{"id":8853,"date":"2014-07-21T16:17:40","date_gmt":"2014-07-21T16:17:40","guid":{"rendered":""},"modified":"2014-07-21T16:17:40","modified_gmt":"2014-07-21T16:17:40","slug":"leftists_like_obama_and_kerry_don_t_think_the_united_states_has_the_moral_authority_to_confront_the_world_s_bad_guys","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rushlimbaugh.com\/daily\/2014\/07\/21\/leftists_like_obama_and_kerry_don_t_think_the_united_states_has_the_moral_authority_to_confront_the_world_s_bad_guys\/","title":{"rendered":"Leftists Like Obama and Kerry Don\u2019t Think the United States Has the Moral Authority to Confront the World\u2019s Bad Guys"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Listen<\/a><\/p>\n

RUSH: Well, President Obama just — well, what did he do? He told Putin he better let in the investigators. He better let in these international investigators, or else. He said, let \u2019em in there. Same thing he said on Friday. He said this is unacceptable, it\u2019s intolerable, what happened here, and called for other nations to ratchet up sanctions against Putin. <\/p>\n

I don\u2019t know, folks. It\u2019s hard not to be cynical here, but I don\u2019t know how else to react to this. I could not, in good conscience, open this program today by saying to you, “Well, I\u2019ll tell you what, the president of the United States really told Putin the way it\u2019s gonna be, really sent shock waves through Putin today, demanding that Putin come clean, fess up, let all of the people in to find out everything we need to know. Get those bodies back.” He didn\u2019t do that. <\/p>\n

I can\u2019t tell you that that\u2019s what the president did. He just continued what he said on Friday and there was nothing behind whatever anybody might want to consider a threat. And I think, for those people still having trouble understanding this, you know, there\u2019s been a lot of people over the weekend that went back — and we have it here, too, we\u2019ll have it for you coming up — examined the way Ronaldus Magnus reacted when the Russians shot down the Korean airliner, Flight 007, contrasting that to the way Obama has reacted to this. <\/line><\/p>\n

I think the tough thing for people to understand or accept is that Obama does not think that this really is any of our business. It wasn\u2019t American Airlines that was shot down. It happened over in Europe and, yeah, we\u2019ll do whatever we can to help the surviving families, but I just don\u2019t think that President Obama considers the United States to have sufficient moral superiority or leadership to be able to tell anybody else what they should and should not do. That\u2019s my take on it, anyway. Let\u2019s go to the audio sound bites just to sort of halfway illustrate this. <\/p>\n

First up, grab sound bite 23. We want to go to CNN\u2019s Newsroom today. Just before Obama spoke about the Russia-Ukraine conflict — and I find this interesting here — the chief international correspondent, Christiane Amanpour, interviewed Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko, and during the interview Poroshenko said he\u2019s getting tired of hearing these people called separatists.<\/p>\n

POROSHENKO: Please, Christiane, don\u2019t name these separatists. There is no separatist there. They are terrorists. They are killing innocent people and I think that they attempt to destroy the evidence.<\/line><\/p>\n

RUSH: Throughout the weekend I\u2019ve heard people talking about this who don\u2019t know what a separatist is from a joiner. They just hear the word bandied about on the media, “Oh, yeah, the separatists.”<\/p>\n

“What do you mean, separatists? What separatists?” I was asking people, “What separatists?” <\/p>\n

“Well, you know –“<\/p>\n

“No, no. What are the separatists separating from?” And they had no idea, they\u2019re just repeating. These are decent people, don\u2019t misunderstand. I\u2019m not talking about running into a pocketful of liberals. But I think this guy has a good point. We cover up exactly what\u2019s going on here by referring to them as separatists, meaning they\u2019ve got their own claim to independence and liberty and freedom, when this kind of behavior should never be tolerated and justified even within the confines of the rules of war during declared hostilities. <\/p>\n

Now, here\u2019s the president in Washington today on the South Lawn of the White House. He was scheduled to speak at 10:50, showed up a little late, as always. We have two sound bites; here\u2019s the first.<\/p>\n

OBAMA: Separatists are removing evidence from the crash site, all of which begs the question: What exactly are they trying to hide?<\/p>\n

