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Oct. 4, 2005 - Rush Limbaugh Program
36:25
October 4, 2005, Tuesday, Hour #2
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And greetings to you, thrill seekers and music lovers, conversationalists all across the fruited play and welcome back to the award-winning thrill packed, ever exciting, increasingly popular, growing by leaps and bounds.
Rush Limbaugh Program.
The definition of conservatism in America.
Our telephone number is 800-282-2882.
The email address is Rush at EIB net.com.
And we have lots of things to do on the program today, in addition to continuing the discussion about Harriet Myers.
I think one of the uh things it'd be fair to do is uh play some audio sunbites from the president and his press commerce today.
Something else I also want to do is uh cookie uh set up for me a montage of all of the Rush Limbaugh mentions in the media that she uh that she could find.
It runs about a minute and a half.
Uh it's just a montage, and I want to play this for you because uh uh it sets up a question that the president got in his uh press conference today.
Um among the uh participants in this montage, Britt Hume of the Fox News Channel, Carl Cameron from Fox, Bob Kerr of MSNBC, Wendell Gowler from Fox, Mike Allen from uh Time Magazine, uh the Perky Win Katie Couric, uh Liberal Democrat Susan uh Estrich,
uh Bob Franken of CNN, uh Brian Kilmeade of Fox News, Shepard Smith, Linda Douglas, ABC, uh Wolf Blitzer from CNN, uh James Dobson from Focus on the Family, and NBC News reporter Carrie or Kelly O'Donnell.
This is the montage uh from all the mentions that took place.
And by the way, I'm under no illusion here.
I knew this was gonna happen.
Knew this was gonna happen when I when I thought about yesterday morning what I was gonna say about the Myers nomination before the uh program started.
And I I know the only way I make news.
The only way any conservative really makes news in the mainstream press is when they appear to be critical of the president or members of their own party.
So I knew this was coming.
Uh and it's it's it is what it is, and this is the montage.
Rush Limbaugh, the fabled radio host, thinks that Harriet Myers is a dubious nominee.
His conservative credentials are impeccable.
Talk radio's Rush Limbaugh told Fox News that though Myers may prove to be a conservative over time.
Rush Limbaugh had on Vice President Cheney on the air today on Rush Limbaugh's national radio program, who tried to assure Rush Limbaugh, the judicial philosophy that Rush Limbaugh and his listeners would be glad to see.
White House set out a fire brigade after Rush Limbaugh complained.
You hear uh Rush Limbaugh talking about people being uh disappointed and let down.
Stalwart conservative Rush Limbaugh called it a pick that was made from weakness, was Rush Limbaugh who said, and I think he's right.
Vice President Cheney who spoke with the voice of the conservatives, Rush Limbaugh.
The vice president of Rush Limbaugh on ten years.
Uh conservatives would be very pleased, Limbaugh replied, Why do conservatives have to wait ten years?
Rush Limbaugh says this is a pick from weakness.
Rush Limbaugh gets a call from the Vice President of the United States.
It's a little bit of damage control.
The vice president told talk show host Rush Limbaugh today that she has a conservative judicial philosophy.
Talk show host Rush Limbaugh complained bluntly to Vice President Cheney.
We'll also tell you specifically what Rush Limbaugh is saying about the president's pick.
You know, uh you already quoted Rush Limbaugh.
And radio giant Rush Limbaugh.
When radio personality Rush Limbaugh told listeners the president made a pick out of weakness, Vice President Cheney phoned in the damage control.
Now that's not correct.
We had the uh discussion, the interview with Vice President Cheney set up hours before the program started.
And uh the reason we didn't post it on the website is because the time was floating.
He was in Camp LeJune, North Carolina.
Uh, and he was speaking to the troops yesterday.
We were originally going between one fifteen and one thirty, and uh the vice president's office uh asked us if they could lead off the one o'clock hour with it.
But this was at 10 o'clock.
This was three hours, uh maybe two and a half hours before the program began.
After the ba they may never call here again, but but they didn't call here.
They didn't call here after there wasn't this damage control that was uh aimed at this program because of anything that was said uh on this program.
So that uh the we uh may uh made a bet with some people how how long will it take for my name to come up in a question to the president at the press conference afternoon?
And it it finally came at about 45 minutes or 50 minutes into the press conference.
I don't know the name of the reporter, but uh here's the question and the president's answer.
