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June 15, 2005 - Rush Limbaugh Program
36:04
June 15, 2005, Wednesday, Hour #2
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Time Text
And greetings, welcome back.
It's Rush Limbaugh.
Great to have you with us.
The one and only EIB network rolls on from the Limbaugh Institute for Advanced Conservative Studies.
Telephone number is 800-282-2882.
The email address rush at EIBnet.com.
We went back.
We've had some time to do a little research on Thomas Friedman's writing about Iraq.
We just had a caller suggest to us that Friedman's been a supporter of Iraq all along.
And I couldn't sit here and say I disagree with that plaintively and affirmatively because there's too much stuff he's written that I haven't read since the whole war began.
But my memory is that Friedman has not been a supporter of the Iraq war from the get-go.
And in fact, we found a piece, an abstract of a piece.
You know, when you go to the website and they want a couple bucks or five bucks for an archive piece, not to the New York Times.
So we will, it's not that we don't have the five bucks.
It's that we know where not to spend our money.
Assuredly, folks, and be confident we have the five bucks or whatever they charge to go get an archive story.
We just know where to spend our money, and that's not it.
They furnish enough here in the abstract.
This was a piece on, let's see.
Well, I'm not sure the date.
It's May of 2004.
All right.
So this was, all right, so it's about the same time as the previous column was written that we cited from, now it was Wesley Clark in December of 2003.
All right.
Anyway, here's the abstract about Friedman's piece.
Thomas Friedman op-ed column questions whether regime change in Iraq will be possible in Bush administration.
Says Bush team considers it more important to defeat liberals at home than Bathists abroad.
Says that is why they spent studying United States polls than Iraqi history and why they are so slow to change course.
Says confronting their mistakes would involve confronting their own politics.
Says Bush praises Rumsfeld rather than fire him over Abu Ghrab scandal because Karl Roves says that to hold conservative base, Bush must appear to be strong, decisive, and loyal.
Says winning re-election is more important to him than producing decent outcome in Iraq.
So I wouldn't call this a supportive piece of the Iraq war.
And of course, questions whether regime change in Iraq will be possible in a Bush administration.
Says Bush team considers it important to defeat liberals at home more important than Bathists abroad.
I just mentioned this, folks, to give you an idea that not every piece that Mr. Friedman's written has been totally supportive of the war.
Moving on to other things here, and if you want to keep talking about this, feel free.
Key Senate Republicans are considering gradually raising the Social Security retirement age to as high as 69 over several years as they struggle to jumpstart legislation that President Bush has placed atop his second term agenda.
Under current law, the retirement age for full Social Security benefits is 65 and a half and is scheduled to reach 67 for those born in 1960 or later.
The possible increase to 69 over two decades or more was among the suggestions made by Senator Charles Grassley, chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, and he presented these to fellow Republicans on his committee last week as part of an attempt to give the program greater financial solvency.
Grassley also suggested steps to hold down benefits for upper wage earners of the future.
They spoke only in condition of anonymity, saying the discussions were confidential.
Well, they're not confidential now.
they have been discussed.
Now, the disclosures surfaced as Bush campaigned in Pennsylvania for changes in Social Security, including creation of these personal accounts for younger workers.
The rest of the story is boilerplate.
So raise the retirement age to 69, but it's going to take two decades or more to do that.
Well, it's not going to make any difference.
I mean, it makes some, I mean, it's not going to make a whole big lot of difference.
I got another research assignment here for our staff because I know this is true.
I just don't know the numbers.
When Social Security was first proposed and enacted by FDR, the age at which you would begin receiving payments was beyond the life expectancy at the time, right?
Well, I want to know what the numbers were.
I want to know what life expectancy was in 1935 when this all started.
And I want to know what the retirement age was at which Social Security benefits would be paid out.
The life expectancy now, what is it, 77 for men and 54 for women because of all the stress men put them through?
No, it's 77 and 70, but it's closing.
It's 77 and 70 something for women, but it's six.
What?
What?
61.7 years for what?
1935.
Okay, 1935, the life expectancy for both sexes was 61.7 years.
61.7 years in 1935.
And by the way, little observation about that.
