RUSH: You know what else is being highlighted here in this incident? And it’s been happening a lot. And that is, all of this symbolism, people engaging in all of this symbolism and acting like it matters. Remember Boko Haram, when they first kidnapped the whatever it was, 250 girls in Nigeria, and Michelle Obama went out and said (paraphrasing), “I ask you to join me in our new campaign, a Twitter hashtag, #BringBackOurGirls.” And of course I mocked it. I did. I made fun of it. What good’s that gonna do? It isn’t gonna bring anybody back. There’s not one step, not one half step. There’s not one bit of action attached to a hashtag on anything. There’s not one bit of action on a ribbon that you put on your shirt or jacket that says you care.
What good is all this symbolism if there isn’t any action behind it? This is the same criticism that I have leveled at many in my own movement. Conservative opinion leaders, conservative writers and so forth, write this great conservative stuff, but that’s it. They don’t engage in the battle; they don’t attempt to persuade minds; they just write and they’re done with it. Yeah, it’s written very well, and it really reads well, and, wow, it’s really powerful, but what are you doing beyond that? “Well, that’s it, I write my column, and I’m finished.” No. And I remember being raked over the coals by late-night comedians after I poked fun at Michelle Obama’s #saveourgirls or #bringbackourgirls or whatever it was. The question was asked on late-night TV, “Has Rush Limbaugh no soul?” No soul? What good did that hashtag do?
There’s all kinds of candlelight vigils and people leaving flowers here and there. And it’s all personal. But it’s become in its own way its own cult. It is a way people involve themselves in the story. You know when I first ran into this and actually identified what it was. After the death of Princess Diana all the people on the parade route and all the people depositing flowers, and it was George Will on TV who said, “You know, these are just people that want to be in the story,” and it was a really pithy comment, forerunner comment to social media. People inserting themselves in the story, feeling like they were part of it, “Look, there’s my bouquet. I put that bouquet there, see that?” As the funeral procession goes by.
But it didn’t matter to anything. It may make the person engaging in the symbolism feel better, but what does that accomplish? “Are you against people feeling good? Are you against people participating?” They’re not participating. That’s my whole point. There isn’t any participation here. We have runaway, murderous terror, and all of this symbolism in the world saying you’re a good person isn’t gonna stop any of it. If symbolism’s all it took, what kind of symbols could have beaten the Germans at Normandy? It’s absurd. And I can hear some of you, “Why are you being so mean? People care. They just want to show their support.” I know they just want to show their support, that’s all fine and dandy, but I think it’s worse because I think people think they’re actually mattering, and it becomes a substitute for action, and action is what’s necessary in something like this.
All the outpourings of sympathy and so forth, a bunch of pieces have been written about this as well, too, about how it better lead to action, if it’s going to mean anything. Symbolism is part of political correctness. Symbolism, it’s faux involvement. I think it’s all part of, frankly, the American college experience. It’s like political correctness, in a way. Oh, and, by the way, another one of these student leaders has been exposed as a total, 100 percent liar. The young woman that went on Cavuto’s show the other day, Keely Mullen or something? We’ve got the audio sound bite coming up. Just like this Jonathan Butler kid at the University of Missouri, she comes from a multimillionaire father background. It’s stunning, the level of dishonesty and the deceit, coupled with all of this political correctness, which leads people to think they’re actually accomplishing something when they aren’t. It’s bad education.
Robert, Bowling Green, Kentucky. I’m glad you called, sir. Welcome to the EIB Network as you’re up first today. Hello.
CALLER: Well, thank you, Rush. Privilege to speak to you.
RUSH: Thank you very much, sir. Appreciate that.
CALLER: Appreciate what you do. Thank you for specifically putting blame where blame belongs on the situation in the Middle East. As our President Obama left Iraq, he received a victorious situation, abandoned it, and now we have a mess. I hear George Bush blamed all the time. We’ve had that for seven years. He had victory. My son was a part of that victory. So it’s particularly personal when I hear this happen and blame. My son made it back fine. There were a lot that didn’t. And so it’s not a moot point. It’s still a very sensitive point. We did free Iraq, by the way. It was a successful mission. And then this guy dropped the ball.
RUSH: Well, they were having free elections. It was a stable place, and Obama refused to keep a certain number of US troops there to maintain what we had won, under a bogus interpretation of the Iraqi status-of-forces agreement. Obama claimed, “I’m not leaving our troops there. I’m not leaving our troops there when they can be tried by some international court for war crimes.” It was all made up. The Iraqis were not insisting on being able to try American troops at an international tribunal. Obama just wanted out of there. He ran for the presidency on the basis that a whole war was corrupt and that Bush was corrupt and it was a stupid thing to do, we had to get out of there. He had to get out just like he has to close Gitmo, the same difference, to appease his base. Not only that, he really believes it, too.
But I’m just telling you, they’re setting up, that press conference today and everything Obama has said since Friday has been because it’s a presidential election year coming up, and all of this, mark my words, in specific, they’re planning how to blame all of this on George W. Bush. I mean, that’s go-to. That turns out Democrat voters. That ramps up the base. Make no mistake. But ISIS and all of this is because Obama abandoned the region when he took office.
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