Later on in the show, someone actually called him and berated him for congratulating Obama - totally missing what Rush had meant.
It was interesting, last night, reading a thread on the subject at the Hannity.com forums. There too, reaction was mixed depending on whether the author was a Democrat or a Republican. A Republican posted his disgust that Obama had used the word "I" 17 times in his speech, whereas Bush, in a similar speech when he'd been president, used the word "I" only 4 times. (Never mind that Obama's speech had been twice as long as Bush's speech.)
Here's Rush, in full satiric mode:
RUSH: Ladies and gentlemen, we need to open the program today by congratulating President Obama. President Obama has done something extremely effective, and when he does, this needs to be pointed out. President Obama has continued the Bush policies of keeping a military presence in the Middle East. He did not scrub the mission to get Bin Laden. In fact, it may be that President Obama single-handedly came up with the technique in order to pull this off. You see, the military wanted to go in there and bomb like they always do. They wanted to go in there and drop missiles and launch bombs, a number of totally destructive techniques here. But President Obama, perhaps the only qualified member in the room to deal with this, insisted on the Special Forces. No one else thought of that. Not a single intelligence advisor, not a single national security advisor, not a single military advisor came up with the idea of using SEAL Team 6 or any of the Special Forces.
Our military wanted to go in there and just scorch the earth, leaving no evidence of anything after the mission. But President Obama single-handedly understood what was at stake here. He alone understood the need to get DNA to prove the death. Obama alone understood the aftermath, alone understood that there would be doubting Thomases if the place was just obliterated and no evidence was to be found. According to news reports, not one member of the military, not General Petraeus, nobody in the intel community, nobody had the slightest idea of going in there and using Special Forces. It was President Obama, single-handedly and alone, who came up with the strategy that brought about the effective assassination of Osama Bin Laden. He kept the Bush policies alive keeping a military presence in the Middle East, allowing the military to finish the job that they started nearly ten years ago.
What a great testament it is in these times for an element of the United States to perform as designed. SEAL Team 6, the special operations guys, what a magnificent moment for them, a brilliantly conceived and flawlessly executed operation. And it's a very uplifting thing to realize that such precision can still be accomplished in this country. Last night I was as proud as I have been of the US military in I don't know how long, and I remain so today. I toyed with the idea of opening the program with military music. I felt so happy and proud about this. This was a 40-minute operation, get in, get it, and get out. There are a lot of questions about it, burial at sea, the DNA supposedly takes a week to get, but we've got it already, the proof positive it was Osama Bin Laden. It's a very, very, very, very important and positive day for the US military.
Couriers were needed by Osama to receive and send information. In order to keep him alive, in order to keep him safe, they couldn't allow any communication. There was no television. There was no Internet. There were no telephones, no satellite, nothing in or out. It required couriers. Detainees who may have been waterboarded, and again we need to never forget that President Obama deserves praise for continuing the policies established by George W. Bush which led to the acquisition of this intel that led us to the enlarged hut in Pakistan that led to the assassination of Bin Laden last night. The detainees, many of them started talking, and the couriers were identified. The couriers were then tracked and followed by intelligence operatives, and it was learned as far back as last summer where Bin Laden was. Last summer it was suggested that we go in and get Bin Laden, and Obama even then, knowing full well and the only one in the room knowing that the military's way going in there and bombing this thing wasn't the way to work. Thank God for President Obama. If he had not been there, who knows what woulda happened. It was only Obama who understood the need to get DNA, to prove that this was Bin Laden that we had assassinated.
So the information, the intel from captured detainees at Guantanamo led to the discovery of the courier system that kept Bin Laden informed of what's going on. I told you that this regime would never close down Guantanamo Bay. It was simply too valuable a military asset. So, ladies and gentlemen, regardless what you think, and my e-mail is filled with people who are saying they want to see the long-form death certificate. The "deathers" now, that's the new term. (laughing) It might have been Khalid Sheikh Mohammed himself who gave up the information about the couriers. It might have been Khalid Sheikh Mohammed. And, ladies and gentlemen, while Osama is dead, he had long since stopped being a key commander, because he had no way to issue orders. He was a figurehead. He'd been taken out of the game because of the worldwide manhunt to find him.
The actual planner, and we know this, the actual planner who drew up the blueprints, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, is still alive. He's at Club Gitmo. That is something that is 100% under Obama's control. Khalid Sheikh Mohammed could have been put before a military commission long, long ago. They wanted a show trial for Khalid Sheikh Mohammed in New York City. They still do, in fact. But this is an occasion about which to declare victory. And it is a victory brought about by the policies of the Bush and Cheney administration, policies that President Obama saw fit to continue to the end, keeping our troops in the Middle East, a heightened military presence, unafraid to use the Special Ops. You go back and look at some of these stories in the past that I was talking about. I've got stories where Obama said, "I'm not gonna make him a martyr," as a candidate for presidency in 2008. Obama said, "I'm not gonna make him a martyr. I would not kill him. I would capture him." Well, reality has a strange way sometimes of maturing people. And Obama realized that capturing Osama Bin Laden -- and now what to do with him. The Saudis did not want his body. Nobody wanted it. So we buried him at sea, which is one of the final options in Islam that's permitted if all else fails. We don't know what sea, but the last thing they wanted was to establish a grave site, a destination for Pilgrims, if you will, for the ages.
So the question of where is Osama Bin Laden, also a brilliant, brilliant strategy, executed by this regime, utilizing the policies laid down by Bush and Cheney. Time to declare victory. It really is. This is a major moment, even though Bin Laden was no longer an effective leader. In fact, our buddies at StratFor, the global intelligence website: "The Tactical Irrelevance of Osama Bin Laden's Death." They point out that there's not much he could do to lead. He couldn't get orders in or out. He'd become a figurehead, and so in terms of the war on terror, it will go on, terrorism will still happen.
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In the interests of Order and Method: My Schedule of Regular Posts
*Monday through Friday morning - schedules of President, VP and Secretary of State and her diplomats
*Monday through Friday afternoon - List of topics Limbaugh discussed on his program that day
*Monday through Friday througout the day - My posts on anything that I feel like talking about. At least one or two a day, sometimes more.
*Saturday through Sunday morning - An addition to my booklist of political books - covering Democrats, Republicans and other interested parties.
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