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July 15, 2005 - Rush Limbaugh Program
36:21
July 15, 2005, Friday, Hour #1
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Welcome to today's edition of the Rush 24-7 podcast.
Well, folks, I uh I think it's time to nail the uh hammer the final nail into this uh this coffin of this uh Coral Rove affair.
We'll do that today.
We'll move on to other things as well because it's Friday.
Let's kick it off.
And we've been looking forward to this day all week, as uh as we always do.
This is a day that uh is unlike any other in the busy broadcast week because this is the day that I, your highly trained broadcast specialist, take one of the largest career risks known to exist in modern world media, and that is turning over the content of the program or a large portion of it to you, uh a bunch of lovable and respected but nevertheless rank amateurs.
You know the rules Monday through Thursday.
This program's about what I care about.
On Friday, we'll let you infuse what you care about, even if I don't.
And it's uh it's ready to go.
Telephone number 800-282-2882.
The email address is uh Rush at EIB net.com.
So last night, as always, I'm sitting at home and I'm working.
I'm preparing for this program, and I'm bothering nobody because I'm alone, although I do know I bother people even when they're not around.
But all of a sudden there started to be in my email this official.
And it was coming from the beltway, coming from inside the beltway in our nation's capital.
Bz.
Apparently the New York Times had an exclusive coming in today's paper.
Now, normally uh you can read uh tomorrow's paper, uh, the New York Times website uh starting about well, depending.
Sometimes if your RSS feeders up this snuff, you get tomorrow's some of tomorrow's stories in the New York Times uh 10 o'clock the night before.
But they had embargoed this one until 1130.
Oh, they were hyping, and they were really keeping the buzz, and the buzz was, oh my gosh, have they gonna nail Rove and the buzz then started, no, no, no, no, this is going to exonerate Rove.
So I uh I patiently waited, uh, did all I could to get an advanced copy of it.
And lo and behold, the uh the bottom line is that uh Carl Rove is not the source of anything.
It was a journalist who told him uh of Valerie Playm's uh identity and uh where she worked and so forth.
Uh White House senior advisor Carl Rove indirectly confirmed.
This is the Washington Post version of the New York Times story, which I thought be a unique way of looking at this.
Uh White House Senior Advisor Carl Rove indirectly confirmed the CIA affiliation of an administration critic's wife for Robert Novak the week before Novak named her and revealed her position.
This according to a lawyer involved in the case.
It's apparently a lawyer who knows what the testimony of the grand jury has been called the New York Times.
Now you can speculate who the lawyer is all day long.
The list is going to be pretty small of uh possibilities here.
But the lawyer who has knowledge of the conversations between Rove and prosecutors said that President Bush's deputy chief of staff has told investigators that he first learned about the operative from a journalist, and that he later learned her name from Novak.
He doesn't remember who the journalist was who first told him uh that Wilson's wife worked for the CIA.
The New York Times reported the conversation between Rove and Novak in today's paper.
The lawyer confirmed that account and elaborated on it.
The accounts suggest that Rove could not have been Novak's original source, but may have been a secondary source.
I can tell you how this works.
Because I know reporters.
I know reporters and I know liberals like every square inch of my glorious naked body.
So Novak has heard about this.
He's heard that Valerie Plame is her name, and that she's at the CIA.
So he calls Rove.
And he says, you know, this is going around and this is going around and it's going around.
What do you think of this?
And uh and and he's just looking for some sort of confirmation from summaries, and Rove says, Yeah, yeah, I've heard that too.
Rove, by the way, never called anybody on any of this.
Rove only received phone calls, and ostensibly in both cases, both Novak and Matthew Cooper, the phone calls that they placed to Rove were about other issues.
Cooper wanted to talk about welfare reform, and Novak wanted something else.
At least that was their cover.
But it is clear that no that that that Novak informed and confirmed for Rove, and when Rove shot back, yeah, that's what I've heard too.
