Bobby F.
12-15-2005, 03:47 PM
Democrat Prebuttal Displays Their Weakness,
Contrast with President Couldn't Be Greater
December 14, 2005
BEGIN TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: A history-making vote in Iraq coming up, and I'm wondering: Down the road, will historians be more amazed that it took less than three years for Iraq to go from abject tyranny to a constitutional government, or that for almost three years the Bush-hating left refused to acknowledge what an amazing triumph this is? You know, the Democrats did a prebuttal today, and they sent Dingy Harry out there. Normally in a prebuttal -- these things have happened before, but normally -- what you get is a rebuttal or a response. The mainstream media's close association and allied status with the Democrats allowed for this prebuttal to be broadcast all over television, and they're out there saying, "We need a timetable! We need a definition of success!" They've been saying the same things, yet Bush -- what was this, the fourth speech on Iraq today, or was it the third and there's been one on the economy? Fourth speech on Iraq in, what, two weeks, and each speech contains more detail, and yet the Democrats continue to demand detail. It's crazy -- and Murtha and the Democrats keep citing all these polls that say the Iraqi people don't want us there.
Murtha's still stuck on this business, "80% of the Iraqi people don't want us there." We know from the ABC poll that it's just the opposite: 71% do. They're looking forward to their future. They're happy-go-lucky over there compared to the way they're being portrayed here. They're really optimistic in Iraq, and it's an ABC poll. So you can't say that it's a poll that's not objective. I'm sure ABC cringed when they got the results and had to put it out, but nevertheless they did. You know, the Democrats, one of the things -- and I noticed this during the Clinton-Lewinsky thing -- all these Democrat operatives go on television and they'd say the American people want X; the American people think X; the American people are doing X -- and they're doing that now. "The American people want us out of Iraq! The American people are fed up! The American people know it's going nowhere! The American people know we were lied to!" Well, if that's what the polls actually say, why don't the Democrats vote that? It can all come back to that. They have a chance to call a vote and take us out of Iraq, to de-fund the war, and they don't do it.
If they had polling data that suggests and backs up everything they're saying, they would most certainly do it. Dingy Harry and Jack Reed -- who else went out there after Dingy Harry? -- Carl Levin. These people look like utter buffoons, ladies and gentlemen. It's just amazing. You have Harry Reid seeking to preempt Bush's speech, and this is all the good that he's good for. I mean, this is it. This is the sum total of Dingy Harry's contributions to this country: frenzied, wild attacks and so forth. Oh, and how about this story today in the New York Times? How about this story about these phony ballots being trucked in, and then Reuters comes and says: No, it's not true. So now we got competing stories, and the real problem, the real dilemma is, "Oh, my gosh, who do we believe?" Between Reuters and the New York Times, who do we believe? I mean, that's a tossup. Reuters says: Nope, no ballots. New York Times says: Oops, forged ballots! Phony ballots came in there. I was hoping the New York Times story was true. It turns out it's not, but I was hoping the New York Times story was true because then I would be able to say with fair confidence levels that the Democrats were behind it.
Oh, when I saw that last night, I said, "Ha-ha-ha this is hunky-dory and super-duper," but it turns out to have been a total sham. The New York Times once again has run a story that has no basis in fact whatsoever. Imagine if the New York Times was in charge of pre-war intelligence, ladies and gentlemen. We couldn't trust the New York Times for news to be truthful every day; imagine if they were in charge of prewar intel? But this prebuttal crap -- and that's what it is -- to me, is laughable. As I say, if things are so bad there that the polls are right about Americans not supporting the war, why don't the Democrats vote us out of it? And then, you know, I don't know why anybody cares anyway. Don't they admit each day they don't know anything? The Democrats don't know anything about intelligence. They don't know anything about this! Yet they're on television demanding and claiming to know all of these details about how horrible things are going, how rotten things are, how hopeless things are. Try this: Carl Levin says elections could lead to civil war, and we have audio sound bites coming up all this, so sit tight. Carl Levin says that elections in Iraq could lead to civil war.
Now, it doesn't surprise me. Democracy has not been kind to the Democrats in this country lately, and they in effect are starting a civil war in this country because they can't win them. They're roiling this country. They're driving a wedge as deep as they can, numerous wedges between people on various issues in this country. They've got their own version of a civil war going. So Levin may know what he's talking about, because when they lose elections here they in effect start their own version of a civil war, and that's their wish. The bottom line is Levin hopes there's a civil war. They're invested in defeat. Levin hopes it all falls apart in Iraq. That's the thing you need to take away from this. But they have no more knowledge or credibility to speak about this than you do or any other average guy off the street. These are simply opinions that are motivated by partisan politics that are amplified and aired by a sympathetic mainstream press. Folks, there may be a civil war one day, as there was in our country.
You may not know it because you may have graduated from the American public education system, but we had a civil war in this country once. The greatest democracy on the face of the earth, and we had a civil war. We can't ensure that the rule of law will exist forever. We can't even predict that for our own country. Look at our own problems that we're now having with judicial activism that we're trying to get our arms around and solve. But the idea that there is perfection in this is silly. The Democrats are demanding perfection. You know something? It's what liberals always do. Liberals look at the imperfections everywhere and seek to rectify them. These imperfections lead to what they consider to be inequality, and they get onto this radical, madcap, egalitarian kick which suggests that everybody must be totally equal -- which is an utter denial of human nature. I will say this: If they have in Iraq the kind of people that we have in our country such as the Democrats agitating constantly to divide us along religious, income, gender and age differences, there will be a civil war.
