RUSH: I was expecting Joe from Allentown to talk about the Annapolis peace conference, whatever it is, whatever they’re calling it, with his comparison of Bush to Jimmy Carter, which, frankly, is absurd. I found he wasn’t talking about Middle East peace, because a lot of Republicans are livid with Bush over this, a lot of conservatives are just fit to be tied over Bush, because they think he’s legacy-building just like Jimmy Carter did in the Middle East. But to compare Bush as a president with Jimmy Carter, on what level is there a comparison? Frankly, that’s when a red flag went up. It doesn’t make any sense. Things were so bad during Carter, economically we had to have a ‘misery index’ to measure it. We did! Inflation was double digits, interest rates were double digit. You think we have a credit crunch, try to get a mortgage at 14 or 15% and buy a house back when Jimmy Carter was president. This is what I mean about things get better. Who wants to go back to the seventies and Jimmy Carter?
Frankly, I hated the seventies anyway. I hated the music in the seventies. All this Seals & Crofts willowy little wimpy stuff, you can take that decade, boy, and just farm it out. The only thing decent about the seventies was the Pittsburgh Steelers and their four Super Bowls. Well, the Kansas City Royals, I worked there during the seventies, those are great memories, but I tell you, when I was in radio during those years, I’m sitting there in Kansas City at a radio station playing disco, thinking I had a future in the business? At least it was better than Seals & Crofts and some of that… I don’t even know how I would describe it, New Age garbage with lyrics. But this business of the Annapolis peace conference, a lot of Republicans, a lot of conservatives think that this is just a waste of time, this is Jimmy Carteresque, legacy building, there’s no hope here, that he’s turned the Bush doctrine on its head. Why the hell have Syria there? How in the world can you complain and whine about Nancy Pelosi going to visit Bashar Assad, and then invite Assad to Annapolis to participate in the Middle East so-called peace process trying to set up a Palestinian state, side-by-side with the Israelis?
This is formulaic. This is nothing new; it happens. This is a constant, never-ending battle. There are time-outs. This is a time-out. It’s just gotten to the point there’s a time-out and we’re going to go through the motions of a peace agreement here. Now, some people say — I’m not sure I agree with this — but some people say that Bush is dealing from a position of strength on this, that he’s already shaken up the Middle East, we are winning the war in Iraq, that there are a number of foreign policy successes here to play off of. Here’s my problem with this, and it’s not what the president’s trying to do. By the way, he’s always pushed for a Palestinian state. This is something that is not new. The problem is that every time this thing comes up, Israel has to give things up, it’s Israel has to stop — because the other guys will not. The other guys will simply not accept any concessions. Now, Ralph Peters, writing today in the New York Post, makes an excellent point. He says the dirty little secret is that all of these different groups — Hamas and Fatah — I mean, really, they are in effect, they are in a civil war. Any of you Democrats, you want to talk about civil war in Iraq, how about Fatah and Hamas?
Now, there’s a genuine civil war among the Palestinians and the reason for the civil war is that one small faction is really fed up with all the violence and would really like to have peace and a growing economy, and the other side doesn’t want any part of it. Now, Ralph Peters’ brilliant point in the New York Post today was that the business of hating Israel and the business of terrorism against Israel and the business of constant agitation has become a business. It is the way they earn their living, and if they somehow agreed to peace, what would their new jobs be, cleaning toilets? Would you rather be armed with AK-47s and Kalashnikovs and run around creating hell and confusion, or cleaning toilets? Well, he’s using that as an illustration. But the Limbaugh Doctrine, do you remember the Limbaugh Doctrine, folks? Do you remember what the Limbaugh Doctrine says? What is this peace? We’re trying to once again come up with peace between the Palestinians and the Israelis. The Arabs in that world don’t want any part of peace. Most of the Arab countries in that part of the world, be they oil states or not, have populations that do not share in the wealth of the leadership, and who gets blamed? The Israelis.
The Israelis are the most convenient whipping dog that the Arab states have. They don’t want to lose that. That’s the biggest excuse they have to tell their people, ‘Yeah, well, the reason why the toilets aren’t flushing today is Israel. Yeah, well, the reason why you don’t have clean drinking water, is Israel,’ and you don’t want to give that up because their populations believe it. They hate the Jews, as does Hamas and as does Fatah and all these other jihad groups. This is not going to permanently end — this is the Limbaugh Doctrine — this is not going to permanently end until one side wipes the other out. Peace does not happen from words. It does not happen via negotiation. It does not happen. You might get a temporary break in the hostilities, which is what this is designed to do. This is designed to create a time-out and get them to stop.
When the Saudis show up and say, ‘I’m not shaking hands with anybody,’ it kind of tells you something. ‘I’m not going to have a picture of me shaking hands with the Israeli leader. I’m not going to have my people back home see that. There’s nothing to shake hands about, why should I shake his hand?’ So when one of these sides is wiped out, that’s when you’ll get peace. But until that happens, this is just going to continue the way it’s going and we’re going to have the peace process, and at every turn Israel is going to be asked to make concessions because the other side will not. And poor old Olmert; he’s out of his league. You can look at his picture, looked bad, looks like he’s beleaguered as he can be. He’s being dragged into this by a huge ally.
BREAK TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: Folks, go back, if you want to, count the number Middle East peace conferences we’ve had and accords. You can’t put them on two pieces of paper. And how many have worked? Zero. The whole point is, we sit and ask Israel to continue to make concessions for a broader peace that never, ever happens. It’s what’s going on.