RUSH: I’ll tell you, folks, the Drive-By Media is — and the libs (and, of course, what’s the difference?) — so predictable. One of my major themes is playing out already, and will soon be visible to one and all. One of those themes is: Any good day for America and the US military and the war effort is a bad day for liberalism, a bad day for the Democrats. Greetings, my friends. Hubba hubba. Great to have you on the EIB Network and the Rush Limbaugh Program, from the Limbaugh Institute for Advanced Conservative Studies. A special welcome to those of you watching the program at RushLimbaugh.com on the Dittocam today. Telephone number if you want to be on the program, 800-282-2882, and the e-mail address is Rush@eibnet.com.
Yes, what’s good for America is bad for the American left.
What’s good for America is bad for the Democratic Party, although the libs do have some solace today. Some idiot related to the Federal Reserve started opening his mouth and flapping his gums about core inflation and price support getting very, very, very delicate now, and so the stock market has plunged. It’s been down as much as 150 points. It’s now down 10 points, down below 11,000, I think around ten-eight. NASDAQ was down about 50. So there are still reasons for the Democrat and the libs to find happiness even though the news out of Iraq is
REID: Today’s mission that we’re talking about, and its successful outcome, are a testament to bravery, the skill, and the determination of those dedicated men and women on the front lines.
RUSH: Stop the tape a minute. Does it sound like Dingy Harry is reading this? Does it sound like Dingy Harry is very
REID: Zarqawi — God knows it’s a hard thing for me to say about any human being, but — he got what he deserved.
RUSH: Oh, jeez! (Laughing.) Jeez! (Laughing.) It’s a hard thing? They just can’t
REID: Anyone who aligns himself with him should know that they could await a similar fate, as long as they engage in terror.
RUSH: On Good Morning America, today, it was fascinating. ABC is, I guess, taking credit for “breaking” the story. (Laughing.) At any rate, one of their reporters, a guy named Bill Weir reminded the audience that Zarqawi beheaded American Nicholas Berg, then they replayed Berg’s left-wing dad saying at the time that he had no desire for his son’s killers to be killed. So ABC early this morning is out there actually running a tape of Nick Berg’s dad saying, “I didn’t want this guy killed. I didn’t want anybody retribution,” and Mr. Berg is all over television this morning. Michael Berg is all over the place now ripping Bush. You want to hear a little bit of that? Let’s start with audio sound bite #10. Fox and Friends, Michael Berg talking to E. D. Hill and she says, “He is the person who is despised by so many Iraqis for masterminding the massive killings of hundreds of thousands of people there. So this is, in essence…”
BERG: I don’t think Zarqawi is himself responsible for the killings of hundreds of thousands of people in Iraq.
HILL: No, hundreds
BERG: George Bush is. George Bush is the one that invaded this country. George Bush is the one that destabilized it so that Zarqawi could get in, so that Zarqawi had to meet the American invaders.
HILL: I believe that the argument, of course, would be that the American forces went in there and that followed hundreds of thousands — certainly, under Saddam Hussein — being tortured and killed. In this case, al-Zarqawi, as I stated, hundreds and thousands of people were killed because of the direct orders of al-Zarqawi.
BERG: Yeah, like — like George W. Bush didn’t okay– okay and torture and death and rape of people in the Abu Ghraib prison for which my son was killed in retaliation?
RUSH: All right, it gets even better. Next question was from Brian Kilmeade: “Did you read the New York Times Sunday? Did you see the little killing feels that were exposed, sir? I’m amazed that you don’t feel any relief that the person who beheaded your son is now dead.”
BERG: How do you know he did, because George Bush told you he did it —
KILMEADE: He claims he did. He was spotted on video.
BERG: because the FBI that lies all the time, plus George Bush lied to the American people, told you that?
HILL: Mr. Berg, I know that you’re very emotional. There was
BERG: Yes.
HILL: He was identified in the video.
BERG: You believe everything you see on television?
RUSH: And next over to CNN’s American Morning with Soledad O’Brien to Michael Berg. “There’s a theory that as they try and form some kind of government that in fact it’s going to be brutal; it’s going to be bloody.” One of the things you have to understand about all this, folks, is the prism or the lens through which the Drive-By Media and the Democrats look at this event today is no different. The lens and the prism is the defeat of American forces in Iraq, the defeat of the Bush policy, the defeat of Bush politically. Just because this event happens — and make no mistake about this, by the way. This is an event brought about by the United States military.
