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Oct. 19, 2005 - Rush Limbaugh Program
36:17
October 19, 2005, Wednesday, Hour #3
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You remember that story last week that said 600,000 evacuees from Hurricane Katrina still in hotels?
I said, there's no way.
It's not possible.
It simply wasn't possible.
600,000 evacuees were still in hotels.
Nobody said, oh, yes, they are.
I saw it in the media.
Oh, yeah.
Snirdly's telling me, yeah, no, you're thinking of, you're thinking of shelters, Rush.
600 hotels.
That's right.
I have the evidence that I was right again.
Right here in my formerly nicotine stained fingers, the Red Cross, the federal government said yesterday that they had been significantly overreporting the number of Hurricane Katrina evacuees in hotels.
Instead of 600,000 people, 200,000 remain in hotels, the Red Cross said.
I'm telling you, folks, do not doubt me.
Don't doubt me.
Don't doubt my instincts.
All right.
It's the Rush Limbaugh program, the final hour of today's excursion into broadcast excellence underway.
And we'll be lots of sound bites on Harriet Myers and from the Hannity and Combs interview that I did last night with Sean.
We have the video of that up, by the way, on the website at rushlinbaugh.com if you didn't see it and you would like to.
Let me get this first story out of the way here.
You remember, I guess this is probably six weeks, maybe two months ago.
We had this case out in Seattle where a man was fatally injured having sex with a horse.
Remember this story?
Well, it's time to update this because I forget what was crazy about this.
Somebody was charged with – I forget the details.
No, it – No, you think that somebody would have been charged with having sex with a horse, but that's not what happened.
It was really, it was not.
Well, that's right.
The law didn't allow for that.
There was no law preventing you.
That's what it was.
You could have sex with a horse as long as the horse didn't complain.
As long as the horse wasn't injured.
As long as the horse wasn't injured, you could have sex with the horse.
So they didn't know what to do with this guy because they couldn't go ask the horse and they couldn't determine any opinion the horse had after all this had happened.
So here's the update of the story.
King County Seattle prosecutors have charged a man with trespassing now in connection with an incident in which a friend of his was fatally injured having sex with a horse in Inumclaw or Inumclaw, however you pronounce this.
Now, it's interesting that nothing happened to the horse, but the guy died.
James Michael Tate, 54, accused of entering a barn without the owner's permission.
If convicted, he faces up to a year in jail and a $5,000 fine.
Prosecutors filed a charge Tuesday in County District Court.
Arraignment scheduled for the week of October 31st.
Tate doesn't have a listed phone number.
It was not clear if he had obtained a lawyer.
He admitted to officers he entered a neighbor's barn last July with Kenneth Pinyon to have sex with a horse.
Tate was videotaping the episode when Pinion received internal injuries that led to his death.
Oh, whoa.
This puts a whole different slant on this.
I don't recall that aspect of this.
Oh, okay.
So this poor guy, Pinion, received internal injuries during sex with the horse that led to him.
See, if he had just married the horse, uh...
Well, anyway, Tate, Pinyon, and another local guy, Greg Cooper, had snuck into the barn repeatedly to have sex with horses.
Both Tate and Cooper admitted that.
And according to the documents, Cooper was not charged with trespassing because investigators found no videotapes or other evidence that placed him in the barn on a specific date.
The prosecutor's office say no animal cruelty charges were filed because there was no evidence of injury to the horses.
So, and it's this reported as though it's a normal, everyday thing that happens.
You know, there's just a normal, everyday associated press story.
Broke in it, charged with trespassing, having sex with a horse, guy dies, internal injuries.
Oh, hum.
Not that big a shocker to us here in Seattle.
Why are you making a big deal of it, Limbaugh?
You think this is the first time it's happened?
Probably just doesn't get reported because nobody gets hurt, particularly the horse.
Harriet Myers vowed in 1989 to support a constitutional amendment that would ban abortions except when required to say the life of the mother, according to documents released with the Bush administration yesterday.
In a survey by Texans for Life, United for Life, Ms. Myers also promised while running for Dallas City Council to actively support legislation that would reinstate Texas's 1973 abortion law that prohibited all abortions except those necessary to prevent the death of the mother.
