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Sept. 20, 2005 - Rush Limbaugh Program
36:44
September 20, 2005, Tuesday, Hour #1
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Time Text
Welcome to today's edition of the Rush 24-7 podcast.
Well, if this doesn't take the cake, have you heard about this?
The United Nations has issued a report saying that Cuba has an effective evacuation scheme in the event of a hurricane.
And it's being reported on CNN, of course.
There are two reasons why CNN, well, two reasons why the United Nations would say that Cuba has a great evacuation scheme.
Two reasons why Cuba has an evacuation.
Actually, three.
One would be Florida.
Number two, the United Nations loves communist dictators.
And number three, there are few homes left in Cuba to destroy anyway.
Castro's economy has already done that.
You can't destroy what's already been destroyed.
So you evacuate nothing.
You return to nothing.
You've got a great evacuation plan.
It's unbelievable.
Greetings and welcome, folks.
Great to have you with us.
It's the Excellence in Broadcasting Network and Il Rushball, firmly ensconced as America's anchorman behind the golden EIB microphone here.
Looking forward to talking to you today.
Telephone number, 800-282-2882.
Email address, rush at EIBnet.com.
Now, many of you have expressed concern over the amount of spending that might take place here in the aftermath, the rebuilding of Hurricane Katrina.
And I've told you, well, I don't want to repeat the whole thing, but I mentioned to you that I heard something a little different in the president's speech.
I heard on Thursday night.
I heard that the president was talking about, if you read between the lines, okay, look, we've tried it your way for 60 years.
Now we're going to try it our way.
Well, yesterday at the White House press briefing, a reporter, John Roberts of CBS.
Oh, speaking of that, have you heard that Dan Rather broke down in tears again?
This time he was at Fordham University making his speech to journalism students, and he decried, he lamented, he whined about the climate of fear that exists in newsrooms today.
The climate of fear that exists in newsrooms today.
I will, of course, have details on this as the program unfolds today.
Anyway, it was John Roberts at the White House press briefing yesterday talking and asking questions to Scott McClellan.
And Roberts said, was the president disappointed that President Clinton made those comments at this particular time, particularly given the fact that President Clinton seemed to be looking ahead to the 2008 elections?
I think it's important to look at the policies, and we're glad to talk about the policies.
I mean, one question you have to come back to is, do we continue to move forward on failed policies of the past that have left too many behind?
Or do we think in new and bold ways to help all Americans?
And this president has thought in new and bold ways and actually acted, and we are making great progress to do so.
Another rush.
See, I told you so.
The president spokesman here is essentially saying the same thing I told you about the president's speech.
There are going to be new bold policies here.
We're not going to do the same old things that we've done in the past, those policies that have left too many behind.
I will say this, folks, let me just, one thing I did forget to mention yesterday that the president said on Thursday that did upset me.
And it sort of reminded me of a moment with Jack Kemp in a vice presidential debate back in 1996.
Gore, if you remember, praised Kemp as one conservative who's not a racist, sexist, bigot homophobe.
And Kemp said, thank you.
Mr. Vice President, I appreciate that.
rather than destroying the whole premise of the thing.
The president in his speech on Thursday night said this, this all of us saw on television, there is also some deep persistent poverty in this region as well, and that poverty has roots in a history of racial discrimination, which cuts off generations from the opportunity of America.
We have a duty to confront this poverty with bold action.
That's the one thing in the speech that I cringed at.
And that was assessing the roots of poverty as being found in racial discrimination.
Not down there, not in New Orleans.
You cannot say that racial discrimination had anything to do with the poverty of New Orleans.
It had everything to do with the fact that it's a failed welfare state.
It's a failed entitlement mentality.
It's a failed attempt at the liberal utopia down there for at least 60 years.
Now, I don't expect the president to get into an intellectual exchange or even try to win an intellectual argument in the speech on Thursday night.
I mean, had he said to the people of Louisiana, you have been failed by 60 years of liberal, I would have loved it.
Don't misunderstand.
I would have loved it.
And were I giving the speech, I would have said the same thing.
I would have said that.
But I don't expect the president to get into any kind of an intellectual argument with people in the midst of that speech.