I have said countless times on this program, and I even got a couple of notes today from people thanking me for being optimistic while their impatience and pessimism was growing, and they asked me, “How do you it?” I said, “It’s easy. We’re the United States of America. We
We don’t lose, folks. The United States military just doesn’t lose.
It’s depressing to see so many people attempting to be sabotage the effort, and that’s how this prism is. You have to understand all this coverage. You wonder why there’s no real happiness and celebration on the American left. Look at the Tony Snow press briefing this morning. It was typical. It was unremarkable in that it was predictable. Tony at one point got a little frustrated and said, “Why are you guys so hell-bent on us getting out of Iraq?” This commander-in-chief is not going to accept anything other than victory. This commander-in-chief is not going to lose in Iraq. That’s something that is so foreign to these people. You have to understand the Drive-By Media, the Democrats, have already chalked this up as a loss, based on Bush’s approval numbers and their giant electoral success in the…
I mean, they’re in a different world here, folks. The template isn’t going to change. The prism, the lens isn’t going to change — and the Democrats say, “Well, this was good. Yes, a very fine effort, and we’re very happy to see it, but it’s not going to stop the terrorism, and it just means…” There were a lot of questions today, and it’s being backed up by Jack Murtha, “Okay, so this ought to mean we can get out of there a lot sooner because we got the bad guy. Now let’s get out of there, blah, blah.” It’s just going to frustrate you to no end if you get caught up in it rather than understand the prism. So anyway, back to the question from Soledad O’Brien to Michael Berg. “There’s a theory that as they try and form some kind of government that in fact it’s going to be brutal; it’s going to be bloody. There’s going to be loss…” See, here comes the negativism. They’re going to retaliate. Oh, wow! By the way, they formed the government in Iraq and announced it today, the very day the #1 terrorist trying to stop it was killed. I’m going to tell you something, folks:
BERG: Saddam Hussein didn’t pull the trigger, didn’t commit the rapes, neither did George Bush, but both men are responsible for their under their reins of terror. I don’t buy that. Iraq did not have Al-Qaeda in it.
RUSH: It did.
BERG: Al-Qaeda supposedly killed my son. Under Saddam Hussein, no Al-Qaeda [sic]. Under George Bush, Al-Qaeda. Under Saddam Hussein, relative stability. Under George Bush, instability. Under Saddam Hussein, about 30,000 deaths a year. Under George Bush, about 50,000 deaths a year. I don’t get it [sic]. Why is it better to have George Bush be the king of Iraq rather than Saddam Hussein?
RUSH: All right, now, some of you are saying Rush, “Come on, the man lost his son over there.” Yeah, yeah, but he’s now inserted himself in the political process and as such being used by the media to advance an agenda item and therefore he’s fair game.
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RUSH: Let’s go back to November 30th, 2005, Latrobe, Pennsylvania, Jack Murtha held a press conference. Hey, Jack, you think Zarqawi thinks the American military is “broken” this morning?
MURTHA: We got real problems. The Army is broken. The equipment is worn out! We got a $50 backlog of equipment which needs to be repaired.
RUSH: Yeah, really? Jack, you did your best out there to break everybody’s will, but I guess it didn’t work. I know that Zarqawi is now room temperature, pictures to approve it. You think his buddies that died with him and those who remain as supporters think the military is broke? And then on March 7th of this year on Hardball with Chris Matthews, Murtha said this.
MURTHA: When the military gets stretched too thin like it is, the problem is that they can’t — we can’t scare anybody. In other words, w-when Cheney makes a threat like that, uh, it’s — i-i-it falls on deaf ears because they know darn well we couldn’t accept it but the big thing is as much money as we spend on intelligence, we — we — we don’t know where the targets are —
MATTHEWS (interrupting): Right.
MURTHA: — we — we — we don’t know exactly what we need to do —
MATTHEWS (interrupting): M’kay.
MURTHA: so there’s no use even talking about the a military strike.
