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Obama: Low Character in High Office

by Rush Limbaugh - May 1,2012

RUSH: I’m gonna tell you something. This Obama character is showing everybody what low character in high office is all about. This spiking the football two days in a row, actually three, over getting Bin Laden. You know, there’s only one guy who said we shouldn’t go get Bin Laden. You know who it was? It was Biden. Vice President Biden. I have the story. It was an ABC News story, and it’s from January 30th of 2012: “Joe Biden Advised Against the Osama Bin Laden Raid.”

Not Mitt Romney. Not John McCain. Not Jimmy Carter. Joe Biden is the only guy that said: Don’t go get Bin Laden. And Obama’s out there ticking off everybody with this. So, you know, we are our choices, folks. Barack Hussein Obama chose to figuratively parade Osama Bin Laden’s dead body around the public square in an attempt to bring singular glory to himself. How pathetic. The guy they had to drag off the golf course. The UK Daily Mail, there’s all kinds of blog stories today, Internet stories with the picture of that great group of courageous heroes in the Situation Room watching the raid take place.

The only person in that room who looks like she’s even emotionally involved at all is Mrs. Clinton. She’s got her mouth covered by her hand. Her eyes are wide open. It’s almost like she saw Bill come home at six o’clock at night for the first time in a long time. She can’t believe it. Everybody else is just sitting there staring, and Obama is slumped down, he’s sitting lower in his chair than anybody in the room. They hustled him in from the golf course, they put a “I’m president” jacket on him. He’s got his white golf shirt buttoned up to the top underneath it, and he’s looking there. “Yes, Mr. President, this is a video feed of a military operation taking place that Mr. McRaven authorized two weeks ago that we decided to just go ahead and do it,” is what that picture looks like. And this is Obama’s kickoff to his campaign for reelection.

Now, there is no better way to illustrate an utter lack of judgment and character than how the president is behaving. This is shameful. And for two, maybe three, days in a row now suggesting that Romney would not have had the guts to pull the trigger and lying — well, taking as out of context as possible Romney’s comments about getting Bin Laden versus the entire War on Terror. A decade of courage, sacrifice, cooperation, coordination, investigation, brains, and discipline on the part of the US military, the Special Ops, the CIA interrogators, the entire intelligence community, has been exploited now for the personal gain of one small man who had the easiest job in this long chain of command.

Of all the people involved in the War on Terror, which this president was totally opposed to as a senator, this one guy had the easiest job of all of the people in this chain, from the boots on the ground to the intel people, to the CIA interrogators. You know, it’s arguable, had Obama’s policies regarding interrogation at Guantanamo Bay or at CIA black sites, secret prisons, had Obama’s policies been in force, we may not have ever gotten Bin Laden. That’s the real irony here. There was one man, there was a courier, one person who carried messages to and from Osama Bin Laden from that luxurious hideout in Pakistan. The identity of that courier was uncovered by CIA interrogators using enhanced techniques opposed by Obama. It wasn’t waterboarding. I don’t know what the techniques were. Had it not been for the policies put in place by Bush-Cheney. And by the way, it’s impossible to talk about this honestly and not have it sound political.

I am doing my best to have this not sound political. But the Bush-Cheney policies of enhanced interrogation and the conduct of the War on Terror in general led to the identity of the courier and his location, which led to Osama’s location. And if Obama’s policies as articulated during the Iraq war — all of his opposition to Petraeus, his opposition to enhanced techniques of interrogation — had been in place we probably would not have gotten Bin Laden. That’s the irony here. So the guy with the easiest job and the least qualified in any room he walks into is now beating his chest and spiking the football, and criticizing the very policies that he opposed. And now running around and saying that Romney is gutless and wouldn’t have had the guts to pull the trigger.

I have a great story here, by the way. ABC News. A Republican focus group and a Democrat focus group organization went out and talked to Walmart moms. And Walmart moms don’t care about this. Now, Walmart moms, according to this story, are a very important voting bloc. They are of a certain age. They are a certain income level. They have a certain number of kids, and there are a lot of them. And they don’t care. Only 11% of them, I think, care about this. They all care about the economy. And so the story from ABC is how none of this Obama stuff on Bin Laden is gonna penetrate and get through to them ’cause they don’t care. He’s blowing it. But it’s all he’s got to hang his hat on. ‘Cause he can’t run around and convince these Walmart moms that the economy is gonna get better if we just keep doing what we’re doing. They know it isn’t.

