RUSH: Here is Obama answering the question from Rick Warren, ‘What’s the most significant…? Let me ask it this way: What’s the most gut-wrenching decision you ever had to make and how did you process that to come to that decision?’
OBAMA: The opposition to the war in Iraq was, uh, as tough a decision as I’ve had to make. Um, not only because there were political consequences, but also because, uh, Saddam Hussein was a real bad person. Uh, aaand there was no doubt that he meant America ill. So I — I — I agonized over that, and I think that questions of war and peace genuinely, uh, are — are so profound. All those questions surrounding the war have been very difficult for me.
RUSH: He didn’t even vote! He wasn’t even in the Senate at the time of this ‘gut-wrenching decision’! Furthermore, when he did get to the Senate, he voted a couple times for funding for his war that he so hated! Now, I’ll tell you, the Clintons were watching this Saturday night, and some of these other Democrats that were in the primaries earlier, and they were throwing things at their television sets. Because they had to vote on the war, and they all voted for it. Because back then, everybody knew the American people were for it. These people were pandering. They voted for it. And then in the ensuing months you’ll recall, from John Kerry, who ‘voted for it before he voted against it,’ to Biden to Hillary to all these people. Hillary’s the only one who did not apologize for her vote.
She tried to say a couple times she was ‘misled,’ but that didn’t fly, but she stuck with it because she knew that in order to be elected president after getting the Democrat nomination (if she did) she was going to have to have a strong backbone on national security. Obama got a free ride. He never voted on it, and he was able to isolate the position as ‘the only Democrat in the primaries who was opposed the war from the get-go,’ when he never had the responsibility of voting for it because he wasn’t even in the US Senate! It’s a boldfaced lie. Now, what does this tell us? This tells us, ladies and gentlemen, he believes the lies he tells himself. He got himself believing that what he thought when he wasn’t in the Senate was important, in terms of how his thought would impact the outcome of events nationwide. He was just in the Illinois Senate. He was not even in the United States Senate. He never cast a vote on the prospect of going to war, only to fund it for a couple times. Here’s what Senator McCain said to the same question.
MCCAIN: It was long ago in a prison camp in North Vietnam. My father was a high-ranking admiral. The Vietnamese came and said that I could leave prison early, and we had a code of conduct that said you only leave by order of capture. I also had a dear and beloved friend named Everett Alvarez who had been shot down and captured a couple years before me, but I wasn’t in good physical shape. In fact, I was in rather bad physical shape. And so I said no. Now, in interests of full disclosure, I’m very happy I didn’t know the war was going to last for another three years or so. (laughing) But I said no, and I’ll never forget sitting after my last answer and the high-ranking officer offered that slammed the door, and the interrogator said, ‘Go back to your cell. It’s going to be very tough on you now,’ and it was.
RUSH: One of the things that became clear in the forum on Saturday night was how much more of a life McCain has lived than Obama. Without, you know, being cognizant here of McCain’s political opinions, decisions, votes, the life that he has lived — and not just because of his age difference with Obama. The life that he has lived dwarfs Obama’s, which has basically been a silver spoon life of not a whole lot of substance.