Novak felt that he had enough confirmation to go with this.
Uh but it what what this does here uh the story's over.
I mean, the story is over.
I mean, we could play the audio sound bites from yesterday, which I might do.
We could play Joe Wilson.
We've got that that that pathetic press conference.
Do you know the networks bumped out of that that Wilson um Schumer press conference in something like four minutes?
Uh it was so uninteresting and boring.
And I'll tell you, you know, this Schumer's not helping the Democrats at all, folks.
He doesn't play well outside of New York.
In New York, he may play okay, but to the country, eh, who is this Schumer guy and why is he telling us all this?
And why, if Schumer is so concerned that Rove's security clearance be pulled, where was Schumer when who was it?
Jay Rockefeller, Ron Wyden, and one other senator divulged this secret spy plane project that is being developed.
Nobody was concerned about that.
Nobody was concerned their security clearance be pulled.
They did this under the guise that we didn't need to waste this kind of money on this super secret project.
Um there's hypocrisy all over the place, and it it's I think what's happened here is exactly what I told you was going to happen.
I think, ladies and gentlemen, that what has happened here is that the Democrats have pushed too far too fast, without any evidence whatsoever to support their claims.
They did this because of their utter desperation, which is a product of their hate and their seething rage.
You've got Schumer killing them PR-wise outside of New York City, is the worst possible point man for them on this.
Uh, and it's just I'd like to see a poll on what the American people think of Joe Wilson.
I want to see a poll of what the American people think of Chuck Schumer.
Can predict we're going to get polls on what they think of Rove and Bush and all this.
But if the Democrats are so damn certain of Rove's criminal guilt, why are they demanding more investigations?
Why are they calling for his clearance to be pulled?
Why are they calling for his resignation?
Why can't they wait for the prosecutor to speak?
Because it's not about whether Rove did anything legal or not.
It's all about their strategy, which is simply getting rid of enemies.
Uh with all this mud slinging, you throw hopefully enough mud on the wall, some of it's going to stick just to cloud up all the issues and divert people's attention from other things, like Dick Durbin and the war and the bombs that went off in London.
I mean, the any any time terrorists strike, it's bad news to the Democrats because it points out how literally absolutely weak they are, and how we cannot count on them for the uh for the nation's security.
So they hated Rove ever since they've uh known Rove.
He's beaten them from Texas to Florida to Washington.
Uh and so, you know, there this is so much a modus operandi for them, a standard operating procedure that they just are so sure they got when they when they aim their crosshairs at somebody, and their experiences, you have to understand this now.
Back 30, 40 years ago, if if you ended up in the Lib or Lib Media Crosshairs, you were dead.
They could get you.
But not today, folks.
Those days are over and they still don't realize it.
They can aim their crosshairs on people, but it doesn't mean they're gonna get away with it automatically anymore.
I think they've they've really overstepped now because it is clear that Rove is not the source for this, and it's clear that Rove has nothing to do with why Judith Miller is in jail.
And I think, as I said yesterday, all roads lead to Joe Wilson.
This guy's out there talking to any reporter that will call him on a.
In fact, Joe Wilson's seeking out reporters.
They're not even calling him.
Joe Wilson's all over the place, and he can't tell the truth.
He's lying here, lying there, has lied in a number of places.
Cliff May, a former reporter for the New York Times, now runs a uh a think tank of sorts and contributes to National Review Online is interesting theory today.
He said that the actual culprit here, the person responsible for all this knowledge about his wife is him, Joe Wilson.
Via an interview with David Korn of the Nation.
Korn was talking, this is a year ago.
David Korn talking to Wilson and uh asking him questions, and Wilson's answering in hypothetically, well, let's say, for example, that my wife was a covert agent, or let's say that my wife was a secret agent.
Well, what would happen in that case?
Well, are you saying she wasn't?
No, no, no, no, I'm not saying that, but let's say she was.
And then he said, let's say she wasn't.
