RUSH: I know Obama is over there bowing to the Japanese emperor, and I know he’s making a fool of himself, and I know that Sarah Palin is out there and they’re fact-checking Sarah Palin’s book.
Folks, in all that’s going on out there, I still cannot get past this decision to bring these terrorists up to New York for this trial. I just can’t get past it. Andy McCarthy has a great piece today at National Review Online, saying what if these guys decide to defend themselves? They can make that decision. They can choose to defend themselves, which means they personally would get access to all of the intelligence data, all the stuff that they need. This is such a wrong-headed decision. The idea that these guys are going to be acquitted is very real even without a jury pool that includes Greenwich Village and the Upper East Side. We are bringing noncitizens to the United States for trial at a court after they are thus going to be conferred with what amounts to new US citizenship rights.
Now, we know they weren’t Mirandized. They have not been read their rights. By the president’s own admission they have been tortured. And then they could say a message must be sent to the government, this will not be tolerated. And depending on the judge, the motion might be granted to dismiss the case. If I’m a lawyer or if I’m the terrorists defending myself, the first thing I’d do is make a motion to dismiss this thing. I mean, I’m in a US criminal courtroom. I haven’t been Mirandized. I haven’t been read my rights. The president of the United States has admitted to torturing me. Therefore, my confession is tainted. I confessed. Yes, I admit I confessed, I have no defense, but I confessed under the duress of waterboarding and under torture, which your president admitted happened to me. Now, let’s go to some audio sound bites, and this is unbelievable. This is Eric Holder Friday night on The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer, and Jim Lehrer said, ‘Did you run the Khalid Sheikh Mohammed decision by President Obama?’
HOLDER: Just informed him of the decision.
LEHRER: So you just told him what your decision was. You didn’t say, ‘What do you think about it, Mr. President?’
HOLDER: Nope. Told him last night, or had relayed to him what I was going to do last night while he was on Air Force One on his way to Asia.
LEHRER: Did you talk to anybody outside the government?
HOLDER: I talked to my wife —
LEHRER: Yeah, okay.
HOLDER: — about what she thought, and I actually talked to my brother who’s a retired Port Authority police officer —
LEHRER: Is that right?
HOLDER: — in New York, New Jersey, and who lost friends and colleagues on 9/11 in the towers. And I talked to them about what — was it appropriate to bring it in New York, symbolic significance of it, the possibility of getting a good and fair, detached jury.
RUSH: Now, ladies and gentlemen, if you had any doubt about this, you can now rest assured that Eric Holder is a stranger to the truth. The very idea that all that happened here was Obama was informed of this decision, I don’t believe that for a minute. And that he consulted what? His brother and his wife, his brother, who’s a retired Port Authority cop who served in New York and New Jersey who lost friends and colleagues on 9/11? He talked to his wife and a brother? He didn’t do anything but inform Obama of the decision? I’ll tell you what, what they’re trying to do here is grant him deniability, plausible deniability. ‘I didn’t know it. I was not aware. I was only informed after the decision was made, and I didn’t want to undercut my attorney general.’
Folks, this could very well be Waterloo for Obama. He has stepped in it with this Khalid Sheikh Mohammed matter. All the frenzied writing and protests, I mean that’s just the beginning, but what’s happening here, this is an in-our-face weakening of our security, which means that if a civilian target is hit again, particularly New York City, Obama is toast, he’s done. The American people will tolerate a lot, but not grotesque mishandling of security based on a contempt for your own country. You know, the only reason anybody could want this to happen the way it is going to happen is for these words and these attitudes and these opinions to be aired around the world about the United States: that the United States is guilty; that the United States is immoral; the United States is unjust; the United States tortures; the United States may in fact be complicit in this crime because of the way we have treated nations and people around the world since our founding, and the people of the world finally had enough and told us they don’t like us the way we are and we need to be cut down to size.
