RUSH: The president has delayed until 2007 his plans on Iraq. The White House made this announcement yesterday, and of course Tony Snow said this is not going to happen until the new year. He decided that, frankly, it’s not ready yet. The president trying to consolidate conflicting advice on how to change course in Iraq where sectarian violence blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, spiraled out of control. That’s not at all what is happening here. I mean, I don’t know what’s happening, but my instincts, I trust my instincts, and I think there is a giant “screw you” coming.
I’m going to go on record — well, I’ll not officially predict it, but I’m going to tell you that when this announcement on what we’re going to do — I mean, all you gotta do is read the tea leaves here. I’ve been reading them since after the election. There isn’t a military personal out there in the world that the president is listening to that’s saying get out, there’s not a military person in the world that says, “Yeah, we can get out by 2008, or we should get out by 2009 or we get out by 2007.” They’re saying just the opposite of this, folks. And now the Saudis have shown up, “Hey, if you get out of there it’s going to lead to a bloodbath and we will have no choice but than to support the Sunnis over there.” So I think this explains Cheney’s trip.
You know, I was wondering, what was Cheney doing over there the weekend after Thanksgiving? Saudi Arabia has told the Bush administration it might provide financial backing to Iraqi Sunnis in any war against Iraq Shi’ites if the US pulls its troops out of Iraq. King Abdullah, Saudi Arabia, conveyed that message to president Cheney two weeks ago during Cheney’s whirlwind visit to Riyadh. Yeah, I’m sure Cheney didn’t go because he was summoned by the king of Saudi Arabia in order hear the message. I’m more interested in what we told them. Anyway, Abdullah also expressed strong opposition to diplomatic talks between the United States and Iran. I’m telling you what’s happening here, the Drive-By Media knows it, and they are in a tizzy, they are beside themselves, they want the Baker-Hamilton report codified, they want it to be the central theme of this new Bush strategy, and the Baker-Hamilton report is dead on arrival, and the president’s already given that indication in so many words.
The Baker-Hamilton report is the result of the Drive-By Media’s three-year war against the war in Iraq and the war on terror, and they got what they wanted in that report. Cut-and-run, pull out, involve our enemies, and really humiliate Bush and really humiliate the United States of America as a prelude and setup to the 2008 presidential election. The president of the United States probably has never been more alone. Tony Blankley a piece today in the Washington Times making this observation, and I bet he’s right. Probably has never been more alone than any president in wartime than President Bush is today. Delaying this until 2007, I think that’s the first part of the “screw you.” I’m president, I’m commander-in-chief, and I’m going to do this on my timetable, and it’s very serious, and I’m not going to hustle a new policy and a new letter to you just because you want it when you want it so you can crucify me. There’s not another person that’s going to be crucified this Christmas season.
I’m not joining your parade, he’s saying. I’ll speak to you in plenty of time in January. In the meantime, little hints of what’s going on. Los Angeles Times: “Pentagon’s Plan: More U.S. Troops in Iraq — As President Bush weighs new policy options for Iraq, strong support has coalesced in the Pentagon behind a military plan to “double down” in the country with a substantial buildup in American troops, an increase in industrial aid and a major combat offensive against Muqtada Sadr, the radical Shiite leader impeding development of the Iraqi government. … The approach overlaps somewhat a course promoted by Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz). But the Pentagon proposals add several features, including the confrontation with Sadr.” Then the Washington Post today: “Army, Marine Corps To Ask for More Troops.”
In general, it doesn’t seem to me, ladies and gentlemen, like any aspect of the Iraq Surrender Group report is even being considered here by the military. Of course, why would the military people consider it? There was nothing having to do with military strategy or victory other than cut-and-run and pull the troops out in 2008 in the whole Iraq Surrender Group report. The media is beside itself. They thought they had the president defeated on this. Look it, I’m just guessing about what he’s going to do, but if you read between the lines and the stitches on the fast ball like I can, doesn’t seem like the media is going to be happy here.