RUSH: Yeah.<\/p>\n

OBAMA: Moreover, these Russian-backed separatists are removing bodies from the crash site, oftentimes without the care that we would normally expect from a tragedy like this. This is an insult to those who\u2019ve lost loved ones. This is the kind of behavior that has no place in the community of nations!<\/p>\n

RUSH: Yeah, but that\u2019s it. It has no place. This is “without the care that we would normally expect.” We\u2019re asking for the people who shot down 290 completely innocent people to exhibit care for the bodies after the tragedy? What is that? It\u2019s like Kerry. My gosh, what a disaster this is, and what a walking joke this secretary of state is. This is TheHill.com<\/a>:<\/p>\n

“Secretary of State John Kerry said Sunday that he will travel to the Middle East to attempt to broker a cease-fire between the Israeli military and Hamas. ‘I believe the president is asking me to go over very shortly to work on the cease-fire,\u2019 Kerry said on CNN…” What do you mean? You don\u2019t know? You think he\u2019s gonna ask you? You think it\u2019s coming? What, can you go on your own? <\/p>\n

As the secretary of state, can you decide things are bad enough that you need to go? And then he said… I mean, this is our diplomacy! This is what I mean by, “I think we\u2019ve got people in positions of power and leadership who do not believe that the United States has any moral authority. We\u2019re not better than anybody else. We\u2019re not leaders. We\u2019ve got our own problems; we have treated people in ill-gotten ways ourselves.<\/p>\n

We\u2019ve discriminated. We\u2019ve been mean. We\u2019ve engaged in our own form of domestic crimes, so who are we to tell these people that? We can\u2019t. I think that\u2019s the mind-set that many of our top leftist leaders have. They\u2019re laden with guilt about this country and because of that they don\u2019t feel that they\u2019ve got any moral authority to tell these other bad guys what they should and shouldn\u2019t do.<\/p>\n

So they\u2019ll go out there and they\u2019ll beg or plead or suggest that these guys do the right thing, and that\u2019s it. After that, they\u2019ve done their duty. They\u2019ve spoken up on the right side of the issue. “Kerry said a cease-fire is the only answer and called on Hamas,” are you ready for this? “to ‘step up and show a level of reasonableness\u2019 in negotiations.”<\/p>\n

This is the same guy… When nations and groups who\u2019ve been at war since the beginning of time continue to stay at war, John Kerry\u2019s reaction is, “Hey, this is the Twenty-First Century! When are you gonna get with it? This is not the way we do war in the Twenty-First Century. I don\u2019t know how to deal with you. Now, we just don\u2019t do this. We got Conflict Resolution 101, and we have a number of other things that I can throw out, but what is this war business?<\/line><\/p>\n

“You guys are gonna have to understand that this is the Twenty-First Century!” What does this mean? So now Hamas, he demands be reasonable? It\u2019s like Obama is asking the Russian terrorists who shot down the plane, “Come on, be reasonable! Let the families get to the bodies. Be reasonable.” What do they do? They\u2019re reaching out to their better instincts, trying to establish common bonds of humanity between us and the bad guys? <\/p>\n

“‘No country, no human being, is comfortable with children being killed,\u2019 [Kerry] said of Palestinian civilian deaths. ‘But we\u2019re not comfortable with Israeli soldiers dying either.'” Oh, thanks for throwing that in there. So, come on, Hamas, be reasonable! I keep thinking Hillary\u2019s “reset,” the cheap little plastic red button with Putin. Do you realize…? I hate it. Don\u2019t misunderstand. I think Putin is KGB and they\u2019re just laughing at all this or they\u2019re smiling. <\/p>\n

Lindsey Graham, Washington Examiner<\/a> yesterday: “Lindsey Graham Slams John Kerry For ‘Delusional\u2019 Defense of Obama Foreign Policy,” I guess as a guest on a Sunday TV show. “Sen. Lindsey Graham on Sunday called Secretary of State John Kerry\u2019s defense of President Obama\u2019s foreign policy ‘delusional\u2019 and criticized the administration for not taking a tougher stance against Russia.<\/p>\n

“‘It scares me that [Kerry] believes the world is in such good shape,\u2019 said the South Carolina Republican. ‘America is the glue that holds the free world together. Leading from behind is not working.'” See, I don\u2019t think they think that, folks. Honestly, I don\u2019t think that this crop of leftists in the White House, the State Department — hell, anywhere. I don\u2019t think they believe such things as, “America is the glue that holds the free world together.”<\/p>\n

