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Oct. 18, 2005 - Rush Limbaugh Program
36:21
October 18, 2005, Tuesday, Hour #1
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Time Text
Okay, the cough switch is working.
Everything seems to be normal since the last time I was here, so we're ready to go.
Greetings, my friends, and welcome to the award-winning thrill pack, ever exciting, increasingly popular growing by leaps in bounds Rush Linball program.
We come to you today from New York City from High Atop, the EIB building in Midtown Manhattan.
We call it the EIB Northern Command.
One little technical thing.
For all intents for expressive purposes, the mix minus.
I can barely hear the music, and I'm hearing myself very, very loud.
So if you could uh uh turn me down just a bit, at least into the way I hear myself.
Anyway, folks, here's the telephone number 800.
This always happens.
Uh when's the last time uh I use this studio?
I don't know when interlopers get in here and use it, but the last time I used this studio has to be has to be April.
Something April.
So it's always we have to come up here and and and uh resynchronize things to get them back into a uh uh uh an order and uh and a setup that I am familiar with that's synchronized to the way we do it at the Southern Command.
Anyway, the uh telephone number is 800 282-2882, the email address rush at EIBNet.com.
I've been thinking what how do I start the program today?
What do I start talking about?
And I figure why not talk about me?
So I very seldom talk about me, and I think it's uh it's it's long overdue.
Breaking format, as it were, talking about me.
I uh seldom do that.
Well, the reason we're here, a one-night-only performance on Broadway called Rush on Broadway.
It's done for our New York affiliate, WABC AM 77.
The show sold out in 20 minutes.
There aren't any tickets unless unless you know somebody that you can steal them from or offer a lot of money to.
Something like, what is it, 1800 to 2,000 people?
1800 people, and uh curtain goes up at 7 o'clock with Sean Hannity, and uh he's gonna introduce me.
That means I'll get on stage about eight.
Uh just kidding.
Now he's gonna introduce me.
We're gonna go out there and and uh uh just it just flows as it goes.
Uh the first such performance ever in New York.
Looking forward to it tonight.
And uh we'll be talking a little bit about it as the program unfolds today.
Uh also, ladies and gentlemen, we've got some sound bites, and may as well before we get to the sound bites, because those are about me too, but you you you need to hear this.
This story is fresh.
It just cleared not long ago.
Uh Homeland Security uh Secretary Michael Chertoff said that his department is now aiming without exception to expel all of those who enter the United States illegally.
Our goal at the Department of Homeland Security is to completely eliminate the catch and release enforcement problem and return every single illegal entrant, no exceptions.
It should be possible to achieve significant and measurable progress uh to this end in less than one year.
Chertoff was talking to a bunch of senators today when he said this.
It was at a Senate hearing.
Thousands of Mexicans who were caught entering the United States uh illegally or returned immediately to Mexico, but other parts of the system have nearly collapsed under the weight of numbers.
The problem is especially severe for non-Mexicans apprehended at the Southwest border, he explained today.
A non-Mexican illegal immigrant caught trying to enter the U.S. across the Southwest border has an 80% chance of being released immediately because we lack the holding facilities.
Well, we need more club gitmos.
Through a comprehensive approach, we are moving to end this catch and release style of border enforcement by re-engineering our detention and removal process.
Now, his remarks in favor of returning every illegal entrant, no exceptions, quote unquote, appear to conflict directly with U.S. policy toward illegal Cuban migrants.
Though Cubans picked up at sea or returned to their country, those who reach U.S. soil by air, sea, or ground are allowed to stay and work.
This is a fact that Cuba says encourages dangerous illegal immigration attempts.
Now, does anybody have any questions as to why this sudden 180 reversal in policy?
Uh think uh some of you might call it the conservative split.
Some of you might call it the uh the uh fallout from the uh disappointment among conservatives over the Harriet Myers nomination.
Could well be.