If she wasn't a covert agent and this news came out about her, what would happen then?
Well, Cliff May, putting on his New York Times reporter's cap says that is a common reporter technique.
That what's and and a source technique that Wilson was actually outing his wife without saying so.
By setting up that hypothetical that Korn could then run with and take it and blame it back on Novak or somebody else.
So all roads lead to Joe Wilson in this, and probably his wife somewhere along.
I mean, this woman's probably not clean and pure as the wind-driven snow either.
We have this image of her of the practically virginal great heroine, and somebody's come along and corrupted her and ruined her life.
And that isn't true either.
And then you've got Judith Miller in jail.
And Rove said it's a journalist that first told him about all this, and he doesn't remember who.
And the New York Times has been leading the liberal charge for the scalp of Carl Rove.
So much so they leave their reporter in jail because they, and even though there's a waiver that's been granted, she won't come forward and identify her source.
It's got to be because it's too embarrassing to her and to the uh New York Times.
So regardless, uh typical Democrat and liberal media overstepping, eagerness born of seething rage and hatred.
It folks, it's it's like I've always said, the way the libs are today, and it's kind of comical.
You put a sack of excrement out there in front of them, and they're gonna step in it.
You can even hide the sack and they will find it and they will step in it.
And then they stink everything up like they've done here all week.
Back with more just a second.
Stay with us.
Already having more fun than a human being should be allowed to have Rush Linbohr here on Open Line Friday, America's anchor man, America's truth detector, and doctor of democracy.
Talent on loan from God may go to Jacksonville, Florida.
And Steve, hello, you're up first on Open Line Friday.
It's great to have you with us.
Thanks.
Um, real quick about Judith Miller.
We don't know who she's protecting, so there's another source out there.
Because we don't know who she got the waivers from.
But what I'm calling about is I'm I'm very concerned with that.
Oh, well, well, hold it a minute.
So what?
That's what I'm saying.
I know there's another source out there.
You're echoing me.
But what I guess what I'm getting at is we don't know what's going on.
The only thing we know right now is that Carl Rove.
Or Carl Rove said that Wilson's wife worked for the CAA.
That's all we know.
Doesn't appear to be a violation of the law.
My fellow Republic, my fellow liberals and also the conservatives just need to back off.
The only question I think that we have right now is why has the White House been saying for two years that he wasn't involved when he was.
Um You mean why like I explained McClellan?
Is that is that what McClellan's been saying at his press conferences?
Yeah, he did.
And also, why have they quit talking about the investigation when they were talking about it last week and the week before?
Uh you know, this is I'm gonna answer you honestly.
I mean, uh I I'll I'll I'll answer your questions, but then I I'm gonna deal with this in my own way.
I'm just gonna believe what McClellan said.
He said the prosecutor called him to stop talking about this.
And the minute that happened, then there's no answers about anything.
And that's why McClellan looked the way he did, because he's been he's been told not to answer anything.
But you know, it's the premise of the question.
You try to get Rove, you admit that Rove's not you still want somebody, don't you?
You're still not gonna be happy out there until somebody's dead.
You want McClellan?
Okay, I'll make you a deal.
We'll give you McClellan, you get rid of Harry Reed.
And then you get rid of Nancy Pelosi, and then you get rid of John Kerry, and then you shut up your big ally, Joseph Wilson.
You can sit here all day with this premise.
What about McClellan?
What about McClellan?
It needs to be turned around on you guys.
You guys don't have one person out there that can tell the truth to save your lives, to save your reputations, and to help this country.
You can't tell the truth about the war in Iraq.
You can't tell the truth about the war on terror.
You can't tell the truth about Club Gitmo, you can't tell the truth about Carl Rove, you can't tell the truth about George W. Bush ever, and you demand from me have Scott McClellan be explained to you.
I think it's the other way around.
I think if anybody in this country has any explaining To do and some apologizing to do.
