The whole concept of American guilt predominates this guy's existence and he considers himself to be part of a minority that has been subjugated and discriminated against, and so he identifies with the world. You know, the rest of the world is a minority compared to the United States. We're a superpower. In the view of many on the left all we've done is stomp all over the world. He goes over to Strasbourg, France, and he tells Europe that we don't think enough of them, that we haven't respected them enough, what were his exact words? We somehow have not granted Europe, in our own minds, the greatness. Europe wouldn't be there if it weren't for us. It's just outrageous what the guy went over there and said. Then he goes to Turkey and he says Turkey's just like us, Turkey's not a nation of Christians or Muslims; it's a nation of shared values and ideas. Well, we're not a Christian nation, we're not a Jewish nation; we're a nation of shared values and ideas. Not his. The shared values and ideas that Barack Obama harbors are not the values and ideas that built this country. That's what the argument is all about.
BREAK TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: The British press, who are not personally invested in the presidency of Barack Obama, are far more diverse and not of a single voice when reviewing Obama's performance at the G20. One guy, John Crace, recently wrote a piece that dissects sentence by sentence an answer to a question that Obama gave that he did not have a teleprompter for, and the guy is just as funny as he can be -- and he's right. It's nonsensical. It doesn't make any sense. Obama loses his train of thought throughout. Another British member of the press says, "It's boring. Is this guy going to leave town? He's boring." Of course nothing like that would be reported by the US media. Now, here is the answer. This is last Wednesday on April 1st. President Obama and Gordon Brown were holding a joint press conference. Nick Robinson from the BBC has a question. He said, "The prime minister has repeatedly blamed the United States of America for causing this crisis. France and Germany both blame Britain and America for causing this crisis. Who is right? And isn't the debate about that at the heart of the debate about what to do now?"
OBAMA: I -- I would say that, uh (long pause) if you look at (pause) the -- the sources of this crisis, uh, the United States, uh, certainly has some accounting to do with respect to a, uh, regulatory system that was inadequate --
RUSH: Stop. Stop and recue this. I forgot to give the audience a warning. This goes two-and-a-half minutes. We have a limit here. Normally I put a restriction on the sound bite length. I don't want any longer than a minute. If it goes longer, cut it up into two or three sound bites. In this case, we have made an exception to the rule. This goes on for a full two-and-a-half minutes. Here is Obama basically asking: How do we assess blame? Is the United States really responsible for the crisis, and what do we do about it now?
OBAMA: I -- I would say that, uh (long pause) if you look at (pause) the -- the sources of this crisis, uh, the United States, uh, certainly has some accounting to do with respect to a, uh, regulatory system that was inadequate to the massive changes that have taken place in the global financial system. I think what is also true is that, uhh, here in Great Britain, uhh, in continental Europe, around the world, uh -- we were seeing the same mismatch between the regulatory regimes that were in place and, uh, theeee highly integrated, uh, global capital markets that have emerged. So --
RUSH: Stop the tape. Remember, now, the question here is: Who's right? Who's really responsible for this, and isn't the debate about that? Who is responsible for it, at the heart of the debate about what to do now?
OBAMA: So at this point, uh, I'm less interested in identifying blame than fixing the problem -- and I think we've taken some very aggressive steps in the United States to do so. Not just responding to the immediate crisis, ensuring that, uh, banks are adequately capitalized, uh, dealing with, uh, the enormous drop-off in demand and the contraction that's been taking place, but more importantly in the -- uh, for the long term, making sure that we've got a set of, uh, regulations that are up to the task. Uh, and that includes, uh, a number that will be discussed at this, uh, summit. I think there's a convergence between all the parties involved about the need, uh -- for example, to focus not on the legal form that a particular financial product takes or the institution that it emerges from, but rather, what's the risk involved? Uh, what's the -- the function, uh, of this product and how do we regulate that adequately? Much more effective coordination, uh, between countries so that we can, uhh, anticipate some of the -- the risks that are involved.
