RUSH: The regime. And Egypt. First let's go to audio sound bite number three. We have a montage here of the regime's flip-flops and mixed messages on Egypt. This is an anatomy of a botched foreign policy. What you're gonna hear here is the illustration of the definition of incompetence.
JOE BIDEN: (January 27, 2011) Mubarak has been an ally of ours in a n-number of things. I would not refer to him as a dictator.
MRS. CLINTON: (January 30, 2011) It's not a question of who retains power. That should not be the issue. You cannot keep trying to put words in my mouth.
OBAMA: (February 1, 2011) (godlike echo) What I indicated tonight to President Mubarak is my belief that an orderly transition must be meaningful, it must be peaceful, and it must begin now.
ROBERT GIBBS: (February 2, 2011) "Now" means yesterday. 'Cause when we said "now" we meant yesterday.
FRANK WISNER: (February 5, 2011) The President must stay in office in order to steer those changes through. I, therefore, believe that President Mubarak's continued leadership is critical.
MRS. CLINTON: (February 6, 2011) We respect the many years of service that Frank Wisner has given to our country but he does not speak for the American government. He does not reflect, uh, our polices.
OBAMA: (February 6, 2011) Egypt is not going t'go back to what it was.
ROBERT GIBBS: (February 8, 2011) Less important is what we think and more important is what the people of Egypt think.
and
From the AP: "The White House is working aggressively to erase conflicting messages on Egypt that have frustrated even President Barack Obama." (laughing) The frustrating messages from the regime are frustrating even the leader of the regime! The White House is working aggressively? Who is "the White House," here? Who is it? Is it Gibbs? Is it Biden? Is it Obama? "The White House is working aggressively to erase conflicting messages on Egypt that have frustrated even" Obama. Well, who the hell is in charge, then?
"After comments by some State Department officials were widely interpreted as diverging from the White House stand, the White House sought to dispel any notion that it's either loosening pressure on President Hosni Mubarak or backing off from supporting the protesters flooding Cairo. Much of the White House ire centered on comments [you just heard here] made by Frank Wisner, the retired U.S. diplomat who was dispatched by Obama to help nudge Mubarak out of office. Wisner stunned Obama officials by saying Saturday that Mubarak's continued leadership was critical..."
Now, imagine this. The regime picks out this guy, they send him over there and his charge is, "Look, Frank, when you get over there you're supposed to just tell Mubarak he's gotta go. You're delivering a message from me, 'Barack Hussein Obama! Mmm, mmm, mmm,' and when you get there, you tell him scram. Get outta there." So Wisner gets over there and says just the exact opposite: "that Mubarak's continued leadership was critical as Egypt worked through reforms." Mrs. Clinton had to pipe up and say (paraphrased), "Well, he's a respected guy but he's a stupid idiot and he doesn't speak for us."
Well, you sent him! The regime sends the guy. He makes a statement and it's not what the regime wants stated. "Obama himself showed his frustration about what Wisner said ... Yet part of the confusion has stemmed from the government's own message. Comments by some State Department officials seemed to tack too far from the White House stance, particularly by raising doubts about whether it was wise for Mubarak to resign now, as protesters in his repressed nation demand. What's more, White House officials were frustrated about some of the news reporting on events.
"The overall concern was that the narrative was getting cloudy and certainly not focused on the events in Egypt." They've lost control of all of this, and they're admitting here they've lost control of the media! (laughing) Wisner is their own guy, folks! It's total amateur hour -- and in this country, we've got some of the best and the brightest, some of the most learned intellectuals analyzing this in some of the loftiest ways, and it's the Three Stooges. This is Abbott and Costello. This is Who's on First. Again, the regime picks a retired State Department guy, sends him over there with the purpose to tell Mubarak to get outta there, to nudge him away. Wisner gets over there and says, "Uh, uh, this place needs Mubarak for a long, long time." (laughing)
This frustrates Obama, and now they get frustrated with some of the reporting on the events. "[O]n Tuesday, when Obama spokesman Robert Gibbs was asked about State Department comments on the risks if Mubarak leaves hastily, he bristled. 'I want to be clear,' Gibbs said. 'I speak for the president of the United States of America. We are not here to determine who leads Egypt and when they lead Egypt.'" Really? Gibbs just said last week: Get out of there now. Last week the regime's position was that Mubarak had to go, now! "Now" meant "yesterday." We had that in the sound bite montage: "Now" meant "yesterday."
and
RUSH: Yesterday afternoon on television, Andrea Mitchell, NBC News, Washington, talked to Senator Dianne Feinstein of California who also probably doesn't understand much of what's going on. More on that in just a moment. But Andrea Mitchell said, talking about the transfer of power in Egypt, "Do you think that that can be done; guarantees of something so that there isn't a total vacuum and that there are political organizations and a process for elections? Can that happen within weeks or at the most months, or do we have to wait until September as Mubarak says he prefers?"
