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Oct. 25, 2005 - Rush Limbaugh Program
36:34
October 25, 2005, Tuesday, Hour #2
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Oh, yes, we're having fun today, folks.
The views expressed by the host on this show, as always, make more sense than anything anybody else out there in the mainstream media happens to be saying.
And it's quite simple why.
The views expressed by the host on this show are rooted in a daily relentless and unstoppable pursuit of the truth.
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A thrill and a delight to have you with us.
I am America's anchor man.
And if I sound a little bit more energetic today, it's because I finally got some sleep last night for the first time in about 10 days.
I've I haven't been to bed before two or three in the morning for the last ten days.
You know, and I'm not some young whippersnapper that can uh do that with uh with uh impunity.
So uh last night I went to bed at a reasonable hour of midnight.
Once I figured out that Vinny Testeverde was not going to pull it out against the uh Atlanta Falcons, and some people said, Rush, that was obvious before the game started.
Now now.
At any rate, here's the phone number, 800 two eight two two eight eight two.
If you want to be on the program today, if you miss the first hour, it's just a massive shame.
But there is a way to recapture it at Rush Limbaugh.com later today.
Let me give you the highlights.
The highlights are that the New York Times is perhaps busting up the special prosecutors' efforts to indict high officials in the White House because the New York Times is basically saying that the star witness can't be trusted.
That she lied to them, she lied to Maureen Dowd, she lied to Jill Abramson, she lied to Bill Keller, she lied to Pinch Schultzberger, she lied to her reading public at the New York Times.
Robert Kagan also has a brilliant piece today in the Washington Post, in which he went back and looked at newspaper archives, New York Times, Washington Post, 1998 on, found identical reports from the New York Times that Judith Miller only participated once in as a as a uh as a writer,
co-writer on one story, but countless stories in 1998 on, uh detailing the exact weapons of mass destruction potentiality of Saddam Hussein that the Bush administration was citing in the pre-war days before we went to the current war in Iraq.
It was the consensus, it was the consensus of the mainstream press, and the bottom line here is this.
The mainstream press, led by cable television chat hosts, trying to suggest that the White House, Scooter Libby, Carl Rove, whoever, had to bring Judy Miller in for the New York Times, had to lie to her about Joe Wilson and Joe Wilson's wife and so forth, because Wilson proves there were no weapons of mass destruction.
See, Joe Wilson, that paragon of virtue, went to Niger, and he came back and he said, no, there was no yellow can.
He lied about that, then he lied to the New York Times, he lied in an op-ed, and he's lied continually.
But the mainstream press has chosen to forget their previous reporting from 1998 on, and now their new source for the fact that Bush lied is Joe Wilson.
Because the domino theory of the left is this.
The plain week was to discredit discredit Wilson, because Wilson was telling the truth.
Wilson said there were no WMDs, no WMDs means a war was wrong.
The war was wrong means we have another Vietnam, another Vietnam means we have another quagmire, and we can impeach Bush.
But to impeach Bush, we have to forget what we ourselves reported back in 1998, 1999, and 2000.
And the Clinton administration, we have to ignore what they were saying in 1998, 1999, and 2000.
So the mainstream press, ignoring its own body of work, a consensus, pretends that the first utterances of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq came from the lips of George W. Bush.
And now because of Joe Wilson, Bush lied.
Now I'm telling you, folks, this is utterly irresponsible.
It is media scandal, is what this is, ignoring their own body of work to suggest that Bush lied, and that's why we've got to have these indictments.
And the modern theory is that Bush lied to the New York Times, because you can't go to war without the New York Times being on your side.
Well, the New York Times was sounding the warning bells as far back as 1998.
And Judy Miller wrote only one of those stories, and there are many.
So this whole story is nothing more than the baseless cycle that existed in post-Catrina that existed with Bill Burkett that existed with Cindy Sheehan.
It's just the latest example of the media lambing on to anything they can, lying through their teeth.
There's no other way to describe this.
To ignore what they themselves wrote.