You said a few minutes ago that you're proudly conservative, but there was a lot of hand wringing when you made your nomination yesterday on Harry Myers.
Rush Lindboss said it was a nomination out of weakness.
What do you say to these critics specifically, and how can you convince them that she is as conservative as Justices um Scalia and Thomas?
I guess I start over.
I hope they're listening.
First, she's a woman of enormous uh accomplishment.
She is uh she understands the law.
She's got a keen mind.
She um will not legislate from the bench.
I also remind them that I think it's important to bring somebody from outside the judicial system, that somebody from that hasn't been on the bench.
And therefore there's not a lot of opinions for people to look at.
Harriet Myers will testify.
There's gonna be a lot of attention paid to her testimony.
First of all, she'll she'll go meet with the senators individually, and then she'll answer questions.
And people will get to see not only her strength of character, but we'll get a sense of her judicial philosophy.
Hopeful she'll get confirmed, and then they'll get to read her opinions.
And what I believe, and what I know is important, is that she doesn't change over the course of time.
And had I thought she would change, I wouldn't put her on there.
Let me explain this weakness comment because uh again, this is a comment made in the context of a remark I made last week.
The remark I made last week, I forget specifically the uh issue about which I was speaking, but it's a philosophical, uh philosophical comment.
It's uh it's a bit of philosophy that I happen to believe, and it is this that if you show weakness to your opponents, you encourage them.
Uh if you if you operate from a position of uh conviction and confidence and strength, then you uh you have a little easier time dealing with your enemies or opponents or or what have you.
And that's why I I uh I I just don't like the idea of coming at anything from a position of weakness or a position of being on the defensive.
I believe in total offense.
We're winning.
We won the elections in 2000 and 2004.
We added to the majorities from 2000 to 2004.
And there's every reason to come out here and be proud of who we are and proud of what we stand for.
And you heard the president say here, uh uh th she uh she there's not a lot of opinions for people to look at.
Which which is what convinces me that the the president here I'm and I'm not saying that that that he personally is weak.
I think the position of weakness is that he can't count on his own allies in the Senate for a protracted fight.
So he comes up with a nominee, but it's a small target.
There really is nothing anybody can say about her in terms of her opinions because she didn't have any.
She didn't have any legal opinions that can focus on the special interest groups gonna have to drum up a bunch of stuff that frankly is going to offend people, i.e., she's a lesbian, i.e., she she uh helped Bush get out of the National Guard.
This stuff is the left is falling right into the trap.
I mean, I I will admit this from the get-go.
The trap's been laid for them and they're falling right into it.
Uh but but the idea that the the position of weakness here is that okay, he's got his army in the Senate he can't count on, so he has to go this stealth way when when it's important to have the debate, and don't forget why it's important to have the debate.
It's not just important to have the debate to cream the left.
Because in in in in in many ways, folks, that's already happened.
Which which is my point.
But you have the debate and you have the debate in open for the purposes of continuing the education of the American people as voters.
And this is not to imply that they're dumb.
It's not that at all.
It's just that the Supreme Court, you all know it.
We we we talk about the the O'Connor seat as being the swing vote.
There's no such thing as a swing vote on the court as it should accurately be working.
There's no such thing.
There's no such thing as quotas on the court.
It's time to have the debate about where the Supreme Court's taking this country and how so many of the issues the court deals with end up being taken out of the legislative process and the arena of ideas And therefore out of the hands of the people.
Yeah, as uh Justice Breyer said in his interview on Sunday, Constitution begins with we the people.
Well, the way the court's going, it uh needs to be rewritten pretty soon.
We the Supreme Court, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
And that's not the way this should be.
And the I'm a firm believer, and if you, if you've listened to me for 18 plus years, you know this.
I'm a firm believer that this country works best when as many winny citizens as possible participate from an informed and educated knowledge basis and vote on that what basis.
That's how you get legitimate majorities with mandates.
That's how you elect people and give them the sense of strength to operate to uh to uh implement that mandate and the issues that were uh articulated in the campaign.
To be in the process of winning, to have this 40, 50 year struggle reach this point, and then still have to act defensive or stealth is uh is a is uh is a disappointing thing to me.
This woman could be imminently qualified.
And I'm I as I said yesterday, I don't know.
I'm not really saying anything about Harriet Myers and her qualification because I have the slightest idea.
In that sense, yeah, you trust what the president says.
He knows her better than anybody else does.
