[Coleman]

Please, disregard that this is from Rush Limbaugh's website. I'm using it more for what the president said than rather what Mr. Big-Head Rush said.

http://www.rushlimbaugh.com/home/daily/ ... guest.html

[quote:c97db]BEGIN TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: President Bush today, press conference in Chicago at the Museum of Science and Industry. Here's a question from a local Chicago reporter.

REPORTER: A lot of people here in Chicago tell us that they see an incongruity in your foreign policy.

RUSH: Stop the tape, stop the tape! I don't believe that for a minute. I think the reporter, if there are other people it's other reporters at the bar who are lamenting and whining and moaning about the lack of congruity in foreign policy. It's a typical journalistic trick. I'm hearing and people are saying, your critics suggest, blah, blah, blah. That's just a way of getting their own opinion in the question while appearing, they think, objective. All right, Alltmont, let's hear the rest of it.

REPORTER: -- shooting war in Iraq, yet we have a leader in North Korea who has announced his affection for nuclear weapons and no hesitation to use them against the United States. Is your -- is your policy consistent between the way you have dealt with Iraq, the way you have dealt with North Korea, and if so, are we headed toward a military action in North Korea, and if so, can this nation sustain military action on three fronts -- Iraq, Afghanistan, and North Korea?

THE PRESIDENT: Yeah.

RUSH: Here's the president's answer to this impudent snob.
THE PRESIDENT: I have always said that it's important for an American president to exhaust all diplomatic avenues before the use of force. Committing our troops into harm's way is a difficult decision. It's the toughest decision a president will ever make, and I fully understand the consequences of doing so. All diplomatic options were exhausted as far as I was concerned with Saddam Hussein. Remember that the UN Security Council resolution that we passed when I was the president was one of 16, I think. Sixteen, 17? Give me a hand there. More than 15. Resolution after resolution after resolution saying the same thing, and he ignored them. And we tried diplomacy. We went to the UN Security Council, 15 to nothing vote that said disarm, disclose, or face serious consequences. I happen to believe that when you say something, you better mean it. And so when we signed onto that resolution that said disclose, disarm, or face serious consequences, I meant what we said. That's one way you keep the peace. You speak clearly, and you mean what you say. And so the choice was Saddam Hussein's choice. He could have, you know, not fooled the inspectors. He could have welcomed the world in, he could have told us what was going on, but he didn't. And so we moved. And we're in a diplomatic process now with North Korea. That's what you're seeing happening.

RUSH: I mean, it's amazing the narrowness of the vision of these reporters. I know that they're trying to make news with what they think are trick questions, but the questions just only illustrate, I think, their overall ignorance of the subject they're even talking about, in this case the disparity in our foreign policy. "Well, we're shooting in Iraq, should we shoot in North Korea, why aren't we doing that, you coward?" Whatever the implication of the question is. The president wasn't through, though. He then buried this reporter.

THE PRESIDENT: Remember, we put a coalition together at the United Nations that said disclose, disarm, or face serious consequences. It was 15 to nothing. Wasn't a US one to 14, it was 15 to nothing. Other nations stood up and said the same thing we said. So we're working a diplomacy and you're watching diplomacy work not only in North Korea, but in Iran. It's painful in a way for some to watch because it takes awhile to get people on the same page. Not everybody thinks the exact same way we think. There are different words mean different things to different people, and the diplomatic process can be slow and cumbersome. That's why this is probably the fourth day in a row I've been asked about North Korea. It's slow and cumbersome. Things just don't happen overnight, but what you're watching is a diplomatic response to a person who, since 1994, has said, you know, they're not going to have a weapon.
RUSH: You know, have these people forgotten? They keep talking about how we rushed to war in Iraq. There were 12 years after Gulf War I and Gulf War II, or the invasion of Iraq, there were 12 years. And in those years were all these resolutions he's talking about, and during those 12 years nobody is saying, "What are you going to do about Iraq? What are you going to do about Iraq? what are you going to do about Iraq?" Nobody asked Clinton that. In 1998 Clinton comes out and gives the same speech on weapons of mass destruction that Bush gave four years later, and nobody seems to remember that. And nobody seems to remember all the Democrat senators agreeing with Clinton. It's a horrible threat that we face with this Hussein guy. We've got to do something about it. No, the Iraq problem only began in 2002, and then we went to war in 2003.

That's what I mean about these people being ignorant, just purely ignorant. If they're not ignorant, if this really escapes them, then, you know, it's proof of something else and that is the agenda and the template, what I often call the action line in Drive-By Media reporting. The action line on a story is the ultimate objective and anything that gets you there, you report. Anything that doesn't, you ignore. And the action line on our Iraq policy is it's a failure. And too many people are dying, and it's not worth it, and there were no weapons of mass destruction and Bush lied. That's the action line of that story. So they think they can point out that Bush is a hypocrite by not just launching into North Korea with the same kind of military attack. This diplomatic crisis basically began recently because, he's right, all during the nineties during Clinton, Kim Jong Il was lying to the world and assuring everybody he had no intention of developing nuclear weapons. Now he's threatening to use them on everybody.
RUSH: Another sound bite here from the President Bush press conference today in Chicago, the Museum of Science and Industry. This is the one that Snerdley recommended. So we'll see how good a producer Snerdley is; this is Suzanne Malveaux of CNN talking to the president.

MALVEAUX: Why shouldn't Americans see the US policy regarding North Korea as a failed one?

THE PRESIDENT: Trying to get things done.

MALVEAUX: What objective has the US government achieved when it comes to North Korea and why does the administration continue to go back to the same platform process if it's not effective in changing North Korea's behavior? Thank you.

THE PRESIDENT: Suzanne, these problems didn't rise overnight and they don't get solved overnight. It takes awhile. Again, I think if you look at the history of the North Korean weapons program, it started probably in the eighties. We don't know. Maybe you know more than I do about, you know, increasing the number of nuclear weapons. My view is we ought to treat North Korea as a danger, take them seriously. No question that he has signed agreements and didn't stick by them. But that was done during -- when we had bilateral negotiations with him, and it's done during the six-party talks. You ask what we've done? We've created a framework that will be successful. My judgment is you can't be successful if the United States is sitting at the table alone with North Korea. You run out of options very quickly if that's the case. [/quote:c97db]


If you don't feel like reading (as I always don't) here's the audio from the talk show. http://mfile.akamai.com/5020/wma/rushli ... 4_bush.asx


Bush said clearly what I have thought the whole time with the Iraq business. We went in there after diplomatic routes were taken. It's pretty straight foward and clear. I think this is what Stackem has been thinking as well if I'm not mistaken.