Can You Negotiate with a Religion?

RUSH: Jeff in Ft. Lauderdale, hi, and welcome to the EIB Network. Hello.

CALLER: Wow. I can’t believe I’m on with Rush Limbaugh. Mega dittos —

RUSH: Thank you, sir.

CALLER: — from Ft. Lauderdale. And, by the way, Rush, I agree with Sean Hannity, you look great, and keep up the good work.

RUSH: Thank you very much. I appreciate that. I have to tell you, though, I look better than I looked on Fox. I didn’t look bad, but TV does add ten or 15 pounds to you. I look far better — I mean I look better on my own Dittocam than on the Fox hi-def cams. No complaint. I’m just pointing it out.

CALLER: I think it’s kind of interesting now you’re seeing Obama not only criticizing the United States over abroad, but now even criticizing his own host nation that’s hosting him for that particular day. But the point I wanted to make, Rush, is, you know, once again we see Obama setting a dangerous precedent by kowtowing and placating to the Islamic community and it’s almost like the United States has its own Neville Chamberlain but instead of, you know, giving away half the country, he’s giving away his own sentiments but he passes them off as the majority feeling, and that’s just not right. I mean how many times did President Bush and Vice President Cheney and the Bush administration clearly make a point that we were not at war with Islam, even went out and praised its credentials and contributions, but for some reason that wasn’t good enough for the left. And I guess my other point I want to also make, too, is here after we have a major superpower addressing the Islam community, you know, where is the next superpower that’s going to also address the Islam community? If my memory serves me correctly, you know, we’re approaching the 30th anniversary I believe of Russia’s invasion of Afghanistan, another Muslim country, and I don’t think you’ll ever hear another superpower going to the points of what we have done and by doing so only weaken us even further.

RUSH: Yeah, those are all good points. I have a stack here, and I’m not gonna have time to get through it, I really don’t want to beat a dead horse, but more and more people have now examined Obama’s speech yesterday, and they’re finding it reprehensible, and you can find seven or eight Islamist groups who are dumping all over it. The Iranians are saying the United States is still hated in this region, nothing he says is going to change the fact that US is hated. And I think that’s probably true. Obama’s words are for him. Everything that he was doing over there was trying to make them love him. He needs it. He needs the love and adulation. And the way he goes about getting the love and adulation he wants is to rip his own country because he thinks that’s what his audience wants to hear and that’s what they think so he’s one of them. It burns me. It just burns me.

In fact, let me give you a couple of examples, George Joyce, American Thinker today: ‘In his much anticipated speech in Cairo on Thursday, Barack Obama signaled his willingness to consider scrapping the entire divisive edifice of affirmative action in America.’ Snerdley is shaking his head. That means you bought this. ‘While discussing the record of ‘human history’ as one in which groups of people have subjugated ‘one another in pursuit of their own interests’ Obama sought to rectify this legacy of conflict and hostility by underscoring our interdependence: ‘Given our interdependence, any world order that elevates one nation or group of people over another will inevitably fail.”

So George Joyce is saying, bye-bye affirmative action because what is affirmative action? Snerdley, he’s not saying that’s what Obama said, he’s saying if he’s careful, Obama you could have made the case here that affirmative action ought to be disbanded. Everybody thinks he’s so careful with his words and so precise, but the point is that you could take what he says here, okay, so he’s against affirmative action, when he didn’t intend to be.

Now, the Heritage Foundation. Good review, short and to the point. This is what you can get, by the way, if you become a member of AskHeritage.org. If you don’t know what the Heritage Foundation is, it’s a conservative organization committed to the principles of freedom, opportunity, and prosperity, and they make true on a promise to nearly half a million members to always keep them updated on events in the US with an accurate record and the research to back it up. You want an accurate account of Obama’s visit to the Middle East in Europe, it’s there. If you want a thorough account of that trip, go to AskHeritage.org, or you’ll find an ongoing analysis of Obama’s diplomacy. I happen to have that analysis right here in my formerly nicotine-stained fingers.

‘The speech was also highly problematic in many ways that will end up backfiring on the President and the United States. Obama attacked the decision to go to war in Iraq as ‘a war of choice.” He did and that burned me up. Almost everything he said in that speech burned me up. Even the good things he said, he then added, ‘but, on the other hand,’ that burned me up. ‘Obama attacked the decision to go to war in Iraq as “a war of choice” without even mentioning the fact Saddam Hussein had failed to comply with several Security Council resolutions. This was completely gratuitous, wrong and unnecessary.’ Additionally, he just called the Iraq war an immoral war of choice, we shouldn’t have gone there, and there are still over a hundred thousand American troops fighting there. What do you think his words will do to their morale? They won’t build it up.

‘Israel and Palestine. Obama tried to connect the civil rights movement in the US with the Palestinians’ struggle for an independent state. This was a mistake, because the American civil rights movement did not have the goal of destroying the US, while many Palestinians, including those in Hamas and other Islamist extremist movements, remain implacably committed to destroying Israel.

‘Guantanamo. Once again the president brought up the Guantanamo/torture issue in front of an international audience, part of a ritual exercise in self-loathing that has become a hallmark of the Obama administration.’ He’s ended torture, he has ended it. Torture has always been illegal in the United States. He didn’t do one thing to make it illegal. It already is. If it was legal before he came to office, then on what basis is he suing Bush administration lawyers for violating the torture laws?

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: Leo, thank you for waiting, sir. You’re next on the EIB Network.

CALLER: Hey, Rush, you got a great show!

RUSH: (silence)

CALLER: Hello?

RUSH: Yeah, I appreciate that. I was waiting for you —

CALLER: I’ll get to the point quickly since it’s getting towards three o’clock. Obama goes to the Middle East to improve relations between the Moslems and us. It’s impossible! It isn’t just a quarrel between us and the Moslems. The Moslems are having trouble with everybody. Look what goes on in Europe. Van Gogh, a relative of the painter Van Gogh, gets stabbed to death on the street in Amsterdam. A cartoonist who pokes fun at all world figures pokes a little fun at Mohammed; the Danish embassies are torched in Islamic countries. Look what goes on in India. Mumbai, late this year. Three years ago, parliament in Indian is bombed by Moslems. What goes on in the Philippines? What goes on in Thailand? Thailand has a small Moslems minority, yet…

RUSH: This is an interesting point, because you have made me look at something in a different perspective, and that is this whole speech yesterday, because, Leo here is right. The Islamists, the violent militant Islamists base everything they’re doing on their religion. They say everything they’re doing is in their ‘Holy Koran,’ and people I know who have read it say that it is. So, essentially, Obama was over there negotiating with a religion. And how do you do that? How do you negotiate with a religion, especially when you claim that you are coming from a different religion? He made it a point to say he’s a Christian even though he has family members who were Muslims. So he’s right, Leo. The militant Muslims, Islamists don’t just have a problem with us but they’re all over the world raising havoc, and they claim it’s their religion, we’re all infidels. So how do you negotiate with a religion? Think about that. Somebody give me an answer. I don’t know how you do it.