[Glenn Beck, Host:] Tonight, President Bush makes a crucial speech on Iraq. Will he listen to the advice of his top commander, or will politics get in the way of victory yet again? Plus, Hillary Clinton and the funny money man. Senator Clinton now says she won`t mind having that $870,000 after all. Why the loss of values is hurting the Democrats just as it hurts the Republicans. And we`ll continue our weeklong series, "Exposed: The Perfect Day". We`ll bring you practical tips for keeping your kids safe in school. All this and more tonight.
[Beck:] Well, hello, America. I`m so glad you`ve tuned in tonight. It`s been a long week, hasn`t it? After days of hearings and countless questions, oh, now, we have to ask what President Bush and the rest have learned from our time with General David Petraeus. If you pay attention to history, I kind of think there are things we already knew. So here`s the point tonight. War is not pretty. But the right thing to do and the easy thing to do are rarely the same thing. Here`s how I got there. No matter what MoveOn.org or the extreme left would have you believe, General Petraeus is a respected soldier and a man of honor. As the leader of the multi-national forces in Iraq, his analysis of the situation and his recommendations for the future are, sorry to say, gang, the best we have, period. So here`s what he told us this week. We`re making progress and the surge is working. Not only have the eight of the last 12 weeks in Iraq seen a marked reduction in violence, but we`re beginning to kick al Qaeda`s ass. That is, unfortunately, for them, a humiliation. And humiliation is not something that sits well in the Middle East, unfortunately for us. Now is the time that we cannot afford to flinch. Remember, insurgents and terrorists love it when we argue at each other and we`re tearing each other apart. They feed off of our indecision, and they see our bleeding hearts as our greatest weakness and their greatest weapon. And then there are the costly lessons of Vietnam. I know this is a different war and a vastly different enemy. But the central issue really is the same. Once we go to war, we must commit to win. Let`s leave war to the warriors and keep the politicians and the special interest groups out of it, please. Re-election is meaningless when the lives of American women men and women are at stake. So, America, tonight, here`s what you need to know. When it comes to fighting and winning the war in Iraq, we need to stop listening to the guys in pinstripes and start listening to the men in uniform. Actually, when it comes to listening to people in pinstripes, I think I`d rather listen to a New York Yankee than a politician. With everything he said this week, I feel the words that from General Petraeus, that he said earlier, these words say it all.
[Gen. David Petraeus, U.s. Commander In Iraq:] Noting that the situation in Iraq remains complex, difficult and sometimes downright frustrating. I also believe that it is possible for us to achieve our objectives in Iraq over time, though doing so will be neither quick nor easy.
[Beck:] President Bush and members of Congress, please, please listen to him. One man who knows as well as anybody what`s at stake in the Middle East is White House press secretary Tony Snow. Sadly, tomorrow is his last day on the job. And Tony, you will sincerely be missed. You are really one of the good guys in Washington. Looking at the benchmarks, 18 were set. Eleven are said to have failed completely, but most of them are dealing with the Iraqis providing their own kind of security. What kills me is why do people in Washington think that another government would be able to get things done and work together for the good of the country?
[Tony Snow, White House Press Secretary:] Glenn, I`m not sure anybody is really thinking through that sort of thing. What you see are a lot of gestures that are designed to say, well, we`re going to get tough on the Iraqis. I think the Iraqis are trying to get their government work. But maybe the most important thing that`s been going on in Iraq, is the people have said, we`re not going to wait for the government. We`re going to go after al Qaeda and go after the Shia militias. And the other thing is, we`re going to start behaving like grown-ups. We`ll go ahead and distribute the oil revenues. We`ll go ahead and let Ba`athists back into the government. The fact is that there has been an explosion, I think, of common sense at the grassroots level. Still haven`t caught up to the political classes in Iraq. And you`re absolutely right, the idea that somehow, we destabilize the country in order to send a signal. That sends the wrong signal. It`s not a signal we want to send.
[Beck:] It is really amazing to me that I mean, we said that we`re not we don`t want to have, you know, an American-style democracy. And yet, the first three words of our Constitution seem to be in play here with the Iraqi people, and that is "We, the people." Forget about the government. It`s "We, the people" that are fixing this.
