RUSH: All right, Adam in Tucson, as we go to phones, more Barney Frank sound bites coming up. Adam, welcome, it’s nice to have you.
CALLER: Thank you. Fourth time listener, first-time caller, how are you today?
RUSH: Fine, sir, thank you.
CALLER: I wanted to discuss the war in Iraq, but really quickly do you mind if I take some liberties and discuss one bone of contention I have with one of your word choices.
RUSH: Yeah, fine, go right ahead.
CALLER: Okay, I happen to be an environmentalist, a staunch environmentalist, and how do you refer to us, as wackos? What’s the term, Envirowackos?
RUSH: Environmentalist wackos.
CALLER: Okay. Full two words, I got you. I just think that somebody that uses a term like that doesn’t really go hiking a lot or spend a lot of time in our beautiful forests and mountains. I think maybe if you did that perhaps you would have a higher appreciation for it.
RUSH: I think I have a higher appreciation for the environment and am in more awe of its creation than you are. I think I have so much a superior understanding of why it is what it is and why things happen there, what happens and why than you do. I think you’re into worship; I’m into understanding.
CALLER: Well, it’s interesting that you know me so well after such a short talk. Let’s move on to Iraq, because I can see we’re going to make a lot of progress on the environment. I’m really glad that Pelosi and Reid came forth with their cajones, representing the people and wrote that letter demanding no troop surge. I believe that the American people spoke pretty clearly a couple of months ago, and that’s what they said. They want us out, they don’t want more in.
RUSH: Well, what university did you attend?
CALLER: I attended the University of Psychedelic State.
RUSH: Yeah.
CALLER: It’s in New Hampshire.
RUSH: University of Psychedelic State in New Hampshire.
CALLER: It’s a reputable school. I majored in creative writing and rhetoric.
RUSH: Yeah.
CALLER: Absolutely useless.
RUSH: Yeah. Well, makes sense. You have a superiorist tone, a condescending tone about you that — I thought it would be University of the Psychedelic State.
CALLER: We should get along a lot, Rush, because that’s one of the few things we have in common there, we’re both elitists and we tell other people how it should be. Environmentalist wackos, that’s just a denigrating term that somebody that doesn’t think enough —
RUSH: No, it’s descriptive, and I have defined it in great detail over the years. Let’s talk about your assessment that we shouldn’t send more troops to Iraq.
CALLER: And I’ll try to be more conciliatory. I don’t mean to be so confrontational. It’s something I?m learning as I grow older that you have to tune it down.
RUSH: Be who you are. You’re not bothering me, be who you are. I was just —
CALLER: I’m not trying to bother you, but I do want to have an honest —
CALLER: I want to have an honest discourse about this important war. I think we need progress instead of partisanship.
RUSH: I’ll tell you what, in terms of a troop surge in Iraq, if there is no accompanying policy change for victory, then I would agree with you, it’s pointless.
CALLER: What would that policy be? What are the options? The Iraqi people want us out. The polls show that. The American people want us out —
RUSH: No, they don’t. In fact, I’ve got some polling data here that indicate a majority of Americans do not want us out. In fact, I’ve got polling data that suggest a majority of Americans think that the reporting on Iraq has been biased and negative, it’s not representative of what it is in truth over there. But there’s not a national clamor to get out of Iraq. There are not people marching in the streets like there was during in Vietnam, and that’s not why the Democrats won the election. Iraq had nothing to do with it, this was the Mark Foley election. This was Republicans and moderates voting for Democrats because they got fed up with a lack of performance by members of their own party. We’ve been through all that. We’ve been through all that.
CALLER: Can I ask you something, can I ask you —
RUSH: I’ll be happy to hear it.
CALLER: What’s the unemployment rate in Iraq today, do you know that?
RUSH: No. Don’t know what the unemployment rate in Iraq is. It’s irrelevant.
CALLER: It is irrelevant. Okay. That would be a pretty good indicator of their happiness. I believe it’s about 60%.
RUSH: Actually, the reason why it’s irrelevant is because we did a story, Adam, I think it was right before Christmas, and it appeared in the mainstream media about all of the marvelous construction and schools, the stock market, the Iraq economy is going through the roof, Adam, all of this news that was withheld prior to the election. Iraq is not the place that you have pictured. It’s not a panacea and it’s not paradise, but it is not the circumstance that you seem to see it as. In fact, Adam, I’m going to tell you something, one more thing before we go here. I don’t think you have the slightest bit of concern for the United States and Iraq or the Iraqis or getting troops out, except for one thing. You want us to lose.