Several Democrats on Capitol Hill expressed alarm about the position, and the White House, finally into a fight with liberals after weeks of fighting with conservatives, downplayed their significance.
White House spokesman Scott McClellan said, and he was shrugging when he said this, what she was doing on that questionnaire was expressing her views during the course of a campaign.
The role of a judge is very different from the role of a candidate or a political office holder.
It's a political answer.
It's no big deal.
In the Los Angeles Times today, the headline, Republicans warming up to Harriet Myers.
Jeff Sessions quoted as being inclined towards supporting her.
George Allen, they say, thinking about it, but not exactly embracing her.
Sessions said, well, yeah, she got a challenge, that's for sure.
There are some people in this town that don't think a lawyer who's practiced in Texas for 30 years can handle a job in the Supreme Court.
I don't agree that.
So it's going to be tough for her.
George Allen, Republican Virginia, described the Texas document as a very strong pro-life questionnaire, but said he was still seeking a comfort level with her nomination.
He said it's a piece of evidence, but it's not this positive one way or the other.
So I wouldn't call that a list of do's and ringing endorsement of her yet from Senator Allen.
At any rate, Chuck Schumer, we have audio soundbites of his reaction to all this.
You know, I told you this before it's become popularly known in the news.
The left has now jimmed up the NAROL gals and the Fund for Feminist Majority.
They have sent out a massively long letter to all their supporters.
And you may as well, this may as well be John Roberts.
It may as well be Robert Bork.
This nominee, all it took was this pro-abortion questionnaire or anti-abortion questionnaire.
And this nominee is no different than anybody else Bush would send up.
They've got to stop this woman.
This woman's going to overturn rovers away.
We can't, the White House has got to love this because now they've created this reaction from the left, which they hope will overshadow the criticism that has come from conservatives.
Dick Durbin, Senator Turbin, was just on TV denouncing the November 7th Myers hearings as a non-bipartisan decision.
They're trying to delay it.
Specter wants to start the hearings on November 7th, but Dick Turbin doesn't want to start the hearings on November 7th.
It wasn't a bipartisan decision of the committee.
So they're not excited about this.
I'm telling you, whenever this does get going, there are going to be fireworks.
There'll be fireworks all over the place.
And if you're one of these people that looks for entertainment in your politics, this is going to provide it for you.
Here is Senator Schumer.
He was on the PBS News Hour with Jim O'Hara last night.
Gwynne Eiffel doing the honors.
She said, What about that, Senator Schumer?
In reading her answers to those questions, do they raise any red flags for you on abortion?
Well, certainly they are some cause for concern, but what's of greatest concern is that nobody knows where Harriet Meyer stands on virtually anything.
Less than a year before she filled out that questionnaire, she sent $1,000 to the Democratic National Committee.
When she saw me at about 1:30 yesterday, she said that she had no opinion of Griswold or Meyer, two of the seminal cases that established the right to privacy in the Constitution.
She then went to Senator Specter and, according to him, said, Yes, she does support those cases.
And then three hours later, the White House put out some memorandum saying, No, she doesn't.
And Senator Specter misinterpreted it.
And Senator Specter is a darn good lawyer.
I don't think he did misinterpret it, although I wasn't there.
Well, everybody's turning this into a spectacle now, including Senator Specter.
It is becoming a spectacle.
I told you it was going to become one, and we've only just seen the bare first light of it.
Schumer then went on to say, and this, see, this will sum up the way these people look at the Supreme Court.
This is serious stuff.
A nominee for the Supreme Court has a lot of say over so many aspects of every one of our lives.
We have to know what her judicial philosophy is, what she thinks.
And I can't recall a nominee who comes before us with as little a record and is saying as little.
And just excuse me for this one more minute, but when in my interview with her, she refused to comment on so many things.
John Roberts was far more full in his answers in my first meeting with him.
So, see, Supreme Court affects all of our lives.
And then that really sums it up.
That's not the way it should be.
Nine lawyers in robes should not have such profound political power over all of our lives.
A quick timeout.
We'll be back and continue in just a jiffy, folks.
It won't be long.
Not only is it the fastest three hours in media, it's the fastest commercial breaks in media.
Stay with it.
Hi, Ed.
We're back.
Serving humanity, Rush Limbaugh, America's anchorman and truth detector.