In other words, if the Iraqis come up with a party that's the equivalent of the modern-day Democrats, there will be a civil war. There's no question. If they want to divide the people in Iraq on religion and income and gender and age differences, then you can count on it. The Democrats today, once again demonstrate that they are weak on national security policy, and I think whoever suggested they go out there first is an idiot -- because they go first, and they put their flapping gums out in the personage of Dingy Harry and then Carl Levin and then Jack Reed, followed by George W. Bush. The contrast couldn't be greater. It's not quite this, but it's like when Reagan would go out and do a State of the Union Address; Democrats would send "Fort Worthless" Jim out there with those raised, bushy eyebrows to respond. It wasn't even a contest. This wasn't a contest today in terms of statesmanship, substance, optimism, all of these things.
BREAK TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: Have you ever wondered why Bush has to do all these speeches on Iraq? This is the fourth one. There's an answer for it. The Media Research Center has done an Iraq study. This is Brent Bozell's group, and they have calculated that ABC, CBS and NBC still air six negative Iraqi stories to every positive one that they air -- and, of course, every one of those negative Iraq stories features numerous sound bites and video clips with Democrats. That's why. So Bush is out there. It's okay. I mean, the president's doing what he should be doing on this. He's leading. Don't complain that he has to go out and do it, because the more he does it the worse the Democrats look. Let's let you hear how he sounded today. He leads off his speech, I think, he takes it right to the Democrats here, who have criticized victory.
THE PRESIDENT: We are confronting new dangers with firm resolve. We're hunting down the terrorists and their supporters. We will fight this war without wavering, and we will prevail. (Applause.) In the war on terror, Iraq is now the central front. And over the last few weeks, I've been discussing our political, economic, and military strategy for victory in that country. An historic election will take place tomorrow in Iraq, and as millions of Iraqis prepare to cast their ballots, I want to talk today about why we went into Iraq, why we stayed in Iraq, and why we cannot and will not leave Iraq until victory is achieved. (Applause.)
RUSH: Now, the press today is obsessed with one aspect of what the president said, and their headline is: "Bush Accepts Responsibility for Faulty Prewar Intel." That's the big headline. That's all they've taken out of this. That, to them, is the action line, if you will. That's what moves the story forward. The facts of success on the ground are not the media template. So anything about that -- the successful election, the peaceful circumstances in Iraq now, the fact the New York Times ran a bogus story about forged ballots being trucked in a tanker -- all of that doesn't move the story forward. That's not part of the media's action line. Bush accepting responsibility for faulty prewar intelligence, why, that's the action line, and it's absurd because the president has always taken responsibility for this war.
THE PRESIDENT: The United States did not choose war. The choice was Saddam Hussein's. When we made the decision to go into Iraq, many intelligence agencies around the world judged that Saddam possessed weapons of mass destruction. This judgment was shared by the intelligence agencies of governments who did not support my decision to remove Saddam, and it is true that much of the intelligence turned out to be wrong. As president, I'm responsible for the decision to go into Iraq, and I'm also responsible for fixing what went wrong by reforming our intelligence capabilities, and we're doing just that.
RUSH: Now, the headline in a -- I don't even know "fair" -- just an objective world, would be that the president made the right decision and explains why. That's what this speech was all about today, and that would be the headline, "President explains in greater detail reason for going to Iraq." Nope. Headline: "Bush Accepts Responsibility for Faulty Prewar Intel," because that's the action line. That's the gambit. That is what's hopefully going to be used to elect Democrats in mass numbers next year and in 2008. Here's more from the president this morning.
THE PRESIDENT: At the same time, we must remember that an investigation after the war by chief weapons inspector Charles Duelfer found that Saddam was using the UN oil-for-food program to influence countries and companies in an effort to undermine sanctions, with the intent of restarting his weapons programs once the sanctions collapsed and the world looked the other way. Given Saddam's history and the lessons of September the 11th, my decision to remove Saddam Hussein was the right decision. Saddam was a threat, and the American people and the world is better off because he is no longer in power. (Applause.)
RUSH: Right on, right on, right on! At this point, ladies and gentlemen, I would like to reference this Newsweek piece that all the media is having an orgasm over: Bush detached! Bush living in a bubble! Bush this! Bush not in contact! Bush sitting up in the White House, doesn't talk to liberals, doesn't talk to the media, doesn't talk to Democrats, doesn't talk to people who oppose him -- and so Bush doesn't really know what's going on out there. He lives in an absolute dream world where he makes up this fantasy of reality. Do you believe this? If there's anybody creating alternative realities out there today, it's the media and the Democrats. It's hard to distinguish the two, but that's who they are. Now, let me tell you something about this piece. It was written by Evan Thomas, and Evan Thomas to me is a hack. Evan Thomas to me is a shill, and he's a fraud. But in addition to that, here's who he is. Evan Thomas who wrote the Newsweek piece is the grandson of the founder of the ACLU. That man's name: Norman Thomas. He was also a huge socialist. In fact, Norman Thomas gained early fame by denouncing "an immoral..." This is a quote now: "Immoral, senseless struggle among rival imperialisms." He was talking about World War I. Norman Thomas ran for president as a socialist six times in the twenties, thirties, and forties. As RedState.org says, "He's sort of like Lyndon LaRouche before it was cool to be Lyndon LaRouche."
He was a wacko; he was an absolute kook, and he had a son, and his son had a son, and his son's son, the grandson is now Evan Thomas who is now working at Newsweek and writing these pieces about "Bush in the bubble." The dirty little secret is that Newsweek has done this before. The last time Newsweek ran a story about a Republican president who was detached and out of it and had no clue what was going on living in a bubble, simply listening to his friends, not talking to the Washington establishment, the last time they tried this I think it was 1981 or '82 about Ronald Reagan, Ronaldus Magnus. No matter what you can count on this: The media will repeat its template and playbook just as the Democratic Party does. Evan Thomas, by the way, in case you don't remember, Evan Thomas is the schlub who said during the 2004 presidential campaign on television -- it might have been on Chris Matthews' show -- that the mainstream media would be worth 15 points to John Kerry, 15 points in pre-election polls and in the actual election results, mainstream media would be worth 15 points. This is from Newsweek and Evan Thomas. So that's who it is that wrote the piece claiming Bush is detached and living in a bubble. Smartest thing Bush could do is avoid the liberal Democrats in Washington. If more Republicans would do so and govern as they promised to when they campaigned we'd be a lot better off.
