And greetings to you thrill seekers, music lovers, conversationalists all across the fruited plane.
Time for more broadcast excellence here.
I am Rush Limbaugh, firmly ensconced in the prestigious Attila the Hung chair, right here in the distinguished Limbaugh Institute for Advanced Conservative Studies, the largest free education institution known and to exist in the world.
There are no graduates.
There are no degrees because the learning never stops.
The feeding frenzy of the press continues.
The White House press briefing.
Let's listen in to just a little bit of this to give you a flavor for it.
...called Rove on the pretense of discussing welfare reform.
Bill Kristol on Fox News, a friendly news channel to you, said that the conversation lasted for two minutes, and it was just at the end that Rove discussed this.
So someone is providing this information.
Are you behind the scenes directing a response to this story?
You can talk to the RNC about what they put out.
I'll let them speak to that.
What I know is that the president directed the White House to cooperate fully with the investigation.
And as part of cooperating fully with that investigation, that means supporting the efforts by the investigators to come to a successful conclusion.
And that means not commenting on it from this podium.
And no, I understand your question.
And other Republican surrogates are essentially saying that the conversation lasted for two minutes and that the subject was ostensibly welfare reform.
They're getting that information from here, from Karl Rove.
And again, you're asking questions that are related to news reports about an ongoing continuing investigation.
And you've had my response on that.
At the very least, though, Scott, could you say whether or not you stand by your statement of September 29th, 2003, that it is simply not true that Carl Rove disclosed the identity of a CIA operative?
John, can you stand by that statement?
John, I look forward to talking about this at some point, but it's not the appropriate time to talk about those questions while the investigation is continuing.
Hello, Janet Reno.
This was a statement you made on the record 21 months ago.
You very confidently asserted to us and to the American people that Rove told you he had nothing to do with it.
Can you stand by that statement now?
And I responded to these questions yesterday.
Go ahead, Dick.
Can you explain why the president chose today to break with his usual practice of taking two questions?
There's a huge rope of dopes going on here folks like Canada.
I'll tell you why, Namela.
I'm not taking one.
Just last Friday, I think, with Prime Minister Blair Thursday, they did the same thing.
I did that last week with Prime Minister Blair as well.
If he had responded to a question today about Karl Rove, would he have gone beyond your stance here and just not comment on that?
Well, you're going to have other opportunities to ask him questions.
He takes questions on a fairly regular basis, Dick.
Let me just do what you did a few moments ago and step back from the context of the investigation to the president's agenda.
Does Karl Rove, with all the attention being paid to him now, become a liability to the president, an impediment to his pushing his agenda?
So you're asking all these contexts and all these questions in the context of the news reports.
We're talking about a lot of the things in the largest sense of Roe being the deputy chief.
We're continuing to move forward on our agenda, and we're on the verge of accomplishing some very big things.
It's going to have a thing to do with the agenda.
The agenda.
It's more of an impediment now with all this attention distracting from that push on your agenda.
Everybody's not going to be a good idea.
Distracting anybody, Bob.
To advance the agenda in that agenda.
Except you guys.
You guys are not reporting any other news.
I apologize to you for telling you he is not involved.
Helen, I'm not going to get into any private discussions.
He put you on the spot.
He put your credit policy on the line.
And Helen, I appreciate you all wanting to move forward and find the facts relating to this investigation.
I want to know all the facts relating to the investigation.
The president wants to get to the bottom of it.
And it's just not appropriate.
If you'll remember, back two years ago, or almost two years ago, I did draw a line and I said, we're just not going to get into commenting on commenting on an investigation that continues.
And I think you've heard me explain why.
Was Janet Reno ever pursued this way when she refused to talk about this?
Scott, I do want to talk about this, and we will talk about it once the investigation is complete.
Do you regret what you said in 2003?
Do you regret putting yourself so far out on a limb when you don't have your option?
I'll try to come back to you if I can, but I think I've responded to this.
Well, you haven't responded to that.
Do you think you went too far a few years ago?
Go ahead.
For the first time on the Capitol Hill Two-Days Conference or Legation on Kashmir is going on, but for the first time, the group is saying that they're showing the other side of the Kashmir is being looted.