Have you heard about the new dress code in the NBA, the National Basketball Association?
No bling.
Well, it goes farther than no bling.
Got to have collared shirts.
Basically, you can't dress like a rapper.
It's the best way to sum it up.
Still smarting from image problems, nearly a year after players and fans attacked one another at New Fallujah.
The National Basketball Association has cracked down on apparel.
The NBA says it'll require players to wear business casual attire when they are on league or team business and not in uniform.
Apparently, the first attempt by a major U.S. professional league to regulate how its millionaire athletes dress when not competing.
Deemed quite liberal and easygoing by NBA Commissioner David Sturd, who himself is quite liberal and easygoing.
The code bans sunglasses worn indoors, sleeveless shirts, shorts, T-shirts, chains and do-rags, while requiring players on the bench and not in uniform to wear sport coats.
No longer will Kobe Bryant or the Lakers be seen arriving at the Staples Center wearing a vintage jersey, nor will Alan Iverson of the Philadelphia 76ers be allowed to wear caps cocked sideways during team functions or Rasheed Wallace of the Detroit Pistons to don headphones during news conferences.
Players who violate the code could be fined.
Repeat violators could be kicked out of the league, Stern suggested Tuesday.
Rules go into effect on the 1st of November, the opening night of the new season.
Iverson, at a party marking the launch of his new Reebok shoe Monday night, suggested the policy put too much emphasis on appearance.
I think it's wrong.
You shouldn't judge a person from what they wear.
Steve Nash, league MVP, Phoenix Sons, who favors jeans and rumpled t-shirts, said last week he thought the league would be overstepping its bounds.
I'll do it.
I'll go with the majority, but my personal view is that I completely understand governing the attire of players around the bench.
Other than that, I think it's kind of up to the individual.
Now, there are those who say that this is racist.
There are players who say that this is an attack on their culture, that the way they dress is their culture.
And they don't think this is right.
Other cultures aren't attacked like this and criticized like this.
Stephen A. Smith, who is a television host for ESPN and a columnist for the Philadelphia Inquirer, he is African-American.
He wrote recently in support of the dress code while suggesting it was in part racially motivated.
When you're selling a sport overwhelmingly populated by young black males to an older white audience, the reality is that impressions, first or otherwise, often determine your product success.
Indeed, there's a racial element here, but since there are 60-year-old black parents and grandparents just as appalled by some players' attire, there is a generational element too.
So there's a racist element in this.
Folks, let me tell you what this is.
This is aimed at hip-hop.
It's aimed at the rappers.
It is thought that the NBA has become a thug culture because too many NBA players idolize these rappers and they want to look like them and they want to dresserize them like them and they want to act like them when they're off the court, sometimes on the court, as was the case in New Fallujah.
So here comes a league.
Now, the thing that puzzles me about this is, do they really think their audience is 60-year-old white adults?
No, no, no, I'm just, I haven't been to an NBA game in a while, but I don't think that's who they're catering to.
I mean, when Alan Iverson gets a new Reebok shoe, is it for Gramps?
You know, to go walking the dog with his cane?
I just don't think, not that all of you who are 60 are using canes, but you who are know who you are.
And I doubt that you're out there shopping for Reebok shoes.
So I also, I don't know if this attire, this business attire, also includes the proscription on colors, because there are gang colors.
Can I let you in on a little known secret?
How many of you who are NFL fans have noticed that more and more teams are going to third jerseys?
You've got the home color jersey, the white away jersey, and then you've got the black jersey.
The black jersey, black is a gang color.
And in the NFL and some of these teams, wearing black is designed to toughen you up.
It's to give you more confidence.
The Detroit Lions of New Fallujah, they had these great uniforms, and they changed them two years ago, or I think maybe last year.
Their home uniforms, you know, silver pants with light blue, a Columbia blue type stripes.
Let's talk about the jersey.
Solid Columbia blue with three stripes of silver on the sleeves.
If you look now, the three stripes are replaced by one big silver stripe with a black stripe atop it.
So they've incorporated black.
They also this season introduced black third-color jerseys.
A lot of teams will dress in all black at home, black pants to go along with the third-color black jerseys.
