RUSH: This, folks, was the Labor Day weekend. And in suburban Washington and at the Hamptons where all of the New York-Boston-Washington power elite go in the summer for their vacations, there’s a big wrap-up to Labor Day weekend. I guarantee you, all these Obama elites and supporters — I don’t mean members of the regime, I’m talking about the donors and the supporters — were talking to them saying, “What the hell is going on?”
They, too, could not believe this bumbling level of incompetence. ‘Cause Obama last week had them believing, “We’re gonna launch our strike! We’re gonna stop this guy from nerve gassing his own people and move on.” Then on Friday he changes and wants Congress to get involved, and I guarantee you: These people that donate money to him and support him hate Congress; they hate the Republicans.
And all of a sudden now he wants to defer to them, and they didn’t understand. Fareed Zakaria, the Global Positioning Satellite host at CNN, I don’t know what his qualifications are other than… I really don’t. He’s one of these egghead theoreticians from the facility lounge who got a TV show, who writes occasionally in magazines and highbrow magazine articles. And he does. He has an audience with Obama now and then about foreign policy.
Even this guy, even Fareed Zakaria, could not believe what Obama was doing. It did not make any sense. We’ve got the bites. Let me just play these for you. Here’s the montage first of the media in Washington over Labor Day weekend wringing their hands. There’s a little frustration, a little bit of anger at Obama ’cause this red line thing to them was a gaffe. You look at Kerry and Hillary and Biden and Chuck Hagel and Obama. These guys used to tout Bashar! They used to sing Bashar’s praises, and it wasn’t that long ago that they did.
Bashar was a great reformer.
Bashar was the future hope, a stabilizing influence in the Middle East.
MARTHA RADDATZ: Go back to that red line comment the president made. Everyone heard that.
CHRIS CUOMO: The president’s red line comment got him into trouble.
ALAN COLMES: I’m disappointed that we’re drawing a red line and now talking about war.
GORDON ADAMS: He put himself in a box when he drew the line.
CHARLES RANGEL: The president has drawn a red line. Well, constitutionally I have no clue what that means.
RICHARD GRENELL: …drew this red line and put himself into a corner.
NICK GILLESPIE: Declaring a red line, he clearly did that as a kind of ad-lib.
DON LEMON: Why are chemical weapons a red line? What makes them so bad?
JASON JOHNSON: He talked himself into it by saying there was a red line.
MIKE JERRICK: Is it all back to that red line comment?
FREDRICKA WHITFIELD: You wonder if the president even regrets ever using those words “red line.”
DOUGLAS BRINKLEY: The red line could haunt him.
DAVID “RODHAM” GERGEN: The drawing of the red line, clearly they had not thought it through. He really does not want to do this, it’s obvious, but were it not for the red line, I donÂ’t think that he would be.
TAVIS SMILEY: You don’t draw a line, red or otherwise, and then dare somebody to cross it and then call that diplomacy. In my neighborhood, we call that playing a game of chicken.
RUSH: Let me tell you who you heard in there. That’s Tavis Smiley here, David “Rodham” Gergen, Fredericka Whitfield, Douglas Brinkley, Don Lemon, Nick Gillespie… I mean, they’re all in it. It’s this red line thing just… They know it’s amateur hour. These people, these media people, they didn’t know what they were gonna do. They were beside themselves, and you heard David “Rodham” Gergen say, “The drawing of that red line clearly hadn’t been thought through.”
That’s right. It’s just Obama puffing and huffing.
“I’m a big, tough guy! I’m a tough guy, and they’re gonna be scared of me! I mean, I’m gonna tell them, ‘If you cross that line…'” Obama was so full of himself, he didn’t think Assad would cross the line. He doesn’t know how they look at him. Anyway, they were just beside themselves, and if the line hadn’t been drawn, then none of this would be happening. That’s probably true. Grab sound bite number eight. This is Andrea Mitchell (NBC News, Washington) Sunday night on the NBC Nightly News.
MITCHELL: Tonight the Arab League is meeting again. The Saudis this time are pushing for a vote to support military action, but the president’s reversal has clearly further damaged the perception of him as a decisive leader abroad.
