http://www.rushlimbaugh.com/daily/2015/05/18/republicans_need_to_deal_with_the_knowing_what_you_know_now_question_and_hold_obama_accountableRepublicans Need to Deal with the "Knowing What You Know Now...?" Question, and Hold Obama Accountable
May 18, 2015
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BEGIN TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: Now, there's something else happening out there. This is, in and of itself, multifaceted. It is fascinating on a number of levels, and it contains a whole bunch of teachable moments, and that is the question that every Republican presidential candidate has either gotten or will get. And it is a variation on the theme of -- dadelut dadelut dadelut dadelut -- knowing what you know now, that there were no weapons of mass destruction, would you have gone to war with Iraq and Saddam Hussein?
The second part of the question is, knowing what he knows now, would George W. Bush have gone to war with Iraq and Saddam Hussein, or should George W.? Not one question, not one reporter has called up Clinton and said, "Knowing what you know now, would you again vote for and support George W. Bush in the invasion of Iraq?" Not one reporter has called the haughty John Kerry, who served in Vietnam, the current secretary of state, and said, "Mr. Secretary, knowing what you know now, would you vote once again with George W. Bush to authorize the use of force and the invasion of Iraq in 2002, 2003, whenever it was.
There's something else, too. Everybody is saying it's inevitable, the Republicans are gonna get this question. Why is it inevitable? "Well, it's inevitable, Rush, because Iraq is the biggest mistake Bush made, and these guys want to be president, and it's perfectly legitimate to know how they think about it." That's not why. The question's a gotcha question. This is a classic example of what I learned early on in my interactions with the Drive-By Media. When they ask you these questions, they don't want to know what you really think. They're not out to learn anything.
These are entrapment questions. These are questions that are designed to expose a Todd Akin-like incompetence. These are questions designed to destroy said Republican candidate who's being asked the question. Now, conventional wisdom is, the Republicans should know these questions are coming, whether they're valid or not, and they should have an answer for them, and particularly Jeb. Jeb should have known this is gonna be the first question, and he should have had an answer for this. It was inevitable, and the fact that he didn't have an answer right off the bat, not a good sign.
What happened to Jeb Bush is exactly what they want to happen to every Republican here. And in the middle of it is this assumption the press is making that everybody in this country now opposes what we did in Iraq, never really supported it, including the Democrats that voted for it. There's a conventional wisdom that everybody thinks it was a mistake now, and therefore that makes it a mistake. Hindsight is foresight, and it was a mistake and everybody knows it, and that's the basis on which you better answer if you want to get rid of it and get rid of the media.
Now, we just got news that the Iraqi city of Ramadi has fallen to ISIS. That's not because of George W. Bush. And that's not because of the Republicans. There's a real salient question that needs to be asked of Hillary Clinton, and even Barack Obama, because we had, at the conclusion of operations in Iraq, we had a success story in the making. It wasn't the best in the world, and it wasn't exactly how Bush envisioned it, but there was a possibility there.
Obama came in and totally blew it, and Iraq has now fallen, well Ramadi has, and ISIS is growing, and the left believes that this is all the fault of George W. Bush by creating ISIS, by going into Iraq and ticking off all the Al-Qaeda people, and that's the conventional wisdom. Conventional wisdom is nowhere near the truth, and that is reality is what it is. When Barack Obama assumed office, we had been to war in Iraq, there had been a number of American lives lost and a number of injuries, and it was still something worth protecting. The country had engaged in it, all politics ends at the water's edge, so forth and so on.
Obama came in, and everything he could do to literally wipe Iraq off the map including lose it, he's done. And yet he doesn't get one single question, nor does Hillary get one. It's all being asked of the Republicans. And it's intensive. It's oppressive. No answer is good enough. No answer is the final answer. Every answer leads to another question. The same question gets asked five or six different ways. Same question. Different variations. Rubio faced it yesterday with Chris Wallace on Fox News Sunday. We have audio sound bites of that coming up.
