RUSH: On to excerpts from the president’s speech last night. This excerpt contains a Limbaugh Echo. See if you can spot it.
THE PRESIDENT: The war against this enemy is more than a military conflict. It is the decisive ideological struggle of the 21st century, and the calling of our generation. Our nation is being tested in a way that we have not been since the start of the Cold War. We saw what a handful of our enemies can do with box-cutters and plane tickets. We hear their threats to launch even more terrible attacks on our people. And we know that if they were able to get their hands on weapons of mass destruction, they would use them against us. We face an enemy determined to bring death and suffering into our homes. America did not ask for this war, and every American wishes it were over. So do I. But the war is not over — and it will not be over until either we or the extremists emerge victorious.
RUSH: And there you have the Limbaugh Echo, ladies and gentlemen, peace follows victory. I have said this in the context of the Israeli-Palestinian, the Israeli-Hezbo war, and that is until one of these two sides wins, it isn’t going to be over. The next sound bite, read it and weep, Democrats. The safety of America depends on the battle in the streets of Baghdad.
THE PRESIDENT: Whatever mistakes have been made in Iraq, the worst mistake would be to think that if we pulled out, the terrorists would leave us alone. They will not leave us alone.
RUSH: Stop the tape a second there, Ed. That’s exactly right. That’s what the Democrats think. They’ll leave us alone, because the Democrats think they have the power of personality to talk to these people and reason with them, to negotiate with them. Because these terrorists will understand that they’re sensitive, life loving people that don’t want conflict, and don’t hate anybody, and are not going to be blowing them up like Bush is doing. It would be one of the greatest follies, give these people any chance at trying that, that would be laughed at, just as Bill Clinton was laughed at after Somalia. In fact, you know what?
I’m going to make some of you mad, but I’ll bet you back in 1979 when the American hostages were taken from the US embassy in Iran, what did America do? Forget Jimmy Carter. What did we do? Anybody remember? Snerdley, come on, you were alive in 1979. How old were you, 40? How old were you in 1979? You remember what we did? What did the American people do? I’ll give you a hint: What became the theme song, essentially, on top 40 radio for the Iranian hostage crisis? (singing) “Tie a Yellow Ribbon Around the Old Oak Tree!” You don’t think the Iranians got a big chuckle out of that? The big, mighty, United States of America tying yellow ribbons around trees and so forth?
With Carter not leaving the White House wearing the sweater there when it was 68 degrees inside because he’d lowered the thermostats and making it appear like it was the only thing on his mind. You know, have you seen what Steve Irwin’s fans are doing? They’re out there killing stingrays. I mean, Steve Irwin’s fans know how to deal something like (interruption). Yes, they are, Dawn, ten stingrays so far have been killed. They’re not sure if some of them have been killed in fear by people who run into them after what happened to Steve Irwin, but they fear that people are taking revenge on stingrays, the stingray community, for the unwanton murder of Steve Irwin by a leader stingray of the pack. Here’s the rest of the president’s remarks.
THE PRESIDENT: The safety of America depends on the outcome of the battle in the streets of Baghdad.
RUSH: Ooh!
THE PRESIDENT: Osama bin Laden calls this fight “the Third World War” — and he says that victory for the terrorists in Iraq will mean America’s “defeat and disgrace forever.” If we yield Iraq to men like bin Laden, our enemies will be emboldened; they will gain a new safe haven; they will use Iraq’s resources to fuel their extremist movement. We will not allow this to happen. America will stay in the fight. Iraq will be a free nation, and a strong ally in the war on terror.
RUSH: We have audio sound bites coming up. Dingy Harry took to the floor of the Senate today, whining and moaning, talking about turning the whole speech last night into politics, and pleading with the president to listen to Democrats, listen to Democrats and get out of Iraq. Democrats aren’t listening to Democrats, Dingy Harry. How many resolutions have you offered in the Senate, and the largest number of votes you got for one was 13 votes out of a hundred. That is the Kerry resolution. Snerdley sending me a little note here, “How come we haven’t seen any day-after pols?” Give ’em time. We didn’t see any flash polls last night. Well, maybe because the speech was billed as nonpolitical, but we’ll see. It could be that there aren’t any flash polls because the American people liked the speech. Here is yet another sound bite, and the president says it’s not really a clash of civilizations. It’s a struggle for civilization.
THE PRESIDENT: The terrorists fear freedom as much as they do our firepower. They are thrown into panic at the sight of an old man pulling the election lever, girls enrolling in schools, or families worshiping God in their own traditions. They know that given a choice, people will choose freedom over their extremist ideology. So their answer is to deny people this choice by raging against the forces of freedom and moderation. This struggle has been called a clash of civilizations. In truth, it is a struggle for civilization.
RUSH: Yes.
THE PRESIDENT: We are fighting to maintain the way of life enjoyed by free nations.
