RUSH: I want to go to one Sarah Palin sound bite. This is perhaps one of the highlights of Sarah Palin’s interview. It’s number 23. It is one of the highlights of the whole interview last night. She’s great in this. I just want to set up this. She would not allow Charlie Gibson to put different words in her mouth when she answers his question about Israel. Now, just listen to this. This is Gibson’s question. ‘What if Israel decided it felt threatened and needed to take out the Iranian nuclear facilities?’
PALIN: I don’t think that we should second guess the measures that Israel has to take to defend themselves, and for their security.
GIBSON: So if we wouldn’t second guess it and if they decided they needed to do it, because Iran was an existential threat, we would be cooperative or agree with that?
PALIN: I don’t think we can second guess what Israel has to do to secure its nation.
GIBSON: So if it felt necessary, if it felt the need to defend itself by taking out Iranian nuclear facilities, that would be all right?
PALIN: We cannot second guess the steps that Israel has to take to defend itself.
RUSH: She would not let him put words in her mouth. She would not let him trip her up. He tried 25 different ways to try to trip her up on that. She’s essentially saying, ‘Screw you, Charlie, did you hear my answer? This is my answer, and I’m sticking to it. You can ask it however many ways you want, but this is my answer.’ This is just fabulous, people worried about how she did. Play it again, listen to this, the resolve that she has in her answer here despite Charlie Gibson’s attempt to get her to say, ‘Damn right we’ll nuke you,’ because they want the headline, ‘Palin: Nuke Iran,’ that’s what they want. They tried it with her answer on Russia and NATO, misrepresenting that. Here it is one more time, again, Charlie Gibson’s question, ‘What if Israel decided it felt threatened and needed to take out the Iranian nuclear facilities?’
PALIN: I don’t think that we should second guess the measures that Israel has to take to defend themselves, and for their security.
GIBSON: So if we wouldn’t second guess it and if they decided they needed to do it, because Iran was an existential threat, we would be cooperative or agree with that?
PALIN: I don’t think we can second guess what Israel has to do to secure its nation.
GIBSON: So if it felt necessary, if it felt the need to defend itself by taking out Iranian nuclear facilities, that would be all right?
PALIN: We cannot second guess the steps that Israel has to take to defend itself.
RUSH: I just love that. I just absolutely love it.
BREAK TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: Debbie, Mission Viejo, California, thank you for waiting, and welcome.
CALLER: I love you, Rush.
RUSH: Thank you.
CALLER: I just wanted to say, hey, if the Dems want to go back in history, last night reminded me of Torquemada interrogating Joan of Arc. I thought Charlie Gibson was the biggest bag of hubris wind ever, and I thought every time Sarah said, ‘Charlie,’ she was poking him in the chest, and I loved it.
RUSH: You know how that’s being interpreted by the Drive-Bys today is that she was way out of league, way out of touch, and she was trying to establish familiarity with a news god.
CALLER: Well, she wasn’t blinking, and all Charlie Gibson could do was ask her these stupid questions about her faith and war and try to turn it around and look down his nose and take off his glasses and eat the stem.
RUSH: You realize who Charlie Gibson’s audience was last night, don’t you?
CALLER: Well, I was one of them.
RUSH: No.
CALLER: I know who he’s playing to.
RUSH: No, no, no, you weren’t the audience, I wasn’t the audience, none of us listening to the program were the audience. The audience for that interview last night was Tom Brokaw, Brian Williams, Dan Rather, all of his colleagues in the Drive-By Media. Charlie Gibson got the first get. Charlie Gibson had to prove that he could be tough with the girl, that he wasn’t going to get caught up in her celebrity, and he was gonna bear down, and he was gonna expose her, and he was gonna make news. If he went too soft his colleagues would say that he wimped out. He knew that if he went too hard, people like you and I would dump all over him. He made the calculation that his reputation within his own news business was what was important, so that’s why he conducted the interview in the way that he did, kept probing after she had answered, kept asking the same question over and over, kept trying to trip her up on all the usual liberal cliches about God. I mean, they’re the ones out there saying things like Jesus was a community organizer, Pontius Pilate was a governor. And they’re, ‘Oh, I’m not comparing Jesus to Obama.’ Well, you’re certainly comparing Pontius Pilate to Palin. They’re the ones out there talking all this religion stuff and blaspheming it, by the way, and misrepresenting it. Pontius Pilate basically let the people decide, get out of the way, he didn’t want any part of this. So he turned it over to the mob.
