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March 4, 2014 - Rush Limbaugh Program
35:22
March 4, 2014, Tuesday, Hour #3
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You got Soundbite 24 standing by?
That's good because that's what's coming.
Not, yeah, not 23, 24.
All right, here we are, folks, back at it.
Fastest three hours in media.
Feel like I'm just now starting.
Telephone number 800-282-2882, the email address of rushboardeibnet.com.
And I promise we're going to get to the phones in this hour as soon as I can.
I've just got to follow through on some of the commitments that I was talking about here.
Now, anyway, this whole idea of where we are now with Ukraine, make no mistake about it, the Russians have their own PR operation in this country shaping events.
There's no question that they always have had.
Whether it is the Soviets or the Russians, they do.
But here's the truth of the matter is this, folks.
Forget this moral equivalence business.
Forget this idea that we're no different than the Soviets or the Russians, and that if they can go take Ukraine, why it's what we did in Iraq, you've got to reject that because we are not them.
We never have been.
There are no similarities like the left would like you to believe.
It's one of the most damaging things that's been done in the name of education in this country that that whole idea that we're no different, in fact, that we are the destabilizing agent in the world, is really damaging in terms of its effect on the American people and their understanding of these events.
Now, we're at a point here in Ukraine where we're not going to send military troops in.
We're just not going to do it.
Those days are gone.
We aren't going to do it.
We don't have a leadership committed to that anywhere that it matters.
Obama's doing his best to just basically in Afghanistan tread water and then get out of there.
Got out of Iraq.
He likes to talk big and think he scares people, but they're just laughing at him.
Bashir al-Assad's laughing at him.
Putin's laughing at him.
And they're laughing at us when that happens.
So you say, well, what do you do about it?
Well, it's a teachable moment.
You don't want things like this happening.
If you're going to make an agreement with Ukraine like we did, if you're going to sign an agreement that requires them to disarm and denuke after we promise that something like this will not happen, we're guaranteeing their safety if they'll get rid of their military.
That's essentially what happened.
Clinton signed it.
It was reaffirmed in 2009.
Why'd Putin do this?
Because he thinks he can.
Pure and simple.
Anybody with half an ability to be honest will tell you that Vladimir Putin, since day one, has wanted to rebuild the Soviet Union.
The idea that it was ever busted up in the first place just drives them crazy.
It's an insult, should never have happened, and they're going to put it back together.
And the old Soviet Union, whatever they call it, is going to be the same aggressive monolith that it always was.
It's going to be an aggressor nation.
It's going to attempt to be the lone superpower.
It's a dangerous situation.
We're a great nation at risk in a dangerous world, folks.
Now, the way you prevent this is the whole notion of deterrence.
Why did the Iranians, practically immediately upon the election of Ronaldos Magnus' release, the 54 American hostages?
Because they feared what Reagan was going to do.
The left, knowing full well that that was the case, tried to construct the notion that Reagan had conducted a secret deal to hold those hostages through the election to make Carter look bad.
They even wrote a book about it, making the whole thing up.
It didn't happen.
If Putin didn't think he could get away with this, he wouldn't do it.
It's just that simple.
Why'd Putin think he'd get away with it?
Ever heard of Syria?
You ever heard of Barack Obama?
I mean, that's reason one.
Have you heard of John Kerry?
Ever heard of Hillary Clinton?
He knows exactly who he's dealing with.
He didn't try any of this when George W. Bush was in the White House.
Did he?
Didn't try it once, didn't try any of this.
Well, Georgia, and actually, it was a test case.
He floated a trial balloon.
Look what happened.
He got it.
Pretty much got Georgia.
So they're back in the satellite.
You have a first-rate military, hoping you never have to use it, but knowing that if you do, it will be victorious.
You build a B-2 bomber hoping you never have to use it, meaning you hope it deters bad guys from attacking us or any of our allies.
But if they do, we've got it and can clean their clocks with it.
That's the purpose of a world-class first-rate military.
It's number one, it's a deterrent.
All of this is just common sense.
Now, what does Kerry mean when he complains that this is the 21st century and Putin's acting like it's the 19th century?
