RUSH: In the first place we’re making a big mistake by calling them the Somali pirates. These are not pirates. These are merchant marine organizers. They are using the same techniques that community organizers like ACORN and others in this country use. So from now on, to be totally purely accurate, the Somali pirates on this program — I’ll probably slip up a couple times and call ’em that — but they’re going to be known now as the merchant marine organizers.
JOHNNY DONOVAN: Live from the Southern Command in sunny south Florida via New York City, it’s Open Line Friday!
RUSH: Oh, yip yip yip yip yahoo. It’s our favorite day of the week. Actually, Monday is our favorite day of the week. We get to come back to work. But Friday ranks very close. For those of you new to the program, and there are millions of you, we do things a little differently on Friday. You might not notice if I didn’t tell you, but nevertheless we do. Monday through Thursday we take phone calls only about things that interest me, but on Friday we’ll take calls from anybody about anything. Essentially when we go to the phones on Friday, the callers, rank amateurs, own the content of this program. Here’s the telephone number if you want to be on the program. 800-282-2882. The e-mail address, ElRushbo@eibnet.com.
Look, the Somali pirates and community organizers, they shake down private sector businesses, the Somali pirates claim they don’t want to hurt anybody, although the captain did escape, but they recaptured him, and now they’re threatening violence. You gotta laugh. This is not funny. But you have to laugh at a bunch of community organizers in basically a lifeboat surrounded by US destroyers, which appear to be powerless. You have to laugh at this. All the merchant marine organizers want is money from evil capitalists with big boats, the same as the ACORN community organizers out of Chicago, the same as the community organizers harassing and protesting AIG executives in Connecticut and New York. And Obama doesn’t want to get his hands dirty with this. Reuters has a story lamenting, oh, it’s such an unfortunate distraction for our new president. He’s got so many big plans to save America, and then the merchant marine organizers show up, and it’s just an unfortunate distraction.
The brilliant John Kerry, who, by the way, served in Vietnam, is now going to conduct hearings, pirate hearings. They’re going to conduct hearings in the US Senate on the pirates and try to come up with a policy on this. TIME Magazine today: ‘It doesn’t help that Somalis have a marked aversion to foreign forces.’ Here is TIME Magazine’s description of the merchant marine organizers: ‘Fiercely conservative and suspicious of outsiders.’ So the Somali pirates, the merchant marine organizers are fiercely conservative. I just am surprised that TIME Magazine did not include in their report that the merchant marine organizers want President Obama to fail. That would have been the piece de resistance. Well, I don’t know if the merchant marine organizers are listening to this program on a pirate radio station, but there are radio stations all over the world that pirate this broadcast. Who knows, they may be tuning in.
Folks, I’ve got a picture here, it’s a blog called TheRoot.com, and this is a post by Dayo Olopade. It is a picture of yet another busy day at the White House. It’s a picture of Obama sitting in the White House South Lawn playground. They decided to get out of the White House to have their chat, the first chat since Obama got back from giving away the United States at the G20 meeting. Here, I’m going to zoom in on it with the Dittocam so you can see this thing. We’ll link to it at RushLimbaugh.com, but that’s as close as I can get. But that’s Obama there on the left with Mrs. Clinton behind the swing set there at a little picnic table there. ‘Another busy day at the White House,’ as Mrs. Clinton, secretary of state, discusses various things with President Obama regarding the merchant marine organizers.
Here’s this Reuters story: ‘Ragtag teams of modern-day Blackbeards are posing an annoying distraction for Barack Obama, forcing him to add Somalia to an already long list of foreign policy challenges.’ First North Korea, next Iran, and now the Somali pirates, the merchant marine organizers. ‘American presidents are told to expect the unexpected, and Obama is seeing that this week. First it was a North Korean test of a ballistic missile,’ about which nothing has been done. The reaction to Kim Jong Il’s launch of that missile is nothing but chirping crickets. Nothing’s been done. ‘Now comes a swashbuckling high-seas standoff with armed,’ merchant marine organizers. ‘Obama so far has sent US Navy ships to protect an American-flagged freighter that managed to repel a pirate attack but whose captain was taken hostage.’ It’s just so unfortunate, another distraction.
There’s a hilarious post at a blog called the Exurban League, and I want to read excerpts of this to you. This is just funny. ‘Obama Reaches Out to the ‘Moderate’ Pirate Community,’ is the headline here. This is Obama speaking. ‘Obviously, this incident has raised many concerns among Americans. There have been calls for justice and even violence against the misguided perpetrators. But such an emotional reaction has led to the disparagement of entire groups with which we are unfamiliar. We have seen this throughout history. For too long, America has been too dismissive of the proud culture and invaluable contributions of the Pirate Community. Whether it is their pioneering work with prosthetics, husbandry of tropical birds or fanciful fashion sense, America owes a deep debt to Pirates. The past eight years have shown a failure to appreciate the historic role of these noble seafarers. Instead of celebrating their entrepreneurial spirit and seeking to partner with them to meet common challenges, there have been times where America has shown arrogance and been dismissive, even derisive,’ of these merchant marine organizers. ‘Some of us wonder if our current Overseas Contingency Operation would even be needed had the last administration not been so quick to label Pirates as ‘thieves,’ ‘terrorists’ and worse. Such swashbucklaphobia can lead to tragic results, as we have seen this week.’ This is a parody of the way the White House would be looking at the pirate situation.