CALLER: Yep.
RUSH: You know, these people, they don’t even know what they’re talking about when they get into these kind of areas, and it’s woefully obvious. But he was not doing this interview for you. Sure, he wanted a large audience to watch it, but believe me, when it was over, and he’s doing another one today, they’re doing a whole big thing on 20/20, or Prime Time Live, whatever the show is.
CALLER: I’m going to be watching. I just couldn’t believe that hubris comment about him, because he’s full of hubris.
RUSH: Yeah. Well, it takes one to know one. It takes one to know one. Debbie, thanks very much.
BREAK TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: Here’s Tom in Valentines, Virginia. Tom, I’m glad you waited. Welcome to the EIB Network.
CALLER: Hey, Rush! How are you?
RUSH: Very good, sir. Thank you.
CALLER: It’s a big honor. I’m a longtime listener, first-time caller.
RUSH: Great to have you here.
CALLER: I was calling you about Sarah Palin, Bush Doctrine issue last night, Charles Gibson.
RUSH: Yes.
CALLER: There’s a great blog post over on, I think it’s Media Blog on National Review, which really shows that actually on that issue, Charlie Gibson was wrong and Sarah Palin was right.
RUSH: I think that’s probably true for most of the interview. I’ll tell you what, I haven’t played much of the Palin interview, and let me take the occasion of your call to get there.
CALLER: Okay.
RUSH: In fact, here’s where I want to start. Let’s go sound bite 17, and we’ll get to this Bush Doctrine thing. The Bush Doctrine thing was the one area where people on our side cringed. ‘Oh, no, she doesn’t know what the Bush Doctrine is?’ Probably 12 people in the Bush administration know what it is. CIA’s forgotten about it, State Department’s forgotten about it, Pentagon’s forgotten about it. But when she found out what he was talking about, she gave the right answer. Anyway, let’s go to number 17. This is the NATO question. Charlie Gibson says to Sarah Palin, ‘Do you favor putting Georgia and Ukraine into NATO?’
PALIN: Ukraine, definitely, yes. Yes. And Georgia. Putin thinks otherwise, obviously he thinks otherwise.
GIBSON: Under the NATO treaty wouldn’t we then have to go to war if Russia went into Georgia?
PALIN: Perhaps so. I mean, that is the agreement when you are a NATO ally is, if another country is attacked, you’re going to be expected to be called upon and help.
RUSH: Now, we’re working on an Obama answer to a similar question to this that he got some time ago. He didn’t know how NATO works. We’re working on finding that answer. He does not know what she just said. Now, this was reported by the Drive-Bys as Palin would go to war with Russia. She was just detailing what the NATO agreement calls for. By the way, NATO, it’s a shambles. The European members of NATO are worthless right now, except for the Brits. But she said, ‘Perhaps so, that’s the agreement, when you’re a NATO ally, another country is attacked, you’re going to be expected to be called upon to help.’ So they love talking this up last night on CNN. Let’s go to Wolf Blitzer, and he’s got first up, Jeffrey Toobin and then Lou Dobbs coming up. He says to Toobin, ‘On the Georgia thing –‘ by the way, Toobin is their legal guy, talks about what goes on in courts and so forth. ‘On the Georgia thing and what Palin basically said was that if Georgia were to be a member of NATO the US, of course, would be obliged to come to the defense of Georgia or Ukraine or any other NATO ally under those circumstances, so she had that little nuance in there.’
