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Nov. 11, 2005 - Rush Limbaugh Program
36:23
November 11, 2005, Friday, Hour #2
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And America's anchor man is back sitting here, raring and ready to go on another edition of the EIB Network's Rush Limbaugh program.
It's Friday, so let's kick it.
Live from the Southern Command in sunny South Florida.
It's open line Friday.
Still 81 hot sweltering degrees out there, folks, with uh humidity way up.
It's fabulous.
Here at the EIB Southern Command, Rush Limbaugh Open Line Friday, where you can talk pretty much about what you want.
During our phone segments, a telephone number 800 282-2882.
And the email address is Rush at EIB net.com.
Couple little news blurbs here.
I see that uh military recruitment is up in the month of October.
How can this be?
How can this be?
I mean, Katrina Media has been out there telling us that the uh military is really savaged and you know, I think we're just gonna have to listen here to everything the media says.
Assume the opposite.
The Katrina Mary Mapes Media.
Uh, and let's see, what else do we have?
Oh, how about these protests in Jordan?
What are you laughing at, Mr. Sturdley?
The Katrina.
Right, the Katrina Media.
Homeless join the services.
Whatever.
Nevertheless, my friends, the people protesting in Jordan here.
They're protesting Zarkawi.
Now, you have don't Jordanians protesting Zarkawi.
Um shouting things like burn in hell, Abu Mousab Alzarkawi.
How do the Jordanians differ from the American left?
American left essentially says burn in hell, George W. Bush.
The American anti-war extremists basically say burn in hell, George W. Bush.
The Jordanians are saying burn in hell, Zarkawi.
It's just, it's refreshing to see people who get it.
It's refreshing to see.
Here their country has just been bombed, and they're mad at the guys who did it.
They're not mad at the king.
They're not mad at anybody else.
They're mad at the people who did it.
But the American left in this country cannot get mad at the perps at the terrorists at the people who commit these crimes with uh against us.
It's just amazing.
The press still going nuts over the president's speech uh today in Pennsylvania.
So I checked it out here in the top of the hour.
Some of the Katrina media, the big well by Katrina media, they got nothing right when the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina.
Where are the 10,000 bodies?
I want to see the 10,000 bodies.
Till I see 10,000 bodies, I'm not going to believe a damn thing that these people say anymore.
I want to see the 10,000 bodies.
I want to see the toxic soup water.
I want to see the city shut down for six months.
I want to see all this.
I want to see the evidence that Bush steered the hurricane in there.
I want to see the evidence that he blew up the levies to wipe out the ninth ward and to scatter a bunch of black Democrats all over the country there by watering down their voting power to Louisiana.
I want to see all these things before I believe anything they say.
They're out there saying, folks.
Some of the media out there saying that Bush defending himself today is proof that he lied.
Now he has to do this.
They're out there telling lies about him.
Unrelenting propaganda has its impact.
I have no debate about that, and that's all the Democrats have been.
That's what the liberal effort has been from day one, unrelenting propaganda.
And what's been unacceptable and disappointing up to this point is the refusal, the unwillingness of the White House to fight back, and the unwillingness of Congressional Republicans to fight back.
Well, now the White House has fought back.
Will the Congressional Republicans get their axe and gear?
Looks like they're falling apart.
This gang of moderates under the tutelage of George Soros that killed the anwar drilling aspect.
You are unaware that you are unaware that the Republican mainstream partnership is funded by George Soros.
You are...
I kid you not, it's on Michelle Malkin's website.
I pulled it down yesterday, last night.
Here we go.
we...
Many of you, she writes, many of you are asking for the list of the anti-drilling Republicans.
The group who succeeded in pressuring the Republicans to cave in calls itself the Republican Mainstream Partisanship.
They're holding a press conference at 1 30 in Washington yesterday to bray about their victory.
Guess who is funding the mainstream moderates?
George Soros and Friends.
This is on Michelle Malkin's website.
I have the names of the Republicans who voted against Anwar, the Republicans against Anneware.
You want to hear some of the names.
Charles Bass of New Hampshire, Sherwood Bollert, New York.
Baylert, see pronounce his name, Baylor.
Baylor, Jeb Bradley, New Hampshire, Mike Castle, Delaware.
Vernon Aylers, Michigan, Mike Ferguson, New Jersey.
Mike Fitzpatrick, Pennsylvania, Rod Fralinghysen, New Jersey.
Jim Gorlock, Pennsylvania, Wayne Gilcrest, Montana, Bob Ingalls, South Carolina, Nancy Johnson, Connecticut, Tim Johnson.
