RUSH: Late yesterday afternoon, sometime last night, Dingy Harry and Nancy Pelosi challenged the president over Iraq. They sent him a letter, ahead of a White House meeting later today, and they said, ”As many had foreseen, the escalation has failed to produce the intended results,’ the two leaders wrote. ‘The increase in US forces has had little impact in curbing the violence or fostering political reconciliation.”
In other words, the Iraq surge is a failure, Pelosi and Reid have told President Bush. Then a companion story to this, ‘Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid called Marine Gen. Peter Pace, the outgoing chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, ‘incompetent’ during an interview Tuesday with a group of liberal bloggers, a comment that was never reported. Reid made similar disparaging remarks about Army Gen. David Petraeus, the top U.S. commander in Iraq, said several sources familiar with the interview,’ but the Drive-Bys didn’t find out about it, they weren’t interested in it. This is just the latest example of how Reid, under pressure from liberal wacko kooks to do more to stop the war is going on the attack against President Bush and his military leaders. The timing of this is done specifically to coincide with the current life support status of the Comprehensive Destroy the Republican Party Act of 2007, otherwise known as the amnesty bill. Now, what’s especially egregious about this, Reid has gone I think where he was finally destined to go. From criticizing the war to now criticizing the troops and the military leaders, is it any surprise he did this in an interview with liberal bloggers and not Drive-By Media reporters?
The Democratic attacks on General Pace, General Petraeus are especially Bush league — excuse the term — because under traditional rules of civil-military relations, neither man can defend themselves. They have to shut up. They can’t say one word about this. Now, this is Flag Day. June 14th is Flag Day. And while most of us raise the red, white, and blue, Nancy Pelosi and Dingy Harry have raised once again the white flag. They surrender, they proclaim defeat. After declaring the war is lost, the terrible twos now say the surge has failed. The thing is, it’s really debatable as to whether the surge has failed. I got a couple stories. There’s one in the Washington Post. You know what? Baghdad is quieter. Baghdad is a little more stable. The Washington Post story says that the violence has spread to other areas. Now, excuse me, but wasn’t the point to stabilize Baghdad? Wasn’t the point to go in there and root out some of this violence and make it a little bit more stable? So under those terms, that has happened. The Post story admits, yeah, Baghdad is a little quieter, but the violence has spread elsewhere. Well, in Afghanistan it’s the same situation. Kabul is pretty quiet, the capital there. Other parts of the country, where they’re growing the poppies, you still have some of the warlords out there, there’s not as much order as there is in Kabul, but, you know, a stable capital is a great first step.
So you got Dingy Harry pronouncing it a failure, Petraeus and Pace are incompetent, which leads me to say something. I’ve held this in long enough. I really suspect that these liberal tactics are damaging, maybe even killing the morale of our troops. We hear that it does not undermine their morale. They tell us they don’t like hearing it, they tell us it bothers them, but it doesn’t affect their morale. But who is the one telling us this? Reid, Pelosi, they get defensive, ‘Oh, no, no, no, we’re not hurting morale out here. No, we support the troops.’ And who knows more about the troop morale than Reid and Pelosi? Dennis Kucinich? Now, I just think this is the height of irresponsibility, and it’s in response to the plummeting numbers that Pelosi has, the plummeting approval numbers that Reid has — they’re add 19%. Everybody is making hay here about Bush’s approval numbers at 29. Congress is lower than that.
So the Democrat leaders in the House and Senate go out and talk to these kooks, I mean these fringe kooks and just give them the red meat that they want to hear in order to shore up their own support. I think Dingy Harry also, didn’t he once criticize Justice Clarence Thomas, saying his opinions are stupid and uninformed and some such thing? I’ll tell you who’s incompetent: The guy who can’t run his own shop right now is Harry Reid. The guy who cannot get anything done in the Senate is Harry Reid. Over in the House, if you want Miss Incompetent, it’s Nancy Pelosi. I got a couple stories about Pelosi and how hard it is to get anything done on the war, just really hard. They can’t come up with enough Democrat votes on getting rid of ‘don’t ask, don’t tell.’ She can’t get anything done other than harass Bush. The true incompetence is in Dingy Harry’s office and Nancy Pelosi’s office, and to insult yet again the troops and their commanders is beyond the pale, folks.
