RUSH: If you’re just joining us, ladies and gentlemen, I’m fit to be tied today. I’ve had it with the constant drumbeat of negativity, enraged, irrational madness that embodies itself in a hatred of George W. Bush by a bunch of people that have not the slightest clue what they would do differently about anything. Jimmy Carter is engaging in traitorous conduct in my opinion with an interview that he has granted to der Spiegel magazine, and I guess he’s got a new book out. Let’s pick up this interview where we last left it, at the conclusion of the previous hour. Jimmy Carter says, “Another very serious departure from past policies,” that all of us ex-presidents did that Bush doesn’t do “is the separation of church and state, which I describe in the book.”
I have no clue what he is talking about. He doesn’t describe it here. I’m not going to read his stupid book. I don’t need to know what the guy believes. He said, “This has been a policy since the time of Thomas Jefferson and my own religious beliefs are compatible –” Separation of church and state? What the hell is going on in this country is the exact opposite. We have people who are doing their best to squander a particular religion they don’t like. Separation of church and state, for crying out loud! If these people had their way, there wouldn’t be any religious freedom in this country, to get down to brass tacks.
“The other principle that I described in the book,” Carter says, “is basic justice. We’ve never had an administration before that so overtly and clearly and consistently passed tax reform bills that were uniquely targeted to benefit the richest people in our country at the expense or the detriment of the working families of America,” and here Mr. Carter demonstrates just pure ignorance. Can he not see what is happening in the US economy? Does he not see the growth of the world economy, even after 9/11, even with terrorism out there? Does he not see the 15% increase in the United States GDP? Does he not know all of the increased tax revenues flowing into his precious government because these tax cuts? All we have done is increased employment, we’re at 4.8% employment, Mr. Carter.
What was it when you were ruining the country? You tell me, sir, what was employment? What were interest rates, you expert? You’ve got all the answers, sitting around in your Cardigan sweater with the thermostat at 68 degrees in the wintertime. Bah, humbug, sir! This is absolutely ridiculous. He is parading his abject ignorance. He gets a Nobel Peace Prize for it. Wages are up in this country. Affluence in this country has never been higher. The standard of living has never been higher — and he sits here and talks about the immorality of tax cuts for the rich? Tell me, sir, do you think the capital gains tax cut has anything to do with surprising revenues flowing into the treasury? The projected deficit is smaller; experts are stunned every month when employment or other economic figures are released.
You sit there in Germany and you dare to criticize this economy when you ruined the US economy for four years? We had gasoline lines, we had 14% inflation, we had interest rates that were approaching 20%. It was so bad, sir, during your great presidency, we had to come up with the misery index to quantify and explain it — and your presidency was called that of malaise and you’re the one that named it. (interruption) What? Well, of course he blames it all on the people. Liberals always blame everything on the people! The people are stupid; the people don’t know what they’re doing. The people didn’t understand the gift that God had given them in the Jimmy Carter presidency.
Der Spiegel: “You also mentioned the hatred for the United States throughout the Arab world which has ensued as a result of the invasion of Iraq. Given this circumstance, does it come as any surprise that Washington’s call for democracy in the Middle East has been discredited?” Carter: “No, as a matter of fact, the concerns I exposed have gotten even worse now with the United States supporting and encouraging Israel in its unjustified attack on Lebanon.” Let’s go back to the question: “You also mentioned the hatred for the United States throughout the Arab world which has ensued as a result of the invasion of Iraq.” Again, a stupid question! What was 9/11? Did it not happen as far as these people are concerned? We had not gone into Iraq. George Bush had been president for barely six months, nine months, whatever when 9/11 happened.
We were attacked throughout the nineties during the precious presidency of the precious Bill Clinton, who did diddly-squat. Could it be, der Spiegel, that the United States is hated because we are considered an enemy by these people because of our way of life and because of our prosperity and because they fear the threat they think we are? 9/11 happens in 2001. Bush had been in office nine months. We hadn’t gone into Iraq at all. Hatred, Arab hatred? What was the ’93 World Trade Center attack about? What were the Khobar Towers attacks about? What was the attack on the USS Cole? What happened to our guys in Mogadishu? If you want to know what led to 9/11, that’s going to point the finger straight at old buddy Bill Clinton. Osama bin Laden has said so.