CALLER: Why would you say that?
RUSH: You want America to be humiliated.
CALLER: You’re being divisive and those are baseless accusations.
RUSH: I’m not being divisive, would you stop with the liberal dogma.
CALLER: I don’t want to see any people get killed —
RUSH: Oh, come on, people get killed every day. Let me tell you something, Adam, more people are killed per year in 16 American cities from murders than are killed in Iraq in the middle of a war.
CALLER: So we did them a big favor, we did Iraq a big favor?
RUSH: No, I’m just saying you have no sense of perspective on this. You’re trying to tell me you’re concerned about death, and if you were really concerned about death you’d be focusing on it in this country. You would ban the automobile, you would ban people being able to cross the street, you would do everything you could to arm up the citizenry, to reduce the crime rate, because there are murders taking place, murders and deaths in cities in this country that far outweigh what’s happening in Baghdad or in all of Iraq over the course of a year. You?re not concerned about death. That’s just something you say to make people think you’re compassionate, and that you’re sensitive, and that you’re bigger and better than everybody else. You want the United States to lose. You are ridden with guilt about what you think the United States has caused and is causing in Iraq. And, frankly, I have lost patience for this kind of ? it?s not even thinking. You people are just programmed robots, and you say all these things to make yourselves sound in your own minds and hearts vastly superior to everybody else, and what you are is ignorant.
BREAK TRANSCRIPT
Well, here is the story. It was from PMSNBC, it was a Newsweek story, actually, that we had before Christmas on Iraq. We shared the story at the time and marveled here at how none of this news happened to make it in the public square prior to the election.
?Civil war or not, Iraq has an economy, and – mother of all surprises – it’s doing remarkably well. Real estate is booming. Construction, retail and wholesale trade sectors are healthy, too, according to a report by Global Insight in London. The U.S. Chamber of Commerce reports 34,000 registered companies in Iraq, up from 8,000 three years ago. Sales of secondhand cars, televisions and mobile phones have all risen sharply. Estimates vary, but one from Global Insight puts GDP growth at 17 percent last year and projects 13 percent for 2006. The World Bank has it lower: at 4 percent this year. But, given all the attention paid to deteriorating security, the startling fact is that Iraq is growing at all.?
Why is it startling? Folks, if we covered the death and violence in New York City alone on a daily basis like Iraq is covered, nobody would go there! Even after all those Goldman Sachs guys got their $50 million bonuses, people would still say that we gotta get out of New York. It’s not worth it. Palm Beach, where we live, peaceful little liberal enclave that it is, over a hundred murders last year, a hundred murders. That’s the ones they know about. Three thousand deaths in a war that’s been going on for three, four years, and somehow this is a disaster?
You know, sometimes the utter lack of common sense gets difficult to deal with. There’s no question the Drive-By Media, with pictures, has the power to sway a significant number of people in this country, but it’s shame because without any context, historical understanding, sure, 3,000 dead, horrible, who wants that? I’ll tell you what people want to see. You know what people want to see? They want to see us killing the enemy. They want the enemy dead! That’s what we’re not seeing even when it happens, and so we don’t think we’re accomplishing anything. Look it, when you go see a war movie, do they leave out enemy casualties in a war movie? Do you cringe when you see it? Hell’s bells, folks, you go to a war movie and the enemy gets blown away, and you applaud. Some of you may even cry in joy. We don’t get that here so we’re not under the impression the enemy is dying.
The Drive-By Media leaves the assumption here that only Americans and innocent Iraqis are getting wiped out. When we do kill an Iraqi, we talk about, ?We didn’t do it with dignity,? like the hanging of Saddam Hussein which we didn’t even do. Then we blew away Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, and for two weeks we got these glorious profile obits on what he meant to his people and so forth and so on. It’s an outrage! It’s an absolute outrage. But you know something, it’s a fact. Presidents from this day forward, folks, are going to have to factor in 24/7 media coverage of the war in the war planning. It’s a different day and that must be done. Part of that is providing pictures of your good news, and good news includes killing the enemy. Sorry, that may sound brutal, it may sound cold. It’s war, though, and that’s what happens in them. Build a Dunkin’ Donuts later.