And giving him the benefit of the doubt, I think perhaps it might have been the first time that some of those evacuees had really watched any serious media.
And some of those evacuees, most of them were very, very favorably disposed toward the president's comments.
I think he had to get their attention and he had to talk their language and then talk about new policies and so forth.
He's going to let action speak rather than words.
That's my hope.
That's my hope.
He's going to let action speak rather than words here in rebuilding the place down there.
But I cringed at that, and I should have mentioned this yesterday because it was something that just, oh no, can we get past this?
Especially when it comes to this region of the country.
Now, as to more sea, I told you so's, the Washington Post today headline, Bush proposes vouchers for all displaced students.
Under President Bush's plan to cover most of the cost of educating students displaced by Hurricane Katrina, parents could control or enroll their children in a private or religious scruple this year at federal expense, even if they had gone to public schools back home.
The administration made this official yesterday in proposing $1.9 billion in aid for kindergartners through 12th graders whose scruels were ruined by the storm.
The Education Secretary Margaret Spellings originally said the administration was setting aside $488 million for private scruple tuition and other help.
But yesterday, as new fine print of the proposal emerged, the White House and Education Department spokesman both confirmed that the government payment, as much as $7,500 per child, would be given for a year to any displaced family that now prefers an alternative to public schools.
Parents may choose to send children to private schools.
They may not, but this is their choice, said Susan Aspie, the Education Department spokeswoman.
Well, Hosanna, this is exactly the kind of thing that I was hoping for, exactly the kind of thing that I thought the president meant.
And you know the left isn't going to like this at all.
And by the way, before you cringe at this $7,500 per child, understand that in many states, we're spending $12,000 and $15,000 per child in public school systems, New Jersey, New York, and a whole bunch of places.
We're spending much more than $7,500 per child every year in public education.
Now, this $7,500 is essentially a voucher, and the parents can take it and send their kid to whatever school they want with this money.
This is fabulous.
Senator Edward Kennedy, a ranking Democrat on the Senate's Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee, said instead of reopening ideological battles, we ought to be focused on reopening schools and getting people the help they need.
Typical comment.
Ning, ning, ning, ning, ying.
Wine, Moan, because Senator Kennedy knows that the last thing that needs to happen in this whole recovery is a demonstration of the worth and value and success of conservative policies in this area.
It's a little-known fact, maybe a well-kept secret, that anytime a philanthropist comes up and offers this kind of aid to parents who want to send their kids to the school of their choice, the vast majority of parents who step forward to get those grants are African-American parents.
They know the score.
They know the circumstances of the schools they have to send their kids to.
And I think it's fabulous.
Here's Senator Kennedy, and he's not the first Democrat worrying about now the ideology of the recovery.
So, you know, keep your hats on here, folks.
It looks like a half-decent start to a lot of this.
We're going to keep our eyes on it.
The media now beginning once again to analyze and attack itself.
This time, ABC taking CNN to task over the numbers of children who have not been united with their families.
ABC says it's much, less a problem than CNN continues to report.
We'll be back.
Details coming up.
Stay with us.
I don't know if this is a new trend or not, but I know that it's the second time I know of it it's happened when ABC went after Fox over Paula Abdul and what is that show, American Idol.
Now, ABC's Good Morning America is going after CNN.
Charlie Gibson today says, we're going to start this half hour with a reality check.
Thousands of children were reported missing in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, but those reports may not be reflective of the reality.
David Muir is here with some good news.
Their images are posted on the internet and play repeatedly on cable television.
Children still missing.
But authorities in Louisiana are now concerned the public is getting the wrong message.
The image is that there are these thousands of children in Louisiana that are missing, and that is just not the case.
In fact, in Louisiana and Texas, state authorities say there are now fewer than a dozen children who remain in shelters on their own.
So why the discrepancy?
Often we have a mother that got out with the child or a grandmother that got out with the child and maybe mom doesn't know grandmother has the child.
The majority of the children labeled as missing are in fact with loved ones who've yet to get the word out that they're okay.
Now you say, well, what was the attack on CNN?
Well, cable television and the voice you heard children are missing was Wolf Blitzer of CNN.