And it is thought that this is a, I mean, Phil Mushnick of the New York Post has written, he's the first one that pointed this out to me, writing about that this is a connection to gang colors, Crips and Bloods, and this sort of thing.
So you have to wonder if there will be color proscriptions on the business attire.
I don't believe that there will be in the NBA, but at any rate, look, the Players Association went along with this, so the players themselves really have nothing to complain about.
This is not being forced on a Players Association agreed to this.
And so it's happened.
But there have been, I watched some comments on the airplane coming home last night about, oh, this is racist.
They can't tell us how to dress.
It's an attack on our culture.
I'm going to wear my do-rag if I want to wear my durag and make them stop me.
I'll pay the fine or what have you.
Don, in San Antonio, Texas.
I'm glad you waited, sir.
Welcome to the EIB Network.
Rush, first time, long time.
Thanks a lot.
You bet, sir.
Great to have you on the program.
Rush, I just wanted to say I appreciate your interview with Sean Hannity last night.
Thank you.
Three reasons, if I could be so quick as to say them.
Sure.
One, for you to explain exactly the reason why many Republicans disagree with the nomination of Harriet Miles, especially when it comes to constitutionality.
That was a great explanation.
I loved it.
That helped me as well as a lot of other African Americans to see what the big deal is.
The second thing is, I really appreciated how you explained just last hour to the caller concerning the tax code, how the President's Commission is going out to tell people about the new tax codes, trying to get a new tax code underway and what it actually meant.
Now I understand what you saying, what you are saying about the education never stops.
You explain exactly what it is and why it's done the way it's done.
And even though you, at times, there are times in which I would disagree with you, the thing is that I really appreciate you make me think.
You make me think about why I disagree with you and to formulate why it is I disagree with you.
Are you able to come up with affirmative reasons why you disagree with me when you think about it?
Yeah, pretty much.
I really am.
And that's what I really love about you.
I really appreciate that about you.
I'm not a Jesse Jackson clone.
I know, but some would say I'm not doing my job if my articulate arguments are convincing you you're right.
Can you hang on, Don, for the break here?
I've got to think of it right back.
Don't go away.
And we're back to Don in San Antonio, Texas.
I just wanted to thank you.
I appreciate your kind words and your very thoughtful words, and I didn't want to have to hustle you away in the midst of a rapidly evaporating segment there because of time.
Yes, sir.
Well, I tell you what, it was worth it.
It really was.
It was worth the time sitting up just listening to you speak from the heart concerning things that concern you.
And at the same time, for me to understand, especially as an African American, as I was saying, for us to understand these are why things are the way that they are.
And it's more to it than just because of color.
It is because we do have people that have agenda.
And we have to understand what the agenda is in order to understand why things are the way they are.
And I'm hopefully be able to portray that.
Now, since my military career is over, I can get ready to accurately portray that just as yourself to my people one of these days.
What is your military career?
What do you do?
Well, I was a personnel specialist.
I love talking to people.
At the same time, I'm a minister.
So I love being able to say, okay, because I came from this old school growing up in Mississippi of guess what?
Under that misnomer that, guess what?
You're black.
Guess what?
Vote Democrat.
Well, it should be a reason why you vote Democrat.
Amen.
I mean, I hear what you're saying.
The reason you want to get race out of all this is because race has become an obstacle to actually understanding what people really think.
You just label them something, and then you discredit them or pretend you don't have to listen to them because maybe their ideas are a little threatening.
You don't want to deal with threatening ideas.
Just chalk them up to being some sort of a bigot, and then you don't have to deal with them.
That's exactly right.
And just because, and just because, for instance, if I disagree with you, you're not a bigot and you're not racist just because we disagree because I'm black and you're white.
That's beside the point.
The point is, guess what?
It's an underlying reason why things are the way that they are.
Let's find out what they are, what would be best for the country and best for the people, and let's press on with it and work that way.
Would that it were so.
People like you out there carrying the banner, it may happen someday.
I appreciate that, Don.
Thanks very much.
Since he brought up the interview with Hannity and Combs, I've been promising all day to play the soundbites, but of course, never make this show about me.
I could have let off the program with the soundbite.
Yeah, like yesterday, I made the program about me yesterday, but I don't normally do that.
I could have let off the program with these Hannity soundbites, but I saved them to the last hour just to prove that it's not about me.
