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Oct. 3, 2005 - Rush Limbaugh Program
36:35
October 3, 2005, Monday, Hour #2
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And greetings once again, thrill seekers, music lovers, conversationalists, Rush Limbaugh, America's anchorman, seated behind the golden EIB microphone.
Great to have you with us.
Telephone number, and we'll get to your call shortly, 800-282-2882.
The email address is rush at EIBnet.com.
We'd like to welcome to the program Vice President Cheney, who is in Camp Lejeune, North Carolina.
He'll be speaking to the troops there soon.
Our time is limited.
Mr. Vice President, thanks very much for joining us, sir.
Well, it's good to talk to you, Rush, from Camp Lejeune.
Had a great day down here with members of the 2nd Marine Division and a number of them just back from Iraq, thanking them for their service.
Well, that's tremendous that you're there, and I know they're going to appreciate it.
And I know your time is short.
Let me jump right in on the Supreme Court nomination of Harriet Myers.
Mr. Vice President, there's a lot of concern out there among the president's supporters that her judicial philosophy is unknown because obviously she's not been a judge.
Do you know what her judicial philosophy is?
And how can the public be convinced, the president's supporters be convinced, that it parallels the philosophy of Antonin Scalia or Clarence Thomas, as the president had said during campaigns was his objective?
Right.
Well, I'm confident that she has a conservative judicial philosophy that she'd be comfortable with, Rush.
I've worked closely with Harriet for five years.
I've seen her and worked closely with her, hand in glove with her, really, through this process of reviewing candidates for the Supreme Court.
And that's how we got to the Roberts nomination.
She believes very deeply in the importance of interpreting the Constitution and the laws as written.
She won't legislate from the federal bench.
And the president has great confidence in her judicial philosophy, has known her for many years.
I share that confidence based on my own personal experience.
Is there a reason why conservatives, known quantities about whom the president's supporters wouldn't have questions, were not chosen, Michael Luttig, Edith Jones, and others?
I mean, they've got records, and the president wouldn't be facing questions he's getting today from his supporters.
Any reason why those names were left off this time?
Well, I wouldn't take this as negative on anybody.
We looked at a very broad range of candidates, and frankly, I hope we have additional vacancies down the road that the president will be able to fill.
And some of those people you mentioned will definitely be, I would expect, on everybody's short list.
But the president sat down and looked at all of the options and all the alternatives.
He spent a great deal of time on this himself.
He's convinced Harriet will do a great job on the court, as am I.
And I think you'll find when you look back 10 years from now that it will have been a great appointment.
Well, that's what everybody's hoping.
The question is, why do we need to wait 10 years?
There are people that he could have nominated that we would know that about now.
Is there a desire in the White House because of current poll numbers or this Katrina response that just doesn't want the fight with the Senate Democrats at this time?
Well, we've never backed off from a fight with this Congress or any other Congress.
I think a good way to think about it, Rush, is that he believes that you do, in fact, want a variety of different kinds of experiences on the court.
That, for example, a number of people suggested, and I think wisely, that it was important to look outside sort of the judicial fraternity for a possible appointment.
That is, that you not pick only people who've had judicial experience.
Obviously, if you want to go look at judicial writings and people who've made decisions on important issues, you end up looking specifically at judges.
We've done a lot of that, obviously.
We think in Judge Roberts, we found the best of the lot in terms of an extraordinarily competent, capable jurist who has argued cases before the Supreme Court, etc.
But we think it was important as well to have somebody like Harriet who's got a strong legal background, but who doesn't come off the bench.
She's been out in private practice.
She's been actively involved in public affairs for five years now.
She served ably as the staff secretary, deputy chief of staff, and White House counsel the president and brings a different perspective than some of the other candidates would have brought to it.
But as I say, we're convinced that you indeed will find that Harriet is one of those people who believes very deeply in the Constitution and the laws as written and that she's not going to be legislating from the bench.
When a Democrat is president, I think back to President Clinton when he had the opportunity to nominate Ruth Bader Ginsburg, he chose, I mean, liberals that were liberals without question, card-carrying ACLU members.
They had a very strong, discernible liberal record.
There was no question about them, no doubt about their activist philosophies at all.
