Kerry, the Democratic nominee for president in 2004, whose unvarying answer to every foreign policy and national security question without exception was: “We have to join with others and form a coalition.” Kerry never had an idea of
about any foreign policy or national defense problem; to join America with a coalition of nations
his policy. Today McCain made it clear that he’s the same. Also, throughout his career, John Kerry’s constant theme has been hostility to American national sovereignty, national defense, and national distinctiveness. Today John McCain made it clear that he’s the same. But why should that surprise anyone, given McCain’s openly expressed contempt for American national sovereignty and distinctiveness when it comes to the defense of our borders and the preservation of our culture? Haven’t I said all along that McCain is anti-American? Haven’t I said all along that McCain’s famously fierce “patriotism” is patriotism to
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RUSH: Let’s get to what Republican policies have become. Let’s listen to excerpts of Senator McCain’s speech to the World Affairs Council in Los Angeles today. Here’s number one.
MCCAIN: We can’t build an enduring peace based on freedom by ourselves, and we do not want to. We have to strengthen our global alliances as the core of a new global compact, a league of democracies that can harness the vast influence of the more than 100 Democratic nations around the world to advance our values and defend our shared interests. At the heart of this new compact must be mutual respect and trust.
RUSH: Okay. We can’t build an enduring peace based on freedom by ourselves, and we do not want to. Now, while this may sound appealing to some of you, we are the leader of the free world. We owe it to ourselves to protect and maintain our own freedom and we must do that by ourselves. We cannot subject our freedom to the possibility we may not have allies in one of our quests around the world. Where is American exceptionalism here? That’s one of the things that conservatism has always had as a bedrock, American exceptionalism, American greatness, because of our people, because of our founding, because of our principles and because of the evidence that exists to support the notion that this is a great population of people. Here’s the next excerpt.
MCCAIN: Our great power does not mean we can do whatever we want, whenever we want, nor should we assume we have all the wisdom and knowledge necessary to succeed. We need to listen, we need to listen to the views and respect the collective will of our Democratic allies. When we believe international action is necessary, whether military, economic, or diplomatic, we will try to persuade our friends that we are right. But we in return must be willing to be persuaded by them.
RUSH: You gotta keep in mind the context of the speech. This is a foreign policy speech. This sounds like the global test, this sounds like the haughty—by the way, let me clarify something. People think I’m calling Kerry, a hotty, h-o-t-t-y, it’s haughty, h-a-u-g-h-t-y, the haughty John Kerry. This sounds like the global test. We need to listen to the views and respect the collective will of our Democrat allies. If they think we’re wrong, we’ve gotta be open to being persuaded that we’re wrong. (interruption) That’s exactly right, Mr. Snerdley. If they think we’re wrong, we have to own up to being wrong, the possibility of being wrong. Let me tell you something. Liberals are going to love this speech. This is the problem. This is their stated approach. This is no different than what John Kerry was talking about doing, although his remarks were in the context of military involvement, but McCain included that here. We have three more to go. Here’s another one.
MCCAIN: America must be a model citizen if we want others to look to us as a model. How we behave at home affects how we are perceived abroad. We must fight the terrorists and at the same time defend the rights that are at the foundation of our society. We can’t torture or treat inhumanely suspected terrorists we have captured. I believe we should close Guantanamo and work with our allies to forge a new international understanding on the disposition of dangerous detainees under our control.
RUSH: We can’t trust these people internationally on this! Close down Club Gitmo. We have a thriving merchandise business at Club Gitmo. Shut it down? By the way, how do we know that anybody’s been tortured? How do we really know? Even if we don’t torture people, there are going to be leftists in this country accusing us of it based on pictures at Abu Ghraib, and then the whole notion that we torture as a routine gets accepted. And if somebody’s not going to stand up and say no, we don’t torture, instead of standing up and accepting the premise that the left puts forward that we torture, and McCain has just accepted that premise, says, well, we gotta stop torturing, gotta close Club Gitmo, and we gotta work with our allies to forge a new international understanding. What happened to Americanism here? It’s like we’re no different than anybody else on the planet. Our nation is no different than any other nation. This is how the left—everything, everybody—everybody thinks, “Well, Mr. Limbaugh, you’re exactly right, and McCain has it right, and that’s why you can’t stand it, because you don’t like anybody being right but you. But we are no different, we’re no better, and we’re a lot worse than some people, Mr. Limbaugh, and it’s time that you realize it.” This is the kind of guy that McCain is going to appeal to. Second-to-last one, oh boy.
MCCAIN: We need to be good stewards of our planet and join with other nations to help preserve our common home. The risks of global warming, the risks of global warming have no borders. We and the other nations of the world must get serious about substantially reducing greenhouse gas emissions in the coming years, or we will hand off a much diminished world to our grandchildren. We need a successor to the Kyoto treaty, a cap-in-trade system that delivers the necessary environmental impact in an economically responsible manner. We Americans must lead by example and encourage the participation of the rest of the world.
RUSH: Good grief, not even Bill Clinton would sign on to Kyoto and now Senator McCain wants to. Do you notice a theme here? The theme here is that there’s nothing special about America, and that we’re not going to be able to do anything without involving other nations and making them like us and showing them that we intend them no harm and that we want to be good stewards of the planet just as they want to be good stewards. The problem is that so many other nations, even some of our allies, have totally given themselves over to kookery on this whole global warming, Kyoto mess. We and other nations of the world must get serious about substantially reducing greenhouse gases. We need a successor to the Kyoto treaty. We must lead by example. There’s no leadership here. The leadership here is, “I’m going to lead this country into getting along with everybody. I’m going to make sure that they like us.” But in every one of these bites—I know it’s the World Affairs Council, I know it’s a foreign policy speech. I don’t know, this audience may be a bunch of libs. We edited out the applause just for the time but there’s a lot of applause to the things he’s saying here, I want to be honest with you here. A lot of the applause we edited out for the sake of brevity, but every bite that we’ve played, (doing McCain impression) “We must join other nations to get anything worthwhile done. We can’t do it ourselves, we shouldn’t have to, we shouldn’t want to do it alone, we shouldn’t, we should, we can’t.” Let’s see. There is one more—oh, yeah, the big finish.
MCCAIN: I hold my position because I hate war, and I know very well and very personally how grievous its wages are. But I know, too, that we must sometimes pay those wages to avoid paying even higher ones later on. I run for president because I want to keep the country I love and have served all my life safe and to rise to the challenges of our times as generations before us rose to theirs.
RUSH: So finish off with the big war record, that’s a little Kerryesque as well. But, you think of it what you will, I think of it what I will. You know, one thing we could do here, folks, just change the name. We’re no longer the United States of America, we’ll call ourselves New Europe.
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RUSH: I just took a sneak peek at subscriber e-mail sent to RushLimbaugh.com that members use. Wow, are you people mad. People are fit to be tied. Do you think McCain would have secured the Republican nomination with that speech during the Republican primaries? Where was that speech during the primary? Where was this, we’re going to give everything away to Europe, we’re going to let them have a say-so, whatever we do, where was it? The last time I heard that was John Kerry’s global test. There were not too many parts of this speech that your average Democrat would not give. But I don’t remember hearing anything like this during the primaries when McCain needed to appear as a foot soldier in the Reagan revolution and tax cuts, making them permanent and all this sort of stuff.
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RUSH: By the way, after we change our name from the United States of America to New Europe, let’s apply for membership in the European Union and let’s get rid of the dollar and start using the euro, (doing McCain impression) “to show that we understand ‘em. Good idea, Limbaugh, now you’re getting it, you’re getting it!”
Scott K. writes: