RUSH: Back to the audio sound bites. This is more Obama. Last night he was on with Terry Moran at Nightline, and here’s a portion of an exchange that they had. This is Obama telling one of his disciples, you don’t pin me down, you’re not going to ask these questions, you’re going to ask questions the way I want them asked.
MORAN: I’m going to try and pin you down on this issue —
OBAMA: Well, here — let me — let me say this, though, Terry, because, you know, what I will refuse to do, and I think that, you know —
MORAN: How do you know what I’m going to ask?
OBAMA: Well, then if — if I don’t get it right, then you can ask it again —
MORAN: All right.
OBAMA: — is to get boxed in into what I consider two false choices, which is either I have a rigid timeline of such-and-such a date, come hell or high water, we’ve gotten our combat troops, and I am blind to anything that happens in the intervening six months — or 16 months, or, alternatively, I am completely deferring to whatever the commanders on the ground says, which is what George Bush, uh, uh, says he’s doing, in which case I’m not doing my job as commander-in-chief.
RUSH: Whew. You know, the more of these I listen to, the more infuriated that I become. I mean, folks, this stuff just (beeping) can’t take it anymore! Listening to all this rotgut garbage — (beeping). I am completely deferring to whatever the commanders on the ground says, which is what George Bush says he’s doing in which case I’m not doing my job as commander-in-chief? He’s not going to be pinned down on when we’re getting down there. He’s not going to be pinned down, not going to let Terry Moran pin him down, knew what the question was. So Obama telling the disciples. And of course they sit there, ‘I’m sorry, I’m sorry, didn’t mean to offend you, Messiah, didn’t mean to offend you.’
BREAK TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: This is, again, from the correspondent Terry Moran at the All Barack Channel, the American Barack Channel, and their program Barack Nightline. The question from Terry Moran: ‘Did Prime Minister Maliki say to you what he said to the European press, that he likes your 16 month timetable…’ Is that what Maliki said? Did Maliki say, ‘I like Obama’s idea’? I know he mentioned Obama in his statement, but did he say, ‘I like Obama’s idea’? Of course not! It is not what he said. This is what I’m talking about. On the American Barack Channel on Barack Nightline, a reporter makes it sound like the brilliance and the uniqueness of Barack Obama is so penetrating and powerful that Nouri al-Maliki, the prime minister of Iraq, has immediately adopted it. So, anyway, he talked to Maliki, and did he say to you what he said to Europeans about liking that 16-month deal?
OBAMA: Prime Minister Maliki stated was that he very much believes that there has to be a time frame built into whatever agreements are set up between the United States, uh, and Iraq, but again I think his view is that he wants some flexibility in terms of how that’s carried out.
RUSH: Not even John Kerry did this. Not even Kerry went over there and talked to these guys and then came back and started talking about the negotiation of timelines, withdrawals, policies, and so forth. John Kerry didn’t even go over there and pretend to be president and Obama is. And of course the sycophantic Drive-Bys are propping him all up in the process. Another question here from the American Barack Channel’s Barack Nightline show. The correspondent Terry Moran said, ‘Based on what you have seen here, [Most Merciful Barack Obama], would you say that you were wrong when you said that the surge would not make a significant dent in the violence?’
OBAMA: I did not anticipate, and I — and I think this is a fair characterization — the convergence of not only the surge, but the Sunni awakening in which a whole host of — of Sunni tribal leaders decided they had had enough with Al-Qaeda. In the, uh, Shi’a community, uh, the militia’s standing down to some degree. Uh, so what you had was a combination of political factors inside of Iraq that then came right at the same time as terrific work by our troops. Had those political factors not occurred, I think my assessment would have been correct.
RUSH: Whew! It is unconscionable. To me, it’s bordering on traitorous. But it’s reprehensible. It is outstandingly egregious. He didn’t anticipate the convergence of the surge, but the Sunni awakening and the Shi’a stand-down and all that. He gave this answer today, again. We played this for you once. It’s obviously now a stock answer that he has rehearsed, ’cause it was his answer in the press conference this morning. This sound bite you just heard was from last night. But as I say, this is typical. How in the world does he think all this happened? How does he think this miraculous political convergence took place? How does he think that the Sunni tribal leaders have gotten tired of Al-Qaeda? They coulda gotten tired of Al-Qaeda all day long, but until Al-Qaeda was kicked out of their provinces and their cities, it wouldn’t have made any difference how tired they were of Al-Qaeda.
