RUSH: Now, why do I say that the story in the BBC yesterday, “US-Iran Attack Plans Revealed,” was planted by the administration? Well, for a host of reasons, but among them is this. There’s another BBC news story today, “Tehran Alarm Over US Tough Talk. — What will alarm Tehran about the latest details of US military planning for a strike on Iran is the fact that there are now two possible triggers for an attack. One is, as expected, the nuclear programme. But the new one is any major attack on US forces in Iraq that could be traced back to Iran.? Make no mistake about this, the efforts are underway here by the administration. The president’s said all along that we?re not going to tolerate them getting a nuclear weapon, a nuclear bomb, and we also know the president is undeterred by what the Congress does with their silly little resolutions. 
One of the many reasons I regretted not being able to be here on Friday and then yesterday was the comments of John Murtha and what is happening regarding all these silly resolutions and the slow bleed. I had a chance to tell you about their slow bleed policy on Thursday of last week, and may as well jump forward to audio sound bite number six, Ed, because that’s where I’m headed with this. I think, folks, these people are trying to get away with this ?support the troops? business in a way that is pure folly. It also is apparent to me that the Democratic Party has decided it and its elected officials are not really going to define their foreign policy. It seems to me that they are kowtowing fully — I mean if you listen to Hillary, I’m still stunned — well, I’m not stunned, because I know the Drive-By Media glosses over all of this, but I’m still stunned that anybody is willing to credit Mrs. Clinton with any kind of coherence.
My gosh, one day she says one thing, the next day another, depending on what the audience is. Now she’s out there buying endorsements in South Carolina, really afraid of Barack Obama, who, by the way, the Drive-Bys still can’t figure out if he’s black. They are agonizing over whether Barack Obama is black. There was a Sunday story in the LA Times. I read that during the seven hours I was awake. I didn’t have the ability to concentrate on it too much, but I saw enough, printed it out on the printer here, knew it would be waiting for me upon my arrival this morning to get ready for today’s program. But let’s listen to Murtha. This is last Thursday, and this is an interview with this left-wing blog. MoveCongress.org. This is the way he outlined the slow bleed plan. Now, if you’ve heard this, I’m sure you have, please indulge me because you have not heard my take on it.
MURTHA: They won’t be able to continue, they won’t be able to do the deployment. They — they won’t have the equipment, they don’t have the training, and they won’t be able to — to do the — the — the work.
RUSH: Does this sound like somebody who supports the troops? This is somebody who’s going to leave ’em high and dry, not to mention the constitutionality of this. This is going to come back to bite these people as so much of what they’re engaged in will down the road. Ladies and gentlemen, there’s no precedent for this. They cannot micromanage the war this way. This is not within the purview of Congress. They can try, and they can say all this, and they can have all the votes they want. You know something else that’s interesting? They had this vote in the House on Friday, and the Senate was Saturday, in a special Senate session. And, of course, they had 17 Republicans join the Democrats in the House vote. That might have been Thursday. I forget which. But regardless, they’re trying to portray this as a bipartisan resolution that of course means nothing.
More and more people in the Senate, Democrats included, like Chris Dodd, are beginning to admit, the resolution doesn’t mean anything. It has no teeth, especially since it failed, didn’t get the 60 the votes, couldn’t get the cloture. They did get a majority, 56-34 but they were unable to get the resolution. So the House resolution died as it always was going to die. But they’re trying to portray this as a bipartisan issue. The Democrats had enough votes on their own to pass this in the House without the 17 Republicans. The idea that this is somehow bipartisan, the Drive-Bys are trying to convince people of this because the Democrats know that they’ve walked the plank on this, and they know it full well, and they are hoping and praying against success in this surge. Do you realize what they’ve got at risk here? They are so invested in defeat, they cannot allow victory, and so they are doing everything they can to make it appear as though something that is, isn’t. And that is that there’s bipartisan support in the Congress to just leave the troops hanging out to dry.
What I find interesting about this, among many other things, is this. The Democrats in the House decided that Jack Murtha was unfit to be the majority leader. Now, they decide that Murtha is their military strategist. Now they decide that Murtha is their commander-in-chief, Murtha is the author of this slow bleed. Who’s going to bleed? The troops that these people claim they support. They want what they call a change of direction, and that change is General Murtha and his slow bleed strategy. And it basically is this: say you support the troops, say you won’t cut off funding, but then you do cut off reinforcements and resupplies and you cut off equipment and you cut off training, and then you keep saying you support the troops. They think that people are going to fall for this.