TOOBIN: Well, yes, but we went through 50 years of a Cold War without going to war with Russia over things a lot more important frankly than Georgia, so I mean I just thought it was a somewhat odd answer, but we’ll parse them very carefully.
RUSH: Okay, he doesn’t know what he’s talking about. It’s an odd answer because he’s also thinking, okay, Cold War and Sarah Palin wants to take us to Russia. Lou Dobbs has to now bury these guys and explain to them what was really going on. Blitzer says, ‘First of all, what do you think about this latest sort of twist and turn in the presidential contest?’
DOBBS: If you’re sitting there listening to Obama, who’s run the slickest, smartest, shrewdest campaign right up until Russia invaded Georgia, the man cannot find his tempo again. His campaign is like they’re still on vacation. You just heard the man talking there with Letterman. He’s boring, just as Palin comes in to give excitement to the Republicans. He talks about exciting the base — 62 percent of men in this country have a favorable view of Governor Palin. And I heard our colleague Jeff Toobin say, ‘Well, he’s got some questions or he’s got to think about that answer of hers on whether or not, as a member of NATO, the United States would have to defend Georgia had Russia invaded it.’ Let me help you out, Jeff Toobin. No nuance required. We would be required to do so, as would all of the members of NATO.
RUSH: Exactly right. So there’s Lou Dobbs bringing the kids in the sandbox at CNN back to reality. So Blitzer says, ‘So I hear you saying that Obama seems to have lost his momentum, his mojo, if you will, but McCain’s gained it, is that what you’re thinking, Lou?’
DOBBS: This woman has turned feminism on its head. You’re watching women in this country trying to figure what in the heck, on the left, what in the heck this woman is doing to them. Women on the right are sitting there saying, you know, wow she’s talking sensibly because she’s first, pragmatic, who is trying to be painted as an ideologue of course by the Democrats, but she’s coming across very pragmatic, she’s strong, and, man, you gotta love the fact that this woman knows how to shoot.
RUSH: So kids at CNN are having lots of trouble here understanding this. They think they’re the smartest people in the room and Lou Dobbs is handing them their lunch. I want to go to sound bite 22. We’re going to skip 21, Ed. Folks, I’m sorry to give you these instructions publicly here, but we’re doing it on the fly here today. This is Charlie Gibson talking to Sarah Palin. ‘Have you ever met a foreign head of state?’
PALIN: I have not, and I think if you go back in history and if you ask that question of many vice presidents, they may have the same answer that I just gave you. But, Charlie, again, we gotta remember what the desire is in this nation at this time. It is for no more politics as usual, and somebody’s big, fat resume, maybe, that shows decades and decades in that Washington establishment, where yeah, they’ve had opportunity to meet heads of state.
RUSH: But they’ve been wrong. Whoopee-doo. Decades and decades, yeah, they’ve had opportunity to meet heads of state, but it doesn’t mean that they’re right about anything. I want to replay this. This is one of my favorite exchanges from the whole interview. This is Charlie Gibson saying, ‘What if Israel decided that it felt threatened and needed to take out the Iranian nuclear facilities?’
PALIN: I don’t think that we should second guess the measures that Israel has to take to defend themselves, and for their security.
GIBSON: So if we wouldn’t second guess it and if they decided they needed to do it, because Iran was an existential threat, we would be cooperative or agree with that?
PALIN: I don’t think we can second guess what Israel has to do to secure its nation.
GIBSON: So if it felt necessary, if it felt the need to defend itself by taking out Iranian nuclear facilities, that would be all right?
PALIN: We cannot second guess the steps that Israel has to take to defend itself.
RUSH: So they were saying, ‘She just repeats, she’s robotic.’ No, she was sticking to her answer and not letting him ask it 17, 25 times and put words in her mouth. When we come back we’ll play the question and answer on the Bush Doctrine. But before we go to the break I have a question. The National Hurricane Center — I’m serious. You think I’m going to be funny here. I’m dead serious. National Hurricane Center, Galveston, Texas, a warning has been issued. If you don’t evacuate in time and get out of the way of the approaching Hurricane Ike, you face ‘certain death.’ I’ve never heard the government issue an order like that about a hurricane. My serious question is, given the serious life-threatening nature of the storm surge of Hurricane Ike, where is Obama lowering the level of the seas? Said he could do it. Said it was going to happen. Do we have to wait for him to be president for that to happen or can he just go right now and wave the seas back? Stand athwart the seas and say, ‘Stop.’ Has anybody seen Obama at any of these disaster sites, by the way?