If nothing else, the New York Times editorial page ought to be disting itself, distancing itself from the New York Times news pages.
The news pages said in 1998-99 exactly what the newspages today are saying.
The editorial page seems to not be able to go back to its own archives to find out what the New York Times itself wrote and published in those days.
We also have, ladies and gentlemen, Mr. Ken was not Lawrence Wilkerson, who made that speech before the New America Foundation, a new liberal think tank last week, in which he accused uh Cheney and Rumsfeld of being a cabal that hijacked foreign policy.
Imagine the elected vice president and president hijacking foreign policy.
From who?
The State Department.
He was he was Colin Powell's chief of staff for 16 years.
He worked at the State Department, loves the State Department, career bureaucrat, and he thinks that any elected official that comes in and doesn't listen to bureaucracy is basically hijacking foreign policy.
It's impossible.
So he's got a big op-ed today in the LA Times, which is uh an offshoot of his uh speech.
In President Bush's first term, some of the most important decisions about U.S. national security, uh, including vital decisions about postwar Iraq were made by a secretive, little known cabal.
It was made up of a very special group of people led by Vice President Cheney and Defense Secretary Rumsfeld.
Well, pardon the hell out of me, Mr. Wilkerson, but who the hell's elected to do things like this, sir?
It certainly isn't you and your liberal career bureaucrats over at the do nothing State Department.
That's for damn sure.
How in the hell this is insulting.
You call the vice president and the Secretary of Defense a cabal, a secret cabal, small group.
When I first discussed this group in a speech last week at the New America Foundation, my comments raised a significant stir because I'd been chief of staff to then Secretary of State Colin Powell, but it's absolutely true.
I believe that the decisions of this cabal were sometimes made with the full and willing support of the president, and sometimes with something less, most often than not, then National Security Advisor Cundaleza Rice was simply steamrolled by this cabal.
Folks, do you understand?
If you've never understood me when I have told you about the problem of the State Department, that sentence, right?
That paragraph ought to alert you.
The decision of this cabal sometimes made with the full and willing support of the president.
You mean to tell me that the man elected to run the nation's foreign policy was actually doing it?
We need indictments, folks.
The president was overstepping his constitutional bounds.
He stepped over the State Department and ignored them.
Now you know why they hate him over there.
And the same thing goes for the CIA.
But Mr. Wilkerson ultimately is happy.
The secret process was ultimately a failure, he says.
Discounting the professional experience available within the federal bureaucracy and ignoring entirely the inevitable but often frustrating dissent that often arises therein makes for quick and painless decisions.
So see, Bush dared to ignore career bureaucrats.
Well, wait a second.
Bill Clinton was saying the same thing, Mr. Wilkerson back in 1998-99, and the media was writing the same thing that Bush said.
Were they ignoring you people back in 1998, but you didn't care because Bill Clinton was part of your tribe?
And he only launched four missiles at a at a custodian on a Saturday night in Bagstad and an empty ibuprofen factory in Sudan so you can forgive him?
How in the world do you selectively apply all this to Bush?
And I'll tell you the answer to that.
Selective application is due to the fact that Bush is trying to shake that place up, and that's why Condoleezza Rice is over there.
Here's his close.
It is a disaster.
Given the choice, I'd choose a frustrating bureaucracy over an efficient cabal every time.
And that, sir, is your problem.
You would choose an existing bureaucracy of unelected, unaccountable bureaucrats Over the people's elected representatives, including the President of the United States.
And your time is up.
All right, now an interesting question here, folks.
If if if the media today is lying and they're reporting, and what else is there to conclude?
No, no, I I'm serious.
Some of you might think it's a very strong word, but if we have the record from 1998 on, that they reported identically what George Bush said in 2002 and 2003.
How then can Bush be lying?
The media would have to have been lying in 1998.
Bill Clinton would have had to have been lying in 1998 for all those stories to have been written back then by the New York Times, the Washington Post.
So there's lying somewhere.
It either occurred in 98 or it's occurring now.