RUSH: Jack, you think Zarqawi and his deceased buddies and remaining supporters think we’re unable to find out where they are? (Laughing.) Hey,
But after even praising the effort and the mission, he said, “Ah, this just proves we can get out of there now. I mean, get out in six months. We can do it. We can get out of there now. That’s all. Get out of there. I mean, it’s a civil war. We’re never going to win this thing.” Murtha said today, “We’re never going to win this thing. We can’t win this thing,” and that’s what I mean. This is why the Democratic Party today and all their supporters are simply
The
KAPLOW: You referred a few minutes to intelligence from Zarqawi’s network, and I’m wondering on that, were those people who were under interrogation in custody, or people who came forward from Zarqawi’s network to describe them?
CALDWELL: It would be inappropriate for me to talk about where the information actually came from and who provided it to the intelligence sources.
RUSH: Well now this is typical, too. The media wants to know, “How did you find out? Tell us! We want to know so that we can prevent you from finding out again. Tell us your secrets! We demand to know, people have a right to know,” blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Now, this question got pretty close:
Having fallout like this, it is clearly an indication of something that I have thought and many people thought for the longest time, that the tide has turned and that we are actually
If indeed this — and, trust me, I don’t question this. I just cannot get close to identifying the people involved here, but they made it clear that detainee reporting has played a significant role here. Also, how about this? You know, the charge that the US is alone, no effective coalition or cooperation in the area? I mean, didn’t that take a big hit today? Multiple factors came together to make this possible. I mean, look at who was involved here. The Iraqis, the Jordanians, and the CIA targeting team (yes, a CIA targeting team) were all involved to bring this about. Jordan released Zarqawi from prison only to see 20 innocents of their own killed in Amman, Jordan — and Jordanians were in on this as a result.
The Iraqis played a part. You aren’t seeing them yet but there are pictures of Iraq — well, I don’t know. I haven’t seen them on TV. You might have. But there are still photographs of Iraqis
That played a role but they wouldn’t tell me how. I said, “What was it? Did it give you an idea where he was?”
“Can’t go any further than that.”
But obviously, folks, there was a tremendous amount of successful intelligence, Congressman Murtha, a
In addition, ladies and gentlemen, I read something by Andy McCarthy today in National Review Online, and I want to expand on this, because he didn’t spend a whole lot of time on it but it was enough of a mention to excite my fertile brain. He talked about how eager the Jack Murthas and the Democrats in Congress are to indict the Marines of Haditha, without even knowing yet officially what they did, and yet we can’t do anything to Congressman William Jefferson (Democrat-Louisiana). So men and women in the Marine Corps have
Why, we’ve got to make sure that constitutional protections remain in place for him!
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RUSH: I want you to hear these Tony Snow bites from the daily press gaggle this morning. Normally the morning gaggle isn’t TVed. They TV the one that starts about now, 12:30. But this was important. Unidentified reporter (don’t know who this guy was) says, “The president has said security needs of the new government going to be one of the prime topics for discussion. No discussion of troop levels? Surely there’s going to be some discussion on troop levels, Tony.”
SNOW: Yeah, but you guys are all — why are you so hell-bent on saying, “We’re going to get out tomorrow?” or, you know… It’d make a good news headline, but the facts on the ground, we’ve got six additional dead guys out of the terror network, but there is still a significant problem here. So I don’t think — of course there’s going to be a discussion of the way ahead and there will be discussions, if this happens, what happens here.
RUSH: You’ve got to understand these questions. It’s the template. It is the prism. We’ve lost. The press has already decided this. The Drive-By Media has already decided it. Whether we win or lose, we’ve lost, and so we’ve got to get out of there. “Look at the president’s poll numbers. Look at all the deaths. We’ve got to get out of there.” These people do not even consider alternative views to the ones they’ve decided they want, folks. As a human characteristic, you have to understand this about them: nothing alternative to what they believe or hope would happen affects them. It’s like a foreign language to them, and so, despite all the news, “Why, this is further evidence. We could get out now. I mean, since we’ve lost the war.”