And in fact, if you turn on CNN, they have a nonstop graphic up flashing different pictures of missing children and the phone number to call if you can unite these families.
But this is, again, it's unusual to see this, one network going after another, but it's heartwarming to see folks.
I knew this would start.
All it took was just one network tipping the iceberg, as it were.
And let's hope we get more of this, if for no other reason than just the fun of it.
Got an interesting Bill Salmon story today in the Washington Times.
And by the way, we will have the DittoCam later on today.
If you sit there and be patient, if you're a subscriber at rushlimbaugh.com, I will be turning it on later today.
The latest in a long line of disputes among local, state, and federal officials over Hurricane Katrina was diffused yesterday when New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagan called off reopening the city, although he cited another storm for his capitulation rather than federal officials' litany of concerns.
The various levels of government have disagreed over when to call in federal troops, whether the entire operation should be federalized.
They've also clashed over when and how to evacuate New Orleans and when to let residents return.
President Bush said yesterday, we share the goal of the mayor, but we have concerns that Nagan was allowing residents to return.
The mayor's got this dream about having a city up and running, and we share that dream, the president said.
But we also want to be realistic about some of the hurdles and the obstacles that we all confront in repopulating New Orleans.
The obstacles include the possibility of additional flooding from tropical storm now Hurricane Arita and the lack of electricity, drinking water, and sewage facilities.
Yesterday, the Coast Guard Vice Admiral Thad Allen said that it might be as much as a week before residents could return safely.
So Nagan starts out the day yesterday and says, okay, everybody, come back in and give zip codes that if you live in, you can get back into those zip codes.
Later in the day, Nagan began reassessing the timing of his plan because of, he said, Hurricane Rita, Vandenhoeville, and other external factors.
But at the end of the day, he reversed himself, agreeing with President Bush and Admiral Allen that it was too soon and too unsafe for residents to return.
Now, the rift yesterday was the latest in a series of high-profile disagreements among federal, state, and local officials about how to handle a hurricane and the subsequent flooding of New Orleans.
The discord began August 27th when President Bush asked the governor, Kathleen Blanco, to order an evacuation.
She didn't issue the order until August 28th, the day before Hurricane Katrina made landfall.
She also neglected to ask the president for federal troops when she wrote him a letter on August 27th and when she spoke with him on August 29th.
She had not made the request even on August 31st when she gave a series of TV interviews in Baton Rouge.
And that's when she was overheard telling her press secretary, I really need to call for the military.
I should have started that in the first call.
Later that day, she asked the White House for troops, which were dispatched to assist the Louisiana National Guard forces.
And then Governor Blanco hesitated again when she met September 2nd with Mr. Bush, who offered to have the federal government take over the chaotic evacuation.
She said she needed 24 hours to make a decision and ultimately rejected the federal offer.
Mrs. Blanco refused to enforce the order of Mayor Nagan.
He later told CNN that Mrs. Blanco and Mr. Bush needed to get in sync, but within days, Mr. Nagan and Mrs. Blanco were feuding with each other over whether New Orleans residents should be ordered to leave their homes.
Nagan said on September 6th, my mandatory evacuation is still in effect.
But the governor again refused to enforce the order, saying she needed more time for scientists to test the toxicity of floodwaters.
So, you know, we're looking back now.
This is why the Democrats, if they insist on some sort of commission here to investigate this, are ultimately not going to like what it turns up.
And I got an email today from somebody who said, you know, Rush, is it just me or when I see Governor Jeb Bush warning Floridians about the approaching Hurricane Rita?
And when I see Haley Barber on television for Mississippi, and when I see the governor of Texas, is it me or is it something about seeing a man who's acting decisive that makes me feel a little bit more comfortable than when I watch this bumbling Kathleen Blanco not know what to do when?
And so, well, I don't know if it's just the person writing the email.
The person writing the email said, is it just me?
Is it the sight of a man that's making me feel more comfortable?
And the sight of a woman running the show that's not?
And I don't know what's in the person's head, but there's clearly a major difference whenever you see Jeb or Haley or anybody else, any other governor that has experience in these kind of things versus some of these local officials in New Orleans who literally are clueless.