Now, if the media is lying today in reporting then, what is to say that everything they wrote in 1998 that Bob Kagan outlines in the Washington Post was also not a lie?
The bottom line is we can't believe what they wrote in 98 if we don't believe what they write today.
They were covering Clinton's rear end back then.
Perhaps 1998 was all a lie.
Perhaps they knew it was a lie.
Perhaps they knew we weren't going to go to war, so they didn't care.
They knew they were just covering up for Bill Clinton and try to divert everybody.
My question, how can we believe what these people write after Katrina after falling in line with Dan Rather and Bill Burkett and the forged documents?
And I'm sure I'm leaving out some recent examples here of things that have been totally untrue.
How can we believe anything they say?
But especially today when they're willing to ignore their own body of work and to pretend that this story never existed until Bush got to the White House.
I I I honestly I don't know how you believe them, folks.
I don't.
I don't know how you I don't know how you put one ounce of trust in them.
Let's grab some phone calls here before we move on to something else.
Robert in Franklin Lake, New Jersey.
Hello, sir, I'm glad you called.
How are you doing, Rush?
Good, fine.
Uh Russia 98 and back then, I don't think anybody was saying that they were nuclear threats, aluminum tube, uranium fake documents, that it all came out now.
Uh there wasn't this uh intimate threat that we were going to get blown up the next day, especially by these little drone planes that happened now.
Now I don't think Bush intentionally told us a lie.
There's two sides to this story.
One side is the bigger side is there's no proof that there's any danger coming from Iraq.
The other side, the slim side, was we were going to get blown to bits.
He did not tell us both sides so we can come to a decision.
I think he was uh tricked into this by Cheney.
Chaney Cheney and his crew led him in this direction.
And that's where we're in a situation where we are now.
Nice try.
Uh uh that's really good spin, and you should call uh George Lackoff rhymes with, and I'm serious, because they're looking for somebody like you, Robert.
And I know you've called the program before, and I only have a good heart.
And I and I know that you believe in your heart what you say, but it it's just spin.
Uh, because with with every every bit of evidence that we can dredge up here to demonstrate that what's being written today is a lie, your retort was just perfect.
Well, well, well, uh the back then it didn't talk about nuclear.
Cheney was leading Bush toward nuclear.
Uh and that's and so Wilson has to be protected.
Wilson was working on nuclear, yellow cake and Niger, so you gotta protect Joe Wilson.
And to me, that misses the whole point, because it was not nuclear.
In fact, it wasn't just weapons of mass destruction that led us into war with Iraq.
It was a whole host of things, plus the belief that Iraq is tied together intimately in the war on terror, which is something that that you and and others on the American left simply refuse to admit, recognize because it doesn't fit your your world view.
Uh but to me, you know, try to say, well, there's a difference, and Bush didn't give both sides.
You know, uh with the way it looks to me, it looks to me that Bush not only relied on his own intelligence people, but he relied on what the intelligence people from around the world were saying, plus the intelligence people in this country in ninety-eight.
It seems to me that Bush relied on his government.
He relied on his people.
He relied on previous administrations.
He didn't rely on the State Department, that's true, thank God.
But he did rely on previous people.
If if and and uh he even trusted the United Nations.
He tried to get the United Nations on board with this.
He went to the UN for 14 months to the Security Council.
The idea that there was some kind of cabal that was doing all this in secret is just patently Absurd.
But as I say, uh, nice try.
They'll love it at the Huffington Post.
John in Washington, D.C., welcome to the EIB network.
Hi.
Oh, hi, Ross, long time listener, first time calling.
Thank you, sir.
Um.
You know, the uh the press has been reporting how considerate and pragmatic uh Fitzgerald's been.
My question is once the indictments come, and they will come, how considerate and pragmatic are the defense attorney's gonna be.
How is it when Joe Wilson has to get on the stand for two or three days and answer the questions of a real hard-nosed defense attorney?
Or what's Walter Pink that's gonna cry when he has to start revealing his sources in the State Department and CIA.