You’ll note here that any administration official speaking today, be it Snow or Rumsfeld or the president, they’re not doing victory dances out there because this is not the end of anything. It’s a ground-breaking and much-needed victory, not just for the morale of the troops, but for the country at large — another reason the press, the Drive-By Media, is not happy about it. There’s still a lot of work to do. Here was this exchange, too. You gotta hear this. Tony does a fabulous job I think up there as the press secretary. He’s the best press secretary I can remember being up there in a long, long time. Marlin Fitzwater was good for what he did. This is just really good stuff. Listen to this exchange.
REPORTER: My good colleague over there is being hell-bent to get troops out tomorrow, but I think there are some poll numbers that suggests Americans are getting antsy to see some troop movements, you know, back in…
SNOW: I understand that, but I —
REPORTER: What I’m asking is: How does the president view that? I mean,
you — you — you say…
SNOW: Yeah. Absolutely.
REPORTER: Does he like that?
SNOW: No, the president understands what the polls are but he also understands what his obligations are as commander in chief, and if the polling data is contrary to the national security interest, guess what? The national secure interests win. Period. That’s how he views it, and so you can look at the poll data — and we do; we’ve taken very cold and honest looks at the poll data — but the one thing, as commander in chief, he is not going fail in Iraq. He is not going permit failure.
RUSH: Period. End of subject. Subject closed.
Of course it’s not closed!
(sniveling liberal reporter impression) “Why isn’t the president listening to our poll numbers? Those are
It’s all bogus. It’s all a result of the questions that are asked
Another Daily Kos-er upset because he thought the news would benefit President Bush. “No doubt Karl Rove will have the sock puppet president acting as if he personally dropped the bomb that killed that jackass, but other than a couple of photo-ops of Bush looking cocky, it does nothing because two more tin-plated Zarqawis will pop up.” A third poster at Daily Kos suggested there was little difference between the top Al-Qaeda terrorist and the leader of the free world. He wrote, “Now that we’re rid of one murderous tyrant, how about the removal of another one believed hiding in a safe house at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue?”
These are actual Americans, folks, posting at what is said to be the most popular liberal blog in the country! I went over to Democrat Underground, and the reaction to the death of Zarqawi was also negative there. A Democrat Underground poster said, “Convenient, too, that this would happen now. I guess we should just all forget about that Haditha mess, the fact that we’re approaching 2,500 dead, the fact that our economy is in trouble [sic].” So this whole thing, the timing was conspiratorial, to take all the other bad news off the front page. Another poster at the Democrat Underground said that killing the Al-Qaeda chief? Ah, it’s not such a big deal!
He said, “Zarqawi was a fringe group of Al-Qaeda, definitely not responsible for the bulk of the insurgency and civil war now going on there. Any gains that they hope to receive will be short-lived when reality strikes home.” So that’s the Democrats in the, quote, unquote, “Democrat heartland” wherever the hell that is, blue state America, and that’s just a sample. That’s just an early sample of what’s happening out there, but it’s not just there. ABC News The Note today. You’ve gotta listen to this. This is Mark Halperin and his crew that write this daily briefing on the events of the day, how they’ll play out politically, who’s going where, who’s going to say what.
These guys, they do everything they can to hide the fact that they’re left of center, but they are. Here’s their post for today, The Note, June 8th: “Zarqawi is dead. A decent interval has passed. The politics has begun. The briefed facts so far (safe house, killed by air, macho American tracking ingenuity, body recovered and fully identified, video documentation, few or no civilian or U.S. collateral damage, letting the Iraqis announce it, the simultaneous additions to the new government) could not be better politically even if General Rove had directed the operation. You are watching the rollout of a serious PR plan.”
This is
“Major 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue tick-tocking has already taken place, and it will continue, unabated, throughout the day. Things the White House cannot (totally) control: When will the first public poll with presidential job approval numbers come out? (If CNN and Fox have different numbers, how will the nation — and the on-air talent — deal with that?) When will be the first time that DeanPelosiReid speak out, starting the Rube Goldberg process that goes from Karl-Rove’s-ears-to-Ken-Mehlman’s-BlackBerry-to-Tracey-Schmitt’s-keyboard-to-Jack-Kingston’s-talking-points-to-the-Limbaugh-Institute-for-Advanced-Conservative-Studies?”
Ha-ha-ha-ha-ha!