Now, let me translate the question. Here's a journalist, who actually by virtue of the question thinks that she has a role in policy here. And notice the narrative. The narrative starts: we gotta get rid of Mubarak. He's rotten. He's a dirty skunk. This guy's horrible, go, now, get gone. That's the position of the regime last week. Now the regime's done a double-take, and they're backed off that. Andrea Mitchell either hasn't gotten the memo or she still thinks Mubarak needs to go. She's got Di Fi up there on her show. (imitating Mitchell) "Is there anything we can do? Do we have to wait weeks? Do we have to wait months? Is there anything we can do to get rid of this slime?" That's the question. And here's Di Fi's answer.
FEINSTEIN: Let me say one more thing, and that is concern that we have over fundamentalist Islamic sects taking over, and I think it's very real that we do not --
RUSH: Stop the tape, stop the tape, recue it here. I'm sorry. For you in Rio Linda, it's s-e-c-t-s. They're not worried about Islamic sex in Egypt. Groups, Islamic groups, sects, religious sects. Here's the answer.
FEINSTEIN: Let me say one more thing, and that is concern that we have over fundamentalist Islamic sects taking over. And I think it's very real that we do not understand the ebb and flow of the currents in the Middle East. I remember in 2006 when it was being discussed whether Hamas should be permitted to run in Gaza, I think perhaps we don't understand this, and one thing that needs to be looked at is that border with the tunnels between Gaza and Egypt and whether the military is still able to keep weapons from flowing both ways.
RUSH: Do you understand it, folks, Dianne Feinstein of the Intelligence Committee is saying we don't understand that this could be an Islamist takeover, and she's speaking not just of herself but of the regime. We don't understand what this could be. Why don't we understand? Because forces have formed here in this country, both in the media and outside, to reject that as so unlikely, "No, this is for good. This is all about democracy, and we must blanketly support. This could not be anything to do with an Islamic sect take over." Except Dianne Feinstein says, "We don't understand, Islamists could take over Egypt." She's right.
and
RUSH: I thought Obama, in part, was elect to fix the Middle East. Didn't you? I distinctly remember that's what the Cairo speech was all about. In fact, his strong suit was that the world was going to love us. Because as you know the world hated us because of George W. Bush, because of the pictures from Abu Ghraib from Club Gitmo, from all the torture, all the cowboy stuff. Bush was running around the world pulling the trigger, firing bullets at anybody. "If you're not with us, you're against us," all that kinda talk. Obama was gonna restore our place in the world! Little did we know that meant "cutting America down to size." No, America was gonna be loved once again! America was going to be respected.
The Middle East was going to end terrorism against America because Obama was president. He bragged that his time living in Indonesia as a kid and his father's Muslim roots made him an expert in foreign policy, especially in the Middle East. We got the Cairo speech, and we were told Obama was the architect of "smart power" and pushing the proper "reset buttons." They were gonna have "smart" foreign policy. Obama was sold to us as an expert who knew best how to handle the Middle East (especially compared to that idiot, George W. Bush, and Darth Cheney). It doesn't appear, ladies and gentlemen, that that happens to be in the slightest way accurate. It seems we're in a bigger mess with a more confused message and policy than anyone can remember.
In fact, in the New York Times: "Allies Press America to Go Slow on Egypt." This story is all about how our allies don't like tossing Mubarak overboard, and so we're not going to do it now. Yesterday, last week, Gibbs says, "That transformation, that starts now," and "now" meant "yesterday." No, now we're gonna have an orderly transition out there, as our allies are not keen the idea. So Obama runs out there, makes a speech, takes ownership of that mob, believes what they say that they want to get rid of Mubarak. He goes out and demands the transformation start now and then all hell breaks loose.
"No, no, no! Mr. President, we don't want to get rid of this guy right now. He's too crucial here." One of Obama's own State Department guys goes over there with the charge to get rid of Mubarak, and when he gets over there... You know what? I'll bet you that this Wisner guy is probably one of the last few remaining adults, and what happened was this guy knows full well what's going on over there and probably, as an act of patriotism, went over there and under the guise of getting rid of Mubarak makes a public speech saying, "We can't afford to get rid of him right now." Somebody understanding that we've got a total novice running this show and that some adults gonna have to step in here at whatever cost and put the truth on the table.
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