But the whole notion of that question being legitimate and defining for a Republican presidential candidate I think is horse hockey. But it is what it is. And the Republican candidates are dealing with it in their own ways. Some are good, some are really sharp, some are not so good. But the Republicans are not the problem here. Look at this story. This is from Yahoo Finance. This is Yahoo Finance, folks. This means the low-information crowd's gonna see this. The low-information crowd's gonna see this. It's gonna be all over Twitter. It will be all over the Facebook news digest that people send around. And the headline: "Economist Tyler Cowen says the Economy Might Be a Disappointment for Years to Come -- and We'll Just Have to Get Used To It."
The opening line is: "The economy might stink for a while." Yeah, why? Why is that? Why might the economy stink? Why might this be the new norm? Why in the world do we have to put up with this? Why is that the case? Another question Obama won't get. The mess this country is in, domestically and around the world, is traceable to the Oval Office since being occupied by Barack Obama. It has nothing to do with Marco Rubio, nothing to do with Jeb Bush, nothing to do with any of these Republicans. They've got nothing to answer for.
BREAK TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: But I do want to get the into these audio sound bites of Marco Rubio. He's just one of many being peppered with this question about, "Knowing what you know now, would you have gone into Iraq, would you have voted for Bush going into Iraq, should Bush have gone into Iraq, should we have gone into Iraq at all," this question that will not end, after this.
Don't go away.
BREAK TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: Knowing what we know now, should we have opened the consulate in Benghazi? Knowing what we know now, should we have passed Obamacare? Knowing what we know now, should we have opened the Southern border to uninterrupted flows and levels of illegals? Knowing what we know, that's a question or a series of 'em every damn Democrat candidate needs to get.
BREAK TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: Ladies and gentlemen, knowing what we know now, should George Stephanopoulos have been allowed to moderate a Republican presidential debate? Knowing what we know now, should Candy Crowley, CNN, have been allowed to moderate a presidential debate? Knowing what we know now, should Barack Obama have backed the overthrow of Mubarak in Egypt and helped to overthrow Moammar Khadafy in Libya? Knowing what we know now, should Obama have signed Obamacare?
Knowing what we know now, would you have signed Obamacare? Knowing what we know now, would you have done the stimulus deal, which was nothing more than a payoff to union workers to keep them employed so their dues could continue to flow into Democratic campaign coffers? Knowing what you know now, would you have supported Obama's stimulus effort in general? Knowing what you know now, would you have allowed the Southern border to be overflowing with illegal people from all over the world?
Knowing what you know now, would you have signed on to any of the Obama agenda? I mean, this idea that the Republican candidates have some important question to answer, knowing what you know now, would you have gone into Iraq? As I said in the opening hour of the program, that is not a question that's designed to learn what any of these guys think. It is not a question designed to learn whether they're competent or qualified to be president. Knowing what you know now, would you have supported George Bush, should George Bush have gone into Iraq.
Knowing what you know now, all of these questions, the purpose of these questions is gotcha. The media and the Democrat Party -- and again, bouncing off this Washington Post Hillary story -- have convinced themselves that everybody in this country is now opposed to the Iraq war. That everybody in this country is fine and dandy with what's happened in the Middle East since the Iraq war because we shouldn't have gone. They really believe the vast majority of the country think exactly as they do on this subject.
So these are entrapment questions, and they're being asked of Jeb Bush and Marco Rubio and any number of other Republican presidential candidates. Some sound bites of how this goes. Sunday morning, Fox News Sunday, Chris Wallace talking to Marco Rubio, talking about the Iraq war. And by the way, Ramadi has fallen. "Knowing what we know now, do you support Barack Obama's decision to totally withdraw from Iraq and leave it wide open to Al-Qaeda, ISIS, or whoever?" These questions that I'm asking as alternatives will never be asked of any Democrat candidate.
