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Sept. 13, 2005 - Rush Limbaugh Program
36:32
September 13, 2005, Tuesday, Hour #3
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Time Text
This is too funny.
I mean you just have to laugh at it.
CNN has a story, of course, on the president taking responsibility.
So, and I think you can get this by just going to CNN.com.
Uh what I did.
And up there in the address bar, it reads out www.cn.com slash hell freezes over.
That's how they have slugged their main page containing the story that Bush takes responsibility for the federal response to Hurricane Katrina.
Greetings, welcome back, Rush Limbaugh, the EIB network.
Still a lot to do in this hour.
So I'm going to be talking fast.
It means you need to listen fast.
Telephone number 800-282-2882.
Email addresses rush at EIBNet.com.
Here's the president at a joint press conference this morning with the Iraqi president, Jalal Talabani.
Unidentified reporter says, Mr. President, given what happened with Katrina, shouldn't Americans be concerned that their government isn't prepared to respond to another disaster or even a terrorist attack.
Katrina uh exposed serious problems in our response capability at all levels of government.
And to the extent that the federal government didn't fully do its job right, I take responsibility.
I want to know what went right and what went wrong.
I want to know how to better cooperate with state and local government.
To be able to answer that very question that you asked, are we capable of dealing with a severe attack or another severe storm?
And it's and that's a a very important question, and it's in our national interest that we find out exactly what went on and so that we can better respond.
So uh I I think some people on our side of the air gonna be happy he did this to try to end some of the uh partisanship over this and just get to the meat and potatoes of it and and uh actually fix things uh rather than pointing fingers at blame.
But uh i i look I don't think the president said this to gain favor with the left in this instance.
I think he's being serious and genuine uh on this.
You can't look at the pictures and and and say, hey, everything went fine.
Uh and it would serve no purpose for the guy at the top to start fingering the uh people down lower on the chain, uh even at the city and state level in uh in Louisiana.
Uh but he did say government at all levels, and to the extent the federal government didn't fully do its job, I take responsibility.
So uh remains to be seen what uh this does to reaction in the media and on the left, although I think it's fairly predictable.
The only question is when will it happen or how long will it take to get ginned up?
But uh I think this will be followed.
Well, okay, now you're gonna apologize for the mistakes in Iraq.
You're gonna take responsibility for that.
You're gonna take responsibility for this and this and this and this and this.
Rather than be appeased by it, they'll take it as they do every uh admission and try to capitalize on it.
So just a question of when.
But he did say that.
And again, it's funny on the CNN page is CNN.com slash hell freezes over.
Which of course the meaning is uh my gosh, I w hell's frozen over.
Uh uh Bush actually took responsibility for something.
I mean, it wouldn't put it up there if it didn't want people like me to notice it.
Let me let me hit reload and see if I've changed it here, folks.
Hang on, uh just a second.
Nope, still says it if you want to go there, just uh.
Yeah, it's the CNN.com homepage.
It's uh the www.cn.com.
Hit uh hit enter and bam o you'll see it ends up with the words hell freezes over.
Now Senator Biden, it was his turn to question Judge Roberts this morning, just before the recess.
We have uh four sound bites.
Biden started this way.
Justice Ginsburg answered the question.
She never wrote about it.
She answered it specifically.
She went on to say that, and let me quote, she said this is quoting Justice Ginsburg.
He goes on to say, history counsel caution and restraint.
And I agree with him.
He says, then this is referring to the majority opinion, but it does not counsel abandonment, abandonment of the notion that people have a right to certain fundamental decisions about their lives without interference of the state.
And what he next says is history doesn't counsel abandonment, nor does it require what the city is urging here, cutting off the family right at the first boundary, which is a nuclear family.
He rejects that.
I'm taking uh uh I'm taking a position I have uh all the time.
Then she goes on to say, uh-uh, she thinks your old boss was dead wrong.
She said so, and she said the majority was dead right.
Ginsburg rule, what do you think?
She never wrote about it.
Senator, I think uh nominees have to draw the line where they're comfortable.
You're not applying to Ginsburg.
Barton, let him finish.
I don't have much time.
But go ahead.
It's a matter of great importance uh not only to the to potential justices, but to judges.
