Posted on 12/01/2003 4:10:12 PM PST by Tumbleweed_Connection
Now, let's talk about the president, the trip to Iraq, and let me give you my analysis of this thing, and we'll get into the nuts and bolts and the details of it. The president's Thanksgiving. It was a morale booster for the military. It was shock and awe for liberals and the media. I mean, we kept hearing about Shock and Awe on the opening night of the Iraq war. Well, shock and awe finally happened on Thursday, Thanksgiving Day, Eastern time, when the press aboard Air Force One was able to let loose with what they knew, and our president, George W. Bush, the commander-in-chief had Thanksgiving dinner with the troops in Iraq. Now, President Bush might not have a whole lot of luck communicating with the all-talk-and-no-action UN but he sure has hell knows how to talk to our troops. That was obvious. And he might not use the language of the self-important media elite but he sure knows how to reach the American people. I mean, you know how you felt when you heard this? Do you remember how good you felt, how proud you felt, how awesome you felt? Good! Hubba Hubba! The White House did all this, able to keep a secret, planned it on for six weeks, nobody knew, pulled off on, and, by the way, who had announced it two or three days prior that she was going to Afghanistan and Iraq, none other than but the non-presidential candidate Hillary Rodham Clinton or Hillary Rodham Rodham, whichever. And so, let's admit it, some of you very happy that Hillary Rodham Clinton was upstaged as well, too. And, you know, Bush's dinner guests loved it. Americans across the country cheered and liberals ran to the focus groups to find out what they should say about it. They convened their focus groups to find out ways to say, "It was good, but." "Yeah, I like it, but…" Was this not embarrassing? Every one of these nine dwarves from Sharpton on down to Howard Dean and John Kerry and whoever else, "Yeah, I think it was great the president did this, but it doesn't change the fact that we shouldn't be there." "But it doesn't change the fact that we have no policy." "It was a great thing to do, but..." Just couldn't leave it alone, it was a great thing to do. You had to go partisan with this. So once again our president, our underrated president, our wartime president, our economic recovery president shows his leadership, he shows his feelings, he shows his determination to stay the course, and he shows his determination and ability to leave the Bush-haters bouncing off the walls. The Bush haters are so hateful of that they're even getting together out in Hollywood somewhere as a group called the "Bush-haters." I mean they're making no mincemeat about this now. They're getting together, Hollywood executives, artists, talent agents, and so forth, are getting together as the Bush-haters to plan strategy on how to defeat George W. Bush. The media, what was their template? They were a bit pompous, mock-serious. They had five various angles that they explored and treated, and I'll explain to you what those were when we come back. All right, the Bush trip to Iraq. What was the media template? "Did he take an unnecessary risk was one question they asked. Why didn't journalists report the news in advance? How could they have betrayed the rest of us and kept this a secret? How could that have happened? Was it just another photo op, just a PR move, totally insincere? He was only there for two and a half hours, he didn't really want to go. This is some idea to upstage us." And then there were two other templates. I actually saw press people saying, "Well, what do the nine Democratic presidential candidates think of it," and the other one, the pièce de résistance, "What would Bill Clinton have done?" Did you hear them going through that one? What would Bill Clinton have done? Once again, my friends, another illustration, why the mainstream media is less mainstream and how they're becoming less mainstream. I mean, for crying out loud, the legacy of Bill Clinton is that politics isn't everything, it's the only thing, clouds their minds. They cannot possibly see that this trip had a morale boost or a war effort behind it. All they can do is look at this from the same lens this they looked at Bill Clinton through, everything was focus group tested. You've got to focus group on where you go on vacation and you go there and you focus group on what you wear on the vacation once you go there. And so the possibility, just the possibility that we might have a human being as a president who actually cares about the troops and wanted to show the world that he's serious about this mission and isn't going to pull out, never crosses their minds. As long as the press is asking what would Clinton have done, let's go ahead and explore what Clinton would have done. Would Clinton have actually