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Oct. 3, 2005 - Rush Limbaugh Program
36:15
October 3, 2005, Monday, Hour #3
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Time Text
I know Aldermont.
It's showtime.
I know what the theme means.
I'm just going through some last-minute things here.
Greetings and welcome, my friends.
Welcome back to the award-winning thrill-packed, ever-exciting, increasingly popular, growing by leaps and bounds, Rush Limbaugh program.
Great to have you with us.
The telephone number 800-282-2882, the email address is rush at EIBnet.com.
All right, so the choice of Harriet Myers is out there.
We had Vice President Cheney on the program exactly one hour ago.
That transcript of the interview posted now at rushlimbaugh.com, and a number of networks have called and asked for permission to use excerpts from it, which we granted.
And I'm sure there will be more media requests as the afternoon and the days ahead unfold.
We've pretty much discussed this from the beginning to the end of it in terms of what we know now.
So let's just, if you're just joining us, let's sum up where we are.
We have a pick that is basically stealth.
The only person who knows enough about this person to be confident is the president.
This, because the president's supporters sometimes feel that he pays more attention to his enemies than his supporters, has a lot of people worried.
Conservatives have worked for 30, 40, 50 years to elect a Republican president along with the Republican House and a Republican Senate.
One of the express reasons for that was to set up this very circumstance, to select justices for the Supreme Court, which would change the direction of the court.
There are many well-qualified people, sitting judges, about whom a judicial philosophy is well known.
It's etched in stone.
They were not chosen.
Harriet Myers, an associate of the president's in his White House Counsel's office, who also set up the interviews and actually part of the prime mover in the selection process of a number of judicial candidates from the appellate courts to the district courts all the way up through the Roberts nomination.
She was the go-to person in that job, in that office.
And much like Vice President Cheney was chosen as he was screening vice presidential candidates, so the president today has chosen Harriet Myers, about whom we have learned is a devout Christian, maybe even true to say that she's an evangelical Christian, is a literalist on the Bible.
Supporters and friends of hers in Texas are saying that's how she views the Constitution.
The problem for many of the president's supporters is, and I asked the vice president about this, why do we have to roll a dice?
We have plenty of people out there about whom this is known.
And the vice president said, trust me on this, Rush, you're going to like this choice.
She's got an excellent judicial philosophy, is an originalist, and so forth and so on.
So we've been, as we are wont to do here, speculating on the purpose of the choice and why.
And there are a number of possibilities.
Now, I know that many of you out there on the side of the president really want the fight for the longest time in your lives.
And I'm with you on this.
You're just sick of the left and you want them nailed.
And we see them floundering.
We don't see them in a position of ascendancy.
We don't see them as dominant in America.
We don't live in Washington, where there's obviously a completely different view on the power and the strength of the left inside the Beltway culture.
But those of us that don't live there look at the left as a floundering bunch of extremists and activists who are becoming kookier and kookier and kookier and who are slowly dominating the Democratic Party.
They have no agenda, and they're totally emotional and irrational.
And as such, it's time to nail them.
It is time to take the fight to them.
If they want to filibuster, let them filibuster.
This could be a fight the White House really doesn't want at this time.
Maybe the White House objective is to actually get somebody on the court that the president knows will change the direction of the court as he wants it, as he has said he wants to do.
As I said last hour, if you're going to go to war, I mean, you go to war, you only go to war when you can win, folks.
And if you're going to go to war in something like this, do you want your army to be the Senate Republicans?
It could well be, and I'm just speculating here.
It could well be that the White House looks at the army that they have, the Republicans in the Senate.
I can't guarantee it's going to be 51 votes there at the end of the day on a Michael Lutting or an Edith Jones or a Janice Rogers Brown or a Priscilla Owen.
I don't know that the Senate Republicans will hold.
So what good's having the fight if you lose it?
And by losing it, I mean, you may cream the left in terms of public opinion, but you may not get your choice confirmed at the same time.
