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Oct. 18, 2005 - Rush Limbaugh Program
36:05
October 18, 2005, Tuesday, Hour #3
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And once again, welcome back from the EIB, Northern Command.
We are located today high atop the EIB building in Midtown Manhattan, Rush Limbaugh on the cutting edge of societal evolution.
Our telephone number, if you'd like to be on the program today, 800 282-2882, and the email address is rush at EIBNet.com.
I let off the story or the program with this story today, in case you tuned in late and think we haven't discussed it.
A fairly big event happened today.
Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff said that his department aims without exception to expel all of those who enter the United States illegally.
This is a huge, huge policy shift for the uh Bush administration.
He was testifying before the Senate committee, a Senate committee, and he said, our goal at the Department of Homeland Security is to completely eliminate the catch and release enforcement program and problem and return every single illegal entrant, no exceptions.
Excuse me.
He said it should be possible to achieve significant and measurable progress to this end in less than one year.
A huge shift.
This is uh this is addressing an issue uh on the part of this administration that many in this country think is the number one problem facing the country.
And uh it's long overdue in about time.
We'll follow it up and see.
But this is a major, major statement.
It's no doubt brought on uh by some of the problems that the administration is having with its uh with its conservative base uh in the Myers nomination.
Now, more about that.
This is this is one of those, you just scratch your heads uh kind of stories.
Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Arlan Spector said Monday that Supreme Court nominee Harriet Myers told him in a private meeting that she believed that the 1985 case of Griswold versus Connecticut, this is a landmark ruling establishing the right to privacy was correctly decided.
However, after the White House took exception to Specter's comments, Spector late Monday released a statement saying that Myers later called him to tell him that he had misunderstood her answer and that she had not taken a position on either Griswold or the right to privacy, which is the legal underpinning for the 73 Roe v.
Wade decision.
It was in the Griswold decision that the justices established the penumbra of the Constitution, this this shadow of the Constitution, where things are imploded, or maybe things uh are not there, but we can infer that they they they were meant to be there by the by the founders.
I.e.
a right to privacy.
Yeah, it doesn't say that, but hell, everybody knows that they were concerned about one.
And so it was that it was that penumbra that was established that led to the right to privacy, which okay, well, there's a right to privacy that a woman can do whatever she wants to her own body and the right uh and has a right and privacy to do it.
So the Griswold case is is is fundamental, and inspector said, Well, she told me she thought that was a good decision.
Then the White House says she didn't tell you that.
In Spector said, Oh, okay.
Uh well, she called to tell me that I'd misunderstood her answer.
Now, Spector's statement, very carefully worded, did not withdraw his comments about Myers discussing Griswold with him, nor did it offer a correction.
But the statement said that Spectre accepted Myers' contention that he misunderstood what she said.
So uh this just gets murkier and murkier and murkier.
Uh, and I can tell you right now that the you know, for all the talk about what's happening to the Myers nomination, as far as conservatives are concerned.
If you don't think the left is ginning up for this because of the things that have been out there, yes, she's I mean, John Fund had a story in the Wall Street Journal today that I think made the New York Times today.
Fund got hold of some notes that were taken by participants, thirteen different people in a conference call, religious leaders.
And they were talked to by Nathan Hecht and somebody else uh from Texas, a couple judges.
And these uh religious leaders were assured that uh that Harriet Myers pro-life and would vote to overturn Roe v.
Well, that's that is problematic because no nominee can say that beforehand.
I mean, that that's just it's just you're not supposed to have that decision made before the case because there are many many tentacles to Roe versus Wade.
There's a whole bunch of uh ancillary abortion cases that'll come up before the the whole shooting match, if it ever does.
And so nominees just they don't they don't they don't take a position on anything.
Uh and so the here she supposedly did uh in second hand uh testimony to these religious leaders, so the New York Times got hold of this story.
So my only point is that if you think that there is uh uh problems with this nomination on the right, and if you've heard that the left is going to confirm her just to get the goats right, uh uh uh uh uh uh, folks, that the one place where the liberal Democrats today maintain consistency and purity is Roe v.
Wade.
And if they even get a whiff, if they even get a cent that some nominee is committed to overturning Roe v.
Wade, they will bring damnation and hellfire to bear on that nominee in the hearings.
But there's uh there's more than just that when it comes to uh Harriet Myers.