But since Don brought it up, it's a perfect time to transition to them.
How many of them are there?
One, two, three, four, five, six.
There's six of them.
It's a whole interview.
We'll squeeze in what we can here.
And take some more phone calls coming up as well.
If you're on hold, stay there.
The first question, we have these in order.
Sean said to me, you don't like to do a lot of these interviews.
You don't do a lot of them.
No, but it's not, it's just, you know, I've found my niche.
You know, I like doing my radio program and I like keeping myself sort of special and exclusive for the radio audience.
I mean, when you do three hours, as you well know, when you do three hours of radio a day, there's not much else left to say that day when you go somewhere else and say it.
Now, the advantage you have is that you get to mess around with Alan, who's always going to fire you up with things.
Yeah, and he always does, by the way.
And he's a big fan of yours, too.
Oh, I love Colms.
Alan's great.
I think he takes a lot of abuse from his own side.
I admire him for sticking up for himself.
Next question.
You got hype the, I don't understand this.
Basically, how did you fall in love with radio?
On shows like this, I'm proud.
I'm the first member of my family to get a college education.
Well, I'm the first member of my family that didn't.
My whole family was obsessed with going to college, and they're lawyers, professional people, because they grew up in the Depression.
That was the formative experience in my father and grandfather's lives.
And, you know, when there's no work to be had, competition for jobs is intense.
And it was a college degree back then which got you your leg up and your foot in the door.
We haven't gone through anything like that in this country.
And so I could only try to understand it.
But I was just fortunate, stupid or whatever, but I was stubborn and I knew what I wanted to do and stuck to it.
What are your thoughts on this president now?
I was asked by Mr. Hannity, George W. Bush.
I thought in the first term that he had a chance to go down as one of the greatest presidents in history, his fortitude and courage in staying the course on the war and all these other things.
I've been an adult paying attention to politics probably since I was 10 or 11.
I don't remember anybody more hated and vilified than Nixon.
Reagan was a second close, but I'll tell you, the way that George Bush has been dealt with, it borders on Nixonian, the way the personal disgust and hatred is for him.
Not just by the Washington, D.C. culture, but now mainstream Democrats.
The base I describe as the new kook base that they have, literally filled with uncontrollable rage and hatred.
And yet he stayed the course on this.
I think the president has gone out of his way to make friends with these people.
He hasn't worked.
He's really, he's been over backwards.
He's extended the hand of friendship.
Let's Ted Kennedy write the education bill and so forth.
And it just proves something that I've always thought.
This is war.
As far as the liberals are concerned, this is war.
Control of country power.
Any sign of friendship or, hey, you know, I'd rather get along with you than disagree with you is received by them, perceived as a sign of weakness.
And it doesn't make them nicer.
It doesn't make them more cooperative.
It doesn't make them more willing to get along.
It makes them think that their opponent can be rolled.
You mentioned the Democrats being void of ideas, and then you talk about the criminalization of politics, which you mentioned both of those things.
You got Delay and Rove.
Your thoughts on those things.
I think it's just that the Democratic Party stuck in the past, and they can't look forward.
They don't look forward.
And what they're attempting to do here is relive these glory years by criminalizing or discrediting conservatism so that nobody will vote for it.
If they can't beat us at the ballot box, they'll get the courts and a legal system to throw us out of office.
And this is, I mean, Watergate, that was their nirvana.
Sean, they were having live orgasms back then.
And on the anniversaries of Watergate, they have live orgasms.
And with Vietnam, they're trying to create a rock out of Vietnam.
There are no similarities whatsoever.
But those are their glory years.
And so since they really can't beat us at the ballot box, in a debate of ideas, in the arena of ideas, they do not win elections.
They have to tell somebody things that they're not.
And this is their only tactic.
He then asked me next about the Wall Street Journal op-ed.
And he says, you say this isn't a conservative or Republican crack up.
It's a crackdown.
Explain that.
I guess what inspired this was two things.
Howard Feynman and some of the other people on the left are just gleefully watching what's happening on the right.
And they think that finally this Republican coalition of conservatives is splitting and falling apart.
And the reason they're so giddy is because they don't have on the left an agenda of their own they can advance.
They don't have any unity themselves.
They don't have anything but whining, moaning, and complaining.