But it seems like when a Republican president selects a nominee, and I know the president has been great with the appellate nominees, Janice Rogers Brown and Bill Pryor and Priscilla Owen and so forth, but this one has some people scratching their heads because we seem to pick a nominee here that is oriented in some way to placating Democrats.
We seem to be concerned with what liberal senators are going to say about them and think of them.
And so we have a nominee here with a record that is difficult to discern.
What would you say to conservatives who have that fear, who really want the fight, who see the left teetering on the brink of obscurity here and irrelevance and want this fight to just nail them to the wall and finish their dominance of this court?
Well, I think, I guess the way I look at it is that we will have done more, this president will have done more, to change the court and, in fact, put on it individuals who share his judicial philosophy than any of his predecessors in modern times.
That, in fact, you're going to have two great justices, and Roberts and Justice Myers, once she's confirmed.
And in terms of the question of whether or not there's a fight, I expect there will be a fight no matter who we nominate.
I've looked at some of the public comments already from some of the folks on the other side.
It's the question of the president has to sit down and make that judgment.
And as I say, I think he's found a good one in Harriet Myers.
I think she'll do a great job.
The early line of criticism right now is focusing on the fact cronyism, that she is simply a crony, that Bush is using this opportunity to reward a loyal supporter of his.
And I'm this is, Mr. Vice President, frankly, it surprises me.
This is the best they've gotten.
I know they're investigating her, and they're going to find some things.
They've got to raise money with their groups, so there will be a fight to an extent.
They will say some outrageous things about her just to keep their fundraising coming in.
But the fact is that right now, all they can come up with is that she is a crony.
And it just, the desire on the part of the president's supporters out there to, after working for 20 years to get to this point, to elect a president and a Republican Senate, Republican House, to change the direction of this court, to avoid the liberals being able to institutionalize their beliefs in the court, taking it out of the arena of ideas and away from the opportunity to defeat it in Congress, has disappointed some of them.
They feel we could win the fight and that we could win the fight handily, and it would be a nail in the coffin of the left.
And we're still now having to wait, as you say, 10 years to find out, or a number of years, that this was a good choice.
Everybody's prayers are with the president on this, but there has to be some knowledge on your part that there's some disappointment out there, that there's not somebody can be immediately rallied around.
And you've got people saying that they're depressed and they're thinking that this is a decision that has let them down, and they're frankly a little worn out having to appease the left on all of these choices.
Well, I guess I would take exception with the notion that somehow this is an effort to appease the left.
That's not been George Bush's stock in trade.
Say, I've sat side by side with him now for nearly five years and seen him take on and fight some very tough fights.
I think if you look at his track record on judicial appointments, not only at the Supreme Court, but the appellate court and the federal district court level, I think we've picked some great justices.
And they are there, obviously, will have a significant impact upon the judiciary for a good many years to come.
And I think we'll find the same with Harriet.
The idea that the idea that Harriet is selected on the basis of cronyism makes no sense at all.
This is the first woman to serve as the president of the Texas State Bar.
I mean, she's been a very successful private attorney before she joined the administration.
And I think if you look back, some people say, well, she doesn't have any judicial experience.
Well, neither did Justice Rehnquist.
I mean, 10 out of the last 34 justices didn't serve on a judicial bench prior to the time they were appointed to the Supreme Court.
You do want to have a variety of backgrounds represented there.
And we think Harriet meets that test.
Before you go, and I know you really have very few precious seconds left, I have to ask you about this.
Vice President Cheney, the ranking Democrat and the Ways and Means Committee in the House, Charles Wrangel, has referred to President Bush as the bull Connor of this generation to the American black population, and over the weekend said that you're just too sick to do the job.
He would hope that you're too sick rather than just mean and evil to do the job.
I'd like to give you a chance to respond to this.
This kind of thing infuriates people to love and support you.
Well, I've known Charlie for quite a while.
I served in the House with him.
I'm frankly surprised at his comments.
It almost struck me that they were so out of line, it almost struck me that Charlie was having some problem.
Charlie's losing it, I guess.
I'm not sure why he would resort to those kinds of things.
I think they're all losing it.