The life expectancy has gone up 16 years while we've polluted the planet, while we're eating all this rotten grub, while we're more filth and pollution that you can imagine out there.
And yet the life expectancy has continued to skyrocket up to 77.
It's going to be even higher than that.
My point is that if we're really serious about this, and the Democrats, you know, want to always hold to the original intention of Social Security, let's make the retirement age higher than the life expectancy.
I know it'll never happen.
Whoever proposed that seriously would be probably burned at the stake or some such thing.
But raising the retirement age to 69, if it's already going to go to 67, raising it to 69 over 20 years, that's going to make maybe some difference in the big, big, big out years, but it's not going to have much to do, much, much effect on what is happening now with the program.
So anyway, this is being secretly discussed, but it's no longer secret because it has been leaked.
Now, we also have other exciting items in the news.
And I have two stories here about Governor Schwarzenegger, one from the San Francisco Chronicle, the other from the Los Angeles Times.
Let's look at the Chronicle piece first.
Governor Schiff's ground in initiative fight.
Angry Democrats say he's trying to scare voters to the polls.
Governor Schwarzenegger's special election campaign suddenly became all about the landmark Prop 13 property tax initiative Tuesday when he warned elderly homeowners they could lose their houses to taxes if Democrats and union leaders got their way in the fall.
They want to back us into a corner so eventually they can force us to raise taxes.
Schwarzenegger told about 25 people in a backyard get-together in Santee, which is in San Diego County.
He accused Democratic legislators of sneaking around with backdoor efforts to tweak Prop 13, the 1978 initiative that put tight caps on property taxes in the state.
And Schwarzenegger said, I tell them, don't you dare touch Prop 13 because the people of California voted to protect their homes.
He talked about knowing people in the 1970s who had to sell their homes because the government robbed them blind with property taxes.
The attack enraged Democrat leaders who accused the governor of campaigning on issues that aren't even on the November 8th ballot.
Changing Prop 13 to boost taxes on homeowners isn't on the ballot.
It isn't even on anybody's radar screen, said a spokesman for the Assembly speaker, Fabian Nunez, Democrat Los Angeles.
Governor's trying to scare people to the polls, and that is shameful.
Yeah, right.
I wonder who also tries this tactic.
When have we heard this tactic used before?
Republicans are going to cut Social Security.
You're going to lose your house.
I remember Alan Cranston, Democrat Senator, California, making that argument shortly after what was in the it was in the 8084 campaign, the Reagan-Mondole campaign of 1984.
And from the Los Angeles Times, the Democrats who control the legislature have abandoned their effort to add billions of dollars in programs to the governor's proposed state budget and are preparing to vote for a spending plan with no new taxes and no extra money for schools.
Shifting their focus to the coming special election fight.
The lawmakers are surrendering to Governor Schwarzenegger on the major spending issues that have separated the two sides for months.
For the first time in years, they are rushing to meet their constitutional deadline for passing a budget today with a viable plan.
Democrats fear that holding up the budget would hurt them.
November 8th, drive voters to approve spending controls the governor helped place on the ballot.
They said they would try to secure the money by other means.
Now, what has happened?
This is quite, this is, this is, listen to this again, surrendering to Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger in the face of the coming special election fight.
Democrats who control the legislature abandoned their effort to add billions of dollars to the governor's proposed state budget and prepared to vote for a spending plan with no new taxes and no extra money for schools.
You know what this is called?
This is called leadership.
Schwarzenegger stared them down.
Schwarzenegger looked in the eye and said, this is what we're going to do.
And if we don't do it, we're going to send it out to a vote of the people.
And the Democrats surrendered because they know what the vote of the people would be.
We got a timeout.
Be back after this.
Stay with us.
Okay, back to the phone.
Senewport Beach, California.
Hi.
Welcome to the EIB Network, sir.
Great to have you.
Rushed.
Pleasure.
Three quick points.
Number one, I want to thank you for the impact you've had on politics and American life since you've been on the radio.
Anytime, sir, yes, happy to help.
