RUSH: We’ll go to La Habra, California. Jacob, thanks for waiting. I’m really glad that you were patient, sir. Hello.
CALLER: Good morning, Rush.
RUSH: Hi.
CALLER: Thank you for taking my call.
RUSH: You bet.
CALLER: I just want you to know I found you about a week before you went for full three hours on 640 KFI.
RUSH: In Los Angeles, yes.
RUSH: Wait, wait, wait, wait. Let’s identify here. We’re talking about the president of Georgia. You have just called the president of Georgia ‘a bag of excrement.’
CALLER: Exactly, sir.
RUSH: Why? Why?
CALLER: And don’t forget, he is from the same place that came Iosef Vissarionovich Stalin. I don’t have to tell you who this guy is.
RUSH: But he’s running a democratic country who was elected by citizens?
CALLER: Rush, just to remind you — and you can check this on Fox News — what he did to the independent television station in Tbilisi, the capital of Georgia. Okay?
RUSH: Jacob, can you hang on? You have proven a point that I brilliantly made in the first hour.
CALLER: Okay.
RUSH: Can you hang on through the break so I can get to you?
CALLER: Sure. Sure. Da.
RUSH: All right. You sound just like the guy from SPECTRE in the James Bond movies.
BREAK TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: We rejoin Jacob from La Habra, California. He is a Russian Jew who has lived in the United States for 30 years; and you, Jacob, almost sound as though you have a little national pride.
CALLER: No, sir! No, sir. This is going to be your biggest mistake if you will make this conclusion.
RUSH: Well, my conclusion is — actually, Victor Davis Hanson said this or wrote this before I had a chance to say it, but I was going to say it anyway — that while the Russians have gone into Georgia and South Ossetia —
CALLER: Mmm-hmm.
RUSH: — you don’t have Russian citizens protesting in the streets saying, ‘No blood for oil!’ or condemning your government like you would have here. You have got Russian citizens who are proud that the Russian bear is reclaiming and is reestablishing itself as a world power. There’s probably a lot of Russian pride. So I thought that might be your feeling.
CALLER: No, no. No, no, no. What you see right now is what’s left from Soviet Union. What I think is the biggest mistake on our part — and I don’t hear anybody even mentioning this.
RUSH: Then say it!
CALLER: In 1990, Russia was giving out truckloads of Russian passports in South Ossetia. They did, nobody said, even a word about this, and what they are claiming right now — what they are claiming right now — is that they are defending their citizens there. That’s what’s going on. And as far as I know, he did start it. Saakashvili did start it. Rush, this is my opinion.
RUSH: Jacob, you’re sounding like Obama. You’re sounding like every Democrat. You’re sounding like Gorbachev.
CALLER: Ahhh, Rush? Rush?
RUSH: You’re making it sound like it’s the Georgians’ fault, that somehow Saakashvili was insulting or harming Russian citizens inside Georgia, and poor old Putin had no choice —
CALLER: Rush, by citing me with Obama, you couldn’t insult me more.
RUSH: Well, but that’s what they’re all going to say —
CALLER: Yes, I know, yes, I know.
RUSH: — by the end of this week, at the end of this week.
CALLER: Rush, we have to take in consideration who we are dealing with. And, Rush, as you know: a stupid friend is worse than an enemy. And this guy Saakashvili —
RUSH: Okay, what have you got against —
CALLER: — will get us a lot of problems.
RUSH: Jacob? Jacob, aside from Saakashvili —
CALLER: Yes?
RUSH: — who is no different than a bag of excrement, according to you —
CALLER: Yes, sir.
RUSH: — what have you got against the Georgian people?
CALLER: Nothing. Nothing.
RUSH: So you want Russia to come in and rip Georgia to shreds just to get rid —
CALLER: No.
RUSH: — of the excrement —
CALLER: No.
RUSH: — in a bag?
CALLER: No. But what I want is for us to be careful how we deal with the situation and how we deal with this president. I mean, the Georgian president. That’s all.
RUSH: Well, we’re being careful. The French are over there taking care of this, if you can believe it.
CALLER: Yeah. From all the people, French.
RUSH: Yeah, of course.
CALLER: And as I said, Rush, the biggest insult for me is to side me with Obama.
RUSH: Well, I’m sorry, Jacob. I didn’t mean to insult you, but when you’re going to say things that the left is going to say about this — when you’re saying things that Putin is saying. Putin is saying, ‘Hey, Georgia started it.’ That’s what you’re saying. You’re saying that Saakashvili is oppressing Russian citizens and Putin had no chance. I’ll tell you, Obama is establishing a moral equivalency here by asking both sides to throw down their arms, as though they both started this sort of thing. So, I don’t mean to insult you, but I mean Gorbachev saying the same thing you said, that this was started by the Georgians — and you think it was, because of this president that you don’t like. So I’m sorry to insult you, but I’m just trying to tell you who your theory sounds like. I’m glad you called. I appreciate it.
BREAK TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: Here’s George in Fair Oaks, California. Great to have you with us. Hello, sir.
CALLER: Good morning, Rush. Well, I guess it’s the afternoon where you’re at.
RUSH: Yes.
CALLER: And thank you. I was waiting for a long time, and I soaked up all that free vitamin D, I almost got sunburned.
RUSH: (laughing) I’m glad you’ve got a sense of humor, George.
CALLER: But I like to comment on this Ossetia and all this Georgia problems. I think this Georgian president could not have chosen a worse time to do what he did, to invade the area.
RUSH: What did he do?