And uh the people that he's chosen to represent him at various cabinet level uh uh uh positions and uh and other places, that there's a track record here that shows that the president can be trusted on uh on these things, as his judicial choices uh can be uh shown we could trust him.
The uh Janice Rogers, Brown Priscilla Owen, Bill Pryor, they were all filibustered, and the president said, okay, screw you, Democrats, here they are again.
He brought them back up.
So, you know, there was that was a position of strength.
That was that was in your face.
Here, do it again.
I'm gonna force this filibuster on you.
For some reason now that has that that there's no there's no, okay, here's here's Priscilla Owen again, or here's Janice Rogers Brown, or here's anybody that would be cut from that mold.
No, we're not gonna do it.
No, we're gonna have Harriet Myers that nobody but the president knows.
And it it it's uh it seems like a different approach.
As I said yesterday, you know, don't forget everything I said.
It I'm sure he's got his eyes on the end game and the end game is uh is is getting uh the people he wants on the court to change the direction.
But you know, folks, there's something else about this that that needs to be said in the court and so forth.
We're not just talking about votes on cases.
We're not just talking about people that uh I mean, I mean, ideally, and in an overall uh analysis.
Yeah, it's one thing to put people on the court who you know are going to vote a certain way on various issues, uh, not because you discussed it with them, but because you know them.
But the court's not just a uh democratic body.
The court has its own culture.
The uh the court is made up of activists, and you don't blunt the activists simply with votes.
You put some people on that court who are going to be able to shape its culture uh for the entire time they are on it by virtue of their own credentials.
And that is the one thing I don't know that that uh exists here.
Yeah, we're getting a vote.
Let's assume that Harriet Myers and I have no reason to not believe the president, so don't take me wrong.
Let's assume she is everything that he says she is.
Uh okay, she's the she's a vote that he wants.
Uh uh now, John Roberts is not just a vote.
John Roberts has the chief, he's gonna have a lot of say-so in the future at his time on that court as to the culture of this court.
Uh and and because there's more to it than just the votes.
There's more to it.
There's what the people on the court think of it and how they view it as uh as an institution, not just uh how am I going to vote on this case, that case, and so forth and so on.
So and I I still, you know, I double back, and I I still claim that for the purposes of the uh education uh and the inspiration of the American people have the debate about the role of the court, where it's gone wrong, and how it needs to be reigned back in.
And and within the democratic process, by the way.
Nobody's talking about uh coming up and and changing the uh the court by fiat.
You do it by virtue of the uh electoral process.
You elect presidents who then nominate people, you get Senate majorities who confirm them, and over time you change the culture of the court, just as it took a little while for this court to become as far left as it is.
Uh one of This reminds me of one other thing, uh to give you an idea of the culture of the court, what I'm talking about.
Justice Breyer.
Justice Breyer's not just a vote.
Look at what this man believes.
He's writing a book.
He believes if there's a law on Mars that works here, we should think about it.
He also said in his interview on Sunday, hey, you know, the founding fathers, they they had no conception of television and automobiles and the internet and mass media.
We can't go back to them.
We can't go back to them and find what they would have intended in this case via all of these uh new developments that they couldn't even dream about.
So we can't say original intent is the way to go.
We have to be able to interpret the Constitution according to today's culture.
No, no, no, no, no, Justice Breyer.
That's an example of an of an out-of-control culture that's going to destroy the court and is not constitutional at all.
The founding fathers were brilliant, my friends.
This Constitution has held up and will hold up because that's the miracle of it.
But what Justice Breyer apparently doesn't know is that the Founding Fathers allowed for just the very thing he's talking about via the amendment process.
You can amend the Constitution, but there's a way you do it.
You amend it in one of two ways.
But the one way you don't do it is have justices run off the reservation and decide they alone get to determine what the founding fathers meant based on what they couldn't have known.
They don't get to do that, but that's what they've doing.
That's what I'm talking about, the culture of the court.
So it's one thing to have somebody that may vote the right way case after case, but what about the view of the court's role as a constitutional uh uh participant in our society as one of the uh one of the three branches.
Anyway, the I think I've I've gotten the point across here, and I I wanted to make sure that there were no questions left unanswered.
If you still have some, feel free to let me know them on the phone.
Quick time out, we'll be back.
Hey, reminder, Tom Delay coming up at 133 this afternoon to discuss the uh the new indictment against him by the uh Texas prosecutor Ronnie Earl.
In the meantime, Chapel Hill, North Carolina.
Hello, Brett, you're next.