The objective is to get the choice confirmed.
The objective is to change the direction of the court.
Now, that's a huge if.
And you know me, I'm not a bigger believer in ifs.
Ifs are for children.
But that's about all we have here, that and the trust that we want to place in the White House and in the president, that he is actually nominating somebody here who is in the image of Clarence Thomas and Antonin Scalia, as he said during the campaigns.
But I think it's clear that this White House, despite what they may think, does not come across as a White House willing to fight the liberals and willing to fight the left, but rather they're viewed as willing to appease them, to consider what they think and to make them think that they're part of the process.
Ted Kennedy writing the education bill, the president reaching out 70 Democrats on the Roberts choice.
There are countless other examples.
One of the things that was most offensive to a number of people recently was the president's speech in New Orleans, in which he alluded to the fact that institutional racism played a role in the plight of many citizens in New Orleans in the aftermath and the lack of recovery, which, of course, we disagree with profoundly.
Institutional racism had nothing to do with the plight of people in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina.
But to say that is an attempt to win the minds and hearts of blacks because that's what they think.
So, you know, I'm not an expert on the political strategiorizing in the White House.
So I throw all this out simply as a possibility.
You might say I throw it out with some hope, but I'm not even doing that.
I'm just rummaging through possibilities to try to explain things.
I think the White House is aware that this pick has let people down.
I think they knew the pick would disappoint some people, and they're doing their best here to rally the troops behind Harriet Myers for that reason.
And when you understand that, when the White House understands that they have to sell this to their own side, you see the basic problem that creeps up, which it wouldn't be necessary to sell it to the base if a choice had been made of some known quantities out there about whom no questions would rise, but whether or not we're rolling the dice and are we going to get the kind of justice that we all want.
But this is all rooted in an almost visceral reaction, natural and justified on the part of many conservatives who have for most of their lives had to listen to degrading insults and put-downs and impunations from the left about our and their very existence.
And we're fed up with it.
And many people think we're in a war.
And we are.
I make no question, we are in a war with the American left.
We're not just fighting terrorists abroad.
We're fighting the American left domestically.
And when it doesn't seem that the White House understands that or is willing to engage in it, then quite naturally there's going to be a lot of depression, demoralization, anger, what have you.
So it is, I say this with hope, I hope that their objective is, their eye is on the objective and the end result here and actually getting someone the president wants on the court confirmed.
And again, I hearken back.
I mean, it's easy to sit here and say, we've got to go to war, we've got to take it to the libs, but you can't count on the Republicans in the Senate.
You just can't, depending on who the nominee is, you just can't count.
There are a lot of liberal, moderate Republicans in the Senate who will bail.
And we've seen it.
I could give you names from issue to issue.
We've got Link Chaffee.
We've got Susan Collins, Olympia Snow.
We've got Mike DeWine from Ohio, who bailed on the gang of 14.
We got Voinovich who bailed on Bolton.
There are Voinovich cries to the floor.
There hasn't been, and you may be able to take this back to the White House too.
There simply has not been enough party discipline in this White House to enforce and to make sure that this party is unified on issues that resulted in all of these people being elected.
But things are what they are.
You deal with them as they are in reality and not as you wish they would be.
It is more than likely that Harriet Myers will be confirmed.
But again, there's a lot about her that we don't know.
And trust me on this, the Democrats are going to be out digging up whatever they can because they don't know anything about her either.
And they're going to be worried, the same thing that I've just told you, that this is a stealth nominee designed to accomplish exactly what the president wants without anybody knowing who she is.
And when they find out she's an evangelical Christian, when she finds out, they find out she's a biblical literalist, they are going to panic because that will mean something substantively to them.
It will scare them, and they will react accordingly.
They also have their fundraising to do.
So despite what you've heard Harry Reid say about how much he loves Harriet Myers, how great she was to work with, and some of the other Democrats, they still have their fundraising to do, and they still have their Ralph Nises and Nan Aarons and all these activist leaders to keep happy out there.
