RUSH: First let’s go to the audio sound bites. We’ve got CNN people. We’ve got ABC people. We’ve got Newsweek people. We’ve got CNN people again. We got ABC here, all excited, all talking about, fawning over the kindness of ‘President’ Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.
T.J. HOLMES: President Bush used the word ‘hostage.’ Now is that something the British would rather the US stay away from?
JIM BOULDEN: Mr. Bush made that comment at a press conference. Maybe it was off the top of his head but certainly here the word ‘hostage’ is not being used.
MARTHA RADDATZ: You heard President Bush say ‘hostages.’ That’s the first time he said hostages!
FAREED ZAKARIA: Do you think Blair wanted him to use that word (crosstalk) part of a ‘hostage’ crisis?
MATTHEW CHANCE (background noise): Use of the word ‘hostage’ conjures up memories of America’s own crisis with Iran.
DAVID WRIGHT: British officials have been hesitant to use the H-word, ‘hostage,’ but President Bush had no qualms.
RUSH: No qualms whatsoever, and of course it was supposed to worsen the situation. Now the 15 are freed — and again, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad chastised the British for having the uncivilized notion of deploying a woman with a child at home to combat. Here’s the CNN translation where Mahmoud, the great humanitarian, urges Tony Blair not to punish the hostages.
I declare that the people of Iran and the government of Iran, in full power, given their legal right to place on trial the military people, to give amnesty and pardon to these 15 people.
RUSH: He pardoned them!
AHMEDINAJAD (via translator): And I announce their freedom and their return to the people of Britain. I request the government of Mr. Blair not to question these people or to place them on trial for speaking the truth, and I request, Mr. Blair, rather than to increase international controversy or the occupation of other lands, to take steps towards peace, truthfulness and justice, and to serve the people of England.
RUSH: How long is it going to be before somebody advances the idea that Nancy Pelosi — in her burqa, by the way. She’s a big proponent of women’s rights and there she is bending over, grabbing the ankles for the Islamofascists. How long is it going to be before somebody tells us that she was responsible for this, that she talked to Bashar Assad and Assad said, ‘Oh, you know, you have a good idea. Let’s release the Brits,’ and he talked to Mahmoud. I just wouldn’t be surprised if this happens — and of course here’s Mahmoud telling Tony Blair stop being an imperialist. ‘Go back home. Don’t punish these people. Don’t question them. Don’t t touch them.’ (laughing) It’s sad. It’s just very sad, folks.
BREAK TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: All right, a couple more sound bites on the magnanimity and the compassion and the compromise capabilities of the great Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Here is CNN’s Christiane Amanpour speaking and reporting on the release of the hostages.
AMANPOUR: I think also it’s important to note, Iran — and you noted what he was doing.
ANCHOR: Yes.
AMANPOUR: He spent a lot of time talking about God and religion, but don’t forget, it’s Easter coming up —
ANCHOR: Humph!
AMANPOUR: — and perhaps part of this time was also for Easter. Big, big holiday in the Christian world, as you know.
RUSH: Really? I’d forgotten that! It’s Easter? That’s right! If it weren’t for Christiane Amanpour and CNN, I would have totally forgotten the fact that Easter is a big holiday here. So Mahmoud is sensitive to the Christian tradition, ladies and gentlemen! Mahmoud recognizes it’s Easter — and of course, this is all designed to do exactly what it’s doing. Every time the president or somebody sounds the warning bells about Iran, idiots and sponges who soak up what the Drive-Bys are saying today are going to say, ‘That guy? The guy who patiently and kindly, compassionately released those British hostages, he threatens us? I don’t believe it!’ That’s the purpose of this. Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is stealing the limelight today, making himself look like Mother Teresa with a beard, and it’s designed to offset (there’s that word again)
WHITFIELD: This has to be of course welcome news to see these British sailors and Marines now all depressed up and ready to go, but Robin, just a few days ago we know that Great Britain didn’t like the idea of these servicemen being paraded in front of cameras. Today, maybe they like it.
OAKLEY: Well (giggle), to have them paraded in these circumstances, I think yes.
RUSH: So the Brits are a bunch of bumbling fools and idiots that don’t know what they’re talking about. Bush is a bumbling fool and an idiot, and of course this wouldn’t have happened if it weren’t for Bush being the big cowboy that he is, but the bottom line is that Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, oh! He’s such a great man, such a great man of compassion, what a heart, and how can anything that anybody been saying about Mahmoud and Iran be true after this generous, generous act of kindness?