I can't, I don't, it's either Hawaii or Rhode Island.
I can't read as a bad copy.
Sue Kelly of New York, Mark Kennedy of Minnesota, Mark Kirk of Illinois, Jim Leach of Iowa, Frank Lablondo, New Jersey, Jim Ramstead, Minnesota, Day Rikert, or Dave Dev, I can get a bad copy here, Washington, Jim Saxton, New Jersey, James Sensenbrenner, Wisconsin, Christopher Shays, Connecticut, Robert Simmons, Connecticut, James Walsh, New York, basically a bunch of New York McCain Republicans.
They used to be called Rockefeller Republicans.
It may be better to start calling them McCain Republicans, the McCain wing of the party, because these are there are some exceptions, but you heard a lot of New Jersey's Connecticuts and Pennsylvania's in there, uh, and some New Yorks, Northeastern moderate Republicans basically threw it out in the Senate.
In the Senate, Olympia Snow from Maine helped to scuttle even a single year extension of the current 15% tax rate on dividends and capital gains that's due to expire in 2008.
So the Finance Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley was forced to postpone a committee vote on extending a tax cut that has been crucial to an economic rebound since mid-2003 has been marked by ten straight quarters of nearly four percent average growth.
Tell us why, again, Republicans need 55 senators.
Why do we need 55 senators when we have so many malcontents and traitors in the bunch?
And they all happen to be from the Northeast, and they all happen to be moderates, they all happen to be liberals.
Uh well, not all, but I mean there's some exceptions, but the great percentage of them are.
So the White House has responded now to all of these history revisions and these mindless personal attacks, these lies on lying about pre-war intelligence.
Let's see if the congressional republics, including the Republicans including the Senate, uh will get in gear.
Because I'll tell you what's going on here, folks.
This has been an amazing thing to watch this week, and I've been sitting back, and I've been eyeing it.
And it almost looks to me like there is a like a sort of a civil war right now in Congress between conservative Republicans, which represent about 90 to 95% of the Republicans in Congress, and the Rhino Republicans, these Republicans in name only, who are using what they perceive to be the president's weakness to gut the conservative agenda.
And this is what I have been worried about since the game when it when I've when I've discussed the fact the president's not leading a movement when he's when he's not out making the case for conservatism with every address and speech he makes.
The moderates basically have been tamed.
They they had been cowering over there in the corner.
They hadn't been able to stop anything.
So now, along with the Democrats, these rhino Republicans, Republicans in name only, surface in an atmosphere of what they think is presidential weakness.
They rear their heads and show us who they really are.
They're anti-tax cut.
They are anti-drilling for oil in and war.
They are anti-the conservative agenda.
Let me let me paint this with a broad brush.
And say the Republicans are advancing our agenda is to be simplistic.
We have a relative Handful of Republicans who are cutting and running in hopes of advancing themselves.
I mean, to say the Republicans are advancing our agenda is not true because all of them aren't.
Conservative Republicans are trying to advance the agenda, which is why there has been a desperate cry for conservative leadership politically, not just in the media.
Conservatism has plenty of voices in the media, but it needs these voices and leaders elsewhere.
Where other votes can be shepherded, where weak minded can be strengthened and be taught to follow or motivated to follow.
And people look to the president for that.
And people look to uh congressional leaders in the House and Senate to do that.
And it's been very frustrating.
All the silence that we've gotten, and I, and some of you have been upset about the silence in the White House.
Uh so have I, but I'm just as upset, if not more so, than the silence from the uh House and Senate, where we hold distinct margins.
And I know that not all of the members of the Republican Senate or the House are conservative, as we are now learning, but they are a smaller minority than the Democrats are.
It's one thing to have a sizable minority like the Democrats stand in your way, but it is just unacceptable when a tiny, tiny, tiny fraction of Republicans in Congress also rear up in opposition and join the liberal Democrats to derail an agenda.
At some point that has to be faced.
It has to be faced.
Because these these rhinos, these moderates are undermining our agenda on taxes.
They are undermining our agenda on spending, they are undermining our agenda on oil drilling, and they are undermining the war on terror.
And I'll give you some names.
You want some names?
Here they are Olympia Snow, John McCain, George Voinovich, Mike Castle, Christopher Shays, and about 30 to 35 others.
Now the Democrats don't do this.
They are disciplined, they punish those who dare to cross them, not so on our side.
We don't have any party discipline.
And uh, well, Rush, we're the party of ideas.
You're always saying we're the party of ideas, we have free and open.
Yes, we do, but when it comes to your family is your family.
And when you go to battle with other families, folks, you want your family on your side, not joining the family across the street, firing back at you.