Uh, but regardless, it's this is long overdue, and I'm telling you, This is the issue, folks.
And I've got a couple stories here in the um in the stack about how serious this has gotten out in California now.
Well, that's the wrong way to put it.
It's been serious out there for about how finally political people in political officials, elected officials in California now realize just how serious an issue this is.
So this is a this is a remarkable departure from stated uh policy from Washington.
Plaudits to uh Mr. Churtoff, the Homeland Security Secretary, and we'll see how successful the uh the efforts are.
But we've reached a breaking point on this, and there's there's there's no um no doubt in my mind that there is a political component to this as well.
But see, this is how this stuff works, folks.
I mean, it you keep applying pressure and and uh standing up for what you believe, and and eventually, uh if if you're forceful enough about it and you can generate enough numbers, people on your side, uh you can force action on these kinds of things.
It's actually uh another uh reason to be optimistic.
All right, let's go to the audio sound bites.
I want seriously, I want to get these things about me out of the way so we can uh move on to the other items in the stack of stuff today.
It's really funny how the press is turning on Judith Miller.
Oh to think to think that they held retirement parties for Dan Rather, to think that they gave him all kinds of awards.
He got the Peabody Award.
The media circled the wagons to protect Dan Rather.
They want Judith Miller back in jail.
They she has committed this is a this is a quote from one of the stories.
She has from another journalist.
She has committed crimes against journalism.
Crimes against journalism.
Ho, it's big out there.
But before we get to all that, let's go to the audio tapes.
Yesterday on CNN, and I must tell you, uh, good morning, America asked for me to be on the program today today.
I said, don't get up that early.
Thanks for the invitation.
Um I'm I'm doing a little interview with Sean Hannity tonight before the Rush on Broadway event that uh will air on his show on Fox.
Is that going to air tonight or or tomorrow?
They're gonna air it tonight.
So Fox started promoting this as a exclusive sit down with Rush Limbaugh, all these other what are you all these other networks started calling?
What do you mean exclusive to Hannity?
What about me?
What about us?
So they all think I'm going on Hannity to talk about that Wall Street Journal op-ed, and that's what they all wanted me to come on and talk about.
And I um, you know, the op-ed speaks for itself.
I will talk about it tonight.
They rush on Broadway.
I'm sure Hannity will have a couple questions about it.
Anyway, Wolf Blitzer, who I like, Wolf Blitzer called his office call.
Can we get Rush uh can't believe he's doing an exclusive with Hannity?
He says, sorry, uh don't don't have time.
So what did they do?
They went out and got the next best person they could to talk about my op-ed, Terry McCaula, the former chairman of the Democrat National Committee.
The punk.
And so Wolf said to Terry McCaulliff, now we we heard from Rush Limbaugh in the form of an op-ed piece that he wrote in the editorial page of the Wall Street Journal today, and among other things, he said this.
The purpose of the Myers debate is to ensure that we are doing the very best we can to move the nation in the right direction.
And when all is said and done, we'll be even stronger and more focused on our agenda and defeating those who obstruct it just in time for 2006 and 2008.
You agree with him, uh, Mr. McCulliff.
What do you uh think?
Rush Limbaugh, I mean, if you look at what Rush Limbaugh says, it's the conservatives that are attacking this woman.
They have been out from day one attacking her.
Every major conservative journalist has attacked this woman.
They got problems on the Republican side.
This is their problem.
The Democrats, I will speak for the Democratic Party.
We all want to know her background.
We want to know how she will be, how she will adjudicate cases in the United States Supreme Court.
We're doing the responsible thing.
Let's wait till the evidence that is, we can make our decision.
Um I did he actually answer the question.
I I don't I don't I don't think he see the the nobody wants to deal with the the real point that I made in that op-ed.
And there were, you know, the great thing about that op-ed, if I say so myself, and I can because I wrote it, it was a thousand words, and there's more in the there's not one word wasted in that op-ed.