RUSH: Are you following this?
OBAMA: I'm dealing with, uhhh, the, uh, problem of derivatives markets and making sure that, uh, we've set up, uh, systems that, uh, can reduce some of the risk there. So... I actually think that this enormous consensus that has emerged in terms of what we need to do now, uh, -- and, uh, I'm a big believer in looking forward rather than backwards.
RUSH: So here we have a stumbling, bumbling two-and-a-half minute answer to the question, and you need to remember this bite each time you hear what an impressive trip Obama had and what a great orator he is. Because he basically mumbled and jumbled through a non-answer, and if you want to try to ascertain any substance in this, actually, it is that, "Yes, I think the United States is to blame, but I'm not gonna look back. We're going to look forward to, and we're gonna find ways to punish the United States. I'm just telling you here in a way that you can't understand."
BREAK TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: Let's go to the audio sound bites of Obama in Ankara, Turkey, where Obama apologizes to the Muslim world for the United States of America.
OBAMA: I know there have been difficulties these last few years.
RUSH: Stop the tape. Recue it. There have been difficulties. Three thousand dead Americans in one day at the hands of militant Islamofascists. Yeah, there have been difficulties.
OBAMA: I know there have been difficulties these last few years. I know that the trust that binds the United States and Turkey has been strained, and I know that strain is shared in many places where the Muslim faith is practiced. So let me say this as clearly as I can. The United States is not and will never be at war with Islam.
RUSH: And that, yeah, right on, right on, right on, right on, right on, right on, right on. I don't even know that that needs a reply. Did anybody ever say we were at war with Islam? No, did anybody ever say that? We're at war with militant Islamofascist terrorists. It's called Al-Qaeda. In fact, George W. Bush went out of his way to say this. He went out of his way to say, I don't know how many times, while not in Turkey, while in the United States of America. So here is Obama being applauded for this. Bush bent over backwards and forwards to tell the Muslim world that we have no gripe with them. But now that Obama's saying it, "Oh, how brilliant. Oh, this is going to make the world safer." Then he goes on to say that we're not going to insult Muslims any longer the way Bush did.
OBAMA: America's relationship with the Muslim community, the Muslim world cannot and will not just be based upon opposition to terrorism. We seek broader engagement, based on mutual interest and mutual respect. We will listen carefully, we will bridge misunderstandings, and we will seek common ground. We will be respectful even when we do not agree. We will convey our deep appreciation for the Islamic faith, which has done so much over the centuries to shape the world, including in my own country.
RUSH: He really said that, Snerdley, he really said that. He said that the Islamic faith has done so much over the centuries to shape the world, including my own country. Well, I think 9/11 did have a big shaping factor here. The twin towers are gone, the Pentagon had a hole in it, 3,000 people are dead, what in the world is he talking about? Has he ever heard of Iran? Has he ever heard of Hamas? Does he hear what these leaders of these nations who are Islamic, does he hear what they are saying? We're going to listen to them now; we're not going to provoke them anymore; we're gonna bridge misunderstandings, all this liberal gobbledygook that comes out of conflict resolution 101 in junior high school. We'll be respectful even when we don't agree, as though we haven't been respectful now. They're chopping our heads off. Mr. Obama, Mr. President, how about the respect for the Islamic world that we afforded and accorded the people of Iraq? We got rid of a dictator that had rape rooms and was a mass murderer. And even you, sir, go there today to talk about the success that Iraq is and tell the military that continuing success is up to them. We somehow have not been respectful, we haven't bridged misunderstandings?
"The Islamic faith has done so much over the centuries to shape the world, including my own country"? I'm gonna need some help on this 'cause I don't know what other than 9/11 he's talking about. I don't mean to be offensive here. I'm interested in historical fact. What's been done? In fact, our first war with Islamists was waged by Thomas Jefferson, the Barbary pirates. Well, it was. The Somali pirates are just the latest version of the Barbary Coast pirates that Thomas Jefferson had to wage war against back in the days of our founding. What is he talking about? I swear I don't know.