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RUSH: Ron in Bend, Oregon, you’re next on the EIB Network. Hello.
CALLER: Yeah, you know, Rush, there’s nothing sacrosanct about Peter Pace and his career. If he deserves criticism, he deserves it. He does, but the important thing is the lives and well-being of the soldiers. Now, I’ve spent a lot of time in the Marine Corps and the Army, and I’ve known a lot of guys like Pace. There’s a reason he’s called ‘Perfect Peter.’ He’s career comes first. You call these guys ‘careerists.’ They make their way up by pleasing their superiors in the civilian world, and you know their’s an old saying: ‘If you live by butt kissing, you die by butt kissing.’
RUSH: No, you don’t die by butt kissing. If you live by butt kissing, you die of anal poisoning. That’s the phrase.
CALLER: Well, the point is once upon a time you and I talked and we said the important thing was the lives of the soldiers, right? And you agreed with that, and these are the guys who are getting short changed by crummy leadership whose career comes first. That’s the sad part of it.
RUSH: Look, you may be more informed. You’re retired military, correct?
CALLER: Correct.
RUSH: Marine?
CALLER: I started out in the Marines. I retired from the Army Reserve.
RUSH: All right. You may be more informed about this than I. I’ve met General Pace, and I was profoundly impressed. I met him and Donald Rumsfeld the same night, at a Marine Corps-Law Enforcement Foundation dinner. It’s a charity that raises money for scholarships for the children of Marines killed in action, worldwide. I’m on the board. Rumsfeld was the featured speaker that night. He gave a great speech, and it was where I first met General Pace. I’m telling you, I was profoundly impressed with him. I’ve never heard the nickname ‘Perfect Peter.’ But let’s say you’re right. Let’s say he’s self-focused on his career and so forth. I’ve not heard anybody else say that, but it doesn’t matter. Maybe he can be criticized, but for people like the Democrat majority leader in the House and the Senate to come out and attack him as incompetent, in the middle of a war, in a situation where they can’t respond — protocol and structure prevents Pace and Petraeus from responding. It’s not that I believe people are above criticism. Lord knows that would cut off 90% of the speech that happens in this country, but I’m saying there’s got to be some…civility, let’s say. There’s gotta be some reason here.
You talk about being oriented toward their career? That’s Harry Reid. Harry Reid’s oriented toward his sagging approval rating. Harry Reid is trying to get some stature back, and he’s dumping on people whose uniform he couldn’t wear, whose job you couldn’t do. He’s proving his own incompetence. Now, Pace may be what you say.; I’ve not heard that from others. I don’t even want to be go there. I don’t want to debate whether he is or not. What Reid and Pelosi are doing in the middle of a war — trying to secure defeat for the sake of their own political advancement and their party’s advancement — is repulsive, and it’s repugnant to me and it angers me to no end, and they’re going to pay a price for this. They are paying a price. The American people are fed up en masse with the United States Congress. They’re not doing anything on earmarks. In fact, they’re still doing them. They’re trying to hide them, and the Republicans are playing hardball on this and succeeding in trying to get this stuff into the sunlight. They’re an absolute disgrace. They are a mess, and for them to sit there and start talking about the competence or incompetence of people who are leading American troops in battle, while trying to secure the defeat of the mission of these troops is just beyond the pale, and they should pay a huge, huge price for it.
RUSH: Janet in Augusta, Georgia, it’s great to have you on the EIB Network. Hello.
CALLER: Hello.
RUSH: Yeah?
CALLER: I have an article in the Des Moines Register —
RUSH: A credible source!
CALLER: (laughing) Yeah, I know. By John Carlson, and it was surprising.
RUSH: Wait. Wait. Wait. Is it a column?
CALLER: ‘John Carlson’s Iowa,’ it’s called.
