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RUSH: Condoleezza Rice agreed to step down as the commencement speaker at Rutgers University. Condoleezza Rice said, “Commencement should be a time of joyous celebration for the graduates and their families. Rutgers’ invitation to me to speak has become a distraction for the university community at this very special time.”

In her statement she went on to say, “I am very honored to have served my country. I’ve defended America’s belief in free speech…” (interruption) No, they got rid of her because she supported the Iraq War. They didn’t want her because she’s a “warmonger.” And don’t blame it all on the students. It’s the professors that start this and get ’em all ginned up. I’m not trying to excuse the students in this, but the professors are the ones that light the fire on this.

They strike the match.

Anyway, former Secretary Rice said, “I have defended AmericaÂ’s belief in free speech and the exchange of ideas. These values are essential to the health of our democracy. But that is not what is at issue here. As a professor for 30 years at Stanford University, and as its former provost and chief academic officer, I understand and embrace the purpose of the commencement ceremony and I am simply unwilling to detract from it in any way.

“Good luck to the graduates and congratulations to the families, friends and loved ones who will gather to honor them.” Why are we always the ones concerned about distractions caused by other people? Why do we always just accept the blame for being a distraction? This is how we’ve lost the campus. This is how we’ve lost academe. We let the loudmouths and the bullies have their way.

By withdrawing, former Secretary Rice sends a message to other campi that the tactic works. The president of Rutgers… I mean, everybody comes in for some blame on this. From National Review Online, talking about this: “Protesting students had occupied the office of the president the other day, with signs reading ‘No honors for war criminals’ and ‘War criminals out.'” Condoleezza Rice, war criminal, Iraq War.

We have Barack Obama as president today because there was no push-back during the Iraq War for five years, as the media and the Democrat Party continued to slime it, to mischaracterize it, to misrepresent it. It’s just a tragedy. We don’t have any warriors. Nobody’s left to fight anything. You know what really bothers me about this? Look, I know that Condoleezza Rice… I’m one who’s disappointed that she bowed out.

Now, she thinks — and I understand this — she’s using grace, being graceful. I’m sure that she believes that grace is a defining characteristic. I know that Condoleezza Rice probably isn’t the person… She’s not a political warrior. She’s not gonna draw a line in the stand and stand up for herself. She’s gonna do what she did. But they would have welcomed Hillary, and Hillary has every bit the Iraq War supporter Condoleezza Rice was.

Every Democrat was. Every Democrat demanded a second vote so they could get on the record as being in favor of the invasion of Iraq. It wasn’t until the second term of the Bush administration that they turned it into a political issue. By that, I mean, the Democrats and the media. But here’s my real problem with this, folks. Somehow, they think they’re scoring points. I don’t know about Dr. Rice.

I don’t even know how political she really is.

But this is the kind of thinking that leads the Republican Party to believe that supporting amnesty is a way to prove that they’re open-minded and not mean-spirited and not racist. The Republican Party seems to be today on a mission to prove what it isn’t, which is an impossible thing to do, and it’s responding to all these allegations. So, “Okay. I don’t want to disrupt. I’ll bow out.”

We think somehow we’re scoring points doing this with the left, by showing how reasonable we are and understanding and un-offensive and force ourselves on people and all this stuff, and I think it’s shame, ’cause I’ve heard her speak. Students would be blessed to hear her commencement speech, and she’d be far better than whoever else they’re gonna get. I don’t know who’ll replace her. (interruption)

I know, I know. Moochelle Obama bowed out the other day when there were protests. So you might be yelling at the radio, “Hey, Rush, it’s a bipartisan thing!” It’s not yet. Michelle Obama, that’s the first time I can recall, and there has to be more to that than we know.


RUSH: Ah, one of the small differences is that Moochelle Obama bowed out ostensibly because of the disruption that her presence would be. Condoleezza Rice was gotten rid of at Rutgers because of policy. That’s a big difference there, folks. Huge difference. Plus there was a massive vote by the students, and it was all policy based. I don’t know. There’s no push-back on this stuff. There’s just acquiescence to it.

I really think it has gotten down to the point where the Republican Party has just sort of been reduced to trying to prove what it isn’t. Everything it does policy-wise, it seems lately, is designed to demonstrate that it isn’t what its opponents accuse it of being: racist, sexist, bigot, homophobe, what have you.


RUSH: By the way, this Michelle Obama business. She had to reschedule her speech. She didn’t cancel it. They were worried she would be so popular that there would not be enough seats for the parents. They had to reschedule it and so forth. It’s not at all what happened with Condoleezza Rice, who has been punk’d by political correctness and discrimination and fascism and lack of diversity and lack of tolerance.


RUSH: But this has also been something going on for a long time. Remember “the Year of the Woman,” which was in the nineties?

You may have forgotten that, but it was another Democrat/media concoction designed to elect women, and it played off the Clinton years, in fact. It happened during them. Year of the Woman. And all it meant was, “We need more women in the Senate because women are underrepresented.” There were only one or two women senators at the time, maybe two or three more, but even the Republican women went along with it.

The whole idea was that women are not fairly represented if there are only five women in the Senate. Therefore it’s not fair; we need to do something about it. I said, “Well, it’s called winning elections. It’s called running for office. What are we gonna do, start appointing the Senate — and what are we gonna do, say that 50% of the Senate’s gonna be female and 50% male?” But again it wasn’t the end result. It was just the strategy.

