the nation more secure.
What we need to do is keep up the pressure.
We need to keep uh making the case, not because of Obama, but because of the security of the country and our troops.
If Afghanistan is not the right place to take a stand as the launching base for 9-11, then where is it?
Because I'll tell you it involves a lot more than Afghanistan.
And we're talking about getting out of the war on terror.
I was actually surprised, ladies and gentlemen, that he used the word terrorism a couple times last night because his own administration has banned it.
Remember that?
There's no such thing as a war on terrorism, yet he used it twice last night.
Had to be a withn a slip of the tongue because somebody wrote it and put it on the teleprompter.
Rules of engagement.
Are we gonna now these 30,000 troops, are they gonna be given information, instruction on how to memorize the enemy?
Given they might end up in civil trials in America.
We'll be back, Staples.
And we're back, Rush Limboss, serving humanity simply by showing up here on the Excellence in Broadcasting Network.
Now let's go to well, before we go to the uh the media reaction, uh, one story here, July 15, 2008.
Uh Obama says Afghanistan is a war that we have to win, contending that the U.S. is not pursuing a sound strategy.
This is July 15, 2008 now.
This is the presidential campaign.
Contending that the U.S. is not pursuing a sound strategy for keeping Americans safe.
Barack Obama said Tuesday that fighting Al Qaeda and the Taliban in Afghanistan would be his top priority after ending the war in Iraq.
This is a war that we have to win, Obama said in remarks prepared for delivery at the International Trade Center in Washington.
In a major speech on Iran and national security, Obama said he would also secure nuclear weapons and materials from terrorists and rogue nations, achieve true energy security, and rebuild the nation's international alliances.
None of this has happened.
It's all worsening.
By any measure, our single-minded and open-ended focus on Iraq is not a sound strategy for keeping America safe.
In fact, as should have been apparent to President Bush and Senator McCain, the central front in the war on terror is not Iraq.
It never was.
It's Afghanistan.
That's from the presidential campaign, July 15, 2008.
Contrast that to that wet noodle speech that we got last night.
Well, it was.
It was a wet noodle speech.
It was nothing about winning.
There was nothing about how desperately important it was focused on withdrawal, which means it was purely political.
It's no different than if Coach Mike Tomlin brings the Pittsburgh Steelers in on Friday and says we're only going to play the first half gang on Sunday against the Raiders, and then we're going home.
And we're going to announce it.
The Raiders are going to be the only team on the field in the second half.
Sometimes you have to convey things via an analogy.
And from Der Spiegel, an opinion piece by Gaber Steingart.
Searching in vain for the Obama magic.
Never before has a speech by President Barack Obama felt as false as his Tuesday address announcing America's new strategy for Afghanistan.
It seemed like a campaign speech combined with Bush rhetoric and left both dreamers and realists feeling distraught.
One can hardly blame the West Point leadership.
The Academy commanders did their best to ensure that the commander-in-chief Obama's speech would be well received just minutes before the president took the stage.
The gathered cadets were asked to respond enthusiastically to the speech, but it didn't help.
The soldiers' reception was cool.
One didn't have to be a cadet on Tuesday to feel a bit of nausea upon hearing Obama's speech.
It was the least truthful address that he has ever held.
He spoke of responsibility, but almost every sentence smelled of party tactics.
What this guy is saying is that we got an Alinsky speech last night.
We got a community organizer speech last night.
Obama demanded sacrifice, but he wasn't able To say what it was for exactly.
An additional 30,000 U.S. soldiers are to march into Afghanistan, and then they'll march right back out again.
America's going to war, and from there it'll continue ahead to peace.
It was the speech of a Nobel War Prize laureate.
For each troop movement, Obama had a number to match.
U.S. strength in Afghanistan will be tripled relative to the Bush years, a fact that is sure to impress the Hawks in America.
But just 18 months later, just in time for Obama's re-election campaign, the horror of war is to end and the drawdown will begin.