Every one of those thousand words means something.
But these people that are looking at it solely as a a primer, if you will, on conservative opposition to Harriet Myers, are missing the whole point.
What McAuliffe should be asked about, what do you think about what Rich Rush Limbaugh says that you guys have no agenda, that you can't be honest about who you are, that no matter what you say and what you do, if you're honest, you're dead, and if you mask yourselves, you'll continue to be dead, that you're nothing but a bunch of whiners and moaners.
What about that?
Doesn't ask them that.
Ask what they think of what I said about Harriet Myers.
Now I want to go on record.
I have been where Harriet Myers is concerned.
I have not been critical of her at all.
I don't know her.
She could turn out to be fine.
I have said this from the get-go.
I have said that Harriet Myers is I've no brief against her.
Yeah, and I've, you know, to repeat all of this.
But uh, but the punk uh is wrong here when he lumps me in with all these conservatives who have attacked her personally, and I don't frankly know too many people who have attacked her personally.
Uh some have attacked the what they don't know about our judicial philosophy and all that.
But it is clear, it is clear that in that op-ed, which they read front to back, that the parts about the f the left and how they do nothing but look backwards, how they try to repeat their presumed past glories, that just glosses it goes right over their heads, and they have no interest in addressing it, which is fine because they're staring the truth on the page, and what happens when they look at the truth, whether it's in an op-ed I write or anywhere else, they ignore it.
Can't face it, can't deal with the truth.
They have to continue to try to alter reality.
Moving on to the audio sound bites.
Yesterday, Michigan State University, a forum on the state of news journalism.
ABC Sam Donaldson says, How important is objectivity?
If you listen to Rush Limbaugh, you don't hear a lot of the other side.
I try to stop the tape.
Sam, you don't listen to Rush Limbaugh.
Otherwise, you wouldn't have said that.
What do I do on this program?
I set up exactly what the other side's position is.
I'm the only one who'll do it honestly.
If I have a liberal guest on this program, I'm not guaranteed the liberal guest is going to be honest about what he believes.
So, in order to establish what I believe of what I think, I set myself up by a by presenting the liberal point of view on whatever issue it is I'm talking about.
So he's wrong about that.
Let's resume.
I tried a radio show for a while.
I just didn't make it.
I wasn't very good.
And the guy from ABC came down and tried to help me.
He's no longer there, so I can say this.
And he said, Hey, every morning you have to start your program by saying, I'm outraged.
I said, Well, about what?
He said, You find just find something to be outraged about.
Well, I said, some mornings I am outraged, it's true, but other mornings, hey, down on top of the world, the birds are singing, I'm not outraged, things are fine.
No, no, he said, you don't understand.
You have to be outraged, and then of course he had to tell me I had to be on the right.
And said, if you give me a litmus test, as some of them, I'm I'm a writing.
Others are probably a lefty.
But I said, I can't just be always on the right or something like this.
Well, he said, you know, you're never going to have an audience.
And he was exactly right.
I'll tell you what, how many years has it been?
We're near our 18th year and they still don't get it.
Think this is nothing but rage and anger, starting out mad.
They don't get the optimism, they don't get the fun, they don't get the good cheer, and they also don't get the crucial aspect, and that's truth and honesty.
But they got one more bite from Sam.
Uh he's talking here about how important is objectivity.
Who do we listen to?
We listen to people that reinforce our views.
Rush Limbaugh has an audience of about 20 million people.
That's a man amazing.
And the Democrats are all worried about it.
I said, look, he's not going to convert five million liberals to vote for George W. Bush, excuse me.
He's talking to people who are going to vote.
More power to them.
Praise them.
For George W. Bush.
And they enjoy it.
And maybe a few people listen because Rush is a great entertainer.
He tells you I'm an entertainer.
You can't make the stuff up.
I mean, this is terrific.
You know, and the way he uses his voice, the pause.