We're sensitive to the need to maintain the independence and integrity of the court.
I think it's vitally important that nominees to use Justice Ginsburg's words.
No hints, no forecasts, no previews.
Uh Biden shot back with this.
That is not true, Judge.
Justice Ginsburg violated that rule, according to you.
Justice Ginburg said Ginsburg said precisely what position she agreed on.
Did she, in fact, somehow compromise herself when she answered that question?
She said no hints, no forecasts, no previews.
She specifically, in response to a question, whether or not she agreed with majority or minority opinion in Moore versus the City of Cleveland, said explicitly, I agree with the majority, and here's what the majority said, and I agree with it.
My question to you is do you agree with it or not?
Well, I do know, uh, Senator, that in numerous other cases, because I read the transcript, so did she took she took the position that she should not comment.
Justice O'Connor took the same position.
She was asked about a particular case.
She said it's not correct for me to comment.
Now, there's a reasonable.
Wait a minute, Senator Biden.
He's not finished as well.
But okay, go ahead.
No, it's not.
We're not going to be able to do that.
That's a bad word, sir.
That's it.
That's a bad word.
Okay.
So that's uh that's how that transpired.
Then Judge Roberts finally got a chance to answer and said this.
Senator, my answer is that the independence and integrity of the Supreme Court requires that nominees before this committee for a position on that court, not forecast, give predictions, give hints about how they might rule in cases that might be.
Did Justice Ginberg give a hint?
I'm not going to comment on the specific question.
I'm not going to comment on whether or not particular nominee adhered to the approach that they announced.
Well, let's make it clear.
She did not.
Let's stipulate.
She did not hear, adhere to the approach.
Well, so this is an attempt to trip Roberts up.
The Ginsburg rule, we knew that he was going to invoke it.
Hey, you didn't make her answer these specific questions.
The caveat here is this.
Ginsburg did answer questions about things that she had previously written when there was a record.
Now, Biden doesn't mention this, at least not in the bites that we have here.
But he she did offer to confirm things that she had written.
Uh on previous cases and so forth, which some would say violated her own rule, but uh in that case she was commenting on herself.
Uh no, we have here a uh a montage, it's a very short one, 17 seconds, back from 1993 at the Senate Judiciary Committee hearing for Ruth Bader Ginsburg and her confirmation.
And this is a montage of uh of Senator Burden, Senator Biden with uh uh Judge Ginsburg.
You'll hear a little music here at the beginning.
You not only have a right to choose what you will answer and not answer, but in my view, you should not answer.
I do not want to give here any hints.
I would not like to answer that question.
I cannot say anything more than I have already said.
And so you hear it's a totally different um uh tone with uh with Judge Ginsburg back in 1993 from Senator Biden, who said you not only have a right to choose what you will answer and not answer, but in my my view you shouldn't answer.
Uh now, granted, these hearings are partisan, and back when the you know a Democrat nominee, you have deference on the Democratic side, just as you have deference on the Republican side here uh to uh to Judge Roberts.
So I think that deference is a little it's comfortable to some people, and it's welcome, but uh I think the Republicans are perfectly entitled to ask questions about judicial philosophy.
Not specific cases, but judicial philosophy.
That's what our concern with the construction of the court is.
And to the extent you know Democrats want to be partisan and so forth, that's expected.
But the Republicans can do a little bit more than defense.
They can also get specific about judicial philosophy.
It's a key element to uh to all of this.
But anyway, it's just interesting to listen to the uh differences in Senator Biden uh when the nominee is of his party versus the opposite.
Quick timeout, folks.
We will be right back.
Don't go away.
And we move on undeterred and undaunted from the Limbaugh Institute for Advanced Conservative Studies.
Grab audio soundbite number one.
I want to get you people ready for when Chuck Schumer gets his turn behind the bazooka aimed at Judge Roberts.
Uh just a little comment here about Biden.
I don't think Biden laid a hand on Judge Roberts there.
The argument was about a case that at the time Roberts a memo that Roberts had written about a case, and at the time the case was unsettled.
Today it is.
And so the line of questioning was a little bit misleading, as though the case is still up for grabs and Roberts not wanting to answer it when it's already settled law.