Hey, Ross, I tell you something.
I really think that this is something that's gonna come back to haunt Republicans in 06.
I I think you've got excessive pork, and then you had Katrina and Rita, and now I mean she could be the next Clarence Thomas, but this is a fight that they needed to have.
And I think you're gonna lose some of the you know, I'm a conservative and I'm not a registered Republican, I'm an ideologue.
You're gonna lose people like me in that election.
Okay, all right, where are you gonna go?
Well, it's not necessarily that I'm gonna go any place.
I'm just not gonna go out and participate from the standpoint that I'm taking a look.
And I mean, I agree with you that I I don't lay this necessarily on Bush's feet because I think he's looking at that Congress and looking for some intellectuals and some people with with spines and coffins, and I don't know that they exist there.
And so then he has to kind of make the best of the world that he's been that's been given to him, and and they they just seem to be floundering out there.
I mean, the the right sits in the last sixty years corrected almost every major issue out there.
Yet it's as if they're afraid to take that next step.
Well, one of the things that I have uh one of the things I've detected out there, and this is troubling to me, and has nothing to do with the president, but as I'm listening to certain senators on television talk about the opposition to this appointment or this nomination.
Uh I I see the uh the people that they have long loved, and talk about these various senators.
They've loved these people, they have courted them, they have asked uh asked for and received their support, and all of a sudden they're the extreme right wing.
Uh extreme right wing and then extreme left wing.
So the senators are setting this up as Harriet Myers, she's right there in the middle.
This is perfect because if the extreme right doesn't like her and extreme left doesn't like her, she must be the right pick.
So now all of a sudden, the conservative movement which got all these people elected, become the extreme right wing.
And this is a bit troubling to me because I'm gonna uh uh folks, let me tell you the truth about this.
The people that got them elected, and the people that make this country's uh electoral map look red in so many places, the heart and soul of this country is the American conservative movement that uh really came of age in the Reagan years.
They're not extreme, they're not the kooks, they're not the fringe, and yet here we have these senators, some of them, uh Republican senators, uh now letting it be known what they think or what they think it's at least politic to say, and I think this is defensive too.
I I I I think this is uh a way for these guys to be weak.
Oh, yeah, well, these these critics are just the extreme right wing.
That's what the media thinks of them.
Now, granted, some of these Republicans that are talking are totally loyal to the president.
Uh and and that I understand, but this this need to uh divide uh people by various labels within the party uh is is something that's also problematic, and just it it to me illustrates how much work is left to do, even within the Republican Party.
Hell look, I haven't gotten to it yet, but I'm going to.
This story on offshore drilling for oil in the aftermath of everything that we have seen this year with the gasoline price and the oil price, Katrina uh refineries, this makes literally no sense to me whatsoever, unless a bunch of people are just scared.
Back in a moment.
You're listening to Rush Limbaugh on the excellence in podcasting network.
Previous announcement paid for by Jordan Soros and wacky friends of Nancy Pelosi.
Greetings.
Welcome back.
We uh without any uh any further delay, welcome to the program, Congress and Tom Delay.
Congressman, welcome to the program.
It's great to have you with us.
Thank you, Rush.
Good to be with you.
It appears that uh the prosecutor Ronnie Earl has taken a mulligan on that first indictment, hit it out of bounds, and is going to go back for more.
Could you uh could you explain uh to me and and my audience uh why the first indictment was flawed, why he had to throw it away, and now he's come back with money laundering, which was not in the first one, yet the press characterized the first indictment as money laundering, and guess what he comes back with now?
Yeah, right.
Well, what happened last week was he manufactured uh a baseless indictment uh uh uh on a on a law that doesn't apply to me because it wasn't a law till a year later uh from the event.
Uh and the conspiracy uh statute uh uh uh having been attached to the election code was passed in two thousand three.
Um so he di he didn't even open the books to to write the indictment.
And uh so he spent the entire weekend trying to find a grand jury that would indict me because this grand jury had gone out the same day after six months of being in session.
Uh we filed the quash uh or get rid of the indictment uh yesterday morning.
He was panicked and he went to a grand jury that was in impaneled at twelve noon yesterday, and even before they were uh gone through orientation, uh he brought this to them and forced them to bring this indictment, which is an indictment money money laundering indictment that that just doesn't make any sense because it doesn't apply to the situation.
Now you met with him, if I'm correct about this, two weeks before the first indictment was handed down.