And I'd love to see Seymour Herschel in a stand.
Well, um, yeah, uh that's see what what he's saying here is actually a great point because people okay, what can we do about these prosecutors?
We deal with them in court.
Now, what you've just said is is why some people are speculating that, hey, this Fitzgerald guy's not a dummy.
He really is not a dummy, folks.
He's a he's a pretty his past record is uh uh he comes out of the New York United States Attorney's Office, Southern District of Manhattan, has worked diligently going after Al Qaeda.
Uh he's uh uh he's got a lot of uh defenders out there who know him intimately and say he's a great guy.
And if all that's true, he knows as much as you and I can figure out.
He can read the papers like we do, he knows more than we do, but he can also figure out that okay, it's one thing to say that somebody lied to somewhere, somebody but now he's got to bring in some people and prove it.
If Judy Miller is going to be a star witness or some of these other people that you say, Joe Wilson, he's got to think about that.
And that's where the defense attorneys for whoever it is that's indicted, if they are, are going to score some big points because I'm telling you, there is not a Mr. Clean in this story on the other side of it.
Because this is a pure political story, and you bring a political case into the courtroom and start trying it, hell's bells, Katie bar the door, anything can happen, as you point out.
Uh it's for that reason that I am not convinced indictments are coming.
I'm not convinced.
And I'm folks, I'm gonna say another reason I'm not convinced indictments are coming is because the only people telling me are the people we have documented as out and out liars.
Is that too strong a word?
Maybe it's too strong a word.
I because you know that word's almost become like Nazi.
Call somebody a Nazi and they just discount you.
Oh, come on, let's get serious.
But what the press is doing here is unconscionable.
Trying to be to pretend that history, the history of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq began when Bush took office.
That just patently untrue.
So if they're not lying about this, they're they're they're they're certainly on an agenda.
They've got an agenda that they are trying to further.
They've got a product that they're trying to market, and I am not buying it, for one.
And those are the people telling me that there are indictments coming.
Now, who are their sources?
Lawyers close to the investigation.
Well, that could be any number of people.
It could be Uncle Bob, who's Judy Miller's lawyer.
It could be Tate, who is uh Scooter Libby's lawyer.
Who knows who's talking?
Could be Fitzgerald, but I I don't know.
But the only thing I read is indictments are likely to come, indictments are sure to come, but from nobody's quoting a source, nobody can say for sure indictments like I could look, folks.
Let me tell you, I could come to this microphone.
I could say, hey, guess you know what I think.
I talked to some lawyers on the I know lawyers, and they tell me that Joe Wilson could be indicted.
Now, if I said that, that's just as irresponsible as whatever else is being reported out there.
Oh, yeah, you can say that Cheney.
Cheney gave the information to Scooter Liberty.
Well, hell's bells, folks, Cheney's vice president.
He's entitled to know everything going on in the United States government.
He's entitled to know everything.
So this is and he's entitled to tell his chief of staff.
And I'll tell you something, Michael Barone had a piece yesterday, too.
And you know what else they're entitled to?
They are entitled to discredit Joe Wilson.
Joe Wilson was lying about his trip to Niger.
They're entitled to do what they can to discredit Joe Wilson.
They're entitled to get hold of the press and say this guy is not being square with you.
They're trying to turn all this into a crime.
They're trying to say that Cheney knowing of Joe Wilson's wife's name, or and it's not even clear he knew that she was a covert agent.
But they're saying that whatever he knew, that's a crime.
Then when he told Scooter Libby that was a crime, none of this is criminal.
And then to go after Joe Wilson, that's a crime.
Now, I'm telling you, if you are the mainstream press or the American left, and you have thrown in with Joe Wilson as your meal ticket to reelection in 2006 and 2008, you deserve the landslide defeat that's headed your way.
You deserve it.
So I don't know whether it's accurate to say that they're lying or they're just being irresponsible, or they themselves are in the midst of a scandal of their own making.
