RUSH: Melissa, thanks for waiting. You’re next on the EIB Network. Hello.
CALLER: Hello.
RUSH: Yes?
CALLER: I was wondering, okay, since America does have so many problems like the poor and crime and pollution and the list goes on and on and on and on, how can we ever have time to solve those problems in our own backyard and get our own backyard cleaned up if we are spending so much time trying to clean up everybody else’s problems, i.e., Iraq? You would think that we’re never going to be able to have time to solve our own since we’re busy with theirs.
RUSH: Okay. Can we run through that list of problems again that you mentioned, that you started the call with? You said, ‘We have so many problems like the poor and crime and pollution and the list goes on and on and on and on.’
CALLER: Yes.
RUSH: You’re wondering. Well, do you think during World War II when the Japanese attacked us that we had crime and pollution and the poor?
CALLER: We’ve always had it, and it’s not going to be perfect.
RUSH: That’s the point! That’s the point, and we would be making a lot more progress on poverty and crime if we hadn’t had to deal with 50 years of liberal social problems such as the Great Society and Head Start and this kind of thing. I don’t have enough time left in the program to go into great detail with you, but my point to you is that defending the nation and protecting our national security — we’re not in Iraq to stop crime there. We’re not in Iraq to stop pollution there. We’re not in Iraq to fix poverty. We’re in Iraq for American national security. This is about the defense of this country, and if that ever gets put to secondary or tertiary status, in order to fix these domestic problems, we’re not going to have the domestic problems, period, or else everything will be that way. This is a great country. We can do all kinds of things at the same time.
CALLER: All right.
RUSH: Well, I can tell you with your tone of voice that you disagree, but you don’t know what to say.
CALLER: Well, I think — I think it’s a matter of we like — we’re too busy sticking our nose where I don’t think it necessarily belongs. You know, even in the Bible it says to take the plank out of your eye before you try to take the sawdust out of somebody else’s eye, but —
RUSH: Well, wait a minute! They didn’t just pick our eye. We had 3,000 people killed in less than an hour and a half on 9/11. Now, really, I just gave you the answer. This is about US national security, and we’re too busy sticking our nose where you don’t think it belongs? You can have that view. You can have that opinion, but if it’s wrong, it means you’re wrong, and this is about US national security. There’s a war on terror out there, and you have got this misguided notion in your head that we’re over there trying to make Iraq into some sort of utopia while at the same time ignoring our own problems. We no more ignore our problems… Life in this country is getting better each and every day. I wish I had more time with you. I really do, Melissa, because you have potential. Get her number, Mr. Snerdley, if she will let us have it, and we’ll try again some other time.