I mean, he's dramatic.
He could be on, he could play Shakespeare.
Who could he play?
I don't know.
Hamlet.
Um, this is uh this is this is uh this is that's right.
I thought Hamlet was a moderate.
I thought Hamlet couldn't make up his mind about anything.
I couldn't play Hamlet.
Well, I'd have to act and be Hamlet, I guess.
But see, uh anyway, I think that's just interesting because the the truth of the matter is one of the reasons the left is so concerned about this program is that there are former liberals.
Pause who listen dramatic pause, as in Shakespeare, to this program.
All you gotta do is ask Tom Dashell.
Tom Dashell, after the November midterms 2002, uh came out and said we some information is very shocking, and he basically let the cat out of the bag, indicating that we found out just now that all the people at Rush Limbaugh listened to or listen to Rush Limbaugh are not conservative.
And that that's that's what shook him up.
At uh at any rate, we continue after even 17 years to labor here under a veil of uh obscurity to some people.
It is amazing.
This this program is since there's there's no deceit, there there is no attempt to fool anybody here.
How it is so difficult for the left to listen to this program and understand it or why it works.
I guess it's it's it's it's uh one of the secrets of our success, but it still bamboozles me how it can happen back in just a rush ball, your guiding light through times of trouble, confusion, murkiness, tumult, chaos, torture, humiliation, as well as the good times.
The EIB Northern Command in New York today at 800-282-2882.
And by the way, the Ditto Cam is on.
It'll be on for the uh entire three hours of the program today.
Now, folks, I realize, and we'll be honest about this, and a lot of you down in the dumps out there, maybe not uh to the degree that the left thinks you're down in the dumps.
Some of you down there a little a little downcast, a little little little concerned about the future, a little worried about it because of the uh uh the things going on with the CIA uh leak investigation and the uh the whole Harriet Myers nomination.
And as always, if you listen to me talk about these things, I tell you to stay upbeat and stay positive.
And I've uh I've given you reasons, rhyme and reason for doing so.
Uh wrote the op-ed uh in the Wall Street Journal as one way of illustrating that.
And it it really boils down to this.
If you look at conservatism and where it is right now, what is happening?
What whether there's a disagreement, where there's a so-called split, whether there is a fissure, what have you, at the root of it is ideas.
And so conservative ideas continue to be debated, and these ideas as they're debated are heard by other people.
And the the healthful nature of these debates is obvious.
This is um this is a good thing.
Anytime you're debating ideas, you're growing.
And when you're not afraid to be honest about what you believe uh when debating your ideas, and when you don't try to silence the opposite side, the other side, or the opposition, uh with attempts to smear them or or uh otherwise uh uh attack their their character and so forth, then really what you have is a is an ongoing uh rejuvenation process, as it were.
Contrast this with what's happening on the left.
They don't dare mention any of their ideas, honestly.
They can't even figure out how to present them.
They're still having closed-door meetings on how to say what they think they should say.
They're having closed-door meetings to come up with what they believe.
Now, in addition to my own attempts to keep you uh thinking positively and to keep you bucked up, that's bucked up with a B. I try to cite also some other evidence from other people who are weighing in on this.
And I have just such evidence today from uh our old buddy Todd Lindbergh in the Washington Times, and he's got a piece that's headlined Myths of the Democratic Party.
William Galston and Elaine Kmark, two of the keenest observers of American politics and the fortunes of their Democratic Party in it, were co-authors of a 1989 analysis and strategy paper that in certain respects paved the way for Slick Willie's triumph in 1992 as a quote unquote New Democrat.
A candidate set apart from a left liberalism that had come to dominate the party, and to which Mr. Golston and Miss Kmark rose in opposition.
The two have just released a new study and strategic paper, the politics of polarization, that hopes to galvanize Democrats' fortunes once again by directing the party back toward the electoral center.
Well, this is not 1989.
Back in 1989, you didn't have George Soros.
