RUSH: Here’s Hillary Clinton. Now, folks, this to me is a little fascinating because when you hear what Mrs. Clinton says here, that our debt level is a national security threat, she may be — I’m just putting it out here for consideration — she may be showing her hand for the 2012 election. Yesterday at the CFR, the Council on Foreign Relations, Mrs. Clinton made a speech. After the speech there was a Q&A. The moderator, Richard Haass, asked her the following question: ‘The United States is soon approaching a point where the scale or size of our debt will exceed our GDP. Question of when more than if. Where does national security contribute to the solution to running deficits of one and a half trillion dollars a year? Or, do we continue to carry out a foreign and defense policy as if we’re not seriously resource constrained?’
HILLARY: I think that our rising debt levels poses a national security threat, and it poses a national security threat in two ways. It undermines our capacity to act in our own interests, and it does constrain us where constraint may be undesirable, and it also sends a message of weakness internationally. I mean it is very troubling to me that we are losing the ability, not only to chart our own destiny, but to, you know, have the leverage that comes from this enormously affected economic engine that has powered American values and interests over so many years.
RUSH: Now, if you listen to all these sound bites, you listen to a lot of her remarks here, Hillary sounds a little bit like the imam. If we don’t raise taxes, there’s going to be violence. Now, wasn’t she a senator? What spending bills apart from the military has she ever voted against? We learned today that this administration has run up more debt in 20 months than the entire country did from the founding to Ronald Reagan. Yet here’s Mrs. Clinton saying our debt level is a national security threat. Well, who’s responsible for the debt level? Now, I know that the regime is trying to say it’s Bush. But I want to look at this from the prism — and it’s a long shot, I admit it’s a long shot — what if Mrs. Clinton does — well, it’s not a long shot she wants to be president. It is a long shot whether she’ll go for it in 2012. But what if she decides to pull the trigger in 2012? Could this possibly be — this is the long shot — setting a stage? If she’s gonna seek the nomination 2012, she has to first oppose Obama before she gets to whoever the Republican nominee is. Probably Mike Castle. (laughing)
So before Hillary gets to facing Mike Castle, if not Mike Castle, Chris Shays, if not Chris Shays, Charlie Crist. It seems to be the kind of Republican favored by many inside the Beltway. She first has to oppose Obama. I know it’s a stretch. Could she be setting the stage here for just that? Now, I know she was asked the question, but still the way she answered it, ‘Our rising debt level poses a national security threat in two ways.’ Now, if she plans to ascend to the throne — you remember, she left the Senate in order to make the case that top Democrats in elected office, I mean she got outta there, she got out of the Senate, ran for president, now she’s secretary of state. She never said a word in opposition to any spending plan by the regime whatsoever, and now says the deficit and our rising debt is a national security threat? Well, you could say that makes Obama, Pelosi, and Reid unindicted coconspirators to inflate the debt and thus weaken our national security. She’s saying it here, the secretary of state. I mean you don’t hear anybody else in the administration talking this way, do you? This is my point. Even what’s his name, Orszag in his op-ed in the New York Times, even Orszag didn’t characterize the debt as a national security threat.
There is nobody in the regime — they’re talking about spending even more! The people in the regime: ‘We haven’t spent enough. We need another $50 billion.’ Yesterday at the CFR, this is not insignificant, Hillary Clinton categorizes our national debt, rising debt as a national security threat. You could say that Hillary’s comments are calculated to inflict some damage on Obama at a time when he is vulnerable and reeling. Now, I know a lot of people, ‘Rush, come on, you think she’s really gonna go after Obama? This is all set up for going after the Republicans.’ If she wants the White House she’s got to run against Obama first, if she wants it in 2012. I’m just putting it out there for you to think about, because I haven’t heard anybody in the administration talk about the debt the way she did yesterday. We’re talking about it that way on the right. That’s one of the reasons Democrats are gonna have their lunch handed to them in November is ’cause of what they’ve done to the debt and what that means to our kids and grandkids. And here all of a sudden is Hillary, a ranking member of the regime, over at the State Department, joining this chorus, and calling it a national security threat? I’m just saying.