All right, that's enough.
I mean, you've got the flavor of what's going on.
This is day two of the browbeating of Scott McClellan.
It has nothing to do with this.
It is.
It's an Inquisition time.
And because they can just smell it.
They really think they got Rove, folks.
They really think they've got him.
And there are just a couple things here that you need to keep in mind.
First off, Bob Novak is the one who revealed her name.
Novak revealed her name in a column.
Now, Novak has testified before the grand jury.
And apparently, we don't know this, but apparently Novak has squared things away with the prosecutor on this because Novak doesn't seem to be in any trouble.
The press is no longer after Novak.
This all got started after Novak released her name.
It was the media that demanded this special prosecutor to look into this because they so dislike Novak.
And normally they circle the wagons around members of their community to do things like protect sources, but Novak, give up the source.
Who was it?
Because Novak said it was a high government official.
So since the Lyft in this country has had crosshairs aimed on the Bush administration since the Florida aftermath of 2000, anytime anybody says some of the administration did this, bamo.
So here comes the pack.
Here comes the Inquisition.
But in the meantime, the second thing is Judith Miller is rotting away in a jail, so to speak.
The New York Times will not let her reveal her source, even though she'd been granted a general waiver to do so.
She says the waiver was probably coerced.
It wasn't voluntary, meaning she's not going to reveal it, which tells me the New York Times is not going to let her reveal the source because they're embarrassed about who this source is.
It's the New York Times that really ought to be getting these questions.
The New York Times and Pinch Schulzberger and all those elites over there who really ought to be getting all these questions.
Why won't you let her go testify?
Why won't you let her tell everybody who her source was?
Time has let Matt Cooper do it.
Why won't you let her?
Because it's clear it's the New York Times that's trying to keep her buttoned up and willing to go to jail with all these great praises of her as a great principled reporter and so forth.
Well, it isn't that little pinch in jail, and it's not Bill Keller in jail, and it's none of their other editors or executives in jail.
It's poor old Judith Miller.
Now they're barking up this tree at Rove.
And as I explained to you last hour, Rove didn't reveal a name.
Rove did not do anything that was criminal.
In fact, one of the authors of the law that's in question, one of the co-authors, Victoria Tensing, who is the wife of Joe DeGenova, she was on television last night.
She was explaining.
She wrote the law and she explained what involves it, what you have to do to pass the test here in order to break the law.
She says nothing has gotten anywhere near breaking law in this case.
The agent was not currently assigned.
The agent was not on a covert mission at the time.
The agent was not compromised in any way because the name was not mentioned.
There is no crime here.
And yet you hear this feeding frenzy.
And, you know, we know that this administration has really perfected the art of Ropa Dope.
And now everybody's going after Rove.
And the day will come, perhaps, this is not even certain, but the day will come when it is known who all these sources are.
And I'm just telling you, this New York Times source is something that would be very embarrassing, someone, very embarrassing to the Times, because not even a general waiver has allowed the executives of the New York Times to let Judith Miller come forth and testify and thereby get out of jail.
They want her in jail for some reason, and it's probably to protect them.
They're engaged in the cover-up, and they are the ones that are diverting attention from their actions in this to Karl Rove.
Quick timeout, back after this.
Hi, welcome back.
We are going to be getting your phone calls here in this segment.
I just have three bites I want to play for you.
Here's the president this September 30th, 2003.
And this is what the, I guess what is forming the basis of the press inquisition of Scott McClellan yesterday and today.
If there's a leak out of my administration, I want to know who it is.
And if the person has violated law, the person will be taken care of.
If the person has violated law, the person will be taken care of.
Now, Rove is being convicted as we speak in the media, and the media wants their conviction to be enough to force Bush to fire Rove.
There hasn't been any legal assessment that Rove broke law yet.
Media doesn't want to wait for that.
Dingy Harry Reid got in on this too, yet late yesterday at a press conference.
The White House promised if anyone was involved in the Valerie Flame affair, they would no longer be in this administration, his administration.
I trust they will follow through on this pledge.