What does he really mean when he's saying that?
Have you thought about that as I ask you to?
What does he really mean or believe?
Let's go to the audio soundlights and let's listen to him say it a couple times.
This is today.
He went over to Kiev in Ukraine.
He went over there and made some remarks.
And that's supposed to scare Putin and bring Putin around the 21st century.
Here is what our esteemed Secretary of State said.
Go to the UN.
Raise the issue in the Security Council.
Go to the OSCE.
Raise it one of the human rights organizations.
There are countless outlets that an organized, structured, decent world has struggled to put together to resolve these differences so we don't see a nation unilaterally invade another nation.
There's a better way for Russia to pursue its legitimate interests in Ukraine.
Russia can choose to comply with international law and honor its commitments under the Helsinki Final Act under the United Nations Charter.
Now, what does that mean?
That, A, to me, is so profoundly embarrassing, naive, and silly that it illustrates precisely why people like this should never, ever get this close to actual leadership and decision-making in our government.
What Kerry is saying, hey, didn't you take the conflict resolution class?
You know, you should go shake his hand.
We don't need to start beating people up and hitting people.
Why don't you, you could go to the UN, you could go there, and you could talk about it.
You could go to the OSCE, you could a human rights organization, countless outlets, any number of groups that you could go to.
You don't have to do that.
Why are you doing this?
You don't have to do this.
There's a better way.
If you want Ukraine, there's a better way.
Go, you know, go ask the UN to give it to you or go negotiate for it or go, you know, but You don't have to be mean about it.
What these clowns believe, folks, this 21st century versus 19th century Falderall, do not doubt me.
John Kerry believes that war is over.
It is passe.
There's no purpose in it anymore.
We have other ways of resolving conflicts.
We do not need to do this.
And he's embarrassing us.
Putin is because there is no more war.
Doesn't he know that?
This is not right.
He shouldn't be doing this.
Senator Kerry, why don't you go down and find a leader of the Mexican drug cartel and talk to him about this?
Why don't you go down to Castro and say, you know, Fidel, we're here now.
You don't need to be putting your people in prisons anymore, man.
Come on.
It's the 21st century.
Why don't you head over to the CHICOMs and tell them to lighten up on Tibet, Senator Kerry?
There is absolutely no cognizance of the realities of the world.
It was I, El Rushbo, who profundantly wrote, ours is a world governed by the aggressive use of force.
And if you dare look at history, you will find that that's always been the case.
Time and time and time and time again.
And there's no, you know, Barack Obama and John Kerry, in their minds, maybe they're the smartest and most competent, most caring people ever lived, but they're not going to change that.
Well, I think it's, I wouldn't compare him to Neville Chamberlain.
I just, I mean, you could, but I just think this is so naive.
Here, grab somebody 25.
There's more of this.
He wasn't through complaining.
You know, you could have gone to homeroom.
You could have talked to the principal.
You know, you'd have to beat up that kid.
You'd have to do that.
Don't you know those days are over?
You could have talked to your guidance counselor.
You didn't have to do that.
Here's more.
If Russia does not choose to de-escalate, if it is not willing to work directly with the government of Ukraine, as we hope they will be, then our partners will have absolutely no choice but to join us to continue to expand upon steps we have taken in recent days in order to isolate Russia politically, diplomatically, and economically.
The fact is, this is the 21st century, and we should not see nations step backwards to behave in 19th or 20th century fashion.
There are ways to resolve these differences.
Great nations choose to do that appropriately.
absolute buffoon you see you don't have to it's not we don't do it this way anymore vlad You know, you could have written a very stern letter to the New York Times and warned Ukraine.
Oh, sorry, Putin did that.
If you remember, Putin, he telegraphed this.
He wrote an op-ed in the New York Times.
They were happy to publish it.
Now, would you like to hear how this has been covered?
ABC News.
Here's the headline.
Obama and Kerry land a one-two punch on Putin.
One in a classroom, the other in Kiev.
So our media think that John Kerry is ruling the day.
John Kerry is telling Putin how it is.
John Kerry is embarrassing Putin.