I’ve always thought that it’s a serious problem that we’ve elected someone who was raised to believe what Obama believes about this country. And he has been educated to believe what he believes about this country. He does not believe in American exceptionalism. And to say that this decision is symbolic, to bring these guys back, the courthouse so close to Ground Zero, getting a good and fair detached jury. Another thing I would do, I would ask for a change of venue. I would ask for a change of venue if I’m the lawyer for these guys or if they defend themselves. Well, just on the basis that you might not get a fair jury. They’ll probably think about it, ‘No, we probably could get a fair jury here. We probably could find enough people who think, or at least are gonna sympathize with our plight once we explain it to people.’ Now, on State of the Union CNN yesterday, John King interviewed David Axelrod and he said that, ‘You mentioned that this was the attorney general’s decision. How involved was the president of the United States?’
AXELROD: Well, the president was the informed of the attorney general’s decision and his reasoning for the decision. This was a decision for the attorney general to make in concert with the secretary of defense.
RUSH: The president was informed of the attorney general’s decision and his reasoning. It seems to me that there was a press conference last week before Holder went out there and spoke, and Obama was asked about it and he said (paraphrasing) ‘I don’t want to steal the thunder of the attorney general’s press conference but he is going to have some things to say about it.’ They’re asking us to believe too much here, that Obama was just an innocent bystander, and Holder made this decision after talking to his wife and his brother, retired Port Authority officer. Sunday Morning, ABC’s This Week, George Stephanopoulos talked to Hillary Clinton. ‘Is it true that during World War II we tried Nazis who crossed our borders in military courts, military tribunals, why is it so important to have these trials in federal criminal courts?’
HILLARY: This is a decision that the attorney general, the Department of Justice, and the Department of Defense have made after extensive, exhaustive review. The attorney general’s determined, after consulting with veteran prosecutors, that this is a case that appropriately can be brought in our federal courts. Other cases will be brought in the military commissions. I’m not going to second-guess the attorney general.
RUSH: Wow. Well, of course not. But you know, the guy that blew up the USS Cole in Yemen, he’s going to get a military trial, he’s gonna get a military tribunal because, you know, if we were going to be consistent here, we’d bring them all to court. She really didn’t answer the question, why it’s so important to have these trials in federal criminal courts. You know, these military tribunals, the Democrat Party started ripping them to shreds during Bush’s term, but they’ve been used by every president. FDR did use them exclusively. Clinton used them, they’ve all been used. But somehow they’re unconstitutional. ‘It shows the world that we are bad people. We gotta show the world our values,’ and so forth. I thought about this over the weekend and the more I thought about it and the more I learned about it, the more incredulous I become.
See, Obama is vulnerable, folks. You gotta trust me on this. He is not that popular. His base is what’s keeping him supported. Independents are abandoning Obama in droves. His policies are unpopular. And people, I think, slowly but surely are awakening to the fact that this is not the man that they thought they were voting for back in 2008. Fox News Sunday, Chris Wallace talking to Liz Cheney: ‘What do you worry about most, the security threat to New York, the possible danger that intelligence secrets will be disclosed, the possibility one of these guys will get off, something else? What’s your biggest concern?’
LIZ: The president of the United States simultaneously is denying our troops on the ground in Afghanistan the resources that they need to prevail to win that war while he ushers terrorists onto the homeland. He’s going to put these terrorists into a courthouse that is six blocks from where over 2,000 Americans were killed on the worst attack in history on the American homeland. He’s going to give them a public platform where they can spew venom, where they can preach jihad, where they can reach out and recruit other terrorists. And it is totally unnecessary. Khalid Sheikh Mohammed asked 11 months ago to be executed for Allah, he asked to plead guilty and be executed. We should have said, ‘All right, you’ve got it.’
RUSH: Right. And now again Khalid Sheikh Mohammed can go into court and say, ‘This ought to be dismissed because I was not read my rights, I was not Mirandized, and that confession gotta be thrown out because I was tortured. Your president admitted that I was tortured.’