You didn't have move on.org.
You didn't have all these kook elements rise to become the base of the Democratic Party.
But something else well worth pointing out here is that they even had to create the myth that Clinton was not a liberal in order to get him elected in 1992.
And this is what people forget.
But Bill and Clinton, uh Bill and Hillary Clinton are as liberal as you would expect any mainstream Democrat to be.
It was a myth.
It was a how can We fool them today project to try to convince everybody there's this new Democrat, that the uh a centrist Democrat, because they knew even back in 92 that if they were simply aligned and and and uh uh positioned with the liberal wing of the Democratic Party, they had no prayer.
So they had to create this myth.
Well, guess what?
They're back, K. Mark and Golstenar, to try to do the same thing with their new paper, The Politics of Polarization.
And Todd Lindbergh says you'll not find a more astute political analysis, but unfortunately for Democrats, knowledge is not virtue, and a clear-eyed view of the political problem at hand, while a prerequisite for a solution only begins the hardworking uh or hard work of crafting a workable approach to the party's national problem of powerlessness.
Now sit tight, because this gets very interesting.
I'll come back and explain it all to you right after this uh time out.
Don't go away.
America's anchor man, an America's truth detector, play-by-play man of the news behind the golden EIB microphone at the Limbaugh Institute for advanced conservative studies.
Now, look, folks, now don't misunderstand me here.
I'm not a Pollyanna, and you know that.
I just checked the email here in the break.
Hey, Rush, there's plenty of stuff to worry about.
The Chinese, illegal immigration, uh federal spinning.
I do I not talk about this all the time.
I'm not saying don't be worried, I'm saying don't give up.
There's no reason to panic out there.
You know, of course these things are still problems.
If you want to, I mean the two things, you can worry about them all.
What are you gonna do after you worry about them?
You know, sit there and wring your hands, gee, I'm worried.
You can do that.
I mean, or you can you can get action oriented and and and and uh and get involved, which which we do in in large part by voting and so forth.
But look, all I'm trying to do here is set up the fact I'm addressing something that is of immediate concern to a lot of people, and that is that there's a total crack up in the conservative movement, the Republican Party, we have no chance in 06, we have no chance in 08, and everything we've worked for the last 20 years is gone, and why the hell should we care?
And I'm trying to stop you from heading in that direction.
Because such is not the case.
Now, it it may well be that things are not going as well on our side right now as we'd like, but at the same time, winning elections is still key.
Winning elections is still an objective, putting the right people in office, and we look at who our opponents are.
It's it's wise to assess where they are.
If you're gonna if you're gonna sit out there and conclude that all is gone and all is lost and it's hopeless out there, uh then I'm just telling you that it's not.
If you want to worry, I mean, go ahead.
I will not join you, but if you want to worry, I will understand it.
So we've got the Democrats, and they're still exactly what they did in 89, or or in fact that's when they wrote this.
Yeah, in 89, they still have to do the same thing.
There's still this new analysis that these two people that paved the way for Clinton, Elaine K. Mark and William Golston, are trying to do the same thing.
They're trying to they've come a new written new strategy paper, Politics of Polarization, and they hope to uh galvanize the fortunes of Democrats by directing the party back toward the electoral center.
Well, let's look at some basics.
This is again, this is Todd Lidberg in the in the Washington Times.
There are more voters in the United States today who call themselves conservative than call themselves liberal.
Now I told you this after the last election, but here are the numbers 34 to 21%, conservative versus liberal.
I happen to think that it's probably a little higher than 34%.
I still think that some people, when confronted with a polster, be it an exit polster or phone polster or whatever, calling up, hi.
We are doing a survey to determine political identities in America today.
They have a couple questions for you.
First off, are you a conservative or are you a liberal?
Well, the answer when the question is put to you that way, oh, oh no, no, no, no, no.
I'm a moderate.
I'm an independent.