John Kerry is wagging his finger to Putin, and he's telling Putin the way it's going to be.
I'm holding here my formerly nicotine-stained fingers.
A story from slate.com, almost as leftist as salon.com.
Headline, why Obama Got Russia Wrong and Romney Got It Right.
To peer into the conservative media and blogosphere as it covers Russia's invasion of Crimea is to risk a fatal dose of Schadden Freude.
There are reports about how Sarah Palin totally called that Putin would invade Ukraine, and about how Mitt Romney was unfairly mocked for calling Russia the greatest geopolitical threat to the U.S., about Hillary Clinton's reset button gaffe.
Even the liberal New Republic has admitted that Romney was right about the Russians and their ambitions.
And he was.
We have to admit it.
Why did Obama blow it?
And here's what they say.
Why did Obama blow it?
Romney was right.
Why was Obama wrong?
Because he was willfully blurring the distinction between geopolitical and other sorts of threats.
Obama was playing to the cheap seats.
Low-information voters.
Voters don't fear Russia or particularly care about its movements over there.
They do care.
Voters do care a lot about terrorism.
And Obama would use any chance he had in 2012 to remind voters that he killed bin Laden.
So what Mr. Weigel, Dave Weigel wrote this, what Weigel is saying here is that in that debate, Romney just, in terms of the real world, cleaned the stage with Obama by correctly pointing out that the biggest geopolitical threat we face at the time was Russia.
And Obama is mocking it and making fun of Romney.
And this guy's point is that he did it simply to play to low-information voters.
It was his election to win and the way he went about it that trumped any sort of policy.
And this guy, Weigel, is not the only one.
Suddenly, most of the left-wing media are now reporting and seeing that Romney was the guy who had it right and that Obama was the stooge who was the useful idiot playing to his low-information voters.
They always admit this stuff after the fact when it's too late for anything to be done about it or it's too late for it to be meaningful in terms of impacting an election.
They knew then what Romney was right.
They knew then that Obama was simply playing to the low-information voters out there.
And that's what he's doing now.
That's what ABC is doing.
Romney or Obama and Kerry, they tell Putin what for?
They're down there reporting that Kerry just took Putin to school.
This is dangerously wrong.
This is dangerously incompetent.
And I'll tell you how else Obama's playing to the low-information voter.
He and Kerry are out there promising $1 billion in loan guarantees to Ukraine.
Well, it gets their vote when you promise them free health care and a cell phone and unemployment compensation extensions and whatever other benefit you're giving them, food stamps.
Hey, Obama, he cares about Ukraine.
Don't say he's just, he just gave a billion dollars.
That's all that's for.
That's all they know how to do, folks.
All they know how to do is pander to the lowest common denominator in this country.
That's all they know how to do.
Actually dealing with a real world problem, either here or anywhere else in the world, they are clueless.
And these last five years illustrate that, beyond a shadow of a doubt.
I've been waiting for an opportunity to point something out.
This may be it, but it may not be it.
And if I bring it up, I may just confuse people, which is not my purpose.
But let me try it.
Let me ask you a simple question.
Cable news, pick a night, pick a day, any day of the week, month, or year.
There is one group of people you will never see discussing what they do.
One group of people never show up to be analysts, never submit to questioning about what they do.
There's one group of people that have not allowed what they do to be cartoonized.
I'll let you think about that group and who it may be as I take this brief timeout.
I better hustle and get to the phones because it's been an hour, maybe longer.
Yeah, since that seminar caller.
Here's Don in Chicago.
Hi, Don.
I really appreciate your patience.
Thank you for waiting.
Hello.
Hey, Rush, thanks.
I was in the Ukraine about 12 years ago, about four years after the communists pulled out and left those people literally high and dry.
We were helping build a church in a small town, and it was in a collective farming area.
They literally left the farming sitting in the fields.
And here we are five years later, and the people were doing nothing.
Nothing.
They were just standing around doing nothing.
And we said, why aren't you working?
And they said, we don't know what to do.
There's no one here to tell us what to do.
And we realized right then and there that the only way this country was going to come back and demand their freedom and earn it was it was going to be the next generation.