But Roberts is is he's not going to talk about the future.
He's not, he's not going to uh uh get into any of these uh hypotheticals and tell these guys how he's going to uh going to rule.
So all in all, I mean I I I think that the biggest disappointment for the left today is that the hearings are boring, that they haven't scored any points.
When you've had Ted Kennedy out there acting like this guy's a mean-spirited racist and bigot.
And the last thing he comes off as mean-spirited.
Uh so once again, the credibility of the left's accusations is exposed as totally fraudulent, simply on the for a nation of pictures.
You go out there all day long, you say Judge Roberts Hate's blacks and he didn't know failure and he's a bigot and a racist and all this.
But you watch him and you don't see that.
You don't see any personality evidence of it.
You don't hear anything uh out of his mouth that gives credence to it.
So what you have is the same old playbook being It's like Jeff Sessions said yesterday in his opening statement, the uh the great senator from Alabama.
Senator Sessions told Judge Roberts, you know, you're just the victim of a form attack here.
The Democrats have a form, and they've just filled your name in on the blanks where there's a name to be placed.
You are a racist, you are a sexist, you're this, you're that, you're against civil rights, you're against women's rights, and uh you're gonna have to put up with it, Judge, because this is the way they play the game.
It's uh it's a form uh uh criticism and uh form critique, and it's just your name, it happens to be filled out on the form today.
And that's pretty much true.
It's the same old tired, worn-out allegations from a long-ago prepared Democrat handbook that's not been modernized nor updated.
But to get you ready for Chuck Schumer.
I mentioned earlier in the program that Senator Schumer used the first person 49 times in his opening statement yesterday.
Uh and it if if if I were some of you liberals out there, if I were a leftist, and I was really concerned about this guy, this guy Roberts, we don't know anything about him.
This guy doesn't have much of a record.
We haven't been able to find out a whole lot about him.
Wouldn't you be saying to people like Schumer and Kennedy, just shut up.
Ask the guy your questions and let him talk.
He's not gonna trip himself up if you don't let him talk.
Same thing to be said, Chuck, just shut up.
Dick Turbin, shut up.
Ask your question.
Brevity is the soul of wit, and let the guy go on and on and on and on and his answer.
And if he won't, uh then try to draw him out even more.
But as long as these guys sit there and pontificate and speechify.
And you know what they're doing?
What they're actually acting as inquisitors and uh as though they're speaking to the condemned.
And so these questions take the form of accusations.
And when the witness seeks to respond to the accusation, the the technique is these are your words.
You're denying it here, sitting here before me.
Senator, you're misquoting my words.
You're denying it.
I'm sure the liberals would want their guys just to shut up and let this guy speak, because the less he speaks.
The less chance there is to learn who he is, and the less opportunity they have for this guy to trip himself up.
Will this happen?
It's doubtful.
Here is a montage of Senator Schumer's opening statement yesterday.
I joined my colleagues.
We have had I cannot my teenage daughter.
We senators, our own our obligation to me, my vote upon us, and we we should I disagree.
To me, I began then I was alone.
I will one of us, however, we only we have and we it is our power we so for me I will we do not why I met why I gave we'd have I have no doubt I have no doubt I believe before us I hope help us let me be clear.
I know.
I don't mirror mine.
While you told me when we had my aversion, we don't want my vote.
We can, once we convince me, I'll be able, and I will not.
I want, I want, I look forward to hearing your testimony.
There won't be much.
There won't be much of his testimony.
That's a montage.
We didn't double or triple anything.
Each of those...
personal pronoun references um first person references were uh uh unique and individual.
Uh let's see who are gonna let's go to Donna in uh in South Windsor in Connecticut.
Hi, Dana Well Donna, welcome to the program.
Good afternoon, Mr. Limbaugh.
Um, you know, I just wanted to um share a couple of of thoughts and then ask you for your um your take on them, where you think my my thinking might be going off the rails or where it might be right.
Uh I'm foolish and naive enough.
Well, I'm not foolish or naive enough to believe in any of this, but certainly in an ideal world, one would hope that you could just not be a liberal or a democrat or a Republican or a Democrat or a liberal or uh um conservative, and just do what's right.