Hillary Clinton will never get one of these, "Knowing what you know now, would you have done the stimulus? Knowing what you know now, would you have signed Obamacare and supported it?" Those questions will not be forthcoming because as far as the Democrats and media's concerned, everybody loves Obama, everybody loves what he's done. "Knowing what you know now, would you have supported Obama's efforts to allow Iran to eventually acquire a nuclear weapon?" Chris Wallace says to Marco Rubio. "This brings us back to Iraq and the question of the week which is, given what we know now, would you have invaded Iraq back in 2003? Now, as we all know, Jeb Bush had a tough time answering that week. Senator, isn't that a flip? Six week ago it made sense to invade Iraq in 2003, and now you say it was a mistake?"
RUBIO: No. Those are two different questions. It was not a mistake. The president, based on -- this is the way the real world works. The president, based on the information that was provided him -- (crosstalk)
WALLACE: She was saying based on the information -- she was saying based on the -- what we know now.
RUBIO: Well, based on what we know now, a lot of things -- based on what we know now I wouldn't have --
WALLACE: You got asked the same question, and you said it makes sense.
RUBIO: No, it was not the same question. The question was whether it was a mistake, and my answer is, it's not a mistake. I still say it was not a mistake, because the president was presented with intelligence that said Iraq had weapons of mass destruction. It was governed by a man who had committed atrocities in the past with weapons of mass destruction.
WALLACE: What she asked you was, was it a mistake to go to war with Iraq?
RUBIO: It was not a mistake, given the fact of that president knew at the time.
WALLACE: No.
RUSH: Wallace then said, "But, the reporter didn't say that. She just said, 'Was it a mistake?'"
RUBIO: That's not the same question. The question I was asked is, what do you know now. Well, based on what we know now I think everyone agrees --
WALLACE: Was it a mistake? Was it a mistake to go to war with Iraq?
RUBIO: It's two -- it was -- (crosstalk)
WALLACE: I'm asking you just --
RUBIO: Yeah, I understand, but that's not the same question.
WALLACE: But that's the question I'm asking you. Was it a mistake to go to --
RUBIO: It was not a mistake for the president to decide to go into Iraq because at the time he was told -- (crosstalk)
WALLACE: I'm not asking you that. I'm asking you --
RUBIO: In hindsight.
WALLACE: Yes.
RUBIO: Well, the world is a better place because Saddam Hussein is not there.
WALLACE: So was it a mistake or not?
RUBIO: But I don't understand the question you're asking.
WALLACE: I'm asking you, knowing what we do, as we sit here in 2016 --
RUBIO: But that's not the way -- president's don't -- a president cannot make a decision.
WALLACE: I understand.
RUBIO: -- on what someone might know in the future.
WALLACE: But that's what I'm asking you. Was it a mistake?
RUBIO: It was not a mistake for the president to go into Iraq based on the information he was provided as president.
RUSH: Okay, so what do you think of this, folks? You know what this reminds me of? It was a Bush press conference, I don't remember, probably first term, and I don't remember what it was about, but every question, every question in this press conference, 45 minutes. "Have you made any mistakes, Mr. President? Would you admit to any mistakes? Mr. President, do you think it was a mistake to," blah, blah, blah. "Mr. President, have you ever committed a mistake? Was, for example, doing XY a mistake?"
Do you remember this press conference? For 45 minutes. (interruption) That was a town hall debate? Well, maybe, but what I'm thinking of, it may have been a prime time press conference, but I'm telling you, 45 minutes, and Bush would never admit to making a mistake. He knew who was up here. If he would have admitted making a mistake that would have been the whole news for the rest of the year. "Bush admits he screwed up on everything," they would have said. And it was all gotcha. That was the whole point of it. And even when he wouldn't answer, "Come on, everybody makes mistakes, Mr. President, we make them, don't you? There's not one thing that you think you've made a mistake on?"
