RUSH: ‘How Obama Lost the Egyptian People,’ in the Washington Post, Marc Thiessen story appears today. Does the headline kind of make you scratch your head, ‘What do you mean, how Obama lost the Egyptian people?’ Hasn’t the template been Obama inspired the Egyptian people? Obama, he stoked ’em, he fired ’em up. Obama gave ’em the keys to that revolution, foreign policy victory for Obama. ‘The extraordinary scenes in Cairo this past weekend brought back memories of similar scenes on the streets of Warsaw, Prague and Berlin two decades ago. Yet there is one crucial difference between then and now. Unlike the crowds that brought down Marxist regimes in Central Europe, the crowds that brought down the Mubarak regime in Egypt do not believe America stood with them in their struggle for freedom — and many believe we stood against them.’ This puts into perspective even better old buddy Nic Robertson from CNN yesterday.
‘When the protests first erupted, ordinary Egyptians appeared to hope — almost to expect — that once they rose up to demand their freedom, America could not help but stand with them. Instead, they heard President Obama’s handpicked envoy, Frank Wisner, declare that Hosni Mubarak ‘must stay in office’ to oversee the changes he had ordered. They heard Secretary of State Hillary Clinton declare the United States backed ‘the transition process announced by the Egyptian government’ (which then consisted of Mubarak staying in power until September). And they waited in vain for Obama himself to speak out clearly and align America with the democratic revolution they had set in motion. Soon their hopes gave way to disappointment and eventually anger. Demonstrators began carrying signs that declared ‘Shame on you, Obama!’ and showed Mubarak depicted as Obama in his iconic ‘hope’ image — with a caption that read ‘No You Can’t.”
Now, I was just gonna ask you if you saw any of this. Did you see that sign? Did CNN show us that sign? Did anybody else? ‘No You Can’t’? Well, it all comes into perspective now. Remember these great sound bites we had from Nic Robertson yesterday at CNN, he’s out amongst the protesters, the revolutionaries in Egypt. ‘What do you think of Obama? What is your message for Obama?’ And each answer was, ‘Obama, he wasn’t with us. Obama, he’s been all over the ballpark. Obama, we have no message for Obama.’ After hearing that, Nic Robertson says, ‘I can assure you clearly heard the protesters are very supportive of having Obama on their side.’ If I hadn’t told you it was real, I would not have blamed you had you thought that was a Saturday Night Live skit.
‘Not only did Obama not speak up for the protesters, in 2009 — at the very same time he was delivering his Cairo address calling for greater democracy in the Middle East — his administration cut pro-democracy funding for Egypt in half. Worse, in an effort to appease Mubarak, Obama agreed that the remaining money would be channeled only to groups approved by the government — effectively giving Mubarak a veto over which organizations received American support. This means that Obama cut off U.S. support for the very independent pro-democracy groups that sparked the Egyptian protests, toppled the Mubarak regime and may end up leading a new Egyptian government. On Friday, following Mubarak’s resignation, Obama finally gave an eloquent speech celebrating the ‘moral force’ of the demonstrators who had ‘bent the arc of history toward justice.’ Those beautiful words fell on deaf ears in Cairo. Indeed, the protesters had anticipated Obama’s belated praise. As one opposition leader put it before Mubarak’s fall, the Americans ‘are just waiting to see which side wins and then they will claim to have backed them all along.”
Well, well, these people in Egypt have Obama’s number better than the Drive-Bys and the Democrats do. The protesters in Egypt knew Obama was just sitting around waiting to see what happened, and we told you. The reason for all those disjointed speeches was so at the end of all this, Obama could go back and say, ‘See, I told you. I foretold this outcome. I inspired this outcome.’ He spoke on both sides. Mubarak has to stay ’til September; Mubarak has to go now. They asked Gibbs, ‘When’s now?’ ‘Now means yesterday.’ Then Gibbs said, ‘But what they do is up to them.’ It was clear maneuvering and the Egyptian protesters got it. In fact, Mr. Thiessen says: ‘The revisionism has already begun. A front-page story in Sunday’s New York Times reported that ‘Mr. Obama was furious’ when he heard the statements by Wisner and Clinton, and immediately deployed Sen. John Kerry to counter them on a Sunday talk show (though the story later reveals that Obama was not ‘furious’ about the substance of his advisers’ comments, only that ‘saying so openly would reveal that the United States was not in total sync with the protesters and was indeed putting its strategic interests first.’)’