So they will say some things that will go against the notion that's out there now that they love her, Harriet Myers, and that she's going to pretty much sail through.
We'll take a brief time out, get back with more of your comments.
We have more audio soundbites as well.
And there are other things in the stack of stuff here.
And I may get to them today, may not, but I'm going to get to them because they deserve to be gotten to.
There's all kinds of stuff out there besides this.
And I've always pledged you not get sidetracked by a single issue from day to day, leaving other things on the table that we need to discuss.
So if you sit tight, we'll come back.
Phone calls next, and we'll roll on from there.
Before we go back to the phone, some audio soundbites, just for contrast and just to illustrate some differences.
Stephen Breyer, a sitting U.S. Supreme Court justice, appeared on a Sunday television show.
I find that by itself fascinating.
This isn't done.
And A said for an interview now and then, print interviews in a legal journal, may go make a speech, but to go on a Sunday talk show, not common.
Stephanopoulos said to Justice Breyer, and this is the justice, by the way, the thing, we ought to go.
If we have to go to Mars to find law that we agree with, we should do that.
He doesn't believe we should be constrained by the boundaries of U.S. law, nor the Constitution.
Stephanopoulos is probably the justice most known for textualism, originalism is Justice Scalia.
And he says, listen, we have to steer clear of intent.
We have to steer clear of looking at consequences.
Consequences are not our role.
We have to pay attention to the text.
Your book, Justice Breyer, is looking at a very different situation.
It does look in a different direction.
But the main point of the book is to tell people who'd like to read it that basically, when judges decide cases, not all, but many, they must look back to basic purposes and consequences.
Those aren't the only things.
But I want to explain why I think it's necessary to do that.
And that means that I have to explain originalism, textualism, why that doesn't, in my opinion, work very well.
So the guy's out hawking a book.
Well, that's just hunky-dory.
That's just, that's his peachy kid.
Nothing says he can't do it, but you just wonder about the propriety of it all.
So he says here, originalism, textualism, that doesn't work very well.
You might say, well, why doesn't it work very well?
Here's what he says.
Because in close cases, when you say go look at history, the history doesn't tell you.
The people who wrote the Constitution really didn't think that there would be an internet.
They went to Philadelphia Hall in carriages.
They went there with horses.
They didn't go there in automobiles.
They thought the Commerce Clause would apply in the future, but not just to horses.
And they thought it would, they didn't dream of automobiles.
They didn't dream of television, and they didn't dream of internet computers, all the things that affect our privacy, for example.
So there's not going to be a way to look back and say, what did Thomas Jefferson say about the application of the First Amendment to this particular instance or to most of modern society where you're talking about developments that didn't then exist?
This is so sad.
This is so sad.
That is the miracle and the brilliance of the Constitution.
It does just that.
It is the Constitution.
Just as Breyer may think that you can't go back and interpret the original intent, by the same token, Mr. Justice, you can't tell us what they would have intended, which is what this view seeks to do.
It seeks to tell us what they would have intended had they envisioned automobiles or the internet or computers or some such thing.
The miracle and the brilliance of the Constitution is that it does.
It's the glue that has kept this country together by being loyal to it, by having fealty to its original intent.
And what is this business of Justice Breyer appropriating the right to enumerate powers for people?
Anything not in the Constitution is enumerated.
They allowed for this.
They allowed for things that they didn't mention to be dealt with in specific ways.
And it's not, you will not find in the Constitution where the founders wrote, and by the way, the things that we didn't think of here, the Supreme Court gets to decide.
They didn't say that.
They didn't even say the Supreme Court determines the constitutionality of laws.
The court decided that itself in Marbury versus Madison.
The big fear and the longtime concern of the court is that it's nine lawyers who wear black robes.
And this is a lot of power they've given themselves to determine the constitutionality of things, which was not in the original intents, not in the Constitution.