I don\u2019t think they believe we have that moral authority. I think the reason why Obama doesn\u2019t, it\u2019s not that he\u2019s not capable of it; it\u2019s not that he\u2019s a coward. The reason he doesn\u2019t throw down the gauntlet to Putin… Well, there are two reasons. A, if he said or did anything even slightly more stringent than what he did today, then he\u2019d have to back it up with some action, and we know he\u2019s not gonna do that.<\/line><\/p>\n

I mean, if we\u2019re not gonna take action against Benghazi, if we\u2019re not gonna take action against Syria, we\u2019re not gonna take action here. So he\u2019s not gonna say anything that would automatically be followed by action or leadership. So, the power of word. Remember, these guys think their words change the world. These guys believe that this is a world governed by the aggressive use of speeches, when it is a world governed by the aggressive use of force — and force is gonna beat a speech every contest.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s what we\u2019re up against. They do not believe that we are the glue that holds the free world together. Hell, we\u2019re just another oppressor nation, maybe to a lesser degree than some of these other people, but, hey, we have no business preaching to anybody! We\u2019ve got our own problems. Look, this bunch early on in the Obama administration even admitted this to a ChiCom government liaison. <\/p>\n

We were upset about something the ChiComs were doing on a human rights issue, one of our mini-ambassadors. There was a meeting in Washington. I remember the generics but not the specifics, but the guy said to the ChiCom, “Look, we\u2019ve got no real reason to speak here. We\u2019ve got our own problems. We have created our own messes here. But…” I mean, they do believe this!<\/p>\n

And if you doubt that, if you don\u2019t believe me, just hearken back to how these people hate the concept of American exceptionalism. It\u2019s the same thing. “Graham rebuked Kerry for failing to call Russian President Vladimir Putin ‘the thug that he is.\u2019 As Kerry made several appearances on Sunday morning news shows, Graham said the secretary ‘gave the most ridiculous and delusional summary of American foreign policy I could imagine.'”<\/p>\n

Of course! It is ridiculous and delusional because underpinning it is the belief that we\u2019ve got no business telling anybody what\u2019s what. We\u2019re not in business condemning anybody else for what they do, or backing it up. Ladies and gentlemen, at the bottom of this piece Lindsey Graham practically channels what we said on this program back on March 6th at the start of the Ukrainian invasion. <\/p>\n

<\/a>Lindsey Graham said, “There\u2019s a battle of wills between the KGB colonel and the community organizer. And the colonel is winning.” I want to tell you… Here\u2019s what I said. I don\u2019t know that Lindsey Graham listen to the program, but back on March 6th of 2014, I said<\/a>, “So what we\u2019ve got here in the Ukraine, we have the KGB, a top KGB, not former, because no one ever leaves the KGB. <\/p>\n

“We have a top KGB officer, Vladimir Putin, versus a failed community organizer, Barack Obama. Who do you think is gonna come out on top on this? The KGB vs. ACORN. That\u2019s what we\u2019re witnessing. That\u2019s what Ukraine is.” Back in March, that is the way I characterized it. <\/line>Lindsey Graham did yesterday: “A battle of wills between a KGB colonel and the community organizer, and the colonel is winning.”<\/line><\/p>\n

He had to have heard that on this program. He had to. Who else would come up with this? Here\u2019s the second Obama bite just to dot the I and cross the T.<\/p>\n

OBAMA: We know that Russia has armed them with military equipment and weapons, including anti-aircraft weapons. Key separatist leaders are Russian citizens. So given its direct influence over the separatists, Russia and President Putin in particular has direct responsibility to compel them to cooperate with the investigation. That is the least that they can do.<\/p>\n

RUSH: Ooh. And Putin shakes and quakes in his boots. “So given the direct influence over the separatists, Russia and President Putin [have] direct responsibility make \u2019em cooperate, the investigation…” The least they could do is cooperate with it! I wish this were not the case, folks. I wish this were not circumstances under which all this happens and is analyzed and reported, but it is.<\/p>\n