And here we are about 12 years later.
And those kids that wanted to know all about America, they'd never seen an American.
They wanted to know all about it.
And we told them what it was like.
Those would be the ones that would take this country back and they're going to fight for it.
Ladies and gentlemen, this is exactly, Don, you're exactly right.
I'm so glad that you were patient.
Hold on, because it's a brilliant point.
And let me tell you, when this happened in the Soviet Union, when the Soviet Union fell apart, I'll never forget this.
Soviet Union fell apart.
The Berlin Wall came down and everybody was, all right, freedom.
And then the Russian people didn't know what to do.
They were nothing more than animals in the zoo.
They'd been fed regularly.
They didn't know how to feed themselves.
They didn't know how to produce.
They didn't know anything.
And you know what happened then?
The U.S. media found experts who had traveled to the former Soviet Union.
And the media went over there.
Tom broke on.
You know what they said?
They said that freedom is not for everybody.
Freedom just isn't for everybody.
Look at these poor people.
They've got freedom and they're worse off than ever.
Some people are just better off under communism.
That's 1989, 1990, not that long ago when that was happening.
And Don here is exactly right.
Same thing happened in Ukraine.
I mean, it did happen.
They got out from under the sphere and didn't know what to do.
But now this generation doesn't want any part of slavery and is demanding their freedom.
He's right.
All right.
Well, while we're away in the break, CNN is reporting that Russia is test-firing long-range ICBM missiles.
So they had their foreign policy reporter call John Kerry.
And they asked John Kerry, what do you think?
They did, folks.
They're test-firing long-range ICBMs.
And Kerry said, this is the 21st century.
Doesn't Putin, he can go on Google and find out what happens when you test fire a missile.
He doesn't have to launch a missile to find out what happens.
The UN could tell him, we could probably call somebody at Harvard if he really wants to know what happens when you test fire a missile.
He didn't have to do that.
Oh, by the way, Russia has fired warning shots in Crimea.
That was not supposed to happen.
There was supposed to have been a ceasefire.
Putin said he was pulling back.
It's so 19th century to do that.
Why would he lie?
Why would Putin tell us that he's pulling back and then launch missiles?
This is unacceptable.
This is the 21st century, and he's doing things that we did in the 19th century.
He's so Reagan.
He is so Reagan.
Why does Putin, we've got rid of Reagan, we got rid of this is the 21st century.
This is, this, this is, this is, we're living in a Saturday night life skit.
We are smack dab in the middle of a parody.
Grab somebody 26 today in Washington at the Powell Elementary School.
That's where President Obama was.
He held a press conference.
It was originally to talk about his 2015 budget proposal.
What the hell is he doing at an elementary school proposing his budget?
Well, answers itself.
He spoke about the Russia-Ukraine situation, and a reporter asked him during the Q ⁇ A, do you have any response to President Putin's press conference morning?
Is Chancellor Merkel right that he's lost touch with reality?
The way that some of this has been reported, that the suggestion somehow that the Russian actions have been clever strategically, I actually think that this has not been a sign of strength, but rather is a reflection that countries near Russia have deep concerns and suspicions about this kind of meddling.
And if anything, it will push many countries further away from Russia.
I swear.
So he says here that he's heard all his buddies in the media say that Putin's outsmarting him.
He don't like it.
And this kind of action, this is not going to help.
This is just driving people further away from it.
You think Putin cares about that?
He knows full well what he's doing here.
He is demonstrating that nobody's going to stop him is what he's doing.
I think John Kerry ought to go to Moscow.
He ought to grab those fake Vietnam War medals and throw them over some fence at the Kremlin to show them he really means business.
To show them that he is damn serious about this 21st versus 19th century business.
How about this stupid question?
Is Chancellor Merkel right that Putin's lost touch with reality?
I'll tell you who doesn't have two feet in reality is this administration.
Here's one more QA.
Obama continued his answer on the Merkel right that Putin's lost touch with reality.
We stand on the side of history that I think more and more people around the world deeply believe in.
The principle that a sovereign people, an independent people, are able to make their own decisions about their own lives.