That's not what the president said, Dingy Harry, but you see, that doesn't matter because it's just another Democrat voice calling for Rove to be fired.
It's just, it's desperation time on the left.
And it really is hilarious to watch this and to see how single-minded they all become.
Actually, that's not an issue single-minded all the time.
Their news stories are the same from agency to network to wire service, doesn't matter.
There was this funny exchange also today.
And Good Morning America.
Charlie Gibson had as one of his guests, the forehead, Paul Bagala.
And listen to Charlie Gibson here.
A little B-roll noise in the background, but listen to Gibson's question.
Is that not a Clintonian defense?
Karl Rove didn't specifically name this person.
He just talked about Wilson's wife, and he didn't actually say she was undercover, and so therefore he didn't technically break the law.
There's a big difference between wrong and illegal.
It may or may not have been illegal.
As I say, let's leave that to the grand jury.
It's clearly wrong.
You don't go to the country and say, no, we had nothing to do with this, when in fact they were at the center of it.
That's lying.
I mean, you just cannot get away with that.
We don't know yet that they are at the center of it.
We don't yet know that.
I continue to point you all to Judith Miller in the New York Times.
Her circumstances indicate to me that her source is not Karl Rove.
No way Rove would grant Matt Cooper a specific waiver and not her.
No way that would happen.
A general waiver has been given.
That's not good enough for the executives of the New York Times.
She sits and rots away in that jail.
And the New York Times gets away with diverting all this focus to Carl Rove.
When, in fact, if there was genuine curiosity, who is her source?
They don't care about any other sources, though, because they think they've got Rove and his neck in the noose, and they're getting close to pulling the platform out from under his feet.
Let's go to Chicago, Dennis.
I'm glad you called, sir.
Thank you for waiting, and welcome to the EIB network.
That's an honor.
It is funny to hear Paul DeGala about the difference between right, wrong, and illegal.
But I do have a question, though.
Don't you think that if Clinton were in office and something like this happened, do you think the press, wouldn't the press be all over it?
Wouldn't you be all over him?
I don't know.
No, see, that's a big deal.
I might be.
The press wouldn't be.
The press would, none of this would be happening if it were Bill Clinton.
Whatever the White House said would be accepted.
No, I did not have sex with that woman, Ms. Lewinsky, not a single time, not ever.
And then they all started circling the wagons around him and started talking about, well, even if he did lie, it's just about sex, and it didn't impair the way he did his job, blah, blah, blah, blah.
Thank you, 9-11.
And it didn't have any effect on the direction of the country.
I don't, as far as myself, and if this had been with the Clinton administration and so forth, there were so many other things going on in that administration.
This might not have even registered a raised eyebrow, to tell you the truth.
I also cannot, folks, I cannot.
Listen, here, Chuck Schumer, I cannot express enough to you what a 180, the media and the Democratic Party is doing on the CIA here, acting like they care about the CIA and a particular agent.
In his letter to Karl Rove, Chuck Schumer said that it was time for Rove to tell all.
I urge you to come forward to honestly and fully discuss any and all involvement you have had with this incident.
I believe this is a very serious breach of trust with a woman who has spent her career putting her life on the line to protect our country's freedom.
Oh, so here's a Democrat all of a sudden cares about the work the CIA is doing.
They haven't cared about the CIA since the church hearings in the 70s when they tried basically to decimate the CIA.
And they succeeded.
The left in this country succeeded basically in neutering the CIA in a whole number of ways, limiting their ability to hire certain people as operatives and agents, limiting where they can go, what they can do.
It's just, it's legion.
Now all of a sudden, and of course, John Carroll, I know it's Howard Dean.
Howard Dean issued a statement and said that this woman's compromised and she was on the front lines in the war on terror.
What war on terror?
I didn't think there was a legitimate war on terror, according to Howard Dean and the Democrats.
I thought we gave up the war on terror when we went into Iraq.
Thought the war on terror ended in Afghanistan.
Now they're concerned about the war on terror and they're concerned about the CIA.
And ain't flying here.
Steve in Talon, Connecticut.
Welcome, sir.
Nice to have you on the program.
Yeah, Rush, nice to talk to you again.