I think it's an example of how they are just been totally discombobulated and disjointed.
I think they're all losing it.
That's why people think they are ripe to be buried, Mr. Vice President.
Well, we're working on it.
You'll be proud of Harriet's record, Rush.
Trust me.
All right, Vice President Cheney, thanks so much.
He's leaving us now to go address the troops at Camp Lejeune, North Carolina.
We'll take a brief time out and be back right after this with much more.
Stay with us.
I asked Vice President Cheney about Charlie Wrangell.
I want you to hear what he said.
This was over the weekend.
It was last Friday, actually.
On New York One News, the reporter David Golden, Davidson Golden, was interviewing Charlie Wrangell.
They are discussing Vice President Cheney, and Congressman Wrangell said this.
He should never have stepped up in the first place.
He's too old for the job.
He doesn't have the experience.
But now that he's there, do you think he's capable of remaining in the job?
If you want to take the deficit and charge that to him, the war and charge that to him, the fact that we lose it every day, the fact that they don't intend to pay for the damages in the Gulf states except through budget cuts, I would like to believe that he's sick rather than just mean and evil.
This is just unbelievable.
What do you mean we shouldn't cut the budget?
$2.6 trillion?
That's not enough money.
Flat out unbelievable.
Here is evidence.
And by the way, once again, folks, been looking at these liberal Democrat websites all morning, and the charge that they have ginned up out there is that this is cronyism.
The choice of Harriet Myers is nothing but cronyism.
That's the thing that gets started out here in these kook left-wing websites.
We have a media montage here.
Katie Couric, Juan Williams of NPR, Nina Easton of the Boston Globe, John Harwood of the Wall Street Journal, John Roberts of CBS News, NBC's Kelly O'Donnell, and Terry Moran and Linda Douglas of ABC News.
Listen to this.
The Bush administration has been hit with cronyism.
Is this a crony-like appointment?
Democrats will raise the issue of cronyism.
This whole issue that Democrats are pressing about cronyism.
This appears to be cronyism.
What do you say with people who say that's definitional cronyism?
She might be a crony.
It's just amazing.
These people are not difficult to predict, and they're not difficult to deal with.
I guess when you live in the Beltway, you think that they are.
But there you have it.
Vice President Cheney just concluded his interview, and we'll get the transcript of that posted as quickly as we can and post it immediately at rushlimbaugh.com.
Back to the phones now.
Sylvia in Shawnee Mission, Kansas.
Welcome.
Nice to have you with us.
Hi, Rush.
How are you?
Fine.
Thank you.
I want to commend you on your interview with the vice president for not caving into him.
I feel exactly the way you do.
I feel so disappointed in this nomination.
I feel like we've been let down over and over and over again by the Republicans.
I, like you, would put up a fight.
I'd put the most conservative judge out there who had even picketed abortion clinics if I could find one and make the Democrats show their colors and be done with it once and for all.
This is.
I think you speak for a lot of people, Sylvia.
I think a lot of people wanted this fight.
A lot of people want this fight.
They want the Democrats to filibuster.
They want to pound the final nail in that coffin hole.
Absolutely.
I'm so disappointed.
I feel like, well, you know, they're all the same.
It doesn't really matter if you're Republican or Democratic anymore or a Democrat anymore.
Wait, wait, wait, wait a second.
Wait, wait, hold on a minute.
Wait a second.
I need to ask you about something else.
You said the Republicans always let you down.
Where else, other than this nomination, do you feel that?
I'm going to seven Democrats to get rid of the nuclear option again.
That was another opportunity to nail them.
They just walked away from it.
It's over and over.
It just, it seems like they don't seem to care about their base.
Yeah, I know.
People like myself are at a point of view.
What it boils down to is this.
You get the impression that Republicans are more concerned what liberals think of them than what you as a voter thinks of them.
Absolutely.
Absolutely.
And we fought hard to get the majority in both the House and the Senate to re-elect President Bush.
And these are the same people that would sell him out for a nickel that he's pandering to.
And I feel completely betrayed.
This one may be great.
Hang on here just a second.
I'm going to play devil's advocate here for the sake of the discussion.
Okay.
Because I want to take you back to what I said at the top of the program.