BREAK TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: Here's that sound bite of Obama in Istanbul yesterday during a town hall meeting with students.
OBAMA: One of the great strengths of the United States is, uhhh -- although as I mentioned, we have a very large Christian population, uh, we do not consider ourselves a Christian nation or a Jewish nation or a Muslim nation. Uhhh, we consider ourselves, uh, a nation of citizens who are, uh, bound by ideals and a set of values.
RUSH: Really? Okay. Now, I know a lot of people think that sounds good. "We're not a Christian nation. We're not a Jewish nation. We're not a Muslim nation, just like you. We are a nation... We consider ourselves a nation of citizens bound by ideals and a set of values." Well, okay, what ideals? You gotta ask. What ideals and set of values does this nation consider itself bound by? I would submit... (interruption) No, the United States. Not Turkey. I'm asking you about the United States. He's talking about the United States. We consider ourselves just like Turkey. He's trying to say we're not Christian or Jewish or Muslim.
We're a people bound by ideals and a set of values. It depends. If you want to call the Constitution, you know, "ideals and a set of values," then okay, but that is not how I would describe the United States. What "ideals"? Whose ideals are we bound by? If you listen to Obama, the ideals that he espoused on this trip to Europe are not those that are found in the Constitution of the United States. Whose values? When the people of Iowa uniformly reject gay marriage but the Supreme Court of Iowa unanimously says, "Screw you. We're going to make it legal," whose set of values triumph here, the values of a dictatorship (i.e., a court) or the values of the citizens? What are these values that bind us?
Talk to the people of California when any number of their propositions are overturned by judges on the basis that they're either unconstitutional, or the judge says, "The people don't know what they were doing. They're too stupid." Whose values here bind us? What ideals? If you want to talk about the ideal of the concept of individual liberty and freedom, okay, but that comes from the Constitution. It's why we are an exceptional country. This is one thing Obama wanted to attack. There's nothing exceptional about America. We're no different than you -- and, in the strict sense of DNA, he's right. A human being is a human being, no matter what where the human being is born.
We're no better. As human beings, we aren't created superior to anybody else in the world. But what is it? You can't deny the fact that this is the greatest nation on earth. In less than 300 years we have become the most powerful, the richest, the most prosperous, the most generous, the most organized-for-good group of people in the history of the planet. How did this happen? With the same shared ideals and values of Turkey? No! With the same shared and valued ideals of Cuba? No! With the same shared values and ideals of China? Of Russia? Of France? If we shared ideals and values identical to all these other places, we wouldn't be where we are and we wouldn't be who we were. But we are, for a while longer, who we are. We are, for a while, longer what we are.
I really believe this from the bottom of my heart. I think it does matter how you grow up. I think it does matter who your mentors are. I think it does matter who your political influences are, and there is no question that Obama's a product of his. As such, he views this nation as too large. It's a nation that deserves to be cut down to size. He views himself as he views much of the people of the rest of the world: discriminated against, stomped on, bullied by the United States of America -- and it's his objective to tell the rest of the world, "Those days are over. We're not going to storm around and steal the world's resources, to pollute and destroy the planet, as we pursue a standard of living that none of the rest of you have and that we deny you." He believes all this. So he's gonna cut us down to size -- and he's doing it in speeches and he's in the process of doing it in his policies.
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RUSH: Gretchen in Long Beach, Mississippi, it's great to have you on the program. Welcome.
CALLER: Hey. How are you, Rush?
RUSH: Fine. Thanks much.