They gave every shot they had, every which way of asking the question, that's all it was for 45 minutes, and these questions are never asked of Democrats. Never. "Knowing what you know now, knowing what you know now, would you have thought the War on Poverty a good thing in 1964? Knowing what you know now, would you have urged President Reagan to sign Simpson-Mazzoli in 1986?" These are pointless questions unless the objective has nothing to do with actually learning how a presidential candidate thinks. And of course that's not the purpose of any interview.
I'm here to tell you that when a Republican candidate, particularly a Republican presidential candidate's interviewed, whoever in the Drive-By Media is doing the questions is not trying to learn anything. A, they don't think they need to. They already know it. What they're trying to do is gotcha. What they're trying to do is trip the Republican candidate up and I think the real question is, knowing what we know now, would you answer any question that begins with, "Knowing what we know now." That to me is the lesson learned.
Any question that begins with "knowing what you know now," you put your hands up, say, "Nope, not going there." I don't believe in "if." "If" is for children. Besides, presidents don't have this luxury. In the real world, you don't have the luxury of sitting around and wringing your hands, "Gee, man, oh, God, if I'd have only known that," because obviously you didn't know that. What is this, if you knew then what you know now? But we didn't know then. But I've watched this, you know, I've been reading some leftist blogs and websites, and they're on the way to making the case now that every intelligence agency knew that Saddam did not have nukes and was trying to tell Cheney and Bush but that Cheney and Bush didn't want to hear it because they wanted to get Saddam for reasons that had nothing to do with the War on Terror or 9/11.
That is a meme, that is a narrative, keep a sharp eye, because that narrative is picking up speed. Now, the truth is that every allied intelligence agency that we dealt with -- the Brits, Pakistan, you name it, every one that was on our side that we dealt with in the War on Terror all confirmed the same intelligence that the DIA had and that the CIA had and everybody else in this country, the NSA, that Saddam had weapons of mass destruction. But now what's developing is, "Hey, you know, Saddam, he never had weapons of mass destruction, and he knew it. He was just trying to huff and puff and scare the Iranians. He just wanted the Iranians to think he had 'em and he loved to be the big Arab strong man, to stand up againgst the United States, that's what got him respect. But everybody knew he didn't have weapons of mass destruction. He knew he didn't have any, the Iranians knew. All these intelligence agencies, they knew he didn't have any and they tried to warn --" It was Maureen Dowd yesterday where I read this. That's where it was, Maureen Dowd.
So they've done a 180. Every intelligence agency knew it was a joke, but Bush and Cheney wouldn't listen. Well, how is any of this gonna defeat ISIS? That's not the point of ISIS. The point of ISIS is that it be traced back to Bush. That's all this is for. You know, ISIS is a solely owned subsidiary of Barack Obama foreign policy. We can't have that. We can't let that stand. We can't have the idea that Obama foreign policy has made the world a dangerous place. We can't have it be believed that Obama policy is incompetent in the area of foreign policy.
We can't have that believed so we have to construct these brand-new false narratives and templates that ISIS -- like Maureen Dowd said (paraphrasing), "Yeah, Jeb Bush was taken to school by a 19-year-old college girl last week who told him the way it is, that because we went into Iraq and went after something that wasn't there, ISIS came into being whatever. So Jeb Bush was made to look like a fool by a 19-year-old college student." That's the narrative that they want out there.
But you just keep a sharp eye. Because this is bubbling up, and as long as these Iraq questions continue to be asked, eventually everybody is gonna see it, it's not gonna remain cloistered within the Democrat bubble. It's gonna bubble up and it won't be long because the truth of the matter is that every intelligence agency that we trusted was agreeing with us. And of course Maureen Dowd went and talked to lieutenant colonel Lawrence -- Colin Powell's chief of staff. I can't remember his name. It doesn't matter. He is also in this chorus that Saddam didn't have WMD and that everybody knew it. Of course his job is to protect Colin Powell, and Colin Powell is still bitter over the fact he was sent to the UN with all the proof, the pictures.