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RUSH: I’ve mentioned to you the media is in a tizzy over this. Let’s go the audio sound bites, #16, Ed. We have a montage of people from ABC and NBC and CBS talking about the president’s announcement that he’s going to delay his new policy until next year.
CLAIRE SHIPMAN: Now a twist. The president’s new Iraq plan won’t be unveiled until next year.
DIANE SAWYER: …postponing the big speech. Why?
MEREDITH VIEIRA: He planed to reveal his new way forward, but now there has been a delay.
KELLY O’DONNELL: The president is buying some time.
JULIE CHEN: A delay in the president’s new Iraq strategy.
BILL PLANTE: For a couple of weeks now the White House has been saying that the president would announce his new way forward before the end of the year. All of a sudden, that announcement has been put off.
RUSH: Yeah, and especially upset is the New York Times. They’re very agitated in their editorial this morning that the president is taking his time before reporting to the nation on Iraq. The reason for it is that they, the rest of the Drive-By Media, wanted to muscle through the Iraq Surrender Group report, and they know that the more time passes, the more the Baker-Hamilton report will lose altitude. I think it’s already dropping like a rock with no parachute. I think it’s destined to implode on impact. The fear over there at the New York Times is that the worst elements of the Baker-Hamilton plan will not be the White House’s, they will not adopt them, and it’s becoming a crushing realization. I think the same thing has hit home to the terrorists over there, and they are trying to do what they did prior to the election, ramp up the violence, trying to intimidate the president into getting out of there.
They think they will succeed because they’ve got the American people on their side. That’s how they’re interpreting the elections. So if they just continue to kill and maim innocent people for no reason whatsoever outside of the terms of warfare, they think the American people, aided and abetted by the Drive-By Media, will start howling and protesting so much that the president will have no choice but than to get out. Now, I just want to make one observation here, and I’m not saying it means a lot, but everybody is talking about how the Iraq war has now become Vietnam, the Democrats, the liberals are talking about this. Well, you know, I was alive during the Vietnam War, and I remember what anti-war sentiment looked like.
They were blowing up bank buildings in Los Angeles; they were throwing rocks, they were kidnapping heiresses, there was all kinds of chaos and mayhem and civil and uncivil disobedience going on. There were hundreds of thousands of people marching all over this country, demanding this and demanding that. The students were going nuts. Even the anti-war crowd is a bunch of pacifists these days when it comes to expressing their anger. I don’t see any of these protests. And they’ve tried. They tried during the campaign to gin ’em up, 25 cities nationwide, grand total, 25,000 people, yip yip yip yahoo. The illegal immigrants were able to get more people to participate in their protests than the anti-war crowd was. So everybody’s of the opinion that all we gotta do is just continue to ramp up public pressure. Well, I got news for the terrorists. We are in the Christmas season in this country.
I’ve gotten some e-mails from some of you, by the way, I wanted to comment on this. It, frankly, is one of the things that led me to the overall theme of today’s busy broadcast. It’s not a lot of people, but some people are sending me e-mails saying, “Rush, this just doesn’t feel like Christmas. It has nothing to do with the weather or any of that, has nothing to do with the decorations in the stores or whatever. It just doesn’t feel like Christmas,” and they’ve thought about it, and they’ve thought about it, and they’ve concluded it’s because nobody’s happy.
At least the portrayal of the country in the Drive-By Media is utter chaos and misery and despair and anger. The trees coming down in Seattle, then going back up, the Muslims demanding that they be treated fairly before they fly over to Mecca or else. The flying imams raising hell on US Airways, on purpose. The atheists out there demanding that church bells be silenced, and it’s got people somewhat perplexed and down, but I think this effort to gin up more anti-war fervor among the American people in the next three weeks — he’s just delaying this speech ’til next month — is a loser, because most people, frankly, are going to do what they can to try to get into the holiday spirit and the Christmas spirit in this country, what with family time coming up and so forth. At least that’s what I’m hoping, that’s where my faith in the American population is.
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