And Mr. Putin can throw a lot of words out there, but the facts on the ground indicate that right now he's not abiding by that principle.
Yeah, of course he's not abiding by that principle.
Of course he's not.
He's a communist.
You ought to know that at least.
Mr. President, Don Rumsfeld was on Greta Van Susteren last night.
This is audio soundbite number six as we skip number five.
And she said the Washington Post editorial board had an editorial, and they say that Obama's foreign policy is a fantasy.
I shared the details of that with you earlier.
And she asked Rumsfeld for his reaction.
It is U.S. weakness that has shaken the world.
The administration lacks a foreign policy.
They lack a strategy.
They're managing our economy, modeling it on Europe, which is a failed model.
And it's sending the signal out across the globe that the United States is not going to be there for them, that the United States is in decline.
Damn right.
We're under a purposeful decline.
Obama is here to manage the decline.
And if I'm not mistaken, I think he said it or something close to it.
Olet?
Yeah, Hegel said it.
We've got to manage it.
Hey, you know, it's a 21st century, and we don't need a conventional military anymore.
So we're going to pare it down to World War II size.
Man, let's listen to Putin.
Putin was in Moscow this morning, held a press conference to talk about the Russia-Ukraine situation.
And this, I don't know, for some reason, amuses me.
Putin now says that they are fighting Nazis in the Ukraine.
We have neo-Nazis, Nazis, and anti-Semits in some parts of Ukraine, including Kiev.
We understand what Russian-speaking citizens of East and South of Ukraine are worried about.
If they request us for help, we leave the right for ourselves to take all measures to protect the rights of these people, and we consider it quite legitimate.
So they're fighting Nazis and neo-Nazis in the Ukraine.
And by the way, again, when you gear everything you do to the American low-information voter, if you're going to say you're targeting Nazis, there's nobody that supports the Nazis.
So if you're going to go in and say that there are Nazis and neo-Nazis in there, it's going to be hard to oppose you.
There's nobody, there's nobody in the world that likes the Nazis.
So Putin, now he's fire Nazis and neo-Nazis.
I know he's toying with everybody.
And here's our old buddy Vitaly Churkin.
Now, Vitaly Churkin was in the Soviet hierarchy all during the 80s.
He's on nightline with Ted Koppel all the time.
He lived in Alexandria.
He worked at the Soviet embassy.
He sounded American, except for the yeast in his hair.
He looked American.
And he was my all-time favorite Russian Soviet propagandist.
I loved Vitaly Churchin.
I even interviewed him once.
And he was in New York City at the UN.
He's now Russian ambassador to the UN.
Isn't it amazing?
The former head honcho in the communist regime is still a head honcho in the Russian regime.
Anyway, he addressed an emergency session of the UN Security Council, and this is a portion of what he said.
The center of Kiev and many towns in western Ukraine have been taken over by arms national radicals under extremist, anti-Russian, and anti-Semitic slogans being used.
Oh, yeah.
See, the Nazis and the neo-Nazis are in there, and they're using anti-Semitic slogans.
And so we've got to go in there and root them out because the people in Ukraine are asking us to come in and get rid of the Nazis and the neo-Nazis.
So let's go now, CNN Situation Room.
Wolf Blitzer is just, they're coming apart at the seams over this.
Civil war is breaking out at CNN.
In this bite, Christiana Monpor will scold Wolf Blitzer for repeating the Vitaly Churkin propaganda.
Propaganda that you just heard Vitaly Churkin utter and Putin, that they're in there fighting anti-Semites, Nazis, and neo-Nazis.
Here's the bite.
You heard Vitaly Churkin, the Russian ambassador of the UN Security Council, saying earlier today that at fault for all of this are what he called fascists and anti-Semites in Ukraine right now to be a very important thing.
You know, you've got to be really careful putting that across as a fact.
That's what Vitaly Churkin.
He may have done.
That's what he said.
That is the Russian position.
He may have done that.
That's what I was pointing out.
Are you telling me?
Are you saying that the entire pro-European Ukrainians are anti-Semitic?
I was only saying that is what the Russians are.
Now, that is so instructive.
That right there is so instructive.