[Snow:] That is the most stirring result of the surge, which is I think the Iraqi people certainly have confidence that the Americans have their back. We`re not going to leave. We`re not going to bail out. They said, "OK, well, now that we have the Americans here, we can stand up and we can take the lead role." There was an assassination today in al Anbar province, and one of the sheikhs has been working with us. The result is that the Anbarians themselves are standing up, saying, "We`re not going to take this." What it`s going to do is to redouble their determination to kill off al Qaeda. And you`ve started to see at the grassroots level, again, throughout Iraq, they`re started to bubble up. And it`s kind of an amazing thing. All of a sudden people are seeing success in Anbar, saying we can do that ourselves. I mean, we can take out the insurgents. We can take out al Qaeda. We can take out the Shia militias. That`s great. Let`s go.
[Beck:] Tony, you know, I have given the benefit of the doubt for, I think, long enough, maybe too long on people saying, "I support the troops. I just don`t support their mission." I believe in the heartland of America, there are Democrats that believe that. They don`t they don`t want to be there, et cetera, et cetera. But that`s different from the politics that we`re seeing now in Washington from the special interest groups from the extreme left. They`re calling General Petraeus "General Betray Us" now. Hollywood is coming out with movie after movie where one of them is painting our soldiers as rapists. It`s a true story, but they`re trying to get the story out there so it looks like this is what`s really happening there. Would you say that we`ve crossed the line this week where maybe the left knows that there`s real trouble? And we`re not going to pull out. And so now they have to try to paint our troops as baby killers and rapists and, God forbid, whatever else they come up with.
[Snow:] Well, if you take a look what Move On has done, here you`ve got General Petraeus elected 81 to nothing or approved 81-0 in the U.S. Senate. He`s a guy who believes who has written a handbook literally on counterinsurgency. He goes in and succeeds. This ought to be we ought to be having parades in the streets for the guy. But instead, MoveOn.org, hating the fact that there`s good news, decides to trash it.
[Beck:] But you know what? It`s the the Democratic presidential candidates, not one of the Democratic presidential candidates have come out and distanced themselves from MoveOn.org, which leads me to the question, how do you expect to lead the military when you won`t distance yourself from the extreme left that is that holds the military in contempt?
[Snow:] Well, I think that`s going to be one of the key questions that American voters are going to have to answer come next November. What the president has been trying to do the president is arguing this one. This is interesting. Democrats have got what they`ve been asking for. There are troop reductions. But at the same time, there`s a change in mission in Iraq, and that`s all the result of success. It`s I think for some Democrats, the only change in mission they want is to get out. Get out, regardless of the circumstances, create a vacuum. Let there be bloodshed. And I`m not saying this is true of all Democrats, but there are some on the far left who just don`t care. They think that the only think we ought to have is a retreat strategy and that the only thing we should acknowledge is defeat. Well, guess what? We have success. We ought to celebrate success and build on it. The president is going to invite all Americans tonight to go ahead and join in that success, to celebrate the success and realize that, as we build on it as a nation, we make ourselves more secure. And once again, we say to the rest of the world, who`s the champion of liberty? We are. Who are the champions of the little guys? We are. Who are the people you can count on when the going gets tough? We are. This is a time to celebrate American virtues and celebrate American success, rather than trashing one of the guys who`s responsible for those successes.
[Beck:] Tony, you have one of the world`s toughest jobs. It is nonstop. And now you are you`re fighting cancer at the same time. What has that been like? How how taxing on you as a person has it been to do what you do and to be fighting your own body?
[Snow:] Well, first, you got to understand, I love the job. So the job is I mean, I get up every day. I love it. It`s an energizing job. The second thing is, I went through a four-month session of chemo, and toward the end of that four-month session, the chemo started to wear me out. It beat me up pretty good. But I`m now done with that. I`m doing what they call maintenance chemo, a user-friendly chemo agent. And I`m getting my weight back. I`m getting my hair back. I`ve got my energy back. So I feel great. So it`s really like anybody else. I get up in the morning, brush my teeth, head off to the office and, you know, work a full day, and go back and do it again. Tomorrow`s the last day I`ll be able to do that here at the White House, but I`ll be doing plenty of stuff on the other side.
[Beck:] In my book, sir, you are Mr. Smith that went to Washington, and I`m sorry to see you go home.
[Snow:] Well, that`s OK. I`ll be out, and I`ll be speaking my mind, Glenn.
[Beck:] Thanks a lot, Tony. Coming up, remember that MoveOn.org ad in "The New York Times" this week? The one that called General Petraeus a traitor? Well, it seems like they got quite of a discount from "The New York Times". I`ll explain. Plus, we`ll wrap up our series, "Exposed: The Perfect Day". Tonight, a look at what you can do to make sure terrorists cannot get to your schools or your children.