Well, if they can amass that kind of power and get egos the size of the country in terms of how they view their own importance to the future, it's no wonder that you get such bastardized rulings have come out of these people.
And of course, this doesn't even talk about the states and their role in enumerated powers or enumerated rights.
So it's troubling to hear this, especially as he's out there now selling a book.
You know, I watched Diane Feinstein this morning outside her palatial mansion in Pacific Heights in San Francisco.
And she was being asked about Harriet Myers.
And she said, well, I don't really know much about Harriet Myers.
So she started a recitation of what's wrong with the court.
She said her big concern, other than Roe versus Wade, which is her number one concern, her big concern is the Commerce Clause.
She's the Supreme Court's telling us where we can and can't legislate.
And she brought up the Commerce Clause.
She said, you know, this court told us that the Commerce, Congress cannot rule that you can't have a gun 1,000 feet or 1,000 yards, whatever it is, from a school.
Well, she said most Americans look at that.
That's silly.
Do we want guns within 1,000 feet?
Senator, if you don't want guns 1,000 feet from schools, go to the local area, go to the state and have them deal with it, because the Commerce Clause does not give the U.S. Congress the right to pass that law.
The Supreme Court was right.
There's interstate commerce.
This is where these people who have an expansionist view will look at the Constitution and say, well, they would have never envisioned there would have been guns outside all these schools.
They, of course, would understand why we're trying to limit this.
No, they didn't.
They covered it clearly in the Constitution.
Interstate commerce, intrastate commerce, is that commerce that goes on between the two states.
And that's what the Commerce Clause is all about, or between more than one state, not just two, but more than one.
But for Congress to say that a school district in California cannot have guns within a thousand feet of school is not, the Commerce Clause is being illegally applied there.
Supreme Court was right to overturn that.
She doesn't get it.
She said, well, that's silly.
We have to understand how silly that is.
And Congress has the right to pass.
Not according to the Constitution.
It works when it's originally applied, folks.
You're listening to Rush Limbaugh on the Excellence in Podcasting Network.
One more Stephen Breyer bite.
I should have played this consecutively.
In fact, let's go back and play 9 and 10 together so that we get these consecutively.
This first soundbite is where Breyer explains in his view, he's a justice on the Supreme Court, that originalism doesn't work because we live in a different world than the one the framers lived in when they wrote the Constitution.
He does look in a different direction.
But the main point of the book is to tell people who'd like to read it.
No, no, no, no.
Mike, I want 9 and 10 here.
Let's play 9.
That's number 8.
Let's do 9 and 10 consecutively here.
Start with number 9.
Because in close cases, when you say go look at history, history doesn't tell you.
The people who wrote the Constitution really didn't think that there would be an internet.
They went to Philadelphia Hall in carriages.
They went there with horses.
They didn't go there in automobiles.
They thought the Commerce Clause would apply in the future, but not just to horses.
And they thought it would, they didn't dream of automobiles.
They didn't dream of television, and they didn't dream of internet, computers, all the things that affect our privacy, for example.
So there's not going to be a way to look back and say, what did Thomas Jefferson say about the application of the First Amendment to this particular instance or to most of modern society where you're talking about developments that didn't then exist?
Even Stephanopoulos has recognized this as bogus.
But before I get to the next bite, this business of privacy, you know, that right's not specifically enumerated in the Constitution, Judge.
But to think that the framers had no concept of it, to think because they didn't have television and they didn't dream of it and they didn't know about the internet.
Go back and look at the print media when these guys were writing the Constitution.
I'm going to tell you that the print media was all tabloid.
It was, well, the vast majority of it was.
You think the media today is low down, dirty, rotten?
Whoa, folks, the things.
William Sapphire has written a great book about this, a novel that's historically accurate, about one of these journalists named James Callender, C-A-L-L-E-N-D-A-R.
These people were vicious.
The founders knew full well what they were dealing with, and yet they still created a free press.
So that's why the document is brilliant.
It's why it's a miracle.
