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Aug. 29, 2005 - Rush Limbaugh Program
36:31
August 29, 2005, Monday, Hour #1
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Welcome to today's edition of the Rush 24-7 podcast.
And greetings to you, thrill seekers and conversationalists all across the fruited plane.
It's time for the Rush Limbaugh program here on the Excellence in Broadcasting Network.
And we are here for three hours today.
We will get to the DittoCam at some point during the program.
If you want to be on the program today, telephone number 800-282-2882.
The email address is rush at EIBNet.com.
All right.
There's, of course, a huge, huge story that has been unfolding for the last, well, basically 24 hours, but particularly the last six.
Intensely last five, Hurricane Katrina van den Hoovel has now come ashore and is wreaking havoc.
It really is.
And the cable networks, understandably, have all gone wall to wall.
There's all kinds of other news out there, and I would be remiss if we didn't spend some time on some of that other news.
And I'll give you an illustration.
The New York Times today, at least I haven't seen the front page this morning.
I was told last night that the New York Times was not going to even front page the hurricane.
And when I heard that, I said, hmm, well, now that's interesting.
The biggest disaster to hit the country in a long time domestically since certainly since 9-11 of 2001, and they're not front-paging Hurricane Kretina, Katrina Vanenhoevel.
I don't know if that held up.
That was early last night.
That was the Times' original plan.
I haven't seen the newspaper today.
I actually never see the newspaper.
I just, when I look at it, I look at it on the website.
But if that held up, ought to give you some indication what's actually important to the New York Times.
This is a hurricane in the South.
This is a hurricane in Mississippi and Louisiana.
And this, that's the South.
Meanwhile, we've got a war that we have to defeat, an administration that we have to defeat at the New York Times and elsewhere.
So we will spend some time here at the outset of the program on the hurricane, and we'll get into some of the other news as well.
I was struck by the reporting all day yesterday.
I've been glued to this hurricane.
I've been watching this all afternoon, all night last night.
I got up earlier than I normally do today to see if it had hit landfall earlier than usual.
And I was struck by all the reporting.
And I guess this is natural.
I don't want to make too big a deal of it.
It's just that I'm very sensitive to this.
I was struck by the apocalyptic nature of the reporting.
I was struck by the doom and gloom of the reporting.
And then it kind of hit me that that's sort of what reporting has become.
Apocalyptic in Iraq, doom and gloom there, doom and gloom on oil prices, doom and gloom on everything.
For example, there was an AP story, hurricane could leave one million homeless.
This cleared yesterday afternoon.
Experts say hurricane could leave one million homeless, could turn one of America's most charming cities into a vast cesspool tainted with toxic chemicals, human waste, and even coffins released by floodwaters from the city's legendary cemeteries.
Experts have warned for years that the levees and pumps that usually keep New Orleans dry have no chance against a direct hit by a category five storm.
Experts have warned about New Orleans vulnerability for years, chiefly because Louisiana has lost more than a million acres of coastal wetlands in the past seven decades.
The vast patchwork of swamps and bayous south of the city serves as a buffer, partially absorbing the surge of water that a hurricane pushes ashore.
Experts have also warned that the ring of high levees around New Orleans, designed to protect the city, will only make things worse in a powerful hurricane.
Katrina van den Hoovel is expected to push a 28-foot storm surge against the levees, even if they hold.
Experts say water will pour over their tops and begin filling the city as if it were a sinking canoe.
And experts went on then to say that New Orleans could be buried underwater for six months with tens of thousands dead.
Now, I realized this was a Category 5 hurricane at the time this storm cleared, and I understand the specifics of all of this.
The eye of the hurricane, by the way, followed the exact forecast path of four or five days ago.
And the eye wall went to the east of New Orleans, and they were spared the worst of it, but they got a huge hit.
You have to wonder how much of the Mississippi coast is going to be remaining after this storm goes through there.
There are reports of roofs blown off, windows blown out.
Last I heard there was no flooding in the French quarter, but there is lots of flooding south of Lake Ponchatrain, where one of the levees did in fact break.