It's the people in the left, in the media, in the left blogosphere, in the Democratic mainstream, all those kooks, it's all one big bundle.
Howard Dean needs to start apologizing for some of his outrageous incendiary rhetoric.
You really want to tell me that Scott McClellan is the poster boy for not telling the truth when your party has come to be known by that very fact.
That's just, it's breathtaking to watch this.
I I I wonder how people who are so ill-grounded in reality can go about the day under what illusions do they live?
In what world are they?
What do they see?
What planet are you guys on?
It's just, it's stunning here to uh to watch this.
And I I guess I'm I shouldn't be surprised.
The very first call we get wanting Scott McClellan's head.
Well, how do you explain McClellan?
Okay, so I guess we missed on Rolf, but we're gonna go for McClellan now.
What do you got to say about that?
Uh David and Elton, uh Maryland, you're next.
Welcome to the program, sir, it's on open line Friday, you are.
Hi.
Rush Megatiddo's listener since the first Gulf War.
Thank you, sir.
I wonder you know, you nailed this row thing from start to finish top to bottom, right on the head.
You used to always tell us what your documented accuracy rate is.
I'd like to know what it is now.
Heck, it's had to go up since the show started today.
Well, that's an interesting question.
I know many people would like the answer to this.
Uh, I'm glad I'm glad you asked it.
The accuracy rating is tabulated by the Sullivan Group.
Uh, they're an opinion auditing firm in uh in Sacramento.
And and what the the opinions are not audited on a daily basis.
They get uh it's done quarterly, and so uh the report on my accuracy uh for this quarter will not be known until uh mid-September, perhaps the first part of October when the current quarter is over.
And what'll happen is during this quarter, all the opinions will be audited and measured for accuracy.
And as I've said, you know, I'm at 98.5, now almost always right, 98.5% of the time.
I mean, to move that to 98.6, I might have to be a hundred percent right for two quarters in a row.
So I would love to be able to say that calling the Roves case and story from the get-go has upped my accuracy rating.
But uh I I never I never fudge this, and I never I never give myself credit until I have earned it.
And until the Sullivan Group releases the next audit, I can't sit here and make it up.
That would be that would be lying about my ratings, lying about my uh my uh my my accuracy rating.
And I I I can't I can't do that in good conscience.
John in uh Harpswell, Maine.
Welcome to the EIB network.
Hello.
Yes, yes, Rush.
I was wondering what you thought of my two Republican senators from Maine who are writing to Sandra Day O'Connor, urging her not to retire and negotiate.
You know something.
I I'm gonna tell you I thought it was ghoulish.
They may as well have been also saying, uh, Justice Rehnquist, will you just die?
They must I mean this it was it was ghoulish.
Now, in addition to it being ghoulish, it illustrates one of the big problems that we have on the Republican side here.
Because those two, your your your your senator babes there, Susan Collins and Olympia Snow were joined by who?
Barbara Boxer, who was the other one?
Was it Mary Landrew?
Mary Landrew.
And so those four sent this letter.
Uh and and uh it's it's as though all O'Connor has to do is okay, okay, I'll be chief, and Bush says, okay, gets me out of a tight spot.
You're chief.
Uh sorry, folks, it isn't going to happen that way.
She resigned.
She retired, and all of these, and I what it what it politically means is that those four senators are just afraid of the fight that's coming.
It's typical of the Senate.
They'll take an issue that's very controversial, like the filibustering of judges, and they'll punt it.
They'll punt it down the road.
And that's what they did with the gang of 14.
By the way, speaking of the gang of 14, they made news.
Do you know what the gang of fourteen did?
It's it's right here in the New York Times.
I'm holding it in my formerly nicotine-stained fingers.
Do you know what the Gang of 14 did?
They went, they went to a crispy cream donut shop and had donuts and coffee to talk about the Supreme Court.
That's what that's what they did.
And look how long the story is.
Look at how big the story, and all they did, they went, here it is.
Here's the lead.