They're they're they're they're probably overplay their hands on this uh one way or the other, but it's not it isn't uh it isn't a slam dunk.
So the the whatever it is, the drama, the confusion continues to uh unfold.
Meanwhile, the White House yesterday sought to move away from a debate over Harriet Myers' religion to tout her qualifications for the High Court, returning to the strategy devised before last week's conservative outcry against the nomination.
President Bush held a follow-up with six former members of the Texas State Supreme Court who were lined up by the White House last week to deliver testimonials on behalf of Harriet Myers.
Meanwhile, as I said, she met with several members of the Senate Judiciary Committee yesterday, and at least one Democrat said that he was unimpressed.
Which Democrat do you think that would be?
That was Senator Schumer in her meeting with Senator Schumer, according to Schumer.
Myers said she has not, contrary to a report in yesterday's Wall Street Journal, promised to overturn Roe v.
Wade.
At the White House, former Texas Supreme Court Justice Craig Enoch said when people get to know her and understand her like we do, they'll find her an excellent choice.
And she'll be a legend on that court before her career is finished.
Instead of following a plan to go sell her, they were rocked on their heels, and in the course of trying to placate conservatives, they got off message saying things that weren't originally scripted, like her religion, said one top Republican strategirist with close ties to the White House who said the administration was caught off guard by the conservative opposition.
Yeah, they did kind of get tangled up in what they were doing, and they finally realized they had to get back to their plan.
Uh now understand the White House is admitting that they screwed up not in in picking her, but in selling her.
Okay, so how can that happen?
I I have a bunch of people have been asking me, Rush, this White House has been a well-oiled machine.
They have no mistakes whatsoever.
I mean, they've been right.
Well, not a lot of people agree with that, but but some some people, the enemies of the administration think that this is one of the slickest, meanest, well-oiled, never goofs up administrations ever.
And they see this as a giant mistake.
Uh uh one one person said to me, you know, Rush.
When I heard the first Democrat reaction to this, say, hey, this is somebody we could support, I knew there was going to be trouble.
Why didn't the White House know there was going to be trouble?
If the Democrats are out there saying, like this nominee, why doesn't that tell them there may be a problem?
I said, you're asking the wrong guy.
I don't I don't I don't have uh a direct line communication to the White House.
I I I was not told about this uh in advance, but I will tell you what I think.
I think, and I don't know who could be it's a bunch of people, but I think in the White House there is a view of the conservative base that's that says that the conservative base is pretty much monolithic, and all they really care about is Roe v.
Wade.
So if we nominate somebody that we can convince them is gonna overturn Roe v.
Wade that we can count on the conservatives in our back pocket.
That's the miscalculation.
The uh a lot of people think that the uh conservative base is only the so-called religious right and has only a single issue concern, and that is abortion.
As I have tried to explain on this program, the conservative base isn't monolithic, is made up of huge numbers of people who have varying disagreements on things.
And you've heard it yourself.
You've heard of the social conservatives, and you've heard of the fiscal conservatives.
And then there are the religious conservatives.
And they're probably more demarcations or delineations than even those three.
But if somebody somewhere thinks that you can sew up the right wing by simply having a candidate's going to do and say the right thing when it comes to Roe vs.
Wade, you are sadly mistaken, and you terribly misunderstand the uh the makeup of the right wing.
As I've I've said over and over, the problem with Roe v.
Wade is not just abortion.
Because I know, folks, I know plenty of people who are honest people, who are very, very pro-abortion, who also tell me that they think Roe v.
Wade is rotten law.
And it is.
It's it's rotten law.
Forget the abortion component.
What happened was that seven justices of the Supreme Court invented a law.
They said that abortion is constitutional.
Then there's not there's no mention of abortion in the Constitution, and there's no mention of the right to privacy, which was the foundation of that uh of that decision, which comes from Griswold versus Connecticut, 1965.
So they basically you had seven pro-abortion justices, oh, look what I see in the Constitution here.
Bam o and that's that.
Well, the problem is that if you can get seven or five, a majority, five justices, who can see something in the Constitution that isn't there, and then proclaim it a law, you have just rendered the Constitution meaningless.
And that was the opening of the modern floodgates, if you will, to all kinds of judicial activism.
