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RUSH: Let’s get to Benghazi. Let’s pick up where we left off yesterday. Let’s go to the audio sound bites starting at number nine. Andrea Mitchell last night on the NBC Nightly News gave a report about the new hearings this week on the Benghazi attacks. The hearings will feature testimony by the whistleblowers who say essentially there was a cover-up of what really happened. You’ll hear Hillary in this bite. In fact, the whole thing is told through the prism of Hillary Clinton and how the Republicans are attacking her. That’s the focus of Andrea Mitchell’s report here. But it sounds like she’s a hostage here being forced to read this.

MITCHELL: Republicans are gearing up for hearings this week with new State Department witnesses they say will undercut Hillary Clinton’s explanation of what went wrong in Benghazi. House Republicans released an interview with Gregory Hicks, at the time the Deputy Chief of Mission, who said he called for military help from four more Special Forces operatives in Tripoli, but was overruled. For months Republicans have charged cover-up. Hillary Clinton took the blame, but also pushed back.


HILLARY: What difference, at this point, does it make? It is our job to figure out what happened and do everything we can to prevent it from ever happening again.

MITCHELL: But now House Republicans say they have State Department witnesses who can prove Clinton covered up. There is an obvious political undercurrent. Republicans are taking direct aim at Hillary Clinton, the country’s most popular Democrat and a possible presidential contender.

RUSH: Did it sound like Andrea’s heart’s in that? I mean, it sounds like she is being forced to read this, like they almost did this in a perfunctory way. She didn’t even seem to have all that much sympathy for Hillary. She was just reading it. “There’s an obvious political undercurrent. Republicans are taking direct aim at Hillary Clinton, the country’s most popular Democrat and a possible presidential contender.” She’s more popular than Obama? That’s quite a statement.

This morning on Fox News Channel Fox & Friends, the co-host Brian Kilmeade interviewed a former Secret Service agent, Dan Bongino, and during a discussion about this new whistleblower testimony on the Benghazi attacks Kilmeade said, “Okay, tomorrow there’s gonna be the testimony, and right away those people that are coming forward and saying, ‘I requested more security. I requested we get some help.’ We had assets in the area to help. Once the attack started, it lasted between seven and nine hours, and the help never came and their credibility is being questioned today.”


BONGINO: I mean, there’s really no issue here. There’s only one of two possible scenarios that could have happened, the first being this is the most incompetent administration in American history and just had no comprehension of the danger on the ground. Or, they did comprehend the danger on the ground and ignored it for political reasons. Brian, there’s no choice C. It’s only A or B, that is it.

RUSH: We talked about this yesterday, folks. We had a guy call about this. That’s Dan Bongino, by the way, a former Secret Service agent, on Fox this morning. We talked about this. We had a call yesterday, and the guy said, “Rush, do they not care that four people died?” I said, “No, no, no, no.” They care. It’s not that they didn’t. They didn’t want four people to die.”

I just said, “There are things more important to them,” and this guy has it exactly right.

There are two and only two possible scenarios, the first being that they’re just incompetent and don’t know what they’re doing, or they did comprehend the danger on the ground and ignored it for political reasons. Both of those are true. You don’t have to pick one or the other. Both of those things are true. I’ll just repeat this again. People, I think, have a tough time understanding this. I wish people didn’t, because this is the explanation.


They believe, folks… Now, not all of them. In every group of leftists you’re gonna have leaders, followers, dolts, dupes, useful idiots, manipulators. They were all there. It’s not monolithic. But when you get to people like Obama and everybody in his administration and the suck-ups who are there to make sure he only hears good news, they really believed… Don’t doubt me on this. They really believed the world hated this country because of George W. Bush. They really did.

They thought that the world and terrorists, our enemies, really hated us because of Iraq and because of Afghanistan — and a certain number of them actually thought that the terrorists on 9/11 were justified because of our policies, that we do provoke these people. They also believed that, when Obama became president, all that hate would vanish and it would turn to love and respect once again for the United States. They believe this stuff about themselves!

