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Aug. 30, 2005 - Rush Limbaugh Program
36:04
August 30, 2005, Tuesday, Hour #1
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Welcome to today's edition of the Rush 24-7 podcast.
From the one and only Excellence in Broadcasting Network, Rush Limbaugh here.
And the DittoCam is up and running.
And it will be for all three hours of the program today.
Telephone number, if you'd like to be on the program, is 800-282-2882.
The email address is Rush at EIBnet.com.
You know, yesterday I was talking about how we wouldn't know the full extent of the damage until we got the cameras and satellite uplinks in there today once the storm had passed.
It is amazing.
If that's a near miss, if that's a miss on New Orleans, this is just stunning.
I mean, the mayor of New Orleans has just ordered everybody out.
Just get out of the city.
These pictures are practically indescribable.
A couple of levee breaks and the floodwaters in some parts of town are continuing to rise.
And it's as bad in other parts of the Gulf Coast area.
It's just mind-numbing to see this.
And people have been emailing me today wanting to know if there's anybody, any charity that is set up that can handle donations.
And I'll tell you, it seems to me the most sensible thing to do here is just use some existing organizations set up for this purpose if you are desirous of helping.
The Red Cross is certainly one of the biggest here that I'm certainly could use assistance, but this is going to be a huge and massive undertaking and effort.
So it's just mind-numbing to see this.
It is just stunning.
The Pentagons get involved in the rescue efforts and the rebuilding efforts, which of course makes sense.
We do send our military around the world on these kinds of relief efforts, such as to the Sri Lanka area and the tsunami effort was most recent.
But it'll happen.
The relief effort will happen.
The rebuilding will take place.
But everybody's just sort of numb right now.
And I'm sitting here.
I must admit, folks, I'm a bit torn.
I mean, this just, you cannot help but notice these pictures, and you cannot help but being profoundly affected by this.
And yet, there are other things going on out there, and I'm torn as to what to focus on here.
So we'll probably, I think what we're going to do is a mixture of both as we did yesterday.
And let me start with this.
I just, I continually, and I shouldn't be, but I am continually surprised by our news media.
Yesterday on this program, I shared with you that all over the wacko, extreme kook Democrat blogs and websites, there were snide comments about how we wouldn't have enough National Guard troops to go in and perform rescue and rebuilding efforts in the hurricane zone because they're all over in Iraq.
And of course, in Iraq, they're just useless.
They're not being used for anything.
It's pointless for them to be there.
And if Bush hadn't started the war and if Bush hadn't sent them there, why we would have this hurricane effort under much more progress and it'd be much faster than, and I, you know, okay, kook idea, crazy idea.
We laughed at it.
Listen, if you wonder where the mainstream press is getting its ideas, listen to this montage from, we've got Fox News, we've got CNN, we've got NBC, a montage of anchors and reporters from yesterday and last night discussing this.
Do you have adequate National Guard members?
Because I know you have a lot of National Guard forces in Iraq.
With so many National Guard troops involved in Iraq, thousands of civilian volunteers are now stepping up to the plate.
Critics have warned the National Guard deployments in Iraq and Afghanistan have left states with too few troops to respond to emergencies.
Interesting to note that of the 11,000 National Guard members in Louisiana, about 3,000 are currently deployed in Iraq.
So that leaves 8,000 in Louisiana.
It's just amazing to see how this gets picked up.
It's a lame-brained, kooky idea that is designed fully.
I mean, you know, I told you yesterday to be on the lookout for the politicization of this hurricane.
I said, it's going to happen.
The left can't help themselves.
But I didn't even expect this.
I didn't think that so many people in mainstream press or what used to be the mainstream press would pick up a kook idea like this and run with it and treat it as something serious.
I guess I shouldn't be surprised, but I must admit that I am.
So here's the story from the Associated Press cleared about 8 o'clock last night.
Some 6,000 National Guard personnel in Louisiana and Mississippi who would be able to avail to help deal with the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina are in Iraq, highlighting the changing role of America's part-time soldiers.