So what this story is saying is that we know that Wisner was going out and saying Mubarak has to stay. They sent Wisner over there to nudge him out and Wisner gets over there and says Mubarak has to stay until September, and then Hillary gets in to try to clean up that mess. Obama doesn’t like the fact that there are two or three different messages being sent, so of all people he calls Lurch, he called John Kerry, who served in Vietnam, to go on the Sunday shows to have Kerry say that Obama was furious about what his advisors were saying. But he wasn’t furious about what they were saying. He was only furious that having the disparity in comments be public would reveal that the U.S. was not in total sync with the protesters. So Obama was intent on the people in the street thinking he was with them all the way, that he was inspiring them; he was behind it; he was in fact nudging things behind the scenes in their interests. And then his own regime sends a couple people out there to contradict that so he has to get Kerry to go on Sunday TV to try to clean up the mess because he didn’t care what was said, he cared about the result. Made it look like he was unable to claim credit for any of this.
Mr. Thiessen says, ‘Obama now has a chance to make it up to the Egyptian people. While Mubarak has fallen, Egypt’s democratic revolution has only begun. The Egyptian military has taken full control of the country. It has promised to govern only for six months and to ‘guarantee the peaceful transition of power within the framework of a free democratic system that allows an elected civilian power to rule the country.’ But the military has a vested interest in preserving as much of the status quo as possible. And it will test Obama in the period ahead to see how much autocracy he is willing to tolerate in the name of stability.’ At any rate, the Washington Post reports that it was an absolute debacle for Obama. Well, Marc Thiessen is a columnist reporting that it was an absolute debacle.
And the Washington Post, different story: ‘As Egypt Uprising Inspires Middle East, Iran Sees Biggest Protests in a Year.’ The Iranian protesters are shouting, ‘Death to the dictator!’ Now, where’s Biden in this? Biden is all over the place about Mubarak being a dictator. Hey, Joe, is Mahmoud Ahmadinejad a dictator? ‘In Washington, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton praised the Iranian demonstrators, saying the White House officials very clearly and directly support –‘ oh, they do? Let’s go back, hang on, let me find the audio sound bite. Let’s go to number 25. That’s Obama this morning. This is the Washington Post today. Here’s the paragraph. ‘Secretary of State Hillary Clinton praised the Iranian demonstrators saying White House officials ‘very clearly and directly support the aspirations of the protesters.’ She also accused the Tehran government of hypocrisy for claiming to support pro-democracy demonstrators in Egypt while squelching dissent at home. Clinton’s commends appeared to signal a shift in tone by a regime that previously refrained from directly endorsing the Iranian –‘ Okay. So the Washington Post, Hillary all for the protests in Iran, White House officials ‘very clearly and directly support the aspirations of the protesters.’ Earlier today, Obama asked about the protesters in Iran.
OBAMA: On Iran. We were clear then and we are clear now that what has been true in Egypt is — should be true in Iran, which is that people should be able to express their opinions and their grievances and seek a more responsive government. What’s been different is the Iranian government’s response, which is to shoot people and beat people and arrest people. America cannot ultimately dictate what happens inside of Iran any more than it could inside of Egypt. Ultimately these are sovereign countries that are gonna have to make their own decisions.
RUSH: Okay, so we support the aspirations of the protesters, but if Iran’s gonna keep shooting ’em, that’s gonna happen. It’s up to them. If they want to shoot and beat their protesters, why, that’s up to them. We can’t dictate anything. Just like we didn’t and couldn’t inside of Egypt. Yet they tried to claim credit for everything that happened in Egypt.