They are still clueless.
Listen, let's go back to the audio soundtrack, soundbites.
It's audio soundbite number two and three here.
Maybe number four if we can squeeze it in.
This is Ray School Bus Nagan, and he's on CNN's American Morning today.
And Miles O'Brien says to him, so you won't be relying on buses or mass transportation of any kind.
In other words, if people can't evacuate themselves, you don't.
In fact, not only did he rescind his order to move back in, he's telling them to leave again.
And so Miles O'Brien's question, so you're not going to be relying on buses or mass transportation of any kind.
In other words, if people can't evacuate themselves, you don't want them here.
Well, I'm not saying that.
We have buses available also, but the majority of the people that are here will be a much more mobile population.
Have you updated specifically your evacuation plan, though?
Well, we have updates.
We have buses that are available for this round of evacuations.
Yes, sir.
Well, let's go back to September the 2nd.
This is on WWL Radio in New Orleans.
Ray Schoolbus Nagan called into the host, Garland Robinette.
And Robinette said, what do you need right now to get control of this situation, School Bus?
I need reinforcements.
I need troops, man.
I need 500 buses, man.
They were talking about getting public school bus drivers to come down here and bus people out of here.
I'm like, you've got to be kidding me.
This is a national disaster.
Get every doggone Greyhound bus line in the country and get that moving to New Orleans.
This is the famous phone call to WWL in New Orleans, while those school buses were soon thereafter pictured as flooded.
And that's when Mayor School Bus Nagan said, well, you know, we didn't have the drivers.
The drivers had already evacuated.
Ten days later, this is where he says that the problem wasn't the buses.
He's on NBC's Tim Russert.
Russert asks him about the pictures of those buses.
We did the things that we thought were best based upon the information that we had.
Sure, there was lots of buses out there.
But guess what?
You can't find drivers that would stay behind with a Category 5 hurricane pending down on New Orleans.
We barely got enough drivers to move people on Saturday and Sunday to move them to the Superdome.
We barely had enough drivers for that.
So sure, we had the assets, but the drivers just weren't available.
Right.
But now, I don't know where we are with the buses now.
Apparently, the buses, we got the assets now, but I really don't know.
People are being told one minute to come back to New Orleans and the next minute they're being told to leave New Orleans.
It is, as I've been telling you, as time goes on, folks, the folly of incompetence at a local level down there is becoming more and more obvious, is it not?
You're listening to Rush Limbaugh on the Excellence in Podcasting Network.
Gladly, ladies and gentlemen, making the complex understandable.
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Hearing about John Kerry's vicious slime attack on President Bush last Thursday night, turns out that John Kerry did not even see the speech.
Congressional critics of George W. Bush's initial response to Hurricane Katrina were eager to turn on their TV sets last Thursday night when the president delivered one of the most important speeches of his presidency.
This is from Inside the Beltway in the Washington Times.
At the same time, hundreds of miles away in Washington, 2004 Democratic presidential nominee John Kerry arrived at a crowded Cafe Milano in Georgetown, took off his suit jacket, sat down in a shirt-sleeve dinner with three unidentified men.
The senator arrived at Cafe Milano about 7.30.
A network news executive in Washington, who was seated nearby, tells inside the beltway.
Senator Kerry's dinner lasted through the president's speech, and due to his positioning at the table, his back was to the bar television set throughout the entire speech.
He never turned around once during the president's speech.
So Bush's speech ends about 9.25.
Lo and behold, when he was still seated at the table wiping squid from his chin, that's what calamari is for those of you in Rio Linda.
And if you don't know what squid is, go Google it.
While he's sitting there wiping squid from his chin, Mr. Kerry responded to the president's address with a statement of his own that was issued at 9.54.
And this is the famous statement where Kerry said, leadership isn't a speech.
You're a toll-free number.
Leadership is getting the job done.
No American doubts that New Orleans will rise again.
They doubt the competence and commitment of this administration.
Americans want to know that their government will be there when it counts with leadership that keeps them safe, not speeches in the aftermath to explain away the inexcusable.
This is from a guy eating squid while the president's making the speech.
Now, I know there are advanced copies of the speech that go out.