The juxtaposition of the mission to Iraq and the response to Katrina really demonstrates the new and changing character of the National Guard, said Daniel Gore, a military analyst at the private Lexington Institute.
The war has forced the Guard into becoming an operational force, a far cry from its historic role as a strategic reserve, primary available to governors for disasters and other duties in their home states.
Pentagon spokesman Lawrence Dorita said the Gulf states have adequate National Guard units to handle the hurricane needs with at least 60% of the Guard available in every state.
So the National Guard's also, they have enough.
They've got plenty of personnel for storm duty here.
So this is just, I was sitting here thinking, and I'm watching these pictures today.
All right, this has the Michael Barone.
Let me preface it by saying this.
Michael Barone, they've given him a blog now at U.S. News and World Report.
And that's good because he can write infinitely there, not limited by the space of a magazine.
And he had an interesting piece over the weekend.
He's looking at the list of nominees for president in the Republican and Democrat parties in the 2008 race.
And he's looking at them, and he sees mostly moderates.
And he advanced the notion that maybe we are actually hitting toward an end to all of the really ribald partisanism and partisanship that has been taking place.
Because the presidential nominee, like Hillary Clinton, and I disagree with this, I think it's a mistake to look at early nominees or potential nominees, early candidates from either party and say, hmm, they're really not ideologues in either sense.
So maybe we're seeing the end of partisanship.
I wouldn't call Hillary a moderate for one thing, and she's the Democrat frontrunner.
But McCain being in there and Hegel being in there is one of the points that Barone makes.
But let's just grant him his point for the sake of it.
If we are heading toward an end of partisanship, which, you know, as I say, I just, I don't see it.
I think it's facts see it getting worse as the left continues to lose.
Looking at these pictures coming out of the Gulf Coast area today, I think, okay, if there's anything anybody could rally around, if there's anything we could all put our arms around and shake hands on and say, this is going to say, require joint effort, and this has nothing to do with politics.
This is a genuine human disaster.
This would be it.
And I was thinking this could be the catalyst that might bring some of this about.
And then I listen to this montage of anchors and reporters talking about the National Guard problem with the subtle inference or implication that this is all Bush's fault.
And I just, I throw it all out.
I mean, any opportunity whatsoever.
Like, President Bush is right now making a speech.
He's out in Coronado, California, and he's making a speech commemorating VJ Day.
And he is in the speech addressing the hurricane and the hurricane victims.
And he's going to go back to Washington early because of this hurricane to deal with things.
But I will bet you before the day is over that we get stories.
What's he doing in California?
Why isn't he in Mississippi?
Why isn't he in Louisiana?
What's he doing out in California being framed by a bunch of warships?
You know, and you just know that it's going to happen.
And then I'm surprised that Bill Clinton has not insinuated himself into this already.
But you know why he hasn't?
Guess where Bill Clinton is?
Guess where he is?
Just take a wild guess at where Bill Clinton is.
He's in Kauai.
He is on vacation.
He and Hillary and Chelsea are on vacation and they are in Hawaii.
And they've been there for the same time Bush has been on vacation.
And before he was in Hawaii, he was at Martha's Vineyard.
Clinton has been vacationing a whole month of August like all these D.C. elites do, other than the Democrats and Republicans on the Judiciary Committee and their staff.
And he's been up there in Martha's Vineyard and he's now out in Hawaii.
And Russia's not the president anymore.
Well, he did this when he was president.
He took vacations in August.
There was never any complaint about it.
But that leads me to a couple of additional sound bites.
Let's go last night to a hard ball with Chris Matthews, who is talking to Alabama Senator Richard Shelby.
Remember what I said yesterday in the program, that these elite liberals in the Northeast, they tend to have a condescending view of people in the South.
Senator Shelby, there's a lot of effort down in your part of the country along the Gulf Coast to develop, you know, the whole idea of a resort area.
It's been called the Redneck Riviera fondly, I think.
We don't call it that.
We just call it the Gulf Coast.
Okay, the Gulf Coast.
The Redneck Riviera.
There you have it.
