RUSH: San Antonio, this is Bonnie, you’re next on the EIB Network. Hello.
CALLER: Hi, Rush.
RUSH: Hi.
CALLER: Mega, mega dittos. It’s an honor to speak to you.
CALLER: Thank you very much.
RUSH: I’ve had a love affair with you for 20 years.
RUSH: I wish I’d have known.
CALLER: (Giggles.) I just almost came through the webcam though a few callers ago when we were discussing WMDs again, and I listened to our paid politicians who are on my payroll, and I listened to them talk about WMDs and why we shouldn’t have gone and that’s the whole reason we need to do what we’re doing this week. I want to really throw up, because that’s not the discussion anymore. It makes no difference why we went. That’s not an issue any longer.
RUSH: I agree.
CALLER: It’s what we do now. Forward.
RUSH: Yes, but you see, the reason it is the issue is because the whole point is to discredit the mission, to achieve defeat, to demoralize the troops, to attack the president. It is to achieve defeat. So, of course, to focus on the failure of weapons of mass destruction to be found and therefore we shouldn’t be there fits. It fits. You’re looking at this logically: “Okay, we’re there. We didn’t find weapons of mass destruction, but now what do we do? We don’t pull out!” That’s not the way to look at this, from the enemy standpoint. The enemy standpoint is, “We must humiliate the military. We must humiliate Rumsfeld and Bush and Cheney and the whole Republican Party, and the conservative movement as well while we’re at it,” and that’s what this is about.
CALLER: Well, I have a very wonderful son who was called up and we’re worried to death about him. He’s going over there and he’s proud to do so.
RUSH: Well, doesn’t it comfort you to know that the Democrats support your troop?
CALLER: Oh, I’m just thrilled. Yes, I’m thrilled to death. I’m thrilled to death, and I said to him the last time we were able to speak, I said, “What about all this stuff that you don’t have enough protecting equipment?” He said, “Mom, you should see the buildings with everything here.” So he’s going over there and doing his duty and proud to do so, and left a job and a family here to do it. So we’re very proud of him, yes.
RUSH: I can imagine. As well you should be. It has to gall you. It has to gall you when you hear these people who are invested in defeat, saying they support people like your son.
RUSH: No, you don’t. You also don’t hear about it from the administration, though. Does that trouble you? It does me. I read an e-mail from an airman in Iraq that communicates with me semi-regularly, and he’s telling the same story. We’ve posted it at RushLimbaugh.com. It’s the first thing I did when the show started today, and it’s such a different picture than what we get. He asked me, “Why does the news not get out?” and I said, “Well, if the secretary of defense and if the president and if the vice president are not willing to go out there and sing the same song and not combat it… In fact, if what happens is that they agree with negative assessments, ‘Yeah, it’s big trouble! It is trouble. It’s going to get worse!'” I understand the desire to be — or the need to be — honest with the American people, but if there are success stories to say and to tell, then they have to be told from the top!
CALLER: Well, we don’t have the whole picture, do we?
RUSH: Well, no. We don’t have the whole picture, but that’s my point. Who’s fault is that?
CALLER: Well! I agree.
RUSH: Not that it’s somebody’s fault. It’s just there is a reason for it. The Drive-By Media, the Democrats are being allowed to operate in a vacuum here. They’re allowed to fill the vacuum themselves. There’s only so much we in the alternative media can do when they’ve got some outlets, so many newspapers, so many TV networks, to drumbeat this stuff into people’s head every day, 24/7 for three-and-a-half years.
CALLER: I just… My hair went on fire when I heard WMDs again. I thought, “Enough! Enough.”
RUSH: Well, I agree totally. I was in a golf tournament a couple years ago now, down in Puerto Rico, and I got in an argument with a friendly lib — and the reason I say friendly, because some of them aren’t. I got in an argument with a friendly lib. “Well, won’t you agree! Won’t you agree that there weren’t any weapons of mass destruction and the whole point of going was!”
I said, “Yeah, but so what? We’re there. We come home and we say, ‘Ooops, we blew it. Sorry,’ and leave with our tails tucked between our legs? What do we do?”