BREAK TRANSCRIPT<\/p>\n

RUSH: Ladies and gentlemen, the Ukrainian president, Petro Poroshenko, has a point, calling these Russian invaders, these associates of Putin, calling them separatists is as dishonest as calling these illegal alien kids “migrants.” It\u2019s that kind of distortion. But I\u2019m wondering, what finally woke Obama up? Because all of this has been known about the Russians and Ukraine, ever since this all started. I mean, yeah, it\u2019s a shock and it\u2019s an outrage that they\u2019d shoot down a civilian airplane, but that\u2019s who these people are. <\/p>\n

You know, up until now, President Obama\u2019s practically been saying that both sides are at fault in the Ukraine, and this is exactly how conflict resolution experts deal with it. Everybody\u2019s at fault, everybody\u2019s guilty, some are more guilty than others, but everybody\u2019s guilty and can\u2019t we all just get along. If we understand that neither of us, none of us are perfect, we\u2019re all equal, everything\u2019s fine. He\u2019s acted like this is a real separatist movement, that the Russian speakers in eastern Ukraine have a legitimate gripe, \u2019cause everybody does, he thinks. <\/line><\/p>\n

Everybody\u2019s got a legitimate gripe. Nobody\u2019s got any moral authority. Nobody\u2019s got any superiority. Nobody\u2019s got a monopoly on right in their world. So the Russian speakers in Ukraine had a legitimate gripe. And for Kerry — I got some e-mails during the break, Mr. Snerdley, predictably so, these kind of e-mails depress me, but they\u2019re also a great opportunity. <\/p>\n

“Mr. Limbaugh, what\u2019s wrong with acting reasonable? What\u2019s wrong with the secretary of state asking people to behave reasonably? That makes perfect sense. Why not do that?” <\/p>\n

Well, let me give it a go. In order for Hamas to behave reasonably, you have to redefine “reason.” In Hamas\u2019 world, war is the constant and peace is the lull while you regroup. In Israel, peace is an objective for the rest of time, an end of war with victory and the presence of justice. But that\u2019s not how Hamas views the world. It\u2019s not how a Jihadist rules the world or looks at it. They look at life as war. They train for it; they raise their kids for it. Their entire existence is battle after battle after battle after battle, war after war after war, and it never ends. <\/p>\n

The Hamas charter pledges that it will destroy Israel by violent jihad. Yeah. How reasonable is that? That, to them, is reasonable. They hate the Jews. They hate Christians. They think the Jews are the biggest bunch of mess that the world has ever known, and the only way to fix the world is to get rid of all the Jews. And that, to them, is reasonable. So let\u2019s start there, Senator Kerry, or Secretary Kerry. That\u2019s their definition of reasonable, and their view of the world is constant war with little interruptions called peace where they regroup. <\/p>\n

But if that\u2019s where you\u2019re coming from, that your charter is to destroy Israel by violence, what could possibly be more reasonable than to wage violent jihad against Israel? They\u2019re being reasonable, Mr. Secretary. The unreasonable, irrational guys are the Kerrys and the Obamas and the Hillarys who keep getting surprised when violent people act violently. They are continually surprised when the bad guys are the bad guys and they don\u2019t get reformed and they stay bad guys. They think violence can only be caused by the Tea Party. <\/p>\n

BREAK TRANSCRIPT<\/p>\n

RUSH: Now, how about this story? This is the Washington Post: “In Russia, Everybody Loves Putin.” Do you know there\u2019s a Gallup poll of the Russian people and Putin\u2019s job approval is at 83%? That\u2019s up 30 points from last year: 83% of Russians approve of Putin\u2019s job performance. Now, I realize that some cynics would say, “Well, yeah, what if they say they disapproved? Do they get shot? After all, he\u2019s the KGB.” <\/p>\n

But he is stirring a nationalist pride in Russia. He\u2019s trying to reconstitute the Soviet Union, is what Putin is doing. Of course we, the United States, do not view ourselves as having any right to comment on that one way or the other. I mean, it\u2019s Putin\u2019s business, none of ours. What right do we have to tell Putin he can\u2019t do that? What right do we have? Now, sadly, I think a lot of people agree with that, in modern day America. <\/line><\/p>\n

How many generations have grown up being taught, educated, tempered, treated to the whole notion of moral equivalence? Which, the way it\u2019s currently taught is that the United States is no better than anybody else, and we have no right to tell anybody else what to do, and we have no business being concerned what happens in the rest of the world. It\u2019s none of our business!<\/p>\n

