RUSH: Time for a See, I Told You So, a huge See, I Told You So. If you’ve been listening with any regularity, you’ve heard me say in recent weeks that our entire military engagement against ISIS or ISIL is poll-driven. It’s happening because Obama’s numbers have plunged in terms of national security, safety, these kinds of things. A month ago Obama was calling these people “the JV squad,” and after that he admitted he didn’t have a strategy to deal with this.
Again, as the details will be forthcoming soon on the program, it’s now widely known that the intelligence community has known about ISIS for two years and has been telling Obama or trying to tell him. He just didn’t care. When he started to care is only when polling numbers started to plunge and Democrat candidates, primarily for the Senate, but pretty much everywhere, started expressing concern to the Democrat National Committee and the White House saying, “Hey, you’re leaving us out to dry here.”
So Obama called a press conference and announced the big military action, and all of a sudden after not caring and no strategy and the JV team, “Bammo! We’re launchings a full-scale military attack with no boots on the ground. We’re gonna use the Iraqi army for that.
But we’re gonna bomb them to smithereens with our jets and our bombers,” and I said it was all political. In fact there was a time I wasn’t even discussing it much while it’s all that was being talked about elsewhere in the media, and I started getting e-mails. “Hey, Rush, you’re not talking about this much. Why?” And I answered it, and I want to replay that to set up this giant See, I Told You. Audio sound bite number one.
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RUSH ARCHIVE: People have been saying, “Rush, you haven’t really been talking much about Obama and the new war on ISIS and Iraq and Syria.” I paused and I reflected and I had to agree that that’s probably true. I mean, I have not gone wall-to-wall on it. I certainly haven’t spent the time that you can see spent on it on cable news. So I asked myself why. I think it’s not that I don’t care.
Please do not think that. It’s that I just don’t believe anything is going on right now. I think all of this is smoke and mirrors. I had to actually think about it, and I decided, I concluded, that my instincts took over without my even being aware of it. I just refuse to be drawn in to the daily media soap opera. Because I’m telling you, all of this, what’s going on right now is an effort by the Democrats and the White House and the media to prop up Obama’s chops as a foreign policy president who is not bothered at all by engaging in military activity.
It is an effort, they’re trying to suck everybody in, to get them talking about that aspect of it. As always, it’s about Obama. Will Obama do this? Will Obama listen to the generals? Will the generals overrule Obama? I just get tired of it. Three weeks ago, three weeks ago now, Obama didn’t care about any of this. They were the JV team, ISIS was. Three weeks ago he was not concerned about this at all. Then the polls started coming in and started being reported, and that changed everything.
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RUSH: Even with that detailed and irrefutable explanation, there remain the doubters, people who thought that I was wrong. Even after 26 years proving that I’m right, yes, I still have the courts. “Rush, you’re not talking about this enough. This is important.” And I said, “Well, maybe it is, but I’m telling you it’s not legitimate from the White House standpoint. They’re only doing this because of polling data.” Can I prove it to you now? Yes. Let us return to the audio sound bites. This a giant See, I Told You So. This is yesterday afternoon, CNN’s Wolf. The host Wolf Blitzer is reporting about a new presidential job approval poll. Listen to this.
BLITZER: The president’s approval rating remains essentially flat at only 44% approve of the job the president is doing compared with 43% before he ordered the air strikes. Uh, basically statistically negligible. His disapproval rating uncomfortably high, at 52%. How come he doesn’t get a bounce? Usually when the US goes to war, the American public sides with the president in increasing numbers.
RUSH: See? There’s Wolf Blitzer, CNN, worried. “Oh, no! What happened! How come Obama didn’t get the bump? All presidents get a bump in the polls when they go to war. How come Obama didn’t? What’s unfair here? It’s just not right. Bush got a bump when he went to Iraq, and Clinton got a bump.” Well, Clinton was a bump. “But why didn’t Obama get a bump?” Wolf’s terribly upset about this.
See? What’s the media’s primary concern? It’s exactly as I stated.
“How does it help Obama or does it help at all?” It didn’t help, and they’re beside themselves, proving what is this really all about. If you’re still not convinced, we stay with CNN’s Wolf. Yesterday afternoon, after Wolf expressed his public confusion and his curiosity as to why this brave military action is not redounded into improved polling numbers for Obama, he called in noted CNN, Newsweek, and Washington establishment journalist Gloria Borger.
Wolf mentions all this to her and asks her what’s up.
BORGER: If you look at the president’s numbers on the handling of terrorism, on ISIS, on foreign affairs, you’ll see that he gets a bit of an uptick. But the problem for the president also with our numbers is that less than 50% of people in this country, about 48%, trust him as commander-in-chief. When you have that kind of a problem, it’s not gonna translate into a huge uptick in the polls particularly, even at this time. And they’re… The public is also ambivalent, Wolf. You know, they want these air strikes, they don’t want boots on the ground. So it’s very different from sort of what George W. Bush had, uh, post-9/11.
RUSH: It’s just so unfair, isn’t it? It’s just so unfair. I mean, Obama didn’t get his bump, he got a little, but they still don’t like him out. It didn’t work is the bottom line, and they’re beside themselves at CNN, and that means they’re beside themselves at the rest of the Drive-Bys. This was all about raising Obama’s polling numbers, as I said. I don’t mean to sound braggadocious, don’t misunderstand.
I’m just interested in facts and people getting the truth on things. Then she has to even massage it, “Well, you know, Wolf, when you have that kind of problem, it just isn’t gonna transfer. The public is really stupid — uh, ambivalent — Wolf. The public is really dumb. How else do you explain Bush getting a bump and poor old Obama not getting a bump? It’s gotta be that the public is ambival — stupid.” See? For those of you who doubted me.