They're not a people still afraid to admit they're conservatives, and even more people afraid to admit they're liberals.
34 to 21 is not chump change.
That's 2004 exit polls.
And these figures have been remarkably constant over time.
Now, to the extent that each party, in what the authors call the great sorting out that has taken place over the past couple of decades, have essentially become the sole home to one or the other of these two proclivities, liberalism or conservatism, the Republicans start out with an advantage.
It's a shorter distance for them from the baseline outlook of the party to a winning percentage of the polls.
Meaning, let's just use these numbers since they're what they are.
If the Republican Party has a majority of its members that say they're conservative, then the Republicans have less distance to travel in order to get conservative politicians and candidates elected.
On the other hand, the Democrats have a larger distance to travel if they want to get liberals elected because a smaller percentage of the Democratic Party identifies itself as such.
I happen to believe there's probably more liberals that are willing to admit it too.
So I think where all this ends up, I know you've I know there's the great unwashed, the great middle, the great moderates and so forth, but I I want to see a moderate get nominated in either party for president.
That I want to see.
Being a moderate.
And then there's this myth that well, you win elections by appealing to the great unwashed or the great center out there, and as you know, I disagree with that.
I think on the Republican side, anyway, it's conservatism that wins every time it's true.
I mean, after all, isn't that why you all get so angry?
These guys run around out there, they campaign as uh as uh, you know, heavy metal conservatives, and we get to Washington, they forget it.
They don't seem to know why they won the election.
They they seem to moderate their tone and so forth, and that's part of the reason that people get frustrated.
Make no question or mistake about it, conservatism is what wins at elections.
Now this takes us to the next problem, the myth of mobilization.
This is the idea, then this is the real problem the Democrats have.
The idea that by devoting their time and resources to catering to and turning out the party base that Democrats can fight their way back to victory.
Such an approach will fail in the absence of an effective appeal to the center.
This is what the authors say.
Um, and and they they say that this is the Bush Cheney campaign mode uh in 2004 and how they succeeded.
I must respectfully disagree that the left is gonna be they they tried their turn out and so did the Republicans.
Republicans did a much better job of turnout than the Democrats did.
Uh and the turnout was generated by conservatives.
The turnout was not generated by moderates.
The moderates aren't out there doing anything.
They're sitting around waiting to figure out what to do after everybody else has already made up their minds.
The moderates aren't out there knocking on doors and stuffing envelopes and making phone calls.
But if the left wants to continue to live under this illusion that moderates are what make the difference, let them go ahead.
I mean, they're just continuing to miscalculate the political circumstance.
But the point is that if if the these two authors think the Democrats' problem is that a get out the base strategy is not, even if it's 100% successful, there's not enough of the base to matter because the Democratic base is so fractured now, with the Kook fringe uh being largely the base, with uh some so-called mainstream Democrats who are older who don't really identify with all these kooks, but they still don't like Republicans making up the rest of the base.
But that's only one of the dominant myths preventing Democrats from asking tough questions and making hard choices.
Gallston and KMAR point as well to the myth of demography, according to which population shifts will inevitably return Democrats to power.
The authors think that this is not likely in the absence of more substantive change, and in any case, it'll happen no time soon.
Now, I hate to tell them this too, but not only that the the myth of demography is that Northeastern liberal Democrat states are losing people.
If there's a demographic shift going on in this country, it is Northeastern and Upper Midwestern liberals leaving and moving to warmer climates and moving into red state areas, but not in large enough numbers to turn red states to blue states, and they're weakening their numbers in the blue states, which eventually, years from now is going to reduce the number of electoral votes from these traditionally large Northeastern and Upper Midwestern states.
It's only it's only a matter of time.
I mean, all of the trends here are on the uh Republican economic growth, low tax side of things.
That's what people are fleeing in the Northeast and the upper Midwest.