Colin Powell had to go up there and make the case as we're trying to put together the coalition, and he has never lived it down, I don't think, when there no weapons of mass destruction, Colin Powell -- that's it, Lawrence Wilkerson. I think Powell thinks he was made a fool of and has resented it ever since, blames Cheney for it, and that helps this narrative that they have given birth to, that the intelligence agencies, I mean, MI5, MI6, Scotland Yard, you name it, they all knew Saddam didn't have weapons and they were all begging Bush not to go, they were begging Bush, but he couldn't talk Cheney out of it. That is the narrative, and that's why these questions keep coming. There's one more here with Chris Wallace and Rubio. Final exchange.
RUBIO: If the president had known that there were no weapons of mass destruction at the time, you still would have had to deal with Saddam Hussein, but the process would have been different. I doubt very seriously the president would have gotten, for example, congressional approval to move forward with an invasion, had they known there were no weapons of mass destruction. That does not mean he made the wrong decision, because at the time he was presented with intelligence --
WALLACE: I understand that.
RUBIO: -- that said there are weapons of mass destruction. He wasn't dealing with a Nobel Peace Prize winner. He was dealing with Saddam Hussein. And he made the right decision based on the information he had at that time. We've learned subsequently that that information was wrong, and my answer was, well, at the time, it would have been apparent that the intelligence was wrong; I don't think George W. Bush would have moved forward on the invasion, and he certainly wouldn't have had congressional approval.
RUSH: See, that's it right there. They're trying to construct the scenario that George Bush knew that there were no WMD and went anyway. That's what they're in the process of trying to create now, folks, right in time for the 2016 presidential campaign. The bottom line is, when it comes to Hillary Clinton there's not much you can do to build her up. You have to destroy her opponent in order to for her to win. You can't build her up. There's no "there" there. Hillary Clinton on her own is a walking disaster waiting to happen.
They have got to destroy and discredit every opponent that she might end up facing and recasting this whole meme on Iraq is part of it. And it's what the Democrats are known for. They always live in the past. They always do this revision of history. And nowhere in all of these questions that you here Rubio or Jeb Bush, there is no mention that Hillary Clinton eagerly supported Bush in the war in Iraq. Nowhere is it mentioned that the Democrats in the Senate asked for a second vote once they found out public opinion supported the war in Iraq. Nowhere is that mentioned.
What you're supposed to think is that every Democrat, Hillary, John Kerry, Obama, all of them opposed it and Bush did it anyway even though he knew there were no WMD. Truth is, we thought there was WMD, intelligence agencies all over the world told us, and every Democrat wanted to be seen as having voted for the war in Iraq.
BREAK TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: Now, here's a question for Maureen Dowd and all the rest of the leftists trying to give birth to a new narrative here. If the CIA, MI6, the Defense Intelligence Agency, if all of these intel services lied to George W. Bush about Saddam having weapons of mass destruction, how come they lied to Bill Clinton in 1998? Because Bill Clinton said the exact same thing. Bill Clinton was prepared to go into Iraq on the same basis that Bush did, except he was trying to erase Monica Lewinsky from the headlines.
We've got the sound bites here, folks. We have played these sound bites in the past, Bill Clinton making the case that Saddam's got weapons of mass destruction. We've got Democrat senators echoing everything Clinton said and urging Clinton to go to war, willing to sign a use-of-force authorization, 1998, five years before Bush. So if the intel services were lying to Bush, why weren't they lying to Clinton? If the CIA did not lie to Bush, how come they lied to Bill Clinton? You can ask this thing any way you want, because Clinton said the same thing Bush did.