CALLER: Well, he invaded autonomous territories, militarily, and I compare — I’m a Serb, and I look at this —
RUSH: Wait. I really want to learn here because you now are the third caller who has called. I know you’re Russian, right?
CALLER: No, no. I’m a Serb!
RUSH: You’re a Serb. Okay. But you’re the third caller to blame this on Georgia and Saakashvili.
CALLER: Saakashvili, yeah.
RUSH: Saakashvili. It’s going against everything that I’ve heard, here. What did Saakashvili do to provoke the Russians? This had to do with South Ossetia?
RUSH: Well, of course, because he attacked a province, and he used the Olympics to do that because he was thinking that Russia because of Putin there and our president there, there wouldn’t be any retaliation, and the stupidity on his part. He knows the Russians will never care. They don’t care what’s happening in the world, what the world is going to think about harmony or sports or anything. They’re going to protect their territory, and they feel it’s their territory because it is settled by ethnic Russians or Ossetians or whatever they are and if they had that autonomy, then why did they have to invade?
RUSH: South Ossetia, for years they have been disunified or deunified, if I can say this, with Georgia. What did Saakashvili do that he hasn’t been doing that hasn’t been going on for years that prompted this? I’m really stunned here at the number of people that want to try to say that the Russians had every right to go in and do what they did and that we were meddling and that Saakashvili was meddling, and he finally got what he deserved.
CALLER: Well, to Saakashvili, our influence is really great in Georgia, you know, our American influence, and what this guy is doing, pulling the card right now, he wants to assert himself as a leader, pro-Westerner, somebody who wants to be a part of the European Union, and he used this spot to have the opera or of the whole world against the Russians for the actions that he took. I think he is like a prostitute looking for a better john, and now how to get a better john is to get johns pissed — pardon my language, pissed off — at each other, let them duke it out, and I’ll just stand in the back. That was a mistake on his part. It will backfire on him, you’ll see.
RUSH: I’ll take this under advisement. None of what I have read has proffered this theory. But yet you are the third caller today who has essentially said that the Russians had no choice, that they were simply defending themselves. So our first caller referred to Saakashvili as a sack of excrement. You have referred to him as a prostitute looking for a better john.
CALLER: Well, you know, it’s true.
RUSH: You’re making this guy sound like a Democrat.
CALLER: Yeah, well, thank you. (laughing) I’m a right-wing — military right-wing. I don’t ally myself with anybody. But I’m looking at the Serbia and Kosovo, and we bombed their infrastructure to Stone Age, and for what? Another autonomous province which is actually a Serbian territory, which was occupation by population. Same thing that’s happening in our country right here. We are being occupied — occupation by population: foreigners coming in illegally and more and more and using our, you know, services. The same thing happened over there, and Serbs got clobbered.
RUSH: There was a religious component there.
CALLER: Well, religious component was overblown by the media — Associated Press for misinformation I should say. Because they were… As you know yourself, what kind of writing goes on in newspapers, whoever pays more —
RUSH: (laughs) That’s right. I can’t disagree with you on that. We’ve called attention to that on previous occasions. Well, look, thanks, George. I appreciate it very much.
BREAK TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: I just got an interesting note from a friend of mine who is in the area of international studies who has been monitoring the program today, and he said the Serb who just called from Fair Oaks, California, has got a point, but it still needs to be modified somewhat because all the callers today that we’ve taken so far on this said the Russians were right to defend themselves, that somehow Saakashvili provoked all this. And the note I have from my friend said this is not what has caused this. It’s not that Saakashvili did anything. He said that the Serb caller had an important point. The Serbs, to this day, are rightly angry that our State Department and the European Union, and even people like McCain, decided to show how much they love Islam by allowing the Kosovo Muslims to annex part of Serbia, rather than stop it because they don’t want to be critical of Islam, want to show our magnanimity. Okay, go ahead and do that. Now, Russia was the Serbs’ protectors, and they protested at the time saying that these nitwits were getting a president to allow insurgent separatist terrorist factions to break away from sovereign countries. That’s basically what the Kosovo Muslims annexing part of Serbia was.
So the State Department, the European Union all ignored the Russians and their complaints, and the Russians said, ‘Okay, if that’s the way you want it,’ and so now Putin has encouraged his own insurgent separatist terrorist factions to break off parts of Georgia on the pretext that Georgia has caused this, that Saakashvili has brought this about. The bottom line, though, it’s still all a pretext. Russia would have done this anyway because that’s who they are, but this is why some people think that we have given the Russians a pretext because we didn’t object when we allowed part of Serbia to be annexed for Kosovo for the Muslims there. All of you people who have called here today who might think that the Russians are defending themselves, yeah, okay, the Russians are defending themselves. How? That’s why they tried to kill the now-president of Ukraine with poison. That’s why they’ve killed some expatriates. It’s why they’ve murdered and jailed some journalists who dare to question Putin. It’s why they have jailed several corporate executives who don’t bow to Putin and that’s why Putin circumvented his own constitution by switching jobs so he could still run Russia. It’s all in self-defense.
How about Litvinenko? Litvinenko, the guy they poisoned with polonium 212 simply because he was criticizing Putin. I mean, they have been engaging in Soviet-style tactics for a long time here. And of course that’s all Saakashvili’s fault, too. How can we sit here and say that the Russians are simply defending themselves when they’re out there committing all these atrocities? As for Obama, he’s weak. He’s got no foreign policy. He runs out and beats up on his own country and our enemies view him as weak and easy to roll which is very, very dangerous, which is why what he says about this is indeed an important factor.