RUSH: Yeah, the Chuck Hagel hearings are going on today, the secretary of defense hearings for the former senator from Nebraska, a RINO (Republican-in-name-only). He has been endorsed by the Iranians, by the way, for the job. Senator Jim Inhofe today said, “Why are the Iranians endorsing you?” Why doesn’t anybody ask Obama that? The Iranians endorsed Obama. Fidel Castro endorsed Obama. I mean, I’m all for asking Hagel, but I don’t think it matters who the secretary of defense is, folks.
Look, I know a lot of people get caught up in this, but Obama is the secretary of defense. Obama is the secretary of commerce. Obama is the secretary of state. These people are the fall guys for when things go wrong. But Obama’s running everything here. The reason Chuck Hagel’s gonna be secretary of defense is when something goes wrong, he’s gonna take the blame for it. He’s the fall guy. It’s the same thing with Kerry at secretary of state. That’s all that’s happening here.
Barack Obama is not a distant, disengaged leader who’s delegating things because he’s lazy. This guy is an activist. He is energetic, he is involved, and he is moving at warp speed transforming this country. So the idea that the Iranians would endorse Chuck Hagel? Big whoop. They endorsed Obama. I mean, every time Mahmoud Ahmadinejad starts talking about America, it sounds like any other Democrat talking about America. I’m sorry. I’m sorry, but it does. I’m not trying to be scary or threatening or anything.
BREAK TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: Chuck Hagel is being ripped to sleds. Senator McCain ripping him to shreds for his use of the term “the Jewish lobby.” Hagel said, “I only said that once in my whole career.” But a lot of people are dumping on Hagel. All I need to know, folks, is Marco Rubio just said he’s voting against Hagel. So I would, too, then. If Rubio’s against Hagel, I’m against Hagel. Ahem. (I’m winking here, folks. Don’t tell anybody. This is just between us.) At any rate, Hagel is the placeholder. John Kerry is the placeholder.
Whoever runs the CIA is the placeholder. Whoever is over at the EPA is a placeholder. Whoever’s over at Homeland Security, Big Sis, is placeholder. Obama is running the show. But we can be interested. McCain was grandstanding. This is payback. His pal was Hagel. People forget this. But back in the early 2000s, Hagel and McCain were inseparable. Before Lindsey Graham became the very close associate of McCain, it was Hagel. These guys were inseparable. They were two peas in a pod.
Hagel was helping McCain, and vice-versa. But then in 2008, Hagel endorsed Obama, not McCain, and that ticked off a whole lot of Republicans. It didn’t surprise me because Hagel has always been a RINO, a Republican-in-name-only. So whereas in these previous hearings McCain was kissing the rear ends of Hillary and Kerry, figuratively speaking (although envisioning that is kind of fun, isn’t it?) Nevertheless, McCain was kissing their rear ends, but it’s personal here with Chuck Hagel. Sound bite 22…
HAGEL: Senator, I stand by ’em because I made ’em, and, ummm —
MCCAIN: Stand by…? Were you right?
HAGEL: Eh, eh, well…
MCCAIN: Were you correct in your assessment?
HAGEL: (stammering) Well, I would defer to the judgment of history to, uh —
MCCAIN: I think —
HAGEL: — sort that out. But I’ll —
MCCAIN: — the committee deserves your judgment as to whether you were right or wrong about the surge.
HAGEL: I’ll explain why I made those comments and believe I had —
MCCAIN: I want to know if you were right or wrong. That’s a direct question. I expect a direct answer.
RUSH: This is about the surge. This is the Petraeus surge with Paula Poundstone (sic), and he’s asking — McCain wants to know — if Hagel was right or wrong about Petraeus’ surge, and Hagel won’t answer it, and McCain keeps pressing the issue. He just wants a direct answer, a direct answer: “Were you right or wrong?” Hagel says, “I want to leave it for history to judge that,” and McCain did not let up.
MCCAIN: Were you correct or incorrect when you said that the surge would be “the most dangerous foreign policy blunder in this country since Vietnam”? Were you correct or incorrect?
HAGEL: My re–
MCCAIN: Yes or no.
HAGEL: My reference to the —
MCCAIN: Are you gonna answer the question, Senator Hagel?
HAGEL: — surge being the most dangerous…
MCCAIN: The question is: Were you right or wrong? That’s a pretty straightforward question.
HAGEL: Well, uh, um —
MCCAIN: I would like you to answer whether you were right or wrong, and then you are free to elaborate.
HAGEL: Well, I — I — I’m not going to, uh, give you a — a yes-or-no, uh, answer on a lot of things today.
MCCAIN: Well, let the record show that you refused to answer that question. Now, please go ahead.
HAGEL: Uh, well, uh, if you would, uh, like me to explain, um, why I — I — I —
MCCAIN: No, I actually would like an answer, yes or no.
HAGEL: Well, I’m not gonna give you a yes or no.
RUSH: Oh, my God, these guys used to be best friends forever! These guys were BFFs, folks, I mean they were inseparable. It really is so sad to see this happen. I mean, they were such close buddies. I don’t remember McCain asking Hillary or Kerry whether they were wrong about the surge. You know, Hillary was up there, they were all accusing Petraeus of lying, even before he had testified. Kerry, all these Democrats were ripping Petraeus to shreds, but McCain didn’t hit them on it. He was patting them on the back and he was talking about how wonderful they are as colleagues and how great, great choice to be secretary of state. And, boy, this is just a beautiful thing.
But, boy, Hagel gets up there (imitating McCain), “I want to know, were you right or wrong? Just tell me!”
“Uh, Senator…”
“You don’t want to answer, huh? You don’t want to answer!”
“That’s right, I’m not gonna answer. History will be the judge.”
“It’s a simple question, Senator. Are you right or wrong?”
Nothing like that for anybody else. Let’s go back to January 27, 2000, Nashua, New Hampshire, at a campaign event. This is McCain when asked about a possible nominee for Secretary of Defense. He’s running for president, remember, against Bush, it’s the Republican primaries, and they ask him about who he might ask to be his Secretary of Defense.
MCCAIN: As far as Secretary of Defense is concerned, there’s a lot of people that could do that. One of them, I think, is Senator Chuck Hagel, could do that kind of job.
RUSH: Oh. Wow. That’s 13 years ago. Thirteen years ago Chuck Hagel coulda done the job, but today Chuck Hagel can’t do the job. He’s a worthless and wandering shred of human debris, or may as well be. And it’s all because, I’m telling you — well, there may be more to it than this, but Hagel endorsed Obama in 2008. And again, just to remind you, Senator Inhofe, Oklahoma, asked Hagel, “Why are the Iranians endorsing you?” And just like McCain coulda gone after Hillary and Kerry on the surge, they could go after Obama on the Iranians endorsing him as well. This has all just been an entertaining sideshow to me, but I wanted to let you hear the sound bites so that at the end of the program somebody didn’t say, “You know, Limbaugh didn’t even talk about the Hagel nomination.” It’s not worth it. Obama is gonna be Secretary of Defense. Hagel, as I say, just the placeholder.
BREAK TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: Why didn’t Hagel just shout at McCain, “What difference does it make now? What difference does it make now what I thought about the surge? The surge is over. Doesn’t matter. What does it matter what I think?” The only reason I can think that more people aren’t using it is maybe Hillary is charging royalties.
Ray Lewis, by the way, I think this guy ought to get into the deer antler business, the deer antler spray business. “It makes a difference,” could be his tag line. It makes a hell of a difference, and this is not the trick of the devil.