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Rush Limbaugh

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RUSH: I watched a little bit of the Petraeus hearings this morning, and a couple things stood out. Of course, somebody let a Code Pink protester in there, took about a minute to get the idiot out of there. But here’s the thing that really amazed me. I’m watching Carl Levin give his speech, his opening statement, he’s talking to General Petraeus and Ambassador Crocker, and he’s going on and on and on about how the Maliki government in Iraq has not met its benchmarks and has not found a way to pay its own way on anything, and they better do that or we’re going to get outta there, they’re free to do what they had until November, and after that all bets are off, is what the Democrats are saying. And I find this fascinating. Here is a liberal Democrat senator from Michigan, Carl Levin, telling another nation’s government, fess up, shape up, make sure that you can pay your own way and meet the benchmarks that we have given for you. In other words, they’re telling the Iraqi government to become self-sufficient.

Wouldn’t it be great if liberal Democrats told their own voters the same thing? In this country, liberal Democrats look at their own voters, and they see permanent dependents, and they smile. They do everything they can to generate permanent dependents: undereducating kids in school, ongoing entitlement programs, advertising for peopling to get on the food stamp program, and yet, when it comes to the Iraqi government, why, they sound very conservative, you guys need to shape up, you guys need to become self-sufficient, you guys need to be able to pay your own way, you guys need to meet the benchmarks that we are saying. And yet they will not say that about the American people, particularly their own voters. It is just the opposite. We have a few sound bites from General Petraeus’ appearance today. The upshot is that he says it’s going pretty well, but ‘I want to suspend any troop withdrawals.’ Now, what everybody is waiting for is Senator Obama. All three presidential candidates are on this Senate committee that will be questioning General Petraeus and Ambassador Ryan Crocker. McCain has had his turn, Hillary will get hers, and Obama will get his, and everybody is waiting to see what Obama does with his time, whether he speechifies, whether he asks questions, and in either case, what does he say. We are keeping a sharp eye on this, ladies and gentlemen.

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RUSH: By the way, Carl Levin, a suggestion. If you’re going to be out there demanding that the Iraqi government meet benchmarks and come up with mechanisms whereby they can pay their own way and don’t need any aid from us, Senator Levin, you are from Michigan. You know, it might be helpful, Senator Levin, if you would enforce and demand benchmarks on your state and the Democrat governor and the legislature there to fix the mess that is Michigan. You’re demanding all these things from the government of Iraq while at the same time not demanding anything like that from your own constituents, your own voters, or your own governments.

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RUSH: Mrs. Clinton is now questioning General Petraeus. We are not going to JIP this, i.e, join it in progress. Our technicians and engineers are at this moment, rolling videotape for the express purposes of culling relevant audio sound bites, if any, from Mrs. Clinton’s questioning of General Petraeus.

By the way, speaking of Hillary Clinton, ladies and gentlemen, she just announced that she wants a poverty czar. What does that mean? We need a poverty czar. It means that she and those like her are admitting defeat in the war on poverty, are they not? They are admitting the failure of the welfare state. They are admitting in their own programs haven’t worked, if we need a poverty czar. You gotta know how to translate this stuff. You gotta know how to relay this stuff to other people for what it really means. Most people would hear Mrs. Clinton say, ‘We need a poverty czar,’ and go, ‘That’s right! That’s right, Mr. Limbaugh. So many people are losing ground in this country, there’s abject poverty everywhere. People are starving. They can’t afford gasoline or food in the grocery store. We need somebody on the case.’ Well, we’ve had a war on poverty since when? 1964. Guess it’s not working. Maybe we should surrender! Maybe we should pull out of the war on poverty. You talk about a bottomless pit? Maybe the war on poverty ought to be given some benchmarks to meet and be able to survive on its own.

But, see, this is my point. While Carl Levin can sit here and lecture the Iraqi government on meeting benchmarks and learn to pay its own way, become self-sufficient, he would nowhere near say that to Jennifer Granholm, the governor of his own state nor of Democrat voters and constituents all over the country.

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