And that's what's happening here.
And it's because liberals hate conservatives and liberals fear conservatives.
I don't care if they're Republican liberals or Democrat liberals, they're still liberals.
They're not moderates.
Don't hit me with that.
There's no such thing as a moderate.
A moderate is just a liberal disguise, and they are doing everything they can to derail the conservative agenda, and they've been frustrated they haven't able to do anything about it because conservatism has been so strong.
This propaganda attack on the president has weakened him.
They're looking at the polls, and all right, the president's finished.
He's weak.
We can stand up now and defeat the rest of these conservatives, and so forth.
Uh Nancy Pelosi has a uh I forget what this is called, a loyalty oath that she's sworn uh sworn all of her members to.
They cannot vote against the leadership position.
The Democrats in the House of Representatives have been forced to sign a loyalty oath.
Now, you can say what you want about that, but the point is they end up unified on these battles that are crucial.
These uh these ideological battles are the battles of the future of the country.
And uh members of our side have no desire to be unified.
In fact, they want to join the other side in derailing conservatism.
And the reason conservatism is so feared is because it works.
Conservatism is so feared because it cannot be defeated with ideas, so it has to be defeated with other tactics.
We're told to invite liberals and moderates into our party.
We're told to extend our arms in welcome, extend our hands in friendship.
We're told to be nice and try to make them like us.
And every time that happens, we only see them stab the president or stab the majority in Congress in the back.
It's really not a civil war, so this is almost part of a civil war.
But this is the Rockefeller wing of the party, which has been down and out since the 1980s with Ronald Reagan's ascendancy.
The Rockefeller wing, now the McCain wing of the party, rearing.
Actually, he thinks he's Teddy Roosevelt, by the way, not Nelson Rockefeller, but we'll call it the McCain Rockefeller wing.
Uh what have you rearing its head?
Quick time out, we'll be back and continue right after this.
You're listening to Rush Limbaugh on the Excellence in Podcasting Network.
Open line Friday, 800-282-2882.
A reminder.
You can go to the website, by the way, at Rush Limbaugh.com and read about the Adopt a Soldier program.
It is going to happen.
We start the process on Monday.
The process is explained in great detail at Rushlinbaugh.com.
This is something that came up earlier this week.
A caller had the idea.
We put it together and announced it yesterday.
Adopt a soldier program.
The process for getting it started occurs Monday, and the actual matching of donors to uh soldiers, military personnel around the world will start on Monday, November the 21st.
Here's Jim in Miami.
I'm glad you called, sir.
Welcome to the program.
Hey, Rush, Megadetto's from Miami.
Thank you, sir.
I just uh I really appreciate everything you do and everything.
Listen, he blew it today.
I love the president, and it was a good speech, but it shouldn't have been a good speech.
He was in front of a hand-picked audience of veterans.
He could have named names, he could have hammered these people, the best defense is a good offense.
Anything he said about people, bad mouth in the war effort, would have been so warmly received by this crowd, they'd have probably been giving him a standing ovation.
Well, he got a bunch of standing ovations.
Yeah, but I mean he you you this is gonna be nationally nationally televised.
He can name the name safely because in front of these veterans, in front of the war effort, all these people, they're they're hammering away at a war that they all agreed to.
They're just being total hypocrites, and he's not gonna get a better opportunity than a speech like today.
He can't go to a white glove affair in Washington and give a speech like this.
But here, whatever he says about anything against his our war, not his, I'm sorry, is gonna be kudos.
All right.
Look, I understand your your attitude on that, is it but I gotta ask you a question.
Yeah.
Because it wasn't as forceful as you would like, and because it didn't name names, you're gonna be less inclined to support the president in this whole battle.
No, of course not.
Well, good, because I think he's gonna need it.
No, no, no.
You're actually clearly gonna need it.
And the point is, you don't get off the wagon for this, but what you gotta say is the people that are in the walking in the middle of the road on this war effort thing, they get a chance to stand up and see.
You know, the the media does not go around saying so-and-so, they're not reading the things that you are that are saying the uh the things that uh John Kerry said to support the war and they've got it they've they they have a whole different agenda.
They're carrying the water for the left.
I know, but they're not gonna read that.
So this is the only chance they have to do the speech, and when somebody says, why would he say these things so forcefully?
Because this is what they said.
It has to come out.
At least it would make the people who are sitting on the fence stand up and take a little more notice.
I think so.
Well, we'll see.
Uh, I I I don't know that this is just gonna be the first instance.
I think these things echo, these things resonate.