And I have to say that truly on a number of occasions I feel like you've vacillated back and forth between the two, depending on the circumstances, depending on what would be the easiest or most political politically correct thing to say.
So forgive me for that if it's two pointed.
But essentially what I see with um President Bush when I look at what he has done or not done in uh New Orleans, and really a lot of times in a lot of places, and I wouldn't just use this as for this case specifically, but as a general method of operating from what I see, is that um he's moved to action either in front of the cameras or more more likely behind the cameras when what he's doing or not doing is affecting what he has categorically called his base.
And um your screener asked me to define that, and I I'm certainly confident that you can um better do that than I can.
And the second thing is that um being that there's nothing going on down in these areas that is going to significantly impact his base, um he's not really moved to act that much.
And secondly, um the fact that when you consider that Texas has the lowest per capita spending by its government, and I believe that um Governor Bush was instrumental in that when he was the governor of the state of Texas, that we're also seeing his general philosophy about how it is that the government does or does not intercede with assistance or lack of assistance, and also the whole issue of whether or not uh this person is responsible or that person is responsible.
There's all those arguments can really turn on a dime, and that's the part that I have an issue with when I, you know, listen to some of your commentaries on these things.
So uh, you know, I'd like to just hang up and and ask you what your perspectives are in relation to those comments.
Thanks very much for taking the Oh, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, oh, okay.
I'm not getting away that easily.
No, no, no, no.
I want to thank you, Mrs. Schumer, for the call.
Uh but but the the uh uh Mr. Limbaugh, no, no, no.
Well, I I I just have a simple question.
What is the question?
I'm simply making a comment that I think that uh uh let me be more succinct.
My comment is that President Bush, what he did or did not do is significantly influenced by what exists in these areas in relation to the effect on his base.
This is when we see President Bush act.
I also know that I can never depend on what President Bush says, but I must watch what President Bush does, not necessarily in front of the cameras, but just as much behind the cameras.
So I'm simply a comment about which I was asking for your reflections because certainly you have a lot more um uh insight into some of these things than do I. And and that was what I wanted to share with you.
And also the fact that this would be pretty consistent with President Bush's and also Governor Bush's um assessment of what the proper role of government is.
Again reflecting on the fact that Texas had one of the lowest per capita spending um uh levels of all of the fifty states and the name is Donna Oh I'm sorry I thought you were Mrs. Schumer for a minute.
No that's not uh Donna can you hang on I'm not I I need to I need to ask you a couple more questions we got to go to a break.
Can you hang on?
Sure.
Okay, great.
Thank you.
Thank you very very much.
And welcome back folks Rush Limbaugh here on the Excellence in Broadcasting Network.
Donna are you still with me there?
Yes I am okay great hang on just a second because I've got a I gotta pass something off I just I just found something here on the internet and I just showed the uh the the Ditto Cam audience the picture up close.
We're gonna post this right now at Rushlimbaugh.com.
You have to see this folks it's a picture that Reuters is running with their latest John Roberts story.
It and and I want to share with you the caption to the picture.
Supreme Court Justice nominee John Roberts listens to a question from Senator Joe Biden during the second day of his confirmation hearing on Capitol Hill.
Now here again is that picture it is it is just it's a close up from the bottom of his nose to his eyebrows with his eyes as wide open as humanly possible as though he has just been scared out of his wits it is just it's a cropped picture and it is it is it just it's just so obvious it's it's hilarious.
And so I told Coco I said put this up there now and I haven't gotten the word that he's got it posted but he will soon so you can keep checking in at Rush Limbaugh.com you can see it.
All right now Donna back to you in South Windsor, Connecticut I'm really glad you called I would love to have answered your question in the last break but uh we ran out of time.
you didn't quite give me time to answer.
And I'm not sure that I still understand the question, and I want to understand the question.
Is it safe to say that you wish, that you said, that you wish people would stop being Republicans and Democrats and conservatives and liberals and just deal with this honestly and factually?
And that, hang on, and that I don't do that enough, and you know that I can, and you wish I would, and your basic premise here is that Bush did not respond as quickly as he might have and would have if it had been somewhere other than New
Orleans, because New Orleans is not his political base, and I guess therefore he didn't really have as much concern about those people as he would have, say, if the hurricane had hit somewhere where his base was.