Anyway, Stephanopoulos, he realizes that this idea that Breyer's talking about is not even in the Constitution.
The idea, well, we don't know what they were thinking, so we have to assume for them.
He says, I'm still having trouble figuring where specifically the idea you just talked about is based in the Constitution.
It's based in Articles 1 through 7.
They create a...
That's all.
1 through 7.
Yeah, that's the Constitution, and the rest is the amendments.
And what are the first three words of the Constitution?
We the people.
We the people.
That's right.
We the people, not we the states.
Not just omitted, but it's we the people that are creating the document.
And what kind of a document is it?
It is a document designed to create institutions that will allow people themselves to decide what their communities, what their states, what their towns, what their national government will be like.
What rules do they want?
What practices do they want to govern themselves?
Well then, Judge, why don't you vote to overturn Roe versus Wade on the very basis of what you just said because you're denying the people their right.
You are not the people.
That's the point.
You're not an elected body.
You serve lifetime terms.
There's no way of redress when people disagree with what you're doing.
The court has appropriated all of these decisions from the people.
It's incredible.
And let me give you the outgrowth.
We had the Kilo decision, an eminent domain decision.
Everybody was outraged about this.
Try this.
This is from the Washington Times, but Mr. Stergley, this is happening barely from where we sit as the crow flies, five miles north of here.
Riviera Beach in Florida is a poor, predominantly black coastal community that intends to revitalize its economy by using eminent domain, if necessary, to displace about 6,000 local residents and build a billion-dollar waterfront yachting and housing complex.
Riviera Beach Mayor Michael Brown said this is a community that's in dire need of jobs, which has a median income of less than $19,000 a year.
He defends the use of eminent domain by saying that the city, quote, is using tools that have been available to governments for years to bring communities like ours out of the economic doldrums and the trauma centers, unquote.
Riviera Beach Mayor Michael Brown said that Riviera Beach is doing what the city of New London, Connecticut is trying to do and what the U.S. Supreme Court said is proper in its ruling, June 23, in Kilo versus the city of New London.
That decision upheld the right of government to seize private properties for use by private developers for projects designed to generate jobs and increase the tax base.
So tell me, Justice Breyer, where is it in this ruling, in the Kilo ruling, that the people have anything to say about what's happening?
You've just empowered government here with this ruling, and he voted for Kilo.
So to listen to him here talk about, well, the founders didn't account for this.
They didn't account for that.
It's written by we the people.
You are not we the people.
That's the whole point.
The judicial branch is not we the people.
And if you go read the Federalist Papers and if you go read the Constitution, you will find how very little was said about the court in terms of its importance, at least as the court has amassed importance for itself.
So you've got 6,000 local residents right up the road from here in Riviera Beach, poor, predominantly black.
And from the sounds of it, the mayor just wants to sort of sweep them away somewhere and put in a big marina, get a bigger tax base, revive the economy from out of the doldrums up there.
And he's citing Kilo as his reason for doing it.
Steven Rockford, Illinois, I'm glad you waited, sir.
Welcome to the EIB Network.
Hello.
Tremendous thrill to be on program, Russ.
There are two points I'd like to make about Bush, and I think if you put them together, you'll wind up being very optimistic.
The first point is that this is not a man who plays small ball on big issues.
He doesn't settle for field goals.
He goes all the way if it's something that's really important, and he's made the Supreme Court really important.
And the second thing is that when he has appointed somebody to a position who he knows very well, the appointment has been superb.
Cheney and Rice, for example.
I am very pleased that he has appointed somebody who he knows better than everybody else.
I take it to mean he wants to make sure that he doesn't have somebody who's going to turn on him, somebody who he knows is going to accomplish what he feels is so important.
I appreciate your view on that.
The Democrats out there saying it's cronyism, which means that he's simply picking friends without any concern for what they're going to do.
He's just rewarding cronies.
That's their mantra as we speak today at this moment.
Now, that mantra will change.
