RUSH: My hero, Dick Cheney, is back. The highest levels of the administration are not backing down. He was on Good Morning America today from Sydney, Australia. Correspondent Jonathan Karl again talking to him. Question: ?The speaker of the House was so upset about your comment that she called the White House to complain.? But Cheney did not back down.
CHENEY: I’m not sure what part of it is that Nancy disagreed with. She accused me of questioning her patriotism. I didn’t question her patriotism. I questioned her judgment. Al-Qaeda functions on the basis that they think they can break our will. That’s their fundamental underlying strategy. My statement was that if we adopt the Pelosi policy, that we will validate the strategy of Al-Qaeda. I said it, and I meant it. And I’m not backing down.
RUSH: My hero, not backing down. Nancy Pelosi, not referring to her as Speaker Pelosi, just referring to her as Nancy. You know, girl’s gone hormonal. Next question from Jonathan Karl. Get this. ?But hasn’t our strategy been failing? Isn’t that why the president has had to come out with a new strategy??
CHENEY: A failed strategy. Let’s see. We didn’t fail when we got rid of Saddam. We didn’t fail when we held elections. We didn’t fail when we got a constitution written. They?re all success stories.
KARL: Didn’t we fail when 3,000 American soldiers are all killed —
CHENEY: You wish there was never a casualty, Jonathan. Always a regret when you have casualties. But we are at war.
RUSH: Now, I know Jonathan Karl. I’ve met him a couple times when he was at CNN, and he’s not at CNN anymore because he wasn’t liberal enough. I’ll just be honest about that. I don’t know if he’s had to moderate his conservatism in order to be at ABC. Jonathan — and I know you’re over there with the vice president in Australia, you’re not going to hear about this for a couple minutes — but, Jonathan, this is embarrassing. ?Didn’t we fail when 3,000 American soldiers are killed?? Jonathan, have you ever heard of a war where we didn’t lose a single life? Jonathan, in peacetime, do you know how many American GIs stateside are killed in accidents? What is this? This question right there, because we all know the Drive-Bys are involved in groupthink. Remember how I opened the program? All these meetings that people have, it results in groupthink.
Nobody is individual anymore. Somebody says something; everybody else agrees with it. ?The meeting’s over, get outta here,? becomes the adopted strategy plan, theory, or what have you. Three thousand soldiers, doesn’t that mean we failed? Cheney was remarkably reserved in this answer. Had it been me, I would have been dumbstruck for about three seconds. I would have had the most perplexed look on my face and I would have said, ?I can’t believe you just asked me that.? But doesn’t that tell us the way the Drive-Bys and the left is looking at this? Three thousand dead in almost four years equals failure. But Jonathan Karl was undeterred. He then said, ?Tony Blair recently said the only sensible solution to this crisis is diplomacy. Do you agree with that??
CHENEY: We hope that we can solve the problem diplomatically. The president’s indicated he wants to do everything he can to resolve it diplomatically. That’s why we’ve been working with the EU and going through the United Nations with sanctions. The president’s also made it clear that we haven’t taken any options off the table.
RUSH: That was about Iran. I should have said that at the outset. Of course the world’s quaking in its boots now because the administration — I’m convinced it was the administration that leaked to the BBC our war plans for Iran and, ?Oh, no, Bush has lost it! Bush is nuts.? The Democrats are out there, Tony Blair is out there, ?We’re not going to go to war with Iran.? It is typical. United States has to go it alone in matters of great import. Anyway, we’ll see what happens. Let me ask you. This is a question for you people. Mrs. Clinton said not long ago that she would be offended if Bush didn’t get this Iraq situation cleaned up and finished before she’s inaugurated, coronated in January of 2009, did she not?
All right. What about Iran? What if Bush doesn’t solve that before she takes office? What if Mrs. Clinton is elected, coronated January 21st, 2009, and Iran the next day says, ?Mrs. Clinton, welcome to the world; we have just successfully tested our first nuclear missile.? Will the impeachment hearings of Bush begin? I mean, is he supposed to get Iran off the table before Mrs. Clinton takes over or any Democrat, or any other president, for that matter? And if so, how? We’re supposed to get Iraq off the table. Well, that’s easy. We just bring the troops home. They own defeat, remember, so we just bring the troops home. Victory is no more troops. That’s how they define it. Everybody wants to know what victory is. I know how you Democrats are defining it: no more troop deaths. Well, I want to see you pull this off. But that’s how they’re defining it. So interesting question here, what to do about Iran and will Mrs. Clinton be offended if that is not solved before her coronation?