Kilo decision to name one using foreign law to overturn states' rights on such things as uh same-sex sodomy and that sort of thing.
Uh it it it is very, very troubling to people who think the Constitution is the glue that holds the country together.
When you get right down to it, when five liberal justices can say, you know what, what we believe will never be voted on by the people because we're in the minority, but we have the power as judges to make it law, we'll do that.
Then what what good is the Constitution?
And that's exactly what's happened here.
So the whole point has been get judges on the Constitution who look on the Supreme Court who looked to the Constitution, not to their personal beliefs and try to find law where it doesn't exist.
And that's the sad missed opportunity.
It really, you know, Wesley Prudent said it right in the Washington Times last week.
It's just all of this is just so sad.
It is just a pity.
It needn't have happened.
None of this needn't have happened.
And this this one this one decision is what's caused all this roiling in the uh in the conservative.
It's not even the CIA leak case.
I mean, that's that's a minor thing.
That's not going to cause defections in the administration.
But this just it just needn't have happened.
And when you get right down to it, uh the idea that, well, they'll go for this, because she's pro-life, it just it just represents uh almost a patronizing misunderstanding of who of who it's very simplistic, too.
They're just simple-minded pro- uh pro-lifers out there.
Well, you're gonna keep them in our back pockets and we'll own them on every other issue.
I just yeah.
Yeah, we'll take we'll take, yeah, we'll take other bad law as long as Roves overturned.
Make Roe versus Wade right and throw that away, we'll we'll accept other bad law.
And that's not the way we are.
It's just it just it really is just sad that it happened.
But when the more you look into why the White House miscalculated here, I don't know how else you can conclude that they simply may not have calculated properly where their base is on this whole issue of the Supreme Court.
They brief time out as we come back in just a moment.
Don't go away.
Now, little Al Wilson show and tell from the uh early 70s, a couple emails here on our health care discussion.
Rush, you tell me just how it is that I'm supposed to pay dollar for dollar out of my pocket for my family's health care.
If I work for a company that lose benefits and you say this is unsustainable, maybe this isn't what you envision, but often it sounds as if this is the case.
I currently have health insurance or my employer, which I pay office visits and abortion of medications.
Previously, when I had no employer provided health care, I paid for health care insurance directly, which I still paid for office visits and abortion of medications.
Are you saying I'm a problem and so are millions of people like me?
Are you saying that my family do without health care, less we can pay for every expense out of our pocket?
Are you saying that it should not even be health care insurance?
What exactly are you saying?
Make your case and make it crystal clear.
Or shut up.
I love it when you're clear.
You're one of the rare few in the media who dare be so.
Franklin Barfield, Oakland, California.
All right, now see, I'm over the over the this is not, I'm not whining.
I'm just the illustration here.
I've been on this program here for over 17 years.
I have answered every question in this email countless times over the years.
Either Mr. Barfield hasn't heard me or did hear it and forgot.
And that either are plausible.
These are when you get into policies like this and you're dealing with people's ingrained instincts and their expectations, uh, it takes a lot of pounding sometimes to get through to where the light goes on.
Now, I am not so unrealistic as to expect that everybody is going to be able to pay dollar for dollar for their health care.
I am not suggesting that every health care plant in this country be wiped out and that every employee pay for his own health care.
I mean, I would love for that to be the case.
I would love for health care to be priced the same way a hotel room is or uh or an airplane flight barring emergencies.
And that's the problem with health care.
Because of all this insurance and all these benefits and all of this third party pay system where the client, the patient, the customer doesn't pay for it, somebody else does.
The impression of a free ride has been created.
And the the costs are not really as as as uh as concerning uh to people as they would be if you paid for it directly.
Now there are a lot of reasons why these costs have spiraled out of control, but one of the main reasons is that market forces are not present.
So what we have to do, and this is a long-term solution, because folks, the so i the the only alternative to this is we're all going to be paying tax rates of over 45 or 50%, and then we're gonna be in line to get surgery, and doctors are gonna be told where they can work and where they can't work, what procedures they can do and can't do, and how much they're gonna be reimbursed for it, and you're gonna be looking for another country to go get your health care in, like the Canadians are.
If if it if it the we have the choice of doing that or reforming the system.
Well, okay, loudmouth, how do we reform the system?
Well, I have a theory for you.
It's called market economics.
Have you ever heard of the voucher program in education?
It's the same way people are trying to reform public education.
Look at the dollars wasted there.
And look at where the dollars are spent on decrepit falling apart schools that people who live near those schools have no desire to send their kids to.
We've got so many problems in public education, yet look at all the money we're spending on it.
Well, where's the return?
It isn't there.
And yet, the elites in this country who don't have to worry about the public education system can somehow find a way to pay for their kids to go to private schools where these educational standards are a little bit higher.
Those same people with names like Clinton and Gore vote against you having the right to do the same thing with your own money, by the way, because they're wholly owned by the teachers' unions, the NEA and others.
They contribute a lot of money to Democrats.
That enables Democrats to hold office.
And the payback is we'll continue to prop up the public education system as is, and we'll even throw more money your way.
As Bush did in the first term, letting Ted Kennedy write the education bill.
Same thing has happened in health care.
Nobody who uh the ability to pay for look at look at look at airline tickets.
Look at the airline industry.
The airline industry is having some troubles.
What do they do?
They lower prices.
You do not need travel insurance to buy an airline ticket.
You don't need travel insurance to buy a hotel room.
There are hotels out there that'll accommodate every budget.
You don't need travel insurance to buy gasoline, but for some reason, we need all this insurance to buy health care.
Where did this happen?
Well, it happened over the long haul since the uh since the early 40s and 50s.
Nationalized socialized medicine, what have you, third-party pay Systems where the person other than the patient's actually paying for things.
And it's just inched over time and incrementalized to the point that prices keep going up, and as long as somebody else pays for the benefit, okay, because I'm just one guy.
What can I do about the price?
Well, we're we're we're coming close to reaching a breaking point, and we have a decision.
Reform the system, or all agree that we're gonna end up with a Canadian style national health care plan that nobody's gonna like, that the elites will still have the places they can go if they can pay for it directly, and I got to mess with whatever everybody else has to use.
And you're gonna be paying taxes out the wazoo for this for health care that's gonna be one third to one half the quality it is today.
We will be back.
See, folks, it's easy.
Okay, back to the phones, Mary Cape Coral, Florida.
Thanks for the call.
Nice to have you with us.
Rush, I'm very upset with you.
I am a right wing religious conservative, and I've been listening to you since 92.
And uh you are not giving Harriet Myers a fair chance.
And the implication is that she's too stupid to be on the Supreme Court.
And the question is, I have not said that.
But you imply that she didn't have to.
I have not implied any such thing.
You may be inferring it, but I haven't implied any such thing.
I mean yeah, I'm inferring a lot.
And it reflects on Bush, too.
He's he's not smart enough to pick somebody to be on the Supreme Court.
And us right wing religious conservatives can't be placated because we're not all there is.
But hey, she's a woman, she's worked hard all her life, and give her a chance.
Let her get to the hearings and speak for herself.
I'm fine with I'm not saying she shouldn't be.
I'm a who's uh where where have you heard me say that we should not even let her get to the hearings?
Well, say it then.
Say you believe she can get to the hearings.
Aren't some things obvious?
I mean, do I have not said that the nominee I'm not on this chorus that say pull the nomination?
I haven't said that.
In fact, I've said just the opposite.
The president isn't gonna pull her.
I don't think she's gonna she's gonna withdraw herself.
All I've said was it's a pity.
It's it needn't have happened.
I'm talking about the political fallout.
What?
Isn't he entitled to pick who he wants?
Yeah, he won the election.
I've said that too.
It's his pick.
And what's the constitutional requirement for a Supreme Court judge?
They have to be a lawyer?
Nope.
They can be all they gotta do is be breathing.
See?
See?
She's qualified.
I just mean give her a chance.
You're making me mad.
She's a woman.
And what is that?
Wait a second.
So what she's a woman.
What I haven't even got to do.
She would be getting the same treatment if she was a man and not qualified.
You don't know that.
Now there you go.
You I don't, we nobody knows if if if he had nominated a man that that was that was of the uh uh same mysterious existence and so forth, you I'll guarantee you.
Look at you're talking to the guy who personally lobbied for Janice Rogers Brown to get this pick.
And if not her, Priscilla Owen, and if not her, Edith Jones.
Don't hit me with this woman business.
Now wait, you're lumping me in with the wrong crowd here.
Laura Bush likes her, Karen Hughes likes her, Condoleezza Rice likes her, all women who I have great respect for.
Okay.
Do you expect them to say otherwise?
I think they're being genuine.
I don't know about some of these men who are saying they like her.
This is not a male-female issue, Mary, and uh you you really now you'd be you'd be well advised to drop that angle of this.
There's nothing to do with it.
Well, I think that when she gets into the hearings, if they start beating on her too hard, it's gonna look very much like a female issue.
Yeah, well, that the Democrats have their own risks that they uh that they're running here.
There's no this is gonna be fireworks.
There's no guarantee.
I mean, there's no there's no doubt about it.
This is this is gonna be a huge, hugely volatile hearings.
Uh, there's no question about that.
And when are they gonna start?
I think the target date's November the seventh, unless she quits.
Oops, there you go.
Just kidding.
I am Okay, Russell.
Are you gonna keep being fair-minded?
I have not stopped being fair.
Look, do you want me not to be me?
Do you want me to tell you things I don't believe?
Do you want me just to be a uh uh uh uh blank check supporter no matter what?
You want me to support the things that I disagree with.
Is that what you want me to do?
Do you want you want me to be What the Democrats say I am, a a a rubber stamp black blank check for the White House or the RNC.
Is that what you want me to be?
Do you think she's smart enough to be a Supreme Court Justice?
I don't know.
Okay, that's fair.
That's fair.
Well, that's all I've ever said.
I all I've ever said, I don't know her.
I don't know.
She could be fine.
I know I've said that a gazillion times.
Well, I think she could be too.
I just want her to have a fair chance.
I feel like this woman hasn't even stepped into uh the the hearings and she's getting beat up for weeks now.
Well, you know, this that is nothing new.
They're having uh look at the three judges or more the seven judges that were filibustered.
Look at the things said about them before, during and after the hearings.
This is nothing new.
But this is by conservatives.
This is the big leagues.
Well, the conservatives have had a lot of things to say about some poor picks that they have disagreed with uh on both sides on previous occasions as well.
Well, I feel like family is fighting here.
This is like listening to your family fighting.
Yeah, and I know, and that's what bothers you.
That's what uh and you want you want family unity on this.
And what I've tried to what I've tried to say here is that this debate is ultimately good.
This is this is where conservatives define themselves.
There's so many people thinking that this spells the end, and then you're probably thinking, oh no, we're falling apart and we're cracking at the seams and so forth.
But uh, you know, this this is this this is common.
It's not uncommon for these arguments to take place within families or within political movements or ideologies, and they end up stronger after these things.
The way we're doing it, we're doing it on the basis of ideas.
Nobody that I know is on on my side is upset that she's a woman.
Nobody is upset that she's that that there's any sexism about this or unfairness or what have you.
The the the criticisms that I have heard leveled at this nomination have to do with principle.
I'm thinking that I'm afraid that the conservatives are turning into a bunch of elitists like the liberals that I don't want to have anything to do with.
All right, now you're you're reciting talking points to me because this is this is this is what the White House is putting out.
This is what this is what people paid to support her.
Well, do you think wait a second?
Do you think I'm an elitist?
I I think people should be given a fair chance.
No, no, no, no.
Do you think I'm doing Do you think I'm an elitist and a sexist?
No.
No.
Okay.
I don't.
No.
My opposition to this has nothing to do with I don't think I'm the smartest person in the room, like elitists do.
That's why we have to be the smartest person in the room to get a job.
Uh no.
That's not what I'm saying.
That's what I'm afraid of.
That's not what I'm saying.
Why should I even engage in a I've I'm I'm trying to be malleable here and compassionate and sensitive and understanding.
I'm just I'm just telling you that that uh you know, you you you call me an elitist and a sexist, and I'm asking you, do you think that's what I am?
No, I don't.
Well, some of the criticism of those against those who oppose this is that they're just elitists and they're against average people, and like average people can do anything right and so forth.
You know that's not me.
I think average people are the people to make this country work.
So do I. Well, okay then.
Well, then she needs to be given a fair chance and let her get to her hearings.
She's going to get a fair chance.
Because you what you have to understand is that in terms of her nomination, none of what you're hearing matters.
The only thing that's going to matter is when the hearings start, and then it's up to her.