Well, you're suggesting in some of your comments that race is an issue, or other people are suggesting that race is an issue.
And I would suggest that it perhaps isn't so much much as uh uh an issue of race because I don't think that that's terribly relevant to President Bush because the black vote for example is a relatively small number and it's not a vote that he gets anyway.
It's it's kind of irrelevant to President Bush in my opinion.
Okay so what is relevant the fact that they're not raised is a big issue in this New Orleans thing and I don't think that that's it.
I think that it was neglected but not because of race just because they're they're not important whether they're black, white or purple, they're not important.
They're not part of his base.
And we know how loyal President Bush is to his base.
We don't see that in front of the camera.
We don't see that on the first page of the newspaper as often as we do uh after we've done a lot of digging and a lot of a lot of you know I I I have to tell you I uh I would dispute both assertions one that Bush is loyal to his base and B that Bush doesn't have as much concern for the people in New Orleans because they're not his base.
Based on what would you dispute that based on George W. Bush that I know as a human being.
Well based on what what you you you wouldn't You wouldn't think that the people that died in the World Trade Center were his base either.
I mean, that's liberal New York and and uh, you know, we we we dug our heels in and worked fast there.
Uh there's a lot of there's a lot of uh Bush's base in Mississippi, uh uh but he wasn't in Mississippi any sooner than he was in New Orleans.
Uh we both know that President Bush has a very good um analyst and he knows uh um that it's very important to present a certain picture, a certain image, say certain words because the average consuming public is going to get their ten cent their ten second snip from the news and it will look good.
The thing that that puzzles me what what you're saying, I guess now it's Carl Rove's fault that he's the analyst and he tells Bush where to go, where not to go because the base is there or the base is not there.
I I uh i the the pictures that we have seen, Donna are much longer than ten seconds, and the pictures here do not portray George Bush in a positive light at all.
If he's had somebody analyz this and advising him, they have blown it big time.
That's I don't think I don't think your idea about about the uh the motivation or lack of it in this case has anything to do with what you it has nothing to do with politics.
You know, I agree with you.
I think they have blown it big time, and I think that at right now what we're seeing is an attempt to to uh mend the fences.
Now we we have um all the things that oh no, hold hold let's stay on one thing.
I mean the the amends.
He's not trying to m he's not try.
See, this is you you just said you wished everybody would stop looking at some political terms and yet you you persist in assuming that Bush is doing everything out of a political motivation.
Right.
I do believe that he's strongly motivated for political gain.
Obviously, would you not say that that's a kind of a categorical fact relative to the other.
Well, if you t if if you tell me where he has gained politically from this, then I'll grant your point.
But he hasn't gained a shred.
He hasn't gained anything politically from this.
No, he hasn't gained politically, and I don't think that he anticipated things to turn out the way they they have turned out, and now it didn't political kind of you're thinking this through way way too intricately, Donna.
I don't think you you yes, you are.
You're you you while you you say you know, this is this is this is interesting.
You say that you don't want any political calculations in this or political opinions or politically based assumptions, and yet all of yours are.
I say it's you're you're the everything that you say Bush is doing is oriented and motivated by politics.
And I I'm telling you that you can't take politics out of the equation of anything a president does, but to say it's the number one motivation, you're ignoring the the the scale of this disaster, the scope of this disaster, the timeline of this disaster.
You're you you you ha you you just can't take what you're looking at now and assign all kinds of political motivations to things.
I mean, uh the the where where the president is concerned.
If you want to do that, then we gotta start doing it with the mayor, and we gotta start doing it with the governor.
We have to start doing it with everybody involved.
Do you want to do that?
Well, see, I think this is a little disingenuous because in the midst of all this, there are lots of ways that you can cast a light on different uh on different um things, like you can be distracting with uh using the Supreme Court nomination, you can be distracting by saying that this is an issue of race when in fact I don't think it is.
I think it's just a matter of these people not mattering one way or another.
Um you can be distracting uh see Donna, wait a sec.
How in the world look at look at how many people have been rescued, look at all the money that's been donated, look at all of the aid that has been forthcoming.
How can the world can you say that you think these people don't matter to anybody?