A lot of people call it the Redneck Riviera, but they don't call it the Redneck Riviera fondly.
There's nobody that refers to Rednecks fondly except other rednecks.
So here you have Matthews stuck up there in the elitist Washington, D.C., New York-Boston corridor talking about the Redneck Riviera to a senator from Alabama whose coastline just got devastated.
Redneck Riviera, talking about a lot of resort area.
They call it the Gulf Coast.
They don't call it the Redneck Riviera.
The people that go there don't.
And when you refer to it as the Redneck Riviera, you do so in a joking way.
People that do it are not being fond, if you will.
Then after Shelby came and went, it was time for Mary Landrew, senator from New Orleans, and we had this discussion.
Do you think you might be encouraging something like we saw with the tsunami disaster in Asia where people like former President Bill Clinton and former President George Bush Sr. organize a massive program of raising money for the private sector?
Well, Chris, that would be very helpful.
I know the private sector stands ready to help.
Of course, in America, we have, and we're so blessed to have a strong system of governmental aid, very mature civil agencies and volunteer organizations, business labor organizations that are ready to stand up and help.
Unlike many countries that don't have a tradition of that, we do.
Did you hear her answer?
She says, yeah, we would help.
We don't need it.
We were already set up.
We don't even need the National Guard that's in Iraq because we got plenty here.
So Matthews, is this, I mean, the only thing can save the day is if Clinton and Bush 41 get back involved here.
It's just, it's just amazing.
A quick timeout here, folks, a little long in this segment.
We'll be back and continue right after this.
This is, and actually, the sound bite's not so much the thing here.
But the answer by Brian Williams is actually pretty good.
It's the question.
Once again, I'm not trying to pick on my old buddy Chris Matthews, but it works.
It makes the point.
Last night on Hardball, I talked to Brian Williams, the NBC nightly news anchor who spent the day in the Superdome, the day of the night in the Superdome, with the refugees.
That was also, the people in the Superdome are called refugees in an AP story today.
The refugees.
At any rate, at any rate.
Matthew's question.
Brian, I was watching your report on the nightly news tonight at NBC, and I was watching with every person who works in this building, all standing almost in a regimental line, watching your report.
I have never seen so much interest in a story as this tonight.
Do the people there know that they're at the center of the American interest right now?
Now, you might say, okay, Rush, what's so odd about that?
Because the question indicates a self-focus.
Everybody must always think things are about them, that they are the focus of attention.
And I think this is indicative of a mindset that exists with many people in the media, particularly in disasters.
It's about us.
It's about us covering it.
It's about us watching it.
And so they transfer that to the people who are in the midst of the tragedy.
Can you imagine people in that area of the country actually wondering if whether or not the American people are watching them?
Gee, Mabel, you think we're on TV tonight here in the Super Bowl?
I guarantee you that's not what's on their minds.
What's on their minds is what's going on outside the Superdome and whether there's going to be a town when they come out of there and whether they're going to have a house and whether their friends, family, and relatives are going to be alive.
And not sitting inside the Superdome going, hey, man, America's thinking about us tonight.
America's doing nothing but wondering about us.
That's not the mindset when you're in the midst of one of these things.
And Brian Williams got pretty close to that in his answer.
Here's what he said.
They do not.
In fact, Chris, that's a real problem.
I have to say on their behalf, having lived among them today, yet not sharing the same concerns and the mindset.
They have been tied up in knots all day, wondering if their home is the one on the street that got it, wondering if they go home to water up to the rafters.
They have no information.
No information whatsoever.
They're not sitting in the superdome wondering about whether the whole country is watching them or thinking about them.
But the idea that, I mean, you've heard of transference, the idea that, hey, it's exciting.
You know, people are thinking about us tonight.
People are watching us.
People are paying attention to us.
Which I think is, you know, pretty much understandable when you understand the media thinks they are the story.
The media has clearly, you know what, I don't think, I don't think there's any difference.
Having now played this montage, and I'll give you the names in that montage.
I didn't do this earlier.
Who are the names?
We had Larry King.