“Well, uh, that’s good point.”
You have to understand, Bonnie, all these people want is an admission of failure! They want us to admit, “It was a mistake.” They want us to admit, “We…were…wrong.” They want that on the record. That’s why at every press conference they ask, “Mr. President, have you made any mistakes?” because they want the videotape for future TV commercials. They want it for posterity. People even now do not understand the extent to which the left in this country is at war with its political opponents in this country. The president faces two wars, the war over there and the war within our own borders, and a lot of people don’t want to look at what’s going on here politically as a war because that’s uncomfortable. “I don’t want to look at it that way, Rush. It’s just politics and I don’t have to pay attention if I don’t want to.” You have to take it serious when the left in this country is attempting to destroy the ability of the US military to function. That’s something serious.
BREAK TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: We go to Brent in Dubuque, Iowa. You’re next on the EIB Network, sir, hello.
CALLER: Hello, Rush. How are you doing this afternoon?
RUSH: I could be better but I’m not complaining.
CALLER: Kind of battling a cold, are you?
RUSH: Uh, I’m not complaining.
CALLER: All right. I have, it’s just really kind of more of a comment than a question, but I’m a veteran. I have four sons that are in the US Armed Forces. Three are in the Army and one is a Marine, and I’m very, very proud of them. But the thing that I always hear about all these armchair quarterbacks about the military is that you hear these moms and these dads complaining about their sons and daughters being over there, and I don’t want my sons being over there, either, because it’s a war. But that’s what you sign up for when you go into the military, and I think a lot of people are disillusioned by that. When you go to the military, you are trained to fight. You’re not asked who you gonna fight or why you gonna fight. You go in there with one task, and that is to defend your country.
RUSH: Yeah, I understand, but here’s where we are with that today. This has been going on more than just the last three or four years, but real intensely the last three or four years. The left had a propaganda campaign designed to convince the American people that people such as your sons only join because they have no future. “The economy and the country is horrible; they can’t get into a decent school. You’re poor. You probably live in a trailer park somewhere, and the military is your kid’s only way out,” and so that’s why I say there are no stories about the valor of the military in this country. There are no stories about the heroism that these people engage in. All we get are the stories about how they’re a bunch of dummies. They have no future because America sucks economically. They have no way out of the ghetto in which they live and so forth, and they’re raised to become killers and they go over there doing things they’d really rather not do — and there aren’t any movies made of heroism of US military men these days, and there certainly aren’t any stories in the Drive-By Media. That’s why people have a misunderstanding of what particularly soldiers in this war are all about. Plus, add to that, they’re nothing but a bunch of rapists and torturers —
CALLER: Right.
RUSH: — from Abu Ghraib to Club Gitmo to these Marines in Haditha. You know the drill.
CALLER: Oh, yeah. But the thing that I don’t understand is, though, is that you’re right. The stigma is that, “Well, you come from a quote, unquote, trailer park or you’re lower class.” That’s far from the case. Most of the people —
RUSH: I know it’s not true. It’s been debunked.
CALLER: Oh, I know.
RUSH: It’s been debunked by the Heritage Foundation and any number of people. It’s not true but what else is true about what they’re saying about Iraq? What else is true that the liberals are saying and the Drive-By Media is reporting? The whole thing is a crock!
CALLER: Oh, it is a crock, and the thing is — not to belabor the point, but — the problem I got with that is that nobody asked, you know, when a police officer is killed in the line of duty, “Well, gee, was it worth it?” Well, no, he was just in some crazy domestic abuse thing that he was called on and somebody decided to shoot him! You don’t hear that on the media, like, “Gosh, maybe they should have set a roundtable and asked if that officer should have responded to that call.” Officers are killed every month in this country and you don’t hear a thing about it. What’s the difference? When an officer signs up to go and be there —
RUSH: I don’t want to hurt your feelings.
CALLER: Well, you’re not.
RUSH: But it’s because there’s nothing associated with being immoral or unjust about being a cop. But this war is being portrayed as unnecessary, unjust and immoral, and therefore the fighters and the warriors in it, they get tarred and feathered by the same description.