I don't know this woman.
So what that tells me is that it's difficult to know that she's the best person we could find for the job since we don't know about her.
If you want to pick the best person for the job, that's enough for me to know.
Well, I know that's a knee-jerk reaction, too.
I sort of had a whoa, if Harry Reid likes her, if Schumer's not that trouble at all.
But they don't know her either.
They've worked with her.
Reed has, because Reed has interfaced with her when the White House reached out to the Democrats of the Senate to ostensibly let them participate in the selection process.
That gave us Judge Roberts.
So Reed knows her and likes her and has gotten along with her.
And yeah, that's instinctively.
It's problematic.
But just playing devil's advocate, the objective here From the get-go, if we are to believe the president, and I do on this, the objective has been to turn the court into a different direction, turn it and change the makeup of the court and make it more originalist.
That's the objective.
The objective is to get that done.
The objective at the White House may not be to defeat these people in a fight.
Their objective may be to actually get that done.
Now, they could be looking, they could be looking at the names I mentioned to Vice President Cheney, Edith Jones, Michael Luddig, and there are plenty of others.
And they might have made the calculation, we're going to lose some Republicans over these people because we do have some wimp Republicans in the Senate.
We have some linguine-spined Republicans in the Senate.
And what if we nominate one of these guys and lose them?
And we don't get this guy confirmed.
What's better?
To get somebody on the court the president knows is going to do what he wants done there.
And if it has to be a stealth nominee, like Judge Roberts was a stealth nominee for all intents and purposes, two years on the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals, not a lot of written opinions, ergo, no paper trail.
It could well be that this White House, and again, just devil's advocate here, knows full well what they're dealing with with the 55 Republican votes in the Senate.
And by the time you take away people like Olympia Snow and Susan Collins and maybe Lincoln Chafee, and who knows what some of these others are going to do, maybe you got fewer than 51 votes for your nominee.
And losing in this fight is something unacceptable.
You don't want to nominate one of these people and actually lose.
So maybe you win by actually getting somebody on the court you know is going to be what you want, even though nobody else knows the person.
And you roll the dice and run the risk of angering your base of supporters who want the fight and are not going to get it.
But their objective may be to actually win the fight in a way that makes it impossible for the Democrats to even mount much of one.
Look, folks, I have no inside knowledge of this whatsoever.
You must understand.
So I'm, I'm, and I'm not posing this to try to change.
I got a bunch of emails.
Rush, no matter how you spin this, you are not going to make me like this choice.
I'm not trying to spin anything.
I'm sharing with you simply the way I'm thinking about this.
Because when I hear people say we want the fight, I did too.
I would love for these guys to filibuster it.
I would love to just nail a final coffin shut on these people.
But we do know that we've got some Republicans up there in the Senate that literally can't be counted on depending on certain things.
So it's possible this is a way to meet the objective in a way the White House thinks maybe the only way they think is possible.
We'll be back.
Stay with us.
You're listening to Rush Limbaugh on the Excellence in Podcasting Network.
I'm bang little ZZ top here.
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Truly nationwide, by the way.
I have a very soul of wit way to sum up my last point with a previous caller, and that is this.
For all of you, and I'm one of you, and want to go to war and want this fight and you want to nail the Libs.
If you want to go to war, do you want the Senate Republicans to be your army?
That may well be the question that the White House asks itself.
All right, if we go to war, do we want these people in the Senate on our side to be our army?
Are these the warriors that we're going to hit the battlefield with?
Here's Eden Woodmere, New York.
I'm glad you waited, sir.
Welcome to the program.
Hi, Rush Giga Dittos from a very long time listener.
I love talking to you now.
Thank you.
I'm afraid that I don't want anybody now going to war with me.
It seems like George Bush has caved in on just about anything, everything.
I don't see him trying to fight for conservatism since the day he's been elected virtually.
And I don't quite see that.
Now, wait a sec.
Wait, That's a little bit.
That's a little over the top.
No, I mean.
I know we can cite Ted Kennedy in the education bill.
And campaign finance reform and the budget.
And then he said he wouldn't raise taxes and he immediately raised tariffs instead.