We had Paul Aza, we had Lester Holt talking about the National Guard, whether or not there are enough of them because we've sent so many over to Iraq.
Now, this is strictly from the wackos at moveon.org and the Democrat Underground and so forth.
I actually tell you, I've been looking at the news today, I have a hard time distinguishing the difference between a left-wing kook activist group and some people in the mainstream press.
They seem to be identical.
They seem, I mean, let the kooks on the left germinate an idea and guess where it resonates.
And what's funny about this is that it's the left that's always accusing us on the right of having this well-oiled media machine where somebody sends out facts talking points and everybody picks them up and uses them in unison.
When in fact, it's the opposite.
It's been happening on the left far more frequently than it does on the right.
The right, if you want to know the truth, there is no single clearinghouse for thought on the right because the right's become very competitive.
The right has a habit of eating and disrespecting its own.
Some members do if it can elevate them.
The left seems to be pretty unified on things.
They don't take each other out as frequently as people on the right do.
The right's far more competitive to have this column of an order of priority where some head honcho decides what the message is going to be, faxes it and emails it out, and everybody ends up on the page.
It just doesn't happen.
But boy, it does seem to be happening with the left.
Read the Democrat Undercrown.
Read moveon.org.
Go take a look at Cindy Sheehan and what she's saying.
And bamo, you'll see it in the mainstream press within minutes, hours or the next day.
In fact, I saw something funny, too, just going into the break here.
Speaking of Cindy Sheehan, you know, Sharpton was down there.
He got caught for speeding.
His driver did, fleeing the scene, doing 110 miles an hour on the way back to the airport to catch a flight back to New York.
Sharpton denied the driver was speeding, but the cops pulled a driver was evading the cops on the interstate, heading back to Dallas.
But anyway, there's a picture of Sharpton and Sheehan kneeling down and praying and so forth, and it's a very tight close-up shop.
Well, the real, that's a cropped version of the picture.
I have seen the real picture.
The real picture was taken at a distance.
90% of the people in the picture are media with boom microphones and boom cameras.
There look to be maybe four activists in that picture.
When you crop it, it looks like 25 or 30 people are there, and they are, but you don't see that they are media people.
And that it's just classic of the depths to which this story is being promoted and how unrealistically genuine it is.
Back in a sec.
Not only am I a man, a legend, a way of life, I'm also a broadcast specialist with a faulty audio cable in which the cable alternately cuts in and out.
And it makes me think we've lost our broadcast signal, but we haven't.
So it hasn't happened during programming.
It's happened during commercial breaks so far.
Brian is busy with rubber bands and paperclips putting a new cable together as an emergency.
By the way, don't forget, folks, 1989, Hurricane Hugo wiped out Charleston, South Carolina.
President Bush 41 was castigated and ripped to shreds for not doing enough soon enough.
He didn't care.
He didn't go there.
He didn't act interested.
And of course, Charleston was just like New Orleans.
They're ordering everybody out in New Orleans.
If anybody's still there, they want them out of there.
There's nothing anybody can do going in right now other than rescue workers.
But I say this only because the president's out in Coronado, California with the previously scheduled speech commemorating the 60th anniversary of VJ Day, and he's heading back to Washington to begin coordinating the Hurricane relief and recovery efforts from Washington, D.C. Speaking of Sheehan, let me just get this out of the way.
We have this at the very end of the audio soundbite roster today, but since I brought up the whole circumstance, Here's a little brief bit from Cindy Sheehan talking to her supporters last Saturday down in Crawford.
When you read about the Camp Casey moment in the history books, you can say, I met Casey's mom.
Yeah, well, some people will be able to say that.
Not very many cared.
Not very many people showed up.
Those that do were part of the professional rent-a-mob and also part of left-wing activist organizations.
But here's the real tragic news.
If you want to know the real tragic news for the left and the media, it's divulged today on Good Morning America by anchor Claire Shipman.
Mr. Bush is in San Diego today where his focus continues to be bolstering public support for the war in Iraq.