By the way, some new polling data I have from Neil Newhouse of Public Opinion Strategies, a respected group, that’s going to shock the Democrats because the national numbers on the war in Iraq and defeat versus victory or vice-versa are not nearly what the Democrats think the public opinion is on this. This whole idea of Murtha’s is a disgrace. The Drive-Bys know it, but rather than analyze it and condemn it and damn it, rather than point out that the slow bleed is not just stupid and unconstitutional, what do they discuss? They discuss the political strategy: Will it work? Will it backfire? They are totally unwilling to tell you in a sense of judgment just how outrageous, how unconstitutional, and how stupid it is, because their only focus is destroying Bush, regardless what that takes.
So you have to ask, can one of our two major parties be stupid enough to put this scheme under their name? I think I know what the liberals have in mind. I know these people like every square inch of my glorious infected naked body. I think they think they’ve got a Mulligan here. I think they think they can say thinking, do anything to foul up the mission, pass the buck to the president, and they think the media will back them on it, and if they’re wrong, the media will cover for them. I think that’s what they are hoping.
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RUSH: I want you to hear these two Jack Murtha bites. You’ve heard one. I want you to hear the second one, both of them together. Because I think this is what the Democrats are relying on to get away with. I’m convinced that it is the fringe left wing with whatever pressure they’re putting on Democrats that is orchestrating this particular foreign policy. Murtha is who he is, and I don?t want to get into any suggestions here that age may be responsible for the destruction of certain brain cells or anything of the sort, but it makes me wonder, I mean, this stuff is so outrageous and so unprecedented. And when you look at Hillary Clinton and the different story she’s got on how to explain her Iraq war vote in 2002… She won’t apologize for it. She started out by saying the president tricked me. If I’d-a known then what I know now. She won’t apologize for it, and I forget what her latest excuse is, but it’s really got ’em worried out there in the Hillary camp because there’s no consistency, which just means she’s not telling us the truth about it, which is that she was gung-ho for it in 2002, as were most of the Democrats, because none of what they were told in 2002 was any different than what they’d been told in 1998 about Saddam and Iraq. Anyway, here’s Murtha, first cut.
MURTHA: They won’t be able to continue, they won’t be able to do the deployment, they won’t have the equipment, they don’t have the training, and they won’t be able to — to do the — the — the work.
RUSH: Yes. And then he said…
MURTHA: What we’re trying to do is — is make sure people understand, we’re supporting the troops, we are protecting the troops, but on the other hand, we’re going to stop this surge.
RUSH: See, so this is what they think is going to work. They can undercut the mission; they can stop reinforcements; they can stop redeployments; they can keep needed equipment from getting to the troops; they can stop new training; they can do all of this while at the same time saying they support the troops. Now it’s patently absurd. But I think that that’s what they’re hoping will resonate with the American people, a certain percentage of whom are absolutely clueless and respond totally on the basis of their feelings. I think what they think they can do here is say and do anything to undercut the troops, so long as they say, ?We support the troops.? So you got a slow bleed, ?We’re going to slowly bleed the troops. We support the troops. We’re going to cut off funding, that proves that we support the troops. We’re going to pull out of Iraq. That really proves we support the troops. And then we’re going to cut the military in half when we get ready to take over the country as president.” That really, really, really proves they support the troops.
I will bet you, ladies and gentlemen, because of the clueless nature of a large percentage of the people in this country, I will bet you that if Jack Murtha or Hillary Clinton or Nancy Pelosi said, ?We have a plan. We are going to eliminate the armed forces in order to protect the troops. To support the troops, we’re going to eliminate the armed forces, because eliminating the armed forces would mean no troop would ever be in harm’s way.? Twenty percent of the people in this country think that’s compassionate. Not that they would agree with it, but they would think it’s compassionate, they would think the Democrats care. This whole thing is predicated, I think, on their ability in their own minds to get away with this notion in public opinion circles, that they support the troops. Of course, I think one of the reasons they think they can get away with this is the president refuses to describe them as they are.
?I don’t question their patriotism, no, we need to debate the issue.? What do you mean, debate the issue? We’ve been debating this issue my whole life. We’ve been debating the role of the military in the United States and in the world as it relates to US national security my whole life, and beyond. Certainly we’ve been debating the military and debating Iraq since 2002. Of course the Democrats in the Senate: ?Well, the Republicans are stifling debate.? Patently absurd. The Democrats out there: ?We support the troops, we support the troops.? And there are enough people in this country who will think that alone means that they love the troops and therefore whatever policy they come up with is designed to support and love the troops. Bob in Memphis, we’ll go to you first. Welcome to the EIB Network, sir. Great to have you with us.