Hey, I've got two major disagreements on the points that you've just been discussing.
Number one, you said that the outing of Valerie Plam from whoever did it, there was no crime committed because she was never in danger.
She wasn't in place undercover in any type of in any other country.
However, wherever she worked, wherever she was undercover as a CIA operative, all of her contacts have now been exposed.
And I think that probably put many lives at risk, as well as the intelligence gathering capabilities of this country.
So that's my first disagreement with you.
Well, but wait, you're not disagreeing with me.
You're disagreeing with the woman who co-authored the law because it's Valerie Tensing Victoria Tensing who is, and not just her.
There are a number of people saying this is a very, very tough test to break this law, and it hasn't been broken yet here.
Okay, well, let's set aside the legalese then.
Would you agree that the outing of Mr. Wilson's wife did create a security detriment to those people that she had contact with, number one?
And number two, that it potentially hurt the intelligence gathering capabilities of this country.
Well, I'm not sure because I'm also reading from so many different sources that her identity was long known to all kinds of official Washington and the media before this all happened.
I don't think she was the best-kept secret in the CIA to begin with.
And she's up to her ears here, and her husband's up to his ears in lying about his mission.
And lying to the New York Times and lying in an op-ed, lying to the Washington Post, lying in his own book about who sent him to Niger.
When you add all these things together, and this woman and her husband have posed in Vanity Fair magazine, even after her identity was named, she willingly put her picture out all over the world.
So I don't know.
Subsequent to her outing.
However, I mean, you just said that her identity was well known to the Washington insiders and the media, but it wasn't publicized before whoever leaked this information to Novak, you know, the reporter at Time Magazine and the Judas Miller at the New York Times.
Which gets me to my second disagreement with you.
You state that the New York Times is trying to cover up this source because it would be an embarrassment to the New York Times.
My interpretation of it is that it could very well, the Time Magazine source and the New York Times source could very well be the same individual.
It's just an interpretation of what that waiver is.
Time magazine showed no guts by refuge by they showed no guts by giving up that information and allowing their reporter to testify.
The New York Times is showing some journalistic integrity by standing by their commitment to wherever that source was.
Steve, now, people hit me with this all the time.
The law is the law, Rush.
So the law is the law, okay?
And the New York Times has always said the courts are the courts.
Well, the courts rule against them.
There is a law.
You cannot keep a source confidential at criminal investigations, what this is.
And they are.
A general waiver was granted.
Judith Miller chose not to accept it.
If her bosses had accepted it, she probably, I don't know what she would do, but it's the New York Times that doesn't want her source known.
It's not the same source.
It just cannot be the same source here.
And the New York Times is breaking the law.
If they're also practicing journalistic principles, so be it.
But they're breaking the law at the same time.
America's anchorman, news commentator, play-by-play man of the news, all combined here as one harmless, lovable little fuzzball.
Aaron and Chico, California.
Hello, sir.
Nice to have you on the program.
Sir, Mega Dittos from Sierra Nevada, Chico.
Sir, I want to thank you for the one-two punch of reality you gave me about a year ago during the election.
Thank you, sir.
Appreciate that.
My point was, I can't believe how much they're making a big deal about this when Sandy Burgler a while back during the investigation of 901 intelligence failures was 10 times worse.
This guy stole national security documents, and we're not sure exactly what he took or put back.
I know.
That's an excellent point.
In fact, I think Sandy Burglar is supposed to be sentenced this month.
Is he really?
Yeah, I think they reached some sort of a plea deal.
I'm not sure what it is, but it's a slap on the wrist.
I think it was a $10,000 fine or whatever the plea deal is.
I don't know, but you're right.
We're talking here about the feeding frenzy.
I mean, It's no secret that there's press bias.
It's no secret the media is liberal.
It's no secret the media hates Bush.
It's no secret they love the Clinton administration and members of the Clinton administration.
This just illustrates it.
But we're trying to give you some context for it here because this is not really news that the press is hounding Scott McClellan.
It's not really news that they like Rove canned.
It's not really news that they would love to embarrass the president.
It's not even news that if they could use this to get Bush impeached, that they would do it.
