RUSH: Grab sound bites eight, nine, and 10. I referenced a couple of these earlier, let you hear them. Up first is Mark Halperin, last night, Bloomberg TV, special coverage of Obama’s national address, the cohost with him is John Heilemann, who said to Mark Halperin, “Do you think the president made his case tonight, Mark?”

HALPERIN: I thought that was a speech that was at times beautiful and touching and powerful and strong and human, but it does beg a lot of questions. The world, including all of us, wish the president well in this challenge in taking it on.

RUSH: I told you that there were gonna be people that thought it was great in large part because nobody had ever seen Obama speak that way. You should find a couple excerpts of it, Snerdley, ’cause he looked presidential. What he said was… (interruption) Well, he wasn’t running down America. That’s the point. He sounded, to the low-information crowd, he sounded like any other president would sound.

But here Halperin: “Well, I thought it was at times beautiful and touching and powerful, strong and human.” That the hell does that mean? What is human? Is Obama a hippopotamus and we don’t know? (interruption) Well, yes. Yeah, I know he’s a cold fish, but it sounded human? What does that mean? See, I know what it means. You use that word to make people think that you are human and that you’re deep and that you’re sensitive and that you feel and you have empathy and so forth. Human? Well, good. I had my doubts. Tom Brokaw on the Today Show today had this to say about Obama’s speech.

BROKAW: My guess is, Matt, that this move that he’s making will define the rest of his presidency. There are gonna be a lot of other issues that will play out in the next two years, but unless he succeeds here or if he fails here, that will be the marker in his final two years.

RUSH: Isn’t it ironic, ladies and gentlemen, that the Obama presidency, the great anti-war reluctant warrior now depends on Iraq, victory in Iraq, according to Tom Brokaw, for a historically dubbed successful presidency. Is that not sweet irony or is that not sweet irony? It isn’t gonna be Obamacare. It isn’t gonna be jobs. It isn’t gonna be the economy. It isn’t gonna be amnesty. It’s gonna be Iraq. Can you imagine the humiliation that the left and the kook-fringe base of the Democrat Party feels when they hear that? And here’s Sandy “Burglar”, who is making the point that I tried to make at the beginning of the program. He’s on Bloomberg TV, John Heilemann and Halperin.

Sandy Berger was national security advisor for Clinton. That’s right. Sandy “Burglar.” We called him Burglar because he went to the national archives and stole stuff in preparation for his testimony about, what was it, Lewinsky, or was it 9/11? He stole something in the national archives. He stuffed it in his socks, you remember that? And they said, “Oh, no, no, no, that’s just Sandy. He puts stuff in his socks in his office all the time. You should have seen Sandy’s desk. You couldn’t even see the desk, Sandy’s such a mess. Oh, no, Sandy wouldn’t steal anything. He’s constantly running around with pieces of paper in his socks.” That’s what Clinton said. Anyway, that’s who this is, and the question, “A few days ago you were quoted, Mr. Berger, as saying you thought the president may have done himself a little bit of a disservice by not being clearer and not being more resolute up until this point. Do you think that he is now on the right track?”

BERGER: I thought this was a very strong speech. This is the president who’s leading from the front, not from behind, a president who welcomed the responsibilities of American leadership. We’ve not heard that from him before.

RUSH: Stop and think of that. Stop and think of that. Here’s a here’s a rock-ribbed Democrat, Sandy Berger, national security advisor to Clinton. What did he say here? “This is a president who welcomed the responsibilities of American leadership. We have not heard that from him before.” It’s year six, folks. It’s year six and we got Democrats saying it’s the first time that we’ve heard Obama welcome the responsibilities of American leadership.

So, see, we haven’t been imagining things, and we haven’t been making it up when we’ve been telling everybody that he’s an apologist for America and he doesn’t think we have exceptionalism, he doesn’t think that we’re deserving of superpower status. Yeah, it was prior to his testimony before the 9/11 Commission, Sandy “Burglar,” national archives, stole some stuff, put it in his socks, and Bill Clinton said (imitating Clinton), “Hey, yeah, Sandy put stuff in his socks all the time when he worked for me. That’s nothing. He’s not a thief. He wouldn’t know how to steal anything. Hell.”

Okay, well, why is he putting things in his socks? “Runs out of pockets to put things in. You’ve seen these guys that are just constantly rumpled and their hair is all out of whack and their pockets are halfway out and so forth. They’re missing a belt loop, that’s Sandy. Just so disorganized.” And this guy’s our national security guy? “Ho, yeah, but I tell you, when this guy starts talking about threats, I mean, you gotta pay attention to what he says, no question. But I’m telling you, don’t think anything about him walking out of there with stuff in his stocks. That happened all the time.”