Members of the gang of 14, the bipartisan group of senators whose compromise averted a showdown uh on the uh uh uh process of confirming judicial nominees met Thursday morning over coffee and crispy cream donuts to talk about the Supreme Court vacancy created by the retirement of Justice Sandra Day O'Connor.
But their conversation was stymied by the lack of a central ingredient, a nominee.
This is no different than the Democrats gathering every week in a closed door room to figure out what their core beliefs are.
So the gang of 14, I don't know, I guess it was all of them.
They wanted to be seen.
I mean, if y if you're trying to be you go to a Christie Cream or you go to a Starbucks or something, they wanted to be seen, but they're just a bunch of publicity news hounds, these guys.
But that's the news.
Other than what they talk, they didn't talk about anything because there's nothing to talk about.
But they had a meeting.
They had coffee and donuts in the New York Times.
Big news.
Back in a moment.
And we are back.
800-282-2882.
It's open line Friday here on the Excellence in Broadcasting Network.
Uh Gary in Olympia, Washington, you are uh next, and it's great to have you with us, sir.
Hello.
Hi, Rush.
Hi.
I was just wondering, uh, do you think that European socialism is a cause of the poor quality of their cars?
What do you mean by that, sir?
Well, the April issue of consumer reports, uh, you know, they always have a frequency of repair record.
You know, you're looking at Mercedes VW, Audi, Volvo, uh, most of the European cars uh have really gone downhill in quality.
Um, I no, I don't I I have seen some reports about those uh cars, but uh uh I guess reliability is the right term.
I've seen uh particularly Mercedes has fallen a lot uh and uh and Volkswagen.
But I I don't know that it's socialism.
I mean to take your question seriously, I uh I think uh it if you want to say this could be, uh, because all of these European brands were the last holdouts to go digital in their dashboards to add computers that that uh lead to dashboard displays and this sort of thing.
And in the case of Mercedes, they're they're the reason that they have plummeted so much, the largest problem they've got is maintaining computer chips and the uh and the other systems in their cars that provide driver information uh on the dashboard.
Uh and they were the last holdouts.
Uh they and and Audi and I think uh uh Volkswagen, I'm not sure about Volkswagen, but they you know, this wanted to stick with the analog speedometers and the analog this.
And uh they're just they're new at it.
Uh they're new at this.
They're they're now whether it's socialism uh that that caused them to get this stuff late in life or to resist it, uh I I don't know.
I probably more of a manufacturing mindset uh at at some of these places than than that.
But I think I think they're gonna get this figured out as soon as they become familiar.
These are all new systems that they're adding to their cars.
And uh uh they've obviously got some kinks to work out, just as uh other manufacturers had the same problems when they first put these onboard computer systems and chips in that control uh driver information, like the speedometer and like the uh and there's there's more and more gizmos.
You know, you a lot of cars now, Mercedes, you don't need a key to get into it or get out of it.
Uh along get the key in your pocket, go in there, put your hand up there and open the door.
And if if if something doesn't work in that system, then you gotta get the key out.
Well, you'll take the car uh to get it serviced, and that shows up as a complaint.
They just haven't gotten these systems down pet yet.
Um I want to go to the audio sound bites, uh, ladies and gentlemen, just just a few, just on this Carl Rove and and uh Valerie Plame and Joe Wilson business.
Uh just to substantiate, and again, this is because there's some libs in the audience.
And like I said yesterday, I could announce on this program that the sun rises in the east, that it sets in the west, and when there are no clouds in the sky, the sky's blue, and the liberals would accuse me of lying.
So I will never have credibility with it.
I can sit here and say the rove case is blown sky high, that all signs, all roads lead to Wilson, and they're not gonna believe it.
Let's go to the audio sound bites and just add to this.
Yesterday on CNN, um, this guy, Bruce Sanford, who's a First Amendment attorney, and he also was a consultant on this this law that Rove was said to have violated.
