Okay. I dared. *yawn* Now, tell me something *davebuoy* Do YOU *dare* to put on the uniform and go

RUSH: My friends, there's another reason why the Sheehan thing is going to derail, why this train is going to derail, and that's because look at who her public relations outfit is. It's the mainstream press. They don't have universal respect anymore. They don't even have any concept of how they are harming her cause by championing it, but I want to talk about something larger here with you liberals. I know there are a lot of you here in the audience. We hear from you now and then, and it may be a waste of my time but I'm going to try it anyway. But I think you all need to look at things differently than you do. You need to take your focus off of government. You know how absurd it is for us to hear that a war is ignoble because the president's kids aren't there or because congressmen's kids aren't there? Do you know how irrelevant that is? Do you know who makes this country work? Can I ask you people on the left if you have the slightest idea who makes this country work? Because I'll tell you, it's not the president, I don't care who he is, and it's not Congress, and I don't care who they are. The people who make this country work are the people, and they're people you've never heard of. They are people unlike Cindy Sheehan, who are not seeking publicity, they are not seeking fame. They take life seriously. They try to mix their work and pleasure into a proper balance. They try to raise their kids the right way. They're doing everything they can to follow the straight-and-narrow. They sometimes slip off, but the people who make this country work, the fabled average American. That's who you liberals condemn, whether you know it or not. That's who you impugn. It's always been the case.

World War II was not won by Eisenhower. World War II was not won by FDR. World War II was not won by any particular leader. World War II was not won by Patton. Everybody played a role. But without the sons and daughters of the American people, this country wouldn't amount to anything. It is the people who make this country work, and the ease with which those of you on the left disparage the people in this country while you seek to focus all attention on government, is a sight to behold, and it is why you are losing elections; it is why you are losing favor; it is why you are becoming more fringe and extreme and kooky, because you've lost touch. You've lost contact. You've lost all ability to understand who it is that comprises the heart and soul of this country. You have no clue who the backbone of this country is; but I will tell you this: it's not Cindy Sheehan and it's not one member of her entourage in a ditch in Crawford, Texas. Those people are a bunch of squatters. Those people right now are contributing nothing to the greatness or future of this country. Neither are the members of the media who are down there trying to elevate all those people in the ditch to be superheroes. There's not one of them that comes anywhere near rating the title of hero. They are nothing but a bunch of squatters who are miserable and unhappy for who knows whatever reasons and deciding to take it out on people who they think have control over their lives. In this case, with a bunch of liberals, it's government. You want government to have control over your life, you want government to be able to do this and that for your friends and neighbors and help you, but the simple truth of this country is that it's the people who make this country work. It is the people who comprise the economy.

It is the people who comprise the morality. It is the people of this country who determine the ethics. It is the people of this country, and that's what you're upset about because you're in the minority. The people of this country, the people who make this country work differ from you in tremendous ways. They are religious. They are God-fearing. They respect values and morality. They know what's right and they know what's wrong, and they do their best to abide. You are offended by all that, claiming they don't have the right to make such decisions, while you sit around and make no decisions whatsoever because you're willing to totally put your life in the hands of some liberal politician and that will take you off the hook for having to make any decision about your life or anybody else's. Well, that's not how the country works. This country works on the basis of an educated and informed public seeking excellence in their own lives to whatever degree they wish it. People pursuing life the best they can, using freedom, God-given freedom -- and for you to call here and to come up with something as irrelevant as to say this war is not worth it because the president's kids aren't there or because nobody from Washington's kids are there doesn't say a thing about the war effort, doesn't say one thing about it, doesn't make it noble, doesn't make it ignoble, doesn't make it anything, because the war is taking place. Whether you agree with the fact that it's going on or not, we all have come to the decision that it's best that we win it. You haven't even joined us on that. You hope we lose it. You want to lose it because you want to embarrass the leaders of the country. What must your lives be like?