Yeah, but a month before, yeah.
Well, what did he what what was the purpose of that meeting and what did he tell you in that meeting?
It was a voluntary interview that I agreed to go in and and just tell my side of the story.
Uh and show him that I had no day-to-day uh responsibility of how uh Trim Pact this organization was run.
I was a headliner for f fundraisers, and they used my name in fundraising.
I helped them raise money.
But the day-to-day operations were run by John Calliandro and and Jim Ellis, and they did it all and I at my insistence that they're all being cleared by lawyers and accountants.
Everything they did was extremely like legal.
In fact, the whole notion that that we m laundered money by sending uh m uh corporate m funds to the Republican National Committee.
The same year the Texas Democrat Party sent seventy-five thousand dollars to the DNC, and the DN and they used that legally for other purposes, and they sent seventy-five thousand dollars to candidates in Texas.
Exactly the same thing I'm being accused of of money lawing.
Where's the investigation of them and indictment of them?
Yeah, well, you know how that goes.
I mean Well, what did he tell you in this meeting after you spent uh whatever length of time with him you did a month before the indictment?
Did he give you an indication of what he was going to do?
No, he didn't.
Um I may I uh I can't really talk about specific uh of that interview because it's under grand jury secrecy, and unlike Ronnie Earl, I'm going to adhere to that agreement.
But uh suffice it to say, I misspoke one sentence, one sentence, and they have based all of this on one sentence.
And that basically they think that uh before the check was cut and sent to the Republican National Committee, I approved that check, which is totally false.
I didn't know that this went on until well after it happened it had happened.
Well, that's the thing.
I I read last week, I've read so much about this, and I hope I'm not confused on this, but it's it it seems to me somebody was writing in your defense, I don't remember who it was, but they said why would you go through this circuitous process?
We're talking two thousand two and in previous years.
Why would you go through this security process when it was legal before campaign finance reform to do what the indictment accused you of doing in the first place?
Is that right?
That's right, but all they want is to indict me.
I would not have been indicted uh if we didn't have a rule in the Republican conference that says that if a leader is indicted, they have to temporarily set aside uh a step aside.
Uh that's that's why they included me in this that that's what they were originally after.
And and uh that's that's the ending he wanted to write for the movie that's being shot about him uh over the last two years.
Can you imagine a a a prosecutor having a movie made about him?
Uh supposed to be impartial, uh objective and and secret, yet he's having a movie.
I mean, that just tells me he he he wants the movie to be successful, so he wants a certain outcome, a certain ending.
It made me wonder what the Democrats' response would have been had the House managers been making a movie of their actions during the impeachment of President Clinton.
Right.
And I mean, it would just, it would have been, there would have been hell to pay.
Now, he didn't let those cameras in the grand jury proceedings, did he?
He let them in the room and he in the grand jury room, and I don't I don't know I haven't seen the movie, but I'm told that he let them in the room, he d uh uh I I don't know what the movie's about, but the whole it's the it's the process of it's supposed to be impartial.
I mean, we're talking about an important fundamental uh uh process here to the American people to protect our liberties, keep it secret.
Uh the prosecutor ethically is supposed to be impartial and and objective uh so that you don't ruin people, but that's not what Ronnie Earl does.
I mean, he he he's done it before, he drags your name through the mud in this case two and a half more than two and a half years, and then he knows he doesn't have a case, but he pulls the trigger anyway, and his whole objective in this case to remove me as majority leader, but in the case of K. Bailey Hutchinson is to defeat her at the poll.
Do you think there was any collaboration between uh Washington Democrats and uh and Ronnie Earl on the timing of this indictment and the indictment itself?
Well, it's it's very suspicious to me that the Democrat Party, the D triple C Democrat campaign committee, announced their strategy of personal destruction on me, uh publicly announced it.
It's on their website, it was on their website.
Uh they they've gone through this whole strategy of doing this.
Ronnie Earl shows up at a fundraiser during this investigation and and makes a speech about how he's going to get Tom Delay.
I mean, there were Democrats there, and I'm sure there were some Democrat leaders at that fundraiser, and I'm sure they did speak to each other, knowing Ronnie, uh he's he's beating his chest uh all through there.
And uh and I could give more and more, but the day before the indictment came down yesterday, I mean last week, the D triple C was shopping the story that I was going to be indicted, and it was secret up until then.
Now, who called the D triple C to tell him I was going to be indicted?