CALLER: Thank you, Rush. Speaking as a Naval Academy graduate, Marine Corps officer veteran, and a degreed English major, first of all, let me point out that a nonbinding resolution is by definition an oxymoron because a resolution implies and demands that you are resolved to take action on your words, and so to say something that’s nonbinding in a resolution makes no sense.
RUSH: Well, but as Chris Dodd said today, the Senate does this kind of thing all the time. The sense-of-the-Senate, it’s called. He said we had a sense-of-the-Senate on asparagus once, and he was doing this under the guise of saying this thing is meaningless. He’s agreeing with you, but they do this all the time, and they do it to avoid making decisions. They do it instead to make statements.
CALLER: Well, too much asparagus and not enough backbone in my opinion. And finally I’d just like to point out that in terms of the steps that Jack Murtha is advocating, as a veteran looking at his service, I can’t speak for what his motive is, but I’m disgraced that a former Marine officer would carry that kind of thing forward. The best form of welfare for any soldier on any battlefield is, first of all, unconditional surrender of the enemy. Secondly, first class training, leadership, and preparation for the fight. Thank you.
RUSH: You bet. Glad you called. By the way, the resolution is not just meaningless. For example, it’s just the first step in many steps. This headline from McClatchy newspaper, ?Senate Democrats promise `relentless’ flood of anti-war legislation.? It’s just the first. They’re going to keep this up for the next two years. They’re not going to stop. The purpose of this is not really to get anything done, because they can’t, unless enough cowardly Republicans join with them, unless they actually have the guts to de-fund it, that they could seriously do that. There is a political effort here to isolate the president. There’s a political effort here to gin up even more anti-war sentiment on the part of the American people and isolate the president, make it very tough for him to act in a political sense. So these things are not just self-contained and unique, they’re part of an ongoing pattern and plan that the Democrats have, but remember, it’s all oriented toward our defeat. That’s what has to culminate here for the Democrats to emerge victorious in this
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RUSH: Here’s the polling data that I referred to mere moments ago from Neil Newhouse of Public Opinion Strategies. They’re releasing this today, and it’s their findings based on an extensive new poll regarding the Iraq war. Let’s see if it gets any attention. It should. They have a great reputation, Newhouse and Public Opinion Strategies does, but here’s the bottom line of this thing. Let me just summarize this for you. There are other national polls that show voter opposition to the surge and also the unpopularity of the war. The results in this poll show a much more nuanced view. For example, ?Americans are evenly divided on whether the country should stay in Iraq until the Iraqis can govern and provide security to their own country. It’s 50-49, we should stay.? You’re not going to see this in too many other polls. ?By 56-43%, voters agree that Americans should stand behind the president in Iraq, even if they have concerns about the war.?
I kid you not. I’m not making it up. I got it from the source. I’ve got the poll. It’s a PowerPoint presentation, but I’ve got it. ?57% of those polled in the Newhouse Public Opinion Strategies poll believe that the Iraq war is a key part of the global war on terrorism. A majority, and it’s a slim majority, believe that Democrats are going too far and too fast in pressing the president to get out of there. 57% agree that the troops should remain in Iraq until their government can maintain control and provide security for its people. Only 43% of the people in this poll agree that victory in Iraq is no longer possible.? Not a majority. Now, I know you don’t believe this because this is unlike anything you’re hearing in the Drive-Bys. The Drive-Bys have their own polls and they say nothing like this. ?Just 25%, one quarter, say they don’t really care about what happens in Iraq after the United States leaves.?
Now, ?The data in the Neil Newhouse Public Opinion Strategies poll clearly indicates much greater support for a US strategy aimed at victory than other polls would indicate. The key group of voters is the 23% of the electorate deemed nose holders. These voters don’t believe the US should be in the war, but they also believe the troops should stay there and do whatever it takes to restore order until the Iraqis can govern and provide security for their own country.? You know, hold your nose, you support it but you hold your nose, 23% are nose holders. That’s a smaller number than the Drive-By polls would lead you to believe. Let’s just see if this gets any attention, any coverage. I’ll be stunned if it does, simply because it just doesn’t fit the agenda of the Drive-Bys, the Democrats. Dan in Summerville, South Carolina, you’re next, glad you waited, welcome to the broadcast, sir.
CALLER: Rush, hi. Greetings from the low country of South Carolina. It’s a pleasure to speak with you.
RUSH: You bet.
CALLER: I am just very — I’m so disgusted with the way the Democrats are conducting themselves during this time in our country’s history, and I’m just very curious, you know, what your opinion is on, do you see President Bush as basically reading the tea leaves here? I know he’s sending in his troop surge to try and secure Baghdad, but do you feel like he’s really going to — because I truly believe he does have this country’s interests, you know, that’s his primary concern —
RUSH: What are you asking me? Are you asking me if I think Bush is going to cave to the Democrats?