The doves of peace will be let free.
The speech continued in that vein.
It was as though Obama had taken one of his old campaign speeches and merged it with a text from the library of ex-president Bush.
Extremists killed in the name of Islam, he said, before adding that it is one of the world's great religions.
They have a point.
He promised that responsibility for the country's security would soon be transferred to the government of Hamid Karzai, a government which he said was corrupt.
The Taliban is dangerous and growing stronger, but America will have to show our strength in the way that we end wars.
He said that.
We will have to show our strength in the way that we end wars.
He also opened an avenue to negotiation with the Taliban.
If they wanted to join us.
It was a dizzying combination of surge and withdrawal of marching to and fro.
The fast pace was reminiscent of plays about the French Revolution.
Troops enter from the right to loud cannon fire, then they exit to the left, and in the end the dead are left on stage.
Obama's magic no longer works.
The public was more disturbed last night than entertained indeed.
One can see the phenomenon in a number of places in recent weeks.
Obama's magic no longer works.
The allure of his words has grown weaker.
It's not he himself who has changed, but rather the benchmark used to evaluate him.
For a president, the unit of measurement is real life.
A leader is seen by citizens through the prism of their lives, their job, their household budget, where they live and suffer, and in the case of the war on terror, where they sometimes die.
Political dreams and yearnings for the future belong elsewhere.
That was where the political charmer Obama was able to successfully capture the imaginations of millions of voters.
It's a place where campaigners, particularly those with a talent for oration, are fond of taking refuge.
It is also where Obama set up his campaign headquarters in an enormous tent called Hope.
In his speech on America's new Afghanistan strategy, Obama tried to speak to both places.
It was two speeches in one.
That is why it felt so false.
Both dreamers and realists were feeling distraught.
The American president doesn't need any opponents at the moment.
That is Gabor Steingart from Der Spiegel.
And let us now go to the audio sound bites for reaction from state-controlled media.
First Chris Matthews last night on MSNBC's coverage said this.
I watched those cadets, and I didn't see much excitement, but among the older people there, I saw, if not resentment, skepticism.
I didn't see a lot of warmth in that crowd out there that the president chose to address tonight.
And I thought that was interesting.
He went to maybe the enemy camp tonight to make his case.
I mean, that was that's where Paul Wolfwitz used to write speeches for.
Back in the old Bush days.
That's where he went to rabble rouse the we're going to democratize the world campaign back in uh in 02.
Uh so I I thought it was a strange venue.
Well, I thought it was a strange venue, too.
This is a speech that should have come from the Oval Office.
It was a strange venue.
But here you have it, folks.
I mean, there from the mouth of Babes comes the truth.
There's Chris Mastius, uh, Chris Matthews, the West Point.
I is the enemy camp.
Enemy camp.
Paul Wolfowitz worked there.
Wolfowitz!
Paul Wolfowitz wrote his rawa speeches there.
Democratize the world speech.
I thought it was a strange venue.
Why go into the enemy camp?
The enemy camp.
Yes, Mr. Snerdley, what is the Well, yeah, democratizing the world is a bunch of crap to these people.
Look at Howard Dean's out there saying democracy, hell it at socialism.
The enemy camp.
Strange venue for the commander-in-chief to go to the United States Military Academy to tell the cadets and the brass there about a plan to uptick the war in Afghanistan, a strange venue.
As they acquire more power, they get more hateful.
They acquire more power, they become more honest.
Last night on CBS coverage, Katie Kurick spoke with Bob Schaefer after the speech.
She asked Bob Schiefer, how convincing do you think the president was tonight in terms of supporting his decision?
The president always makes a very eloquent speech, but we'll look back on this and say this was the defining moment of the Obama presidency.
This was the night when Barack Obama took full ownership of the war in Afghanistan.
What the comment on this speech is going to be all about is the strategy itself.
How do you, on the one hand, say we need to send these troops over there?