RUSH: Yeah, that’s a column.
CALLER: Yes.
RUSH: So this is a local guy that writes about things going on in Iowa?
CALLER: You got it.
RUSH: Okay.
CALLER: And —
RUSH: So it’s an opinion piece. Well, hell, everything in the news is opinion pieces. anyway.
CALLER: Well, my mother-in-law sent it to me because she was shocked, because he actually interviewed a chief warrant officer who is a Black Hawk helicopter pilot from Ames, and it actually gives the pilot a chance to say what he thinks about the media, and I was going to read a little bit of what he said
RUSH: No, no, no, we don’t read. How long ago was that story printed?
CALLER: This is… Oh, she cut off the date, I think.
RUSH: It’s a few days or a week ago or so, right?
CALLER: Yeah.
RUSH: Yeah, yeah, I remember this story. This guy, the Black Hawk pilot lays into the media.
CALLER: He sure does.
RUSH: He just rips ’em a new one. What does he say. Just tell us in your own words. If you start reading, you’re not a highly trained specialist here. You’re going to sound monotone. I’m doing this to protect you.
CALLER: Okay.
RUSH: Only people highly trained like me can read and make it sound like I’m telling and speaking. So in your own words, tell me what this guy said about troop morale.
CALLER: Well, he says for morale, he says, ‘We’re treading water.’ He says, ‘We continue to kick butt on missions and take care of each other, even though we know the American public and government does not stand behind us.’ He says, ‘Hello, media? Do you know you indirectly kill American soldiers every day?’
RUSH: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
CALLER: He goes on to say that you are ‘the enemy’s greatest weapon.’ They can’t beat us on the battlefield but basically all they have to do is turn on the television.
RUSH: That’s right. There are two fronts in the war: here at home and over there on the battlefield, and we’re losing the war here at home. No thanks to people like Dingy Harry and Nancy Pelosi — and I don’t care. however incompetent Peter Pace is, he is not doing anything to lose the war at home. He is not befriending the enemy, as the Drive-By Media here does —
CALLER: That’s right.
RUSH: — and allow themselves to be used as a propaganda megaphone by the Al-Qaeda in Iraq crowd. Yeah, I remember this. I didn’t see the actually story, but I had a lot of people telling me about it.
CALLER: Well, he says, he’s tired of busting my butt over here and coming home every night and turning on the TV and hearing out how we’re failing miserably.
RUSH: I don’t blame him.
CALLER: I don’t, either.
RUSH: I don’t blame him. You know, it’s rare for him to speak out like this, too. Most of these guys, for attribution are really not allowed to do things like this, either, so…
CALLER: He’s evidently had it, and I don’t blame him. My husband is former Army. So I don’t blame him, and she was surprised to see an article like that in the newspaper, and that’s why she clipped it out.
RUSH: Well, yeah, especially the Des Moines Register. That’s incredible.
CALLER: Yes. So we got it in the mail.
RUSH: The only thing they care about is whether or not Hillary is going to show up for the straw poll. All right, I gotta run and take a break here, Janet. Thanks much. It’s been great speaking to you.
CALLER: Thank you. You, too, Rush.
RUSH: And, by the way, I knew you were reading in defiance of my rule but because you were doing okay, I let you.
CALLER: Well, I was nervous.
RUSH: That’s right, and you’re so sweet and you’re so nice, I decided to just waive the rule.
CALLER: Thank you.
RUSH: Janet is not in my top ten names of all time. I like the name, but I gotta limit it here sometime. It’s not in the top ten. No offense, Janet.
CALLER: That’s my middle name.
RUSH: What’s your first name?
CALLER: Janet. My middle name is Evelyn.
RUSH: Evelyn?
CALLER: Evelyn.
RUSH: Evelyn. Evelyn.
CALLER: Is that any better? Is that in your top ten?
RUSH: No, that’s an 1800s name.
CALLER: (Giggles.)
RUSH: Janet’s cool.
CALLER: (Laughing.) Rush, you better just hang up and save yourself.
RUSH: I’ve been trying to.
