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June 9, 2005 - Rush Limbaugh Program
36:21
June 9, 2005, Thursday, Hour #1
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And you are tuned to the nation's most listened-to radio talk show, a nation, a program rather, that leads in virtually every category of measured listenership, ladies and gentlemen.
A program that meets and surpasses all audience expectations on a daily basis.
This is the Rush Limbaugh program and the EIB network.
And since this is the final day that I'm going to be here this week, we've got Dr. Walter Williams will be here tomorrow with more stories of his wife and who knows whatever else.
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It will not be a podcast of the program tomorrow.
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Great to have you with us, folks.
The telephone number, 800-282-2882, the email address is rush at EIBnet.com.
We're going to do Open Line Friday on Thursday today, since we'll not be here tomorrow.
And it's a vacation day, folks.
Vacation day.
I can't tell you what I'm going to do, where I'm going to go because a whole bunch of people will show up there.
And so I'll tell you after I get back where I was.
That's the new rule here.
Rules been in place for years.
But nevertheless, the program will go on tomorrow with Dr. Williams.
Now, we're going to, as I say, sort of incorporate Open Line Friday rules today.
Monday through Thursday, this program is devoted exclusively to things that interest me, things that I care about.
Because I don't talk about things I don't care about because if I did that, you could tell I don't care.
And you'd hear I'm bored and you'd be bored.
But on Friday, or today, we open it up to maybe things I'm not interested in.
I mean, it's possible that that could happen.
If you think that something needs to be discussed, it hasn't been.
If you have a question or comment, this is the day of the week to do it.
800-282-2882 is the telephone number.
All right, folks, I want to start off here with the judge deal.
I'm starting to see some giddiness out there from people on our side that these judges are being confirmed this week.
Janice Rogers Brown yesterday.
Bill Pryor will be confirmed today.
And Priscilla Owen last week.
Well, was it last week or before the break?
It was before the Memorial Day break.
So the three that were agreed to by virtue of that Gang of 14 deal by the end of today will have been confirmed.
And like yesterday, for example, Janice Rogers Brown confirmed by 56 to 42.
There was one Democrat that crossed over and voted for was Ben Nelson of Nebraska, who, by the way, is one of the Democrats' gang of seven.
But we had a call yesterday from somebody.
He said, I'm glad to see the rush that you may be admitting you were wrong here in criticizing the deal when it happened.
I said, whoa, what makes you think I'm changing my tune on the deal?
I'm not changing my tune on the deal at all.
I still think it's a bad deal because the judicial or the filibuster is still there.
I mean, it's still, and it's going to happen.
But here's what troubles me.
There's all kinds of giddiness out there now from, hey, look, Rush.
Hey, look.
We're getting the judges.
We're getting the judges.
You know why you're giddy?
You're giddy because expectations have been lowered.
The liberals have successfully lowered expectations.
And people on our side are buying it.
These judges, under traditional and normal circumstances, should have been confirmed years ago.
The same with the rest of them.
They're not giving us anything here.
Now, you might say, well, yeah, but we're winning.
We're winning because they were filibustering.
We're winning, but I mean, this is the way it always used to happen.
You always had judges confirmed by votes of 52 51 56 this, this should have happened years ago.
This is really nothing to celebrate in terms of a big victory, I mean it's.
It's because this is the normal way that judicial nominees who come out of the Judiciary committee get confirmed.
Uh, you know what what, what?
This is what's always happened in the past after you win elections, and this really is nothing to uh to to, to gaga over, uh.
And i'll tell you what.
The Democrats are getting angrier and angrier about this.
I can see why some people think it's time to be happy because the Democrats are mad, and I can grant you that.
I mean, I can understand it's great to see the Democrats mad, and uh and po'd and all that, but because they're mad after they let a few of these judges go through, there may be a little bit of a rebellion in their ranks, but they're going to stonewall again and we're going to have to do what we needed to do in the first place, and that is break the unconstitutional filibuster.
That day is still ahead of us.
That day is still coming.
Now a lot of people are saying that uh, that that bill Frist won on the filibuster deal.
Uh, others are saying the deal was good, that we're getting the judges.
Look at this.
Uh, and I this is not a criticism of senator Frist, I i'm merely addressing the attitudes of of those of you on our side in this.