None of that's the news.
The larger point here to me is, aside from what I've been saying about the New York Times, and I'll repeat it again just to get it on the record officially and without doubt.
It seems to me here that while they're pursuing Rove, there's a lot of other things that are of genuine curiosity.
Judith Miller's in jail.
The New York Times won't let her reveal the source.
They don't want her to.
I'm contending to you today that the source is somebody other than Rove.
And therefore, it's a source that embarrasses the Times.
Her story, by the way, was never even published.
She didn't finish a story that would have ever seen the light of day on this, which even makes this even more curious.
She's in jail, and she's in jail for contempt because she will not give up her source.
And there is a federal law now that says a source must be given up by a journalist in a criminal investigation.
And she's refusing, so she's in jail.
Matt Cooper of Time Magazine, his boss has said, go ahead and give it up.
After Rove called and said, go ahead, here's a waiver.
I'll specify a waiver, a specific waiver for Matt to testify.
You would think he would do the same thing for Judith Miller.
So I'm more interested in the New York Times behavior in this and who they're trying to help and cover up and what it is that would embarrass them if Judith Miller did testify.
There could be a whole bunch of sources here.
And when you start looking at who her source is, well, who could it be that might embarrass the New York Times?
Could it be another reporter?
Could she be protecting another reporter?
Could she be protecting some libs somewhere?
Could she be protecting Joe Wilson himself?
Maybe it's Valerie Plymouth.
I don't know who she's protecting.
But the New York Times does and doesn't want that known.
And so they're doing a good job here of diverting attention back to Carl Rove.
Chesapeake, Virginia, this is Lyle.
Welcome to the program, sir.
Hey, Rush.
Yes, sir.
Yes.
Why is Scott McClellan such a milquetoast?
Well, there's not much he can do.
Well, let me just ask you this.
Okay, I heard him the other night.
Some bonehead from ABC was pumping him with questions, just getting after him, and he was kind of stumbling over his words.
When I would be, if I was a spokesman, I'd be saying, hey, listen, you have proof, show us proof.
If not, hey, next question.
But this guy was pumping him, and he was just being so nice.
When are our spokesmen for Bush?
We have the opportunity right now, Rush.
We have the opportunity to tell him like it is, okay?
Because after the London bombings and stuff, I'll tell you what, everybody in the world and especially this country knows Bush is the man for the hour.
Do you agree with me?
I agree with the latter thing, yes.
But as far as McClellan, his hands are tied.
He's been told he can't talk about it.
The prosecutors called the White House.
No more comments on this.
But can he just say next question and not just act like he's bumbling over words?
No, because that's not the policy of the administration.
The administration's policy is not to be confrontational with its enemies.
They only do that at fundraisers.
They don't do it in public.
They invite their enemies to the White House.
They invite their enemies to the White House and go through the motions of making their enemies think they're going to have a role in picking a Supreme Court justice.
I'm frustrated about that, just like you are.
But that's the tone of this administration.
They are not confrontational in public with their adversaries.
And McClellan's obviously under orders for that.
And he's trying to make sure he doesn't make a mistake because he's been told by the prosecutor and the administration.
Don't say anything more about this.
So he's got to sit there and take all this.
But I think, you know, when you look at this, Lyle, as most Americans are looking at this as an inquisition, as a badgering, the left-wing kooks are going to, you know, be all hot to trot about it and whatever.
But, I mean, there's nothing any of us can do here to change the operating policies and philosophy of this administration.
So we get what we get.
Ari Fleischer was a little bit more polished, perhaps, than McClellan is, but he was not confrontational.
And few press secretaries really are confrontational.
They go out of their way not to make enemies of these people, even though in this case, the press already considers McClellan and the rest of the administration an enemy, but they're just not going to treat them that way.
It's just the rule of the day there.
Keith in Chicago, you're next.
Welcome to the program, sir.
Hey there, Rush.
Yeah, you're just wrong about four times over.
This is a story.
It's a news story.
By the way, you were called a genius today in the Chicago Tribune editorial section.
Look that story out on this issue.
Conservatives don't like news.
They like what you do.
I enjoy what you do from an opinion and informational perspective.