They have quite a bit of explaining to do.
At least they do to me.
Because you you people who think that indictments are imminent, tell me how you know this.
You don't know it from the independent counsel.
In fact, Andy McCarthy has a great piece of this in National Review Online today.
I should read parts of that to you.
Tell how do you know this?
Why do you think it?
You don't think it from any of the you don't think it from Rove.
You don't think it from Libby, they're not thinking they're going to be indicted or saying so.
You don't know it from Novak.
You don't know it from any of the lawyers for any of these people.
How do you know this?
You say l indictments are imminent.
You know it because you're reading it in the mainstream press.
We'll be back.
Got to take a quick time out here.
Stay with us.
You're listening to Rush Limbaugh on the excellence in podcasting network.
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All right, let's let's move on here to something else.
Uh we're going to get back to the phones here in just a second.
If you uh uh want to talk about items mentioned up till this point will get to you, so be patient.
But I want to I want to move on.
Uh this is uh this is a uh an attempt by the press here to disparage Kay Bailey Hutches and K. Bailey Hutchinson went on the Today Show and basically said that indictments that uh come from the peripheral side of the investigation, uh i.e.
if there's an investigation of uh leak and there was no leak and no crime, uh then crimes created during the process of the investigation, she thinks it's horrible and so forth.
So it was time to beat up on K. Bailey Hutchison last night.
And of course, in the process, the the obvious comparisons to Bill Clinton were made in an attempt to make Republicans out to be hypocrites on this.
We'll start with hard ball.
Tim uh Chris Matthews is talking to Tom DeFranc of the New York Daily News and Andrea Mitchell.
Um Matthews and Tom DeFranc had this exchange, the first of several soundbites on this.
What about these bonehead remarks by these Republican senators that go completely 180 from where they were in terms of Bill Clinton?
Bill Clinton was almost kicked out of the White House because he lied under oath in a deposition.
Now we're hearing prominent Republicans, the ones I respect the most, in fact, are now coming out with statements, oh, perjury's just a technicality.
Are they really going to fight on that line?
Well, I thought Senator Hutchinson really hurt herself yesterday.
I think that's really kind of kind of dopey because Pat uh Patrick Fitzgerald has got a real reputation as a as a Boy Scout, and I suspect whatever he does, that if he brings indictments, he's not going to bring half-baked indictments.
All right.
Now, here again, uh what what you hear a number of things, but among them is the attempt to make Patrick Fitzgerald uh unassailable.
I mean, he's he's a I mean, he is a boy scout.
This guy never does anything.
He's apolitical.
He's a great guy.
Now, I just I'm just saying, how many of you know this yourselves?
You know this, you think you know it, you're being told it by a member of the press.
And the the press has many people who are out there now singing this song, and it's all because of what they're anticipating that this guy's gonna indict big time Republicans, and they want him to have automatic credibility from the moment those indictments are returned.
Let's go back.
Let's play Kay Bailey Hutchinson's comment in full, play it in context from Meet the Press on Sunday.
It started this way.
Russert plays a soundbite October 7th of 2003 of Scott McClellan, who said they are good individuals.
They're important members of our White House team, and that's why I spoke with them so I could come back to you and say that they were not involved.
I had I had no doubt with that in the beginning, but I like to check my information to make sure it's accurate before I report back to you, and that's exactly what I did.
So Russert, after quoting McClellan, turns to Senator Hutchinson, said, You think those comments in the White House are credible?
I certainly hope that if there is going to be uh an indictment that that says something happened, that it is an indictment on a crime and not some uh perjury technicality where they couldn't indict on the crime, and so they go to something just to show that their two years of investigation was uh not a waste of time and taxpayer dollars.
So they go to something that uh trips someone up because they said something in the first grand jury and then maybe they found new information or they forgot something and they they tried to correct that in a second grand jury.
Well we're talking about mental lapses.
She's referring here to mental lapses, not lying, and if you have a mental lapse, like I said, I mean you bring somebody into the grand jury, your lawyer isn't there, there isn't any due process.