The people that that th th I'll tell you who they don't matter to is the mayor and the governor.
They're the ones that allowed these people to wallow in these circumstances before the hurricane hit.
And they're the ones that didn't evacuate these people in time.
They're the ones that didn't execute their own plan.
They're the ones that withheld aid, had the that the uh uh Red Cross had ready to go.
They're the one you i we have this is a massive recovery effort.
The death toll is much, much, much, much lower than the that the doomsayers were saying.
We've got hotels open for business.
We're draining the water out of New Orleans, we've rebuilt the levees, we're doing everything that we can to rebuild the city.
How in the world can you sit there and say that nobody cares?
To say that one person is not c to say that one person has some culpability does not mean to say that another does not.
Because the mayor or the governor did or didn't do what they should or shouldn't have done does not exonerate or um or put someone else on a pedestal.
You need to talk about each one of these individually.
And because the mayor is bad, does not I'm doing that.
And every time I bring it up, you want to avoid it and you want to stay focused on Bush.
In as simple a language as you can, I want you to tell me what you think Bush thought when he hur saw the hurricane going into into this area.
I want you to tell tell me what you thought he told people to do about it.
I want you to tell me what you thought he did after he saw the damage.
I want you to tell me what you thought that he was thinking uh when these days went by.
I want you to tell me what you think George Bush is a human being was seeing and doing in his reactions while all this was taking place.
Okay.
Um I think I'll take a lesson from our um Supreme Court um justice nominee and suggest that I cannot presume to know the answers to those questions.
The whole call has been presuming the answer to those questions.
I would just generally your whole call has presumed to know everything George Bush did and why.
In a general now when I ask you specifics of the thoughts in the mind of a human being, oh no, I'm not gonna go there, I can't predict things.
I may uh have to deal with this later on a Supreme Court.
May I respond?
Feel free.
I mean, give it a shot.
Okay.
I would say in a general sense, which is I think the closest that I could certainly come to answering your question, in a general sense, what I have seen from President Bush while he's been in the White House is and maybe that's maybe oversimplifying, would you suggest perhaps it is?
But generally when I see what President Bush does, and I voted for this man, let me tell you that.
When I see what he does, he does what will work for him.
He does what is good for him.
He says a completely different thing.
He says what sounds good and he does what he wants to do, and there is a disconnect between those two things.
And you know as well as I do, Rush, that if you look behind the cameras and you look behind the statements and all of the things that you suggest that other people do, that President Bush is doing that as well.
And can I just make one other comment?
On I have to say that at some point in time, I remember hearing you say something, and maybe you were kidding, I don't know, because I don't listen to you every single day.
But at some point in time you had said on, you know, I my job here is to entertain.
Was was that joking?
Because I begin to I begin to come to the conclusion that that that's where you're going with your program.
Um that it's supposed to be some sort of an entertainment as it I I so wish, Rush, that when you were on the okay, let me look look at I know what I said and I know where my syllables went, so let me repeat them.
Uh I have said on many occasions that yes, I am an entertainer, and I'm proud to be an entertainer.
You have to be an entertainer in a media to attract an audience.
I'm also, we do things on this program that are not done anywhere else.
We combine entertainment with serious discussion, credibility on both sides.
What I really do, Donna, is get up every day.
I have my set of beliefs, I have my core principles, and I get up every day, and when I see those principles being attacked, and when I see the people who also in leadership positions hold those same principles attacked, I defend.
And that's what I do.
I defend the things that I deeply care about and believe in, particularly the traditions and institutions that have made the country great that many in this country are trying to tear down.
I also voted for President Bush, and I realized that there is a posse made up of the liberal media and the Democratic Party out to destroy him.
Yes, I'm going to defend him when I see these specious attacks.
I think this whole business of the attack on President Bush or the hurricane is concerned is nothing more than Cindy Sheehan redoing.
Redone nothing more than Bill Burkett and the and all of these things, the Democrats, the National Guard story, it's just the latest in a long line of attempts to destroy George W. Bush.
And it's working on people like you.
But your your problem is you you you you can't come to a firm conclusion on anything.
You're always going to give yourself an out as you end up talking about so, well, so it could be this way, it could be that way.