Uh he was a guest on CNN, and I get two sound bites from his appearance.
The uh the first question to him was we've heard a lot about the act, but let's look at it.
Actually, read a section from it.
Knowing that the information disclosed, um, so identity is such covert agent, and that the U.S. is taking affirmative measure to conceal such covert agents intelligence relationship to the U.S. So, in other words, what you're saying, the reason why there's no evidence of criminal wrongdoing is because Carl Rove didn't do anything wrong because he didn't know that Plane was covert.
That's pretty clear from the uh notes, the emails that uh Time magazine released to the grand jury that uh Carl Rove said that Wilson's wife, he didn't even use her name, but Wilson's wife, quote, apparently works, unquote, at the CIA.
It seems to me there's a substantial question whether she qualifies as the kind of covert agent that was envisioned by the act.
There are very tight requirements for that.
And there's a substantial doubt whether the agency was taking the kind of affirmative measures to conceal her identity that the act talks about.
And he addresses that fact in this next bite.
Uh the question is, well, well, breaking the law, partisan politics, do you think Valerie Plame is now damaged goods?
It is worth remembering that when Robert Novak, the columnist, uh uh disclosed your identity in his column, he had called the CIA um to uh tell them he was going to do that, and they didn't stop him.
They didn't did not do what the CIA normally does in that situation if they want to protect or continue to protect somebody's identity.
They don't they didn't call his syndicate, they didn't scream at him and say you're gonna endanger her life or endanger her career, that sort of thing.
They just sort of uh shrugged and said, Well, I guess she won't be getting any more overseas assignments.
I don't think that's the kind of affirmative measures that the agency needs to be taking in order to invoke this statute.
Uh it's been kind of hard or funny uh to see how hard the media has been taking all these revelation revelations.
It's watching CNN this morning, and Peter King, who's just Peter King is out there and he is rallying the Republicans to fire back at all this, and he's calling a spade a spade, and he was on with Soledad O'Brien on CNN this morning.
And and you could see that that that uh Soledad would just I mean, they all are convinced Rove's a criminal, Rome's a jerk, Rove's a liar, Rove's gotta go.
And yet all the evidence that is utterly exculpatory, especially this morning, uh, and all of the uh the evidence that you can just you can just see it disappoints these people because they thought because they're premature and they overstepped and they went too fast, they thought they had Rove.
This last bite here, I mean Novak called a CIA, said, hey, I'm running this story.
They didn't ask him to do anything, didn't ask him to not do it, didn't ask him to hold it, anything of the sort.
Now yesterday afternoon, here's this press conference uh with uh Chuck Schumer uh and uh Joe Wilson.
I am convinced that Schumer is Wilson's handler.
I am convinced these guys have a relationship that goes back.
I think that they have coordinated things, and I think Wilson is a party hack of the Democrats, and I think he's been involved in uh in a in a long ago hatched plan to try to bring down the Bush administration on the basis of the Iraq war.
Remember when he first went to Niger, he did find evidence that the British intelligence report on the Iraqis attempting to buy or seeking yellow cake uranium was true.
He found it.
And he was asked to change it, and he changed it.
Well, I might have gotten some dates wrong.
I might have might have forgotten some of the people and so forth.
But he's utterly unreliable, a hundred percent unreliable.
And it's just typical that the left would glom on as some kind of paragon of virtue, somebody who has demonstrated publicly for years that you can't trust him.
This is the last guy you want leading your brigade, and they held right behind him, and it's all because Chuck Schumer's his handler and Chuck wants to be front and center.
Chuck's sitting there thinking, why does Harry Reed get all the attention?
Why does Leahy get all the attention?
I'm the crack lawyer on this committee.
I'm the guy that they ought to be talking to.
So he's trying to maneuver himself out there.
Uh, but he again has no clue how he appears outside of New York.
Just it's it's uh not helping at all.
Here's how he opened the press conference yesterday uh with uh himself and his agent, uh, if you will, his covert agent.