The media gets them, and I'm sure that they were dispersed all over Washington.
And Kerry was able to write his statement, or somebody in his office able to write his statement for him and put it out when the Bush speech ended.
But Kerry's mistake, he's seen eating squid, calamari, wiping it off of his chin at the same time his statement goes out.
And his statement talks about Americans want to know that their government will be there when it counts with leadership.
And of course, Kerry wants to be president.
He's going to run again.
So there he is eating in a restaurant while he puts his statement out.
It's just, it's classic, classic John Kerry.
You put a classic of all the libs.
You put a bag of excrement out there in front of them, and they will step in it.
Let's go to the phones.
Brooklyn and Cheryl, you're next or first, I should say.
Great to have you on the program and welcome.
Yes, good afternoon.
I just want to talk for a minute about the incompetence of Ray Nagan and my anger at the fact that this man is continually getting a pass.
Let me just say this first.
I happen to be black.
I happen to be a Republican and I happen to live in Brooklyn.
So if anybody has a problem with what I'm about to say, you know, don't hold, don't think that I'm some, you know, right-wing, you know, white person from Kansas.
I'm an African-American.
And as an African-American, I see clearly the incompetence that he has exhibited from day one.
Not only the incompetence, but the complete, his complete refusal to take any degree of responsibility ever for what has gone on, even though as far as I'm concerned, he's got blood on his hands.
And now he's flip-flopping, telling people to come home.
Yes, come home.
I'm watching people being interviewed this morning who actually made the trek back to New Orleans because of what he said.
Now they've got to turn around and leave again.
You know, if this were a white elected official, the press and everybody else would be calling him out for what he is.
But because he happens to be black, no one, you know, Bush is getting criticized left and right, even though he's done an incredible job.
From the moment that the local officials stepped out of the way and let him do his job, he's been doing a great job.
But yet we hear nothing but criticism of him.
The silence is deafening as far as I'm concerned in terms of any real criticism of Ray Neagan.
And I'm sick and tired of this.
You know, black things are doing such a big favor to black people, you know, by criticizing Bush, by talking about how much Bush hates black people.
Let me tell you something.
The person who's really putting black people in harm's way in New Orleans right now happens to be the black elected official.
If you really care that much about black people, well, I know.
Hey, hey, you know, Cheryl, I want to ask you about this because I've said this, as you know.
I mean, I don't, to me, the color of someone's skin is irrelevant to me.
You analyze the job they do and you just call it as you see it.
Exactly.
And it's not just the color of the skin.
The guy's a liberal.
The guy's a liberal, and the city's a bunch of liberals, and the state's a bunch of liberals, and it's been that way for years.
And you see the way a city ends up with unchecked liberal control.
But my question to you is this.
I have a liberal friend who says, you know, it's just not right for white people to start criticizing blacks.
You can't get away with it.
The only people that can criticize blacks are blacks.
And no, no, she says that she firmly believes this.
She said this is this is, and I, you know, I kind of throw up my arms in frustration.
I say that's serious.
You're making it.
Because what you're saying is that only women can represent women in Congress.
Only blacks can represent blacks.
Only Asians can represent Asians.
I said, what happened to honesty here?
When do we throw honesty out the door for political correctness?
Because if you ask me, political correctness is as destructive an element of our culture as anything else going today.
Absolutely.
So you call, and look at what you did.
You had to preface what you said by pointing out you were black because you knew that that would give you credibility.
Whereas if people didn't know you were black, they might not give you as much credence.
And I find that outrageous.
I just, I think we're all Americans, correct?
It's outrageous that you have to specify that you're black before you criticize this mayor so people will think you have credibility.
And so you don't get criticized yourself.
Let me tell you why that is.
It's because the liberal Democrats have made it their aim in life to treat black people as if we're their children or their pets or something that they have to take responsibility for.
Because we can't be treated as adults.
Oh, no, no, we're too downtrodden.
We've had so much thrust upon us.
You can't hold me to the same standard that you hold a white person to.
Why?
I'm as intelligent, as well educated, and I'm an adult.
If I do something that requires criticism, criticize me.
But the left can never get this.