BREAK TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: Okay, folks, we found that picture. We found the picture referred to in Marc Thiessen’s piece in the Washington Post, the protest signs among the crowd in Egypt mocking Obama. The picture of Hosni Mubarak and the Obama Hope drawing, artwork, with the phrase ‘No You Can’t,’ mocking Obama’s ‘Yes We Can.’ These signs were being carried by protesters, and we weren’t shown these. I have the picture, and I just sent it up to Koko at the website. He’s gonna post it up there pretty soon. We have it here. For those of you watching on the Dittocam, the reason I haven’t turned it on yet is because I’ve had to focus the Dittocam tight during the break so that when I turn it on you will see the picture.
Are you ready? For you Dittocammers, here you go. There it is. That is the picture of protesters in Egypt. That is the sign being referred to by Marc Thiessen mocking Obama and Mubarak. ‘No You Can’t.’ This of course taking place during the protest, during the revolution, during the period of time we were told Obama was inspiring these people, that Obama was behind this, that Obama was all for these people. Obama was sending messages that these were the people acting in his image, and he went out and made a speech that made it sound like this was an extension of his own campaign. So there you have it: ‘No You Can’t.’
If you’re not watching on the Dittocam, ladies and gentlemen, RushLimbaugh.com will soon have that picture posted, and you’ll be able to check it out yourself. I’m now backing off the zoom on the Dittocam. I’ve done that and I’ll turn it back on. (interruption) What, journalistic malpractice that our media didn’t show us any of this? Well, it may be malpractice. It’s nothing new. Look, as we demonstrated yesterday… Maybe we ought to go back and replay them. Cookie, grab me the Nic Robertson bites from yesterday. I mean, it’s silly for me to keep here talking about them and people not knowing what I’m talking about if they didn’t hear it yesterday.
Nic Robertson’s CNN piece yesterday is the greatest illustration of what the role of the media was in the Egyptian revolution. It was all about Obama, and so when you see this picture — and apparently there were thousands of people carrying these pictures and we purposely were not shown these pictures of Obama being mocked, made fun of. Journalistic malpractice? No, it was simply this picture didn’t fit the narrative. The narrative was ‘Obama, the great and merciful, inspiring a democratic revolution by virtue of his Cairo speech and his basic presence, the fact that he’s on the scene.’ In fact, if that Cairo speech was so good, why doesn’t editing Tehran and make another one now and inspire those people?
From the Los Angeles Times: ‘New Breed of Islamists Emerges in Egypt — They are deeply pious but want to work with secularists, and they may or may not be members of the Muslim Brotherhood.’ This is Ned Parker of the LA Times. A whole new breed of Islamists! Hey, these are good guys. You know what? I mean, this is a new Muslim Brotherhood out there. Meet Mo and Ahmed, a new generation of Islamists. ‘Mohammed Sharaf Eldin and Ahmed Usama joined the Muslim Brotherhood as young men in the belief that the organization’s vision of political Islam was the way forward for Egypt,’ but ‘Both believe in working with secular parties. They both talk of a need for compromise in politics.’
Wow, this is exactly the kind of lingo the American media wants to use for us! Bipartisanship? Did you know that, folks? Did you know that the Muslim Brotherhood was bipartisan? They believe in bipartisanship? It’s a beautiful thing. It’s just… Oh! I’m envisioning white doves flying all over Cairo now, the Muslim Brotherhood believed in bipartisanship. Oh, it just stops me heart. It shows us what’s possible even in the United States if we just work hard enough at it. (interruption) Islamic state? Well, they’re willing to be bipartisan about the Islamic state. That’s what the LA Times story is. They’ll align with secularists and so forth. Yeah, they’re cool. They’re bipartisans. That makes ’em better than Republicans, don’t you see? Makes ’em far more reasonable than Republicans who don’t believe in bipartisanship, don’t you see? That’s the point. You gotta know how to read these people.