If anybody's been covert in this whole thing in two years of Joe Wilson, if we can get an idea What Schumer and Wilson conjured up and cooked up.
If anybody's been behaving in a covert way and trying to keep all the sniffing dogs away from what really went on, it's Joe Wilson.
And here's how Schumer opened the presser.
I am pleased to be here today with Ambassador Joe Wilson.
But I think we both wish this really weren't necessary.
Stop the tape.
Who do you think you're kidding?
Who do you think you're you've been living for this moment?
You, this was the day that was gonna vault you head and shoulders about every other Democrat.
You were gonna get Carl Rove.
It was going to personally be your takedown.
You couldn't have said something more more opposite the truth than that, Senator.
We both wish this really wasn't necessary.
What happened to this man and his family is absolutely abominable.
And I have long led the push to get to the bottom of how his wife, an undercover CIA employee, was exposed for what appeared to be political motivations.
I didn't know Joe Wilson or his wife, or have any idea who did the leaks when the day after I read in the newspaper about them that I called for an investigation.
Okay, that's yesterday.
So the New York Times comes out this morning and totally blows Schumer out of the water.
Because it's clear Rove didn't learn anything about Wilson's wife from anybody but a journalist.
And he was not calling all over the town trying to leak the information to do any damage.
All right, one more bite.
Move on to uh to number 10 here.
Uh if you need if you need any more evidence, this is go back to CNN and this is this is Wilson appearing with Wolf Blitzer.
And Blitzer says that look, the other um other argument that's been made against you, Ambassador Wilson, is that you you sought to capitalize on this extravaganza.
Having that photo shoot with your wife in Vanity Fair, who was a supposed clandestine officer of the CIA.
You've tried to enrich yourself writing this book and all that.
What do you make of those accusations, which are serious accusations, as you know, that have been leveled against you?
My wife was not a clandestine officer the day that Bob Novak blew her identity.
Stop the tape.
Then what has all of this been about?
That's it.
Phoenix his wife was not a clandestine officer the day Bob Novak blew her identity.
There's also news all over, in fact, from the Washington Times today, former CIA covert agent who was Valerie Plame's boss.
We mentioned this guy to you the other day.
His name is Fred Rustman.
And he was a covert agent for 20 of 24 years.
And he said she made no bones about the fact she was an agency employee and her husband was a diplomat.
Her neighbors knew this.
Her friends knew it.
His friends knew it.
A lot of blame could be put on to central cover staff and the agency because they weren't minding the store here.
The agency never changed her cover status whatsoever.
She was never a deep NOC.
Her neighbors knew it.
His neighbors, their friends knew it.
It was all over town.
I told you that too at the beginning of this week.
And now here you've got here you got Wilson himself saying, My wife was not a clandestine officer the day that Bob Novak blew her identity.
Here's the rest of that bite.
He hadn't been a clandestine officer for some time before that.
That's not anything that I can talk about.
Oh, ho, ho, oh, whoa, whoa, whoa, Stonewall?
Stone anybody with Stonewall?
Stonewall, why I we have Scott McClellan like behavior here, right?
He just goes out and says my wife was not a clandestine officer the day Bob Novak blew her identity.
That's not anything I can talk about.
I I can't I can't talk about that.
Why not, Joe?
You're talking about everything else and saying whatever you please.
Here's the rest of the bite.
Go back to what I said earlier.
The CIA believed that a possible crime had been committed, and that's why they referred it to the Justice Department.
She was not a clandestine officer at the time that that uh that article in Vanity Fair appeared.
And I have every right to have uh the American public know who I am, uh, and not to have myself defined by those who would write the sorts of things that are coming out, being spewed out of the mouths of the RNC.
I guess he's talking about the RNC talking points yesterday, which were nothing more than extracts from newspaper articles and the Senate Intelligence Committee report.
The man's pathetic.
But he's typical.