Number two, I want to comment and remind people that the very people that are Friedman and Kerry, Kennedy, all these people that are suggesting more troops for Iraq are the very same people that when it was time for them to put their lives on the line, were out protesting Richard Nixon doing the same thing back in the early 70s.
And I would suggest these people, again, are proving that it's do as I say, not as I do.
They're willing to put American troops into harm's way now, more of them, as you said.
Wow.
I'm sorry to interrupt you.
I know what you're thinking, but you need to take one more step because they're being totally consistent, not inconsistent.
The template is Vietnam.
What failed in Vietnam?
We kept sending troops and we kept losing.
And when nothing worked, and they got Nixon out of office.
So calling for more troops.
Now, this is why I'm raising this.
Calling, doubling the troops after it was first mentioned in 2003 is an attempt to do two things.
It's an attempt to make it look like all's going to hell in a handbasket.
We got Gitmo falling apart.
We need to shut that down.
We got Ebu Grab.
It's a total embarrassment.
And now our rock's falling apart.
Nothing there's going right.
We need to do something.
We need to double the troops so Democrats can make themselves look like they care about Iraq, but in fact, they're actually trying to cement the notion that it's a total failure, an abject failure that needs more troops.
The more troops.
Should I say this?
I may as well, because I'm on record already, has said it.
Thank you, Brian, for the encouragement.
Brian nodding his head in agreement that I should say it.
The more troops, the more troops at risk.
And we know that the Democrats would take any bit of news and run with it to gin up anti-war support among the American people.
Now, I'm not going so far as to say that Thomas Friedman wants us to lose in Iraq.
So don't anybody make that assumption.
But I'm suggesting to you here that it is not inconsistent for Democrats who at one time back in the 60s and 70s bemoaned the constant expansion of troops to Vietnam now to be supporting it.
Because they can look back at what happened to Vietnam and they can suggest that all that never worked anyway, and it just created more anti-war opposition in the American people.
And that's what they want.
They want opposition to Bush on every front.
They want opposition to Bush on Social Security.
They want opposition to Bush on private accounts.
They want opposition to Bush on the energy plan, opposition to Bush on Gitmo, Abu Ghraib, Iraq, war on terror.
And I'm sure they're thinking that this might do it.
Nobody's going to blame Tom Friedman if we double troop levels in Iraq.
Nobody can blame him.
If it happens, they'll blame the people that do it.
So Mr. Snirdley's just asked, do they want us to win?
I don't think that's in their vote.
I don't think they think we can.
I'm going to be charitable here.
I'm not going to accuse the Democrats of wanting us to lose.
I think their mindset is we can't.
U.S. military is not good enough.
We can't win.
We can't win because of the way we're fighting the war.
We can't win because of the enemy.
We're creating more enemies around the world.
Everything we're doing is creating more enemies.
They're making ourselves look horrible.
We can't win it.
Now, whether in the back of their minds they say we don't deserve to win, then that's, you know, I wouldn't be surprised if, well, I know some of the wacko kooks that make up the Democratic Party want us to lose.
I'm not saying that about Friedman Mike in Lakeland, Florida.
Hello, sir.
Welcome to the EIB Network.
Hey, pleasure, Rush.
Yeah, the president is preaching to the choir.
He needs to get out in the Oval Office and do an Oval Office address and tell it to the American people.
He's the leader of the party, and he's right.
But he needs to tell it to the American people from the Oval Office, from the bully puppet.
Well, I don't think that's the way to do it.
That wouldn't get covered.
But he can do it outside of Republican fundraisers.
He could do it when he goes out to make speech on Social Security.
He could do it when he goes out to drum up support for his energy plan.
He could do it that way.
But if he did it from the Oval Office, that wouldn't do it.
What I'm saying is that he needs to tell it to the American people, though, not just the party faithful.
I hear you.
I hear you.
And I totally agree.
And that's one of the reasons why the mainstream press is not covering this, is that it was a fundraiser.
And he was speaking to the party faithful.
And it's actually, it's a good point, whether he would go beyond the party faithful to say something like this.
Only time will tell.
I think they in the White House rely on an echo chamber to get what they say out.
But it would help.
There's no question it would help.
And you're right if they would move on and say this outside of these fundraisers.