gone? No, because there wouldn't be any troops there. Clinton would have lobbed a missile into a high-rise on Baghdad on a Saturday night killing a janitor. He would have then gone to Hollywood and staged a landing at night in Baghdad, meeting with troops who were really Hollywood actors over Thanksgiving and the press would have been along for the ride and would have dutifully reported it, as it was real, just like the moon landing was, you know, filmed in a Hollywood studio. That's what Clinton would have done. I mean if you people are going to obsess about what would Bill Clinton have done, let's be honest about what he would have done. He couldn't have done this because he wouldn't of had troops there! So the president rallied the troops, the troops he dined with, and he also rallied the troops he didn't dine with. He rallied the troops that were outside coping with the heat or the snipers in Iraq, the snipers on the home front. And how about the tension in the newsrooms, my friends? How do we fit Hillary into this? How do we fit Hillary Clinton, oh no, we've been totally sandbagged. Bush just left Baghdad, he had Thanksgiving dinner with the troops, we're all prepared to cover Hillary's arrival, how do we fit Hillary into this now? That was their big concern. And then Jack Reed, the liberal senator from Rhode Island that took Hillary with him to Iraq and Afghanistan, that was the vehicle. Well, Senator Reed is there, let's cover Senator Reed in Afghanistan. Well, look who's next to Senator Reed, why, looky who. It's Hillary Clinton sitting next to Senator Jack Reed, and Americans are saying "Jack Reed? Who the hell is Jack Reed?" you know, the big time senator. He was so instrumental in this Medicare bill, Jack Reed. Everybody knows who Jack Reed is. Jack Reed, the senator from Rhode Island. "Who?" Jack Reed, the media is saying, Jack Reed went to Afghanistan, our cameras just happened to be there, and look who's next to him, why, it's Hillary Rodham Clinton. What the press didn't tell you is that apparently there were very few uniformed personnel that wanted to dine with Hillary in Afghanistan and they had to go recruit people. Can we remind you people of something? When the Clintons were in the White House, remember, the military was not - we were told they were not allowed to wear their military uniforms in the White House, and then we were told the military had to serve at cocktail parties and state dinners. So is it any wonder that had a little trouble rounding up uniformed, American uniformed personnel to dine with Hillary in Afghanistan? And then Hillary runs around and says, you know what, I'm all for this effort, I'm all for us being here and I'm all for us being in Iraq but we don't have enough troops. Well, why would that be, Mrs. Clinton? Can we perhaps go back to your husband's administration and look at all of the defense budget cuts that actually happened, and can we also go back and look to your party which is saying let the UN do it, let the French do it, let the Germans do it, let the superpower of the Caribbean, Belize, do it, let anybody do it but us. We don't have any troops to send over there, Mrs. Clinton. Your administration did quite a number on the number of troops. More on that, my friends, in mere moments. The press is sitting there saying, "Okay, what do we do? Do we give Hillary more coverage than Reed? You know, Jack Reed the very important senator from Rhode Island who was very instrumental in the Medicare bill. Do we give Hillary more coverage than Reed, do we give Hillary more coverage than the president? Maybe we do a split screen, let's have Hillary there in Afghanistan, Bush in Baghdad, that's how we'll do it. We've got to get Hillary in this somehow. Wait a minute. But if we say George W. Bush as president shouldn't have risked the trip, then how can we say that the next president should have risked the trip? Meaning Mrs. Clinton." I mean you can't sit there and you're the press with any credibility and say Bush shouldn't have gone, it's too dangerous, you don't fly at night, you don't fly under a false ID on a jet, you don't turn the lights off, you don't land in Baghdad with terrorists around the airport, you don't do that. But then you clap your hands in praise of Mrs. Clinton for going the same place, and she, in their minds, is the next president, so how do you criticize the sitting about the for doing it and praise the next president for doing it? This is now the mind-set of the media. I'm putting myself in their newsrooms and, you know, going through their lame games they too, my friends, had quite a dilemma with this. So not to be outdone or upstaged Hillary did everything she could do get face time on her trip so she ate with the troops, and I'm wondering did she insist on her White House rule that the troops wear civilian clothes and