You got the grand jurors, you got the prosecutors, and they're pummeling you with questions, and there's nobody to object.
You have to answer them.
And if you say one thing uh in March, another thing in May that has a slight difference, and you get indicted on that when there was no crime committed in the original purpose of the investigation, that that's what she was saying there.
Um then Russert followed up with this.
But but the fact is perjury or obstruction of justice is a very serious crime, and Republicans certainly thought so when charges were placed against Bill Clinton before the United States Senate, Senator Hutchinson.
There were charges uh against Bill Clinton uh besides perjury and obstruction of justice.
And I'm not saying that those are not crimes, they are, but I also think that we are seeing in the judicial process.
And look at Martha Stewart, for instance, where they couldn't find a crime and they indict on uh something that she said about something that wasn't a crime.
Uh I think that it is important, of course, that we have a perjury and an and an obstruction of justice crime, but I also think we are seeing grand juries and U.S. attorneys and district attorneys that go for technicality, sort of a gotcha mentality in this country.
It's called criminalizing politics.
It's called criminalizing political differences.
So she showed up today, Kay Bailey Hutchinson did on uh Fox and Friends and Edie Hill talked to her.
And Edie Hill said, now from the information we're able to get, it doesn't appear that there's a smoking gun saying that somebody broke this uh secret identity law, but people are speculating that it could be misleading the special investigator.
What do you make of the latest information that we have?
It is very unfortunate that we are seeing leaks out of the grand jury or out of lawyers close to the case uh in a leak case.
I mean, this is a case that is trying to decide if there has been a crime committed for leaks, and we are seeing leaks.
I do not think it is right to parade all of this information out in the public arena in the New York Times, uh, and have us speculate about it.
And you know, I was sort of misconstrued the other day, uh, and I certainly think that if someone has lied to an investigator, of course it is a crime.
Okay.
But let's wait and see.
That was the Fox computer going to a commercial break kicking in, which is the uh the music that you heard.
So uh it's an interesting point.
We're talking about leaks in a leak case.
Once again, we're talking about the press.
New York Times and all these other people, they're the ones who are pushing this notion of leaks, pushing the idea that Bush lied, pushing the idea that they lied to cover up uh Cheney to cover up whatever all about Joe Wilson.
And I keep hearkening back to the fact that the same things are reported in 1998, 1999.
But about this business of the the the media here loving to say, well, wait a minute, you're Republicans.
Why, why perjury and obstruction of justice Bill Clinton?
Why, where were you being hypocrites if you don't think it's a crime now?
Can we review the record?
I think if people have forgotten what all was reported in 1998 about weapons of mass destruction, uh, and frankly, most people don't want to remember the sordid details of the Clinton administration.
You might have a fond memory for what you think was a great economy or whatever, but try this.
Let's just take a look at Bill Clinton's perjury, shall we?
Bill Clinton helped Monica Lewinsky write a false affidavit denying sexual relations with him.
That's not only committing perjury, it's suborning it.
He intended that false affidavit to be used during his deposition.
And in fact, his lawyer, Bob Bennett, did unwittingly use the false affidavit of Monica Lewinsky to try to convince the judge overseeing the deposition, who was Susan Weber Wright, to limit questions to Clinton during the deposition.
Clinton himself confirmed the accuracy of the false Lewinsky affidavit during his deposition.
And Clinton Lied repeatedly during the sworn deposition about his relationship with Lewinsky.
There were no problems with bad recollections or unintended omissions.
This was full out lying about the investigation, and he was the target.
It's a different when the target of the investigation is lying through it.
It doesn't matter whether it's about sex or anything else.
He's out there suborning perjury of other witnesses.
It's a bit of a stretch here to try to say, hey, this is no different than what they were trying to get Clinton on.
So As Judge Wright said when she ruled in her contempt that held against Clinton, Clinton made intentionally false statements.
Clinton also enlisted others to lie for him.