The media has picked up that mantra and is running around asking about is this simply cronyism.
To believe that it's cronyism, you have to believe the president doesn't care what this woman's going to do on the court.
He's just rewarding her.
And you'd have to believe that as a follow-up, that the court is not a place for this kind of patronage.
But yet that some people think that that's all he thinks about.
Now, the court, hey, man, this is the best job I can give a friend of mine.
I think it does sell him short to look at it that way.
To say this is cronyism is that's a stab in the dark.
Regardless what you might think of President Bush, I don't think he has that little regard for the Supreme Court.
Burtonsville, Maryland.
Hello, Dave.
I'm glad you called.
You're next.
Good afternoon, Rush.
I'm a little bit nervous here, so be patient with me.
Yes, sir.
I kind of feel like you are locked steps in line, backing George Bush.
And I kind of have a feeling that he knew that guys like you would provide cover for him and would not hold his feet to the fire as you should.
I've been listening to the program today.
I've never been done with you.
I'm just so frustrated.
Dave, have you been listening to the program today?
Certainly.
I listened that you gave him a pass.
I mean, it's true.
You said you were neutral on her.
I understand that.
But this is an opportunity for you.
You started out by saying that what bothers me is this is a pick that comes from a position of weakness.
I grilled the vice president on why didn't you choose people that we know we can count on instead of having to wait 10 years.
Where were you?
This is a no-win situation.
Sir, I've got the whole of the mainstream press wanting to interview me today.
You know why?
Because they think I've criticized the White House.
You know what?
If you call that criticism, my God, I would love to have enemies like you.
Rush, I love you, but I'm just, I'm so frustrated.
This was a great opportunity for you to say, you know what?
This is the last straw from George Bush.
He has sold us down the river time after time after time.
And this was his opportunity to say, you know, let's do a little test.
Wait a second.
Wait a second.
Hold it a minute.
Hold it just a second.
Let's do a little test here.
You pretend you're me, and I want you to pretend you're me and say, okay, this is the last straw.
Bush has done it.
Now what do we do?
He hung up?
No.
He hung up.
Seminar is there?
I'm right here.
Okay, okay.
So you pretend that you're me.
And, all right, this is the last straw.
Now what do we do?
I don't have an answer to that.
You know what?
Just tell the truth.
The truth is that this is the last straw.
We are now going to start supporting conservative Republicans in the primaries, which I don't think you particularly do.
And not that you support liberals.
I'm just saying you kind of give a pass to all the Republicans.
And, you know, say, you know, we're going to turn a corner here.
We're now going to support conservatives in office.
What's wrong with that?
This makes me think of retirement sooner than later.
If after 18 years, I know he's emotional, and I understand that.
But if after 18 years I am accused of selling out the conservative movement, essentially, then, well, no, I don't think he is a seminar caller, Mr. Snirdly.
I think there's a level of rage out there that is just fed up.
I understand it totally.
The point is, okay, what do you do?
If you're fed up.
That's the last straw.
Bush has three years left.
Who are you going to support in 08, McCain?
What do we do out there?
Yeah, well, I could have backed Peroja if I were conservative.
But no, this is not the way to look at this.
These disappointments happen consistently.
I remember the first day after Clinton was elected.
I could have caved then.
I could have said, it's over, folks.
I'm going to go home and I'm going to enjoy the rest of my life and the rest of you are on your own.
I mean, if you're going to cave and you say this is the last straw, then you better have another drink to start stirring.
And if you don't have another drink to start stirring, don't talk to me.
Actually, it feels good to laugh today.
I was just scouring the email, and I had the news out earlier today from a website from a member of her church.
Harriet Myers is a devout Christian, evangelical Christian.
I got a sort of a testy email from someone saying, hey, if Harriet Myers is so loyal to Christ, what's she doing running the Texas Lottery Commission?
Speaking of imminent domain and Riviera Beach, have you seen the Washington Post today?
Ninth Ward history.