It's by no means news.
This is a Republican-driven investigation.
John Ashcroft had it, turned it over to a special prosecutor, which was his duty and right.
Now, Keith, I was going to ask you to get specific about where I'm wrong.
The reason that Ashcroft turned it over is the press hated Ashcroft and they didn't trust Ashcroft.
They didn't Ashcroft engage in cover-ups.
They demanded a special prosecutor for this.
The press got exactly, look, this is undeniable.
The press got exactly what they wanted today in this special prosecutor.
And that's what I find hilariously ironic.
They asked for a special prosecutor, and one of them's in jail now.
They asked for it.
They don't trust Ashcroft.
They hated Ashcroft, too.
They didn't trust him to do an investigation.
It got to the bottom of this.
You know, the administration started the investigation.
You know, Bush asks Ashcroft to look into this, being friendly and cooperative with his enemies again.
And then Ashcroft gets involved in it, and the press said, it's not good enough.
We want an independent counsel.
Pamela, you got an independent counsel.
And so that's where we are.
I'm glad you enjoy listening to the program, whatever the reasons.
Here's Scott.
You're next on the EIB network.
Hello.
Hi, Rush.
A while ago, you mentioned a top government official, and I began, who would they be protecting?
And I thought, maybe it's a senator who had been involved with the intelligence committee.
Never know.
I think well, correct me on this if I'm wrong.
I think the phrase has been used that it's a high administration official, not high government official.
And so I don't think it's a senator, but we don't know if that high government official is the first source or one source, the second source once removed.
We just don't know who it is.
But supposedly Judith Miller's source is a high administration official.
Look, I could well be wrong about the New York Times being embarrassed by their source, but I'm telling you, it's an item of great curiosity to me.
I mean, the White House is not engaging in a cover-up here.
And yet the media is not even acting as though the White House engaging in a cover-up.
They are now still pursuing.
Oh, Bush lied.
He said he would fire Rove.
Well, he may yet fire Rove if Rove is actually found guilty once legal proceedings here start.
He may.
But he said he's not going to fire anybody if he didn't break the law.
The press is trying to twist this around and convict Rove right now, so force Bush to fire him.
But the curiosity is, this isn't even about where the leak came from anymore.
This inquisition of Scott McClellan's got nothing to do about where the leak came from.
They're no longer curious about that.
We still don't know who Novak's source was, and he wrote the piece.
We don't know who Judith Miller's source was, and she's in jail.
We do know who Matt Cooper's source was, but it's questionable that he was even a source in the sense that he was outing a CIA agent.
He was trying to warn Rove, was trying to warn Matthew Cooper away from the wrong road he was traveling on the whole Joe Wilson story about yellow cake uranium in Niger.
And he was right about it.
And ignored in all this is the dubious character of Joe Wilson himself.
I mean, you got a lot of people telling lies here.
Rove is not one of them.
Bush is not one of them.
And yet, where is all the attention focused?
It's on Bush, and it's on will he fire Rove.
And that's what this frenzy is about.
It's no longer about who the leaker is.
And it never has been about who the leaker is, if you want to know the truth.
Press couldn't care less who the leaker is because they survive on leaks.
They're not interested in that.
They're interested in getting Bush.
So is the Democratic Party.
And that's how this thing is morphed.
And I contend to you, the New York Times has a role in this, leading the investigation in this direction so as to take attention away from their role in why Judith Miller is in jail.
Quick timeout.
Don't go away, folks.
We'll be right back.
You know, what's also fascinating about this is he had his big meeting at the White House today, more coming up on that, by the way, later, with Bush, President Bush and two Democrat senators and two Republican senators about the Supreme Court vacancy.
And this Rove thing has taken that off the front pages.
It's taken it off the lead.
They're not even talking about it on the networks.
It's not even making news.
That was all set up to be the big story of the summer.
But they have just gotten so psyched, because folks, they're like sharks in the water and they think they smell blood here.
And it's just, it's humorous to watch.
Listen to this.
Here is John Kerry this afternoon at a press conference.
Guess what the title of the press conference was?
Home Security for Average Americans.