So Obama’s out there trying, folks, to call himself or have us think of him as a hero. For doing something that if Bush or Cheney had done, Obama probably woulda called ’em war criminals. That’s another real irony. If Bush and Cheney had found Osama Bin Laden and he was exactly where he was and they sent the SEALs in there and they got ’em exactly the way they did, and there were no pictures, and then Bin Laden was buried at sea, and there’s no real evidence other than we gotta take everybody’s word for it, Obama and Pelosi and Harry Reid and Hillary Clinton and the whole bunch of ’em would be accusing Bush and Cheney of lying for political purposes. They’d say, “Where’s the proof?” And they would accuse him if it did happen of them being war criminals.

The ironies here are multiple and frequent. To give the go-ahead, to take out an unsuspecting terrorist with the best SEAL Team America has, that’s what Obama wants the credit for. And he wasn’t even the man in charge of the actual operation. That was the guy named McRaven. We had the details of that story for you yesterday. But Obama can’t help it. He’s a narcissist, world revolves around him, as you know. And so he has to put the spotlight on himself. Which is wrong. This is like a guy who gives money to charity only for the press release that accompanies it and maybe gets his name on the medical building that they name after him for giving them money. The guy that does everything for public consumption, does everything for public notice, for public approval, not because of the genuineness of the act.

Remember, my friends, it was a few years ago, 2008, one week prior to the election, Charlie Rose and Tom Brokaw spent an entire show telling each other how they didn’t know who the guy they couldn’t wait to be president was. They didn’t know anything about him. (imitating Rose and Brokaw) “I don’t know what books he’s read. I don’t know who his mentors are. It’s a good question. It’s an important question. And who are the people in his inner circle? Well, we don’t know, Charlie.” It was an hour of, “We don’t know who Obama is, but, boy, it’s gonna be historical if we elect him.” Well, now we know who Barack Obama is. Insecure is at least one thing. Some people on the left say that Obama’s likable, cool. I’ve always thought he was cold. And I, El Rushbo, am on record saying that early on.

Yeah, Obama would be running around saying, “Osama wasn’t Mirandized! You sent the SEALs in there and they didn’t read him his rights!” That’s what they’d be doing. It’s what Occupy Wall Street would be doing. I see desperation here — sad desperation — with unlimited funds and enablers doing everything they can to make him feel good about himself. That’s what’s going on here. I’ll tell you, folks, you know this as well as I do. “Needy” and “selfish” are not attractive features. Needy and selfish. I don’t know about you, but needy, selfish, and complaining are off-putting to me. I don’t know how to deal with it. I really don’t.

People complain. Obama’s always complaining about what Bush left him. “The mess was worse than anybody knew,” whatever it is. I don’t know how to deal with people who complain. I don’t know what to say to ’em. I don’t know whether to be sympathetic, ’cause that doesn’t accomplish anything. I don’t know what to do when people start whining and moaning and complaining about stuff because it never gets anything done. So I don’t know what to do; I don’t know how to deal with it. Needy, selfish, whining, complaining? Not attractive. And when they are traits being exhibited by people in positions of responsibility, it’s not attractive.

So, you know the old adage: “When your opponent is in the process of destroying himself, you get out of the way and let it happen.” It’s an old adage here on talk radio: “If the caller’s making a fool of himself, get out of the way and let it happen.” There’s another version: “When your opponent is drowning, throw him an anvil!” I kind of like that one. “When your opponent is drowning, throw him an anvil!”

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: Weren’t we told that we needed to close down Club Gitmo because it was a recruitment tool for the terrorists? That’s right. And who was it that told us that? Why, none other than Senator Barack Obama and Presidential Candidate Barack Obama! He said we had to shut down Club Gitmo. Weren’t we told that using enhanced interrogation is a recruitment tool for the terrorists, and that’s what we were doing? And, of course, that means we were helping terrorists recruit members.

Weren’t we told that we had to bury Osama Bin Laden at sea because his grave might be used as a recruiting tool for terrorists, and we couldn’t allow him to be martyred in that way? And weren’t we told, ladies and gentlemen, that the government could not release the photos of the body of Osama Bin Laden because the photos would be used as a recruiting tool for terrorists? Yup. We were told, just like the liberals in every instance of a crime, “If we go after the perpetrator, it’s gonna make the perpetrator and his friends even madder.

“We don’t want to do that! We don’t want to celebrate victory over these guys, don’t want to put ’em in Club Gitmo. It’s just gonna make ’em madder, make ’em more committed and it’s gonna recruit more terrorists,” right? Well, isn’t Obama’s campaign ad where he brags about killing Osama a recruiting tool for terrorists? Using his own definition, isn’t his endless crowing about killing Bin Laden a recruiting tool? Isn’t dancing on Bin Laden’s grave and beating his chest and going, “Ahhhhh-ah-ah-ah!” like Tarzan did a recruiting tool?