Yes, but is there a future?
The 9th Ward is the poorest section of New Orleans.
It was underwater quite a long time.
It's by C.C. Connolly in the Washington Post.
No one here wants to say it aloud, but one day soon the bulldozers will come, shoving away big hunks of a neighborhood known for its poverty, its artists, its bad luck, and its bounce-back resilience.
A neighborhood tucked into a deep depression between two canals, railroad tracks in the Mississippi River, New Orleans' lower ninth ward has spent more of the past five weeks underwater than dry.
Entire houses knocked off foundations, barbershops and corner groceries flattened, cars tossed inside living rooms.
What remains is coated in muck, a crusty layer of canal water, sewage, and dirt.
Mold is rapidly devouring interiors.
The question now is whether the lower ninth ward, which was devastated 40 years ago by Hurricane Betsy, should be resuscitated again.
The debate, as fervent as any facing post-Hurricane New Orleans, will test this city's metal and is sure to expose tensions over race, poverty, and political power.
The people willing to let the lower ninth fade away hew to a pragmatist bottom line.
The ones who want it to stay talk of culture and tradition.
So, what are we doing here?
Sum this up very simply, we are debating whether or not to rebuild a liberal-created ghetto.
We are debating whether or not to recreate.
Now, you know, and I said this when this hurricane happened and we started talking about rebuilding, they're not going to rebuild these devastated areas exactly as they were.
They're not going to put up ramshackle shacks to replace the ramshackle shacks.
Would you?
But I guess there's a no, we should.
We should.
It was part of the charm in the culture.
Well, now you've got to decide, liberals.
You either want poverty or you don't.
Unbelievable story.
So in Riviera Beach, Florida, the mayor there just wants to sweep 6,000 poor blacks out of town and make a marina out of the community where they live and in New Orleans.
What to do about the lower ninth ward?
They'll figure out a way to use eminent domain there, too, once they get everything put back together.
Excuse me, mentally.
Here's Barbara in Rui Doso, Minnesota.
Nice to have you with us.
Yes, hi.
I just wanted to, my phone batteries are getting low, so I'll say it quickly.
I just wanted to caution my fellow conservatives not to get stuck on stupid.
People jumped immediately against Roberts when he first came out, and it turned totally turned around.
And the other thing is we are doing the same thing the Democrats are, and that is we're underestimating Bush.
And everybody does it.
And I think that we need to slow down and not get stuck on winning the battle and losing the war.
I think he's more interested in winning the war.
I agree with that.
That's another way of saying, do you go to war with the Senate Republicans as your army?
You pick your spots.
Look, you have a good point about people underestimating Bush and waiting for the worst.
There is a lot of pessimism out there.
But I have to tell you one thing, just so you know, Barbara and the rest of you.
Do not make the mistake thinking that the conservative movement is monolithic.
There are many facets.
We have an elite.
We have our run-of-the-mill.
We have the middle class.
There's a whole bunch of conservatives out there now.
And if you think that there is 100% support of John Roberts in the conservative community, you are wrong.
There are people in the conservative judicial legal community who are still holding their breath about Roberts for the same reasons they're giving about Harriet Myers.
They don't know anything about him.
And they had the same criticism of Roberts that they have of Myers.
Why?
You had all these great guys out there with these great records and wouldn't have to roll the dice.
We don't know anything about John Roberts.
He's been on the circuit court two years.
We don't know anything about him.
And still reverberating out there.
And now with Harriet Myers, this is the second one that some conservatives are looking at through this prism.
So don't think just because of his appearance before the Judiciary Committee that he's won over every conservative.
That didn't happen.
Quick timeout.
Got to go because of the constraints of time.
Be right back.
Okay, folks, that's it.
Now remember, there's going to be a lot bubbling up from all this in the days to come.
So keep your powder dry out there and don't be hastily jumping to a bunch of conclusions.
Yeah, there'll be plenty of time for that later on with more information.
See you tomorrow.
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