Homeland Security for Average Americans.
That's the title of Democrat Press Conference.
John Kerry, who served in Vietnam, said this.
Is the value of day-to-day politics and the value of political advice and the value of his position greater than the national security of our country and the protection of the identity of people as well as their own word and their own policy?
The White House's credibility is at issue here.
And I believe very clearly Carl Rove ought to be fired.
I'm nodding.
Yo, Hillary Clinton was standing there nodding and the reporter said, you agreed?
What is your reaction?
No, I'm nodding.
I'm nodding.
Once again, wouldn't it be nice for John Kerry to have as much concern for our victory in the war on terror as he is over what is ostensibly the outing of a CIA agent?
I have never seen the Democrats in such high dudgeon.
The Democrats never come to this country's defense.
They never come to the president's defense when he's attacked by our enemies, when he is attacked by people who are attempting to defeat us in the war on terror.
More often than not, the Democrats echo the things that our enemies say, or vice versa.
Our enemies echo the things the Democrats say.
But now all of a sudden, here comes this little CIA agent and our national security is at stake.
These people have compromised our national security.
I don't know how many times.
These are people like Pat Leahy who have leaked secrets while he was a member of the intelligence committee.
We have people here who are all concerned about national security when it comes to CIA agent, but they couldn't care less about it in the normal day-to-day ebb and flow of the war on terror.
They are willing to undermine our efforts in that war at every possible turn.
Get out of Iraq now, set a timetable, look at how we're mistreating prisoners at Abu Ghraib and down at Club Gitmo.
And now they've turned on a dime.
I don't think they understand how they appear to people.
They don't see themselves as others do.
And it is, it's fascinating to watch.
This is a party that has to have meetings to come up with its core values.
This is a party that has to come up with new labels and words to mask who they really are, liberals.
This is a group of people that doesn't dare be honest with the American people about what their plans for the country are.
And yet, there's no breaks whatsoever.
They've got this story on Rove, and it shows exactly what they've been about since 2001.
And that's getting rid of Bush.
And anything that whets their appetite, anything that makes them sniff that that might be possible, they just run full speed into it, and a door usually gets slammed on their face before it's all over with.
That's been their history in all of this.
They didn't wait.
They didn't stop.
They didn't assess.
They didn't ask all the right questions.
They just have made a B-line.
And I don't think they understand how they're perceived.
I don't think they understand how the majority of the American people see them acting as unhinged and as hysterical as they are at present.
A quick timeout.
We'll be back and continue right after this.
Okay, I want to move on to other things here in the next hour, ladies and gentlemen, and that is this very Supreme Court vacancy.
There was a breakfast meeting at the White House today, and the president came out and discussed that his meeting was with, let's see, who did he meet with Arlen Specter, Harry Reid, Patrick Leahy, and Bill Frist.
Yeah.
So he met with Specter, Leahy, Frist, and Senator Harry Reid about this upcoming vacancy, or about the current vacancy and what might be an upcoming one.
And just to set this up, last week, the president he sort of smacked down some conservatives for daring to suggest that the Attorney General Alberto Gonzalez would be an unacceptable Supreme Court nominee because of substantive issues.
One was an opinion he wrote in a Torexis Texas parental notification case when he was on the Texas Supreme Court.
And the other was his role as White House counsel in watering down the administration's brief against reverse discrimination in admissions policies at the University of Michigan.
Now, the conservatives didn't attack Gonzalez personally.
They were very respectful, but they nevertheless said public they had problems with him, and the president slapped him down.
And today has a meeting with his enemies, along with Frist and Specter.
And I don't even know you'd call Specter a friend in this fight.
And it just seems that on occasion, The administration here is far more friendly to its enemies than it is to its friends.
It does appear that way.
I don't know why he's meeting with these people.
It's not going to change what the Democrats say about him.
It's not going to change how they act in the Senate.
It's not going to change a thing unless, of course, they gave him a list of names and he names one of them.
In which case, you know, I can't imagine that.
So we'll just have to wait and see.
But we do have these audio sound bites.
There's some public opinion data out there that does not look good for Democrats on this, and it would seem the administration could capitalize on it.