A new ABC News Washington Post poll shows the campaign by Cindy Sheehan has had little effect on public opinion about the war.
79% say they haven't been swayed by the Gold Star mom.
Another devastating poll result for the mainstream press.
They gave it their all.
They gave it their best.
79% say they have not been swayed by the Gold Star for Peace mom.
Let's not equate her with the Gold Star mothers out there.
She started her new organization called Gold Star Mothers for Peace.
So shocking, terrible, tragic news for the mainstream press today.
Happy to pass it along to you.
Here's Mark in Fort Lauderdale, Florida.
Hello, sir, and welcome.
Rush, you called it on global warming.
NBC last night.
Right?
We have the sound bite of that too.
Mike, grab audio, soundbite number five.
I wasn't even going to get this.
This is so ridiculous.
But since you brought it up and it was a C, I told you so.
Here is NBC science correspondent Robert Bezell and his report on the hurricane last night.
Even with its sight weakening, Katrina was one of the biggest ever.
And many scientists say we can expect such storms more often as global warming increases sea temperatures around the world.
Now, once something like this gets going, folks, there's no stopping it.
It's got an inertia of its own, but it isn't true.
Hurricane experts Max Mayfield at the National Hurricane Center has nothing to do with this.
This is part of a normal cycle.
If you want, I can go get lists of you for the most deadly hurricanes this century.
And I can tell you how there are hurricanes long before anybody ever thought of man-made global warming that had just as much death and destruction as this.
This is not unprecedented.
But most people's historical perspective begins with the day they were born.
And they judge events within their own lifetime.
Well, it's never been as bad as this.
Well, we've never had it as good as this.
So to people who've never seen a category four hurricane, oh, that's it, heck, and it couldn't have been any worse than this, Rush.
Why it had to be global warming?
But no.
These things have been happening since the beginning of time.
There have been worse ones than this when there was nobody talking about global warming, when it hadn't even been created as a political football.
And I have this little story.
I knew this is going to come up.
So I had this at the top of the stack right here, folks.
And it comes from newscientists.com.
Brace yourselves.
Most published scientific research papers are wrong according to a new analysis.
Assuming that the new paper is itself correct, problems with experimental and statistical methods mean that there is less than a 50% chance that the results of any randomly chosen scientific paper are true.
John Ionidis, an epidemiologist, University of Ionina School of Medicine in Greece, says that small sample sizes, poor study design, researcher bias, and selective reporting by the media and problems, other problems combine to make most research findings false.
But even large, well-designed studies aren't always right, meaning that scientists and the public have to be very wary of reported findings.
We should accept that most research findings will be refuted.
Some will be replicated and validated.
The replication process is more important than the first discovery, Ionidas says.
In the paper, he does not show that any particular findings are false.
Instead, he shows statistically how the many obstacles to getting research findings right combine to make most published research wrong.
And this is not an editorial opinion.
This is statistically.
And it's based on study.
And then to follow that, we have this from The Guardian in the UK.
Some of America's leading scientists have accused Republican politicians of intimidating climate change experts by placing them under unprecedented scrutiny.
The far-reaching inquiry into the careers of three of the U.S.'s most senior climate specialists has been launched by Joe Barton, the chairman of the House Representatives Committee on Energy and Commerce.
He has demanded details of all their sources of funding, methods, and everything they've ever published.
He damn well should.
We now know, and we can, even before we knew it, we can assume, accurately so, that much of this is just opinion.
Much of this is bias brought on by the nature of the political leaning of a particular group of scientists or individual scientists.
And then you look at where they get their funding, and of course it all makes sense to examine what the outcome of their research is.
Now, the Guardian says, Mr. Barton, a Texan closely associated with the fossil fuel lobby, has spent his 11 years as chairman opposing every piece of legislation designed to combat climate change.
You know why?
It's not possible.
It's a waste of money.
It isn't possible.
Folks, use logic.
And there's a German government minister in an Oslo newspaper today who said our failure to sign the Kyoto Accords and reduce our pollution is why this hurricane happened and why it's so devastating.
That's asinine.
It is pure, it's absurd.
