RUSH: Yesterday afternoon about, I don’t know, 5:30, I am feverishly — already at 5:30 yesterday afternoon — getting ready for today’s program. And the way I do that is just constantly read and learn and decide what I’m interested in and what I’m not interested in to set aside the things I’m not interested in. And I get a message from Kathryn, who says, “They’re talking about you again on The Five.”

She sends me one of these about three times a week.

“They’re talking about you again on The Five.”

I said, “About what?”

She wrote back, “What you said about ISIS.”

I said, “I don’t even remember.”

Once I do a program, it’s in the past, and I don’t really remember, ’cause really I’m focusing on the future and the next program. I didn’t remember what I’d said about ISIS. So I asked her and she told me. So I said, “Ah! Okay.” So I get in here today ready and revved up and I get the audio sound bite roster, and this discussion on The Five yesterday regarding me and ISIS, is sound bites one, two, and three.

So let’s take a break so I don’t have to hammer and rush right through these. We’ll come back and treat you to it after this.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: This is what I said on Fox… Well, this is what I said on the program yesterday that they used on Fox to stimulate stimulating discussion between the guests and the hosts of the show.

RUSH ARCHIVE: So George Bush supposedly went to Iraq for oil, right? So I guess we could say that Barack Obama went to war with ISIS for the Senate. … It’s all about winning the Senate or holding the Senate, and it’s all about positioning Obama politically. Pure and simple.

RUSH: It is. It’s doubtless. It’s undeniable. It’s inarguable. A month ago, Obama was talking about ISIS as the “JV team.” Three weeks ago, Obama was saying he didn’t even have a strategy because he didn’t even think it was that big a deal. Then the polling data began to come in and the advisors began to panic and they said, “Look, you’re gonna have to do something.

“You’ve gotta go out there at least make a speech. You gotta tell people that you think these are bad guys, and you gotta tell people that you’re gonna do something about them. Even if you don’t, you’ve got to say something! You’ve gotta get out there and reverse the poll numbers because the Democrats running for the Senate are in big, big trouble.”

So, they wrote a speech, and they put it on the prompter, and they put Barack in a secret, special room at the White House and he went out there and he read it. There wasn’t a whole lot of passion in the speech, but it served the purpose, and he announced a the Virginia, and it involved military action. So let’s go to the response at The Five. Up first, Dana Perino.

PERINO: I believe he’s saying a little tongue-in-cheek and payback is heck, because it points out the absurdity of the original degrading of President Bush and Dick Cheney. It shows how ridiculous they are. And I think, though, that politically they would have been better off doing this in August. If they were really thinking about politics, I think it would have been better for President Obama to make a move in June or July because over the summer is when he saw his poll numbers really start to decline.

RUSH: Yeah. She’s right. I was being not just tongue-in-cheek. I was being as facetious as I could be. I said, “So, George Bush supposedly went to Iraq for oil, right?” How many people in the Democrat Party said that? What was the slogan? “No blood for oil!” How many people said that Bush was in Iraq just to avenge a failed assassination attempt on his father by Saddam Hussein?

How many people — for five years, folks — did everything they could on the Democrat side to undermine the war effort? Harry Reid: “This war is lost! This war is unnecessary!” I don’t need to relive all of this. For five years, every day, 24/7, 365, they did nothing but impugn the war effort by our military. Remember our soldiers were raping and terrorizing women and children in Iraqi villages?

That charge was made, and right there to back it up were John Kerry and John Murtha. And midst all of this we heard the constant allegation that this was simply a war because Cheney’s Halliburton was gonna benefit big time ’cause Halliburton’s in the oil business — and they’re not, by the way. They’re in the support-services industry.

So I was clearly being tongue-in-cheek. Okay, so if you guys are gonna say that Bush went to Iraq for oil then I guess we can say Obama went to Iraq for the Senate. Except in my case, I happen to be exactly right. Well, this didn’t sit well with Bob Beckel, who thought, of all the things he’s ever heard me say in the course of our lives on the planet, this was the worst.

BECKEL: Of all the cynical statements that — that uhhh Rush Limbaugh has made, this is the most cynical. George Bush did not go into Iraq for oil, and Barack Obama did not go after bombing ISIS for Senate seats. For Obama’s favorability to go up, it may save one Senate seat, probably not many House seats. But I think the idea of that kind of comment is, uh, uhhh, approaching un-Americanism.

RUSH: Really? Isn’t this fascinating. So one little cynical, satirical, humorous comment stands for “un-Americanism,” and five years of undermining every day our war effort in Iraq? “Why, why was that was then. We were standing on principle. We were opposed to torture. We were opposed to all the evil the US military was doing. We knew Bush was an idiot; we had no business being there.”

This stance was not principled. It was totally political, and they were doing everything they could on the Democrat side to secure defeat and saddle George W. Bush with it, all for politics — and they succeeded, by the way. So now here’s one little very pointed comment. Remember good comedy must have an element of truth. We are in this war with ISIS for political reasons. The timeline is evidence enough.