RUSH: They are all excited in the Drive-By Media. The American flag was raised today over the American embassy in Havana, Cuba. Such a great day for the Drive-Bys, such a great day for the American left, and such a great day for Fidel Castro. Victory for Fidel Castro is considered victory for the American media. Here is a media montage of how it all went down…
MATT LAUER: (b-roll noise) For the first time in 54 years an American flag will be raised at the US Embassy in Havana!
SAVANNAH GUTHRIE: Now to the historic moment that is set to unfold in Cuba!
BECKY QUICK: A historic day for Cuba and the United States!
MARGARET BRENNAN: (outdoor noise) A Cold War standoff will end here in Havana when the Stars and Stripes fly once again on the island.
ROBIN ROBERTS: The historic raising of the American flag…
MICHAELA PEREIRA: It’s a historic day for Cuban-American relations!
CHRIS CUOMO: Jake Tapper in Havana this morning! Buenos Dias, Senor Jackito! Pasa bien!
JAKE TAPPER: (outdoor noise) Buenos Dias, Christopher! It’s going to be great!
RUSH: Yes, sir, folks, it is. Because in due course we’ll have access to that wonderful, superior Cuban health care system that has only been available to the elite and the precious few, such as Michael Moore and Sean Penn and, well, maybe some others. But now we’re all gonna be able to at some point. We don’t, at this moment, have travel freedom, entire travel freedom. It’s only a matter of time.
Somebody sent me a note today, but who’s gonna be the first to do what. I’ll be the photo-op that everybody’s waiting for — and I’m a not kidding about this. Somebody in this delegation. Somebody in the American delegation is gonna go out there and grab a Havana cigar and light it up, and that’s gonna be a huge photo-op. I mean, that’s a big deal here, folks, for a lot of people. You may not know this, but a lot of elites smoke cigars, and a lot of elites want Cuban cigars.
Legally, you can’t get them, but now you can if you can get there. It’s a limited amount of money that you’re allowed to spend on Havana cigars. I think $100 is the max, which, for a good cigar, you’ll get four of them and then you gotta hope they’re all made well. They’re not much anymore, but that will be a big photo-op is whoever, whenever lights up in celebration, of course, and it’ll be pretty big, Havana cigar. John Kerry, Lurch was there and brought up Vietnam. He made his speech at the grand ceremony where the American flag was raised over our embassy in Cuba, and John Kerry talked about Vietnam. You know, he served there, so that may be why.
KERRY: Last week I was in Hanoi to mark the 20th anniversary of normalization of relations between the United States and Vietnam. Think about that. A long and terrible war that inflicted indelible scars on body and mind followed by two decades of mutual healing followed by another two decades of diplomatic and commercial engagement. All that time through reconciliation, through normalization, Cuban-American relations remained locked in the past.
RUSH: That’s right. But that was before Barack Hussein O was elected president and then began traveling around the world pointing to all the places the United States has been guilty of something — guilty of oppression, guilty of theft, guilty of assuming to know what’s best for this country or that country. You know, liberalism is a strange thing. When you look at it domestically, these same people will tell us they know everything about how we ought to live.
And if we refuse to live our lives the way they want us to, then they will take over and make us conform and live our lives the way they want us to. Now, you take it internationally. The United States has been a beacon for freedom and has attempted to liberate and succeeded in liberating tens of millions of people over the years from bondage, liberated people to freedom. We have not conquered. And yet the very same liberals who are hell-bent on telling every American how to live.
Somehow when the United States attempts to spread the notions of democracy and freedom around the world, the American left say, “Who are we to tell people how to live? What right do we have to enforce our ways and force our ways on them!” They have no compunction whatsoever when it comes to imposing their beliefs on all of us in this country, but when it happens internationally… And of course when they impose things on people, it results in people losing a little freedom here or a little freedom there.
And before long, a lot of freedom is lost as you add it up. Traditionally, America has liberated people from oppression all over the world and seen to it that freedom and economic advancement has been the story of the day. By the way, there’s an interesting story I’ve got it somewhere here in the Stack. I should have put it at the top. I’m not gonna try to fumbling through the papers now, but it is essentially about… Let me see if I remember this.
In the late 1800s, 14% of the population did not live in poverty, in this country. Something like 80% of the population was in poverty in this country in the late 1800s. And the story today is just the exact opposite, of course. This is a left-wing publication writing this, applauding it, and they’re not even cognizant of the fact why it happened. You know, what has enabled people to escape poverty? Herbert Meyer used to be in the Reagan administration.
A couple, three years ago wrote a piece say the most transformative thing that’s happened in his lifetime has been the number of people in the world — the percentages of people in the world — who have escaped poverty. In fact, his story, the one that got all this going, is we interviewed him for the Limbaugh Letter. He was pointing out statistics that indicated that you had to look long and hard to find genuine poverty in the world today. We’ve had such a successful effort to elevate people from poverty.
