RUSH: For two weeks, maybe more, we listened to all the huffing and puffing of Nancy Pelosi and Dingy Harry, and a lot of other Democrats. ‘We’re going to de-fund the war! We’re going to have Bush’s money cut off! We’re only going to fund it until March 31st, 2008, and Bush is going to bring the troops home, and we’re not going to waver on this and Bush better realize it,’ blah, blah, blah — and then all of a sudden after these two weeks of huffing and puffing, Carl Levin went on television yesterday. He was on Stephanopoulos’ show, and Carl Levin said the Senate’s not going to stop paying for the Iraq war, nor is it going to relent from insisting that President Bush keep pressing the Baghdad government for a negotiated end to the violence. He took issue with an effort by Dingy Harry, fellow Democrat, leader of the Democrats in the Senate, to cut off money for the war next year. He said, ‘We’re not going to vote to cut funding, period, but what we should do, and we’re going to do, is continue to press this president to put some pressure on the Iraqi leaders to reach a political settlement. We’re going to fund the troops. We always have! We’re very strong in supporting the troops, and we’re also…’ Well, now, somebody didn’t get the memo here. I don’t know if Dingy Harry didn’t get the memo and Pelosi didn’t get the memo, or Carl Levin didn’t get the memo. But all we’ve heard the past two weeks is, ‘Bush better learn he’s going to cave on this! This is over. We’re cutting off the funding for the troops. They gotta get out of there March 31, 2008.’ Here’s Carl Levin yesterday. Here’s what he said. He was asked by George Stephanopoulos, ‘What camp are you in here?’
LEVIN: I — we’re not going to vote to cut funding, period. Uhhh, even Harry Reid acknowledged that that’s not going to happen, and he has a personal position which he said was not the caucus position. He was very clear when he, uh, joined a bill which would, uh, cut off funding under certain circumstances, and we’re not going to cut off funding for the troops. We shouldn’t cut off funding to the troops.
RUSH: Now, wait just a second. What in the name of Sam Hill has happened here? Levin just vetoed the whole Democrat Party! Levin just vetoed MoveOn.org. Levin just vetoed the Huffington Post. Carl Levin just vetoed the whole party, in addition to vetoing Dingy Harry and Nancy Pelosi. He just cut the rug out from under them. What, is there polling data to suggest their position is a loser? (No, there’s more to it than that. We’ll get to that in just a second.) But Stephanopoulos was even surprised, decided to give him another chance. Because, Levin just threw Dingy Harry under the bus here. ‘What do you mean about a personal position? I never got the impression that Senator Reid’s position was a personal position.’ So Stephanopoulos says, ‘Senator Levin, you’ve been very clear today. You said the Democrats are not going to cut off funding. Are you sure you can get all of your caucus behind this, or enough of your caucus behind the idea? A lot of liberals in the caucus say, ‘No, we gotta draw the line here and now.”
LEVIN: No, what we’re going to try to do, the majority I believe of Democrats and most of the Republicans, is to vote for a bill which funds the troops, period. We’re going to fund the troops. We always have.
RUSH: Why, he just said they’re going to take the pork out of it. Did you hear that? That’s what Carl Levin said. ‘I believe the Democrats and most the Republicans are going to vote for a bill which funds the troops, period.’ No 25 million for the spinach farmer out in Carmel! This is a shot across the bow to the Democrats yesterday. (sigh) I don’t know. It is always been an insane position to own defeat. It has always been, because what if we win? What if we’re victorious? Then the Democrats can’t claim any credit whatsoever. And because they’ve been so far out walking that plank, that they’re invested in defeat. They own it. They’ve gotta make sure that defeat happens. They cannot allow victory. Now all of a sudden Carl Levin comes along, ‘Oh, no, no, no! Oh, we’ll always fund the troops. We’ll always fund. Why, we’re never going to take funding away from the troops. We’d never do that. We’re always going to fund the troops.’ They didn’t do that in Vietnam. That’s how they got us out of Vietnam. But nevertheless, if they follow Levin here, then if the good things happen — I think this is probably a result of the surge working, as well, or early reports of the surge working, and now Mookie al-Sadr. He’s getting a little alarmed from Iran.
He’s thinking of coming back here because things aren’t going well with his little Mahdi ‘army.’ So Levin might be saying, ‘You know, we gotta find a way here that if this turns out okay, that we can say we played a role, and the way we can say that is we didn’t cut off the funding, and that people will remember the last thing we did rather than the interim things that we did.’ So somebody there, Democrat side, has wisened up for some reason. I’ll tell you what, I would love to have been in Dingy Harry’s shoes yesterday or room where he was or Nancy Pelosi. I guess she was still shopping somewhere in the Middle East. Is she back? Well, there was a picture of her shopping. That’s why I say this. I’m not just making this stuff up. Speaking of that, Republicans sent her a letter. ‘Dear Speaker Pelosi. We’re writing to urge you to call the House back into session immediately so that Congress can finish its work on the emergency legislation to fund the global war on terror. This funding request has been pending since February 5th but your leadership team chose to leave town for more than two weeks, rather than completing this bill. As a result, our troops have been put at risk.’ They want her to come back to town. They’re slamming her. ‘Get back to work.’ Here’s the picture. She’s somewhere in a mall or in a jewelry store looking at necklaces and rings and who knows whatever the hell else. She’s holding her left hand out there imagining what something would look like on it, I guess. She’s got on that hajib but it’s just around her neck, it’s not covering up her head, and some guy is there. It may be her husband, I don’t know. He’s looking like he really cares what she’s interested in, so it must be her husband, and she’s examining the jewelry. I’ve met her husband once at the cigar dinner that I go to. It’s this Thursday night in New York, the annual cigar dinner, a big, big, big night to raise money for prostate cancer. I met him one night. He came up, Paul Pelosi, and was nice as he could be. He didn’t say, ‘I’m Paul Pelosi.’ He said, ‘I’m Nancy Pelosi’s husband.’
I said, ‘I’ve been there.’ (laughing)