BREAK TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: Okay. So we have Obama, we have Eric Holder, and we have Afghanistan. Now, if we are to believe that Obama did not discuss this decision with Eric Holder, then why in hell is he so involved in the Afghanistan decision? Why not just leave that to the general and why not leave that to Gates and have them inform him of their decision? ‘But, Mr. Limbaugh! Mr. Limbaugh! He’s the commander-in-chief. He is in charge of the…’ He’s president! He’s in charge of Holder, too. He’s in charge of the Justice Department. He’s in charge of everything. So if he’s just going to let Holder decide what to do and when to do it and say, ‘Okay. Thanks for keeping me posted.’ Why not in Afghanistan? My point is, I don’t buy it. How stupid do they think we are? You know what? It’s not that they think we’re stupid. It’s that they know we don’t have any power to stop ’em right now. That’s what they know.
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RUSH: We’re going to start in Brooksville, Kentucky. This is Vickie. Great to have you here. Hello.
CALLER: Hey, good afternoon, Rush. It is a pleasure and an honor, and mega hillbilly dittos to you.
RUSH: Thank you very much.
CALLER: I would like to talk to you about Barry, our president. I think that he’s just a coward, that he shuttles off all of his decisions to someone else. The only thing that he can’t shuttle off is Afghanistan because he is the president and he has to make a decision. But that’s what’s taking him so long. He’s a coward and won’t make the decision but he’s put health care into Congress. Let’s see, what else has he done? My God, every decision, he pushes off on somebody else so therefore he loses nothing politically when everything goes south because he didn’t do it.
RUSH: Okay. Now, you say that is ‘cowardice.’
CALLER: Yes! Absolutely cowardice.
RUSH: It may be, but I say it’s deceitful.
CALLER: Absolutely. But aren’t cowards always deceitful?
RUSH: I say it is Obama willing to throw anybody, including his friends, overboard to save him. He’s a narcissist. It’s all about him.
CALLER: Absolutely.
RUSH: And also, you know, when it comes time for reelection, it’s Obama that people are going to vote for, in his mind.
CALLER: Right.
RUSH: Or vote against. They’re not gonna vote for Holder. They’re not going to be voting for Casey. Not going to be voting for Gates. Not going to be voting for McChrystal or any of that. And what Obama is admitting here, he needs no fingerprints on this stuff because the American people don’t want it.
CALLER: Right.
RUSH: The American people don’t want these terrorists being tried in New York so roll it off on Holder but don’t for a minute think that it is not his decision. He’s not afraid to make the decision. He’s making the decision. He’s making somebody else be the face of them.
CALLER: But publicly he doesn’t want anything sticking to him —
RUSH: That’s right.
CALLER: — so he makes it appear as if somebody else is doing all this and he’s completely innocent. He’s just the innocent bystander. You know, Congress has to do health care; Holder has to make this decision. It’s the attorney general, for God’s sakes.
RUSH: But see, this is the liberals in general. I mean, this is the way Bill and Hillary worked during their eight years.
CALLER: Right.
RUSH: Bill knew that he was on the guy on ballot. So he had to come off as the triangulating, moderate centrist, and let Hillary go out there and let Hillary supposedly find the Janet Renos and all the cabinet people. Let Hillary be the face of health care. Everybody thought that Bill was just sort of henpecked here and this was Hillary’s price, but every bit as much for it as he was they were a team in that regard in terms of advancing liberalism. It’s just an indication of how deceitful these people are when it comes to approaching the American people; that they have to mislead, be dishonest about who they are, lie about what they believe in order to get elected.
CALLER: Absolutely. I couldn’t agree with you more. But when you look at it, not only is it the narcissism, but it’s the cowardice. He is a coward to come forward. Reagan wasn’t a coward. You know, President Reagan stood up and said, ‘This is the way it is and I take responsibility.’ He won’t take responsibility for anything and I just want to say one last thing to you, Rush, before I go. My husband is a disabled vet. We spent 24 years in the Navy, and he sends his regards to you and thanks you for everything that you do.