By the way, folks, the Democrats and Obama would never even acknowledge that Al-Qaeda was in Iraq! This was such a wasteful exercise. It was an unjust war. We shouldn’t have been there. Now all of a sudden Al-Qaeda was there and the Sunnis and the Shi’a just got tired of them. Yes, just got tired of them! And had that not happened, Obama’s idea probably would have worked; his assessment would have been correct. It’s unconscionable. It is dangerous, maddening, ’cause this is a pure, unadulterated phony. This is an arrogant phony. This again, folks, is the pattern of the left. They cannot abide American success in any way, in any theater. No, no, no. We’re succeeding in Iraq because of the tribesmen standing down and awakening. Not the US military, not our strategy, not our execution of the battle plan. Right. And we won the Cold War, and the Soviet collapsed not because of Reagan. It had nothing to do with America.
It had to do with Gorbachev. Had nothing to do with Margaret Thatcher, had to do with Gorbachev. Gorbachev knew you couldn’t continue that way, glasnost, perestroika, brilliant! Gorbachev. I detest these people some days, folks, I detest them. To stretch credulity like this, to go so far out of bounds to avoid crediting your own country with success. Of course the Democrats can’t, because they’re invested in defeat. They were invested in losing in Iraq. So now that we’ve won, ‘It had nothing to do with Bush, had nothing to do with military. It was all the brilliance, the brilliance, the political convergence.’ The only problem here is that Obama is the only Democrat talking about the brilliance of the political convergence. Carl Levin, Pelosi, Reid, they’re all saying that the Maliki government has failed to meet its benchmarks. In a sane political environment, this guy would be a laughingstock. Not just on late-night TV, but everywhere.
BREAK TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: Another network is coming under fire here for all-Obama-coverage, all-the-time is the National Barack Channel. ‘A mildly exasperated NBC News team [yesterday] dismissed complaints about overcovering Barack Obama’s Middle East trip this week as a lot of ‘hot air’ … ‘We get criticized for not covering enough hard news,’ NBC News President Steve Capus told members of the Television Critics Association. ‘Look how many stories are being covered on the Obama trip — Israel, the Middle East, the war.” That’s the point, Mr. Capus. You were supposed to be covering that place all along! But you haven’t been until Barry takes his little summer camp trip over there, pimping Bush’s ride, and you’re adding insult to jury by making it look like Obama is coming up with brand-new policy ideas that everybody has articulated long before he thought of them.
You’re crediting him with coming up with the idea and moving things along over there, when the president has moved things along and the military has moved things along. It’s a disgrace what you are doing! It is an utter disgrace. It’s journalistic malpractice, and it’s the same thing over at the Columbia Barack Channel. The American Barack Channel, the National Barack Channel, the Columbia Barack Channel, they’re all doing it. They’re all in the tank. The tank is full! I mentioned this, ladies and gentlemen, at the top of the program. There’s a new narrative, a new template out there, and isn’t it just coincidental how this comes up? The new template is, ‘Voters don’t care about the surge.’ David Shuster of the National Barack Channel on their piddling little cable outlet last night, or yesterday, whenever, said, ‘Americans don’t care about the surge. They want the war to be over.’
Uhhh, yeah, they do want the war to be over. They want the war to be won. The American people do not dislike the military. The American people do not want us to lose the war! The surge is instrumental in victory. And now try to establish the narrative that the American voter doesn’t care about the surge. I, frankly… You know what? I don’t think they’re focused on the war as much at all. I think it’s gasoline price after gasoline price after gasoline price, after the housing crisis. I think it’s domestic things and the economy that has them absorbed and concerned. This Iraq business is not on their minds as it once was. But this whole notion that they don’t care about the surge because Americans want the war to be over? The geniuses that are trying to promote this, that’s the purpose of the surge! The ultimate outcome of the surge is to produce victory, which is how you define the war ending.