But just use the logic.
The hurricane was, you know what this hurricane started at?
Tropical Depression 10.
Hurricane Katrina van den Hoovel started as Tropical Depression 10.
By the way, she's not happy.
She has not, she's written, she's posted somewhere on a blog.
She doesn't think this is useful or helpful.
You know, to name this hurricane after her.
And I'll tell you, libs, they can dish it out.
They cannot take it.
They can dish all day long, but they can't take it.
Nevertheless, Hurricane Katrina van den Heuvel started as Tropical Depression 10, way out there east of the lesser Antilles.
And then it dissipated.
And the National Hurricane Center says, this thing's gone.
It was very weak.
It's not worth following.
We keep our eye on it.
It popped up again a week later as Tropical Depression 12.
They said it's the same tropical depression, but because there's been some time since it dissipated, we're going to name it 12 rather than keep it 10.
And so 10 then became Katrina.
Now, the minute 10 became, and then it became a tropical storm, and then it became Hurricane Katrina.
And we watched it all the way out in the Atlantic approach Florida, go across Florida into the Gulf all this time.
We knew that it was a hurricane.
And we knew it was headed for parts of America that it could be very destructive.
Could we stop it?
Is there one thing we could have done?
Could we have all driven hybrids last week?
Could we have all shut down all oil production and just walked everywhere?
Is there anything we know, folks?
There's nothing we could have done to change the direction of that storm, to lessen the intensity.
Nothing we could have done.
So on the basis of logic, what have we done to cause it?
What did we do to cause it?
What is it that made it start where it start, dissipate, and then come back as a roaring hurricane all the way up to category five shortly before landfall?
Well, what they're saying is, sea temperatures, the sea temperatures out there, they are scalding hot.
And if you had said yourself, that's like throwing gasoline on a hot fire.
Well, what's making the ocean temperature?
Well, that's global warming.
No, I don't think so.
Because global warming, if you look at any of these wackos who predict it, global warming, they talk about the polar ice caps melting.
That's where they talk about the warming taking place.
And what would that do?
That would send cooler water south.
And this is what the hurricane experts are saying.
Global warming would actually reduce the incidence of hurricanes because it would have, if it actually happened, as these wackos say, there'd be a general cooling in the equatorial regions of the planet of water.
We're just in a cycle.
We are in a cycle where these have happened before.
We're in a sunspot cycle.
The sun's activity may be a little bit more robust than usual.
We can't stop that either.
Just have to accept that these things happen.
But this incessant desire to blame ourselves on the part of the left, have you ever, it's always the blame the America first crowd, the blame the capitalists, blame progress, blame technological advancement.
We are the ones to blame for this.
We have no Bush is responsible for it because of the war in Iraq.
Bush didn't care about Kyoto.
It's absurd.
It's all pat lips.
And yet, where is the absurdity reported as fact front and center on MBC?
I'm telling you, there's no difference in moveon.org, George Soros's groups, and the mainstream media in America today.
Quick timeout.
We'll be back after this.
Saying more in five seconds than most hosts say in an entire broadcast week.
Rush Limbaugh behind the golden EIB microphone here at the Limbaugh Institute for advanced conservative studies.
Ladies and gentlemen, this is news that ought to please Libs.
Walmart said today that it has closed more than 120 stores due to Hurricane Katrina, while the world's largest retailer and some of its biggest rivals donated money and supplies to residents in affected areas along the Gulf Coast states.
Walmart said it would donate $1 million to the Salvation Army for relief assistance, such as meals for victims and emergency and rescue personnel.
Also said they would accept customer donations nationwide at all of its stores this week, as well as credit card contributions through Walmart.com.
That sounds like as good a place as any if you want to participate here, that the Red Cross other things.
Now, Rush, why did you say that?
Why did you say this would make the liberals?
What do you mean?
Why did I say it'd make it?
What have the liberals have been trying to cream Walmart for as long as I've been hosting the program here?
As long as there's been a Walmart.
And so now 123 Walmart stores are shut down.