BREAK TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: All right, here is the final sound bite we have from the president, his speech today at the Woodrow Wilson Center, and in this bite he takes aim at the critics on the very day they've chosen to do a prebuttal to his speech.
THE PRESIDENT: One of the blessings of our free society is that we can debate these issues openly, even in a time of war. Most of the debate has been a credit to our democracy. But some have launched irresponsible charges. They say that we act because of oil, that we act in Iraq because of Israel, or because we misled the American people. Some of the most irresponsible comments about manipulating intelligence have come from politicians who saw the same intelligence I saw --
RUSH: Yes!
THE PRESIDENT: -- and then voted to authorize the use of force against Saddam Hussein.
RUSH: Right on, right on.
THE PRESIDENT: These charges are pure politics. They hurt the morale of our troops. Whatever our differences in Washington, our men and women in uniform deserve to know that once our politicians vote to send them into harm's way, our support will be with them in good days and bad, and we will settle for nothing less than complete victory. (Applause.)
RUSH: All right! I tell you, this is necessary. This is good: taking it right to them, calling them irresponsible. Now, let's talk about this prewar intelligence because the Boston Globe forgets that we are here. The Boston Globe has a story today by Rick Klein, and the headline: "Democrats to Press for Iraq Intelligence Counter Bush Claim on Sharing Reports -- Democrats in Congress this week want to force the White House to release the daily intelligence briefings that President Bush reviewed in the months before the US invasion of Iraq, an attempt to undercut the president's claim that lawmakers saw the same reports that he did before voting to authorize the war. Bush has said repeatedly in recent weeks that the senators and House members who gave him the power to depose Saddam Hussein by force did so because they had seen all the same CIA assessments and agreed that Iraq's weapons program was a national security threat. But congressional Democrats point out that they didn't have access to the president's daily briefs that summarize American intelligence for the president each day."
This is mind-boggling! Forget this intelligence, which we'll deal with in a moment. What about the intelligence the Clinton administration was passing out in 1998? Where are you, Mr. Klein? Can't you go back to your own archives and look at what your own paper published in 1998 or 2001 and 2002? Go back and look at what Bill Clinton said. We've done it. If we can do it, you can do it. Go back and look at what John Kerry said or Tom Daschle said, or Harry Reid said, or Jay Rockefeller. We've done it. We've published it in the Limbaugh Letter. We've put it on my website. The intelligence that Saddam had all these weapons of mass destruction was building up, has been on the books since the early nineties. The United Nations had a number of resolutions demanding he get rid of the stuff. He ignored them all. But here we have it once again, the Boston Globe, history begins when Bush assumes office. Well, let's go back to November 27th. I told you about this the day this story was published. It's an editorial from the Boston Herald, and the headline of this: "A Revealing Look at Intelligence."
Now, the source for the Boston Herald's piece is Human Events, which the Herald refers to here as "a relatively obscure conservative weekly." Well, it's only relatively obscure to liberal Democrats. It's sort of like this Evan Thomas claiming that Bush lives in a bubble. I will bet you that George W. Bush knows a hell of a lot more people who live in Texas and Missouri and Nebraska and Iowa and Kansas and the great heartland of this country and the red states than Evan Thomas knows, and I will bet you that Evan Thomas knows a hell of a lot more people who live in, say, Aspen or the Upper West Side of Manhattan than Bush does. Now, you tell me who's more in touch with America and who lives in a bigger bubble. If you ask me, the people that live in the bubble in this country are the American press: the DC press, the DC culture and the media. They're the ones who after the '04 election results, don't forget, talked about how, "Yeah, yeah, we may have to send foreign correspondents into Missouri and the great heartland to find out what these people actually think." If there's a group of people totally out of touch with this country, it's the Democrats, and it's the media particularly in the Washington-New York-and-Boston corridor. They're the ones who live in the bubble. They're the ones who look upon average Americans with utter contempt and disdain, and to sit there and write a piece that Bush is out of it is simply absurd.
Bush is doing what every responsible Republican ought to do, and not kowtow to these people, and not consider what they want, because their desires focus and center around Bush's destruction. Why would Bush want to bring these kind of people in to learn what he should know and to think? As I say, if other Republicans in Washington would follow the Bush model, we'd be a lot better off, the way we're being governed in the Congress and in the Senate. The same thing goes with this asinine report here from the Boston Globe today on intelligence. Democrats are now claiming that they didn't see the same thing Bush did. Well, let's go back to this November 27th editorial. "President Bush and Vice President Cheney insist that the Democratic war critics in Congress saw the same prewar intelligence that they did. Critics such as Kerry say that's 'just plane flat not true.'"
Human Events has an interesting side light on the dispute. It has called attention to a Washington Post report. Actually the source here is not Human Events. It's the "obscure" Washington Post. The "relatively obscure" Washington Post. It must be obscure because nobody remembers seeing this in the Washington Post so nobody must have read the Washington Post or they would know that this was in there. What was in the Washington Post 18 months ago? It was a story that said, quote, "No more than six senators and a handful of House members according to congressional staff members who controlled access to the document read beyond the five-page summary of the October 2002 national intelligence estimate concluding that Iraq had chemical and biological weapons and was rebuilding its nuclear weapons program." So there was a 92-page estimate provided by the CIA to members of Congress before they voted on October 11th, 2002, on whether to authorize the use of force in Iraq. Let's go back to this period of time.