I just don't see where he advocates a conservative position and then folds on it as soon as he gets the slightest bit of pressure.
I think he's advocating conservatism just to placate the base and acting as a moderate because he is a moderate.
Okay, well, that's what you think.
I'm not in a position here to try to argue out of that or argue you out of that today.
I mean, I can find a lot of agreement with you when you look at the size of the federal budget and how it has grown when that's not conservative.
And it really troubles me greatly.
Fiscal conservatism has been tossed out the window.
It seems like we believe in this energized president managing a large bureaucracy.
But who knows?
You might have some policymakers up there, strategists thinking this is the best way to beat the Libs is to take all their weapons away from them so that they don't really have an agenda, which they don't.
But again, I'm not trying to spin you on that.
These are just the things that go through my mind when I ponder all these items that you brought up.
Charleston, South Carolina, Joe, you're next.
Welcome to the program.
Megadittos, Rush.
Thank you, sir.
Hey, I like where you're coming from as far as your standpoint.
The Liberals probably, like I was telling Mr. Snurdle, the Liberals are sitting back waiting to hear where you're leading this.
You're playing the neutral card right now.
I applaud you on that.
Had you come out and said, you know, this candidate is the one, you know, Bush hadn't failed us yet on his agenda as far as the court of nominees and stuff like that.
But I like your strategy.
Well, I appreciate it.
Although I'm neutral in the sense, I'm glad you picked up on that.
But I'm neutral in the sense that there's just too much I don't know.
But some of what I don't know bothers me, is the point.
There are plenty of people out there who I do know that I would have loved as choices for this seat on the Supreme Court.
There's also something, folks, something else out there that troubles me about this.
And you might hear some other people bring this up.
But one of the problems here is that we seem to be operating on this quota basis.
This is only if Harriet Myers is not an originalist and is not someone that will look at the Constitution, a la Justice Thomas and Justice Scalia.
And we don't know that.
But the Democrats keep talking about this is the O'Connor seat, the O'Connor seat.
It's a swing seat.
We've got to keep it.
What is that?
Well, that's a quota.
We're quotaizing the Supreme Court.
It's okay to have four conservatives and four Libs as long as we have a moderate swing vote that will vote with the Libs most of the time.
And this seat, this seat was crucial to a lot of people because this was a chance to take what was, quote unquote, the swing vote and make it a conservative vote.
So even if you're spoiling for the fight and you don't like that aspect of it, there's something else that's fundamental here as well.
And I hope that that's not what's going on.
And there's no way I can know.
But I hope that the White House is not looking at this, okay, we needed a woman.
And I don't know why.
Why don't we don't need a woman?
We need the best.
And we need the best we can find.
If that is a woman, cool.
Don't misunderstand.
But if there's some guy out there that trumps everybody else, fine, name him and let's go to town.
But then again, you go back to, okay, you want to go to war with the Senate Republicans as your army.
What, Mr. Sterley?
Oh, don't, don't, don't give me.
Mr. Sterley, don't give me this.
Women are over half the population.
There's only one on there.
I reject wholeheartedly that only women can be sensitive to women's issues.
I reject wholeheartedly that only blacks can represent blacks.
Only women can represent blacks.
Only whites can represent whites.
Only women, did I say women represent women?
That's what I meant to say.
Now, this is balkanization.
I resent and reject the whole notion of a quota of anything on the Supreme Court.
The only quota that there ought to be on the Supreme Court is the best jurists you can find that look at the Constitution for what it is, go find the original intent, do not look to bend it, shape it, flake it, form it to accommodate modern depravity and claim that, well, you know, and get all caught up in civil rights and human rights and all that.
Judge Roberts answered those questions perfectly.
He's not there to engage in social architecture.
He's there to decide the law.
He's there to decide cases.
Remember, we played that answer over and over.
In 44 seconds, in one answer, John Roberts nailed the whole premise that the left has for the Supreme Court in 44 seconds of an answer.
So, but see, if you're going to say, well, he's got to appoint a woman because this was a female seat and there's only one woman on there.
And so what point do we get do the blacks get another seat?
You know, it's clear.
Okay, okay, then, okay, the Hispanics have to get one.
And so that's what I mean.
