RUSH: We move on to St. Augustine, Florida, this is Holly, and welcome to the EIB Network.
CALLER: Hi, Rush. Florida dittos.
RUSH: Thank you. Thank you very much.
CALLER: Do you know that Rush is on my top ten list of favorite male names?
RUSH: You beat me to it. (Laughing.) You beat me to it.
CALLER: (Laughing.) Okay. I’m just getting a little disturbed with Newt lately. He was at a conservative conference last week, and said we were waging a phony war and we weren’t winning this war, and I think that just gives the liberals more talking points.
CALLER: Okay. And of course he maybe running for president so he’s looking for his own talking points, but it just gives —
RUSH: One of the things I think puts it in context, I am aware of some things that Newt’s been saying for the past, I don’t know, three months. He’s really been ripping the administration as incompetent, not focused, and this sort of thing. He thinks the primary focus ought to be the domestic agenda and rebuilding the country in a number of ways, morally and spiritually and that sort of thing, but I still can’t explain it, I mean other than to tell you that it fits with previous criticisms of the administration and how he thinks that they’re incompetent and screwing things up. I don’t know. In the middle of the surge working, as liberals would say, it wasn’t useful.
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RUSH: The spin on Newt’s comment about the war being phony, the spin is now that what he said he was taken out of context, that he was referring to the way we’re waging the war, not the war itself — which, sadly, is not too much better. In fact, let’s grab sound bites nine and ten, because whenever somebody says, the war is phony or the strategy is phone or whatever it is in the midst of what’s happening now, it raises question marks. I mean, if you wanted to say this, say it six months ago. Saying it in the middle of reports that the surge is working, which is precisely new strategy, makes people wonder what Newt or anybody would say something like that is looking at.
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RUSH: Chris in Woodbridge, Virginia, welcome to the EIB Network. Hello.
CALLER: Hey, Rush, good to talk to you.
RUSH: Heeeeeeeeeey!
CALLER: Hey, I just wanted to clarify what I think Newt’s talking about when he talks about a phony war.
RUSH: I thought I just did that, but go ahead.
CALLER: I wanted to base it on things that he’s written. He has a newsletter sort of thing out there, and the phoney war — it’s spelled p-h-o-n-e-y — and it’s a period during World War II like from 1939 to 1941. Hitler had occupied Poland, and they were making their intentions known, and everybody thought they could avoid war with Hitler, and then he attacked France. The phony war, according to Newt, was then over, and the real war had begun, and he had written this in response to Prime Minister Brown banning his ministers from using the word ‘Muslim’ in connection to all the terrorists attacks that are going on in Britain. I think that’s Newt’s point. I don’t think everybody has the context of what phony war actually means. It’s actually a historical term.
RUSH: Okay, well, that’s fair, but the spin that I’m getting is the phony war meant the strategy, not the war itself being phony.
CALLER: I think, though, on strategy or whatever, that it’s the fact that we’re often ignoring the real culprit being radical Islam, that we don’t want to talk about those sorts of things, that the people want to destroy Western Civilization, and I think that’s where it becomes a phony war, in that we don’t really face up to who our enemies are, on a worldwide stage, not necessarily the Bush administration.
RUSH: Well, now, wait. Wait, wait. Okay, now you’re talking about something different. We don’t have this bite, but I heard Giuliani say yesterday in the debate that he listened to the Democrats, and not one of them, in their last debate, ever uttered the words Islamofascism or militant Islamist fanatics. They’re not even talking about who the enemy is. The Republicans are, and the president has done his share of it. He may not use the term Islamofascists.
CALLER: Right.
RUSH: But we all know who the enemy is that we’re fighting over there. I think if you’re talking about political correctness in this country, yeah, there’s no question it’s going on, and frankly, it makes me mad.
CALLER: Yeah, it makes me mad, too. I just simply wanted to give context. I think that it’s more an historical term from Newt’s perspective, and putting it in context I think helps us understand just a little bit better.
RUSH: Okay, but still (sigh) How can I say this? Because you people know I like Newt, and I have great respect for Newt’s brain and his intelligence, but to come out and use the word ‘phony,’ you gotta know how that’s going to play into the hands of people. You have John Edwards out there saying it’s a bumper sticker war. In the midst of the surge we’re going to come out and use that word. it’s an invitation to be taken out of context, if in fact your explanation is accurate.