CALLER: No, is he going to ratchet up his strategy over there and really try and wrap this up before his term in office ends? Because he’s up against a time clock now, it seems like.
RUSH: Yeah, but see, I think you’re making a mistake there. Now, I may be a lone wolf on this. The one thing that I believe Bush about, and I think we’ve got recent histoire on my side, I don’t think political motivations factor. If they did, a whole lot of great things would have happened last October before the elections. I don’t think he’s got it in his mind to wrap this thing up before 2009 when he leaves office. I think in his mind he?s doing it right. He’s told us it’s going to go on long beyond that. Iraq is one theater in the war on terror. I, frankly, would love for this mess to sit on Hillary Clinton’s desk for a while, just to see what she did with it. But that’s me being selfish.
CALLER: That could have some real detrimental consequences, too. I guess wrap-up’s probably the wrong word because I know it’s going to go on long past his presidency.
RUSH: I think you can look at the fact that he’s ratcheting up — you know, releasing war plans, my theory on Iran, there’s no question. I think he’s going to take delight in skewering these people and letting them hang themselves.
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By the way, the Washington Post twice has spanked Jack Murtha in an editorial. The Washington Post editorialized and excoriated Jack Murtha, not just for his plan to elevate the Democrats on the backs of the troops in Iraq, but also about his relative ignorance about all this. Listen to some of these excerpts. ?Mr. Murtha has a different idea. He would stop the surge by crudely hamstringing the ability of military commanders to deploy troops. In an interview carried Thursday by the website MoveCongress.org ?? and we played you these sound bites — the Washington Post says, ?why not straightforwardly strip the money out of the bill, an action Congress is clearly empowered to take, rather than try to micromanage the Army in a way that may be unconstitutional? Because Mr. Murtha said it will deflect accusations that he’s trying to do what he’s trying to do.? The Post catches up with what he’s trying to do. They’re lying to everybody. They’re trying to make people think they’re doing one thing while they’re doing another.
Murtha doesn’t have the guts to de-fund. These people don’t have the guts to vote on that. They only have the guts to vote on something that’s nonbinding, and the reason for the slow bleed is that it will deflect accusations that Murtha’s trying to do what he’s trying to do. ?What we are saying will be very hard to find fault with.? Well, it’s not hard to find fault with it, with anybody paying half attention to what he’s doing. The slow bleed, just the term alone that they’re so proud of. Remember, it’s all cloaked under the umbrella of “we support the troops.” The Post continued. ?Mr. Murtha’s cynicism is matched by an alarming ignorance about conditions in Iraq. He continues to insist that Iraq would be more stable with us out of there, in spite of the consensus of US intelligence agencies that the early withdrawal would produce massive civilian casualties.?
Would somebody — this is really a good point — somebody explain to me how in the world it is that — and Murtha has said this — that the minute we get out of there Al-Qaeda will leave Iraq and will leave us alone? This is why I personally, and I don’t know anybody else, I personally am questioning his mental prowess right now. That’s not just ignorance. Years ago, a guy like Jack Murtha, decorated Marine, would never have said anything like this. Pardon the sniffles again, folks. Still suffering the ravages of — by the way, this was not a cold. It’s not a cold. It hasn’t been a cold. It’s something else. Not even antibiotics have worked on this, the famed Z-Pack. Well, something’s working on it. It’s better than it was last week, but anyway, as they say here, ?It would be nice to believe that Mr. Murtha does not represent the mainstream of the Democrat Party or the thinking of its leadership, yet when asked about Mr. Murtha’s remarks Thursday Nancy Pelosi offered her support. Does Miss Pelosi really believe that the debate she orchestrated this week was not the real vote? If the answer is yes, she’s maneuvering her party in a way that can only do it harm.? This the Washington Post, folks.
E. J. Dionne, Jr., today in the Washington Post, “The Anti-War Rallying Point.” I?m not going to read the whole thing to you here, but his point is Murtha is hamstringing the military and the war for political gain and could doom the effort. Here’s the line. ?[But] the sense that the proposal has been crafted in part for reasons of political convenience and the intricate restrictions it would place on the military are precisely what could doom it. The war’s opponents need other options,? not Jack Murtha. This is E. J. Dionne, Jr., today. The Washington Post editorializing the same thing over the weekend. Basically, folks, we have somebody who’s at the least incoherent in Congressman Murtha and perhaps delusional or worse. We’ll be back and continue here in just a second.