We start quotaizing this.
And by definition, it's a problem with quota programs everywhere, folks.
I don't care, the Supreme Court or in your company, you start finding the best of a quota rather than the best person to do the job, then you're automatically sabotaging the structural strength of whatever organization you're applying these quotas to.
But the idea here that we have to hold on to some quota and maintain this O'Connor seat.
And that's the only reason I bring this up is why else are the Libs happy?
You know, Harry Reid just came out, made his second statement.
You would think this guy wants to marry Harriet Myers.
He has just gone, he just, he's happier than he could ever be.
Now, one thing this tells me, two things, and keep this in mind, folks.
Dingy Harry knows full well he's driving you nuts when he talks about how much he loves this nominee.
So don't don't don't go too crazy with this because Dingy Harry doesn't know her either.
Dingy Harry has no more idea what she's going to do on the Supreme Court than you or I do.
Probably less of an idea than you are.
He's probably got much less of an idea than President Bush does what she's going to do on the court.
But he knows when he comes out with this glowing praise that he's really irritating you.
So don't let that work.
But the question that I, you know, I know how Dingy Harry looks at the court.
The O'Connor seat's a swing vote seat.
We must maintain that swing vote seat, blah, blah, blah, so the libs do not lose control of the court.
And when you hear him praising Harriet Myers, I'm left to ask myself, is that what he likes here?
Because I know he doesn't, it doesn't matter to him whether he likes somebody personally or not.
And by the way, by the way, I want to hold out a little possibility for you.
Suppose this woman turns out to be a devout Christian.
And suppose she turns out to be an evangelical Christian.
And suppose that she, just as an example, is a literalist of the Bible.
Well, I will tell you when the Democrats turn this up, and these are just hypotheticals, but if that's true and if the Democrats turn it up, you will forget, and Dingy Harry will forget this day that he ever talked about.
Well, that was before we found a bit more out about this woman.
And yes, I did have pleasant experiences working with her, but we simply cannot have somebody with this mindset of the Supreme Court because anything can happen yet here, folks.
And if you don't think that they're investigating this woman to the nth degree, you know, don't buy this business of Harry Reid saying it's over.
He hadn't said that, but his attitude is, hey, I love this.
He said it twice today.
So, but it's not yet.
He was not this effusive in his praise of Judge Roberts, but he did say he liked him, and he still voted against him.
So there's still a lot to come with this, and it will be fascinating to watch, particularly whatever there is out there to learn about Harriet Myers.
Quick timeout.
Your phone calls continue after this.
Okay, a couple interesting things here I've just found.
As I knew was going to happen, some stuff is now starting to surface about Harriet Myers.
But I want you to hear this answer again from John Roberts.
This 44-second answer in which he just totally nails the left's entire view of the purpose of the Supreme Court.
The question came from Senator Dick Turbin of Illinois.
He said, I said at the outset that I thought one of the real measures as to whether or not you would be on the Supreme Court goes back to a point Senator Simon had made.
Would you restrict freedom in America or would you expand it?
When you're defending gays and lesbians who are being restricted to their rights with the Colorado Amendment, you were trying, from my point of view, to expand freedom in America.
That, to me, is a positive thing.
That's my personal philosophy and point of view.
But then when you say, if the state would have walked in the door first to restrict freedoms, I would have taken them as a client too.
I wonder where are you?
Beyond loyalty to the process of law, how do you view this law when it comes to expanding our personal freedoms?
Is it important enough for you to say in some instances, I will not use my skills as a lawyer because I don't believe that that is a cause that's consistent with my values and beliefs?
That's what I've been asking, sir.
I had someone ask me in this process.
I don't remember who it was.
But somebody asked me, you know, are you going to be on the side of the little guy?
And you obviously want to give an immediate answer, but as you reflect on it, if the Constitution says that the little guy should win, the little guy is going to win in court before me.
But if the Constitution says that the big guy should win, well, then the big guy is going to win.
Because my obligation is to the Constitution.
That's the oath.
The oath that a judge takes is not that I'll look out for particular interests.
I'll be on the side of particular interests.
The oath is to uphold the Constitution and laws of the United States.
And that's what I would do.