Back in the fall of 2002, the president was preparing and banging the drums of war. The Democrats, fearing the upcoming midterm elections and looking at the polls, saw that most people were supporting the president. They wanted to make sure they got in on the action. They had already authorized the use of force for the president following the 9/11 attacks. But they wanted a separate debate this time so they could go on record. They demanded intelligence reports. They were presented the 92-page estimate from the national intelligence estimate so they could be up to speed on it before their vote on October 11th. It turns out that, according to the Washington Post, no more than six senators and a handful of House members read beyond the five-page summary. Senator Jay Rockefeller, Democrat, West Virginia, vice-chairman of the Senate intelligence committee, earlier this month repeated that only six senators had read the document, saying he was one, and the committee chairman, Senator Pat Roberts of Kansas was another.
"Senator Feinstein, who prodded President Bush to make sure the estimate was finished in time, said that she was another who read the whole thing. Senator Lieberman couldn't remember if he read it, and Senator Clinton declined to say whether she had. Kerry admits he did not read the whole document. 'No, I got a personal briefing in the Pentagon. I didn't need to read that. I have people in high places. They told me what I need to hear.'" Well, that's not the equivalent of reading the whole thing, apparently. "Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid, one of the loudest 'we was misled' whiners admits he didn't read the whole thing, either. Now, we know everybody who's anybody in Washington normally relies on document summaries. Details are left to staffers. But you would think that in a matter of war and peace, the people who have to make the decisions would read 92 pages laying out the intelligence supporting the war, essentially the same material on which the president's relying."
They got it, folks, and only six of them read it, and some of them were Republicans -- and now we're back, and here's Rick Klein of the Boston Globe. All he's got to do is look at the Boston Herald, his competing newspaper and say, "Hey, my story today is BS! My story today is a pack of lies. My story today is nothing more than Democrat propaganda. My story today is nothing more than Democrat PsyOps. It's operation doom and gloom." That's the PsyOps operation that the Democrats have cooked up with the media. So all of this prewar intelligence is nothing more than the Democrats, once again, trying to have it every way possible -- not just both ways. They want to be able to have flexibility to be able to change their position on Iraq day in and day out and they've asked the media to give them this flexibility, and is there any doubt that they'll get it? When we come back we'll let you hear from Dingy Harry, Carl Levin, and Jack Reed during their prebuttal to Bush's remarks today.
BREAK TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: Let's go back to the audiotapes, this pathetic Democrat prebuttal to the president's speech. They cannot deal with the concept of victory. They just can't. We have three lame responses for you. These are leaders. As I say, it's operation doom and gloom. First, Dingy Harry.
REID: Victory is, in my mind, consists of doing well militarily, economical, and politically. Militarily we have not achieved success at this stage. Economically, we're certainly far from that. I think for someone who is looking for a political victory just to put another notch in your gun is not that simple. Because the way I look at it, it's a sphere of military, political, and economic.
RUSH: Political victory is exactly what you're hoping to achieve. You want the notch in your belt that comes with the defeat of your own country. This is rambling incoherence. Up next, Carl Levin.
LEVIN: To say "total victory" is a very open-ended commitment. It is unlimited in terms of our presence. Total victory could take decades. I don't think the American public will accept that kind of an open-ended commitment.
RUSH: Nothing is worth it to these people. Victory is not worth it no matter how long it takes, no matter how hard it is. Victory is just not worth it. They don't know how long it took for victory in our own circumstances in this country. It took us, what, seven or eight years to write a constitution and get it ratified? They're going to do it in three years here in Iraq. No, that's not fast enough, that's not victory. They want defeat. Carl Levin and the Democrats want defeat. They have no more knowledge or credibility to speak about this than you or I do, or anybody else off the street. These are simply opinions that are motivated by politics, and these Democrats demonstrate over and over again that they are weak on national security policy, and I'm telling you what, they are giving the Republicans their issues for '06. Time and again these leftists come to the microphone rooting for the enemy, which is what Reid did. It's what Levin is doing. They are rooting for the enemy, and the American people, according to a recent poll, don't like it (the Washington Post poll of a couple weeks ago), and the Democrats need to be paying the price for this, folks, and it's up to the Republicans to make them pay the price by campaigning against them on this very issue. Here's Jack Reed, the final bite.
REED: Complete victory is a slogan, not a well defined objective. I think part of what we've asked, both the caucus, collectively and many individually, is for a much more clearly defined objective that our military leaders can use to plan not only for the operations in Iraq, but over time for the force structure of our -- particularly our Army and our Marine Corps.
RUSH: Once again, urging and agitating for defeat. Here is last night in Baghdad, an Iraqi voter. Just listen to this.
BETTY DAWISHA: Anybody who doesn't appreciate what America has done and the President Bush, let them go to hell.
RUSH: Hear, hear!
END TRANSCRIPT
Read the Background Material...
(MRC: No End to Media’s Defeatism on Iraq War)
(Newsweek: Bush's Bubble: Can He Widen His Circle?)