Then Obama goes to Cairo to try to cement that notion. “Okay, I’m here now! You can love us again, and you can respect us again. Because we’re not gonna do anything to provoke you. We love you!” He was on his world apology tour shortly after being immaculated. So then when something like this in Benghazi happens, they’re caught flat-footed. It doesn’t jibe. There really is a messianic complex at play here, and they don’t understand it when it happens.

So the first thing in their minds that precipitated this was the protests in Cairo. They think that’s what got it all started, and that was just a ragtag bunch of publicity seekers — and they blamed that on the video. Then Benghazi happened a few hours later, and they told themselves, “Eh, it’s just the same bunch of people doing what they were doing.” But they were told otherwise by the people on the ground in Libya, and they didn’t believe it. They chose not to believe it.

And if they did believe it, if I am wrong, then the incompetence explanation comes into play and they simply didn’t know what to do. But you also cannot ignore the fact that at the time we had killed bin Laden. I’m sorry! Obama had killed bin Laden. He was bragging about it, and at the same time was saying that terrorism was over, that Al-Qaeda was on the run. We can go back and get you the sound bites if you want. I mean, they were saying these kinds of things.

So politically — after Obama Killed Osama, after Al-Qaeda’s on the run, after we beat terrorism back and the world once again loves us — this can’t be happening. I mean, that’s a direct repudiation of Obama! These people are supposed to love us now. These people are supposed to leave us alone now! Because we don’t constitute a threat to them anymore, ’cause Bush is gone. They can’t understand that these people hate America not because of George Bush. They hate America because America’s what it is.

But they believe, since they hated Bush and they blame Bush (this is their hubris and ego) that everybody else did, too. So when this happens, they’re generally discombobulated. But the most important thing to them always is their agenda. And part of the agenda is protecting the good name of and the reputation of liberalism/socialism (whatever you want to call their ideology) at all cost. You want evidence of that? Dan Rather. He runs a totally bogus, made-up story on Bush and the National Guard.

What did they do?

They circled the wagons around Dan Rather to protect him. CBS let him go, but Brokaw and Jennings had numerous awards dinners for Dan Rather. They had to protect the news business. They were not gonna allow Rather and what he did to soil the entire news business. So they propped Rather up as a means of propping up the news business, journalism, their view of it. It’s no different with Obama and his agenda. When the agenda takes a hit, it can’t be the agenda taking a hit.

It’s got to be something else. It was the video. It was the world hated Bush, or what have you. So this happens and they were saying, “Oh, my God, w-w-w-what happened?” They try to ignore it and hope it’s not gonna be bad. Some of you ask, “Well, why not defend these people?” That would mean accepting that what was happening was an attack on the United States, and that simple couldn’t be happening! They were loved again. The terrorists had been tamed. Folks, it really is simple.

Sometimes the most simple explanation is the most difficult to believe.

Now, they continued lying about Benghazi for it two reasons. Not just to protect Obama’s reelection and Obama’s agenda, but the Democrat Party’s winning in the future, which would mean 2016, which would mean Hillary. Most of this, when you look back on it with 20/20 hindsight, is to protect Hillary, because that’s where the real ineptitude was. Obama farmed it all out to the State Department. That’s where either the incompetent people running that shop or the lack of comprehension of the danger on the ground — a combination of two — that’s where it was really focused.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: Dan Bongino, again, on Fox this morning with Brian Kilmeade. He’s the former Secret Service agent who said, “Look, you either have an incompetent bunch or they didn’t comprehend the danger on the ground in Benghazi and ignored it for political reasons. It’s either one of those two. There’s no third option,” and he’s right. So Kilmeade said, “Well, then-Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta said, ‘It’s not my job to put my guys into an unsettled situation even if they are Special Forces.’ What’s your reaction to that?”

BONGINO: Really? Would they say the same thing for the president? “Don’t worry, guys. Stand down until we figure out what happened, until a body gets dragged out of there”? This is a disgrace. It’s a nonsense statement. He should be embarrassed.