Slam dunk.
In 44 seconds, John Roberts dismantled the left's entire belief in the structure and purpose of the U.S. Supreme Court in 44 seconds.
And that's, I play this again to tell you that's why all these quota concerns on the Supreme Court are irrelevant to me.
There is no quota when it comes to justice.
There's no quota that says big guys don't get a fair chance at it just because they're big guys and they have other advantages.
And there's no quota that says the little guy doesn't get as much justice as possible because he didn't have the money or doesn't have access.
By the same token, there's no quota that says the little guy gets more justice than the big guy simply because he's a little guy, which is what the left wants.
The left wants to punish achievement everywhere they can find it in this country because the structure of this country they believe to be fundamentally flawed, i.e. capitalism.
They think it's inherently unjust that it picks winners and losers.
And so we always have to stand up for the losers because the winners already have all the power.
And so they look at the court as a way to structure more power for the losers, but it's actually more insidious and diabolical than that.
As I say, the real reason the left wants the courts because they can't win legislatively.
But if they can get a number of their judges on the court that will decide that the law is basically liberal and institutionalize that and then make it irrelevant whether liberalism wins or loses at the ballot box because it will not matter, then that's a problem.
That takes me back to why people on the right are so concerned with this.
It's one of the reasons that for 20 and 30 years and longer, conservatives have been sweating and slaving and working in the basements and behind the scenes to try to get people to the polls on an informed basis to actually win elections so as to, according to our Constitution, reshape the U.S. Supreme Court.
Ergo, we now come to a nominee about whom we don't know anything.
And so there's a, oh, 20, 30 years is a long time to work for something.
And to get there, and to finally get where you've always wanted to be, and then to have a pick for the Supreme Court that remains a question mark is sufficient reason to have the wind just cut right out of your sails, which is where a lot of people are today.
And here's an AP story that you will find interesting.
President Bush's choice, just filed about 20 minutes ago, President Bush's choice to fill the seat of Sandra Day O'Connor.
Harriet Myers was a leader in an unsuccessful fight to get the nation's largest lawyers group to reconsider its pro-abortion rights stance.
As president of the Texas State Bar in 1993, Harriet Myers urged the National American Bar Association to put the abortion issue to a referendum of the group's full membership.
She questioned at the time whether the ABA should be trying to speak for the entire legal community on an issue that she said has brought on tremendous divisiveness within the ABA.
Harriet Myers was among a group of lawyers from the Texas Bar and elsewhere who had argued that the ABA should have a neutral stance on abortion.
The policymaking body of the ABA overwhelmingly rejected this proposal in 1993 to put the issue to a referendum by mail of the ABA's then roster of about 360,000 members.
Our current position in favor of abortion rights has no meaning unless it's endorsed in fact by the full membership, Harriet Myers said at the time.
Now, the ABA's position, which was adopted in 1992, endorses the basic outlines of Roe versus Wade.
Myers' personal view of abortion was not explicit in 1993, according to Leonard Leo, a White House advisor on Supreme Court nominees.
But he said that this evidence that exists about her is part of the reason conservatives should be very happy with this selection.
Also, Marvin Olasky has a website, Worldviews.
It turns out Harriet Myers is indeed an evangelical Christian.
She's a devout Christian.
She's been a member of the Valley View Christian Church in Dallas for 25 years.
It is a conservative evangelical church in the vernacular fundamentalist.
The media have used that word to tar the people of this church and the people of this belief.
He says that one of the members, a man named Hecht, was on the missions committee for 10 years, taught children in Sunday school, made coffee, brought donuts.
Nothing she's asked to do in church is beneath her.
And he said also about her judicial philosophy.
She's an originalist.
That's the way she takes the Bible, and that's her approach to the Constitution as well.
This is from a website called World Views.
Link to it was made available to me just moments ago.
So turns out that that side of her does exist.
Wait till Harry Reid finds out about this.
We'll be back.
Stay with us.
The fastest three hours in media rolls on, all dittocammed.
By the way, at rushlinbaugh.com, the transcript of the interview with Vice President Cheney from a little less than an hour ago is up and posted.
One hour to go.
We'll take a brief time out here at the top of the hour.
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