(MRC: FNC's Panel Ridicules Newsweek's "Bush in the Bubble" Cover Story)
(RedState.org: Evan Thomas: back in a taxable bubble)
(Boston Globe: Democrats to press for Iraq intelligence)
(Boston Herald: A revealing look at intelligence)
(NY Post: 'Saddam Is History')
(Iraq's message to the Arab world: Democracy works - Michael Rubin)
(American Thinker: Defeatists and the "Cost" of the War in Iraq)
(American Thinker: Letter to an American Soldier)
(American Spectator: Riding the Rhino. Attacks are down 70 percent on the
Contrast with President Couldn't Be Greater
December 14, 2005
BEGIN TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: A history-making vote in Iraq coming up, and I'm wondering: Down the road, will historians be more amazed that it took less than three years for Iraq to go from abject tyranny to a constitutional government, or that for almost three years the Bush-hating left refused to acknowledge what an amazing triumph this is? You know, the Democrats did a prebuttal today, and they sent Dingy Harry out there. Normally in a prebuttal -- these things have happened before, but normally -- what you get is a rebuttal or a response. The mainstream media's close association and allied status with the Democrats allowed for this prebuttal to be broadcast all over television, and they're out there saying, "We need a timetable! We need a definition of success!" They've been saying the same things, yet Bush -- what was this, the fourth speech on Iraq today, or was it the third and there's been one on the economy? Fourth speech on Iraq in, what, two weeks, and each speech contains more detail, and yet the Democrats continue to demand detail. It's crazy -- and Murtha and the Democrats keep citing all these polls that say the Iraqi people don't want us there.
Murtha's still stuck on this business, "80% of the Iraqi people don't want us there." We know from the ABC poll that it's just the opposite: 71% do. They're looking forward to their future. They're happy-go-lucky over there compared to the way they're being portrayed here. They're really optimistic in Iraq, and it's an ABC poll. So you can't say that it's a poll that's not objective. I'm sure ABC cringed when they got the results and had to put it out, but nevertheless they did. You know, the Democrats, one of the things -- and I noticed this during the Clinton-Lewinsky thing -- all these Democrat operatives go on television and they'd say the American people want X; the American people think X; the American people are doing X -- and they're doing that now. "The American people want us out of Iraq! The American people are fed up! The American people know it's going nowhere! The American people know we were lied to!" Well, if that's what the polls actually say, why don't the Democrats vote that? It can all come back to that. They have a chance to call a vote and take us out of Iraq, to de-fund the war, and they don't do it.
If they had polling data that suggests and backs up everything they're saying, they would most certainly do it. Dingy Harry and Jack Reed -- who else went out there after Dingy Harry? -- Carl Levin. These people look like utter buffoons, ladies and gentlemen. It's just amazing. You have Harry Reid seeking to preempt Bush's speech, and this is all the good that he's good for. I mean, this is it. This is the sum total of Dingy Harry's contributions to this country: frenzied, wild attacks and so forth. Oh, and how about this story today in the New York Times? How about this story about these phony ballots being trucked in, and then Reuters comes and says: No, it's not true. So now we got competing stories, and the real problem, the real dilemma is, "Oh, my gosh, who do we believe?" Between Reuters and the New York Times, who do we believe? I mean, that's a tossup. Reuters says: Nope, no ballots. New York Times says: Oops, forged ballots! Phony ballots came in there. I was hoping the New York Times story was true. It turns out it's not, but I was hoping the New York Times story was true because then I would be able to say with fair confidence levels that the Democrats were behind it.
Oh, when I saw that last night, I said, "Ha-ha-ha this is hunky-dory and super-duper," but it turns out to have been a total sham. The New York Times once again has run a story that has no basis in fact whatsoever. Imagine if the New York Times was in charge of pre-war intelligence, ladies and gentlemen. We couldn't trust the New York Times for news to be truthful every day; imagine if they were in charge of prewar intel? But this prebuttal crap -- and that's what it is -- to me, is laughable. As I say, if things are so bad there that the polls are right about Americans not supporting the war, why don't the Democrats vote us out of it? And then, you know, I don't know why anybody cares anyway. Don't they admit each day they don't know anything? The Democrats don't know anything about intelligence. They don't know anything about this! Yet they're on television demanding and claiming to know all of these details about how horrible things are going, how rotten things are, how hopeless things are. Try this: Carl Levin says elections could lead to civil war, and we have audio sound bites coming up all this, so sit tight. Carl Levin says that elections in Iraq could lead to civil war.
Now, it doesn't surprise me. Democracy has not been kind to the Democrats in this country lately, and they in effect are starting a civil war in this country because they can't win them. They're roiling this country. They're driving a wedge as deep as they can, numerous wedges between people on various issues in this country. They've got their own version of a civil war going. So Levin may know what he's talking about, because when they lose elections here they in effect start their own version of a civil war, and that's their wish. The bottom line is Levin hopes there's a civil war. They're invested in defeat. Levin hopes it all falls apart in Iraq. That's the thing you need to take away from this. But they have no more knowledge or credibility to speak about this than you do or any other average guy off the street. These are simply opinions that are motivated by partisan politics that are amplified and aired by a sympathetic mainstream press. Folks, there may be a civil war one day, as there was in our country.
You may not know it because you may have graduated from the American public education system, but we had a civil war in this country once. The greatest democracy on the face of the earth, and we had a civil war. We can't ensure that the rule of law will exist forever. We can't even predict that for our own country. Look at our own problems that we're now having with judicial activism that we're trying to get our arms around and solve. But the idea that there is perfection in this is silly. The Democrats are demanding perfection. You know something? It's what liberals always do. Liberals look at the imperfections everywhere and seek to rectify them. These imperfections lead to what they consider to be inequality, and they get onto this radical, madcap, egalitarian kick which suggests that everybody must be totally equal -- which is an utter denial of human nature. I will say this: If they have in Iraq the kind of people that we have in our country such as the Democrats agitating constantly to divide us along religious, income, gender and age differences, there will be a civil war.
