RUSH: I’m holding here in my formerly nicotine-stained fingers a story from Slate.com, almost as leftist as Salon.com. Headline: “Why Obama Got Russia Wrong (and Romney Got It Right) — To peer into the conservative media and blogosphere as it covers Russa’s invasion of Crimea is to risk a fatal dose of schadenfreude. There are reports about how Sarah Palin totally called that Putin would invade Ukraine … about how Mitt Romney was unfairly mocked for calling Russia the greatest ‘geopolitical threat’ to the United States, about Hillary Clinton’s ‘reset button’ gaffe. Even the Liberal New Republic ™ has admitted that Mitt Romney was right about the Russians and their ambitions. And he was. Why did Barack Obama blow it?”

And here’s what they say. “Romney was right. Why was Obama wrong? Because, I think, he was willfully blurring the distinction between ‘geopolitical’ and other sorts of threats. He was playing to the cheap seats.” Low-information voters. “Voters do not fear Russia, or particularly care about its movements. … They do care a lot about terrorism. And Obama would use any chance he had, in 2012, to remind voters that he was president when Osama Bin Laden was killed.”

So what David Weigel is saying here is that in that debate, Romney, in terms of the real world, cleaned the stage with Obama by correctly pointing out that the biggest geopolitical threat we face at the time was Russia, and Obama was mocking it and making fun of Romney. And this guy’s point is that he did it simply to play to low-information voters. It was his election to win, and the way he went about it, that trumped any sort of policy.

And this guy, Weigel, is not the only one. Suddenly most of the left-wing media are now reporting and seeing that Romney was the guy who had it right and that Obama was the stooge, who was the useful idiot playing to his low-information voters. They always admit this stuff after the fact when it’s too late for anything to be done about it or it’s too late for it to be meaningful, in terms of impacting an election. They knew then that Romney was right. They knew then that Obama was simply playing to the low-information voters out there, and that’s what he’s doing now.

That’s what ABC is doing. “Obama and Kerry, they tell Putin what for.” They’re out there reporting that Kerry just took Putin to school. This is dangerously wrong. This is dangerously incompetent. And I’ll tell you how else Obama’s playing to the low-information voter. He and Kerry are out there promising $1 billion in loan guarantees to Ukraine. Well, it gets their vote when you promise them free health care and a cell phone and unemployment compensation extensions, and whatever other benefit you’re giving ’em, food stamps. “Hey, Obama, he cares about Ukraine. He just gave ’em a billion dollars.” That’s all that’s for.

That’s all they know how to do, folks. All they know how to do is pander to the lowest common denominator in this country. That’s all they know how to do. Actually dealing with a real world problem either here or anywhere else in the world, they are clueless, and these last five years illustrate that beyond a shadow of a doubt.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: Well, while we’re away in the break, CNN is reporting that Russia is test firing long-range ICBM missiles, so they had their foreign policy reporter call John Kerry, and they asked John Kerry, “What do you think?” They did, folks. They’re test firing long-range ICBMs. Kerry said, “This is the Twenty-First Century. Doesn’t Putin know that? He can go on Google and find out what happens when you test fire a missile.

“He doesn’t have to launch a missile to find out what happens. The UN could tell him. He could probably call somebody at Harvard, if he really wants to know what happens when you test fire a missile. He doesn’t have to do that.” Oh, by the way, Russia has fired warning shots in Crimea. (Gasp!) That was not supposed to happen. There was supposed to have been a ceasefire. Putin said he was pulling back.

It’s so Nineteenth Century to do that!

“Why would he lie? Why would Putin tell us that he’s pulling back and then launch missiles? This is unacceptable. This is the Twenty-First Century. He’s doing things that we did in the Nineteenth Century! He’s so Reagan. He is so Reagan. Why does Putin have to do this? We’ve got rid of Reagan. We got rid of conservatives. This is the Twenty-First Century!” We’re living in a Saturday Night Live skit. We are smack-dab in the middle of a parody.

Grab sound bite 26. Today in Washington at the Powell Elementary School… That’s where President Obama was. He held a press conference. It was originally to talk about his 2015 budget proposal. What the hell’s he doing at an elementary school preparing his budget? Well, it answers itself. He spoke about the Russia-Ukraine situation, and a reporter asks him during the Q&A, “Do you have any response to President Putin’s press conference this morning? Is Chancellor Merkel right, that he’s lost touch with reality?”

OBAMA: The way that some of this has been reported, uh, that, uh, the suggestion somehow that the Russian actions, uh, have been clever strategically, I actually think that this has not been a sign of — of strength, uh, but rather is a reflection that countries near Russia have deep concerns and suspicions about this kind of meddling and, if anything, it will push many countries further away from Russia.