You know it.
It if, if you're all excited, wow man, this is cool.
All right, we are kicking butt folks.
This is what should have been happening all along.
This is what always used to happen.
Uh, it has taken years to get to what always used to happen.
Uh, we were always supposed to get judges.
That's why you win elections.
That's what happens.
But mark my words, this deal is not going to last.
The liberals will filibuster at some point down the road and the Republicans will then kill it.
Or they'd better, because conservatives reacted so strongly against this deal.
If that when that, when that first filibuster of a, of a judicial nominee comes up, Republicans better kill it because conservatives reacted so strongly to it.
Efforts to negotiate away another part of the constitution, um, we're going to be the ones who force the issue.
Uh, if we'd applauded this sellout, the Republican majority would not have the stomach to beat back the obstruction uh, when it comes up again, which it will.
So I I think I just think it's important here to understand the dynamics and and not play the inside the beltway game of which politician won and which politician lost.
This is about we, the people and uh, you know, we worked hard a lot of you did to get certain people elected, and there are reasons that people get elected, and this is one of them.
You get to shape the judiciary after you win elections and and we are the ones who are driving this agenda, as as we should be, and I think it's a little defensive and almost a little bit like minority thinking that wow man okay, we got our judges in there.
Yeah, we did, but it and i'm not downplaying the importance Of that in the real world.
I'm just saying that for the future, you know, don't start changing your mind about this deal being a good thing because you're going to find out down the road that we still have to deal with this filibuster business.
And now it's just, it's hilarious.
Harry Reid, Dingy Harry's out there saying that we've spent way too much time on these judges anyway.
He can't believe that we've shut down the government, basically, over five judges, he's saying.
And he's blaming the Bush administration for this.
We're not dealing with gas prices.
We're not dealing with health care.
We're not dealing with the issues of the people.
And it's the president's fault.
This is loser lingo, folks.
I know Dingy Harry loves to describe President Bush as a loser, but this is loser lingo.
He's now trying once again to redefine the terms.
He's trying to make it look like they had nothing to do with this four-year delay on Priscilla Owen, with this three-year delay on Janice Rogers Brown.
Yeah, it was all Bush's fault.
Why, Bush nominated these judges three and four years ago.
And if Bush had been serious about it, they'd have been confirmed three or four.
This is absurd.
It's absurd.
The Democrat, their policy committee also had a meeting yesterday to come up with new ideas.
The new Democrat coalition huddled for three hours to plot strategiery to determine which issues it'll champion and try to generate new ideas for the Democratic Party.
Three hours.
After three hours, they, for all intents and purposes, admitted they don't have any ideas.
Oh, I take it back.
I take it back.
They have one.
They had one.
They discussed a desire to weigh in soon on predatory lending.
That's all it says here, predatory lending.
So you've got portability of pensions now, predatory lending, election day is a national holiday, and voting machines must have a paper trail.
Those are the issues that the Democrat leadership has come up with, combined leadership has come up with as their ticket to ride back to power in the country.
Got to take a quick time out.
We got some audio soundbites.
Lots of stuff in the stacks today.
Plus your phone calls.
Remember, it's Open Line Friday on Thursday today.
800-282-2882.
If you'd like to take a stab at it all, we'll be back and continue just after this.
Hi, how are you?
Welcome back.
Great to be with you, folks.
It's El Rushbo, firmly ensconced here behind this, the Golden EIB microphone.
I'm in the prestigious and distinguished Attila the Hun chair at our Institute here.
Telephone number is 800-282-2882.
Yeah, so the Dingy Harry, it's become a talking point.
Durbin's out there saying it.
And, of course, the smartest man in the Senate now, Barack Obama.
Have you caught that?
This guy's being touted as the smartest guy in the Senate.
He can't be said to be the smartest person in the Senate because that's Hillary.
The smartest guy in the Senate is Barack Obama.
And I have to tell you, I don't get it.
I don't see it.
I hear Barack Obama speak, and I think it's all spin.
He says nothing different than anybody else is saying.
And he's picked up on this talking point that Bush and the Republicans have shut down the country, folks.
They have shut down the country over the judges.
We're not doing the work of the people because we've shut down the country over the judges.