And considering the Jones lawsuit was about sex harassment, and Jones's lawyers were trying to establish a practice and pattern of sexual harassment to win their civil suit.
This was not a side issue.
And yet Clinton was not indicted.
Robert Ray, the last of the independent counsels in the case, decided not to indict on the basis that it would be too disruptive to the government.
And he didn't think he could prove the case and didn't want the hassle of it.
So this is quite different.
And the next time you have one of your libs talking to you, well, wait, wait, wait, wait a minute.
Clinton lied.
Clinton was a target.
Clinton was looking.
Clinton was involved in a sexual harassment case on the civil side.
They were trying to prove that there was a pattern of sexual harassment against Clinton.
Clinton's out there suborning perjury from Monica Lewinsky, lying himself intentionally.
And all anybody's saying here is if we have some misstatements that obviously people getting tripped up with uh with the memory lapses or what have you, because of the pressures that are involved in testifying before a grand jury, there is indeed a difference here.
Now, this is not going to sway the left, because they're just going to come back and say, well, it was still all about sex, and that's just silly rush.
Clinton was lying to protect his family.
He was actually virtuous.
He was lying to protect everybody from every reputation through it.
Clinton was doing actually what a decent man would do.
That's what they're going to tell you.
But uh as far as things being identical uh from the Clinton case to this, that case can't be made.
We'll be back.
We'll continue much more broadcast excellence on the other side of this.
Okay, let's go back to the phones now to Washington, D.C. Hello, Justin.
I'm glad you called.
I have a question.
If indictments are handed down, now I don't think they will be, but if they are, could that provide cover to pull the Myers nomination?
Well, um, I I mean it might, but I don't think the president's even thinking of pulling the Myers nomination.
If he's thinking about it, he's not going to give any indication.
There's a there is a a tactic that embattled White Houses use in a circumstance like this, and that's just keep doing your job.
Just stay focused on the job.
If the president were to um himself announced that the Myers nomination is being pulled, that would just be throwing fuel on this fire.
That would be more indication that the White House falling apart.
That's how it'd be played.
It might even be the case if Harriet Myers were to pull herself uh out of the process at this time.
So I I don't think that uh indictments, if they are returned, will have any effect on the on the Myers nomination.
I think if anything, it would steal their resolve uh in the other way.
You see it, you see it differently.
Um, I was just thinking that if there was a there was that story in the Washington Times about how there were rumors that some aides were coming out, and if they were going to pull it, that would probably be the best time.
Well what do you mean some aids were coming out?
Um, the story that uh we're not they said that they weren't going to pull it, but if we were how what would be the best way to do it?
Did you re see that story in the time?
Oh, oh, you mean the story where they're asking around Republican leaders if we were to pull this, so how would we do it?
That that sort of thing.
Yeah, that story.
Uh well, I think I've already got the answer to that.
I mean, I I think I think I mentioned this yesterday, and I actually think folks I'm the first one to have mentioned this last week, even though it was revealed on Fox News Sunday.
And Justin, I th I think you know, two Republican senators have requested documents from the White House, Sam Brownbach and Lindsey Graham.
And normally it's Democrats that do that.
If Republicans are saying, and by the way, by with with this request for documents, neither Brownbach nor Graham are saying we don't like this woman, and then we think you ought to pull her.
Uh but that's what the action might end up end up being interpreted as.
Uh Mr. President, you know, we're on your side on this, but we need to know more about her.
We just don't know the president's.
I'm sorry, I can't.
I uh lawyer client, privileged executive privilege.
I I'm not gonna give up documents uh like that.
I'm not gonna set the precedent.
Then that would set the table for saying we've got a problem here, uh we pull the nomination or what have you, because that would indicate that he's not going to get Republican votes on the committee, and if he's not gonna get if he's not gonna get unanimous support from the Republicans on the Judiciary Committee, then the nomination's finished.
It's it's it's over if that's gonna be the case.
So uh that if anything is being floated, I would think that uh that that that is it.
But I would I mean you could be right.