Interesting piece today in the Los Angeles Times is this, it's an op-ed piece.
Andres Martinez.
Who apologized for the filibuster?
The Senate should be ashamed of the tactic that killed anti-lynching legislation.
You know, I'm interested in this because I did a morning update on this very, very subject.
I mean, the Democrats are leading this notion that the Senate needs to apologize for the filibustering anti-lynching legislation.
It was the Democrats that led that filibuster.
It was the segregationist Democrats way back when that led the filibuster against anti-lynching legislation.
Do you realize that as recently as 1967, it was legal to lynch?
As recently as 67.
When were you born, Dawn?
Were you born?
You weren't even you were so you were one year old and it was still legal in your lifetime.
It's still been legal to lynch people.
In 1967, there was anti-lynching legislation that was the Democrats, the segregationists, the same guys that fought the Civil Rights Act of 1964, refused for that legislation.
They filibustered it, and that's what this piece is about.
Who knew is about, who knew the Senate was so cheeky?
On Monday, a mere three weeks after the centrist bipartisan gang of 14 agreed ever so proudly to save the institution's fabled filibuster, senators passed a resolution apologizing for the chamber's failure to enact anti-lynching legislation.
Astonishingly, Senate Resolution 39 makes no mention of the F-word, the filibuster, which denotes the mechanism that allows a minority of legislators to block votes.
The resolution duly notes that at least 4,742 people, mostly African Americans, were lynched in the U.S. between 1882 and 1968.
That nearly 200 anti-lynching bills backed by seven presidents were introduced in Congress during the first half of the 20th century.
That the House did pass three strong anti-lynching measures, but that the Senate never did, thus failing its minimum and most basic of federal responsibilities to those who were deprived of life, human dignity, and the constitutional protections accorded all citizens of the United States.
As Mary Landrew, the Louisiana Democrat who sponsored a resolution, said, the Senate was uniquely culpable for Washington's failure to protect U.S. citizens from a type of domestic terrorism often orchestrated by local authorities.
The apology, in effect, covers up just how self-interested the Senate's actions really were and how indefensible the filibuster remains.
It distorts history by suggesting a majority of senators were on the same moral plane with the anti-civil rights posse made up by the likes of Theodore Bilbo of Mississippi, Richard Russell of Georgia.
It goes on, but that's pretty much the summation.
And we're back.
Great to have you with us, El Rushbo and the Excellence in Broadcasting Network.
We have some audio soundbites from the anti-lynching bill yesterday.
And it'd be interesting to hear some of these.
And we're going to go back and listen to Senator Bird from 1968.
But first, Mary Landrew, the co-sponsor of the lynching apology, calls lynching domestic terrorism.
Here's a portion of her remarks.
It's not only that your eyes are drawn to the victims of the lynching, but you're also drawn to the faces of the spectators and realize that these were more than crimes.
This was in some measure domestic terrorism.
American against Americans, citizens against citizens.
And it's a story that must be told.
Well, but you're not going to tell it all, are you?
It was a Democrat-led filibuster that stopped anti-lynching legislation.
Democrat-led filibuster.
Not that it relates to Democrats today.
I'm just saying it's awfully strange that this is all coming up now, this official apology.
Here's John Kerry, and he uses the word torture in this.
Lynchings were not just lynchings, as we think of them.
They weren't just hanging somebody.
They were, in most cases, torture on American soil.
They were the brutal middle of the night, knock on a door and denial of rights to people in their homes.
They were the willful dispersion of fear into a community.
And the torture was torture, which when you read some of it, it is just stunning to believe that law enforcement at some times didn't just stand aside.
It was complicitous.
And you hear the word torture as he is using it there.
Let's listen more to Senator Kerry.
Here we are, standing here.
And it is important because the journey is unfinished.
It's not enough just to acknowledge this today and walk out of here because there's a different kind of lynching that occurs when children don't get the full measure of citizenship today in communities.
There's a different kind of lynching that occurs when people are denied access to health care and denied the opportunity to be full citizens in the United States of America.
And let's go back now to 1968, shall we?
Senator Byrd talking about Martin Luther King Jr.