And they're all picking it up.
And this, of course, is to simply mask their defeat.
This is done simply to redefine terms and to mask their defeat.
And so while the Republicans are out there acting all giddy because they got these three judges through, the Democrats know they look like losers.
And so they're trying to take their loser platform, turn it around as far as the media is concerned, and make it look like this is a no big deal.
No big deal anyway.
Who cares about five judges, Dingy Harry?
Five judges.
We've shut down the whole country over five judges.
It was just two weeks ago.
These guys are, I mean, I thought Bob Byrd said that we saved the country, didn't he?
After the gang of 14 did their little dance, Bob Byrd, we saved a republic.
We saved the Senate.
All this, I mean, I can't keep track of these people.
Either the country was not moving and we shut it down, or they saved it one way or the other.
It's an exercise, folks, just to how some people might say good they are.
Others might say how just hopeless they are.
They will not admit that they lose.
They will not admit to defeat.
And of course, they will not allow anybody to blame them.
All right.
Now, this story about New Democrats searching for new ideas is in the Hill newspaper, the New Democrat Coalition.
Now, this is not to be confused with this gang of Mutts that met last week at Take Back America.
Was that this week?
I can't keep track.
I guess was earlier because last week was the week after Memorial Day and nobody was doing anything then.
I guess it was this week.
No, because they met on a Wednesday.
It was last Wednesday and Thursday because last Thursday when Dean went up there and spoke and made his conference.
So it's a week ago that the gang of Mutts called the Take Back America Conference met.
This is a different group, the New Democrat Coalition.
They got together for three hours yesterday, or actually Tuesday, to plot strategery, to determine which issues they will champion and try to generate new ideas for the Democratic Party.
The gathering was billed as a retreat for the group of 42 centrist House Democrats.
So 42 centrist House Democrats got together, calling themselves the New Democrat Coalition, part of an ongoing effort launched earlier this year to increase New Democrats' clout in Congress and help them become a source of ideas for the party as a whole.
Until this year, the New Democrats' influence had been waning.
They had struggled to find their voice and relevancy after the like-minded Clinton administration ended.
There's this little paragraph.
A large part of this process is about framing ideas.
So when Democrats do take power, we're ready for prime time, said Congressman Arthur Davis, Democrat Alabama, one of the group's three co-chairs.
When Republicans were out of power, they sat around thinking of ideas.
When we're out of power, we engage in endless hand-wringing.
Part of this process is about having ideas we can implement once we have power.
No, this is a new group of New Democrats, not to be confused with the Clinton New Democrats, because these guys are trying to act in the image of the Clinton New Democrats.
But this is the New Democrat coalition.
Yeah, New Democrat Coalition.
It's not the old Clinton Democrat coalition.
It's the new, new Democrat coalition.
Yeah, it's a new group of guys.
But they think they're people.
They think they're working in the image of the New Democrats of the Clinton years.
So anyway, a large part of this process is about framing ideas so when Democrats do take power, we are ready for prime time.
Is that not a little pathetic?
Isn't that sort of putting the cart before the horse?
I'll tell you what we're going to do.
We'll get power back.
This is what we're going to do.
Yeah, well, how are you going to get power back?
Oh, yeah.
Well, we're working on that.
The New Democrats agenda represents an expansion of their focus during the Clinton administration when they limited themselves to economic issues.
The previous agenda, they say, was focused on growth.
I think we'll continue to work on those issues and talk more broadly about security and values.
I think there's a general sense that Democrats need to be better on those issues.
This is from Adam Smith, a Democrat from Washington, also a co-chairman.
Now, wait a minute.
This does not jibe with Howard Dean out there ripping Christians because he says here, does Adam Smith, we got to talk more broadly about security and values.
That's code lingo.
We've got to reach out to the people in the red states.
But how are you going to reach out to the people in the red states when Howard Dean's out there offending them?
Although the group, after three hours of meeting, although the group did not come to any conclusion about what its positions will be, they said the process will take three months.
Many members said that they did enjoy an engaging discussion.
Folks, can I put this in perspective?
If I convened a meeting of conservatives, it would take us about 10 minutes to express our beliefs.
We wouldn't have to think about it.
We wouldn't have to talk about it.