So are some “recruiting tools” for terrorists worse than others?

Is there a way we can learn to figure this out?

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: Let’s go to the audio sound bites, ladies and gentlemen. This is yesterday afternoon at the White House. Obama and the Japanese Prime Minister held a joint press conference, and there was a question from the Chicago Tribune’s Washington Bureau Chief Christi Parsons.

Here’s the question (impression): “We’re coming up on the one year anniversary of the killing of Bin Laden. I’m wondering if you would share some thoughts on that anniversary. And I also wanted to mention that your likely opponent said, ‘Anybody would have made that call, even Jimmy Carter.’ So I am curious: What would you say about that? And, Mr. Prime Minister, I wonder if you could reflect from an international perspective if the US is playing it right in marking this anniversary or if you might advise against excessive celebration.”

Now, does somebody want to try to tell me that that’s not a setup? Does somebody want to tell me that’s not a planted question? What…? We just lost satellite on DVR 1. That means probably had 14 power failures at home just in the last ten minutes. We have rugged weather out there. We’ve got 45-mile-an-hour sustained winds out there on the beach. After the second power failure last night, I found out that Florida Power & Light was out trying to get branches off of power lines. I initially blamed them, but then it kept happening long after they left, so it couldn’t have been them.

Anyway, here’s Obama answering that setup, planted question. Listen to this…

OBAMA: I hardly think that you’ve seen any “excessive celebration” taking place here.

RUSH: Really?


OBAMA: As far as, uhhh my personal role and what other folks would do, I’d just recommend that everybody take a look people’s previous statements in terms of whether they thought it was appropriate to go into Pok-ee-stahn and take out Bin Laden. I said that I’d go after Bin Laden if we had a clear shot at him, and I did it! If there are others who have said one thing and now suggest they’d do something else, then, uhh, I’d go ahead and let them explain it.

RUSH: “Pok-ee-stahn.” You know, this is such an obvious attempt here to take what Romney said out of context. It was during a Republican debate, I believe, and what Romney essentially said was that he disagreed with the Democrats that the definition of the War on Terror was whether or not we got one man: Bin Laden. And the War on Terror, the money spent would be much better spent on the broader conflict than throwing millions and gazillions or whatever into getting one guy.

And the reason Romney said it is because Democrats like Obama, since 2004 and 2005, have been claiming failure in the War on Terror ’cause he didn’t get Bin Laden! Do you find it interesting, a year after Bin Laden is found and taken out, Obama last week announces the end of the War on Terror? (interruption) Snerdley did not know that. He’d been so busy screening calls he hadn’t heard that. But we had clearly been told last week by the regime that the War on Terror was over and the next day there was a story, front page one of the newspapers, about another drone strike and drone policy.

I said, “Why are we still flying drones if the war on terror is over? Why is Al-Qaeda still killing people? Why is the Muslim Brotherhood here and doing what they’re doing in Egypt and wanting permission to have sex with their dead wives for six hours after she dies? Why, if War on Terror is over?” And the War on Terror is over ’cause the Democrats always defined it as Osama Bin Laden being killed. Folks, this is infantile. This is childish immaturity that answer that Obama gave. “Well, anybody just go look at the record. Take a look at people’s previous statements in terms of what they thought was appropriate to go into Pok-ee-stahn.”

It’s PAK-eh-stan!

“Pakistan” is the way Americans say it!

Pakistan!

I’m tired hearing “Pok-ee-stahn” every damn day!

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: Here’s the story, and there’s much more to it than was reported about the War on Terror is over. It was from the National Journal last week, and here’s what the story said. “‘The War on Terror is over,’ one senior State Department official who works on Mideast issues told me.” This is whoever wrote this piece. “‘Now that we have killed most of al Qaida, now that people have come to see legitimate means of expression –‘” What the hell is that? That’s the Arab Spring. We got a State Department official saying the Arab Spring, that’s a legitimate means of expression, “people who once might have gone into al Qaida see an opportunity for a legitimate Islamism.” This is a State Department official in explaining why the War on Terror was over.