I I just I I think pulling her nomination uh in the shadow of indictments being returned would would would just I mean the the hyenas would not be able to control themselves on uh on that.
John in Rancho Mirage, California.
Hi and welcome.
Nice to have you with us.
Hi, Rush.
I've been listening to you for years, and it's just great to get an opportunity to chat with you.
Thank you, sir.
Um you just uh said that uh Bill Clinton had been uh well, I don't think you convicted him, but you said that he committed perjury and obstruction of justice.
I've cited the judge, Susan Weber, the Susan Weber Wright who was overseeing the grand jury testimony.
Right.
But um uh that wasn't that lawsuit dismissed for lack of evidence and lack of merit.
Uh wasn't a lawsuit.
I mean, she she was just reporting uh what that that's why that was the justification that she used for disbarring him from the Supreme Court for a number of years and and uh and invalidating his law license for a while.
I mean, she she said that Bill Clinton materially lied.
She found him in contempt of court.
Now I mean but uh but a judge just saying something isn't the same as being convicted by a jury, is it?
I mean it's civil contempt, not criminal contempt, correct?
Uh six of one half dozen of the other, yes.
But but no, there's a big difference between a civil citation and a criminal conviction, wouldn't you agree?
Uh well, of course.
Okay.
And then and then back to Kate Bailey Hutchinson.
I think a real problem that that she had on Sunday on Meet the Press was that she said uh that there were other charges other than obstruction and perjury.
Now the Senate uh only heard two articles of impeachment.
The uh House tried to pass four, and the two were for uh uh perjury and obstruction of justice.
And uh there wasn't even a majority of Republican centers that would convict on either one of those.
So all I'm saying is that we can all say that Bill Clinton committed perjury, and we can all say that he is suborn perjury, but no court of law has ever determined that.
I know it's all political, but I think before we uh you know uh okay, OJ is also innocent, you know, and and and uh Michael Jackson didn't do it.
No, I all I'm saying is that what I'm saying.
When you've got a federal judge, you're getting caught up here in a technicality yourself.
When you say that a federal judge who finds that Clinton materially lied is meaningless.
No, I'm not saying it's meaningless.
Well, you in effect are, though.
No, I mean, you're trying to.
You're essentially saying it doesn't mean anything because of what happened in the impeachment proceedings.
No, I think contextually it's good to put this into uh into uh perspective proportionally to you know over what's going on right now with uh with Plain Gate.
I think that uh and you know you brought up Kay Bailey Hutchinson and and basically she was trying to dismiss uh, you know, the investigation.
But I mean, we don't know what's going to happen there, and I'm not I'm not saying that we that we know what's going to happen, whether there are even going to be indictments.
But I think it's important to remember that whatever happens, if it's a criminal event, as you know, compared to what we just think occurred with Bill Clinton, I think it's good to put them both in the proper perspective.
Well, that's what I'm trying to do here, and and I you know I marvel at the efforts here.
I by the way, what my purpose here is not to defend K. Bailey Hutchinson.
Yours is to defend Bill Clinton.
You know, I'm I'm I'm simply pointing out here that there are differences.
We've already got uh Roby Robe and Livy indicted.
We've already got Cheney now responsible for this.
At the same process, the same press that has convicted these people already in the public media, exonerated Bill Clinton, even though all these things did happen.
Yeah, Susan Weber Wright, the the judge did dismiss the case eventually.
There's there's there's no question, but she still found that he materially lied.
Clinton was the subject of this investigation.
It was his lying, he's suborn perjury.
Nobody has leveled such charges here.
But but I think to say that Republicans are being hypocritical about this is going a bit far and and a bit of a stretch.
But the bottom line is, as you say, there is no case yet, and yet the principals, the enemies of the left, have already been convicted.
I gotta run because of time.
Back in a moment.
A question for uh John in Rancho Mirage, California, and all the rest of you who might agree with him.
Is George Bush been subpoenaed?
Has Bush testified?
Well, Clinton was, and Clinton was the target.
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