That’s what we “impose,” quote/unquote, on people all over the world. We eliminated tyranny where we could. We rescued people from dictatorships and thugocracies and enabled them to be the best they could be, and around the world people have been escaping poverty left and right. The left can lay no claim to the success of that, although they clearly will. I just find it stunning that we have the American left doing everything they can to deny people little freedoms here, little freedoms there.
You can’t make life decisions unless they approve of it. But then internationally when we try to do the same thing, they say, “We got no business imposing our views on people!” It’s the height of hypocrisy. Here’s one more sound bite from Lurch, proudly talking about the normalization of relations in Cuba, after he succeeded in normal identifying relations with Vietnam — where, by the way, he once served.
KERRY: I applaud President Obama and President Castro both for having the courage to bring us together in the face of considerable opposition. I am heartened by the many on both sides of the Straits who — whether because of family ties or the simple desire to replace anger with something more productive — have endorsed this search for a better path. We are certain that the time is now to reach out to one another as two peoples who are no longer enemies or rivals, but neighbors. Time to unfurl our flags, raise them up, and let the world know that we wish each other well.
RUSH: Right. The only problem with this is that any dissidents in Havana, any dissidents in Cuba who seek to speak out against the regime are put in jail, and now the American flag is essentially flying proudly over that real-life circumstance. People that want to show up at Castro’s — doesn’t give speeches anymore, but — public events in Cuba and protest or just be dissidents for freedom? Dissidents are celebrated here; in Cuba they’re put in jail. And we are proud as we can be to be normalizing relations with such a forward, revolutionary thinking as Fidel Castro. Damn right. This is the kind of ally we’ve always needed. This is the kind of support we’ve needed internationally, and it’s about time we got it, right?
BREAK TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: Marco Rubio, in fact, asked the Secretary of State John Kerry — who served in Vietnam, by the way, if you haven’t heard. Rubio asked Kerry to include some dissidents, some Cuban dissidents at the flag-raising ceremony today. Of course, Kerry refused. He said that it would violate protocol and be an insult to our hosts. That’s such a major change in policy. We don’t want to insult our dictator hosts, even though the embassy is United States property, US territory. I mean, it’s us. It’s sovereign territory.
You know, little Cuban history. I don’t know how many people know this. Cuba had slavery from the sixteenth century all the way ’til 1886. Hardly anybody knows this because nobody cares, but the fact is that more than 60% of the Cuban population is descended from slaves. Not that you would ever know it, particularly if you looked at photos of the Cuban parliament. Do you know the Cuban parliament, for whatever purpose it serves…
I mean, it’s a rubber stamp. But do you know that it’s practically lily white? And when’s the last time you saw a lily white Cuban citizen? But nobody says it. We’re not supposed to talk about that, ’cause Castro’s a good guy. He’s down for the struggle, you know? He’s one of these guys that’s faced the oppression of the United States, and so the American left has solidarity with ’cause they understand that.
So then the next question, ladies and gentlemen: How long will it be…? Seriously, how long will it be before Barack Hussein Obama gives Guantanamo Bay back to Cuba? For all the talk about here the American flag today being raised today over Cuba, the American flag has been flying proudly at Guantanamo Bay — where we have a very successful licensed merchandise business, by the way.
Club Gitmo gear is available at the EIB Store. You can see it there. All kinds of neat stuff. T-shirts, caps, golf shirts, you name it. But Obama’s wanted to close Club Gitmo and promised to do so. That was his first executive order when he asked Jack whatever-this-guy’s-name-is what it said when he was signing it. His very first executive order, the first week that he’s in office as the cameras are in there and he’s signing his first executive order
He turns to Jack whatever this guy’s name is –this common, ordinary, everyday guy. He was involved in the Elian Gonzalez story, and he was speaking the guy that wrote the executive order, and Obama turned to him and asked, “What’s this say here, Jack?” Anyway, he signed it, promised to get rid of Guantanamo Bay, close it, and now how long will it be before he gives it back? You know, Castro has been livid over the fact that the United States still has a naval base at Guantanamo Bay, and it has been a curiosity.
I mean, here’s a island — a significant-sized island, all communists — and somehow we managed to hold on to our naval base there through all of this. It was something Castro had to tolerate. You know, we fought a war. Do you know this? We fought a war to liberate Cuba, which was under the jackbooted thug Spanish dictatorship! Have you ever heard of the Spanish-American War? It was also called The War for Cuban Independence.
Teddy Roosevelt and the Rough Riders, the battle of San Juan and San Juan Hill, one of the famous victories engaged in by and engineered by Teddy Roosevelt. So we have quite a history with Cuba. Then of course the mob moved in and turned everything into a giant gambling casino. So everybody’s celebrating; it’s a done deal. Everybody is ecstatic and happy, and the next question is: What’s gonna happen and how long will it take for Guantanamo Bay?
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