Well, what interests me is who from the tree double uh the D triple C called Ronnie Earl and asked him to indict.
That that I know you can't comment on that, but that's I'm not asking you to, but I wanted to get the possibility out.
The uh also uh uh the you you say they wanted to get you out of your leadership position, and I have I have no doubt about that.
But I also fear something else, and I don't know if your lawyers are going to be able to work around this, but it seems to me that what these people also want, Congressman, is a mugshot of you to use on television for the rest of your life.
They want fingerprints, they want a perp walking handcuffs so that they can portray Tom Delay, evil Republican on television via a Michael Jackson type mugshot and a perplalkin' handcuffs for the rest of your career, whether you're in Congress or not, just as a way to typecast all Republican leaders, all Republicans of power, uh i are i i is is there what I guess the question what is there that any citizen can do when you have what you think is an out of control prosecutor.
What's the recourse?
What what limits are there on these prosecutors?
What can anybody do to rein them and where can you go right now without without having to wait two years to file a uh a lawsuit on uh unjust prosecution what could you do right now to make him accountable?
Well I'd like to tell you but I just do not tell Ronnie Earl and the Democrats uh I mean I've got one of the best defense lawyers in America, Dick DeGuerin.
Uh we have plans uh uh but uh I I really can't divulge the our plans.
There are remedies and there are appeals that uh to higher levels that can be uh given but uh this frankly is highly unusual uh this whole process of uh this whole abuse of power.
I we have a panicked, out of control uh district attorney in in Austin, Texas I mean just his actions over the last few days will tell you that and it's very dangerous.
Uh but more important than all of this, our criminal justice system is at risk here.
If he is not held accountable, if he is not uh uh taken out of office, uh DA's uh partisan DAs around the country say well I can get by with it too.
It it under to criminalize election politics, pull it into the criminal justice system and abuse the grand jury system like this is really dangerous to our system of government.
Well sadly it's not all that uncommon is it?
Uh it's it's not common uh it has happened in the past but especially with Ronnie Earl I mean he's indicted thirteen, fifteen people, all his political enemies the problem is they're scared of him.
He's like a bully.
Well I'm not and I'm gonna I'm gonna I see this for what it is and I'm gonna fight it uh to the death because I my most important the most important consideration is to not allow this to happen in America.
What about the Republican agenda in Congress?
I heard you um uh last Friday uh responding to the indictment uh in your press conference I believe it was last Friday uh and you uh were assuring the uh the people who were listening to your press conference of the conservative agenda you spelled out the items and you said it was going to go on uh uh uh how is that going to happen?
Are you confident that the uh agenda can proceed through Congress while this indictment of you and I don't know how long is this going to be before you go to trial how long is this going to be distraction for them and for you?
Well first of all it doesn't need to be a distraction for me.
Now I have made my case to the my constituents and I I'm focused on getting this agenda done.
The Speaker wants me to help with that agenda and I'm gonna I'm gonna help the leadership do it.
But uh the Democrats are not very good politicians.
You know what this has done?
It it was amazing last last week when I went before the conference and they showed me a great deal of support.
The thing I I thought about was my goodness, the Democrats have united us more than I've ever seen and they've united us at a time when we were falling apart.
We were fighting amongst ourselves the m members were questioning the leadership.
We de rededicated ourselves in that meeting that we're going to do a bold, aggressive agenda using our principles and we're going to get it done in the next eight eight weeks.
We're gonna cut spending, cut taxes, we're gonna reform entitlements, we're gonna protect our borders, we're gonna enforce immigration, we're gonna fix the gas price problem by increasing supply and building refineries.
I mean we're moving and we're going to use our principles to do it.
Well I won't ask you about the Republicans in the Senate in that battle, but I know that's that's that's long been an obstacle.
But before you go one quick question on uh expanding our supply of uh of energy House Republicans, this is a AP story today, House Republicans have abandoned plans to lift the ban on offshore drilling along most of the country's coastline as part of a new uh energy bill uh Republican members of Congress said yesterday this is Pombos bill from California and apparently the uh the Florida delegation including uh Bill Nelson and Mel Martinez and and a number of Republicans oh no you're not you're not gonna drill off the shore
of uh off coast of Florida even if it's twenty five miles out it's it this story makes it seem like, and I'm asking you because it's the AP, makes it seem like the uh the GOP's cannibalizing itself on that agenda item.
Not at all.
Uh that's the Senate.
The House will lead and we'll do it this week.