We have documented it. We went back, we have played the sound bites on this program. It was all during the Obama campaign, in fact, because he was trying to make it out like no Democrat ever supported going into Iraq. The intel services didn't lie to Bush. This is a false narrative that's being created, because they know that there's a low-information voter component out there that'll buy anything the Drive-By Media says.
I got one. Knowing what we know now, should somebody can Hillary if Bill Clinton should have just gone ahead and killed bin Laden when he had the chance several times? Knowing what we know, should Bill Clinton have pulled out of Somalia, Black Hawk Down? Because that's what convinced bin Laden that we were a paper tiger. Bin Laden said so to a ABC reporter, John Miller. He said (paraphrasing), "Yeah, when I saw you guys cut-and-run from Somalia, I knew you could be had." So knowing what we know now, should Bill Clinton have pulled out of Somalia when he did?
But I've got an entirely different perspective on this. Why even accept the premise in this knowing what you know now. The premise in the knowing what you know now question is that Iraq was a mistake, that Iraq was a total boondoggle. More on that in a moment. Knowing what we know now, should Bill Clinton have used a condom with Monica when she had on the blue dress?
BREAK TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: Now, what I would like to see happen -- this is my last comment on knowing what we know now, and I'm gonna go back to the phones here, but I have one more thing to say about it. I know this will not happen, but I would love to see it. I wish one of these Republicans would not accept the premise in this "knowing what we know now, would you have authorized the invasion of Iraq, or should Bush have, or was it a mistake," or what have you. Because the premise is that it was a mistake. The premise is that it was a debacle. The premise is that it was the worst damn thing that ever happened in America, was the Iraq war. And that premise need not be accepted.
I would love it in Rubio or Jeb or anybody says, "You know what, Chris? You know what, George? You know it what" -- pick your native liberal reporter. "Knowing that the Democrats would rip this country apart because of the Iraq war, knowing that the Democrats would actively seek the defeat of the US military and knowing that the Democrat Party would do everything they could to sabotage the war effort, I might have rethought it.
"Knowing what I know now, that the Democrat Party was gonna take the occasion of the Iraq war to rip this country apart, that they would use it to elect an unqualified president who would then cut-and-run, Barack Obama, I might not have, George. I might not have, Chris, if I had known what the Democrats were gonna do, and if I had known that an incompetent like Obama would be elected, who would inherit a stable Iraq and then abandon it, I might not have, George. I might not have, Chris, had I known Obama was gonna be the next president."
Why accept the premise that it was a debacle? When Obama was elected, Iraq was stable. In fact, Obama, if you'll recall, liked the surge so much, after the fact -- don't forget this, either. Before the surge, every damn one of these Democrats tried to sabotage it. Here comes Petraeus up to Capitol Hill to testify about it. Before he said a word, Hillary's calling him a liar, MoveOn.org with a full-page ad in the New York Times calling him a liar, calling him General Betray Us. The surge went on to work. It worked so well that you may not have remembered this, but Obama actually used the tactic of the surge in Afghanistan. Remember that? And I think it was with General Betray Us again.
But accepting the premise that it was a total debacle is something that need not happen. And, by the way, these guys are running for president. And I don't care what their consultants say, they are running against a Democrat. I don't know who it's gonna be, Hillary, they're running -- and I hear this talk -- this is another thing. It's already happening again. I'm hearing Republican consultants and others who issue advice, free and otherwise, tell Republicans, "Forget Obama. Could we just move on? It's not about Obama, he's a lame duck, forget Obama, don't mention Obama."
Well, BS to that. The country is the mess it is because of Obama, and the reasons why, they're rooted in policy. It's time to educate people. So here comes this "knowing what you know now" question about Iraq, turn it right around on 'em and blame all this on the Democrats, not Bush. They supported it. They voted for going to war in Iraq. They're the ones that cut and ran at the first sign of trouble. They're the ones that wanted to act like they never supported it. They're the ones whose media buddies let 'em get away with that.