In other words, if the Iraqis come up with a party that's the equivalent of the modern-day Democrats, there will be a civil war. There's no question. If they want to divide the people in Iraq on religion and income and gender and age differences, then you can count on it. The Democrats today, once again demonstrate that they are weak on national security policy, and I think whoever suggested they go out there first is an idiot -- because they go first, and they put their flapping gums out in the personage of Dingy Harry and then Carl Levin and then Jack Reed, followed by George W. Bush. The contrast couldn't be greater. It's not quite this, but it's like when Reagan would go out and do a State of the Union Address; Democrats would send "Fort Worthless" Jim out there with those raised, bushy eyebrows to respond. It wasn't even a contest. This wasn't a contest today in terms of statesmanship, substance, optimism, all of these things.
BREAK TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: Have you ever wondered why Bush has to do all these speeches on Iraq? This is the fourth one. There's an answer for it. The Media Research Center has done an Iraq study. This is Brent Bozell's group, and they have calculated that ABC, CBS and NBC still air six negative Iraqi stories to every positive one that they air -- and, of course, every one of those negative Iraq stories features numerous sound bites and video clips with Democrats. That's why. So Bush is out there. It's okay. I mean, the president's doing what he should be doing on this. He's leading. Don't complain that he has to go out and do it, because the more he does it the worse the Democrats look. Let's let you hear how he sounded today. He leads off his speech, I think, he takes it right to the Democrats here, who have criticized victory.
THE PRESIDENT: We are confronting new dangers with firm resolve. We're hunting down the terrorists and their supporters. We will fight this war without wavering, and we will prevail. (Applause.) In the war on terror, Iraq is now the central front. And over the last few weeks, I've been discussing our political, economic, and military strategy for victory in that country. An historic election will take place tomorrow in Iraq, and as millions of Iraqis prepare to cast their ballots, I want to talk today about why we went into Iraq, why we stayed in Iraq, and why we cannot and will not leave Iraq until victory is achieved. (Applause.)
RUSH: Now, the press today is obsessed with one aspect of what the president said, and their headline is: "Bush Accepts Responsibility for Faulty Prewar Intel." That's the big headline. That's all they've taken out of this. That, to them, is the action line, if you will. That's what moves the story forward. The facts of success on the ground are not the media template. So anything about that -- the successful election, the peaceful circumstances in Iraq now, the fact the New York Times ran a bogus story about forged ballots being trucked in a tanker -- all of that doesn't move the story forward. That's not part of the media's action line. Bush accepting responsibility for faulty prewar intelligence, why, that's the action line, and it's absurd because the president has always taken responsibility for this war.
THE PRESIDENT: The United States did not choose war. The choice was Saddam Hussein's. When we made the decision to go into Iraq, many intelligence agencies around the world judged that Saddam possessed weapons of mass destruction. This judgment was shared by the intelligence agencies of governments who did not support my decision to remove Saddam, and it is true that much of the intelligence turned out to be wrong. As president, I'm responsible for the decision to go into Iraq, and I'm also responsible for fixing what went wrong by reforming our intelligence capabilities, and we're doing just that.
RUSH: Now, the headline in a -- I don't even know "fair" -- just an objective world, would be that the president made the right decision and explains why. That's what this speech was all about today, and that would be the headline, "President explains in greater detail reason for going to Iraq." Nope. Headline: "Bush Accepts Responsibility for Faulty Prewar Intel," because that's the action line. That's the gambit. That is what's hopefully going to be used to elect Democrats in mass numbers next year and in 2008. Here's more from the president this morning.
THE PRESIDENT: At the same time, we must remember that an investigation after the war by chief weapons inspector Charles Duelfer found that Saddam was using the UN oil-for-food program to influence countries and companies in an effort to undermine sanctions, with the intent of restarting his weapons programs once the sanctions collapsed and the world looked the other way. Given Saddam's history and the lessons of September the 11th, my decision to remove Saddam Hussein was the right decision. Saddam was a threat, and the American people and the world is better off because he is no longer in power. (Applause.)
RUSH: Right on, right on, right on! At this point, ladies and gentlemen, I would like to reference this Newsweek piece that all the media is having an orgasm over: Bush detached! Bush living in a bubble! Bush this! Bush not in contact! Bush sitting up in the White House, doesn't talk to liberals, doesn't talk to the media, doesn't talk to Democrats, doesn't talk to people who oppose him -- and so Bush doesn't really know what's going on out there. He lives in an absolute dream world where he makes up this fantasy of reality. Do you believe this? If there's anybody creating alternative realities out there today, it's the media and the Democrats. It's hard to distinguish the two, but that's who they are. Now, let me tell you something about this piece. It was written by Evan Thomas, and Evan Thomas to me is a hack. Evan Thomas to me is a shill, and he's a fraud. But in addition to that, here's who he is. Evan Thomas who wrote the Newsweek piece is the grandson of the founder of the ACLU. That man's name: Norman Thomas. He was also a huge socialist. In fact, Norman Thomas gained early fame by denouncing "an immoral..." This is a quote now: "Immoral, senseless struggle among rival imperialisms." He was talking about World War I. Norman Thomas ran for president as a socialist six times in the twenties, thirties, and forties. As RedState.org says, "He's sort of like Lyndon LaRouche before it was cool to be Lyndon LaRouche."
He was a wacko; he was an absolute kook, and he had a son, and his son had a son, and his son's son, the grandson is now Evan Thomas who is now working at Newsweek and writing these pieces about "Bush in the bubble." The dirty little secret is that Newsweek has done this before. The last time Newsweek ran a story about a Republican president who was detached and out of it and had no clue what was going on living in a bubble, simply listening to his friends, not talking to the Washington establishment, the last time they tried this I think it was 1981 or '82 about Ronald Reagan, Ronaldus Magnus. No matter what you can count on this: The media will repeat its template and playbook just as the Democratic Party does. Evan Thomas, by the way, in case you don't remember, Evan Thomas is the schlub who said during the 2004 presidential campaign on television -- it might have been on Chris Matthews' show -- that the mainstream media would be worth 15 points to John Kerry, 15 points in pre-election polls and in the actual election results, mainstream media would be worth 15 points. This is from Newsweek and Evan Thomas. So that's who it is that wrote the piece claiming Bush is detached and living in a bubble. Smartest thing Bush could do is avoid the liberal Democrats in Washington. If more Republicans would do so and govern as they promised to when they campaigned we'd be a lot better off.