CALLER: Good. I'm doing fine. Listen, I just got back from Turkey, so I'm not really quite sure what the president's talking about. But it was stressed very much to us on our tour, everyone was very nice, you know, being out in the eastern part of Asia there, they're very Muslim. And they have no problem telling you, they stress that they are a Muslim country but secular, and they stress secular because we were western tourists. Now, it's not like when you go to Israel or Egypt and there's a mosque every 30 feet, but they say, "We are a Muslim country, we are over 90% Muslim." They tolerate, I guess as well as they can the Eastern Orthodox church and other churches that are there, but they are Muslim but secular, which is very important to them and letting westerners know that, "Yes, we're Muslim, but we're secular." So they're trying to tone down their Muslim part of who they are in a way so that they don't scare us. And I wasn't afraid. I mean, it's a beautiful country, it's different, I mean when you travel, you expect it's going to be different. But they are very Muslim. And let us know they are Muslim and they're not really ashamed of it. That's who they are. I mean they have a very long and rich history --
RUSH: Well, what are you reacting to here?
CALLER: Well, when Obama is stressing, making a big deal how America isn't anything, I mean we're just all this -- not anything, but we don't have Judeo-, we're not Christian, we're not this, we're not that, he's wrong, number one.
RUSH: Well, he may be wrong, but that's what --
CALLER: I don't know any Islam Founding Father.
RUSH: He may be wrong, but that's what he hopes to achieve.
CALLER: I'm surprised when he said citizen, he didn't say comrade. I thought that might slip out. I just thought that off the cuff. But the Turkish are very proud of their Muslim heritage, and there's nothing wrong with it, but, you know, they let you know that they're secular Muslims, which they want to let the West know that's different than the Iranians, the Iraqis, et cetera, et cetera.
RUSH: You know, Turks, they're in NATO. They are ostensibly allies. However, in the early days of the Iraq war the government of Turkey refused to allow US Special Forces or any military deployments through Turkey into northern Iraq 'cause they didn't want to choose sides in that way even though they're members of NATO. So they are an ally, but Obama, you have to understand that his audience, when he's making these speeches is to the people in that part of the world where he's speaking. He knows the words are going to be played back here in the United States of America, but remember, he's going around apologizing. I don't care what the words he uses are, he is going around, he says, (paraphrasing) "I'm sorry for what the United States has done, I'm sorry for what it's been, I'm sorry for what the United States has said." He is clearly going around the world with the assumption the United States is guilty, and he's trying to buy goodwill for himself with all of these people by saying he understands that and agrees with them.
This is all about Obama. This is not about Turkey. It's not about France. It's not about the European Union. It's not about NATO. It's not about the G20. It's about Obama. And Obama is a liberal, and liberals do think the United States is guilty by definition, and they want to be respected by Europeans and others around the world who are considered more worldly because they have accents and they've been around longer than we have. They have cultures older than ours. This is all about Obama. So he goes there and rips the United States. All he's doing is trying to relate to what he thinks the majority of opinion wherever he's speaking is. Now, the job of the US president on trips like this is to represent United States interests. It's the job of the secretary of state. It's the job of any official emissary to any nation or group of nations where there is an organization of which we are a member, such as United Nations or NATO or the G20 or the G8 or the G5 or whoever, whatever the hell these organizations are.
I would maintain to you that US interests have not been represented here, that the president has not made the case for US interests, but just the opposite. For his own benefit, he has sought to tell the people wherever he's speaking that he agrees with them, that his country, United States -- I don't think he's talking Kenya here -- United States is responsible for most of the problems in the world.
THE ECONOMIST
It has been only two-and-a-half months since Mr Obama was elected, but his “Yes, We Can” coalition is already fraying at the edges. In his appointments and pronouncements, Mr Obama keeps hinting that he is neither as radical nor as pure as his progressive supporters dared to hope. Anti-war activists, who rallied round him in the Democratic primaries because he was the only top-tier candidate to have opposed the Iraq war from the outset, now see worrying signs that their hero is a closet hawk. On the stump, he used to say things like: “I will bring this war to an end in 2009. So don’t be confused.” Now he says it might take a bit longer. To make matters worse, he has kept George Bush’s defence secretary, Robert Gates, in his job. “Not a single member of Obama’s foreign-policy [and] national-security team opposed the war,” fumes Katrina vanden Heuvel, the editor of the Nation, a lefty magazine, adding that Mr Gates is “a terrible pick”.