And let's not forget something very crucial. Both Barack Hussein O and Joe Biden tried to take credit for winning the war in Iraq. I'm sure some of you may remember that when I mention it here. I'll never forget, Biden and Obama both at a high point in Iraq, where it was stable, and there were elections, and it looked like the Iraq war had been won. They're out there taking credit for it. I'll never forget it. I was flabbergasted here when that happened. It was shameless. The two people who had done everything they could to sabotage that war effort now taking credit.
It was like Harry Reid taking credit for raising $4 million in the phony soldiers letter. Here's Nobel Peace Prize winner Barack Obama on the come, winning that prize on the come, taking credit, Iraq so such a positive, he was taking credit for the win. But now we got a presidential campaign. All of a sudden the Iraq war was an absolute disaster and debacle, and every Republican's gonna get a question where he's gonna be forced to admit that it was a debacle. Well, who made it the debacle? Barack Hussein Obama and his Democrat Party buddies, because Iraq was stable.
I mean, Bush's "democracy everywhere" agenda might not have been realized, but it was not a war torn country, and Ramadi had not fallen to ISIS, and there was not an ISIS. That's another thing, trying to blame ISIS on Bush. ISIS is a direct result of Barack Hussein Obama and his policies, along with the Democrat Party. And that's why accepting the premise of this question is a little bit problematic with me. Don't even accept the premise, because what they're really asking, "You admit the Iraq war was a mistake. Now will you admit it was a mistake? It was a mistake. You Republicans made the mistake, will you admit it?"
No, we did not make a mistake. ISIS, the Middle East, is a problem today because we got somebody incompetent running the show. I don't expect them to say that. I wish they would, but in their own way. For crying out loud, how is it that Obama is exempted from any and all responsibility for everything that's happened during his presidency? And that's another thing that question's trying to do, absolve Obama of any culpability, any responsibility. I know, we're all asking, "When are the Republicans going to learn?"
Well, as long as they view the media as an opportunity to get their word out, they're gonna continue to make the same mistakes. As long as they think they need the mainstream media to get their message out, they're gonna keep making these same mistakes because the mainstream media exists to distort their message. The mainstream media exists to destroy their campaigns and candidacies, not get their message out. That's not even arguable.
Okay. To the phones we go. Greg in Louisville, great to have you on the program, sir. Hello.
CALLER: Hi, Rush. Good to talk to you.
RUSH: Thank you, sir.
CALLER: Look, you always say, and I think it's absolutely right, that we should judge a government program by its results, not it's good intentions.
RUSH: Right.
CALLER: If you apply that standard to Iraq, I mean, come on, it was a bipartisan dumb idea. The result was disastrous. We wouldn't have had to have the surge. We wouldn't have so-called stable if Bush and Hillary and McCain and Kerry and Reid and McConnell hadn't all supported the bipartisan dumb idea. So therefore I think that it's very relevant to ask, you've got a fragmented Iraq now with ISIS coming into existence, with Iran coming in, their militia is coming in. They're fighting over the scraps. I think it's a very valid question, and it's mostly valid because half these people want to do it again. They want to send troops in to fight ISIS now. You got Lindsey Graham and all the gang, the neocons are just eager to go in and fight ISIS. So it's very relevant.
RUSH: Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait a minute. The neocons?
CALLER: Sure. Lindsey Graham, John McCain.
RUSH: I thought it was Obama that was going through the motions of fighting ISIS.
CALLER: Well, they're urging us to go in there and fight ISIS. I think they want us to repeat the same dumb idea.
RUSH: Okay, I'll play the game. You asked me, you're the journalist -- sorry, you're the Democrat Party hack, and I'm a candidate, and you ask me the question, "Do you think it was a mistake, the Iraq war?"
CALLER: Both sides should be asked that, but, yeah, do you think it was a mistake to invade Iraq in 2003?
RUSH: Okay, I'll agree it was a mistake. Now what? Now what?