RUSH: I swear. I really do. So he says here that he’s heard all his buddies in the media say that Putin’s outsmarting him. He doesn’t like it, and this kind of action, this is not gonna help. This is just driving people “further away from Russia.” Do you think Putin cares about that? He knows full well what he’s doing here! He is demonstrating that nobody’s gonna stop him, is what he’s doing. I think John Kerry ought to go to Moscow.

I think he ought to grab those fake Vietnam War medals and throw them over some fence at the Kremlin, to show them he really means business, to show them that he is damn serious about this Twenty-First versus Nineteenth Century business. How about this stupid question? “Is Chancellor Merkel right that Putin’s lost touch with reality?” I’ll tell you who doesn’t have two feet in reality, is this administration. Here’s one more, Q&A. Obama continued his answer about is Merkel right that Putin’s lost touch with reality.

OBAMA: We stand on, uh, the side of history that I think more and more people around the world deeply believe in, uh, the principle that a sovereign people, an independent people are able to make their own decisions about their own lives.

RUSH: (sigh)

OBAMA: And, you know, Mr. Putin can throw a lot of words out there, but the facts on the ground are that right now he’s not abiding by that principle.

RUSH: Yeah. Of course, he’s not abiding by that principle. Of course he’s not! He’s a communist! You ought to know that at least, Mr. President. Don Rumsfeld was on Greta Van Susteren last night. This is audio sound bite number six, as we skip number five. She said, “The Washington Post editorial board had an editorial, and they say that Obama’s foreign policy is a fantasy.” I shared the details of that with you earlier, and she asked Rumsfeld for his reaction.

RUMSFELD: It is US weakness that has shaken the world! The administration lacks the foreign policy; they lack a strategy.

VAN SUSTEREN: Yeah!

RUMSFELD: They’re managing our economy, modeling it on Europe — which is a failed model — and it’s sending the signal out across the globe that the United States is not gonna be there for them, that the United States is in decline.

RUSH: Damn right. We’re under a purposeful decline! Obama is here to manage the decline — and if I’m not mistaken, I think he said it, or something close to it. (interruption) Well, let… (interruption) Yeah, Hagel said it, “Yeah, we gotta manage the decline. Yeah, you know what, it’s the Twenty-First Century, and we don’t need a conventional military anymore, so we’re gonna pare it down to pre-World War II size.” Oh, man.

Let’s listen to Putin. Putin was in Moscow this morning. He held a press conference to talk about the Russia-Ukraine situation, and this… I don’t know. For some reason, this amuses me. Putin now says that they are fighting Nazis in Ukraine.

PUTIN (via translator): We have neo-Nazis, eh Nazis and anti-Semites in some parts of Ukraine, including Kiev. We understand what the citizens of — Russian-speaking citizens of east and south of Ukraine are worried is about. If they request us for help, we leave the right for ourselves to take all measures to protect the rights of these people, and so we consider it quite legitimate.

RUSH: So they’re fighting Nazis and neo-Nazis in the Ukraine. And, by the way, again, when you gear everything you do to the American low-information voter, if you’re gonna say you’re targeting Nazis, there’s nobody that supports the Nazis. So if you’re gonna go in and say that there are Nazis and neo-Nazis in there, it’s gonna be hard to oppose you, because there’s nobody in the world that likes the Nazis. So Putin, now, he’s fighting Nazis!

(laughing) I know he’s toying with everybody. Here’s our old buddy Vitaly Churkin. Now, Vitaly Churkin was in the Soviet hierarchy all during the eighties. He was on Nightline with Ted Koppel all the time. He lived in Alexandria. He worked at the Soviet Embassy. He sounded American (and except for the yeast in his hair, he looked American), and he was my all-time favorite Russian-Soviet propagandist.

I loved Vitaly Churkin. I even interviewed him once. He was in New York City at the UN. He’s now Russian ambassador to the UN. Isn’t it amazing that the former head honcho in the communist Regime is still a head honcho in the Russian Regime? Anyway, he addressed an emergency session of the UN Security Council, and this is a portion of what he said…

CHURKIN (via translator): The center of Kiev and many towns in western Ukraine have been taken over by armed national radicals, under extremist anti-Russian and anti-Semitic slogans being used.

RUSH: Oh, yeah! See, the Nazis and the neo-Nazis are in there, and they’re using anti-Semitic slogans — and so we gotta get in there and root ’em out because the people in Ukraine are asking us to get rid of the Nazis and the neo-Nazis. So let’s go now, CNN, the Situation Room with Wolf Blitzer. They’re coming apart at the seams over this. Civil war is breaking out at CNN. In this bite, Christiane Amanpour will scold Wolf Blitzer for repeating the Vitaly Churkin propaganda, propaganda that you just heard Vitaly Churkin and Putin utter, that they’re in there fighting anti-Semites, Nazis and neo-Nazis.