RUSH: That’s a former Secret Service agent talking about Leon Panetta, who did say, “It’s not my job to put my guys into an unsettled situation, even if they are Special Forces.” Look, folks, it is now abundantly clear that this regime wasn’t going to do anything about Benghazi. Before they learned how bad it was, in the middle of it, and when they learned how bad it was, they still weren’t gonna do anything about it.

Well, my God! Panetta essentially said, “The bad guys are firing guns over there! There’s bullets flying around! I’m not gonna put my Special Ops guys in the middle of that.” What are they trained for? What’s the purpose? So Bongino is right. Okay, so we just let the dead bodies pile up and then we put ’em in there. It’s breathtaking. Speaking of all this, let’s go around the world here, folks, under Mrs. Clinton’s tenure.

Iran? North Korea threatening us? Russia? Do you remember that silly red reset button that she had with Putin to “reset” relations with Russia? She even had the translation of the word “reset” wrong during that ceremony! Now the Russians are flying threatening missions near Alaska with their nuclear bombers. They’re taunting us — fearlessly, I might add.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: All of the regime’s excuses for Benghazi boil down to this: “What’s all the hubbub about?” they’re asking. “Nobody coulda gotten there on time. We couldn’ta gotten the Special Ops in there in time. We couldn’ta gotten anybody else in there on time.” Hey, regime people? You had people on the ground who went over there to try to save lives, even after being told to stand down! This idea…

Their excuses really do boil down to the excuse that nobody coulda gotten there on time. Four people died. Three people died trying to save the ambassador! They were there; they were told to stand down! Former SEALs were told to stand down, and yet they’re offering this excuse, “Nobody coulda gotten there in time.” There are lots of problems with that excuse. One of them is, as I say, there were already people there who were willing to put their lives on the line and did.

In addition, at the time of the request, nobody knew how long this attack was gonna continue. What do you mean, we couldn’t get anybody there in time? The thing went on for nine hours! Of course we coulda gotten people there from Italy. Besides, as Greg Hicks, one of the whistleblowers and others have pointed out: Jet fighters could have made it to Benghazi pretty quickly and their presence might have been enough to scatter the attackers. Just their presence.

In any case, what would have been the harm in sending in Special Ops, even if they had been too late? Why do we even have rapid response teams, if they can’t reach someplace in the Middle East within eight hours on the anniversary of 9/11 and if it’s one of our consulates? These excuses are made for a sympathetic media, which is looking for anything they think they can sell. “Well, nobody coulda gotten there on time. Everybody was really working really hard.”

Really?

How about Obama’s priorities?

He didn’t make any calls during this attack on the consulate. Nobody yet knows where he was for, what is it, five or six hours? The last anybody heard from Obama was at five p.m. on that day. He didn’t make any calls, he didn’t ask anybody to fill him in on anything, but he can’t wait to call Jason Collins. Oh, yeah! Oh, he’s all over calling Jason Collins, and he calls anybody else that he thinks is sticking it to the right so he can be shown standing up for them.

But when it comes to making a call of inquiry to stand up for his own military personnel at a consulate, he was nowhere to be found. Now, at some point, folks, this stuff catches up with a president. At some point even amongst low-information people, this kind of stuff — these little things — start catching up. It’s obvious that Obama’s priorities are disastrous. It could well be that Obama himself is among the low-information voters. He could be one of them.

It’s like Mr. Bongino said. “Where’s the competence? I haven’t seen a lot of competence, frankly.” You want to know the truth? Obama has yet to demonstrate that he is particularly smart or competent in things that matter. He certainly doesn’t learn from history or his own mistakes. I mean, how smart do you have to be, how informed do you have to be to be a committed leftist? You don’t have to be smart at all! You have to be a follower. How informed do you have to be?

All you do is follow a certain course stubbornly. Nothing else matters. Liberalism is not an intellectual pursuit. Liberalism isn’t taught intellectually. Liberals who manipulate others into following ’em don’t do so intellectually. There’s no great intellect. I’ve often said that liberalism is the easiest, most gutless choice anybody can make. Liberalism is faux compassion, faux concern, faux caring, and hatred of conservatives — and that’s it.