What is always fascinating about this kind of argument to me is the complete lack of appreciation for the devastation that would fill the void if we got outta there as Obama wanted us to do. If that had happened, if we had pulled outta there, what would the American people say then? If little Barack had actually gotten his way… He’s been in the Senate 143 days. He hasn’t contributed one damn thing to this victory. He has tried to secure defeat. Uck! I take it back. He has contributed one thing. He took off his American flag lapel pin. Aside from that, Barack Obama has not done one thing but try to secure defeat. Now he’s over there rewriting history, claiming this whole victory was his idea, and it comes because of ‘a convergence of political events,’ not because of the US military, and certainly not to do with the American government. (sigh)
This is the kind of thinking, folks, that will inevitably lead to the defeat of this country. ‘People don’t want the war? Fine! Don’t fight ’em. People want government benefits no matter what? Give it to them. It’s the only way to win elections.’ Create a bunch of dependent people, give ’em what they want. If they don’t like war, then don’t fight a war, even if US national security interests are at stake. Don’t do it. The American people don’t like war.’ Who the hell does? So if you’re going to run around and say that the voters aren’t even focused on the war and the surge, they don’t care about the surge, then you’re also saying, ‘The voters are dumb. It’s not worth trying to persuade them. Don’t bother explaining anything to ’em. Just try to figure out a way to accommodate ’em; treat them as stupid and respond to them accordingly.’ Hell, some of our pseudo-conservatives even taking up this whole way of thinking. You can read about it in the New York Times every now and then. Back to the audio sound bites. We continue now with the American Barack Channel and the program Barack Nightline. The correspondent Terry Moran said to Obama, ‘If we had followed your advice to withdraw in the face of this horrific violence, what do you think Iraq would have looked like?’
OBAMA: Nobody has a crystal ball. Uh, if we did, then you’d just hire the guy with the crystal ball.
MORAN: If you had to do it over again, knowing what you know now, would you support the surge?
OBAMA: No, because, I — I — I — eh — I — Keep in mind that — that —
MORAN: You wouldn’t?
OBAMA: Uh, eh, um, well — These kinds of hypotheticals are very difficult. You know, hindsight is 20/20. But I think that w-what I am absolutely convinced of is that, uh, at that time, we had to change the political debate because the view of the, uh (pause), Bush administration at that time was one that I disagreed with.
RUSH: Do you understand what he just said? In the first place, he said, ‘We can’t look back,’ after he just got through this whole press conference looking back and saying that his plan would have worked except for X, Y, and Z. Now he’s asked by the American Barack Channel on Barack Nightline: Knowing what he knows now, would he be for the surge? No. No. No. ‘These hypotheticals are very difficult, but we had to change the political debate because the view of the Bush administration at that time was one I disagreed with.’ So the surge and its success is irrelevant. He needed something to disagree with Bush about, and he needed that in order to get the Democrat Party nomination. He needed that to get contributions.
So it’s not about American military success, as I have been pointing out time and time again. It is not about that at all. It is about power with these people. It is about devising whatever lies in front of them in order to get that power, and he has just admitted it. And of course the sycophantic, slavish disciples in the Drive-By Media swoon. They think this is brilliance and honesty. However, I must be fair. There is one renegade in the Drive-Bys today. His name is Dan Balz, B-A-L-Z, and Dan Balz is writing in today’s Washington Post. Headline of the story: ‘Obama Makes War Gains,’ subhead: ‘Maliki’s Embrace of Withdrawal Timeline Confounds McCain.’ But then Balz in the story makes three points. Number one: ‘Obama has certainly not won the argument over Iraq policy. Far from it.
‘His proposal to withdraw U.S. combat forces over a 16-month period still faces serious questions, including from some of the commanders who might be asked to implement it if he is elected. But the curious turn of events made for an unexpected opening act for the Democrat’s week-long tour,’ his little college visitation tour, little summer camp to these ‘seven countries… Whether Obama can count on Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki in the days ahead is another matter. The Iraqi government does not speak with one voice on this matter, and it is not yet clear how current negotiations with the administration will conclude… Beyond that, Obama’s opposition to the troop ‘surge’ that has helped quell violence and US casualties … leaves plenty of room for further questions about his judgment at that moment.’
Shazam. Shazam! Dan Balz, the Washington Post. We have one fallout. We have one renegade; we have one traitor. We have a Judas. We have a Judas, my friends, among the disciples! ‘Obama’s opposition to the troop surge leaves plenty of room for further questions about his judgment at that moment.’ ‘But as political theater,’ Mr. Balz writes, ‘the events of the past few days have played unfailingly in the Democrats’ favor.’ Political theater. Amen, bro. And what makes it theater? There’s an audience. Who’s the audience? The Drive-Bys, the disciples. Two hundred of them are following this guy around, their tongues dragging along the concrete to the floors. They are the audience. They’re writing the reviews; they are the critics. They so desperately want to be loved by The Messiah.
So they have thrown their professionalism down the toilet and flushed. They have thrown their integrity in the sewer. They have thrown their independence, their objectivity, their fairness, their judgment, whatever, out the window in order to be close to The Messiah; in order to get a Democrat in the White House.