We wouldn't have to negotiate it.
We wouldn't have to ask each other questions.
And it would be the same beliefs that we've had for 30 and 40 years.
It would be the values that are in our guts.
It would be the values that are part of our core.
It wouldn't even be a meeting needed like this for conservatives to get together.
Whenever conservatives got together, it was to plot strategy on how to win.
We knew what we wanted to do, but we knew we couldn't do it till we won.
And by the way, I've never been part of those strategy sessions, so don't misunderstand the word we here.
But this is absurd here.
They didn't come to any conclusions about what their positions will be.
Where was George Lakoff?
Lakoff could have come in and told them what to say anyway if they don't have positions.
How can these centrists, this is my point about moderates, is a bunch of moderates, they don't know what they believe?
Can I translate this for you?
It's not that they don't know what they believe.
It's they're not sure that what they believe will sell.
And so they've got to wait for some sign that what they believe is actually acceptable to a lot of people.
And then they'll tell everybody what it is.
It's pathetic.
They didn't come to any conclusion about what the positions will be.
How long would it take you?
If you sat down with a liberal, how long would it take you?
You could start instantly telling a liberal what you believe.
Wouldn't it take 10 minutes?
Instantly, you could tell a liberal what you believe.
A moderate obviously can't do this.
In three hours, a bunch of moderates can't come to an agreement on what their positions are.
And these are the people going to lead the party back to power, and they're getting ready for prime time so that when they get their power back, they can come forward and tell everybody what their positions are.
You got to do that before you get power.
Brian Baird, a Democrat from Washington, said, I think good things are going to come of this.
Clearly, this is a group that has refound its energy, and it'll be exerting influence in the caucus and in the public image of the party.
By this point in my life, I've attended thousands of these meetings, and many times I walk away and say it was a waste of time.
Well, this was not at all the case this time.
Really?
Three hours, you know what you are?
Three hours, you don't know what your positions are.
Three hours, you don't know what your beliefs are.
Three hours, you have no clue what you believe.
Oh, I'm sorry.
There is one, folks, I keep forgetting.
They did come to an agreement about one thing, and that is, let me find it.
What did I do with it?
Maybe I threw it away because it's so irrelevant.
Yeah, but I got, yeah, but yeah, predatory lending, but I didn't throw it away.
Aside from, this is Stan Collander, a budget guru.
Aside from considering their broader message, New Democrats also discussed a desire to weigh in soon on predatory lending.
Well, I don't know whether they're going to be for it or against it.
I mean, they just decided to address it.
But for it or again, who knows?
I don't even know what they're talking about.
That's exactly what we do.
We make the complex understandable.
We have the Harry Reid soundbite.
This was at a press conference yesterday saying that the judge battle has shut down the nation.
We have squandered legislative time in the Senate with these judges.
No question about it.
I can't imagine the president's going would allow the country to be brought to a standstill.
And that's what's happened for the last two months.
And for these five judges, that's what's happened.
You would have thought that he never cared.
You would think that he never opposed them.
These five judges?
These five judges, five irrelevant people, why, these five judges were going to destroy the country.
They were going to tear up the Constitution.
They were going to rip it to shreds, and they were going to flush it down Harry Reid's toilet.
These people were so out of the mainstream.
They were so extreme, folks.
These judges had to be stopped at all costs.
And now I can't imagine the president's going to allow the country to be brought to a standstill.
We've squandered legislative time in the Senate with these judges.
Let me tell you what's happened.
They've got some focus group data polling out there, folks.
They've got some internal polling, and it doesn't look good for them.
That's exactly what this means.
That plus trying to change the subject.
That plus trying to redefine the terms here.
But they have to have some polling data that shows them really taking it in the shorts on this.
And so they're trying to turn this over.
We never cared about judges.
What is this?
President caused this to happen.
Why?
Nominated these people three, four years ago.
And why?
I can't believe we spent three or four years on five people.
Blah, By the way, it's exactly what I mean when I tell you that liberals look at you and see a bunch of dunces, folks.
This is how stupid they think you are.
This is how condescending they can be.
You are so stupid.
Maybe it's also in reaction to the fact that a lot of people aren't paying a lot of attention to this.