Martin Luther King fled the scene.
He took to his heels and disappeared, leaving it to others to cope with the destructive forces he had helped to unleash.
And I hope that well-meaning Negro leaders and individuals in the Negro community in Washington will now take a new look at this man who gets other people into trouble and then takes off like a scared rabbit.
There you have it.
The dean of the Senate today of the Democratic Party, Sheets Byrd, former Grand Kluger or whatever they call him of the Ku Klux Klan, basically insulting Robert Byrd in 1968, which was the last year that lynchings took place in the United States of America.
He's now one of the leaders, the Democratic Party.
He was, don't know that he was in on the filibuster, don't know, but I know it was a Democrat filibuster that stopped the passage of anti-lynching legislation.
And I'm just bringing this up because, you know, the Democrats in the Senate did this.
They led this apology.
And they used the filibuster to do it.
So it's just information to put in your head out there to let it roll around.
Dane in Carson City, Nevada.
Welcome to the EIB Network.
Hello.
Hey, Rush, what an honor for you and I to finally get a chance to speak after all these years.
Thank you, sir.
I just wanted to bring up, there's a third point to this, and the Democrats are now, or the Liberals are now saying, yeah, we need to double the troops, put them in Iraq, and your first two points are right on target.
But there's the third, once they bring that up, the military doesn't have the resources now to double our troops over there and keep ourselves where we need to be.
So they're going to start talking about the draft.
Once that's brought up, they're going to start jumping out of their chairs and going, yeah, see, see, we see this administration has planned on the draft all along.
Yeah, I wouldn't be a bit surprised.
Wouldn't be a bit surprised because we are getting news every day that recruitment levels are down, that they're like the fourth straight month or whatever.
So where are we going to get the troops from is a good point.
Somebody said, oh, we're going to have to draft him, but we've got to do this.
And then, bam, all they get.
The administration is not going to fall for this.
I'm just telling you, it's going to become the next chorus.
Do you have any doubt that it will be?
No, I don't.
I mean, I agree with you completely on that.
Well, we are going to get hammered by this.
I'm not sure yet.
I'm not sure yet, but it's going to take some time.
I just want to say that I will not be surprised if doubling troop levels in Vietnam in Iraq becomes the next big item that is discussed.
You don't think so, Mr. Sterdley?
You don't think so?
I don't think I don't know if Snurdley thinks too many of them are scared because of all their anti-war rhetoric to now come up and suggest this.
They still got people that could do it.
I'm not predicting it, but when you see a trend, you know, it's just important to note the trend and note the possibility.
And that's what this is.
Franz in New Orleans, you're next on the Rush Limblaugh program.
Hello.
How you doing, Rush?
Good, sir.
I hear today that Douglas Wood was released.
The engineer who was held hostage in Iraq.
I'm just very curious.
Do you think that we'll be seeing any news stories on just how terrible his conditions were?
Well, no, we might get a report on what happened to him, but there won't be any criticism because we expect that of scum.
We expect that of our enemies, but we expect that.
So there won't be any criticism.
There may be an accounting of just, you know, how horribly we don't even need it.
We know that he's lucky, so have his head.
A lot of prisoners end up beheaded.
A lot of prisoners end up tortured and humiliated.
You can't imagine.
But we don't have any other expectations of these people.
I mean, that's what they do.
But we, we can't, we're not.
And of course, I'm not suggesting that we do what they do.
I'm suggesting that it's being said we do what they do.
I'm suggesting that all this criticism of Gitmo and Abu Ghrab is designed by the left to make the American people think that we're no different than al-Qaeda or the Baathists or whoever else in the terrorist world is running prisons.
And that's the thing that I resent.
But, I mean, no, the opportunity to do stories on prison conditions for U.S. POWs is there every day.
And that report, those stories are not done.
This is why I said on Monday, if I may go back in time, a mere two days, it's why I said on Monday, we need to go back and look at this for the template of World War II.
You know, the liberals are out there celebrating the greatest generation.
Well, if they were so great, why aren't we emulating what they did to win wars like in World War II?
We don't even talk about it.
We look at the template of Vietnam and we look at the presidency through the template of Watergate, at least the Democrats and the mainstream media do.