It's critical.
This is in our national security interest to do this.
But then say, uh, but we're only going to keep them there for 18 months.
We're going to start to withdraw them.
I just don't understand uh the logic of how that works.
But isn't it a double?
I don't understand how you can set a deadline.
You know, this is not a football game where there's a clock where the time runs out.
To win this war, you have to defeat the enemy.
How can we say in the beginning uh that we're going to do that when we we don't know what's going to happen?
That's classic.
We got to keep that in the archives forever.
So Bob Schiefer on CBS, it doesn't make sense.
Katie.
It doesn't make sense.
Look at this is right up there with the Brokov bites.
Oh, don't really know much about Bar Obama.
Books he's read, uh, people.
The defining moment of the Obama presidency.
But gosh, it just makes no sense.
The defining moment of the Bush presidency according to CBS makes no sense.
He's right.
It doesn't make any the surprising thing to me is that Schiefer wants to defeat the enemy.
Uh what's that, Sterley?
Well, I know he's a world he's a World War II guy, but but but uh well, okay.
Maybe I'll rethink that.
David Gurgen is also in crisis.
David Rodham Gurgen, in crisis, CNN special decision Afghanistan.
After Obama spoke, Anderson Cooper spoke with David Rodham Gurgen.
Can he have it both ways?
A troop increase, and then kind of announcing a withdrawal.
I don't think he succeeded tonight in doing the most important thing he hoped to do, and that was to rally the country to heal the wounds and rally the country behind him.
I just don't think it happened.
Uh we've given too little credit to the president, the people around him in developing this policy.
They understand this extremely well.
One could not always say that about the Bush administration sometimes when it when it went to war.
They do have a sophisticated approach.
I don't think they explained it very well.
It's not as crazy as it sounds at the beginning.
You talk about tortured.
You talk about torture.
This is a guy bending over backwards, forwards, sideways to praise this thing.
They're smart, they're fighting really smarter than the Bush administration.
Oh, yeah, sophisticated, much smarter than Bush.
But the strategy is nonsensical here, uh, Anderson.
But you send the cavalry in and you take them out.
I think he can pull them off.
I really do.
It's not as crazy as it sounds, but it's crazy.
It's sophisticated nonsense out there.
I'm really smarter than the Bush people.
I think they don't really know what they're doing.
The speech didn't quite make any sense.
You're gonna say, I mean, it does make sense, but it didn't make sense.
You're gonna send the cavalry out there and you're gonna bring them back in.
I think it's not as crazy as it sounds, but it's crazy.
That's a translation of what you just heard.
You know, if this uh that's a good good point that H.R. just made to me.
If this Gabor Steingart guy from Der Spiegel is right, just by itself, it's kind of interesting that the commandant of cadets would have to go out there and tell a cadets now make make sure that you uh are robustly applause the president when he comes out here.
You gotta tell a cadets to do that, then there's an underlying problem.
Now, folks, let's go to perhaps the uh the reigning smartest uh conservative in the room, David Brooks, last night on uh PBS with Jim O'Wara, uh Obama didn't say get out.
It's a way of going to war in a way that's quite limited, and I'm not sure I've ever seen a country go to war in this fashion.
but it's gonna be what we're gonna try.
Did you have a sense that uh that history was being made?
Because this no president has ever done this before and said, okay, we're gonna we're gonna escalate.
We're gonna escalate toward a conclusion by a date.
Yeah, and I I really don't know what to make of it because it'll be some comfort to the skeptics of the war.
But how will the people in Afghanistan feel?
How will the government feel?
How will the Taliban feel?
That's sort of unknown to me.
The other big gap in the in the speech I thought that I'm so waiting for is how exactly are we gonna fight this war.
Now remember, this is a guy who loves the crease in Obama slacks.
I mean, he really has a good tailor, it's very sophisticated.
So all these all these people are in the tank for Obama are just confused.