Maybe they've got internal polling data that says, you know, a whole lot of people aren't even paying attention to this.
And Dingy Harry's saying, you know, we're wasting a lot of time on this because nobody cares.
We're not scoring points here because nobody cares.
Who knows whatever.
But they've got internal polling data and it doesn't look good for them.
Ergo, Dingy Harry's statement.
In the Washington Post story about Janice Rogers Brown being approved for the D.C. Circuit, Dingy Harry has the following quote.
She is the epitome of an activist judge.
She is a judge.
She's not a legislator.
She has no right to do the things that she does.
This was yesterday, the same day he said, I can't believe we're holding everything up for five people.
I can't believe the president would do this, would shut down the legislation and the agenda of the people.
I can't believe that Bush would do this.
And then he says the same day, she has no right to do the things that she does.
That's incredible.
She has no right to do the things that she does.
Well, she's an American citizen, Dingy Harry.
All right, it's back now to confusion for the Democrats.
I have two stories here, folks.
I want to share the headlines.
One's from the San Francisco Chronicle, local Chronicle reporter, and one's the Boston Globe, Nina Easton and Rick Klein, Globe staff right.
Well, Nina Easton, I think, is their bureau chief in Washington.
A recent Fox News contributor, you know, that conservative TV network, Nina Easton has just been named a commentator.
She's on the roundtable with Britt Hume, and she's bureau chief of the Boston Globe in Washington.
She's working on that conservative news network, Fox News Channel, at any rate.
Headline, the Boston Globe, Democratic leaders stand up for Dean.
San Francisco Chronicle, Dean Dems distance themselves from Dean.
Two stories.
Right there, folks.
Those of you watching on the NiddoCam, see them.
showing them to you.
What are we to make of this?
Democratic leaders stand up for Dean.
Let's look at this one first.
This is Nina Easton and Rick Klein.
A round of criticism from fellow Democrats and major donors about Howard Dean's four-month tenure as DNC chairman has prompted Senate leaders to rise to his defense at a public event planned for today.
I told you, I told you the Democrat leadership in the Senate is going to embrace him.
They don't want anything at all to happen to him.
He's saying exactly what they all want to say themselves.
Originally scheduled as a private meeting between Dean and the leadership team of Senate Minority Leader Dingy Harry Reid of Nevada, today's session instead will now include a news conference and photo op as a public embrace of Dean.
Has that happened?
Did that happen this morning?
It's happening now.
All right, well, we'll try to get some tape of this.
So they have a public embrace of Dean.
A Senate leadership will have a public embrace.
What did I tell you yesterday?
Do I know these people?
Yes.
I do not agree with those comments, said Stenny Hoyer, congressman from Maryland.
Party chairman's job is to organize the party to support policy makers.
Time will tell whether Dean has undercut his standing, said Harold Ickes, a longtime Clinton advisor who supported Dean's bid for DNC chairman.
There are people who are unhappy about it and think his comments are less than helpful.
Some of his comments will reinforce the view that he sometimes talks before really.
I'm stunned by the way that the mainstream press is analyzing this.
I want you to pretend that George Bush was saying this on the stomp, that George Bush was saying the exact things that Dean's saying only about Democrats.
I want you to imagine, I want you to realize it would be front page headlines for a week.
It would be the constant lead editorial of the Washington Post and the New York Times about how the public discourse is being coarsened and brought to a new low, and the politics of personal destruction is on the march and all of this.
But yet, when Dean says this, the left-wing media gets in gear and they start analyzing it.
And they get points of view from both sides.
Some say it's bad, some say it's okay.
But the bottom line is for the Boston Globe, hey, hey, he's going to be embraced by the Senate leadership.
So who are we to criticize him?
Then there's a columnist, this Joan Venocci, and I hope she pronounces her name that way.
I have no clue, and I'm not trying to mispronounce it.
It's V-E-N-N-O-C-H-I.
I'm assuming it's Venocci, could be Venace.
I don't know.
But her headline is, Dean isn't the problem.
So she's defending Howard Dean here.
Democrats are running against Howard Dean instead of George W. Bush and the GOP, or better yet, running for principles that matter to the country.
It makes little sense unless the intent is to destroy what's left of their shell of a party.
Dean is under attack by fellow Democrats who are allegedly upset.
