Rush Limbaugh delivered the "freeSpeech" segment on Thursday's CBS Evening News. Anchor Katie Couric set up him up: “With the fifth anniversary of 9/11 coming up, the topic tonight is the war on terror. And there may be no one more opinionated on the subject than radio talk show host Rush Limbaugh.” Limbaugh began: “My friends, it's time to face a hard cold fact: Militant Islam wants to kill us just because we're alive and don't believe as they do....Now, this threat is not just going to go away because we choose to ignore it.”
He soon zeroed in on the problem: “But some Americans, sadly, are not interested in victory. And yet they want us to believe that their behavior is Patriotic. Well, it's not. When the critics are more interested in punishing this country over a few incidents at Abu Grahib and Guantanamo Bay than they are in defeating those who want to kill us; when they seek to destroy a foreign surveillance program which is designed to identify those who want to kill us and how they intend to do it; when they want to grant those who want to kill us, U.S. constitutional rights, I don't call that patriotic.” (Full text follows)
Video clip (1:40): Real (2.9 MB) or Windows Media (3.3 MB), plus MP3 audio (600 KB). CBSNews.com has posted the text and video, as has RushLimbaugh.com
Greg Sheffield got up a NewsBusters post on this earlier tonight with a link to HotAir's video.
The full text of Limbaugh's September 7 “freeSpeech” commentary on the CBS Evening News with Katie Couric (text corrected against video of what aired, so it does not match CBS's posted transcript):
“My friends., it's time to face a hard cold fact: Militant Islam wants to kill us just because we're alive and don't believe as they do. And they have been killing us for decades. It is time to stop pretending these are mere episodic events and face the reality that our way of life is in grave danger. Now, this threat is not just going to go away because we choose to ignore it.
“Some say we try diplomacy. Yeah, well tell me, how do we negotiate with people whose starting point is our death? Ask them to wait for 10 years, before they kill us? When Good negotiates with Evil, Evil will always win. And peace follows victory, not words issued by diplomats.
“But some Americans, sadly, are not interested in victory. And yet they want us to believe that their behavior is Patriotic. Well, it's not. When the critics are more interested in punishing this country over a few incidents at Abu Grahib and Guantanamo Bay than they are in defeating those who want to kill us; when they seek to destroy a foreign surveillance program which is designed to identify those who want to kill us and how they intend to do it; when they want to grant those who want to kill us, U.S. constitutional rights, I don't call that patriotic.
“Patriotism is rallying behind the country, regardless of party affiliation, to defeat Islamo-Fascism. Patriotism is supporting our troops on the battlefield, not undermining the mission and morale. But let there be no doubt about this. America will prevail. We're the same country that survived a bloody Civil War, defeated the Nazis and the Soviets. Each generation has a responsibility to the next. Our generation will not disappoint.”