Here is Christiana Monpur, who actually cares what people think of the people of Ukraine, and she's chiding Blitzer for repeating what Vitaly Churkin said.
And Blitzer, well, he said it!
He said it!
Wolf, do you actually believe?
I'm just telling you what Vitaly Churchin said.
He said it, he said it.
See, so there's a natural sympathy for Vitaly Churchin, former Soviet Union, whatever he says is.
And you can extrapolate that.
Whoa, whoa, you know, Barack Obama said.
He just said, there's no questioning it.
There is no curiosity about it.
And Christiana Monpoor is chiding Blitzer here for repeating it.
I'm just repeating what he said.
It's what he said.
He said it.
We're a news journalist here.
We're reporting what he said.
He said, Wolf, do you actually believe?
Come on.
And this continued.
It wasn't quite through.
Am I saying that?
No, I'm not.
But I am saying that that's what Vitaly Churkin said.
Right, and we have to be very careful.
No, no, I heard it.
I heard it.
We just as a network have to be really careful not to lump the entire pro-European Ukrainians into what some may well be, which are nationalistic and extremists.
All I'm saying is what Vitaly Churchin said.
He said it, he said it.
I'm just telling you what Vitaly Churchin said.
He said it.
He said it.
Okay, so he said it.
Big whoop.
What is happening here?
There are a bunch of wacko conspiracy theories that are behind this.
It's amazing how sticky they are.
I mean, people actually glomming onto this.
These conspiracy theories about there being a bunch of Nazis and neo-Nazis in Ukraine threatening Russia and all this.
Here's Vladimir Posner.
I got to play right out of the Vitaly Churchin school.
Vladimir Posner, old buddy Phil Donahue's best friend, shines his shoes and all that.
And he's on CNN this morning with Chris Cuomo.
Why don't we all take a deep breath, count to 10, and then talk about this without all the passions involved?
What worries people here is that in this new government, which is relatively not legitimate, but Putin has said that we will deal with that government, even though we don't really consider it legitimate.
There are a lot of very right-wing, ultra-nationalist, and even somewhat fascist, very anti-Semitic people.
They have a very loud voice, and that worries a lot of people.
So you see how this has played a very loud right-wing, anti-Semitic, Nazi neo-Nazis, and Putin is the good guy running in there to defend Mother Russia.
And all that from these right-wingers.
I just.
And all of this is.
Rumsfeld's right.
There's a vacuum because we have taken a hike on the world stage.
From the UK Telegraph, Russia Today hosts who criticized the Kremlin has been sent to Crimea.
Russian state-funded TV presenter, this isn't a Russian TV info babe, an anchorette in an anti-Kremlin tirade was sent to Crimea to get a better understanding of the situation on the ground.
So a Diane Sawyer, well, actually, she looks like she looks like Susan Lucci.
But anyway, she let the Kremlin have it, and they sent her to Ukraine to get her mind right.
Now, that doesn't sound very 21st century to me.
That sounds awfully 19th, even 18th century to me.
Putin sent this babe, and she's a looker, sent this babe to Crimea to get a better understanding of the situation on the ground.
I'm going to explain tomorrow that one group of people never ever on TV, never ever allowing what they do to be trivialized, sullied, made cartoon of, is judges.
And I want you to think what would happen if, after every Supreme Court decision, say three or four Supreme Court justices showed up on Fox News to debate Bob Beckle and Juan Williams and who else about it.
Imagine what we would end up thinking of them.
Everybody, this is, there's a much larger point that I want to make with this.
And that'll happen.
I'll do that tomorrow.
Sir, I promise by the end of the week.
But I just spent some time thinking about that.
Where you think I might take it?
It's a teachable moment here.
It's about how everything of importance has just been dumbed down to a formulaic shout fest on television.
But the judges do not permit their work to be looked at like that.
They don't participate in it anyway.
They never show up to defend what they do or explain it to anybody.
I actually don't think Putin meant to say Nazis.
I could be wrong about this.
I think he meant to say Tea Party and just couldn't remember the Tea Party elements in Ukraine.
And since he forgot to just call them Nazis, typical leftist move.
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