It’s the same premise: America’s unfair, America’s racist, America’s biased, America’s prejudiced, America’s unfair, America’s intolerant. This is how they do it. You go back to Rutgers here for just a second. Those students who protested Condoleezza Rice at Rutgers were all between six and 10 years old on September 11th. What have they grown up believing? What have they grown up hearing?

They were between six and ten on September 11. So they’ve been taught through pop culture and elementary school, high school, that America and George W. Bush were the bad guys, and anybody with Bush was part of the bad guys. The liberal indoctrination starts early. I mean, you have to put these students in the Millennial group. We were talking about it last week. They don’t have any memory of an America doing good things.

Look at what they’ve grown up with. America’s destroying the world with global warming and climate change. America is unjust, evil, immoral! The Iraq War. America kills people and tortures people. This is what they’ve grown up believing. It’s what they’ve been taught. It’s what they believe. By the way, folks, this is exactly why writing history books for children ultimately became so appealing to me.

There has got to be some push-back. There has to be some place parents can go so that their kids can learn the truth of this country, of the goodness, of the decency, of the greatness, of the great blessing it is to be an American. None of this is taught anymore. Kids today that are college age have grown up thinking that this is one of the worst places on earth. Torture, evil, mean to the poor, racist.

It goes to war, kills people indiscriminately, doesn’t care about losing its own soldiers and so forth. I mean, stop and think of the news since 2003. I mean, even Bush after Florida — actually all eight years, starting in 2001, in the Florida aftermath. Just think of the daily barrage your average college kid has heard today, and now expand it to social media where they start chatting amongst themselves about all of this.

It’s amazing we have any conservative young people out there. (interruption) Well, no. My point is okay, so somehow Condoleezza Rice — in the midst of all this — gets invited to do the commencement speech at Rutgers and all hell breaks loose. What a golden opportunity. I know, I know. She’s not a political warrior. I understand. She a moderate Republican. But, man, what an opportunity!

I don’t know who they’re gonna get to replace her, but the sad thing is, like I said, any Democrat they ask agreed with Condoleezza Rice for three years. These Democrats couldn’t wait to sign on to the use-of-force resolution authorizing Bush to go into Iraq. They couldn’t wait when they saw public opinion on it. Public opinion after 9/11, even going into Iraq to get Saddam Hussein was overwhelmingly positive.

It took them six years to drive George W. Bush’s approval numbers down to the thirties, and they spent every day doing it, every element of the media, every element of television, from pop culture, to late-night comedians, to the New York Times, to cable news. Every day the body count in Iraq, making up lies about the status of the American economy.

All the while this was going on, there was no push-back from the White House because the White House said, “You know what? We’re not gonna get down in the political gutter with these people.” Well, my only point is it’s no wonder that 18, 19, 20 year olds believe what they believe today. It’s a sad thing. It’s a sad thing that people of that age-group don’t have any institutional memory of their country being great.

They’ve never heard that from anybody, unless it’s been their parents or some far-away, distant family member, or maybe if they’ve listened to this program, or maybe if they’ve skirted through Fox News or something. They haven’t heard about America’s greatness. They’ve been lied to about the founding and the racist, sexist, bigot homophobe founders. They’ve been lied to about everything, and there has to be some push-back on this at some point.

Now, I know some of you are saying, “Rush, they get older and they’ll grow up and they’ll learn more and they’ll preponderance. Yeah, but that’s like waiting for things to happen. Some patience is called for in some instances. I just think it’s — it’s an opportunity that is being missed. I don’t know if anybody is even thinking about it this way. But I can remember back… I don’t know how long ago it was.

I remember lamenting on this program. I think it was the election of Clinton. It was ’92, Clinton-Bush 41. I said, “We’re on the verge of having the pool of candidates running for president not containing a single person who remembers America victorious in war.” I thought that was important, and we’ve now gotten there. No matter who we run. It’s because of demographics. The original invasion of Iraq doesn’t count. It didn’t take but two days.

So you got Vietnam and the Bush Iraq War. You don’t have anybody running for office with not even a memory, but the ability to relate to an American victorious in war. So it boils down to positive and negative, and you know how easy it is to be negative. It doesn’t take any effort at all. It takes effort to be positive. People that write books about it become millionaires telling you how to be positive.

How to think positive. How to be proactive. Failing, we all know how to do. We don’t need a book. Being pessimistic, easy. You don’t need a book. Being optimistic becomes all the harder when there isn’t any active memory justifying it. (interruption) Oh. Yeah, yeah, yeah, I heard. Bush 41 got the Kennedy Award for courage for raising taxes. That’s another thing. That is classic, classic example.


“Republican President Receives JFK Award for Raising Taxes — Former president George H.W. Bush,” popularly known as 41, “received a John F. Kennedy Profile in Courage award Sunday for raising taxes — the decision that broke his ‘read my lips’ pledge, rankled conservatives and may have contributed to his loss to Bill Clinton in 1992.”

This is from the Washington Post, which I’m reading. That kind of speaks for itself. I mean, that’s just classic. And they’re all, I guarantee you, they’re very honored by this in a lot of places. I mean, to get the Kennedy award, oh, Profile in Courage, oh, very honored.

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