Are your lives so endless, baseless, and void of substance that the only pleasure you get from life is through watching the misery of others and trying to cause misery for others? Are you so incapable of enjoying the God-given gift of life that you've got, that you can only do so when other people are suffering, hopefully as a result of actions you've taken? What must it be like to be you people? What must it be like to get up every day and to have to go to your calendar and write "Destroy somebody today. Destroy something today. Destroy America today"? What must that be like? When you look out across the country and you see a burgeoning economy, you see the lone world superpower -- and it's not because of any president, and it's not because of any weapon, and it's not because of any military, it's because of the people of this country and our values and our Constitution. We're no different than any other people, other than we have freedom -- and you don't even like that! You only want freedom for yourselves, defined as you define it. So people can't say things that offend you, they can't do things that offend you, we can't have stupid names for sports teams. The absurdity of this whole political correctness movement. We can't have some team called the Redskins, we can't have some team called the Seminoles. Don't you understand these team names do it, it's an honor? Do you think a school calls itself the Seminoles to make fun of the Seminoles or are they trying to build themselves up? It's a matter of pride. But you people are so miserably unhappy that you have to find ways to constantly make everybody else around you unhappy, and so you go hang around with a woman who's crazed out of her mind in a ditch in Crawford, Texas, and then you have the audacity to call here and tell us that you are the great ones, that you're the ones that care, that you're the ones that have this country's best interests at heart.

If it were up to you people we wouldn't exist as a country today, you would have given in to the Soviets long ago, you would have appeased the Soviet communists. You would appease Iran right now, you probably wouldn't have cared about the war on terror or the bombing on 9/11. You would have sought out bin Laden and tried to make a deal with him, and this country exists today only because we have been able to prevent you from gaining power to do that kind of thing. We've had our run-ins with Neville Chamberlain types and you're the modern incarnation. To sit here, to actually have the gall to call this program and advance something you think as an intellectual argument that Cindy Sheehan's cause is noble, because the president's daughters aren't in Iraq, or congressmen's sons and daughters aren't in Iraq, have you no shame? Do you realize whose sons and daughters are? Do you understand it's voluntary? Do you understand these are people who are offering their lives in sacrifice for things they believe in? And what do you do? You come along and you try to disabuse them of their belief by telling them that they're wrong and that their country sucks. Well, to the extent that they think their country sucks it's because of you and your efforts to constantly undermine this country's best interests and our desires and efforts to protect the people of this country and to bring freedom to as many others in this world as possible. You people on the left used to be the ones that were all for civil rights around the world. You were all for human rights. Now all of a sudden you couldn't care less about the status of Iraqis. You couldn't care less. It's gotten so absurd, now that Howard Dean said on TV that if this new constitution is enacted as written, that the women of Iraq are going to be worse off than they were under Saddam Hussein.

Do you realize how patently absurd and bordering on insane that comment is? No, you don't. Because you think so little of your own country, you think so little of this president, you have such little faith in the ideals that have combined to make this a great country, that you assume it's worse here than anywhere else, and the places that it is bad is because of us, either through environmental pollution, or whatever cockamamie, asinine, stupid, ignoramus idea you can come up with. It's gotten to the point now where it is common to go on Democrat websites and read about the pleasure it would bring if the president were assassinated. It is now common to read letters to the editors in newspapers which say it would be fun if bin Laden actually came over here and slit Bush's throat, which is what a supporter of Sheehan wrote to a letter of the editor in one of the newspapers in this country. Yes, it would have been better if bin Laden would have just come here and slit Bush's throat. Do you have any idea how you people are perceived? Do you have the slightest idea how the decent people who make this country work perceive you? It is not with any respect. It is with contempt and it's with sorrow. But it's also with this realization: This country, if it is to survive, cannot be turned over to you people to lead and to run, because we will cease to exist as the United States the day that happens, and mark my word. It ain't going to happen.