CALLER: (Giggles.)
RUSH: See ya.
CALLER: Bye.
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I told you the last hour, Dingy Harry called a bunch of liberal bloggers and said, ‘We’re going to renew our efforts here, get our troops out of there and end this war. We’re going to renew our efforts here to secure defeat.’ He also told them that Peter Pace is incompetent. He also said that General David Petraeus is incompetent. Now, there may be arguments about General Pace. I, frankly, have not heard anybody say that. We had a caller say that he’s called ‘Perfect Peter’ because he cares about his career more than anything else, and there are going to be opinions about people like this in public life. I’ve not heard the criticism, just the exact opposite. I’ve met General Pace once and was profoundly impressed. But nobody that I know of is saying Petraeus is anything other than brilliant. So Dingy Harry gets on the phone to these bloggers and he gives them what they want to hear. I have a New York Times version of these events, right here in my formerly nicotine-stained fingers. ‘President Bush had barely left the capital after immigration talks there on Tuesday when Senator [Dingy] Harry Reid of Nevada walked onto the Senate floor to call for a moment of silence.’
I told you this was going to happen 20 minutes before it did. ‘It was time, [Dingy] Harry said, to pay tribute to American soldiers in Iraq as the death toll reached 3500. A short time before the moment of silence, [Dingy] Harry convened a conference call with liberal bloggers, offering assurances that Democrats would revive debate over the war, and he pledged to revive it soon, ending the silence that followed the White House’s outmaneuvering of Democrats last month to win more money for the war without a timeline to end it.’ That’s the extent of their reporting about what Dingy Harry said to the liberal bloggers. They’re giving him cover on this, because they know that it’s not something that’s going to help the Democrats. So after huddling with the liberal bloggers, Dingy Harry is going to try and run the same play on the war. They got four principles here, four proposals, will not be new. ‘The Democrats intend to reprise at least four ideas when the Senate considers the defense department policy bill. The four things are these: A measure to reverse the authorization for the Iraq war, set a deadline for troop withdrawal, block money for major combat operations after March 31st of next year, and increase readiness requirements for troops to be sent back to Iraq. On Iraq, [Dingy] Harry said, ‘we’re going to hold the president’s feet to the fire.” Every one of these things has failed previously. They’re going to bring it back up.
They know they’re going to bring it back up and they know they’re going to fail, and they’re doing this simply to massage this literal insane train of kooks in the liberal blogosphere. ‘Nancy Pelosi said it had been difficult to convince some Democrats that despite their majority, they are limited in how they can change the president’s policy. ‘Some Democrats don’t understand, we don’t have the signature. We can only do so much. Others are just very unhappy. I include myself among them being very unhappy that we’ve not been able to bring the war to an end.” Ah, the pandering. Folks, if you knew to whom they are pandering! It’s a bunch of Alfred E. Newmans! Find the biggest kook nerd in your life’s memory and amplify that by, you know, a couple hundred thousand, and that’s who they’re talking to on these blog phone calls, and that’s who they’re catering to here. ‘It’s so hard, these wonderful bloggers, our kooks, just don’t understand how hard, we don’t have the signature. There’s only so much we can do. I’m unhappy.’ They haven’t been able to do diddly-squat. They haven’t accomplished anything in there other than harass the president. Well, they got their minimum wage, but they had to attach that to something else that was going to go through.
So that was going to happen anyway because Republicans, you know, cowering in the corner in fear on that issue were going to — the defense bill.
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RUSH: Tony Snow in the White House press briefing today talking about the comments of Dingy Harry on Generals Pace and Petraeus.
SNOW: We are a little bit concerned about some reports on the Internet that Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, in a conversation with liberal bloggers, had referred to General Pete Pace, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, as ‘incompetent,’ and apparently — again, according to the reports — had said disparaging things also about General David Petraeus. We certainly hope it’s not true because in a time of war, for a leader of a party that says it supports the military, it seems outrageous to be issuing slanders toward the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs and also the man who’s responsible for the bulk of military operations in Iraq. Indeed, Senator Reid has at some point declared the war lost and also has declared the surge a failure even though it has not yet been fully enacted. I don’t know if it’s true or not. If it is true, I certainly hope he does apologize.