that the military serve at state dinners? And Hillary, too, spoke to the media; and as a counterbalance to our president's positive message we got from Mrs. Clinton a negative message: we're for the troops but we don't have enough here, we're going down the wrong road, victory is not assured. Meanwhile, you've got the president praising these people for what they're doing, calling them great Americans, promising them that the American people support them, and you've got the next president in Afghanistan and Iraq basically saying we love you but we don't think you should be here under these auspices or this policy, we're heading down the wrong path and we don't believe victory is assured and she's expecting rounds of applause with this. The liberals claim it's their patriotic duty to criticize the president. I mean that's the new definition of patriotism, by the way, is it not? I mean the liberals are trying to redefine that word, patriotism, so that it includes, in fact, not includes, so that it is defined as criticizing a sitting president, no matter what's going on, especially when we're at war, that's politics, you stand at the water's edge, not now. No. Politics extends to wherever the troops are, wherever the president is, and you criticize both and that is the new liberal patriotism. So, given that, if the liberals claim it's their patriotic duty to criticize the president, isn't our patriotic duty to criticize the critics? Yes, I'm going to define criticism here, patriotism here, and you know what patriotism is on this program? It's criticizing the critics. That's what you have to do on this program to show me that you're a patriot, you have to criticize the critics of our effort to beat back terrorists around the world. And then if you're not willing to criticize those who side with our enemy then you will not be called a patriot by me or anyone else associated with this program. I mean after eight years of knowing diddly about dealing with the Middle East, all of the sudden now Jack Reed and Hillary Rodham Clinton are the experts that we must listen to. Sorry. Not buying it here. So, carrying this theme a little further, if as the liberals have so defined it, if it's Hillary's patriotic duty to criticize our president in Iraq then it is our patriotic duty to criticize her in New York. And so we could ask Mrs. Clinton when is enough, enough. Why don't you just drop this Barbra Streisand business and go ahead and run for president? Why toy with us? Get it over with now, Hillary, do us all a favor, don't wait till 2008, do it now and make everybody happy and help this poor woman having 800 orgasms a day so she can have a thousand. You can become these liberals' Orgasmatron, Hillary, if you just announce. You can make these liberals so happy, instead of playing all these games and running around trying to establish your credentials as foreign policy expert here, foreign policy expert there, just come back to the United States and do it! Meaning run for office. Let's not put the nation through five more years of waiting to see whether the country buys your act. Why don't let's see if the country has bought your act now. Let's get it over with. You know, the country has more important things than Hillary's personal ambition to focus on, and the press ought to have more important things to focus on than Hillary Clinton's personal ambitions. So let's get it over with, Hillary. It is your patriotic duty.
Probably the only way she would have one, HAHA
I enjoyed the images of President Bush serving the troops their turkey and dressing. Of course the only pictures of Hillary! were those of her stuffing her face. She was the turkey!
I want to hear more about this. LOTS more. I've heard references to it, but nothing definitive. Anyone have the facts?
az
That is obvious from the photos. The recruits are as unhappy a looking bunch as I've ever seen. The pictures remind me of all those stiff, stern faced people standing behind a communist, tin-horn dictator, like Kim Jong-Il, pose for a photo-op. Contrast them with the jubilant faces and cordial demeanor of the troops surroundinig President Bush.
GWB has been totally underestimated. He never ceases to amaze me.
You know, any one of the Nine - or is it now Ten Dwarves? - could have risen from the crowd in not just the liberals' eyes but the conservatives' as well by simply standing up and saying "that was a terrific gesture" and sitting down. No qualifications, no buts, no positioning, no posturing, just "hey, that was great." I know I keep talking about this, but just sitting there and trying to posture as anti-Bush makes you look stupid. Rush is correct - focus-grouping what color power tie you wear will get your lunch eaten by the guy in the flight suit.
I guarantee that viewership will go up!
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