It\u2019s sort of an extension of the old saw that we can\u2019t be the world\u2019s policemen. See, this is one of the many areas that I think we dramatically need a reeducation program for the American people, particularly young people. Because what we\u2019re talking about is precisely what this country was in the world, precisely the kind of position this country occupied in the world. And it wasn\u2019t just that we demanded it. <\/p>\n

It wasn\u2019t that we were tyrants and ran around the world and demanded that everybody else respect us and treat us as the world\u2019s superpower and bow down and kiss our feet and look up to us. We didn\u2019t demand any of that; it happened. It happened naturally. It happened because we were — without doubt and without question — for most of the people in the world, the beacon of liberty and freedom. <\/p>\n

We did indeed have the moral authority to defend freedom and to liberate the oppressed anywhere in the world we found it necessary, particularly if our own national interests were at stake. We had all of that. It was a result of the natural outgrowth of this country\u2019s greatness. <\/line>We have never been led by tyrants that went around demanding that we be treated as kings and queens by the rest of the world. <\/line><\/p>\n

We never were treated as kings and queens.<\/p>\n

But the amount of respect — and fear — that was felt, that the rest of the world had for this country was real and it was genuine and it was born of reality. It was something that had been earned by virtue of our dominance for good. We fed the world. We clothed the world. We taught and educated the world. We were the place in the world that the oppressed looked to for assistance, for help, for being bailed out. <\/p>\n

It\u2019s just the way it was, and it was a direct result of our natural expansion and growth as a free society that held certain values and truths close. It was the very essence of goodness and decency that was triumphing. But in recent decades, we\u2019ve had an outgrowth of the point of view that none of that was warranted; that in fact we were oppressors, that in fact we were imperialistic, and that we did send our military out around the world.<\/p>\n

And we did put our jackbooted thugs on the necks of smaller countries and demand that they do what we wanted or else, and that there was nothing inherently better about us. The only thing that gave us this superiority was our military and our weapons of destruction and our ability to wantonly murder people. And this view became more and more popular. Because, frankly, it\u2019s easier, and one can sound very humble by saying, “Oh, I\u2019m no big deal.<\/p>\n

“Come on, you know? Nah-nah-nah. I\u2019m just some average, ordinary guy running around the world.” We as a nation have people that think that if we behave that way, that we somehow are establishing commonality with everybody else and that we\u2019re not better people. We admit that we\u2019re no different than anybody. We\u2019re no better and we got no right to tell anybody else what to do or how to do it. <\/p>\n

It\u2019s gonna be a tough thing to reeducate people on. Well, because, A, people are gonna consider it to be bragging if they\u2019re not properly instructed on the whole notion of geostrategy, geopolitics, America\u2019s place in the world and why that\u2019s important. This push for globalism is much the same thing. This push for globalism is really a disguised attempt to diminish the United States.<\/p>\n

This massive effort to link all the nations of the world as one through the United Nations is essentially an effort to cut the United States down to an appropriate size so that, A, it isn\u2019t any bigger or better, and that nobody in this country thinks that it is. “In fact, we could be a lot better. You know what? We could learn a lot from other parts of the world, like Europe.”<\/p>\n

Imagine, if you will, this kind of attitude, this kind of leadership all during the seventies and eighties when the Soviet Union was in fact a real superpower — at least militarily. Imagine not having leaders who believed that the Soviet Union was an immoral insult. Imagine not having leaders who thought the Soviet Union was a threat to free human beings everywhere, and that something had to be done about it.<\/p>\n

Imagine the Berlin Wall never coming down. <\/p>\n

Imagine there still being an East and West Germany.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s sort of like Dinesh D\u2019Souza\u2019s movie, America: Imagine the World Without Her<\/a>. I mean, that\u2019s where we\u2019re headed, and you can see it, folks. You can see this kind of worldview reflected in every speech Obama or Kerry gives on whatever. It\u2019s Israel and Hamas or it\u2019s the downed Malaysian jetliner or it\u2019s Benghazi or it\u2019s Syria. “I don\u2019t have time! It\u2019s none of my business. I\u2019m no better than Putin. <\/p>\n