He's not under attack.
Is this an attack?
Virtually every Democrat says, well, I wouldn't say it that way, but I think he's got a right to say it.
Well, I wouldn't say exactly what he's saying.
But, you know, he's an American, and I think I would tone my language that, boy, he's doing a great job out there as party chairman.
Oh, I don't support those views, but he's doing a great job.
What?
This is an attack?
There haven't been any attacks on Howard Dean.
That's the whole point.
Zip Zero Nada.
But this constitutes an attack, according to Ms. Venaci-Venocchi.
How shocking.
Dean said, I hate the Republicans and everything they stand for.
He defined the political landscape as a struggle between good and evil.
Is that any worse than a comment by Harry Reid, the Democrat Senate leader, who said, I think this guy's a loser about Bush?
Is it worse than Senator Clinton of New York saying there's never been an administration, I don't believe, in our history more intent upon consolidating and abusing power to further their own agenda?
During the 2004 presidential campaign, Dean's professor or predecessor, the punk Terry McAuliffe, was famous for personal attacks against President Bush.
He described Bush as being AWOL, absent without leave during his stint, and the National Guard declared that George Bush continually lies.
But Democrats never cared what McAuliffe said.
All that mattered was the money he raised, compliments of his vaunted schmoozing skills.
Now a few hotshot donors are upset that Dean isn't stroking them as constantly as McAuliffe, and suddenly he's a failure.
So for Democrats, she writes, running for president in 08 apparently means running against Dean in 05.
It is so much easier to run against Dean than to fight for real principles.
Bush meets with Britain's Prime Minister Tony Blair.
The two are finally forced to address a 2002 memo written by a British official of fixed intelligence.
Blah, blah, blah.
Both leaders deny the memo accurately reflects events.
Case closed.
Were the Democrats brave enough to press the president on the issue?
Well, hey, Dean's not talking about it either, Joan.
Dean's not because it's bogus.
It's purely bogus.
Let's move on to San Francisco Chronicle.
Dems distance themselves from Dean.
Leading Democrats distanced themselves Wednesday from Howard Dean's characterization of the GOP as a white Christian party while suggesting Republicans have seized on the Democratic Party chief's controversial remark to divert attention from the Bush administration's failures at home and abroad.
Right.
Right, right, right.
That's exactly what's going on.
We're focusing on Dean to divert it.
Nancy Pelosi told reporters Wednesday, I don't agree with the statement that was made, but she didn't ask for him to go anywhere.
In a later telephone interview, Pelosi firmly rejected any talk that Dean should resign from his post, calling that ridiculous and unthinkable.
Wouldn't they just love that, she said of Republicans.
Howard Dean's doing a great job.
He energizes the grassroots.
Die-fi, Diane Feinstein, tougher than Pelosi in her reaction to Dean's statements.
She said that the Democratic Party chairman should concentrate on raising funds and supporting Democrats and not on making outrageous statements.
Delan Tosher, Democrat Walnut Creek, I don't agree with what Howard Dean is saying, and I don't agree that you have to resort to pejorative personal attacks to make your point, especially when we have the high ground.
But Tosher also said Dean should stay on in the job.
Well, so I don't really see any criticism of Dean here.
I just don't, I think, I think you have a lot of Democrats, you know, wanting it both ways.
They want it on the record that they don't approve of this stuff.
But as far as doing anything about stopping Dean from saying it, oh, no, no, no, no, you shouldn't do that.
I'm just telling they want him to say this stuff.
They like him saying it.
Democrat leadership in the Senate's going to have this big powwow today embracing him in public as a show of support.
And if I just want you to pretend again, if all this are reversed and some Republican power broker were saying the kind of things about Democrats that Dean's saying about Republicans, you think they hate Bolton?
It's possible that if a Republican had done that, he would have already been run out of town.
He would have been run out of town.
It would be the end of his career.
Clearly, the double standard lives on, and we're not surprised that it does.
Quick timeout.
We'll be back.
Resume right after this.
Hold your head up, folks.
This is Argent.
Know what year this is, Mr. Snerdley?
72, 73, somewhere around there.
72 is the year.
We are back.
Let's go to the phones.
It's Open Line Friday on Thursday.