It’s like global warming. Facts do not matter. In fact, facts get in the way of liberalism. Facts blow liberalism to smithereens. That’s why they can’t be discussed. Global warming? Facts don’t matter. It’s a hoax, but it’s a vehicle to advance the agenda. That’s all it is. Facts be damned. Endless spending? Endless deficits? You just pretend they don’t matter! You just pretend they’re not a factor. I’m not saying he’s not an ideologue.

I’m just saying that… You know, these people on the left, they love to talk about how brilliant and smart and elitist they are, and how dumb and stupid and slow-headed people like George W. Bush are. I have yet to see this vast intellect demonstrated on the part of leftists. They do stupid things! I’ve often said, “If liberalism equals intelligence and smart, we’re gonna have to redefine ‘smart.'” How smart is anything Obama’s doing?

Where is the smart in his health care reform law? Where is smart/intelligence in his stimulus spending, which doesn’t stimulate anything but government growth? None of what he’s doing is smart! He’s simply following a course. He’s a committed leftist. Nothing else matters. Nothing that he’s doing is working. By his own definition! He claims he wants to create jobs. He’s not doing one thing that results in that. He’s doing the exact opposite.

Yet people in the media and people on the left marvel at Obama’s superior intellect, and they tell us, “He’s so smart, the job bores him.” They said that about Hillary: Smartest Woman in the World! Somebody give me the evidence of the intelligence of these people. Benghazi? What was smart about any of this? I tell you, folks, I think we are surrounded by myths, storytelling, image-making, posturing, spin, you name it — and it’s all oriented around how vastly intellectually superior they are to all of us.

Obama would be lost in a world of self-reliance.

Obama would be lost in a world of free enterprise.

He resents it too much!

Yet 30% or 40% of the people in this country think that there’s only one guy qualified to fix what’s wrong in health care: Barack Obama. What experience does he have? Ditto anything else. Yet all of the people in these various industries who are experts, who spent their lives at it, who’ve been educated and routinely work in it such as oil, retail, whatever? They don’t know diddly-squat. Obama has all the answers. Obama and the liberal Democrats, they’ve got all the answers.

What was smart about Hillary’s testimony in Benghazi?

(Hillary impression) “What difference does it make now?”

Yeah, Hillary Clinton! Smartest World in the World, they said back in the nineties. (Hillary impression) “Yes, there’s a vast right-wing conspiracy that arranged for Monica Lewinsky to be hired and a vast right-wing conspiracy which manipulated Monica Lewinsky into pizza delivery at the Oval Office. A vast right-wing conspiracy resulted in her pulling down my husband’s zipper. A vast right-wing conspiracy sent my husband and Monica Lewinsky after the pizza delivery into a study or a bathroom off the Oval Office.”

She said this, effectively, on the Today Show!

The vast right-wing conspiracy made all that happen.

This isn’t smart! But… (interruption) Which temper tantrum? What…? (interruption) Not here she didn’t shut down the criticism. You mean when she said, “What difference does it make now?” You know, it’s a different thing when you talk about Republicans in Congress being intimidated by liberals. How smart’s that? (imitating Hillary) “What difference it make now?” I mean, if that works in shutting our guys up, it’s not Hillary —

(interruption)

It doesn’t matter. What difference does it make now? Four people are dead. What difference does it make? Okay, let’s just cancel these hearings coming up. Washington Post: “Special Ops Halted from Responding to Benghazi Attacks, US Diplomat Says — As the weakly protected U.S. diplomatic compound in eastern Libya came under attack the night of Sept. 11, 2012, the deputy head of the embassy in Tripoli 600 miles away sought in vain to get the Pentagon to scramble fighter jets over Benghazi in a show of force that he said might have averted a second attack on a nearby CIA complex.”

The Washington Post is saying it this way.

“Hours later, according to excerpts of the account by the U.S. diplomat, Gregory Hicks, American officials in the Libyan capital sought permission to deploy four U.S. Special Operations troops to Benghazi aboard a Libyan military aircraft early the next morning. The troops were told to stand down.”