Well, good.
Maybe I'll turn the radio off until the hearing starts.
Well, you you can do that, but I have a prediction.
You won't be able to keep it off very long because I think you're addicted to this show and to me.
Okay, and I'm a big supporter of George Bush, and I think he's a very wonderful president.
He's very bright, and I don't like the implication that he, you know, isn't up to the task of picking a justice.
Uh that's not what people are saying.
You want to know what people are saying.
You know what?
The people that you're talking about, the people that you're angry about on the right.
Do you want to know how you know how they're taking this?
They think they're being personally rebuffed.
They think that Bush has a grudge against him.
They think Bush is friendlier to his enemies than he is to his friends.
They think that he's more loyal and more concerned to his a about what his enemies think than his friends.
They they think that he thinks that he's got his friends and wait a second.
They think that he believes that he's got his friends in his back pocket.
He didn't have to do anything to keep them there, but he's out there trying to wine and dine his enemies and so forth, and that upsets him too.
Well, you can't make anybody happy.
Uh and that's I guarantee you that's not what the president's trying to do.
He's not trying to make anybody happy with this.
Okay, well, it's nice talking to you, Rush.
Thank you.
Okay, appreciate the uh appreciate the call, Mary.
Norm in Chicago.
As we roll the dice here, going uh to these little yellow blinking lights on the phone.
Hello, Norm.
Welcome to the program.
Kiddos, Rush, long time listener.
Thank you, sir.
I think this is a food fight between the intellectuals and the cultural conservatives.
And uh a lot of cultural conservatives came out for George Bush in the last election.
They all did.
And my belief is been a long time listener and a longtime Republican.
The intellectuals ought to back off.
Right, right in the newspapers, in the magazines.
But we need someone who's going to to put a yay vote with uh Scalia and Thomas.
Well, let me ask you a question.
Yes.
I mean, I'm serious.
How do you know that that's what we have here in this nomination?
Uh I trust George Bush.
Okay.
Well, I I'm not going to argue with that.
I'm not.
I am not going to try to talk you out of your trusting him.
I mean, I can tell you what Ronald Reagan said about trusting one man, but uh that you would you'd you'd be upset with me.
No, trust but verify.
No, that's not what Reagan said.
That's not what Reagan said.
What Reagan said when he's giving his acceptance speech at the Republican convention in July of 1980.
He said, Mr. Carter, the president at the time, Mr. Carter says, trust him.
Well, that's not what this country's all about.
We don't place trust in one man.
If there's trust placed in anyone, it's the trust placed in the American people, and it's up to the elected leaders to not violate that trust.
Reagan said it is a belief of principles and ideals that survive, not the trust of one man.
Reagan was anti-government.
He was small government.
Reagan was suggesting to anybody do not put your trust in one man to run this government or you're going to forget it.
That's what the Soviets made people do.
That's what the communists make people do.
He was saying the trust, if there is trust in our system, it is from the elected leaders to the people.
Trust the people to do the right thing.
Trust the people to act in their own self-interest.
Trust the people to live their lives in a way that will continue to make the country great.
Don't trust an elected official to keep the country great.
And that was Reagan's message on trust.
We should not also trust all the time those people who uh have uh the the benefit of communication over the airwaves uh to speak our point.
Well, you don't have to.
And I and I it's clear that a lot of people don't trust him.
It's a lot, there's clear there's a lot of anger at these uh so-called intellectuals on the right.
Uh and uh believe me, I fully understand it.
Look, this is a dilemma for me, too, Norm.
And I have to tell you how it's a I I feel sort of like the way I felt back in 1992 when Perot was uh mounting his third party bid, and I had people telling me, you are missing the boat by not supporting Perot.
Perot is your audience.
In fact, my syndicators, my partners at the time.
We were on an airplane to and from Atlanta to a meeting with advertisers.
And they were all concerned that my audience was going to leave me in droves, that they were just scared to death, that they try to talk me into supporting Perot or at least muting my criticism.
And I looked at him and I said, gang, if I lose my audience over this, I lose my audience, because I'm not going to establish an audience by saying things I think they want to hear that I don't believe.
Uh and uh I was what?
You Yeah.
Yeah, I was supposed to support Buchanan because that's what the people wanted.
So I I I feel the same kind of pressure now.
