Sarkozy Understands the Concept of American Exceptionalism

RUSH: I want to move on to President Sarkozy of France for just a second. President Bush hosted a big state dinner in Washington last night for him. How many times in the last six years have you heard the liberals and the left say that the Bush administration, or Bush personally, has destroyed our image in the world? Our allies hate us, and we got so much to do to rebuild our goodwill. (sobbing) We have destroyed every bit of goodwill we ever built by going to Iraq and all this. Have you noticed that, since we got rid of, what’s his name, Chirac in France, and Gerhard Schroeder in Germany, have you noticed how wonderful our new allied relationships are? This is why I say, ladies and gentlemen, that way, way, way down the road that historians who are not even born yet, are going to write about this administration in a totally different way than it’s being written about today. Sarkozy comes over. He wins in France on a full-fledged conservative platform and agenda, stunning everybody. The Washington Post has a story today by Michael Abramowitz: ‘White House Hails Renewed Ties with Europe.’ French and German leaders are visiting. He talks about Angela Merkel and Sarkozy, and they have to go out and they have to get some quotes from some snarky Clinton administration types.

Daniel Benjamin, former Clinton administration official, said, ‘Yeah, the Europeans are making nice. The animosities of the first Bush term are not ones they want to revisit, and there are issues like Iran and Kosovo that need to be dealt with but they see the Bush administration as out of time, out of gas, obsessed by Iraq, so their focus is on 2009 and after.’ So here you’ve got this Clinton guy saying (paraphrased), ‘Don’t buy this stuff, folks. Sarkozy and Merkel are only coming here to make nice with this country because they know a Democrat’s going to be elected and inaugurated in 2009. You can’t credit Bush with this.’ We most certainly can. Of course, no comment on this would be complete without the haughty and arrogant Richard Holbrooke, former US ambassador to Germany and a top foreign-policy advisor to Senator Clinton. He said ‘that Bush appears to be grasping the new opportunity presented by the changing politics of France and Germany but that the results on issues such as Iran are not in yet. ‘It’s good for him to put on these shows, but this administration does not seem to know how to do diplomacy at the highest levels to produce sustained positions.”

Really? Mr. Holbrooke, Mr. Sarkozy and Angela Merkel were elected to positions in France and Germany while the Iraq debacle was going on. They were elected because their populations wanted a change from the liberalism that had taken over their countries, and still has a pretty hard grip in some places. The liberalism that you love. So France and Germany do a 180, and in Holbrooke’s view, ‘Well, this is a new opportunity presented by the changing politics of France.’ Who changed the politics? Who was it that caused this to happen? It’s like Bush isn’t even here. It’s like the Bush administration is not even working on this kind of stuff — and they are. Then this question they don’t know how to do diplomacy. Mr. Holbrooke, last time I looked, the State Department had a bunch of wusses who were refusing postings to Baghdad and our embassy there because it’s too close to the front lines. Yet you sit there and say nobody knows how to do diplomacy. If diplomacy is the way to stop these kinds of conflicts you don’t like, why don’t you send the State Department experts (so-called) to go over there and show us how this is done?

If guns and explosions and mortar fire, uh, jet planes are not the way to defeat people who have much of the same kind of ammo and artillery, then take your guys over there and show us how talking nice to the Al-Qaeda clowns and Mookie al-Sadr can solve this! But your diplomatic experts don’t want anywhere near Baghdad. So it seems to me that these claims of diplomacy and Bush doesn’t want to do it, and diplomacy is the only thing that will solve problems, if you are not willing to send ‘the best diplomats you’ve got,’ quote, unquote, into this firestorm area, what good is it? The hypocrisy of these people, the arrogance, the smugness, the condescension — those characteristics rub me wrong as much as anything else. We got Sarkozy sound bites here. He understands American exceptionalism. He spoke to a joint meeting of the House and Senate today. If only American liberals and Democrats understood what Sarkozy understands. Here is a portion of what he said.