RUSH: This is just something that the Democrats cannot deal with. They keep expecting — I’m not kidding you about this: the Democrats, along with the Drive-By Media, continue to expect — Bush to cave. They really do think that they’re going to force him off of this position. They really think that this is going to happen, and that one of those days Bush is going to make a speech and change his focus and policy on this, and they can go around and crow about it, and the exact opposite happens. Every time he goes out and makes such a speech it gets even more forceful and etched in stone, and he’s not changing his mind about anything, and that just sends them caterwauling to the cameras.
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RUSH: All right, we’re up to audio sound bite #4 with President Bush. Let’s listen.
THE PRESIDENT: Our nation has endured trials, and we face a difficult road ahead. Winning this war will require the determined efforts of a unified country, and we must put aside our differences and work together to meet the test that history has given us. We will defeat our enemies. We will protect our people. And we will lead the 21st century into a shining age of human liberty.
RUSH: Yes. This appealing for unity — which, when I hear him appeal to “unity,” that’s a great thing to do, but then I look at the left in this country and I realize it’s not going to happen as long as he’s in office. That is the line that’s making them all ballistic. They hear him asking them to shelve everything they believe and go along with him. To them, it’s all about him. Everything — their whole hatred, their delusionment, their descent into utter madness — is all about George W. Bush. For him to appeal to them as Americans to join in this conflict and unify offends the hell out of them because they don’t even hear it that way. They hear it as please, stop criticizing me and join me in this. Now, let’s listen to some interesting Drive-By Media sound bites. Last night on ABC after the president addressed the nation, anchor Charlie Gibson and George Stephanopoulos had this exchange.
GIBSON: George, you have seen a lot of White House speeches, both inside and outside. What strikes you about this one?
STEPHANOPOULOS: Charlie, the headline is: “The war is not over.” The president’s tone tonight was not political.
RUSH: Oh, ho-ho-ho, folks, Stephanopoulos might have come this close to being canned last night. When he said “the president’s tone tonight was not political,” can you imagine his BlackBerry? It was probably about ready to explode with all the phone calls because you didn’t get the talking point. So this morning, after Democrats released statements blasting the speech as political, Stephanopoulos did a 180 and led the Drive-By Media charge. Here is a montage.
GIBSON: George, you have seen a lot of White House speeches, both inside and outside. What strikes you about this one?
STEPHANOPOULOS: (
RUSH: Keep going. I didn’t know what they were doing.
STEPHANOPOULOS (
KELLY O’DONNELL: Some comments the president made sounded like the kinds of political arguments he makes day by day.
BILL PLANTE: The White House insisted that this was a non-political speech, but–
ROBIN ROBERTS: Critics are charging that he turned a national day of mourning into more like a political football.
MATT LAUER: Democrats are furious saying that he used the anniversary of 9/11 for political purposes.
RUSH: All right, so last night, does cut six also have cut five on it at the beginning, Ed? Okay, then let’s play cut five and cut six back-to-back, like you just did, and what we’re going to have is, because I was talking. I want you to hear this. Charlie Gibson: “George, you’ve seen a lot of White House speeches,” and Stephanopoulos answers. That’s last night, and then you know the BlackBerry was starting to ring like crazy because he hadn’t gotten the talking points, then this morning he did a 180. Here are cuts five and six back to back.
GIBSON: George, you have seen a lot of White House speeches, both inside and outside. What strikes you about this one?
STEPHANOPOULOS (
STEPHANOPOULOS (
KELLY O’DONNELL: Some comments the president made sounded like the kinds of political arguments he makes day by day.
BILL PLANTE: The White House insisted it was a non political speech, but–
ROBIN ROBERTS: Critics are charging that he turned a national day of mourning into more like a political football.
MATT LAUER: Democrats are furious saying that he used the anniversary of 9/11 for political purposes.
RUSH: Yeah. Right. So, the only question here is who called Stephanopoulos. Was it Clinton? Was it Bruce Lindsey? Who would have — or was it other journalists? Probably so. “George, what do you mean it wasn’t political? You’re ruining the whole plan!” But he got back in gear today. I mentioned Dingy Harry earlier. Here’s Dingy Harry on the floor of the Senate this morning.
“DINGY” HARRY REID: The American people last night deserved better. They deserved a break from politics that honored the spirit of 9/11. They deserved a chance to reclaim that sense of unity, purpose, and patriotism that swept through our country five years ago.
RUSH: Yeah.
“DINGY” HARRY REID: Feelings only the commander-in-chief could have inspired.
RUSH: Yeah.
“DINGY” HARRY REID: He should have tried to inspire. He didn’t.
RUSH: Yeah.
“DINGY” HARRY REID: Last night was not a time for a political speech, a partisan speech.
RUSH: Yeah.
“DINGY” HARRY REID: Sadly, it was a missed opportunity for President Bush, who obviously was more consumed by staying the course in Iraq and playing election year partisan politics than changing direction for this wonderful country.