They've been after conservatives, Bush and others, for five years, trying to criminalize some, discredit others.
So here comes this Myers nomination.
And what's actually happening among conservatives is a debate of ideas.
You know, if you look at American politics today across the spectrum, the debate of ideas is occurring on the right.
The left doesn't have the guts to tell us what they believe.
They don't have the courage to be honest about it.
They're all about masking who they really are.
And they look at this and misunderstand it because they apply it.
If it were happening to them, it would be deep trouble, which it is happening to them, and they won't admit it.
They've got a new base of supporters that is as extreme anti-war kook, as you can admit, but they're the fundraisers.
They're the people that are really dictating the direction of the party.
And the Democrats themselves are trying to figure out how to marginalize those people and still figure out and get a candidate that moved to the center, be pro-war, admits he goes to church and all the, well, who would you rather be?
I'd rather be us.
What happens when these debates take place is that we forge even more unity.
We find out what it is we truly believe.
Everybody gets to listen to us debate these ideas.
Nobody holds back.
Nobody's dishonest.
We're not afraid to be who we are.
We're proud to admit it, flex our muscles.
We're proud to be conservative.
We want everybody to know who we are, so they'll join us.
We want to persuade them.
So here comes this little debate over Harriet Myers.
They've been trying to destroy this Bush presidency for five years.
They think this is going to do it.
And I just, I wanted to write this piece to say the real crackup is on the left.
And I find it interesting.
All the people in the media who focused on this column have missed that.
They have focused on the part of this column where they think I'm taking out after Bush.
Ooh, limbo now on Bush's gun.
That's not what this is about.
And next came the Hillary question, which was this.
You ever envision a day Hillary Rodham Clinton's elected president in this country?
People always mention Hillary's name to me.
Rush, rush.
What about Hillary?
Sid puts her pants on one leg at a time like every other guy.
She doesn't scare me.
I don't think looking at things through the prism of fear is going to accomplish anything.
You can respect that she may be formidable and she may have the ability to get elected, but we're just going to roll over and say, okay, Mrs. Clinton, you are so powerful.
You're the smartest woman in the world.
We don't even have the right to open our eyes in your presence.
You can have the white.
Hell with that.
You know, this woman is one of the most divisive political figures in the country.
And I think a thorough examination of her and debates will illustrate she's not the smartest woman in the world.
And I am eager for it.
I am not afraid of the debate, and I am not afraid of it being taken.
And by the way, you notice, can I go back?
We played the sound minds of Louis Free on Tim Russert.
And Russer said, would you debate Sandy Berger on this issue?
Would you debate Senate?
And Free said, absolutely.
And Russia said, on this program?
And Free said, absolutely.
You notice nobody asks Louis Free, will you debate Bill Clinton on this?
That's the guy he needs to be debating.
And he would accept it.
His beef is with Bill Clinton.
Sandy Berger.
Sandy Berger, a bit player at the National Archives.
You know, Louis Free's not afraid of debating him.
Louis Free's not afraid to come out and say what went on in his tenure as the FBI director during the Clinton administration.
And I would urge all of you not to be afraid of any debate with Hillary or any political move with Hillary or so forth.
Because, look, you can be respectful of the fact that she has the possibility to win.
I mean, I'm not saying don't take her seriously, but if you start acting afraid of her or anybody else, you're automatically on the defensive.
And you're thinking much less of yourself than you need to be at the same time.
And that's not going to get you anywhere either.
Got to go.
Back with more phone calls here in just a second.
Having more fun than a human being should be allowed to have.
It's what we do here at the EIB network.
What did I tell you not just yesterday, but last week, about McCain and his relationship with the mainstream press, and that one of his biggest problems in Republican primaries will be that the Republican base just detests the media so much that anybody they support, we will instinctively oppose.
Well, from CBS MarketWatch, a look at McCain's 08 Media Strategy is the headline.
It's a story from Puerto Rico, the biggest attraction at the American magazine conference this week in Puerto Rico wasn't an editor or a publisher.
Instead, it was Senator McCain who emerged as the star, thanks to some savvy work on the interview platform and around the gaming tables.
He plays craps.
He loves craps.
I've seen him at the craps tables at the Bellagio in Las Vegas.