We’re in Mogadishu. We’re trying to feed and get food to the starving millions who are being starved to death by their own government, a warlord, Mohammed Farah Aideed. We send the Army Rangers in there. We’re winning the battle. But the pictures on American television are of a dead Ranger being dragged naked through the streets of Mogadishu. Commanders over there asked for more equipment, more armaments. Bill Clinton said no, and we cut-and-run, which is what Democrats today are still advocating as a policy. It’s their total policy when it comes to military operations. The first sign of trouble: “Cut-and-run. Get out. Bring the boys home. Keep the boys safe.”
Osama bin Laden was watching. He figured we couldn’t take casualties. Bam! You want to blame 9/11 on anybody, blame it on Bill Clinton. Osama bin Laden has as much said so. So much for der Spiegel’s question.
Carter’s answer: “No, as a matter of fact, the concerns I exposed have gotten even worse now with the United States supporting and encouraging Israel in its unjustified attack on Lebanon.” It was not an attack on Lebanon! It was an attack on Hezbollah, a terrorist group, after two Israeli soldiers were kidnapped. What is with these people? These are supposedly the best and the brightest among us, liberal Democrats. These are the elites. These are the pointy-heads. These are the people that know better than all the rest of us. He can’t even get his facts straight. Sounds like a little anti-Semitism to me, President Carter, criticizing Israel for attacking Lebanon. Have you ever heard of Hezbollah?
Spiegel: “But wasn’t Israel the first to get attacked?” Carter: “I don’t think that Israel has any legal or moral justification for their massive bombing of the entire nation of Lebanon.” Oh, of course not! Of course not! When you’re attacked, you’re supposed to sit there and die. You’re supposed to sit there and act weak, like Jimmy Carter did during the 1979 hostage crisis. You’re supposed to act timid and shy, and when you get caught, when you get shot, when you get attacked, you start asking, “Oh, why do you hate us? Why do you do this?” Carter: “What happened is that Israel is holding almost 10,000 prisoners, so when the militants in Lebanon or in Gaza…”
He can’t even use the word Hezbollah! “[S]o when the militants in Lebanon or in Gaza take one or two soldiers, Israel looks upon this as a justification for an attack on the civilian population of Lebanon and Gaza. I do not think that’s justified, no.” Ten thousand prisoners? Why, you make no distinction here, do you, Mr. Carter? There’s not a good side and a bad side. The Israelis are not the good guys, they are not our allies. The militants? How about terrorists? You think there might be a reason they have 10,000 terrorists in jail? You think there’s a reason? It’s a country surrounded by people that want to exterminate them! It’s a damn good thing all you can do is give interviews to stupid magazines because if you had any power to implement any of this insanity, we would be in deep, deep doo-doo.
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RUSH: We are back, executing assigned host duties flawlessly, describing and analyzing Jimmy Carter’s traitorous conduct in an interview with der Spiegel. Jimmy Carter establishing once and for all one of my many theories: that the fastest way to rise to the top in the liberal Democratic Party is to fail. Become a failure, and you become an expert. Fail at foreign policy; you’re an expert at it. Fail in the economy; you become an expert at it. Fastest way to launch yourself to the top of liberalism is to botch everything you touch.
Spiegel: “Do you think the United States is still an important factor in securing a peaceful solution to the Middle East crisis?” Carter: “Yes, as a matter of fact as you know ever since Israel has been a nation the United States has provided the leadership. Every president down to the ages has done this in a fairly balanced way, including George Bush senior [sic], Gerald Ford, and others including myself and Bill Clinton. This administration has not attempted at all in the last six years to negotiate or attempt to negotiate a settlement between Israel and any of its neighbors or the Palestinians.” Mr. Carter, can you cite for me one example where it has worked with a terrorist organization?
Please, Mr. Carter, cite for me in the history of Israel, all of these resolutions, all of these meetings, all of these Camp David accords — that was with Egypt, I’ll get to that in a minute — Bill Clinton and Yasser Arafat and the Palestinians and the Oslo accords, all those just worked wonderfully. Why, there’s been peace in the Middle East throughout your administration and throughout Bill Clinton’s administration, throughout Gerald Ford’s, throughout everybody. There was all kinds of peace until George Bush became president, and we stopped negotiatin’, and we stopped the diplomacy. President Carter, you’re just a dunce. You’re just an abject, obvious dunce.