RUSH: Yeah. Isn’t that wonderful? Dingy Harry is still upset that the president won’t go along with what Democrats want to do. The speech was “partisan and political” because it didn’t do what Democrats want him to do. The Democrats won’t even go along with you, Dingy Harry. If you really want to get out of Iraq, cut the funding for it! You are Congress. You can do that. How many resolutions have they had where they’ve turned down. Tom Raum, our old buddy at the Associated Press today: “Lawmakers stood side by side on steps of the capitol and belted out an impromptu rendition of ‘God bless America’ after the terrorist attacks five years ago. Democrats and Republicans pulled together, as did the country at large. ‘We had an astonishing moment of unity,’ former President Clinton said on Monday.”
All right, folks. I think that is revisionist history. This idea that we were all unified on 9/11 is just bunk, and I am going to say it. I don’t believe it for a moment. I think that when 9/11 happened, a lot of kooks on the left said, “A-ha! This is how we’re going to get Bush. He’s incompetent,” or they were either saying, “Oh, no! The country is going to come together.” You can’t tell me that the people who hated Bush ten months earlier over the Florida aftermath, the Florida recount, all of a sudden came together and it was all kumbaya time. I do not believe it. Just because politicians came out as a single force on that one day to sing together doesn’t mean differences magically disappeared. You can’t convince me that liberals dropped their liberalism once they were singing God bless America, although that had to be tough for them to do.
In fact, I think the polarization became even stronger. I think they did it because they thought it was look good for the voters. Not all politicians were behind Bush that day or any day since. They hammered him for reading a book to kids, not being at the White House, the Drive-By Media that night, Peter Jennings, was saying: Well, you know, some presidents are just better at this than others. Remember that comment? That was about it Clinton was so good at consoling the country during crises. Which ones? And Bush was a shrub. There wasn’t any “unity” on 9/11. This is one of the big myths that has been perpetrated out there. You know, some in the administration like Colin Powell wanted to continue to fight terror like Clinton did.
There wasn’t even unity in the administration over this. I remember politicians expressing dismay at President Bush because it took so long to start moving into Afghanistan. But they all want to guilt us into thinking that there was this massive love and unity on 9/11 and for the couple or three days after because when we started playing baseball and football games again, we did all these ceremonies and so forth; but don’t buy it, folks. It’s strains credulity. It strains intelligence. I use my intelligence guided by experience, and I’m here to tell you that human nature doesn’t change on a dime or on a couple of explosions. There was no unity in this country, and even if there was, it might have lasted all of a week, max. But I don’t believe it was ever there. So now, “Why can’t we all get along? Why can’t we just go back to the way it was?” It never was the way they want us to believe it was.
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RUSH: It wasn’t long after 9/11 happened that a number of Democrats from the Clinton administration lamented the fact that it happened on Bush’s watch, and he would have the opportunity for greatness. They wanted to know why such important, big things never happened in the Clinton administration. Well, some of us have known. Things did. They were just ignored. A lot of opportunity for greatness. The 1993 World Trade Center attack, dealing with the Black Hawk Down situation, in Mogadishu and Somalia, the USS Cole, the Khobar Towers, the embassy bombings, all kinds of terrorist activity went on in the nineties. But the Clinton administration didn’t want you worried about it because they didn’t want poll numbers falling, so 9/11 happens, and they were literally lamenting how unfortunate it was that a shrub like Bush was going to have a “chance at greatness.”
Well, why couldn’t, if this was going to happen, why couldn’t it have happened when Clinton was president? Preferably during the Lewinsky scandal. Everything is about them. There’s a great piece today at one of our favorite blogs, the AmericanThinker.com. It’s entitled, “The Moral Emptiness of the Left.” Here are the pull quotes: “Bush, Blair, and Cheney did not have the luxury of pretending that hard choices can be wished away. That’s what Harry Truman meant about the buck stopping here in the Oval Office. The greatest disappointment since 9/11/01 has been a total moral vacuity of the left, a complete and utter nullity, both here and in Europe. Today, five years later, psychological denial still rules the day.
“The few Democrats who raise their heads above the screaming mob are chased out, like Joe Lieberman and Zell Miller. One-third of American voters still being suckered by the left-wing media who live in some sort of Toon Town, where you can have your cake and eat it too, where lunches are free, and health care is, too, and where there are no ideological killer movements in this world, and to achieve world peace, you just have to point your finger at the warmongers and scream really loud. The left is now populated by ‘mewling, puking infants,’ as William Shakespeare put it, utterly lacking an understanding of the world as it is. It’s a sad side to behold.
“We need unity, not denial. As it is the left has become a fifth column, fighting the civilized world and busily explaining away danger. The New York Times can get away with sabotaging our fight for survival against the worst fascist movement since you-know-who. The left is even descending to Nazi slogans and scapegoating Jews. A generation ago, who would have believed it?” and the final line is: “All we know for sure is that the mewling, puking infants of the left will blame any adults in sight for the anxieties of having to live in the real world.” Boy, that is well said. A bunch of people who would just rather trade a bunch of security in order for not being bothered or hassled or living life in fear, or what have you.
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