BREAK TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: All right, here is the final sound bite we have from the president, his speech today at the Woodrow Wilson Center, and in this bite he takes aim at the critics on the very day they've chosen to do a prebuttal to his speech.
THE PRESIDENT: One of the blessings of our free society is that we can debate these issues openly, even in a time of war. Most of the debate has been a credit to our democracy. But some have launched irresponsible charges. They say that we act because of oil, that we act in Iraq because of Israel, or because we misled the American people. Some of the most irresponsible comments about manipulating intelligence have come from politicians who saw the same intelligence I saw --
RUSH: Yes!
THE PRESIDENT: -- and then voted to authorize the use of force against Saddam Hussein.
RUSH: Right on, right on.
THE PRESIDENT: These charges are pure politics. They hurt the morale of our troops. Whatever our differences in Washington, our men and women in uniform deserve to know that once our politicians vote to send them into harm's way, our support will be with them in good days and bad, and we will settle for nothing less than complete victory. (Applause.)
RUSH: All right! I tell you, this is necessary. This is good: taking it right to them, calling them irresponsible. Now, let's talk about this prewar intelligence because the Boston Globe forgets that we are here. The Boston Globe has a story today by Rick Klein, and the headline: "Democrats to Press for Iraq Intelligence Counter Bush Claim on Sharing Reports -- Democrats in Congress this week want to force the White House to release the daily intelligence briefings that President Bush reviewed in the months before the US invasion of Iraq, an attempt to undercut the president's claim that lawmakers saw the same reports that he did before voting to authorize the war. Bush has said repeatedly in recent weeks that the senators and House members who gave him the power to depose Saddam Hussein by force did so because they had seen all the same CIA assessments and agreed that Iraq's weapons program was a national security threat. But congressional Democrats point out that they didn't have access to the president's daily briefs that summarize American intelligence for the president each day."
This is mind-boggling! Forget this intelligence, which we'll deal with in a moment. What about the intelligence the Clinton administration was passing out in 1998? Where are you, Mr. Klein? Can't you go back to your own archives and look at what your own paper published in 1998 or 2001 and 2002? Go back and look at what Bill Clinton said. We've done it. If we can do it, you can do it. Go back and look at what John Kerry said or Tom Daschle said, or Harry Reid said, or Jay Rockefeller. We've done it. We've published it in the Limbaugh Letter. We've put it on my website. The intelligence that Saddam had all these weapons of mass destruction was building up, has been on the books since the early nineties. The United Nations had a number of resolutions demanding he get rid of the stuff. He ignored them all. But here we have it once again, the Boston Globe, history begins when Bush assumes office. Well, let's go back to November 27th. I told you about this the day this story was published. It's an editorial from the Boston Herald, and the headline of this: "A Revealing Look at Intelligence."
Now, the source for the Boston Herald's piece is Human Events, which the Herald refers to here as "a relatively obscure conservative weekly." Well, it's only relatively obscure to liberal Democrats. It's sort of like this Evan Thomas claiming that Bush lives in a bubble. I will bet you that George W. Bush knows a hell of a lot more people who live in Texas and Missouri and Nebraska and Iowa and Kansas and the great heartland of this country and the red states than Evan Thomas knows, and I will bet you that Evan Thomas knows a hell of a lot more people who live in, say, Aspen or the Upper West Side of Manhattan than Bush does. Now, you tell me who's more in touch with America and who lives in a bigger bubble. If you ask me, the people that live in the bubble in this country are the American press: the DC press, the DC culture and the media. They're the ones who after the '04 election results, don't forget, talked about how, "Yeah, yeah, we may have to send foreign correspondents into Missouri and the great heartland to find out what these people actually think." If there's a group of people totally out of touch with this country, it's the Democrats, and it's the media particularly in the Washington-New York-and-Boston corridor. They're the ones who live in the bubble. They're the ones who look upon average Americans with utter contempt and disdain, and to sit there and write a piece that Bush is out of it is simply absurd.
Bush is doing what every responsible Republican ought to do, and not kowtow to these people, and not consider what they want, because their desires focus and center around Bush's destruction. Why would Bush want to bring these kind of people in to learn what he should know and to think? As I say, if other Republicans in Washington would follow the Bush model, we'd be a lot better off, the way we're being governed in the Congress and in the Senate. The same thing goes with this asinine report here from the Boston Globe today on intelligence. Democrats are now claiming that they didn't see the same thing Bush did. Well, let's go back to this November 27th editorial. "President Bush and Vice President Cheney insist that the Democratic war critics in Congress saw the same prewar intelligence that they did. Critics such as Kerry say that's 'just plane flat not true.'"
Human Events has an interesting side light on the dispute. It has called attention to a Washington Post report. Actually the source here is not Human Events. It's the "obscure" Washington Post. The "relatively obscure" Washington Post. It must be obscure because nobody remembers seeing this in the Washington Post so nobody must have read the Washington Post or they would know that this was in there. What was in the Washington Post 18 months ago? It was a story that said, quote, "No more than six senators and a handful of House members according to congressional staff members who controlled access to the document read beyond the five-page summary of the October 2002 national intelligence estimate concluding that Iraq had chemical and biological weapons and was rebuilding its nuclear weapons program." So there was a 92-page estimate provided by the CIA to members of Congress before they voted on October 11th, 2002, on whether to authorize the use of force in Iraq. Let's go back to this period of time.