RUSH: Further damaged? That means there was preexisting damage, Andrea? Further damage? What do you know that you haven’t told us? Why, she just said here, “the president’s reversal.” It’s the red line business and then deciding not to show ’em who’s boss but instead turn it over to the Republicans. See, that’s how they all saw this. “You’re gonna turn this over to Republicans? You’re gonna give the Republicans this story?
“You’re gonna give them the opportunity to be the big huffer and puffer, blow-the-house-down guys?” That’s what they couldn’t believe. “You’re gonna let the Republicans look like Arnold Schwarzenegger here? What the hell are you doing?” So Andrea says, “[T]he president’s reversal has clearly further damaged the perception of him as a decisive leader abroad.” That means there must be some already existing damage out there that this guy’s not decisive.
Here’s Fareed Zakaria and his GPS locator on CNN Sunday morning.
ZAKARIA: Whatever your views on the larger issues, it’s hard not to conclude that the administration’s handling of Syria over the last year has been a case study in how not to conduct foreign policy.
RUSH: I’m telling you, this was a horrible Labor Day weekend for the elites and the ruling class. It ruined their last weekend in the Hamptons. Fareed Zakaria: It’s hard not to conclude that this administration’s handling of Syria over the last year has been a case study in how not to do foreign policy. Now, Fareed’s taken it personally ’cause he advises Obama on foreign policy. This Obama red line thing, what it was was a tip-off to Al-Qaeda, what they had to do to make the US get involved. That’s what the red line was. That’s what these guys don’t get. The red line was not aimed at Bashar.
Obama, whether he intended it or not, he draws the red line, and all he did was tell Al-Qaeda what they have to do in order to draw us in. And that’s another thing these guys — I think they don’t want to say that as plainly as I just said it to you. Obama set himself up to be humiliated this way, acting like the John Wayne character, or trying to be George W. Bush, “You’re either with us or you’re against us.” Or “bring it on,” remember how they mocked Bush for that?
Obama’s doing the same thing with drawing his red line. What he did, in drawing the red line, was tell the bad guys, “Oh, that’s all we’ve gotta do and make it look like Bashar did it? Oh, cool!” And they did it, apparently. It wasn’t even aimed at Bashar. It’s embarrassing. It’s just flat-out embarrassing. I can’t believe this guy’s been elected.
BREAK TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: Rich in White Plains, welcome to the EIB Network. Hello.
CALLER: Hey, Rush. Thanks for taking my call. The Drive-By Media and anybody who follows politics should have the same reaction to Obama saying he was gonna consult Congress as the shocked reaction everyone had to Miley Cyrus’s pornographic performance at the VMA awards. This guy never consults Congress for anything and declares openly, you know, how he’s gonna go around Congress and do what he wants to do. So, like you’re always saying how everything he does is political, this is no different. It’s obvious Obama is just trying to involve the Republicans in the House so he can blame them later for the corner he painted himself into. If I were Boehner and the Republicans, I’d tell Obama, “It’s your bed, you made it, now you sleep in it.”
RUSH: Yeah, but let me tell something: The pressure is on the Republicans. I read to you a pull quote from a Wall Street Journal column today. That’s a Republican paper — the editorial page, anyway — and they’re telling Republicans in Congress (summarized), “You gotta put aside whatever you think about Obama. You gotta put aside whether or not you’re helping Obama politically. You gotta do what’s right for America, and that means support the use of force.
“You cannot oppose the president.” Let me tell you something, Rich, old buddy, old pal. Republicans in Washington are so cowed, they are convinced that if they oppose Obama on anything they’re gonna lose everything. That’s why they go amnesty. It’s amazing what’s happened. But I’m like you. Why not draw a distinction? Not just this. Amnesty, you name it, health care, Obamacare, now this.
But, you know, even his supporters had the same reaction you had. They know he’s been going around the Republicans. They know he’s been using executive orders. They know that he doesn’t want to include ’em. They know. In fact, they love him for that. They love Obama for ignoring Congress. They love Obama for just sticking it to the Republicans every time he does it. So then to come along and stop in the middle of the game and bring him into it? It ruined Labor Day in the Hamptons, I’m telling you.