The New York Times is excited; the New York Times is enthralled. They have a story today headlined: ‘Standoff With Pirates Shows US Power Has Limits.’ Did you see that? The New York Times is excited that here we have a bunch of merchant marine organizers in basically a life raft, and they are surrounded by the armaments of the United States Navy and nothing can be done. ‘The Indian Ocean standoff between an $800 million United States Navy destroyer and four [merchant marine organizers] bobbing in a lifeboat showed the limits of the world’s most powerful military as it faces a booming pirate economy –‘ (laughing) A booming pirate economy because people are paying them the ransom! They’re no different than ACORN. They extort. They’re being paid the ransom, why would they stop? They really don’t want to harm anybody, just as ACORN doesn’t want to harm anyone, but if you push ’em too far like bring in your $800 million destroyer, then they may threaten to kill the captain.
So the New York Times revels here in this impotence. This destroyer could wipe out this little four merchant marine organizer life raft, it could vaporize it. We’re not powerless in the sense the New York Times means it. Where we are powerless is in the sense of our will, ladies and gentlemen. It’s just no more complicated than that. This is eventually going to get solved one way or the other. The standoff between the United States and the merchant marine organizers from Somalia will get solved. I want to predict to you the headline. Well, maybe not the headline, but the first words in the story will be something like this: ‘Thanks to the cool hand of President Obama,’ blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
Let’s go to some audio sound bites. Here’s Robert Gibbs, the most brilliant, educated, smartest, quickest, wittiest press secretary ever, they’ve told us, at the White House briefing room. Unidentified reporter, ‘Can you tell us about the president’s specific role over the last couple days. Has he been involved in the decision making on how to handle the [merchant marine organizers,] how the FBI and the Navy proceed, or does that not rise to the level of the president?’
GIBBS: The president has followed the situation closely, has gotten — got updates throughout yesterday and today, and obviously his main concern is for the safety of the captain and the rest of the crew on the ship. And he will continue to — to receive those updates. He’s staying apprised of the situation.
RUSH: Yeah, he’s staying apprised of it. He’s out there acting like an infomercial salesman trying to sell his new mortgage plan yesterday, keeping his distance here from the merchant marine organizers. But he’s keeping tabs on the situation. We’re all staying apprised of it, by the way. Obama’s not the only one staying apprised of it. We’re all staying apprised so we are all apparently acting presidential, as we are staying apprised of the situation with the Somali community organizer merchant marine organizers. Here’s David ‘Rodham’ Gergen last night on CNN. Anderson Cooper said, ‘Pressure like this is extraordinary. We got word the president is also talking about tackling immigration this year. Do you think he’s trying to do — we’ve asked this before, but it seems more important now than ever — is he trying to do too much?’
GERGEN: I don’t think he’s trying to do too much on the international front. I question whether they need to get him up in the middle of the night to tell him things when, you know, we knew the Iranian — I mean the North Korean test was coming, for example, I don’t think you have to get him up for pirates or something like that. I think those things can be handled in the morning. On the pirate question, Anderson, using Hillary Clinton out front and not Barack Obama —
COOPER: He didn’t want to — he didn’t want to take questions on it.
GERGEN: Yeah, I thought that was very smart. He doesn’t want to get in the middle of this. It’s messy. You know, the man’s life is at stake, and it’s extremely important how we handle that. But he doesn’t want to micromanage that situation. That’s what he’s got a government for.
RUSH: Really? Really? Really? So he is too busy. With all this minutia, he’s smart to let Hillary handle the pirates. Things like this not worth waking him up over, nor the North Korean launch. This is what he has a government for. Just like George Bush had a government to work with Katrina, right? Just like George Bush. By the way, has anybody seen the latest body count coming out of Iraq? I had not seen those. There used to be a daily running tally of body counts, deaths, injuries, and so forth in Iraq. I haven’t seen that. I’m sure that’s too distracting as well for Obama who’s busy selling a mortgage plan. Sorry, we’re talking about housing, we’re talking about housing, and the teleprompter doesn’t have anything up there on the merchant marine organizers so I really can’t say anything about it.
‘The chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee called for hearings on the mounting piracy threat –‘ by the way, well, I shouldn’t interrupt myself. I am still getting e-mails today from subscribers to my website over the fact that I lied to them about meeting with Obama. (laughing) What made me think of that is this is a story about Kerry and his hearings on this. ‘The chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee called for hearings on the mounting piracy threat as the fate of an American cargo-ship captain remained in limbo Thursday. ‘These acts of piracy off of Somalia’s coastline may seem surreal, but they’re all too real and a thorough policy debate is long overdue,” said the haughty John Kerry, who once served in Vietnam. ‘I plan to hold hearings to further examine the growing threat of piracy and all the policy options that need to be on the table before the next fire drill becomes an international incident with big implications.’
Karl Rove is called a liar now. And Biden — I mean, why does anybody think Biden ever tells the truth? Here was a guy forced out of 1988 presidential campaign for plagiarism, copying a British MP named Neil Kinnock. And there are other examples. ‘Vice President Biden was less forthcoming about the unfolding drama when asked at an economic recovery meeting Thursday what the US was going to do about the pirates. ‘This is being worked on around the clock since this happened, and — but I’m not in a position, right now, to comment on it,’ Biden said as pool reporters were shown the door.’ But he did say Jim Jones was working round the clock on this. We’re working, I mean we’re working really, really hard, we’re working around the clock.