I'm not saying the reporting is wrong.
It's just the doom and gloom of it was something that I noted.
And that's all I did.
I just noted it.
I just noted the doom and gloom nature of it.
We're hopeless.
We haven't got a chance.
And I don't want to be, I'm not trying to be sarcastic here or anything, but I also thought while all this doom and gloom was being preached and forecast and predicted, I was, well, why can't we do something about this?
We're going to get ready to embark on a plan here to stop global warming.
Why can't we just stop the hurricane?
And then I knew what would happen.
I've made a prediction.
And if I have to get F. Lee Levin on the phone to verify my prediction, I'll do it.
But I made this prediction to him late yesterday afternoon.
I said it isn't going to be long before we're going to see headlines, Bush, did he act too late?
And we're going to get stories about what would Bill Clinton have done?
Would Clinton have gone to the Super Bowl to welcome residents in?
Would Fidel Castro have gone down to the coast and put his arms up of the hurricane and warned it to turn around?
Then if you go to some of the Democrat websites, try this.
I just watched a bit of the press conference being held, and I predicted that this was going to, the Democrats are going to find a way to blame Bush for this.
And lo and behold, at this Daily Chaos website, I just watched a bit of the press conference being held by the governor of Louisiana and the mayor of New Orleans.
The levee system is endangered by the floodwaters and winds that will accompany this storm when it hits land.
Historically, it's the National Guard, along with other emergency personnel, who attempt to provide emergency services to the community in disaster-relief situations like Katrina.
And where are these National Guard right now?
They are in Iraq.
So it's Bush's fault that there aren't enough emergency services personnel.
And we don't even know that that's the case, but that's what's being stated and what's being claimed.
Mary Landrew was on Fox News, senator from Louisiana, and she was saying that the damage to Louisiana will be worse than it had to be because the government didn't spend enough money on building levees and other protective structures for New Orleans.
She then went on to say that, and Bush is thinking about releasing the strategic oil reserves, the barrel price up over $70 now.
And of course, a lot of the offshore drilling in this country that produces a lot of our domestic oil affected by the hurricane.
She said that using the strategic oil reserves to alleviate shortages wouldn't be much help because the government hadn't spent enough federal money in building a greater industrial base for Louisiana, which the government has neglected.
So it's up to the federal government to do all these things.
They haven't done all these things.
And you know who runs the federal government these days?
It's the Republicans.
I guess if the Republicans just raised taxes and collected more money, then we could have alleviated the problem.
I just want to put you on notice.
I just want you to be aware that the Libs are going to use this hurricane to advance all of the wacko aspects of their agenda, global warming, and you know what else.
In fact, I was watching one of the networks, I forget which, and they went to Max Mayfield, this guy that runs the National Hurricane Center in Miami, and the reporter said, Max, Max, what about global warming?
And you can see he looked disgusted or annoyed.
Let me say, he looked annoyed with the question.
No, no, no, global warming.
We're not talking about global warming here.
But nevertheless, you can be prepared for the left to go full speed into their agenda, blaming Bush for it, the government for it, and nature for it, essentially us for what happened here.
And then full-fledged liberalism will be proposed to fix everything that has been broken and replace things that have been destroyed.
A quick timeout.
We'll be back and continue in mere moments.
Okay, the New York Times did front the hurricane in their published edition.
I went and checked it out and they did.
Greetings and welcome back.
Rush Schlimbaugh, the Excellence in Broadcasting Network.
Let me not be misunderstood, folks.
I have all of the sympathy in the world for the people going through this.
Why I've been watching it.
It's why I have been glued to it.
I have been hoping that this thing would take a turn to a less populated area.
One of the bad things about a hurricane is that when you root for it to go someplace, it's going to hurt somebody.
I mean, it's at least at this stage.
But this is a massive disaster.
There's no question about it.
And I have, believe me, as one who lives in the path of many of these things, I have heartfelt relatability to what these people are going through and what they're going to face when they're able to return and see what happened.
It is truly devastating.
I just, at the same time, and I'm not trying to be aloof on this or anything like that.
