RUSH: What’s the mantra of the left here right now? The mantra of the left is, ‘We gotta change! Time for a change. We demand change,’ right? I got to thinking about this the other day. The president has changed the secretary of defense. The president has changed the commanders in Iraq. The president has changed the ambassadors to Iraq. The president has changed the entire Iraq strategy, and those changes changed the momentum! Now, the left, the Democrats, they haven’t changed Harry Reid. They haven’t changed Nancy Pelosi. They haven’t changed their talking points. They haven’t changed their lack of cooperation. They haven’t changed their defeatism. About the only thing that’s changed — and this is with routine consistency — is Mrs. Clinton’s position of the day on the war. Of all the words, of all the concepts, the lament of the left is ‘change,’ and they haven’t changed a bit! The president is offering all kinds of change. The left offers nothing but chump change. Here’s Charles in Ft. Lauderdale. Hey, Charles, welcome to the EIB Network.
CALLER: My pleasure to speak with you. If the Democrats don’t believe General Petraeus in his sworn testimony to Congress, how are any of them going to react as the chief executive when the military comes to them and brings them information to respond to a political or global crisis? What are they going to do, tell the military, ‘We don’t believe you. You’re not telling us the truth’?
RUSH: No. No. That won’t happen. Let me answer. It’s a very, very timely and important question asked of the most important person in the country you could ask it to, and this is the answer: The dirty little secret, Charles, is that if one of these Democrats becomes the chief executive in 2009, we’re not leaving Iraq, and the military, whatever they tell President Clinton, will be what she goes by. We are not going to get out of there, not with the Democrats in office. You people in the audience, this illusion is purposeful here to show you just how disingenuous they are at this very moment. They have no intention of getting out of Iraq with themselves in charge and the noose of defeat hanging around their necks. Now, the way that they will do this is Mrs. Clinton will get into office… You remember her husband promised this middle-class tax cut throughout his campaign, and within the first 30 days calls this national address (impression), ‘I’ve worked harder than anything I’ve ever worked on before in my life. I tried, but I just can’t. They didn’t tell me all that was going on here in the campaign. I have looked at the books, and I have discovered we can’t afford a middle-class tax cut. I am sorry. I worked hard trying to bring it about, but we just can’t do it.’ They’ll do the same thing. Mrs. Clinton will say, ‘I, finally, as your president, have seen information the previous administration withheld from us, and what I have seen informs me we cannot leave now.’
That’s how it will happen. They’re not going to dare pull us out of there. They’re not going to secure defeat when they’re in charge. It ain’t gonna happen. By the way, you anti-war Democrats, you lunatic-fringe kooks out there, you had better come to grips with this, because it was made plain last night. You are not going to get these troops out of there before the presidential race. So you’re not going to get these troops out of there before whoever assumes office in January, 2009. You’ve lost. The president has skunked you again. In fact, Obama said we’re not going to challenge Bush. ‘Despite the unpopularity of the Iraq war, Barack Obama predicted yesterday Congress will not directly challenge President Bush’s plan, will focus instead on putting a ceiling on the number of troops deployed. [He] said the most likely scenario would be to grant troops more time at home between deployments, a politically popular step that’s difficult to oppose and one that would have a practical impact. ‘You have to at least give people a one-year break for every year served in Iraq,’ Obama said.’ So the top-two Democrat candidates for president are members of this ineffective Congress.
They can’t get anything done, and the Democrats think all of a sudden their guys, whoever it is, when they’re elected are going to pull the troops out? It isn’t going to happen. They’re not going to get them out of there before 2009 — and Bush brilliantly alluded to this last night when he talked about the role his successor is going to have here in continuing this policy to secure the defense of this country. So if the Democrats do win the White House, whoever it is, I can’t wait to see the implosion that’s going to happen on the left when the troops don’t come out of there. That’s going to be fun to watch. By the way, ‘Only a third of the public is satisfied with the job President Bush is doing. Even fewer are pleased with Congress, according to a poll by the AP and Ipsos released’ yesterday. ‘With the clash between Bush and congressional Democrats over Iraq continuing to dominate the news, 33% said they prove of Bush’s performance, Congress’ approval number 26%.’ Speaking of which, Bush, of course, has higher approval numbers than Congress, but the Democrats, despite all of this, can’t move public opinion? If they were able to do that, and if the things they were saying about the American public opinion and the war were true, we would not have heard the speech from President Bush that we heard last night.