You better support Myers or I'm turning the radio off, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
This sort of thing.
Uh the dilemma for me is that I know what many of you in this audience think, and I know where you're coming from.
You are so sick and just like I am.
You despise the media.
You despise the Democrats.
You can't stand the things they've said about this president.
You can say they say them about you too.
You can't stand Bush as a Nazi.
Bush is a murderer, Bush is this.
Cindy Sheehan can go to Kingdom Come as far As you're concerned.
Me too.
All the rest of these people, Dan Rather, Bill Burkett, all these clowns that have Rove and Cheney in jail.
I couldn't agree with you more.
The hell with them.
And now all of a sudden, here comes a bunch of conservatives criticizing Bush, too.
Whoa, wait a minute.
You're not going to criticize my guy.
I voted for the guy, defended the guy.
And I know exactly where you are.
So I can say here, okay, you know what?
I got a golden opportunity.
I can make this audience even more loyal to me than ever.
I can say I support this pick 100%.
But I'd have to calculate what I say every day because it wouldn't be something I mean.
So I just I just want it known anybody who's wanted to call and take me to the woodshed over this has had ample opportunity to do it.
I have not joined the chorus for her to withdraw or for Bush to withdraw her.
I have said it's his pick.
I didn't win the election.
It doesn't, I mean, I don't get a choice here.
Neither does anybody else.
It's his choice, and he can do, and I have not said she shouldn't even go to the hearings.
All I've said was, I thought they're better people that we wouldn't have to take guesses about and roll the dice about.
I get offended when the Libs nominate a Ruth Bader Ginsburg or a Stephen Breyer, when they want to nominate somebody, they go get a well-known pedal of the metal liberal card carrying member of the ACLU.
They don't stealth it, they don't hide it, they don't do end runs.
I don't know why we have to go get picks like this and nobody knows.
And then there's a history here.
When this happens, some of these picks turn out to be worthless.
It's not as though that there's not a history that informs on this that causes little red flags to go up.
But it is what it is.
I appreciate all of your uh your your your calls and letters and attention on this, but I really I just have to ask you do you want me to uh not be who I am on this program?
Because I can't do that.
Be back in just a second.
Stay with us.
Folks, you have to hear this.
This is a segment from the Oprah show yesterday.
She interviewed actress Gina Davis.
Gina Davis plays the first female president on TV.
She's acting.
It is a role.
It's a television show.
Oprah's question.
So when you walked into the Oval Office and you saw it for the first time, how did it feel?
It was amazing.
It really was the first time that I enter as president.
It's embarrassing to say that I had chills because it had chills.
Yeah.
But look, I'm so possible.
No, but about that that someday this will happen.
A woman will do this exact thing that I'm doing.
And it will be overwhelming.
It will be a huge deal.
Gag me.
It is a television show.
She walked into a fake oval office.
It was a set.
And she got chills.
But Rush, don't you understand it was symbolic for what could someday be.
Yeah, but it ain't gonna be her.
Whoever it is as a woman who walks into the real Oval Office for the first time.
How many women have been in there?
Monica Lewinsky's been in there.
We have time.
You know, folks, I have blown it again.
I have blown it again.
I promised these two great Louis Free bites from Sunday.
And I have blown it again.
Actually, I'm not taking the blame for this.
Because I was forced to spend so much time with angry members of the family trying to calm them down.
It blew my planning for the final half hour of the program.
But I made a judgment.
I made a priority out of talking to people who were angry at me.
I could have blown them off.
I could have told a screener, nope, I'm not dealing with it today.
But I told him to put them to the front of the line.
And I dealt with every complaint that they had.
And that's because I am a good guy.
Well, sadly, my friends, we are out of busy broadcast time for today, but there's always tomorrow, uh, which is what people on diets say.
And uh I have to get out of here.
I have to get ready for the Rush on Broadway performance tonight.
I'm gonna run by some costume place and see if I can get a Harriet Myers mask and show up so that the audience will love me tonight when I walk out there on stage.
I'll look forward to seeing you tonight if you're gonna be uh in the audience.
If not, we'll tell you all about it tomorrow.
And as I say, if it's any good, and it's up to my standards, we'll make it available on video sometime later.
But if it's not, if I don't like it, the only people who ever see it will be those in the theater tonight.
See you tomorrow, folks.
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