SARKOZY (via translator): To the millions of men and women who came from every country of the world and who — with their own hands, their intelligence, and their hearts — built the greatest nation in the world, America did not say, ‘Come, and everything will be given to you.’ Rather, she said, ‘Come, and the only limits to what you will be able to achieve will be those of your own courage, your boldness, and your talent.’ (applause)

RUSH: Unbelievable! We cut the applause because it went on and on and on, but that is fabulous. Do you think the liberals sitting in the House chamber hearing this started squirming around? This guy understands more of why this is a great nation and what’s going to keep it a great nation than American Democrats do, than American liberals do. He won an election talking this way. This is a ‘former ally,’ quote, unquote, from the Democrats, ‘who hates us. The French hate us. We’ve lost our image in the world. We’ve lost our reputation. We’ve lost our standard.’ Well, not with Nick Sarkozy, who just gave a 32-second lesson on American exceptionalism that escapes most of the minds that you find on the left, how it’s not about handouts; America didn’t say come and everything will be given to you. Here’s the next bite.

SARKOZY (via translator): The America that we love throughout the world impedes this extraordinary ability to grant each and every person a second chance, another chance, because, in America, failure is never the last word. There is always another chance. Here — in your country, on this soil — both the humblest and the most illustrious citizens alike know that nothing is owed to them and that everything has to be earned. That is what constitutes the moral value of America. (applause)

RUSH: Right on. Right on. Right on. Right on. By the way, the Drive-Bys are calling Sarkozy ‘Bush’s new poodle,’ since Tony Blair has left office. They just can’t stand this! ‘Bush was supposed to be a lame duck. This stuff wasn’t supposed to be happening! We can’t have some foreigner coming over here and polluting the people of our country’s minds with some myth about what this country is all about.’ By the way, do you know where Bush is today? Do you know where Bush took Sarkozy today? Mount Vernon, and they’re having lunch at the dining room table in there. I was just there. In the main mansion at Mount Vernon, is where Washington and Rochambeau planned the war. Bush and Sarkozy, they may be through having lunch there by now, but I knew that they were going up there.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: This is rare, what you’re going to hear next, from a European leader.

SARKOZY (via translator): America liberated us, and this is an eternal debt we owe America. (applause) Every time, whenever an American soldier falls somewhere in the world, I think of what the American army did for France. I think of them — (applause) — and I am sad as one is saddened to lose a member of one’s family.

RUSH: Isn’t this so much more refreshing than to hear the drivel that’s coming out of the Clintons or the whole Democrat presidential campaign? In fact, do you realize if there were a Republican candidate who could simply speak — or would, I know they all can — but just speak of the country in this way… He’s defending this country in a way that people in this country are not willing to do so anymore. We have so many people in this country guilty over the oppressive nature of our occupation of the world and our stealing the resources of all the other poor countries and then polluting the planet and destroying it with global warming. We have so many people all wringing their hands over the evils and what’s wrong with this country. Here comes this guy from across the pond from Europe thanking America, understands what it’s all about. This is the ticket. One more. He acknowledges in this next bite that France needs to be stronger.

SARKOZY (via translator): We need France to be stronger. I am determined to carry through with the reforms that my country has put off for all too long. I will not turn back. I will implement all of them, because France has turned back for all too long. I have come to present to you today a France that comes out to meet America, to renew the covenant of friendship and alliance that Washington and Lafayette sealed in Yorktown. Together, let us be true to their memories. Yes, ladies and gentlemen, I say this to you on behalf of the French people: Long live the United States of America. Long live France. Long live French-American friendship! (applause)

RUSH: He got a standing O. We cut the applause here for the sake of time constraints. But that’s just inspiring as it can be, and especially flying in the face of all this rotgut that we’ve been subjected to for the last five years about how we are hated around the world and we’ve lost our image. All of that is just a pack of lies. I’ll tell you, you know what else I remember? Sarkozy on 60 Minutes, when Lesley Stahl wanted to ask him about his divorce, this is 60 Minutes we’re talking about. We’re not talking about Entertainment Tonight or some gossip show. For a woman, a serious newswoman journalist — look at what all they had to talk to Sarkozy about, look at what’s in his mind and on his tongue ready to say — to ask him about his divorce, and he did the right thing. He got up and left. He said, ‘I’ve got more important things to do here.’ This guy can teach a lot of Americans a lot of lessons that they’re not being taught in this country by their fellow citizens.