And as such, it would be instructive to find out just what kind of prisoner of war techniques and tactics there were back in World War II.
But of course, we can't go back and do that because we won that war.
And by showing what happened when we won that war, it would maybe give us guidance on what to do here.
And part of the frustration here is that we're being totally governed by political correctness in the prosecution of a war.
Speaking of that, speaking of political correctness, get this.
This is from the Seattle Post Intelligence or newspaper.
Dozens of agents and analysts gathered at FBI headquarters in Seattle yesterday to question a local Muslim man, but not to build a case, but to build a bridge between the law enforcement agency and an often misunderstood group of Americans.
Jafar Jeff Siddiqui of American Muslims of Puget Sound was at the Bureau, the FBI's Bureau, to dispel common myths about Islam and its adherents.
Asked by one agent about the cultural and religious taboos investigators should keep in mind when approaching a Muslim, Siddiqui questioned and cautioned the agents not to lump all Muslims together.
He said, there's no single profile.
Our Muslim personality, Islam is very diverse.
The practice of Islam in Malaysia is completely different from the practice of Islam in Saudi Arabia.
And with that warning, he gave the agents a quick class in cultural sensitivity with a list of things to avoid when talking with Muslims.
Don't disrespect the holy book, the Quran.
Do not be too friendly to the women.
Do not go into holy places like mosques wearing shoes.
And Siddique told the agents not to read too much into it if a Muslim does not make eye contact.
Most Muslims in the U.S. are first generation.
They come from a despotic regime and tyranny, and you guys are the feds.
Often people from such a background approach authority figures with intense caution.
He said, you might not get the answers you want, and that is why.
Near the end of the session, one bureau member asked Siddiqui why the common Muslim man doesn't stand up and say this is unacceptable and bring terrorists to justice.
He responded, we have held Muslims hostage to that question.
The common man in Islam is no different than a common man here.
Common man cannot bring terrorists to justice anywhere.
So, the FBI undergoing sensitivity training in order to deal with American Muslims.
And people are worried about Patriot Act.
We'll be back after this.
Stay with us.
This is funny.
Our old buddies at Newsmac, Carl, Newsmax Carl Limbacher, called Byrd's spokesman to ask them if Byrd had ever participated in any lynchings.
And a spokesman for Senator Byrd told protesters this week he wasn't sure whether his boss had helped lynch any African Americans when the top Senate Democrat was a member of the Klan in the 1940s.
Members of the African American Republican Leadership Council and the Washington, D.C. chapter of freerepublic.com staged a sit-in in Byrd's heart building, Hart Senate office building, on Tuesday, where Byrd's press secretary Tom Gavin fielded questions for about 20 minutes.
We asked Gavin, does he know what Senator Byrd did while he was in the Klan?
He didn't know.
He said he hadn't talked to Byrd about it.
We asked Gavin if he knew what the Klan was doing in West Virginia in the 40s when Senator Byrd was a member.
Byrd's spokesman pleaded ignorance again.
Next question, were they lynching black people?
Again, Gavin didn't know.
Then the protesters wanted to know, did Byrd's Klan chapter burn crosses on black people's lawns or run them out of town?
He said he didn't know.
He said he had no idea.
So Byrd's spokesman drew a blank on all of all the questions.
I think it's funny.
Show up and ask, Spoken, did your boss participate in any lynchings?
I don't know.
Here's Ray in Crestwood, Illinois.
Welcome to the EIB network.
Hello.
Meghan, I did his rush.
I've been a longtime listener, about 15 years here.
Thank you, sir.
Yes.
You know how Duncan Hunter came out in defense of Gitmo with the description of the menu items?
Yes.
I would love to see John McCain, Senator McCain, come out and compare the Hanoi Hilton treatment.
It ain't going to happen.
I'm sorry, it's not going to happen.
Have you heard McCain wants trials for all these guys?
That's what's baffling to me.
Why?
Why is it baffling to you?
Well, he's supposed to be a Republican.
And he should be defending the troops and defending the military actions.
Hey, wait, you got to do McCain's running for president.