RUSH: All right. Well, that’s sent the Drive-Bys in the White House Pressroom over the edge. Here’s a little background here. You’ll hear the press cackling in the background and some overlapping hubbub here in this bite.
VOICE: Why the preemptive strike?
SNOW: Well, I just think it’s appropriate to comment on it.
VOICE: Yeah, but you’re not —
VOICE: But you don’t know whether it’s true?
VOICE: You say these things are outrageous, but you don’t know whether or not they’re true.
SNOW: Well, I don’t know. Do you trust The Politico? I don’t know. We’ll give a call.
VOICE: You never like us to comment on things that we hear —
VOICE: Hypotheticals!
VOICE: — that you say are hypothetical.
SNOW: Well, you got me.
RUSH: You guys in the Drive-By Media never comment on hypotheticals? You never comment on…? Anyway, they’re all over him for accepting the report on The Politico. Has Dingy Harry denied it? I haven’t seen Dingy Harry deny that he said it, and the source for the Politico is a couple of these bloggers, I think, people that were over on the phone call. It was a conference call. It’s a very serious charge that, Tony Snow is making it up, right, or believing people that are making it up? (interruption) Well, okay, the ‘serious charge’ would be that Reid said it. It’s a very serious charge, but of course doesn’t county when liberals do things. The ‘nature of the evidence’ is all that counts
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RUSH: All right. Matt in Rock Island, Illinois, I’m glad you called, sir. You’re next.
CALLER: Hey, Rush. It’s great to talk to you.
RUSH: Thank you, sir.
CALLER: I’m very nervous, so… Right to my point. I don’t think that Democrats are going to pay any price for their antics at this time. Before they got elected in November, they were saying the same thing. They were destroying the leaders over in Iraq. They were trying to destroy Bush the whole time, and the American people knew who they were voting for and they voted them in.
RUSH: I don’t believe that. I don’t believe that.
CALLER: Well, either that or the American people are stupid, Rush.
RUSH: No. No, no, no, no. I think the American people knew what they were voting against, and they were just fed up. The Republican Party was abandoned by enough of its voters last November. The Dems didn’t run on any agenda. They ran on hatred for Bush. They might have made a couple references to ‘we need to get out of Iraq,’ but they didn’t say they were going to do it. They were scared to death to do it. They just ripped the whole concept. Then after the election they claimed the mandate that they never, ever stated. Look, the polls have never backed up what the Democrats say. If you’re right, if the American people elected Democrats knowing full well what they were going to do, they would have had no trouble passing any of their resolutions to get the troops out of there and to cut funding. They haven’t been able to do it, because that is not the will of the people. The will of the people is not defeat. The will of the people is not wave the white flag and surrender. The Democrats retreated from retreat. They surrendered from surrender. They had to put $25 billion of pork in the bill to get enough votes to get to 218 to pass their first resolution, which was symbolic anyway, because it wasn’t going to go anywhere in the Senate. Don’t fall for this. A lot of conservatives think Democrats get away with all of this because the Drive-Bys never hold them accountable. It’s just like the sound bite we just heard with Tony Snow. Okay, so Tony Snow read The Politico today, and he finds out that some bloggers said that Dingy Harry said that Peter Pace and General Petraeus are incompetent. He said, ‘I’m not sure. I read on a blog. If it’s true, I hope he apologizes.’ Dingy Harry hasn’t denied it. So the Drive-By Media in the pressroom are fit to be tied!
‘Well, why, do you believe it? Why don’t you find out? It’s hypothetical.’
What they’re really upset about is being scooped by a bunch of bloggers, and they’re also hoping and hoping that Dingy Harry didn’t say it, because it’s not going to help the Democrats. It’s why Dingy Harry said it to a bunch of little kooks on the Internet in a phone call. He didn’t say it to the assembled boobs in the Drive-By Media in the White House press corps.