CALLER: Well, let's don't do it again and let's learn from that and let's be careful what we get involved in. We got 5,000 dead Americans, trillions of dollars spent, a fragmented Iraq that's worse than ever, the neocons have been wrong --
RUSH: Well, I'm sorry (laughing) we're compounding the mistake. Obama is compounding the mistake over and over, the Arab Spring. I mean --
CALLER: I agree.
RUSH: -- nobody's learning from this mistake. Why are you fixated on the neocons? The neocons aren't running anything.
CALLER: They're the ones urging us to go back to the war. And Libya --
RUSH: Obama doesn't listen to the neocons.
CALLER: Well, he went into Libya, which was a dumb idea. And we got the results of that.
RUSH: Did the neocons make him do that?
CALLER: They encouraged it. Half the Republicans --
RUSH: Again, see, it's not Obama's fault. Neocons. The neocons. You know what this is? That's an anti-Semitic -- Neocons, these Jews did it. That's what that means. "The neocons" is code language for conservative Jews who used to be liberal Democrats. That's what it means. They're a bunch of hawks, and they don't care about the social issues. The neocons? That's a new one. Somebody needs to tell Stephanopoulos. That could be his way out of this. Just start asking the Republicans about the neocons and lay the blame at their feet.
BREAK TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: You know, I'll tell you where this is headed. If there's no stopping it, before we're done, the Democrats are gonna have tried to convince people that 9/11 didn't happen and that none of what's happened since is justified. Now, don't laugh at that. Obviously they will not say that 9/11 didn't happen, but what they'll do, as more and more time passes, they will happily try to point out that 9/11 was nowhere near as bad as causing all of these horrible policies the Republicans have implemented. So it's clear as a bell that's where we're headed.
Now, throwing the neocons in on this, that's a new sign of desperation. That one's fresh. I haven't heard that one yet. But it just illustrates how hard Democrats are working here to basically disqualify any foreign policy or operation, mission, whatever, that's happened since 9/11.
Now, meanwhile, ISIS is real, ISIS comes from Al-Qaeda. ISIS comes from Al-Qaeda in Iraq, contrary to what Maureen Dowd and others on the left want you to believe. And, by the way, they're building a new narrative: Saddam, he had so little to do with 9/11, he didn't even know about it. There wasn't any Al-Qaeda in Iraq. He had nothing to do with it. He was all huff and puffery. He never had any weapons of mass destruction. He was lying about it, and he had no contact with Al-Qaeda or any terrorist group ever. That was the Iranians.
Saddam was just a doddering old, bumbling idiot, braggadocio Arab, and the Bushes got lost and started trying to take the guy out 'cause they didn't like him and that's all there was to it, and that's why it was all a mistake and that's what they're trying to convince people of. Saddam was just a hapless bumbling little tinhorn guy that once tried to kill George H. W. Bush so we had to get even with him and we had to make up all this stuff about him being involved.
But ISIS exists. ISIS is Al-Qaeda in Iraq. ISIS also has roots to Syria. ISIS came into existence during the Obama administration. This is really fascinating to watch this. 'Cause the Limbaugh Theorem explains how Obama gets away with all of this domestic debacle, but now the Drive-Bys are even trying to take it a step further by claiming Obama's got nothing to do with whatever's happened in American foreign policy. Obama's got nothing to do with what the Iranians are doing. Obama's got nothing to do with what's happening with the Palestinians and the Israelis. Obama's got nothing to do with what happened to Libya and Benghazi.
All of this is George W. Bush's fault, because of the Iraq war. That's what's being set up, and it's all being set up for Hillary, because Hillary voted for it. Obama even attacked her in the 2008 campaign for all of her support for the Iraq war and George W. Bush. So now Hillary's gotta be given cover and protection, and the best way to do that is to destroy her opponent. Because left alone by herself, Hillary can't get any more votes than she's already gonna get because there's a D beside her name, which is a sizable number.
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