I'm just telling you, I just want to warn you that the left politicizes everything in the country.
Everything is a political issue, and this is going to end up being one way or the other.
And I just want to be out in front of it, warn you of that so that you're not surprised or caught short when it happens.
I don't think you would be, but I still wanted to get it out there.
Forecaster says, by the way, that Hurricane Katrina may cost U.S. insurers more than $30 billion, which would make the storm the most expensive to hit the United States ever.
So it's just what it is.
But, you know, there's another way of looking at this.
And one of the reasons that I noted the doom and the gloom in all the reporting, there is a fatalism about this before it even happens.
There's a, oh, we're doomed.
Oh, we're screwed.
Oh, what are we going to do?
And that's not what this country is to me.
And I will bet you that the people affected by this don't come out of this all defeated and doom and gloom and commit suicide and throw their hands up in frustration.
I remember when the hurricane, the earthquake hit San Francisco back in, what was it, 88, 89?
During the World Series, I forget the year, but I know it had to be 88 or 89, one of the two.
I think it was 88.
And in fact, even a portion of the Bay Bridge fell and they had to repair that.
And I remember saying back then, the people of San Francisco are going to get in gear and put this place back together, put the city back together as quickly as they can.
It's just the way we are.
It's just what Americans do.
And the same thing is going to happen here.
Already you have utility workers from neighboring states on standby, ready to rush into the affected areas and try to restore power as quickly as possible.
You're going to see a nationwide effort here to rebuild the areas that have been destroyed or damaged severely by this storm.
And in many cases, what goes up is going to be better than what went down.
What replaces what was destroyed is going to be new and it's going to be better.
It's going to be hard work and it's going to take some money and it's going to take some time.
But it will be rebuilt and it will be a source of pride and it'll be something that's quintessentially American.
And it'll, by the way, happen without a whole lot of aid from other countries.
When this sort of thing happens around the world, we're the first country on scene to help out when these situations occur.
We have experience doing this around the world.
We've built for ourselves and we will do so again.
And so, you know, I think celebrating the American spirit here and understanding the cheerful, optimistic nature that eventually overcomes us, or not overcomes us, we eventually get it, even in the midst of such destruction.
It's quintessentially American and it'll happen in this case, even amidst all of the doom and gloom, amidst all of the desperation here that is being cited.
And I'm, again, not trying to minimize that.
This is more an attitudinal thing with me.
You can find positives any place that you want to look for them.
And in this case, we had plenty of warning.
People were given the option to leave.
This is another thing.
However, I should point out that some in the media are saying that the evacuation scenarios were not fair because the poor didn't have a way out.
Only the rich had a way out.
And the rich were selfish.
And the rich didn't carpool and take the poor with them when they left some of these areas.
And so the rich, once again, exhibited an insensitivity and a selfishness.
I've seen that floating around.
So you'll get the doom and gloomers and you'll get the naysayers and so forth.
But even those who couldn't get out or didn't want to get out, steps were taken to take care of them, to give them some sort of shelter in virtually every place.
Nobody was forgotten.
Nobody was ignored.
I've never seen such efforts on the part of local officials to get people out of their communities.
I mean, it was, to me, unprecedented.
So the effort was sincere and it was heartfelt.
Let me grab Frank in Auburn.
I guess this is Maine.
Welcome to the program, sir.
Nice to have you with us.
Megadittos, Mr. Limbaugh.
Thank you, sir.
Hey, how are you doing?
Good.
I'm just a little confused because what I'm wondering is I keep hearing on the news that there's going to be a lot of environmental damage.
I didn't think it was possible for anybody but white males to do environmental damage.
Now, look, I understand that the joke, understand the joke you're trying to make, but it's not just white males.
It's America.
But it's not in this case.
So what he's trying to say is, hey, here comes some environmental damage that came along and we didn't do anything about it.
That's my point.
We are going to get blamed for this.
Some aspect of America is going to be blamed for this.
The left is going to politicize.
I don't want to dwell on this because it's not worth a sneeze.