That’s all part of the PR campaign. So Rove will react to Dean, Pelosi and Reid, and Rove will send out the talking points to Ken Mehlman at the RNC, then over to Tracey Schmitt who is the information babe at the RNC, Jack Kingston, a congressman from Georgia, and then to the Limbaugh Institute for Advanced Conservative Studies for
They are admitting that they at ABC don’t reach America. It’s like this UN guy. This UN guy is complaining that it’s me and Fox News that define American attitudes, and so here is ABC’s The Note saying that without me, the White House can’t get its message out. Then: “How much more violence will there be this week in Iraq? [The White House “cannot control that.”] Watch how Democrats handle today’s news (and if they regret sending the that letter about Ambassador Khalilzad canceling his Senate briefing appearance).” Khalilzad the ambassador in Iraq, he canceled the Senate briefing appearance, the Senate got all upset about it. How will they handle that news, given the death of Zarqawi?
“Republicans will be watching to see if the death…” See, let me sum all this up. This is nothing more than the latest political event! The Drive-By Media cannot stop looking at this through the prism of a political event. What they don’t get is that
If you think that, you don’t know Bush. You think you do, but you don’t. Sure he’s got political people around him, but to call all of this a PR issue or PR campaign, a PR plan is part and parcel of what I have offered to you as an explanation for those of you who just can’t figure these people in the mainstream media out. They have gotten so caught up in their own polls, they believe the polls they do. They believe the stories. It’s like they still can’t get over what happened Tuesday. There was no way Bilbray was going to win. They had all the polling data; they had the RNC spending all that money. They just couldn’t believe it. They believe their own PR! They believe their own propaganda, and they get
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RUSH: Let’s see what we got when we go out there and sample the opinion of the people who make the country work, the audience of this program. We’ll start with Renee in Hamilton, Ohio. You’re up first, and it’s an honor. It’s great to have you with us.
CALLER: Oh, thank you so much. This is such a wonderful day. I gotta tell you, whenever — and I thought of this Jack Murtha, and you were so right to remind everybody that — well, him and John Kerry both wanted like six months to get out, and that was over six months ago, and had we listened to them, we would not have this victory here today.
RUSH: Murtha still is saying we should get out in six months.
CALLER: Yeah. And when they were showing the rubble, the people digging things out of the rubble where Zarqawi was killed, they showed a little blue teddy bear and some little children’s shoes, and I
RUSH: Did you hear him say that or you just thought you heard?
CALLER: No, that was just going through my mind. See, I was watching —
RUSH: You’ve gotta give this time. They’re not that dumb, but they can’t help themselves. They’ll have enough discipline to hold their fire on what they really think of all this for a day, but just be patient out there. It won’t be long. They’ll start asking the questions, “Was anything tortured?” When they learn that there was a detainee role played in this, when they learn that detainees offered intelligence — meaning prisoners, wherever we’re holding them — you mark my words,
“Did we
This, of course, is the voice of the “new castrati,” as I call them, those who have been neutered and have no spine, backbone, or couple other things.
“What was the
You know what they’re going to say, and then some of them are thinking, “We would have gotten Zarqawi a year sooner if Kerry were president,” or “If we listened to Biden, or if Democrats were in power, Zarqawi would have never been in Iraq,” blah, blah, blah, blah. You’re going to hear themes, variations on all these themes in due course. Their first reaction when they heard it at home was a lump in the throat. I’m sure there’s some exceptions to this, but the Democratic Party is just like the Drive-By Media. They look at everything through the prism of politics and the politics today is: “How do we defeat Bush?” who is not even on the ballot. It’s ridiculous. But nevertheless… It was probably the same when we captured Saddam. We captured Saddam? Oh, you know there was a lump in their throat there! (Choking sounds.) Choking and breath cut off for a while in stunned shock and disappointment. I’m sure that in many, many quarters of the American left today and in certain sectors of the Democratic Party, there was an, “Oh,
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RUSH: One other quick point here before we have to go to the break — we’re going to move on to other things after this, but we’ll still take calls from you. I know you want to weigh in on this. This is something the Drive-By Media and the American left will miss totally. This Zarqawi death today, it’s not just a huge military victory, but it’s a huge
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