They feel so good when they patronize us.
They feel so good and so paternal.
And this is something that black people better get through their heads.
The left is not doing them any favors by keeping them downtrodden.
And that's exactly what you do when you refuse to let an adult take responsibility for their adult actions.
That's it.
I couldn't agree with you more.
But, you know, I wish to God there were more of you.
But two things.
It's not just blacks that liberals condescend to.
It's everybody.
The liberal elites think that nobody's capable in life.
And they want it that way.
They want to create as much dependence as possible from group to group to group.
And it's liberals, by the way, who cordon people off in groups.
They see people as members of groups, and they see groups as aggrieved victims.
And they want it that way because they want those groups of people feeling like victims, feeling unhappy, feeling set upon, so that they will rely on liberals to so-called level the playing field for them, which never happens.
But we had poll data.
I want to get your reaction to this, Cheryl.
We had poll data in the immediate aftermath of the hurricane, and it was stark.
It showed that something like 75 to 80 percent of the black population of the country blamed the federal government and President Bush for the lack of a quick response and a competent response to Hurricane Katrina.
On the other side, nine out of 10, every other, not just whites, but nine out of 10 other Americans.
The only group not surveyed was Asians, but the group concerns includes Hispanics, includes all other different hyphenated Americans, not just whites.
Nine out of 10 did not think, I'm sorry, 75, 80% of the blacks thought that race played a role in the lack of a quick response.
Nine out of 10 of all other Americans did not think race played a role.
So what you have, you have this tremendous, you have this gap between one group of Americans, the African Americans, who see nothing, whose worldview is nothing like 90% of the rest of the country.
But can I tell you why that is?
Yeah, I'd like to know.
Okay, you asked what I'm going to tell you.
Listen, black people in this country, at least poor black people, urban black people, you know, that category of black people, grow up.
And when we grow up, I grew up in a housing project, okay?
When you grow up in that kind of environment, all that you hear from your earliest years is white people don't want black people to get a hit.
White people are trying to keep you down.
You hear this every day of your life.
You hear adults saying this.
I mean, it's constant.
And if you live in an insular society where everybody around you is saying it and you haven't really seen or experienced anything of the outside world, you tend to believe that.
If, however, you go away to college, you know, you begin to become educated, you begin to learn something about the world, you realize, well, wait a minute, white people aren't sitting back trying to keep me down.
White people are living their lives and hopefully sitting back and allowing me to live mine.
They could care less.
You know what is happening.
But there is a segment of black society that really believes this whole conspiracy thing is alive and well.
They really believe this.
So anything that they can laugh at.
I hear you.
One more question, though.
I hear you.
Why is it that people like you and other upper middle class and achieved African Americans do not automatically become role models?
Why is it that people like Thomas Sowell or Clarence Thomas or Herman Kaine, the guy down in Atlanta who used to be a big successful businessman?
Why is it those people are not looked up to as role models and examples for how it can be done in this country?
Why are they disparaged?
I think they are, but not by the masses of black people.
And the reason for that is, I think, I'm not an expert here on this part, but I think the reason for that is that people like Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton make it their life's work to cultivate this conspiracy theory that I was talking to you about.
And so these are the people who constantly are telling poor blacks why they're poor, who's trying to keep them down.
Quite frankly, you know, you may have Thomas Sowell writing his editorial pieces in the New York Times or wherever.
And a lot of young black people aren't going to be exposed to that.
But they're damn sure going to be exposed to Jesse Jackson and to Al Sharpton.
They're going to be there.
They're going to be leading their marches.
They're going to be leading their rallies.
And because of their omnipresence, you know, black people think, oh, well, yeah, they care about me.
They're the ones who really, really care about me.
I would add one thing to this.
I would add one thing to this.
If it weren't for the current makeup of the Democratic Party, as it has been for generations, if it weren't for a bunch of white liberals who empower the Jesse Jacksons and the Al Sharptons with a seat at the Democratic Party table of power, they wouldn't be anything.
And that's the dirty little secret.
The dirty little secret is that Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton and all the rest are paid off with power seats at the Democrat Party table by delivering that vote and keeping that mindset alive.