Liberals ought to be happy, just like they ought to be happy at the rising gas price.
They've been activating for it, advocating for it for who knows how long.
Speaking of Bill Clinton, who was on vacation in Martha's Vineyard this month, is now out in Hawaii and Kauai with Hillary and Chelsea.
This story from Ludzinzi royal village in Swaziland, 50,000 bare-breasted virgins danced for the king of Swaziland yesterday, vying to become his 13th wife.
King Muswati III, the last absolute monarch in sub-Saharan Africa, arrived dressed in a leopard skin loincloth to watch the ceremony called the Reed Dance, which he has used since 1999 to pluck brides from the ranks of girls dressed in little more than beaded mini skirts.
Surprised Clinton has not gone there to vacation.
Well, Clinton does appreciate diversity.
It'd be a great place to go and show your support and celebrate it.
But instead, he's in Kauai.
Here's John in Bolton, Connecticut.
Hello, John.
Welcome to the program.
Hi, Rush.
How are you?
Mega Dittos.
Thank you, sir, very much.
Rush, I was listening to you, and you were talking about Bush being out in California giving a speech, and the libs are going to be upset because he's not down in New Orleans right now.
But I remember last year during the debates when he was down there helping Claire Brush after the disaster down there at that time, that they complained that he was there too early and with too many entourage and coming to workstop, and things weren't getting done on time because he was there.
Oh, that's right.
That's right.
After those four hurricanes in Florida in 2004, and of course it was a re-election year, Bush and Jeb were on the front lines passing out bottled water to affected residents, and the Libs were all saying, how can he dare come down there during these rescue and relief efforts?
Doesn't he know he's only getting in the way?
He's just doing this for political opportunism and so forth.
You can't do anything right with these people.
So the best thing to do, folks, and this goes for all of us, is just say what you think to them and be who you are and do the right thing.
Because no matter what you do, they're going to rip you and be critical.
Here's Tim in Worcester, Massachusetts, your next turn.
Nice to have you with us.
Hi, Rush.
How are you?
Fine.
Thank you for taking my call.
I'll come right to the change of screen.
I didn't want me to talk too much about myself, but I think it's important for the audience to know I've been in the Army 20 years, National Guard officer.
I'm a logistics officer of an infantry brigade.
Here's the bottom line.
Even if you were to use National Guard troops, you're not going to necessarily use infantry guys.
There's combat support, combat service support, and combat.
Combat units are infantry, artillery, armor.
Combat support might be like your combat engineers.
Combat service support, those are the guys you're going to use anyway.
Those guys are water purification units.
Those guys are construction units.
Those guys are transportation units that I, as a logistics officer for my brigade, coordinate all the time because us infantry guys, we don't have that stuff.
So this idea that, oh, not all the troops are in the state, well, so what?
My state, Massachusetts, we don't have all of our troops here either.
It's not affecting us.
There are certain troops that do these kind of jobs.
I know very critical to us.
Our soldiers are actually practicing their job skills.
You are absolutely right.
And I'll tell you what it illustrates.
Here we have the media picking up this mantra that was started by kooks on left-wing blogs and websites, picking it up.
And what it just illustrates is in the old days, you always thought journalists knew more than you did.
And that's why you were reading what they wrote.
They're the ones that report, they go out and research, they find out things, they learn things.
It's becoming clear, and more and more so, that there's a lot of ignorance and way too much assumption and groupthink.
Because what Tim here says is absolutely right.
You know, just because you've got National Guard troops in Iraq means that we don't have enough here.
Well, what is the National Guard made up of?
And why is it constituted?
And if it's that important to Iraq, why has not every National Guardsman been sent over there and so forth?
No, no, no, no.
We can't dare to look at that because this is too rich an opportunity to cream George W. Bush, which is the overriding agenda on all this.
Even in the midst of this disaster, I'm sad to see it.
Predicted it yesterday, hoping I would be wrong, but knowing that I seldom am.
After this, the latest on Cindy Sheehan, she's going to lead protests against the Blue Angels air show in Brunswick, Maine, next month.
Sick woman.
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