But I'm just telling you, some point in the aftermath of this, you and I are going to be talking about this.
You and I are going to be sharing stories about what kind of criticisms and blame is being thrown around by people trying to make this political.
And when you say only the environment causes damage, who's destroying the environment?
We are.
We caused the hurricane.
I mean, in the hurricanes already that happened this year, there were attempts made to blame the Bush administration for not taking global warming seriously, even though global warming, if global warming had an effect on hurricanes, it would be to reduce them.
Because the warming would take place in the global or the polar spheres, the polar areas of the planet.
It would not affect temperatures elsewhere.
But experts have looked at this.
Even William Gray, the big forecaster from the University of Colorado, is even working on a piece now to try to debunk this.
But it's just that a myth.
But you're still going to have people try to say that the severity of this storm needn't have been what it was because of the efforts that we have made in climate change here, the problems we've caused.
You're going to hear a lot of people blame.
Look how hot the water temperature was down there in the Gulf of Mexico.
It's hotter than it's ever been out there.
Why?
This is absolutely unprecedented.
And that's because of global warming.
But you're going to hear all this, folks.
And it's all going to be an effort to advance a liberal agenda, big government tax increases and so forth.
But the fact of the matter is the pressure of this hurricane was not nearly as low as Camille was.
It's not the lowest pressure, therefore the most damaging hurricane.
It may be in dollars, but in terms of the most powerful hurricane, it's not.
Camille was a more powerful hurricane 40 years ago before anybody was even talking about global warming in terms of how low the pressure was.
And the pressure gradient has to do with water temperature.
The warmer the water, as you've heard the experts say, it's like throwing high octane fuel in an engine.
It just burns and burns and burns.
Well, if the water's hotter now than it's ever been, this hurricane should have been the strongest ever.
But just prepare yourself for these kinds of stories.
And we'll deal with them as they happen.
But you know me, I love to predict things.
That's what being on the cutting edge of societal evolution is all about.
As I say, I've got a couple other hurricane phone calls that people want to comment on, and we'll take those, but I'm going to get into some other news items.
We've got some incredible audio soundbites from Meet the Press yesterday with Russert and four generals on discussing Iraq.
We've got Charles Wrangel out of his mind talking about Dick Cheney.
All that and more coming up right after this here on the EIB Network.
And we are back here on the cutting edge of societal evolution.
Rush Limbaugh, the EIB, Southern Command, America's anchorman seated in the prestigious Attila the Hun shared Dale in Manchester, New Hampshire.
Welcome, sir.
Nice to have you with us.
Hey, Rush, Megan Dinos from New Hampshire.
Hey, Rush, I'm a little confused.
It seems that there's a lot of danger down in New Orleans.
The news reporters are going down there, but there's going to be 24-foot storm surges at the levees break.
There's going to be a toxic waste pool down there.
And they're going down there and they're all over the place.
But why aren't they going out to Iraq where it's, you know, where they can be guarded and protected by our military and report on the good stuff out there?
It's an interesting point.
I was talking to a journalist yesterday about this very thing.
And I was raising the question that you just raised.
I said, well, can I answer it?
Why are you going to send people down there to stand in the middle of this?
In the first place, you're not going to be able to get any live pictures out from the middle of the worst of the hurricane.
Your truck's going to be buffered and battered all around and your satellite connection isn't going to work.
And the answer I got, well, it's no different than going to Iraq.
I mean, you put your life on the line of both places.
And I thought, well, it is a little different, just as you say, than going to Iraq because most of the journalists, as we know, don't go out.
They sit in the hotels or in the green area in the green sector and get reports about what's happening out there.
I guess there's a difference attitudinally in, you know, I don't want to go out and get shot or blown up versus I'll take my chance with some wind and some rain.
But it is an interesting thing to note because if you've seen some of the pictures, these people are out there standing in these 90-mile-an-hour winds and doing their bed.
There's debris flying all around, and it's akin to shrapnel in certain parts of this place, parts of the hurricane.
David in Lafayette, Indiana, you're next.
Welcome to the program, sir.