“Now that we have killed most of al Qaida, now that people have come to see legitimate means of expression,” the Arab Spring, “people who once might have gone into al Qaida see an opportunity for a legitimate Islamism,” which is the Muslim Brotherhood. So the War on Terror is over. Got Bin Laden. That’s what this State Department official is saying. He’s saying the Arab Spring has ended the War on Terror, when he says people who once mighta gone into Al-Qaeda see an opportunity for a legitimate Islamism. In other words, we have made it so that these Muslim extremists can gain power without even having to fight for it. Just join the Muslim Brotherhood. They don’t have to go and join Al-Qaeda now, become terrorists.

The Arab Spring has made it possible for Muslim extremists to gain power without even having to fight for it. Well, I mean they had to do their little revolution. They had CNN’s Nic Robertson out there in the square interviewing guys about how important Obama’s role was. But that’s it, that’s the Obama administration, the War on Terror is over, they got Osama, and Al-Qaeda’s dead, and the Muslim Brotherhood is alive, and that’s why it’s over. We’re still gonna fly some drones, ah, just ’cause we have the fuel. That’s exactly right. It’s no different than Al Armendariz at EPA. (paraphrasing) “We’re gonna crucify any successful oil and gas company.” Mr. Snerdley is aghast at the naivete and the rose-colored glasses. That’s exactly who would populate every agency, bureau, cabinet department. That’s who they are. They’re nothing but idealists, utopian theorists. That’s who’s there. Led by Mrs. Clinton, another Alinskyite.

Now, Romney was on CBS This Morning with Charlie Rose. See, here’s how it works. Obama says, (paraphrasing) “Romney wouldn’t even have pulled the trigger.” Okay, so that becomes the narrative. Romney wouldn’ta pulled the trigger. So now we gotta go get Romney and say, “Why won’t you pull the trigger?” Not will you, but why won’t you? Obama has established you wouldn’t pull the trigger, you wouldn’t go get Obama. Why not? It’s like our parody of James Carville going on Larry King saying Ken Starr is from Mars. And rather say, “You’re an idiot, Carville.” Larry King in our parody says, “Ken Starr, are you really from Mars? How did you get here?” So Obama says Romney wouldn’t pull the trigger. Now Charlie Rose dutifully says, “Why wouldn’t you pull the trigger? How would you characterize that ad? And do you believe it was a politicization of the president’s decision that was unfair and should not have been done?”

ROMNEY: He has every right to take credit for him having to order that attack. At the same time, I think it was very disappointing for the president to try and make this a political item by suggesting that I wouldn’t have ordered such a raid. Of course I would have. Any thinking American would have ordered exactly the same thing. But, of course, you give the president the credit for the fact that he did so.

RUSH: No! That’s not gonna get you a single vote. “But of course we gotta give the president –” no, no, no, no, no. The president got his credit a year ago. You stay on message here. You throw the anvil. So Charlie Rose wasn’t through. (imitating Rose) “Well, how do you know you would have? How do you know you would have pulled the trigger? You’re Mitt Romney, you had a Swiss bank account, you look like you grew up in the fifties and still live then, and your wife, ha, what makes you think you’d pull the trigger?” I’m making it up, but that’s what’s in his mind. ” How do you know you would have? Because within that room, at the time of that decision, evidently people who were there say, there was an argument not to do it that way, to do it a different way. And it may have come from the secretary of defense, or even the secretary of state –” The only guy that didn’t want to do it in that room was Biden. Yeah, he was in the room. So here’s Romney’s answer to “How do you know you would have pulled the trigger?”

ROMNEY: The idea to try and politicize this is really disappointing. Let’s not make the capture or killing of Osama Bin Laden a politically divisive event. There were plenty of differences between President Obama and myself. But let’s not make up ones based on, well, he might not have done this. This is — it’s disappointing, and it’s unfortunate, and I think it’s taking an event that really brought America together that was the culmination of a lot of work by a lot of people and enormous sacrifice.

RUSH: Yeah.

ROMNEY: And some people who put their lives very much on the line. Let’s not use this as a political football.

ROSE: And that’s what the president is doing and his campaign team?

ROMNEY: I think them taking credit for the right decision —

RUSH: Right.

ROMNEY: — is entirely appropriate.

RUSH: Right.

ROMNEY: I think trying to attack me on that basis is disappointing and the wrong course.

RUSH: Remember the 2008 presidential campaign, there was a very prominent person who didn’t think Obama would be able to pull the trigger, and that was Mrs. Clinton. Remember her 3 a.m. phone call ad? “Who do you want answering the phone at 3 a.m.?” We all said, “Hillary. So you can tell Bill how to get home.” But that was a good ad, “Who do you want answering the phone at 3 a.m.?” And all the reports on this say the “go” decision had been in the works for two weeks, that it took a little while to lobby him to actually give the order to go.


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