He's got some strategy, obviously, for getting there.
And this is part of it.
I'm like you.
I don't quite understand it yet, other than it is to slap the conservative base now and then and appeal to moderates.
McCain wants to be a maverick to the moderates.
He thinks the moderates are the biggest voting bloc out there, and that's who he's trying to appeal to, I guess.
But a lot of people have suggested this, that McCain could describe, and he has, by the way, in his book.
We all know what the torture he went through was.
He was there for five years, and we all know that it was very heroic.
And we all know that because he was the son of a Navy admiral, he was offered a chance to get out of there early, and he refused to go unless all of his buddies were released, and they weren't, so he stayed.
And we know all this, so why he doesn't come up and remind everybody about it and defend our practices today.
Your guess is as good as mine, but I'm not surprised that he doesn't.
And I'm no longer surprised when he comes out and says he needs trials for these.
Would you tell me how many people are Gitmo right now?
How many people are Gitmo?
500, something.
I thought it was 800 or something.
Okay, 500 to 800, whatever it is.
How are we going to have trials for all these people?
And where are we going to do it?
And who's going to pay for it?
We know the U.S. taxpayer will pay for it because these guys don't have any money.
I mean, it's absurd.
Just the idea that they should all get trials.
And everybody seems to forget that, you know, Rumsfeld is saying, you know, we've let a bunch of guys go out of there and 12 of them came back.
We caught them on the battlefield.
People also forget where we got these guys.
Where do you think these prisoners from Gitmo or in Gitmo were procured?
You think we just ran around with a net in the Middle East and anything we caught, we brought to Gitmo?
These guys are caught on the battlefield, folks.
That's why they're called enemy combatants.
So I just, I look at this and it's patently absurd to have trials for all these people.
As I say, ladies and gentlemen, we are moving forward, though, on our plans here to acknowledge Club Gitmo, which is what it appears to be.
If you have not been to rushlimbaugh.com, you've got to go there because we put together a quite comical brochure for Club Gitmo, complete with pictures of the rooms there and amenities, the view overlooking the bay from the resort.
We are in the process of preparing t-shirts for the EIB store, Club Gitmo t-shirts.
And we're also looking to see if we can find bathrobes and soap, Club Gitmo bathrobes and soap, if we can find these things at a reasonable wholesale price in order to allow you the opportunity to purchase them without going into huge debt.
We understand some debt, but not huge.
And we're continuing to explore this just to continue to make the point.
You know, we love to illustrate absurdity by being absurd.
And let's go back to audio soundbite number one, because we yesterday started this Club Gitmo business.
And Senator Leahy, do you have cut one handy?
Senator Leahy today, he was not only upset with Duncan Hunter showing the great menu items available down there, but he was obviously upset about something else that's going around.
Society of changing, changing the focus, producing props of chicken dinners and such, seeming to argue this is more a club med than a prison.
Let's get real.
Let's get real.
These people have been locked up for three years, no end in sight, and no process to lead us out of there.
Guantanamo Bay is causing immeasurable damage to our reputation as a defender of democracy and a beacon of human rights around the world.
You go back to World War II.
McCain was held for five years for crying out loud.
Vietnam War.
Go back.
World War II, Vietnam.
Prisoners of war are oftentimes held for the duration.
Some Japanese guys just surrendered the other day.
They just learned that the war was over.
40 years later or 80 or whatever.
But three years, no endings.
They're prisoners of war for crying out loud.
It's a scary thought to understand or to realize that these guys do not yet understand the metal and the nature of the enemy that we face, even after 9-11.
How do you take that out of the equation?
I don't understand.
Back after this.
And I'm looking at the official broadcast clock.
Not enough time to be fair with another caller.
The key Democratic senator warned yesterday that the Bush administration may be losing ground in its bid to confirm Bolton as U.N. ambassador.
And yet, Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist said yesterday he's going to force another vote to end the filibuster on Bolton at the end of this week on Thursday or Friday.
Call the Democrats' recent letter questioning information or requesting information absurd.
So that battle continues to heat up.
The filibuster focus is now shifted to Bolton.
We have that other items in the stack of stuff coming up right after the break.
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