Tatu having dope smoking hay and pack pittos, Rush.
Thank you, sir, very much.
For a long time listener, I wanted to call and say that I'm against the benevolence of government to the extent that I don't think that they should receive, and not just New Orleans, but any disaster relief down in Florida, New Orleans, any of the coast.
I don't think they should receive any tax dollars, any federal dollars for relief because they know the circumstances they're in.
They live in a city below sea level and they wait year after year.
And if it doesn't happen this year, it happens the next year.
They might have to wait 20 years, but it does happen.
And then they ask for help to rebuild in the very same spot.
And it's infuriating.
I was thinking about this today because I was reminded, was on this program, sometime very, very early, again, late 80s or early 90s, the Mississippi River flooded real bad.
And we got, I was surprised.
I was literally shocked at the phone calls I got from people who said similar things to that which you just said.
People were really angry.
I don't want to bail these farmers out.
I don't want to bail these people.
I didn't choose to live next to a river and floodplain.
I mean, if you're going to choose to live in a river next to a floodplain, you get flooded.
It's your problem.
Don't come knocking on my door.
I was blown away by it.
I was stunned and I was surprised.
And I got to think, I wonder how many of that kind of, or how much of that kind of thinking is going to be is going to be out there with this.
Hey, those people knew they're living in a Hurricane Alley.
They knew they're living in a bowl under sea level.
And why didn't the state do something about this for 40 years?
Why didn't the state build this up or so forth and so on?
You know, I have mixed emotions about it.
I think you can take some of this too far.
This is simply too many people.
You can't tell everybody who lives along the Gulf Coast in New Orleans and Mississippi, hey, you live too close to the ocean, get away from there.
As we see, the damage is going to take place long up coast or upriver from the coast.
There's going to be, particularly Mississippi, a lot of damage and people who don't live anywhere near there.
And so I've got mixed emotions.
I'm not nearly as cold-hearted about this as some people might be.
Plus, there's the reality that we have FEMA.
We have the Federal Emergency Management Agency.
They're going to get in gear.
But there'll be a lot of private efforts that are underway.
It'll be a combination of things.
But this is what I meant earlier when I said this will be a quintessential American rebuilding down there.
And it's going to ultimately be something very positive.
When you have disaster as widespread as this apparently is, the speed with which people will want to rebuild, I think it'll be a little faster than if it's a little bit here, a little bit there, a little bit over there.
You sort of have to decide where you go first.
If you're faced with building pretty much everything back, you just dig in and you get started and do it.
And, you know, there's something about New Orleans that I don't think a lot of people understand about New Orleans and southern Louisiana due to its relationship with the Mississippi River.
That area is literally crucial to this country's agriculture and commerce.
And not only that, the oil, almost all of the oil that, and the vast majority of the oil from our domestic supply comes from rigs in the Gulf that ends up being taken to New Orleans or being shipped to refineries and getting out.
New Orleans has to function.
New Orleans is clearly a national city.
There's a lot of bias in this country against the South in certain parts of this country, and that's unfortunate.
But where do you think, for example, all the agricultural products that are grown in the Midwest, how do you think they get around?
Many of them come downriver on barges in the Mississippi River to New Orleans, where they then get distributed and sent around the world and other parts of the country.
It is a very important area.
It's an agriculture and industrial area of the country that doesn't get commented on much in that aspect.
New Orleans is known more as a party town, the French quarter, Super Bowl, Sugar Bowl, this sort of thing.
But it's a key city.
Not to say some cities aren't, but frankly, it's something that is going to require a national effort to make sure it functions.
But even beyond New Orleans, which did not get the main brunt of this thing, Mississippi, I'm looking at this.
I'm wondering if there's going to be a Mississippi coast once the storm clears and the sky clears.
Those some of the things, some of the buildings, both commercial and residential on the coast may not be there, folks.
And this part of the country, when you're talking about the Louisiana and Mississippi Gulf Coast, this is not second homes of the wealthy.
This is not a resort community where people like Snurdley go and spend the winter or the summer.