You note, ladies and gentlemen, the only people not confused are you and me.
I How are the Taliban?
Well, I can tell you how the Taliban are gonna feel, but I frankly don't care how they feel, but I know what they're gonna do.
They're gonna sit around and they're gonna terrorize the villagers, and they're gonna say, Look, the Americans are gonna get out of here in 18 months.
We're gonna be here after they leave.
You choose sides right now, and we'll be watching.
That's what's gonna happen.
We're gonna have no allies, we're gonna get no cooperation like we had in Iraq in the surge there.
We're not gonna get anything like that.
Uh, I don't know how the Taliban feels about this.
Uh, first you never said a country go to war like this before.
I really don't know what to make of it because he's such a smart guy.
Uh, Obama's such a brilliant sophisticated guy, and I really don't know what to make of it.
Maybe I'm not smart enough to figure it out, Brooks is saying.
And then Jim Lara doing his level best to promote this.
This is incredible.
History being made?
No president's ever done this before.
Wow.
Wow, we're gonna escalate, but we're gonna escalate toward a conclusion by a day.
Wow.
Trying to make this what?
FDR es or Churchill asked.
I mean, Churchillion, what it's it is just I I have the greatest time listening to these pointy-headed, know nothing intellectuals wring their hands over this and try to make sense of their smart buddy, their elitist fellow Ivy Leaguer, just making a fool of himself.
Uh, I don't know what to make of it.
Well, it's uh never seen the dog before.
Uh well, it uh it's crazy can work.
I don't think it's gonna work.
It's crazy to send a cavalry in there and pull them back out.
I don't know, it's like a telefootball game.
Uh smart guy, though.
They're far more sophisticated than Bush people.
We gotta give a minute, but boy, uh, I don't know, I guess it could work, but I don't think it can.
To the phone, Sandy in Peachtree City, Georgia.
Welcome to the EIB network.
Hey, Rush, how are you doing today?
Very well, thank you.
I'm just calling to say I have uh an enemy combatant at the U.S. military academy, and I've got a yuck there.
And uh it's sort of funny, and I haven't heard from him yet for the um talk last night.
He must have had classes, but when he was home over at Thanksgiving, we were teasing him about how he was gonna be able to um see Obama, his second president, since he's been at the academy.
And he just said that the cadets he wasn't looking forward to it.
The only thing he was looking forward to is that he might get out of class.
But he said when Bush came last January, they couldn't contain the excitement that Bush had a prolonged standing ovation, that they hooped and hollered for him, and that the cadets were just so excited.
And when I was watching it last night, I just noticed a lot of polite applause, and I almost wonder if they were cute on when to applause, because if you noticed it started with a trickle of applause and then it it grew in strength.
And uh I sort of found it funny too that they were falling asleep.
For anybody to come in and to change their routine is exciting for these cadets, and for them to speak, haven't a lot of them with their eyes closed, they just sort of thought that was sort of funny.
Well, I don't know about screw it every day.
Obviously, screwed with their routine, but it didn't get them out of class.
I don't think they're in class at eight o'clock at night.
They might no, that they were hoping he he was the my husband said he was terribly disappointed because he had to go to class all day.
The speech was not about him.
No.
Not about them, it was about him.
I I remember the rousing uh reaction President Bush got.
Well, look at military people know who's in their camp.
Military people know who's in their corner, they know who's not.
But look at the Gabor Steingart, their Spiegel, says in his piece today that the commandant had a reminder of cadets to greet the president formally.
Now, I'm I'll tell you if you have to, if you have to tell the troops to be nice to the president, I mean you connect the dots on that, folks.
Just got this email rush.
I watched the Raw feed last night at Foxnews.com so I could look for my two cadet sons in the audience.
I was not surprised to hear the commandant tell the cadets when to act enthusiastically when appropriate, and to remind them that they not act in a political manner.
So the cadets were reminded to act enthusiastic.
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