Back in the fall of 2002, the president was preparing and banging the drums of war. The Democrats, fearing the upcoming midterm elections and looking at the polls, saw that most people were supporting the president. They wanted to make sure they got in on the action. They had already authorized the use of force for the president following the 9/11 attacks. But they wanted a separate debate this time so they could go on record. They demanded intelligence reports. They were presented the 92-page estimate from the national intelligence estimate so they could be up to speed on it before their vote on October 11th. It turns out that, according to the Washington Post, no more than six senators and a handful of House members read beyond the five-page summary. Senator Jay Rockefeller, Democrat, West Virginia, vice-chairman of the Senate intelligence committee, earlier this month repeated that only six senators had read the document, saying he was one, and the committee chairman, Senator Pat Roberts of Kansas was another.
"Senator Feinstein, who prodded President Bush to make sure the estimate was finished in time, said that she was another who read the whole thing. Senator Lieberman couldn't remember if he read it, and Senator Clinton declined to say whether she had. Kerry admits he did not read the whole document. 'No, I got a personal briefing in the Pentagon. I didn't need to read that. I have people in high places. They told me what I need to hear.'" Well, that's not the equivalent of reading the whole thing, apparently. "Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid, one of the loudest 'we was misled' whiners admits he didn't read the whole thing, either. Now, we know everybody who's anybody in Washington normally relies on document summaries. Details are left to staffers. But you would think that in a matter of war and peace, the people who have to make the decisions would read 92 pages laying out the intelligence supporting the war, essentially the same material on which the president's relying."
They got it, folks, and only six of them read it, and some of them were Republicans -- and now we're back, and here's Rick Klein of the Boston Globe. All he's got to do is look at the Boston Herald, his competing newspaper and say, "Hey, my story today is BS! My story today is a pack of lies. My story today is nothing more than Democrat propaganda. My story today is nothing more than Democrat PsyOps. It's operation doom and gloom." That's the PsyOps operation that the Democrats have cooked up with the media. So all of this prewar intelligence is nothing more than the Democrats, once again, trying to have it every way possible -- not just both ways. They want to be able to have flexibility to be able to change their position on Iraq day in and day out and they've asked the media to give them this flexibility, and is there any doubt that they'll get it? When we come back we'll let you hear from Dingy Harry, Carl Levin, and Jack Reed during their prebuttal to Bush's remarks today.
BREAK TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: Let's go back to the audiotapes, this pathetic Democrat prebuttal to the president's speech. They cannot deal with the concept of victory. They just can't. We have three lame responses for you. These are leaders. As I say, it's operation doom and gloom. First, Dingy Harry.
REID: Victory is, in my mind, consists of doing well militarily, economical, and politically. Militarily we have not achieved success at this stage. Economically, we're certainly far from that. I think for someone who is looking for a political victory just to put another notch in your gun is not that simple. Because the way I look at it, it's a sphere of military, political, and economic.
RUSH: Political victory is exactly what you're hoping to achieve. You want the notch in your belt that comes with the defeat of your own country. This is rambling incoherence. Up next, Carl Levin.
LEVIN: To say "total victory" is a very open-ended commitment. It is unlimited in terms of our presence. Total victory could take decades. I don't think the American public will accept that kind of an open-ended commitment.
RUSH: Nothing is worth it to these people. Victory is not worth it no matter how long it takes, no matter how hard it is. Victory is just not worth it. They don't know how long it took for victory in our own circumstances in this country. It took us, what, seven or eight years to write a constitution and get it ratified? They're going to do it in three years here in Iraq. No, that's not fast enough, that's not victory. They want defeat. Carl Levin and the Democrats want defeat. They have no more knowledge or credibility to speak about this than you or I do, or anybody else off the street. These are simply opinions that are motivated by politics, and these Democrats demonstrate over and over again that they are weak on national security policy, and I'm telling you what, they are giving the Republicans their issues for '06. Time and again these leftists come to the microphone rooting for the enemy, which is what Reid did. It's what Levin is doing. They are rooting for the enemy, and the American people, according to a recent poll, don't like it (the Washington Post poll of a couple weeks ago), and the Democrats need to be paying the price for this, folks, and it's up to the Republicans to make them pay the price by campaigning against them on this very issue. Here's Jack Reed, the final bite.
REED: Complete victory is a slogan, not a well defined objective. I think part of what we've asked, both the caucus, collectively and many individually, is for a much more clearly defined objective that our military leaders can use to plan not only for the operations in Iraq, but over time for the force structure of our -- particularly our Army and our Marine Corps.
RUSH: Once again, urging and agitating for defeat. Here is last night in Baghdad, an Iraqi voter. Just listen to this.
BETTY DAWISHA: Anybody who doesn't appreciate what America has done and the President Bush, let them go to hell.
RUSH: Hear, hear!
END TRANSCRIPT
Read the Background Material...
(MRC: No End to Media’s Defeatism on Iraq War)
(Newsweek: Bush's Bubble: Can He Widen His Circle?)
(MRC: FNC's Panel Ridicules Newsweek's "Bush in the Bubble" Cover Story)
(RedState.org: Evan Thomas: back in a taxable bubble)
(Boston Globe: Democrats to press for Iraq intelligence)
(Boston Herald: A revealing look at intelligence)
(NY Post: 'Saddam Is History')
(Iraq's message to the Arab world: Democracy works - Michael Rubin)
(American Thinker: Defeatists and the "Cost" of the War in Iraq)
(American Thinker: Letter to an American Soldier)
(American Spectator: Riding the Rhino. Attacks are down 70 percent on the