I think it's this way, but it could be that way.
And I don't know.
I'll give it a possibility you could be right about that, but I don't know.
What I really think is, I don't know.
And you know, uh it it it it's uh it's it's uh it's an interesting thing and it's an illuminating thing to listen to you because you while you claim you don't have enough direct knowledge, you know it all.
You've got it all figured out.
Bush only does things that benefit him.
Like letting Ted Kennedy write the education bill.
Like working with Democrats on selecting judicial nominees to the Supreme Court.
Uh you I think you're typical in in uh in in a lot of ways, and one of them is you totally do not understand who George Bush is a man.
You don't understand who he is as a human being.
You can't help but look at him politically.
You assign your own prejudice about all politicians to Bush without examining Bush individually and personally, and you come with these conclusions that everything he's doing is to help himself, and he doesn't care about anybody else.
That's from a template belief that the left has that conservatives are you know don't have empathy, don't care about people, only care about themselves.
It's the same old thing.
Uh but but your contention that Bush didn't go to New Orleans because they're not his base is just flat out absurd, if you want my answer.
It is flat out absurd.
Bush was begging that governor on the Sunday before the hurricane hit to get people out of there and to declare an emergency.
Bush was on the phone with her.
They were thinking about sending the military in because the state and local people weren't acting fast enough.
And that's because George Bush cares.
He cares about individuals and human beings, and for you to think that he doesn't is a sign that you haven't taken enough time to understand human decency when you see it.
You are clouded in seeing human decency because all you see is what you think is a political animal as it's been told to you by whoever it is in the media you believe.
Uh quick timeout, folks.
Back after this.
Stay with us.
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And people wonder why the divorce rate is so high.
Uh Joshua in Peoria, welcome to the EIB network.
Hello.
Yes, sir, Megadinos from Peori, Illinois.
I wanted to comment real quickly on Bush's apology.
Uh I I think that the wording of the apology is being overlooked and and actually the brilliance of it.
Uh, despite the war cry that it is entirely his fault that he was on vacation and was slow to respond, he comes out and apologizes for the federal government.
Uh speci you know, not his own office and not himself.
He apologizes for entities like FEMA.
And I think he does that with the recognition that we all have that the majority of this blame does in fact lie with the state and local governments.
Yeah, it is very carefully worded.
But you should note that that's that somehow is being missed by those in the mainstream media, because they're so excited.
They think they finally forced Bush into admitting a mistake.
I think they finally forced Bush into accepting responsibility.
But what Bush did do was accept responsibility for what the federal government's role here was.
But he did not take full responsibility for all that went wrong down there.
You're absolutely right about that.
And this is something we're gonna have to keep reminding people about for um uh many days here as the uh as the spin on this gins up.
Here's Judy in Bloomfield, Connecticut.
Welcome, Judy, nice to have you with us.
Hi, listen, I just left South Windsor and had to get home as quickly as I could to to to respond to Donna's comment.
Implicit in everything she said was that President Bush has no morality, that he would actually allow people to die.
Because they didn't matter to him.
For whatever reason, because they weren't his base, because they weren't his his his party, whatever, and I think that's an absolute outrage that someone would say that.
This is a man who comes from a family for whom public service and care of the fellow, uh a fellow human being is paramount.
This is a man who has spent most of his political.
Not in her worldview.
In her worldview, public service for the Bushes is access to oil and uh Halliburton and that sort of stuff.
Well, you know, uh it to say, well, I think we ought to speak facts and then to simply go after him and say that he would let someone die because they could be of no advantage to him.
I think that was just I think that was really, really awful.
And I think that's what I'm saying.
What's what they think look at it's one of the reasons I you know let her talk.
I didn't have a chance to get a word in uh edgewise anyway.
I have experience with this as a former husband.
But uh I'm telling you, this is what they think.
This it is, it is what they think.
And uh it's patently absurd.
Uh folks, it's just patently absurd, but that's how they uh that's how they've constructed things.
At any rate, Judy, I appreciate the call.
Uh You have redeemed Connecticut today, in my view.
Back here in just a second.
The Reuters picture of John Roberts is now posted at rushlinbod.com.
You have to see it complete with the caption they're running with it.
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