He's typical of the hero the left thinks that they can rally around today.
Just amazing to watch, folks.
We'll be back and continue right after this.
Last week, Chief Justice William Rehnquist was peppered by the press.
Is it true you're retiring when Bush gets back from the G eight?
That's for me to know and for you to find out.
Like your typical first grader would say.
And which I happen to like.
And then yesterday, I guess he'd had enough of this.
I guess that letter going up to uh Sandra Day O'Connor from those four uh lame brains in the Senate when he forced his.
I'm not quitting.
I'm not retiring.
So just just shut up.
Uh so what what this does, this this is going to put the left on edge because now this ratchets up the pressure to uh pick a uh an originalist, uh a conservative to replace O'Connor.
Uh and the Libs are hoping that uh with with two openings that they might be able to persuade Bush to go for one of uh the so-called moderates, uh, which means in their parlance uh an activist.
But uh nevertheless, you gotta love Rehnquist.
While the press is painting him practically with already a foot in the grave.
Tells them to shut up, he's not going anywhere.
Janine in Chestertown, Maryland.
I'm glad you waited.
Welcome to Open Line Friday.
Thank you.
Uh, Mr. Limbaugh, I'm 57 years old.
I have never called a talk show in my life.
I want you to know that I am one of those liberals for whom you have such disdain.
And I'm calling because of words that you used just a few minutes ago in referring to our liberal motives uh in regards to Mr. Rove and probably every other issue that our eagerness is born out of seething hatred.
I would like you to just flash back to the Clinton impeachment era and admit to me, which is probably not a word I should use with you, but accept that very possibly you and your conservative motives were based out of that same seething hatred.
And I don't admit the seethingly hate anybody in the Republican or the conservative section of our country.
But I do believe those words you used were poorly chosen.
Where is the conservative section of the country?
Those who follow you.
Oh, oh, I thought you meant a geographical area because I want to know where my friends were and go there.
Well, you you have friends everywhere, sir, but luckily so do I. I just feel that I'm glad you do.
Look, uh, let me answer your question about seething rage and hatred.
Uh I can only speak for myself.
I did not hate Bill Clinton.
I don't hate anybody, and I I never have.
And I my opposition to Bill Clinton, and I think this what people on the left have have never understood.
And it it it it's it it boggles the mind.
Uh my problems with Bill Clinton were pure policy.
And the fact the man couldn't tell the truth.
I have said on this program that one of the things the most irritating characteristics of human beings that that that to me are arrogant condescension and lying, insulting my intelligence.
And uh if there was any anger in the Clinton years, it was not so much at him, because we knew who he was, we knew what he was about.
It was that the sycophant lapdogs in the media just amplified it and marveled at how brilliantly he lied.
And marveled at how stunningly good at it he was.
And I just I don't think lying uh when you're the president of the United States, uh is admirable.
Now the left thought it was cool because the right wing got upset, and anything that upset the right wing, the conservative section of the country, then of course the left liked.
But when you turn this around, the seething rage and hatred for Bush is not based on policy, it's not based on uh the Bush doesn't lie.
I mean, it it's based on Florida 2000, and it's based on the fact that the left has lost its power.
And rather than examine what role they might have played in the loss of their own power and figure out what they need to fix, they're out there blaming everybody else for it.
Uh and and it's gotten to the point now that they're even not unified in the country when it comes to the war on terror.
So I I I I don't think you can draw these comparisons.
I know it's easy to do, but you misunderstood or misunderstand the opposition to Bill Clinton if you think it was born of hatred or seething rage.
It was substantive and born of issues and character defects, the guy had back after this.
Okay, folks, the first hour of Open Line Friday officially over with a stamp of approval from the staff here at the Limbaugh Institute for Advanced Conservative Studies.
Brian, uh fire up the Ditto Cam here right before the next hour starts, giving me as much privacy today as I can have, and then I'll surrender it to all of you at Rush Limbaugh.com.
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