RUSH: Well, God bless you.
CALLER: Well, thank you because it means a lot to us.
RUSH: Well, thank you very much. I can’t tell you how much that means to me, more than I can tell you.
CALLER: Well, you have no idea what you mean to us. And it’s so wonderful… It’s like my heart lifters every day for us when we turn on Rush. (laughs) You know, I get a dose of energy because I get so damn depressed all the rest of the time listening to this jerk that I don’t know what happened. There was some sort of demonic possession that took place.
RUSH: I know, your husband is a disabled vet and I —
CALLER: Yes.
RUSH: — you get up every day and you will like you go to war with this administration in this country.
CALLER: Exactly!
RUSH: There are no bullets flying, but you feel like you’re going to war every day to save what matters to you —
CALLER: Absolutely.
RUSH: — to protect what matters to you, your freedom.
CALLER: Yeah, it’s because —
RUSH: It’s what your husband fought for.
CALLER: He spent 24 years upholding the Constitution and doing the right thing, and we took much pride in that, you know? A lot of pride. And to see this man in office just breaks my heart. It breaks my heart for the guys in Afghanistan —
RUSH: Yeah.
CALLER: — that are over there dying every day because this jerk won’t get off his butt and make a decision and send them help. This is just cruel.
RUSH: Vickie?
CALLER: This is just cruel to the families.
RUSH: I know. I couldn’t agree with you more. ‘Man-child,’ however, is more appropriate.
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RUSH: Here’s Bill in Valley Forge, Pennsylvania. Great to have you on the program, sir.
CALLER: How you doing, Rush? Mega dittos.
RUSH: Thank you.
CALLER: Hey, I want to go into this business of the terrorist trial in New York. Listening to Eric Holder and his desire to make this trial, quote, unquote, legal, I just wondered if he took in consideration that these defendants’ lawyers will also insist that there’s going to be a certain percentage of Muslims on the jury or there could be a violation of their civil rights and leading to a mistrial, because he virtually guaranteed that there would be a guilty verdict.
RUSH: Yeah. They’ve done a lot to sabotage themselves here, and I’ve heard — I’m going to have to confirm this that Khalid Sheikh Mohammed has already said he wants to represent himself, he doesn’t want to have a lawyer, which means that he himself personally will have access to all of the intelligence data, all the stuff necessary. Remember, the president’s already admitted the guy was tortured, so all the sheik has to say is, ‘Hey, yeah, I said I wanted to be martyred, I said this and that but I tell you that confession was coerced, they waterboarded me and no less than your president admitted it and said that it shouldn’t have happened and called it torture, and so your president admitted that your country tortured me and I’ve got the documents to show who the people are, and these are the people that tortured me,’ and he’s going to list the names.
CALLER: You know, I look at this, was this the same Eric Holder that, at the end of the Clinton administration, admitted that he screwed up in one of the pardons?
RUSH: I don’t know if he admitted he screwed up but he did pardon 16 Puerto Rican terrorists, FALN terrorists. They didn’t want it. The thing about that is he forced the pardon on them. They suspected a trick. And the reason Holder pardoned these guys was to help Mrs. Clinton get the Puerto Rican vote in her Senate run. Holder was also in on the Marc Rich pardon as well. But your question as to the jury —
CALLER: Yes.
RUSH: — whether there would have to be Muslims on the jury. They’re being given constitutional rights even though they’re not citizens, so here comes this jury of their peers business. And a jury of their peers? Well, we went through a list of people, John Kerry, Chris Matthews, Keith Olbermann, Senator Durbin, any number of people. We had a great graphic at RushLimbaugh.com. Still up there, in fact, from Friday’s program to show who the — Muslims? Yeah. But you may not need ’em as long as your jury pool is from the Village and the Upper West Side.