And it's just, you know, it's one of these things that all my life has bugged me.
It has bothered me.
And when I hear people say, you know, Rush, you got to go easy on the mayor.
He's black and you're white, and it's going to be too easy for people to accuse you of racism.
My reaction is let them accuse him.
It's not true.
I know what's true and I know what isn't.
And if we get to the point where political correctness, and we're close to it, is going to be a stop sign or a roadblock to truth, then some of the other problems we have in this country will become academic.
Cheryl, I have to run.
I'm glad you called.
Thanks so much for all your time.
We'll be back and continue here in just a moment.
Having more fun than a human being should be allowed to have El Rushbo dulcet tones reverberating coast to coast via the almighty EIB.
Better I said the mighty EIB network.
Here is Alvin in Atlanta.
Hello, sir.
Nice to have you on the program.
Hey, how you doing today, Russ?
Never better, sir.
Thank you.
Hey, I just want to do a quick flashback.
You might remember who I am.
You were in Atlanta a couple months back with a golf charity challenge.
Oh, yeah.
Yeah, I remember that at Turner Field.
Yes.
Yeah.
And I got a nice big hug from a certain young lady you know.
But nevertheless, the reason I'm calling is I told your screener that not just your show and other shows, but everywhere I look and listen, it's the same thing, blame, And I'm only incensed at the point that what was exposed after Katrina was nothing new.
It just was exposed.
And really, it'd be nice to see people look forward and, you know, positively to who's stepping up and who's emerging and actually saying, look, this is the course we need to go.
Because what was done was a result of failure of policies and politicians for years.
It was nothing new.
It was nothing that no one didn't know.
Just got exposed.
And sometimes it's like if you got a leak in your house, you can't pretend it's not there because otherwise you're going to be overrun with water.
And that's literally what happened to the city of New Orleans.
Yeah, but you know, Alvin, two things.
I couldn't agree with you more.
I literally couldn't agree with you more.
And the first two days after this hurricane on this program, I pretty much echoed your sentiments.
I lamented the fact that I had to join in this negativity.
I lamented it, but I told people why.
And that is because people that I trust and people that I have invested in and institutions I believe in are being attacked.
So I feel the need to defend them.
There's one person who is doing exactly what you suggest.
Do you know who that person is?
It's President Bush.
President Bush is blaming nobody.
President Bush is not looking back.
President Bush is totally looking forward and dealing with the future and trying to fix the problem.
But everybody's carping at him.
You had the mayor carping at him.
You had the governor down there carping at him.
You've got the media still carping at him.
John Kerry was in Providence, Rhode Island, and he delivered a speech to a university yesterday.
And he said, Katrina is the background of a new picture we must paint in America.
For five years, our nation's leaders have painted a picture of America where ignoring the poor has no consequence.
I'm sorry, Alvin.
If John Kerry is going to come out here and continue to try to blame President Bush and try to act like this country's world history began five years ago, as though eight years of the Clinton administration, apparently there was no poverty in New Orleans at all.
Apparently there was no unhappiness at all.
Apparently there wasn't anything wrong in New Orleans at all.
And then Bush came along and totally destroyed everything Bill and Hillary Clinton did and John Kerry in the Senate did and Howard Dean, whenever he was a Democrat governor, they all created this panacea in America and Bush has come along and destroyed it.
Well, not on this program.
They're not going to get away with it.
They may get away with it on CNN, ABC, CBS, and all those others, NBC, but they're not going to get away with it here.
So if they're going to start affixing blame, and if they're now going to criticize even the recovery effort, if they're going to try to politicize that, I feel compelled.
Because I'll tell you something, you have to look at the past to find out why this happened.
And looking at the past, unfortunately, involves looking at who ran the show for all those years.
You know, I did discover a leak in my house when Katrina hit Florida going through.
And I had to go back and find out how it happened when it was built in order to find a way to actually fix it.
Sometimes you have to do look back.
We'll be back in just a moment.
Explaining why he didn't use the buses at first, Ray Nagan said, well, you do the best with the information you have at the time.
Interesting, it works for him and a hurricane, but is not working for George Bush and weapons of mass destruction.
A, we'll be back.
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