It's certainly not like certain parts of Florida, certain parts of Alabama, where there are high-rise condos and second homes.
That's not what you're looking at on the coastline of southern Louisiana, New Orleans, and up around Mississippi.
It's a whole different, it's industrial, and that's why it's crucial to have it functioning and get it back up and running as quickly as possible.
And it will.
Mark my words.
Joe in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania.
You're next on the EIB network.
Hello.
Hi, Rush Megadittos from the red part of the blue state of Pennsylvania.
Thank you, sir.
Hey, I wanted to say that your powers of prediction are as sharp as ever.
About 6.30 to 7.30 this morning on NPR, they interviewed an environmental expert from New Orleans who was on the air to say that the pillaging of the wetlands over the past decade or so is going to increase the impact of flooding and that the effects of the hurricane are going to be worsened by the pillaging of the wetlands in New Orleans.
So your prediction that they're going to somehow swing this and blame us for the effects of the hurricane, at least, rather than the cause, they're going to come out, I guess, from both ends.
I know, you know, this has been going on for a long time.
I can remember we had a, again, these years are running together, but it wasn't that long ago in this program.
We had some election that was taking place.
Louisiana had national consequences.
were talking about it.
One of the subjects that came up was the marshlands and the residue from the Mississippi River as it reaches the Gulf of Mexico.
And there were all kinds of arguments here about what should be done and what's being destroyed and what's being built back.
And I forget the thrust of it.
I'll have to do some research in my memories if I can remember it.
But it was something that the national media was all wrong on the local New Orleans people, local Louisiana people affected by were outraged at the way the whole thing was being portrayed.
And I think it had to do with the fact that all this marshlands being destroyed.
They were blaming New Orleans people for it, for not being environmentally conscious and this sort of stuff.
But when you've got the mighty Mississippi emptying sludge and all kinds of things into the Gulf of Mexico every day, the area constantly is being replenished and refurbished by nature in its own way.
But regardless of the specifics of that, there's no question that you just mark my words, this destruction will be politicized by the left, and they will do what they always do, find a way to blame their political opponents for all that has happened here in virtually every aspect.
A quick timeout.
We'll be back and continue in America.
Welcome back, my good friends.
Nice to have you with us.
Donna in Gold Dale, Washington.
You're next on the Rush Limbaugh program.
Hello.
Good old Rush.
I was calling because I cannot figure out any place in the United States that would be perfectly safe from some kind of national disaster.
And I live in the West, and we have huge forest fires.
And it's really not a matter of if you have a forest fire, it's just when.
And so where are we going to go with that earlier caller?
Well, of course.
Of course.
I mean, the point, though, here is that when there is a natural disaster like this, where every second of it is on television, it is ripe for the left to politicize it and use it to capitalize on the emotion that the vision of all this creates in everybody.
And so, but you're absolutely right.
There's nowhere in the country that you can go to escape some sort of disaster.
Some sort of disaster is going to happen somewhere.
If you live in the southern border states, you've got the disaster of illegal immigration.
If you live in California, you do have the wildfires and the threat always of earthquakes.
And with an earthquake, you never know when it's going to happen.
You at least don't get warning for it.
If you live in New York, Massachusetts, you live with a constant threat of liberalism, constant disaster of liberalism.
So you're right.
There's no place that you can go to escape it.
And there are times where the people of the country come together and help out each other.
I mean, they're going to be, you wait and see the pictures after this, folks.
They're going to be, you haven't seen anything yet.
Nobody is seeing pictures of the worst because they can't get pictures out of there.
You're seeing only where they can go after or before the worst has hit.
You're going to see sites that you're not going to believe here.
You're going to see families on their roof in flooded out neighborhoods.
And how are we going to get them out of there?
They're going to be up there for a day, maybe more.
You're going to hear stories of blown out windows and all the contents of office buildings destroyed.
You're going to hear the superdome roof ripped open in a couple different places and rain was pouring in there.
And that was the last place of refuge for people that could not get out of New Orleans.
We haven't even really seen any pictures of that yet.
We've just been hearing about all this.