How do you negotiate, how do you believe any agreement made with a bunch of communists, with a bunch of Nazis, with a bunch of Islamofascist terrorists? How do you believe anything they say? How can you trust any agreement? They are trying to wipe Israel out, President Carter. They’re trying to exterminate as many Jewish people in the world as they can, and then they’re going to come for us, and you’re going to be among the first targeted because you’re going to be the easiest. You’re going to walk up, wear the white flag and you’re going to be the biggest target in the world, you and all your liberal buddies are going to be the first to go, if it ever gets that far.
You’re going to be walking up, smiling, waving the white flag, saying, “Welcome, brother.”
Bam! Histoire!
What makes you personally so optimistic about the effectiveness of diplomacy, President Carter? You are, so to speak, the father of the Camp David negotiations. “Carter: When I became president we had had four terrible wars between the Arabs and Israelis (behind us).” The Israelis won them all, President Carter. Don’t use the word terrible, our ally won. “And I, under great difficulty, particularly because Menachim Begin was elected, decided to try negotiation and it worked and we have a peace treaty between Israel and Egypt for 27 years that has never been violated. You never can be certain in advance that negotiations on difficult circumstances will be successful, but you can be certain in advance if you don’t negotiate that your problem is going to continue and maybe even get worse.”
Let’s talk about the treaty between Israel and Egypt, because it is interesting. But once again, Mr. Carter totally misrepresents why it worked. Land for peace has always been the demand of the Arabs. “Give us Palestine, give us this, give us the West Bank, give us that,” the Israelis in the early days believed that that’s what it would take. In these wars that Jimmy Carter described, the Israelis took a lot of territory. The Arabs attacked them; the Israelis defeated them and occupied the Sinai, for example. The whole Sinai Peninsula, Israelis had it, Gaza, Golan Heights with Syria. They’ve given it all back. They made a deal with a nation, President Carter, Egypt.
They didn’t make a deal with a terrorist organization like Hezbollah, like Al-Qaeda, like PLO, like Yasser Arafat. Excuse me, they did — and every one of them was violated, dummkopf! Every damn one of them was violated. The Egyptians however, agreed to the deal as a nation, and look it what’s happened. Land for peace, when it is actually meant, that’s actually understood to be the real point, the Israelis do not attack again, the Israelis leave you alone, the Israelis don’t care, the Israelis will just hunker down and be who they are. They are not an offensive attack machine. They are a classic illustration of the superb execution of defense. They defend themselves when they are attacked.
Egypt attacked them. Syria attacked them — and they won the war with Egypt, Mr. Carter! The Limbaugh Doctrine, sir: “Peace follows victory.” After winning the war, after kicking Egypt back into Egypt and occupying the Sinai, the Egyptians said, “Ah, ah, uh, peace? Peace? Land for peace,” and the Israelis, after beating them, after winning the war first, President Carter, then gave them back the Sinai. They beat them. It was not your negotiations. It was the fact that the Israelis defeated them in a war. I mean this interview goes on, and it is absurd. It goes on another page and a half here. Der Spiegel says, “But the negotiations failed to prevent the burning of Beirut and bombardment of Haifa.”
Carter: “Yes, I’m distressed. But I think that the proposals that have been made in the last few days by the (Lebanese) Prime Minister (Fuoad) Siniora are quite reasonable. And I think they should declare an immediate cease-fire on both sides, Hezbollah said they would comply, I hope Israel will comply, and then do the long, slow, tedious negotiation that is necessary to stabilize the northern border of Israel completely. There has to be some exchange of prisoners. There have been successful exchanges of prisoners between Israel and the Palestinians in the past and that’s something that can be done right now,” and it hasn’t meant diddly-squat!
This stupid resolution doesn’t even call for the return of the two kidnapped Israeli soldiers, which is what started this whole thing in the first place. This whole plan here, this peace resolution has become an abject joke. The French are cowards and they’re backing out. They only want to send ten military advisors and 200 military engineers. They’re supposed to lead this! The Lebanese army is trickling in there. The Hezbollah is not going to be disarmed, President Carter. He doesn’t care about that because Hezbollah and Israel are no different, because to him they’re morally equivalent. There are no good guys and bad guys. The only bad guy is George W. Bush. The only rotten apple in the world is the Bush administration.
Yes, if we could only go back to the nirvana and the Utopia that was the Carter administration. If we could only go back to the Utopia and the nirvana that was the Clinton administration. If we could only go back to the Utopia and the nirvana that was the Gerald Ford administration, every administration prior to this one. Wow, man-oh-man.
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