BREAK TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: Here is the exchange between Charlie Gibson and Sarah Palin last night. He says, ‘Do you agree with the Bush Doctrine?’
PALIN: In what respect, Charlie?
GIBSON: The Bush — well — what do you — what do you interpret it to be?
PALIN: His worldview.
GIBSON: No, the Bush Doctrine enunciated September, 2002, before the Iraq war.
PALIN: I believe that what President Bush has attempted to do is rid this world of Islamic extremism, terrorists who are hell-bent on destroying our nation. There have been blunders along the way, though. There have been mistakes made. And with new leadership — and that’s the beauty of American elections, of course, and democracy as well — is with new leadership comes opportunity to do things better.
GIBSON: The Bush Doctrine, as I understand it, is that we have the right of anticipatory self-defense, that we have the right tie preemptive strike against any other country that we think is going to attack us. Do you agree with that?
PALIN: Charlie, if there is legitimate and enough intelligence that tells us that a strike is imminent against American people, we have every right to defend our country.
RUSH: Now, when she finally was told what it was, she got it dead right. She did get it more accurately than Charlie Gibson got it. Charlie Gibson’s flaw here when he says, ‘The Bush Doctrine, as I understand it, is that we have the right of anticipatory self-defense and we have the right to a preemptive strike against any country we think is going to attack us.’ Well, we don’t. We could think somebody’s going to attack us any time we want to think it. She applied a more strict standard to this. We have legitimate evidence that tell us a strike is imminent, the threat is imminent, what do we do? Look, as I said earlier, folks, this is the one question and answer that made people cringe who watched it. But people don’t look at these things like they watch quiz shows. You don’t get just one chance to get it right. She came across as likable. There were no major gaffes or any of this sort of thing.
She did fine. She did extremely well. I think the Drive-Bys trying to parse this will again make a mistake. Here’s the thing. This is what we forget. Do you remember back in the middle of the July, Barack Obama was out there, and CNN played the clip of him saying this about his plan for Iraq. He said, ‘I’m going to call in the Joint Chiefs of Staff and give them a new mission, and that is to bring the war in Iraq to a close. We’re going to get out.’ There’s only one problem with that: the Joint Chiefs of Staff does not have operational command of US Military Forces! That authority resides in the commanders of the Unified Combatant Command, CENTCOM is the expand with approximately for Iraq and 26 other countries, including Afghanistan and Pakistan. Petraeus makes these decisions. He would have to call Petraeus. You don’t call the Joint Chiefs of Staff!
Now, that is a major gaffe, along with 57 states. This guy’s asking to be commander-in-chief. This guy says he’s qualified. He’s going to get the Joint Chiefs in there and tell them what to do. Now, this is a major gaffe, and like all Obama gaffes, they’re ignored, and he’s never asked about them. Oh, maybe he is sometimes. They sort of do it with a chuckle. ‘Hey-ey-ey, you know what he said about the Joint Chiefs? Do you really…?’ It’s like when he said, ‘my Muslim faith’ with Stephanopoulos this past Sunday.
‘My Muslim faith.’
Stephanopoulos says, ‘Your Christian faith!’
‘Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.’
(doing Biden impression) ‘Hey, Chuck! Hey, stand up there, Chuck! Hey. Oh…my…God. Okay.’
(doing Obama impression) ‘My Muslim faith.
‘Your Christian faith, Barry!’
‘Oh, yeah.’
Imagine if Stephanopoulos had not corrected him, imagine if that had made it all through Sunday without Obama correcting it. Where would we be today? Would that not be a firework?