No economic growth, high taxes, uh bad schools, rotten job opportunities, and they're fleeing to other parts of the country where the opportunities for those things uh are increased and better.
So the the myth of demography is that Democrats under the if they think the Northeast and these other states are going to bring them back, they're they're living in um you know another illusion.
The author's analysis of changes in voting behavior point to two key groups among uh which Republicans have made gains, married women and Catholics, both of whom used to be much more favorably disposed toward the Democratic Party.
Here in particular, the national security and cultural issues rear up.
Democrats have yet to overcome the Cold War era deficit they acquired on national security, nor is the issue likely to recede in public consciousness again as it did in the 90s, enabling Clinton to get around it.
The reason Clinton was able to get around it because the Cold War ended.
And there was no need for people to be concerned.
They thought about national security.
And then all through the 90s, we had constant attacks on our national security.
The Clinton administration ignored terrorism on uh February 26, 1993 at the World Trade Center, Cobar Towers, the USS Cold.
They did nothing about it.
They cared nothing about it.
They didn't want to do anything that would lower oil prices.
Dick Morris says today that another reason why the Clintons were not tough on the Saudis is because they didn't want gasoline prices going up.
They didn't want anything to contribute to negative poll numbers.
They didn't want to deal with any tough issue.
Well, contrast that with the Bush years, where every issue that's been dealt with is a tough one, and uh and has been a necessary one to be dealt with.
The Democrats still, to this day, when you look at Iraq, as I talked about yesterday, what is their definition of victory?
Their definition of victory equals U.S. defeat.
Hang your head, pull the troops out, and say, just like Vietnam, it was a mistake.
We shouldn't have gone there.
Let's bring our troops home.
And when asked about it uh on a television show Sunday, Dick Durbin, when asked, what's the Democrats' plan for Iraq?
We're gonna hold Bush accountable.
We're gonna make sure that we keep our eyes on Bush.
We're gonna hold this administration even more accountable than we have.
Well, that's not a plan.
And it just all adds up.
They haven't got a plan.
Now they've got their two star political strategists writing a book that basically tries to rewrite the whole strategy for getting Clinton elected in 1989.
Well, you know, we have no peace dividend, they have no, we have no something anything comparable to the end of the Cold War.
If anything, we have the re-emergence of something like a Cold War in terms of the mentality of the people and attitudes of the people of the country, and it they just have not set themselves up well at all.
You add to this that they don't have an agenda that they can be honest about.
They may not even have one, folks, for all I know.
But if they do, it's not something they can be honest about, because they know that people aren't going to vote for it.
Democrats are also too prone to view cultural issues and moral issues through the prism of a hot button social issues, from abortion to gay marriage to end of life decisions.
Uh Democrats like to think that Republicans are intolerant in trying to impose their views on such matters, but they miss seeing their own intolerance in the process.
True.
Now, we go to the end of this piece, and remember last week I shared with you a piece by David Broder, in which he gave us the uh requirements and the resume for the ideal Democrat candidate, and I read those to you, and I said, sounds like a Republican.
He's got to have somebody that uh been married one time, strong on moral issues, uh tolerant of people who disagree with him on those moral issues, uh, has a church-going habit, is concerned with national security.
There isn't such a Democrat out there.
In fact, the big argument that the Democrats are having right now, the big fear is of all the supposed Democratic presidential candidates right now, only one did not vote for the war in Iraq.
All the others did.
Well, folks, I have to tell you, the new base of the Democratic Party is not going to be tolerant of those who voted for the war because that's their number one issue.
Russ Feingold is the only Democrat who did not vote for the war.
Hillary voted for it, Kerry voted for it, uh, the Breck girl voted for it, Biden voted for whoever else is in this mix.
They all voted for the war, even though they've tried to act like they didn't, and then they tried to act like Bush lied to them about it, but they all ended up voting for the war twice.
By the way, twice.
They asked for a resolution the second time so they could go on record being in favor of the war.