Here’s the bite…

BLITZER: You heard Vitaly Churkin, the Russian ambassador to the UN Security Council, saying earlier today that at fault for all of this are what he called fascists and anti-Semites in Ukraine right now. To be continued —

AMANPOUR: You know, you better be really careful putting that across as a fact —

BLITZER: That’s what Vitaly Churkin —

AMANPOUR: He may have done —

BLITZER: That’s what he said.

AMANPOUR: But that is the Russian position. He may have done —

BLITZER: That’s what I was pointing out.

AMANPOUR: Are you telling me — Are you saying that the entire pro-European —

BLITZER: Of course not.

AMANPOUR: — Ukrainians —

BLITZER: Of course not.

AMANPOUR: — are anti-Semites?

BLITZER: I was only saying —

AMANPOUR: But that is what the Russians are saying.

BLITZER: Christiane, I’m only saying —

RUSH: Now, that is so instructive. That right there is so instructive. Here is Christiane Amanpour, who actually cares what people think of the people of Ukraine, and she’s chiding Blitzer for repeating what Vitaly Churkin, and Blitzer said (paraphrasing), “Well, he said it, he said it.” “Wolf, do you actually believe –” “I’m just telling you what Vitaly Churkin said, he said it, he said it, he said it.” So there’s a natural sympathy for Vitaly Churkin, former Soviet Union, whatever he says is. And you can extrapolate that, “Well, well, you know, Barack Obama said, he just said.” There’s no questioning it. There is no curiosity about it, and Christiane Amanpour is chiding Blitzer here for repeating it. “I’m just repeating what he said. It’s what he said, he said it. We’re news journalists here, reporting what he said.” “Wolf, do you actually believe, come on.” And this continued. It wasn’t quite through.

BLITZER: Am I saying that?

AMANPOUR: Right.

BLITZER: No, I’m not. But I am saying that that’s what Vitaly Churkin said in the sound bite.

AMANPOUR: Right. And we have to be very careful —

BLITZER: We’ll play it for you, and we played it for you earlier —

AMANPOUR: No, no! I heard it!

BLITZER: Yeah.

AMANPOUR: I heard it. We just, as a network, have to be really careful not to lump the entire pro-European Ukrainians into what —

BLITZER: We’re not. I’m not.

AMANPOUR: — some may well be, which are nationalistic and extremists.

BLITZER: Christiane, we’re not —

AMANPOUR: That’s all I’m saying.

RUSH: (imitating Blitzer) “All I’m saying is what Vitaly Churkin said. He said it. He said it. Vitaly Churkin said it. He said it. He said it!” Okay, so he said it; big whoop. What is happening here, there a bunch of wacko conspiracy theories that are behind this, and it’s amazing how sticky they are. I mean, people are actually glomming on to these conspiracy theories about there being a bunch of Nazis and neo-Nazis in Ukraine threatening Russia and all this. Here’s Vladimir Posner. Right out of the Vitaly Churkin school. Vladimir Posner, old buddy, Phil Donohue’s best friend, shines his shoes, all that, and he’s on CNN this morning with Chris Cuomo.

POSNER: Why don’t we all take a deep breath, count to 10, and then talk about this without all the passions involved. What worries people here is that in this new government, which is relatively not legitimate, but Putin has said that we will deal with that government even though we don’t really consider it legitimate, there are a lot of very right-wing ultranationalists and even somewhat fascists very anti-Semitic people, they have a very loud voice, and that worries a lot of people.

RUSH: So you see how this has played out. A very loud right-wing, anti-Semitic, Nazi, neo-Nazis, and Putin is the good guy running in there to defend mother Russia and all that from these right-wingers. Rumsfeld’s right. There’s a vacuum because we have taken a hike on the world stage.

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RUSH: From the UK Telegraph: “Russia Today Host Who Criticized Kremlin Sent to Crimea — Russian state-funded TV presenter –” this is a Russian TV infobabe, an anchorette “– in anti-Kremlin tirade sent to Crimea to get a ‘better understanding’ of situation on the ground.”

So a Diane Sawyer type, well, actually she looks like Susan Lucci. But, anyway, she let the Kremlin have it, and they sent her to Ukraine to get her mind right. Now, that doesn’t sound very twenty-first century to me. That sounds awfully nineteenth, even eighteenth century to me, that Putin sent this babe, and she is a looker, sent this babe to Crimea to get a better understanding of the situation on the ground.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: I actually don’t think Putin meant to say Nazis. I could be wrong about this. I think he meant to say Tea Party and just couldn’t remember. The Tea Party elements in Ukraine. Since he forgot, just call ’em Nazis. Typical leftist move.