Well, I haven't seen him there, but I've been out there.
And the pit bosses and I'll say, hey, Senator McCain was just here.
That would have been great if you two had been here.
I'm sorry, I just missed him.
But anyway, so they were watching him play at the craps tables.
He drew sharp differences with President Bush's press policies.
He said he admired both President Kennedy's and President Reagan's approaches, but he stressed that he favored a system similar to that of Kennedy, in which the media were kept in the loop in a cordial, not contentious relationship.
Yeah, I can understand that because if you go back to the Kennedy press model, they covered everything up that Kennedy was doing.
I mean, probably not a bad idea if you want to make them think that they are your best friends, invite them to all the parties at the White House, and then get away with whatever you want to get away with and never be criticized by.
I mean, that's some people, that's their objective, to never be criticized by the press.
But at one telling quote during a question and answer session on Monday with Evan Thomas of Newsweek magazine, McCain felt so confident in front of the audience of newspaper and magazine publishers, he jokingly referred to the media, quote, as my base.
The media is his base.
Well, of course.
I mean, the Straight Talk Express, that's what he thinks.
That's who he thinks is going to launch into the White House.
There's no question that he thinks that.
The media is his base.
Get the media on his side, and he can't be stopped.
All right.
Jane and Raleigh in North Carolina.
Hi.
Welcome to the program.
Hi, Rush.
Thanks for taking my call.
Any time.
To follow up on your discussion with Sean Hannity and all that the Republicans have been through in the anti-bush and anti-Republican feelings.
I just am frustrated that Republicans are not there for acting squeaky clean.
I mean, why aren't they just knowing that they're going to be scrutinized?
Why aren't they doing better to avoid the situations?
And I call upon them to do that.
Like who?
Whoa, whoa, You may have the wrong emphasis being placed here.
Like who and about what?
Well, for instance, who has not been squeaky clean?
Who are we talking about here?
Delay?
Okay, let's.
Good point.
Good point.
I'm talking about the Tom DeLay issue.
Now, I've read as much as I can.
I've listened to you.
And I think you even remarked the other day that it's very hard to siphon out the exact situation with him, the whole sequence of events.
Jane, there is in this indictment of see, the larger question here is: how are we going to stop Democrats from criminalizing conservatism?
In this indictment of Tom DeLay, the list of candidates that provides the evidence of a crime, they don't have.
The prosecutors don't have it.
They don't have any evidence backing up.
What do you mean, delay?
Keep clean.
Delay all you have to do is be a conservative to excite to attract legal attention.
They're going to get out of delay what they want.
MSNBC just reported that an arrest warrant has been issued for Tom DeLay by the court in Texas, and the purpose of that is to drag him in to mugshot him and fingerprint him.
And I will guarantee you, from this day forward, every picture of Tom DeLay you see on television will be of his mugshot from now till the end of his life.
But, Rush, are you saying that you feel, the best that you know, that there is not one shred of evidence that he acted even not illegally or unethically, but just a little bit shady in accepting monies or switching monies around?
I don't look at it that way.
Okay.
Because I think money in politics, you know, if we talk about that as a larger subject, I look at it a different way.
I've got, I long for the day I can talk about this, but I can't, but right now.
But I have some personal experience with this.
I know how these things can happen.
I know sources close to the investigation say.
I know about leaks.
I know about the way prosecutors have the power to spin the press into believing somebody's guilty before there's even any evidence or any charges filed.
And I just know what the political climate in Washington is.
And I know this, that whatever Delay is accused of doing has been going on in American politics since the founding of the country.
It's just that here's it.
They can't defeat Delay.
They can't get him out of the leadership other than doing this because of this new Republican rule that if you're indicted, you will give up your leadership position.
That's the purpose of this indictment.
To say that Delay brought this on by being who he is is, I think, to miss the point.
And I wish I had more time to develop this with you because I'm really, I'm really up against it.
I have to go.
But remind me about this tomorrow.
We'll talk about this more in greater detail when we have time to do it.
Sadly, my friends, we're out of busy broadcast time.
It's already Wednesday, the middle of the week, and we'll be back tomorrow and start it up all over again, picking up wherever it needs to be picked up based on what has happened between now and about 21 hours from now.
Look forward to seeing you then.
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