Now all of a sudden they want to wash their hands of their own actions, try to convince people it didn't happen, but their base knows what happens.
So here's the here's the definition from Elaine Kmark and Mr. Gallston and William Gallston about the perfect and ideal Democrat candidate.
The party needs a candidate with real credibility on national security.
Give me one name in the Democratic Party.
Give me off the top of your head.
Is there anybody who comes to mind?
There's one that comes to my mind.
And that's a guy who got was thrown out of the primaries the first time.
He's the first candidate to get thrown out of the primaries in 2004.
That'd be Senator Lieberman.
What did he get?
10% in New Hampshire?
When it was embarrassing.
Okay, so they need a candidate with real credibility on national security, whose convictions on social issues are accompanied by a spirit of tolerance.
That's almost a rewrite of one of the requirements that Broder came up with.
And who embodies those big three characteristics of strength, integrity, and empathy.
Can you name one?
Can anybody This is according to Democrat Party research.
This is who they need.
Can somebody name that person?
It doesn't even have to be among the presumed candidates.
Can somebody give me the name of any Democrat who fits this resume requirement?
Real credibility on national security, convictions on social issues accompanied by a spirit of tolerance, embodies big three characteristics strength, integrity, empathy.
Can you name me one Democrat who fits the resume?
Not Sam Nunn, he's still alive, but but they think I'll tell you who fits the character according, according to.
Most people would read this.
The answer to that equation is McCain.
Mythically, they but McCain, the problem there is he's a Republican.
So now here you for all intents and purposes, yes, he's a Republican, at least by virtue of his party affiliation.
So you see, folks, for all the trouble that you think that conservatives are in, believe me, you wouldn't want to be a liberal Democrat today, regardless.
Quick time out, we'll be back and continue in a you know, folks.
I love to pile on.
It's uh and it's it's pile on the Democrats' time.
I give you another example of the problem that they're in and the problems that they have.
Uh you can file this under the headline, Why the Left Can Only Attack, Attack, Attack.
I have here a holding in my formerly nicotine stained fingers.
A story from the Wall Street Journal.
GM, amid industry overhaul, cuts health benefits for retirees.
As foreign rivals hurt sales, Detroit begins to tackle deep structural problems, the choice between bad and worse.
Can I give you another headline here?
Can I rewrite this headline for you?
It would be this.
General Motors rescued from union stranglehold.
The left is intellectually bankrupt.
It's there for anyone to see.
Even those in you in Rio Linda could probably figure this out without my help.
What are the left wings' game plan issues?
We need more manufacturing jobs, we need more worker benefits from powerful corporations, we need more power to the unions.
Well, General Motors is a big, big manufacturer, big, big, powerful corporation locked into long-term union contracts, locked into them that strangle its ability to compete.
And these long-term union contracts, pension health care benefits have caused the price of their cars to go up at a faster rate than cars made in other countries.
You know, in the United States, and I'm not going to debate this as just a fact.
We can talk about the cause and effect later if you want.
But in Japan, the automobile manufacturers are not, they don't pay for the health care workers of their employees.
The Japanese government does.
Now I'm not suggesting that happen here.
I'm just telling you that General Motors has to factor in the cost of cars, the health care benefits of their employees.
Japan doesn't have to do that.
At the simplest at its essence, Japanese cars can be priced $1,500 on average cheaper than American cars because of that.
As I said, we can debate whether that makes any sense or not later on.
But the point is that the GM stuffed into these long-term union contracts finally got a break.
The powerful corporation finally got a break from the not enough power union.
Now, the details I'll give them to you in the monologue segment in the next hour, but this is the beginning of a trend.
I have to take a break.
We will be right back.
Okay, the first hours in the can, lots to go.
Great audio sum bites, I promise I'll get to the Louis Free Bites from yesterday that we uh did not have time for, so sit tight.
Broadcast excellence rolls on.
It won't be long, folks.
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