BREAK TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: If you haven’t heard Nic Robertson, CNN, you gotta hear this. It puts everything in perspective. We just showed you the picture, ‘No You Can’t,’ making fun of Obama. Egyptian revolutionaries making fun of Obama with a Mubarak picture Obamaized with the various colors. You’ve seen the famous Obama hope and change poster. It’s very clear here that the revolutionaries have no love for Obama, don’t consider him to be relevant at all in what happened, but the mission of the State-Controlled Media here was to position it so that Obama was solely responsible for what happened and that the protesters all loved Obama. So Nic Robertson of CNN heads out amongst the protesters last Friday afternoon on CNN’s Newsroom to ask them what they think of Obama. The first protester he approaches is named Achmed.
ROBERTSON: Achmed, you’ve been here, down here on the Square for many days. The United States and the international community. You’ve just listened to President Obama saying that America will support Egypt if it wants help and assistance, and hopes that there will be a good transition for jobs for the young people. What would be your message for President Obama?
ACHMED: We don’t know, actually, who he supports. He serves for his own purposes, and the Egyptian people serve for our freedom and democracy. Any democratic country should see for the people, not for its own purposes.
RUSH: Sounds like ol’ Achmed there has Obama dialed in. ‘Any Democrat country should seek for the people not for its own purposes,’ and they clearly see that Obama was trying to use ’em. But there’s old Nic Robertson out there. These people think they have just won their freedom. In their minds they just got rid of a 30-year dictator, and here comes a CNN reporter asking them what they think of — wait for it — Obama! Nic Robertson wasn’t finished. He stuck to it. He found Mustapha.
ROBERTSON: Mustapha is joining me now. We just heard President Obama say that he wants to extend, eh, support and assistance to Egypt and Egyptians if they want any, and he hopes that there are more jobs for the young people in the future. What’s your message for President Obama?
MUSTAPHA: Well, my message to President Obama is just, ‘We started this revolution without any outside help, and we are going to finish it also without any outside help.’
RUSH: Translation: Who? We didn’t need Obama. We start it without him. We’re gonna finish it without him. What are you asking me about Obama for? So Nic Robertson is still hanging in there with Mustapha, giving it the old college try.
ROBERTSON: Are you pleased that President Obama has come out, however, now and said he supports this change and supports the people and supports the young people and — and what they’ve done?
MUSTAPHA: Well, actually President Obama’s views were kind of conflicting during the last week, but now he’s saying that he’s supporting the change.
RUSH: (laughing) Poor old Nic. He’s got his marching orders. ‘Nic, you gotta go out there and find people who love Obama.’ This is like a lawyer who grants somebody immunity before he knows what they’re gonna say. Nic shoulda found these guys before putting them on camera, but he was so convinced that the crowd loved Obama he just had to grab a couple. So it didn’t go right with Achmed, but there’s Mustapha, so I’ll go ask Mustapha. Mustapha doesn’t play ball. So you just heard it, both Achmed and Mustapha basically told Nic Robertson, ‘What are you saying, pal? Obama had nothing to do with this. He was all over the ballpark. We don’t care about Obama.’ Nic Robertson and his wrap-up from amidst the revolution in Egypt.
ROBERTSON: The view from here is one of very happy to now hear that President Obama has swung behind the people.
RUSH: (laughing) I mean how do you do this? The view here, the view from here is one of very happy to now hear that Obama has swung behind the people. I don’t know. Is it just me? This may be, in all my 23 years, it’s gotta be in the top five illustrations of who the media are, how the last thing they do is news, how they have an agenda, that they’re gonna get it done no matter what, and even in the face of the audience hearing that neither Achmed or Mustapha said anything Nic Robertson wanted to hear. He still knows that CNN’s audience is stupid enough that despite hearing from Achmed and Mustapha, they don’t care about Obama, Nic Robertson can say, ‘See, you just heard ’em, you just heard ’em say they’re deliriously happy that Obama has swung behind the people.’ (laughing) I just love it!