CALLER: Well, on the flip side of that, though, there is a problem. There are a lot of kids that go in there for the GI bill and the parents push that and that’s all they go in there for, and then all of a sudden when somebody tells them they have to pick up a rifle, they’re going, “Well, gee, really?” That’s what I have to deal with.
RUSH: I don’t know that it’s that. You don’t see that many defectors and people going AWOL.
CALLER: No.
RUSH: I don’t think that’s the case. That’s what amazes me about this volunteer force, especially the last three years in the Army and all the branches have met their recruitment goals, and people signing up knowing full-damn well where they’re going.
CALLER: Oh, yeah, I’m just kind of referring to that lieutenant that bowed out. He gets a full education.
RUSH: Well, you’re always going to have a bad actor in the bunch.
CALLER: (Chuckles.)
RUSH: No single group of human beings is ever going to be flawless, no matter what group it is, families included. But overall, it’s remarkable. Plus, with the steady drumbeat of failure and “atrocities” that are being committed, we still have the military meeting its recruitment goals. I don’t know how we ever repay these people. I don’t know how they ever get repaid by us for what they do. They’re so rare. Now, you should be very proud. I’m sure you are. Here’s Bill in Buena Park, California. Welcome to the program, sir. You’re next.
CALLER: Hello.
RUSH: Hello.
CALLER: Hi, Rush.
RUSH: Hey!
CALLER: I just want to talk about the 21,000 additional troops that [President] Bush wants to send over to Iraq.
RUSH: Yeah.
CALLER: First of all, let me say, I’m a conservative Republican. Uhhh, I have an open ear to liberalism, but I keep it open only for educational purposes.
RUSH: You think you have something you can learn from liberalism?
CALLER: Weeeell, some… You know, the more intelligence I have, the better I like it. Okay?
RUSH: Give me an example.
CALLER: I just want to feed myself information.
RUSH: Give me an example that you are a conservative Republican. Like give me a policy example. Not who you voted for. Give me a policy example.
CALLER: My policy example?
RUSH: Yeah, of conservatism that you support.
CALLER: Well, the war in Iraq. I support it.
RUSH: That’s not conservative. That’s not conservative versus liberal. It’s portrayed that way, but give me domestic policy.
CALLER: Okay, uh, domestic policy that I am — okay. Number one, illegal immigration. I would put a stop to it, big time. How to go about doing it? I don’t know. The wall may be a solution. I don’t know.
RUSH: Okay, another issue.
CALLER: Another issue: economics. I think Reagan’s theory, trickle down economy? I think it was a good theory. I’m in favor of it. I like it.
RUSH: Okay.
CALLER: I like the idea of it.
RUSH: Okay, now. I just wanted to establish that for the audience. Now, back to the surge. What were you going to say about the surge, as a conservative Republican?
CALLER: Okay. I don’t believe that 21,000 additional troops is going to change things dramatically in that area. I really don’t. I look at —
RUSH (Sigh.)
CALLER: I want to make a comparison, if you will, to Northern Ireland and the gangsters, the mobs of the United States way back when. What was happening in Northern Ireland? It was political and religious.
RUSH: Mmm-hmm.
CALLER: Okay. How did the British government handle that? Poorly, to start with. Ultimately, they found a solution through diplomacy and what have you. They didn’t —
RUSH: That wasn’t what it was. Bill Clinton went over there with Sinn Fein, drank some beer, got drunk with them, and made ’em feel at home.
CALLER: Oh. (Chuckles.) Okay.
RUSH: But as far as the troop buildup in Iraq is concerned, it’s difficult to compare this to the Northern Ireland situation. (interruption) Well, Clinton did. He may still be there drinking with them, for all I know. Anyway, I think what you need to look at here is that we’ve got a commander who knows this kind of battle; knows this kind of behavior. The leader of the insurgency has fled and taken his leadership with him to Iran. That would be the notorious Mookie al-Sadr. I think the Democrats are a little worried this is going to work. But the point is, we’re going to give it a shot. We’re going to try to make it work. We’re the United States of America! We don’t lose these things unless we beat ourselves. It’d be nice to have you on our side once in a while — as a “conservative Republican.”