Jennifer in Indianapolis.
I'm glad you waited.
Welcome to the program.
Hi, Rush.
Thanks for taking my call.
Anytime.
I had a question.
The president I saw on the news is in Columbus.
I assume that's Ohio today, trying to get support for beefing up the Patriot Act.
And I'm a conservative, but when I complain about the Patriot Act, people say I'm a liberal.
I just wondered what you thought about that because I just read Judge Napolitano's book, Constitutional Chaos, which points out a lot of unconstitutional parts of the Patriot Act.
Yeah, some things about it concern me.
I must be honest.
The ability to go out and storm into somebody's house without a warrant is something that they want.
Or the thing that gets me is a definition of an enemy combatant.
I mean, that's so vague that any of us, depending on who's in power, could be an enemy combatant.
I think, you know, this is a toughie.
I think one of the things, Jennifer, that's driving the Patriot Act.
We just found out that in Lodi, California.
Right.
Stuck in Lodi.
Credence Clearwater Revival.
I'll be in 1968, I think.
But I mean, you never know.
Apparently, we've got open borders.
We've got people in this country all over the place that could be part of cells.
After 9-11 happened, you have to understand leadership and law enforcement after 9-11, they really got reamed for doing a horrible job of preventing it when it was, in many people's minds, it was preventable.
At least if the dots had been connected, we'd have known more before it than we did after it.
And I think that there's a reaction here among people that we're not going to let this happen again, no matter what.
And it's a tough call.
What is the loose definition of an enemy combatant?
Do you have it handy?
No, but I just remember in particular Section E, which says that any person can be interned for their own protection.
And to me, that's like, you know, round them up, round them up and put them in a constant, you know, some site of, and some kind of internment camp.
Let me ask you this.
Do you have a fear or a suspicion that at some point your government will use the features of the Patriot Act to round up people who have nothing to do with any suspicion whatsoever of terrorism?
It's my feeling that if they can generate enough public hostility towards a group, i.e. smokers, redheads, anybody, that they can get enough public sympathy to round people up.
I truly believe that.
I know a lot of people have your fear.
A lot of people share your concern about it.
I'm sorry to interrupt.
Do you think that it's not being talked about enough, though, in conservative circles and maybe intellectually?
No, it is being hardly.
It's all over the place.
If you go to the right conservative places, you'll find there's a huge argument about this among conservatives, particularly the conservative elites and the conservative intellectuals.
There's always an argument among our people over who's the smartest person in the room, and they're always trying to outsmart each other with the fanciest, smartest, most obscure argument.
The fact is that these arguments taking place within the conservative movement, I think, quite a lot.
You have to look, though, at the success rate.
Look, has there been another attack on this country from within since the Patriot Act was authorized?
No, there hasn't.
There has not been.
But there is evidence that that act has been used to do things that weren't related to terror, you know, that they've been used in other cases.
Those powers have been used.
Well, yeah, you know, let me tell you something.
There's hypocrisy on both sides of this because I'm going to tell you something.
And you have plenty of liberals out there who are all for the cops raiding their political enemies.
They are all for the cops doing whatever they have to do to get whatever goods they want on their political enemies.
And yet the Patriot Act comes, oh, you can't do it.
It's an invasion of privacy.
And yet in some cases, they don't care about other people's privacy.
Privacy is irrelevant to them depending on who the target is.
You know, so you've got both sides of this.
I wouldn't suggest that there's one side to this that's pure and one side that's that's not.
At any rate, it's a tough call for a lot of people, but you really can't argue with the success rate.
And I, frankly, in this country, don't know too many people.
I don't know of anybody who's been rounded up that is not under genuine suspicion and about whom there is not a sufficient body of evidence to justify that suspicion.
I don't know of a rampant number of innocent people been rounded up under whatever auspices under the Patriot Act.
Quick time out.
We'll be back after this.
Stay with us.
I just got the sabite roster for President Bush's talk today about the Patriot Act.
We'll listen to what he says when we come back from the break here at the top of the hour, as well as response from Russ Feingold, who was very much opposed to the Patriot Act.
So as I say, what's going on here to folks?
We have barely scratched the surface, and that's why we have two hours remaining.
Sit tight.
It won't be long.
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