We hear about people trapped in a hotel that the roof collapsed and so forth.
We haven't seen any of this yet.
And when we do, I think this is all going to mobilize and motivate everybody to pitch in and do what they can to alleviate the situation.
And this is our country.
And this is, here's another, this is the hard coal reality.
There's nothing anybody could have done about this.
It is nobody's fault is the bottom line.
Despite the efforts of the left to politicize this, and I'm not kidding you, the left is out there saying that this is Bush's fault because there aren't enough National Guardsmen there because the National Guardsmen are all over in Iraq fighting a useless war for oil.
Some of the most wacko things in the world are being said in order to blame Bush for this.
This is nobody's fault.
There's nothing anybody could have done to stop it.
And if you have to go so far as saying, well, don't live there, it's not realistic.
If you take a look at, you know, people have always migrated to bodies of water.
In the early days, that was the primary mode of transportation of goods and services, rivers.
Look at Pittsburgh.
Pittsburgh, the modern thinking in Pittsburgh was that don't put a city here.
It's in a bowl of mountains.
You've got these rivers.
There's no way in and out of this, but tunnels.
You don't put a city here.
But they did because they had no choice.
The three rivers come together there, and it was a perfect trading place.
Same thing with St. Louis and all the cities up and down the Mississippi.
So to say, don't live near a floodplain.
It's not possible.
Waterways are essential to commerce.
You can't function without people living near there where they work and having places of business and farms and other things that are near bodies of water.
So you're absolutely right.
It is impossible to escape this kind of thing.
And to start assigning blame and portioning it out is to miss the whole point.
The whole point about this is to realize what happened and be optimistic about the future and the opportunity to rebuild and so forth.
Because you can get caught up in the doom and gloom and you can do that for a while, but what's it going to get you?
What's it going to accomplish?
It's not going to accomplish anything.
And blaming is not going to accomplish it.
It happened.
These things happen.
And they happen every year.
And they happen in different parts.
They happen in Japan all the time.
They happen all over the place.
And it's just a fact of life.
And they have to be dealt with.
And they will be.
And this one will be as well as all of those in the past have.
Let me take a quick time out here.
We will be back and continue after this.
Stay with us.
All right.
We are back.
El Rushball serving humanity.
And we go to Las Vegas.
This is Dave.
Hello, sir.
Great you called.
Hi there.
How are you doing, Raj?
Fine, thank you.
You know, I'm following this hurricane thing, and what strikes me about it is that a quarter of our oil production is now shut down.
It's in the Gulf of Mexico, where it is a very vulnerable area, obviously, to hurricanes.
Why aren't we having a political discussion about drilling in other areas of this country where there are known oil reserves, especially the Santa Barbara Channel off California?
Well, you know the answer to the question.
And I'll tell you something.
I don't think the hurricane here should even be a factor in the debate.
It will be.
And I'm not trying to discard your point.
Your point is an excellent point.
But we should have been debating this long before this hurricane happens.
We ought to be debating this when the gas price gets higher than people want to pay it.
We ought to be debating this when the barrel price for oil starts escalating and people feel as though they're being held prisoner to it.
And what I've always found interesting about this is that the very people who complain about high gas prices are the same people who have been suggesting we need them because it's unfair.
We have such cheap gasoline compared to what they pay in Europe.
And then when this happens, they're the same people that start whining and moaning about how high the price of gasoline is getting and how Bush isn't doing anything about it.
And these also happen to be the same people that will not move out of the way and let any kind of domestic exploration or drilling or development of oil take place.
So if we're going to be vulnerable to whatever market or environmental forces there are on the supply of oil, and if we know that our the fuel of our economic engine is oil, it is absurd to me, it is literally absurd to on one hand complain about dependence on foreign oil and then stand up and prevent the exploration and drilling and production of any domestic oil.
It doesn't make any sense.
What this hurricane does is heighten and further illustrate our vulnerability.
And I hope people see it that way.
But when it comes to the left, folks, I'm not holding my breath on this.
And I don't think you should either.
It's going to be an ongoing debate.
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