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RUSH: Back to our audio sound bite roster, because it’s timely, folks; it fits in with some of the things that I have been suggesting about the Democrats today. First, let’s go to The Situation Room on CNN last night. Reporterette Suzanne Malveaux was interviewing Tony Snow, the White House press secretary. She said, ‘In terms of whether or not they approve or disapprove of the way the president’s handling the situation in Iraq, 71% disapprove of the execution of the war and what he’s doing there, so why should the American people listen to him in the first place?’ Now, that is the question. Before we play you Tony’s answer, if that stupid CNN poll were right, we would be out of there. The Democrats would have had no problem getting their resolutions passed if 71% disapprove of what’s going on that stridently. So her question to Tony Snow: ‘Why should anybody listen to the president in the first place tonight?’
SNOW: You might want to read the poll a little more fully, because it also says that most Americans think the surge is working.
MALVEAUX: It says 26 percent approve of the way he’s handling it; 71 percent disapprove; and 3 percent unsure.
SNOW: I know. I know. But you know what? They also have even higher disapproval rates for Congress. People here are tired of the atmosphere in Washington.
MALVEAUX: We want to talk about the president. Let’s talk about the president.
SNOW: What I’ve done is taken something a lot more precise which is: Is the surge working?
MALVEAUX: How does the president… (Crosstalk)
SNOW: Read your own — wait, wait, wait.
MALVEAUX: … regain the credibility that he needs to convince the American people that that’s true, Tony?
SNOW: Well, you know what, Suzanne, your credibility ratings, journalist credibility ratings, are lower than the president.
RUSH: Touche! Touche! Way to go, Tony.
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RUSH: On to audio sound bite number seven. The Drive-Bys are beside themselves that Bush has beaten the Democrats and extended the war into what, they think, is Hillary’s term. Bush was brilliant about this last night talking about how his successor is going to have much responsibility here in seeing this policy through.
PLANTE: U.S. troops will be in Iraq for a long time, certainly when the next U.S. president takes office.
WILLIAMS: That is quite an inheritance for the next president.
O’DONNELL: President Bush set the clock to beyond 2009, as he passed the Iraq war to the next occupant of the Oval Office.
KORB: The president wants to pass this off to his successor.
BREZINSKI: It appeared he said he wanted to draw out this war into the next presidency.
RUSSERT: When the next president of the United States puts his or her hand on the bible and takes the oath of office, there will be 100,000 American troops in Iraq. It’s being passed on to the next President.
VIEIRA: So essentially he has won, Tim, hasn’t he?
RUSH: (Laughing.) But, you know what? What is it that undergirds these observations by these brilliant Drive-Bys? See, to them, just as with the Democrats, the Iraq war is a Bush political issue. It’s not about national security; it’s not about protecting the country; it’s not about fighting Al-Qaeda and the enemy. It’s no different a policy than if you were trying to reform Social Security. Now all of a sudden Bush isn’t going to end these politics when he leaves office. They can’t get it through their heads that this is a genuine war with US security at stake. I remember Mrs. Clinton said she would be very upset if this war were not settled by the time she took office. That’s a paraphrase, but she said this within the past six months. They expect Bush to get this off the table for them. They don’t want to inherit this because they ain’t going to lose it, folks. Not with themselves in charge. Now, as you know, the Democrat version of compromise is Republicans giving up. But the liberals don’t like it when it works the other way around. Bush skunked ’em and it kills ’em. Last night on Hardball with Chris Matthews, he said, ‘Did Bush give you any indication how many troops he would use to support the commitment as he described to you today?’
RUSSERT: No. But Chris, to give you a sense of his mindset, when he is asked to talk about common ground — ‘I want to find common ground with the Democrats in Congress’ — and asked what that means, the response is: accepting the Petraeus report.
MATTHEWS: So that’s the common ground?
RUSSERT: That’s how he views this.
MATTHEWS: Wow.
RUSH: They think he’s deranged. They are two different worldviews here. Yeah, common ground is accepting the report. Wow. That’s common ground? They asked for the report! They demanded the damn report, folks. The Democrats in Congress demanded the damn report. Sorry to shout. It just didn’t say what they hoped it would say.
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RUSH: By the way, ladies and gentlemen, I want to remind every one of you, including you Democrats, when the president announced the war on terror, he said it would go beyond his presidency. Wouldn’t it be wise for you Democrats to be looking at inheriting this war as an opportunity, rather than an albatross around your neck? Yeah, but you don’t see anything positive in anything, so why am I asking?