So Special Ops was halted from responding. I’m not gonna waste time telling you why all this happened. I just did. John Bolton says that the Benghazi scandal could be the final “hinge point” that brings down the regime. He said this to NewsMax. “This could be the hinge point. It’s that serious for them.” I don’t know that I subscribe to that. I don’t know that it would bring ’em down. It’s too soon to say on that, but I guarantee you none of this was supposed happen. The video, the filmmaker, all of that was supposed to prevent this from happening. Everybody was supposed to be satisfied and accepting of that explanation, and we move on.

After we had dutifully performed the memorial ceremony for the ambassador and the three other Americans who died, after the liberals had shown everybody how much they care, and how sad they were, we were supposed to feel sorry and satisfied that they did their best and we move on. What’s happening this week with the whistleblowers wasn’t supposed to happen, but it is.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: One more thing about this Benghazi stuff, because the fireworks are gonna start tomorrow. But in a sane and normal era or world — and I mean this, folks, from the bottom of my substantial and loudly beating heart (Ba-boom! Ba-boom!) — what happened in Benghazi would finish the public career of Hillary Clinton. Any secretary of state, any secretary of defense who in supposedly peacetime — peacetime they wanted us to believe existed! We all know we’re not at peace with Al-Qaeda.

They tried to make everybody believe we’re at peace. They had taken care of this enemy. They had killed bin Laden. They had gotten rid of Bush. They had made us loved and respected again. Four Americans dead, and not an effort made to save them. In any other administration, any other time, any other era, whoever was in charge of that and allowed that to happen and then offered the excuse, “Well, what difference does it make now?” or “Well, we couldn’ta gotten there in time,” would have been gone.

They would have been publicly humiliated and gone.

Instead, we’re being told how this is the Smartest Woman in the World and she is gonna be our next president. I’m sorry, this doesn’t wash with me. And this is a sign, an indication to me of how corrupt our national political system has become. It’s just a shame — and if you stop and think about it, it becomes much more than a shame. It becomes infuriating and frustrating. I want to play one more sound bite. Grab sound bite number 24. Lindsey Graham this afternoon on Happening Now on the Fox News Channel.

Jon Scott, the host, said to Senator Graham, “Gregory Hicks, who was the number two State Department official in the country that night says he was trying to get the Defense Department to scramble fighter jets to at least over fly the compound and make some noise, maybe scare to people off,” maybe intimidate them — and we wouldn’t even do that! “The administration seems to have indicated that that would have been sort of a breach of international protocol.”

They have said that: Well, we couldn’t publically humiliate the Libyans by indicating they couldn’t control their country. They did say that! “But we violated Pakistani air space to get Osama bin Laden.” Why couldn’t we do it to save four American lives?

GRAHAM: That’s a ridiculous excuse, and the idea they couldn’t get there in time is puzzling because they did not tell us when they attacked the consulate how long the attack would last. So I asked Dempsey and Panetta, “At the time you were made aware of the attack on the consulate, did you know when it would be over?” This coulda went for days. So the idea they didn’t scramble the jets because they couldn’t get there in time defies common sense, and if this is the excuse given — we don’t want to violate Libyan airspace — that’s ridiculous. I’d hate to be serving in some volatile region of the world if that’s gonna be American policy, because nobody will ever have your back.

RUSH: Exactly right.

But this idea that we didn’t want to offend the Libyans? They did. They threw everything up against the wall, including this phantom video and filmmaker who had the whole Arab world up in arms. That didn’t happen. And they did say, “Well, it would have been humiliating to send our military in there against the wishes of the Libyan government. They didn’t want us to go in there and we’re trying to forge new relationships. We just got rid of Khadafy.”

Yeah, you think that might be a factor, too? (sigh) If this had happened in Great Britain, these people would resign. If it happened in Japan, these people would resign. They have a sense of honor. In this country, they would have been forced to resign in the old days, in a normal, sane sense. But, no! We’re gonna circle the wagons and we’re gonna lie about it and we’re gonna say that this is the next president of the United States. I’m sorry. I had to get that off my chest.

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