Far from ending Mr Bush’s war on terror, Mr Obama plans to ramp it up in Afghanistan, albeit under a different label. When Israel started bombing Gaza, he barely protested. Medea Benjamin of Code Pink, an anti-war group, howled that Mr Obama “has been missing in action” while the people of Gaza were being massacred. Others go further. John Pilger, an Australian journalist, bristles that the vice-president, Joe Biden, is “a proud war-maker and Zionist”, while Mr Obama’s chief of staff, Rahm Emanuel, is a Zionist who “opposes meaningful justice for the Palestinians”. Some folks are outraged, too, by Mr Obama’s rumoured selection of Dennis Ross, a veteran of Bill Clinton’s administration, as his point man on Iran. Robert Naiman, an analyst at a group called Just Foreign Policy, thinks Mr Ross might “set the stage for war with Iran”. (Mr Ross favours offering Iran carrots and sticks to abandon its nuclear ambitions, but will not rule out military action.)
During the campaign, Mr Obama called the prison at Guantánamo Bay a “betrayal of American values” and promised to close it. On his first day in office he suspended legal proceedings against the inmates. But he has yet to figure out what to do with them. In an interview with the Washington Post, he said he would consider it a failure if he had not closed the prison system down by the end of his first term. On anti-terrorism policy generally, Dick Cheney, the former vice-president, recently remarked that before Mr Obama started to keep his campaign promises, he needed “to sit down and find out precisely what it is we did and how we did it.” Mr Obama described this as “pretty good advice”. The people who used to flock to his rallies with placards demanding that Mr Bush and Mr Cheney be tried as war criminals are aghast, not least because Mr Obama appears disinclined to prosecute anyone.
For the left, the list of Mr Obama’s betrayals—real or anticipated—is getting longer. His economic advisers are nearly all centrists. Far from bringing capitalism to heel, he is planning to save it. His choice for attorney-general, Eric Holder, used to work for big corporations, making him a “poster-child for…selling out,” grumbles David Corn of Mother Jones, a progressive magazine. Unions fret that Mr Obama will not campaign hard enough to increase their clout. Greens worry that he will not move fast enough to rescue the planet. The National Organisation for Women complains that his economic-stimulus package will pump too much money into male-dominated industries such as construction, leaving only scraps for teachers and social workers.
There’s no pleasing some people
Should Mr Obama worry about all this? Not much. For one thing, he is still hugely popular. A whopping 79% of Americans approve of him. Two days before the inauguration, when a preacher told a crowd that Mr Obama was not the Messiah, he was booed (in jest, one hopes). For another, Mr Obama is not breaking as many promises as his former fans imagine. Mostly, he is breaking only promises they think he made. Had they read the small print, they would have seen that he left himself some wiggle room. During his campaign Mr Obama was, as he put it himself, “a blank screen on which people of vastly different political stripes project[ed] their own views”. He gave a lot of people the strong impression that their most urgent goals were also his. As president, he can no longer maintain this illusion.
He must make trade-offs. He wants to cool the planet, but without stifling growth. He wants to close Guantánamo, but without freeing anyone who will then shoot up a shopping mall. He cannot govern from the centre without upsetting his left flank from time to time; nor should he try. He also wants to be re-elected and, if the past is any guide, he will pursue this goal with ruthless pragmatism. During the campaign, for example, he said he favoured civil unions but refused to endorse gay marriage. Cynical observers suspected a fudge—that he said this only to dull the sting of Republican attack ads. It seems the cynics were right: last week a gay paper dug up a long-lost questionnaire from 1996 in which he strongly endorsed gay marriage. In this case, Mr Obama really is more liberal than the image he projected. In others, the opposite may be true. The world will know soon enough.
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