Uh we're moving forward.
We're working with uh Governor Jeb Bush on on how we uh it's critically important for us uh to to drill wherever we can and because now today's technology we can do it environmentally safe, and um uh we're working on an item and and we're still working through this week to to fashion this bill so that uh we increase supply.
Now we are we are thinking about uh doing ANWAR on another vehicle because we want Anwar to pass and go to the Senate.
And we can take another bill that uh called reconciliation that only requires fifty-one uh votes in the Senate and put Anwar on that bill and get it done.
If it may be separated out of this b bill we're doing next week.
There's no guarantee that the bill we're doing this week will ever get through the Senate.
But we want Anwar, and we're using the best opportunity to do that.
You have uh access to speedy trial possibility.
I do, and my lawyer tells me that I I could be in trial in deep by December, but he's he's very confident that this is so outrageous and so ridiculous, and and and uh uh that uh we have a great opportunity to get the indictment thrown out.
Well our prayers are with you, Congressman.
Thanks for your time.
Well, thank you, Rush.
We're going forward.
We're not we're not looking back and we're just moving.
I hear you.
Yeah.
Congressman Tom Delay on the phone with us from uh from Texas.
Uh quick timeout.
We'll be back with more right after this.
Having more fun than a human being should be allowed to have because I am doing what I was born to do.
Rush Limbaugh behind the golden EIB microphone.
Here's Holly in Los Angeles.
Great to have you on the program, Holly.
Hi, it's an honor to talk to you, Russ.
I just gotta give you a little bit of a hard time here.
Uh a little disappointed in you about yesterday morning.
Now you did clarify um about 45 minutes ago, um a little more, but uh you were just a little too doom and gloomy.
I mean, you're the optimist here.
You're always balling us the audience out for being too negative and scattering and running for cover when you know there's polls that are bad and or Iraq or something like that.
Right and you come out and you're like, you know, I'm frankly disappointed in the president and in this nominee.
And you clarify it a little bit, like I said, but I'm I'm just disappointed.
I mean, Bush never does anything.
He hasn't calculated and thought through, and anybody that knows him well and studies him well knows that.
He's known this woman for like fifteen years, she's worked for him for over ten, and I think it frankly that it sounded to me like you were just disappointed in the lack of a fight.
And I, for one, wanted to fight more than anybody, as much as you.
I mean, it's like w it's fun.
It's like watching Wiley Coyote and the Roadrunner.
And you know, I mean, he always thinks he's so smart, he blows himself up, and it was gonna be fun to watch.
But frankly, uh the old adage, live to fight again another day.
I think Bush has a rope dope going here.
Um he's got a win-win situation.
He's getting exactly what he wants.
He knows exactly what she thinks.
She was on the committee for Robert, so she knows exactly what she thinks because she had to report to him.
And he's known her for all these years.
All right, so you know, frankly, so you know, he's promised the strict constructionist and interpreter of the law, somebody that wasn't gonna legislate from the bench.
And so that's number one.
Number two, he doesn't get to be a divider.
By intentionally picking a fight.
And number three, John Paul Stevens is eighty-five years old.
When Bush gets out of office, he's gonna be eighty-eight.
Does anybody out there think that he's not gonna get a third pick?
No, I think I've said that.
I've said he's gonna get a third, he may get a fourth.
Uh but but look, I I'm not dooming gloom about you have to listen to everything I s I'm sorry I can't say everything I think about this in five minutes, and it's much easier to listen to something in five minutes than it is for you know, a whole show or show and a half.
And for that, you know, I I do apologize.
But uh I I think also uh c keep keep keep something in mind.
This this happens yesterday morning, and this this was a broadside surprise.
I mean I'd heard her name mentioned, but I really didn't put much stock in it.
I didn't put much stock in anybody's name being mentioned, but uh there's a lot of on-air musing with this yesterday.
I I uh yesterday I wasn't quite firm in in uh what I thought it was too soon.
But I've never been dooming gloom about it.
Yeah, there were aspects of it that disappointed me, which which I uh explained.
I'm not pessimistic about about this or the or the future.
It's just an opportunity I was hoping to have that is delayed, and we'll have to do it another time.
Thanks for the call.
Gotta go.
Back in a moment.
Yes, sir.
Fastest three hours in media just rolling right on.
It's already Tuesday.
Some people, it probably feels like Friday, but it's only Tuesday.
We'll be back.
We will continue in mere moments.
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