Uh and and uh I I've I would I don't know for a fact, but uh I think this may be the first step in what hopefully is a plan to continue to combat this stuff.
Um as to as to the lack of forcefulness, you have to keep in mind that he's the president of the United States, and he's the he's the president of all the people, and it's a veterans day speech.
It's a very important holiday, the U.S. military, and he you know, I uh I don't know whether this was even his idea.
He's reluctant to do these kinds of things.
I don't know if this was he was drag-kicking and scheming screaming to it or if it was his idea.
Uh because he doesn't want to politicize the presidency.
He just doesn't.
That's that's the what I'm not my take anyway.
He just doesn't want to politicize the presidency.
He doesn't want to, and and partisanship is politicizing it.
And getting these three paragraphs today, I think was big.
Getting getting these three paragraphs stated and articulated in a nationally covered speech was big, and it is forcing people to react to it and respond to it.
Uh he's but really at some point you have to say no choice.
The media has done all the I mean the five years of propaganda, folks, five years of propaganda.
Media used to be able to pull this off inside of six months, but five years of propaganda, and they've got his negatives up to sixty percent.
Five years of propaganda, and they have got the disapproval rate at around 40.
As I say, in the old days, when they had their monopoly, it took them not nearly this long to destroy a president or to try to, or to get these numbers.
So he has to do something.
And I and I think that he chose to do it in his in as statesmanlike way as he can.
I do know this in the original transcript, John Kerry's name was mentioned.
And by the time he got to the speech, and there's these things are always being changed right up to uh speech time, but he did not mention Kerry's name.
He simply referred to him as his opponent in uh in last year's election.
Uming names is not something he's going to do.
He's he's going to try to do this while staying above the fray of it all at the same time.
That's what you heard today.
Back in a moment.
Well, the uh most uh the number six most wanted man in Iraq is at Ibrahim Al-Duri is dead, according to Bathist Party officials in Iraq.
He was Saddam's uh, depending on who's counting, number two or number three guy.
Many many reports of his death over the course of past years, months and so forth never confirmed, always denied this one is not supplied by anybody other than the people who know, so uh everybody's accepting the fact that uh Izat Ibrahim Alduri has uh be assumed room temperature uh in Iraq.
Welcome back to Open Line Friday, L. Rushbo at 800 282-2882, Phil Kashmir Washington.
You're next.
Hello, sir.
Good morning there, and uh conservative dittoes from the heart, conservative heart of a liberal state.
That's fabulous to hear from you.
Thanks for the call.
Hey, I just want to say thank God for George Bush and God bless George Bush for, you know, in spite of lowering uh support numbers in the polls, he is staying the course and is being a true leader.
And you know, they had a poll on the other day that said 70-thers of America thinks he's stubborn, and I say, well, God bless him for being stubborn, because that's not a bad trait when you're leading the greatest state in the uh in uh the United States or the uh the world.
Uh and you're leading in the basis of what's in your heart, not what's in the polls, uh, and what you think is the right thing to do.
I folks, before before we get too far here, and I appreciate the call out there, Phil, before we get too far here and just focusing on these three paragraphs, and I admit I've done that, you got to put those three paragraphs in the context of the whole speech.
And and Phil's right, this whole speech was we're gonna keep doing what we've been doing.
We are winning, it is working.
This whole speech uh was without saying so, a an attempt to refute the lies in the revisionist history uh that is uh being put out by the left.
The whole speech was.
It was just three paragraphs where the uh where the president took direct aim.
And if you're just joining us and you haven't heard this, let's go to cuts 20, 21, and 22, Mike.
Uh these are the three paragraphs that the president took direct aim at critics and the history revisionists in his speech today in Pennsylvania.
Our debate at home must also be fair-minded.
One of the hallmarks of a free society, and what makes our country strong, is that our political leaders can discuss their differences openly, even in times of war.
When I made the decision to remove Saddam Hussein from power, Congress approved it with strong bipartisan support.
I also recognize that some of our fellow citizens and elected officials didn't support the liberation of Iraq.
And that is their right, and I respect it.
As President and Commander in Chief, I accept the responsibilities and the criticisms and the consequences that come with such a solemn decision.
While it's perfectly legitimate to criticize my decision or the conduct of the war, it is deeply irresponsible to rewrite the history of how that war began.
applause applause applause Thank you.
Some Democrats and anti-war critics are now claiming we manipulated the intelligence and misled the American people about why we went to war.
These critics are fully aware that a bipartisan Senate investigation found no evidence of political pressure to change the intelligence community's judgments related to Iraq's weapons Programs.
They also know that intelligence agencies from around the world agreed with our assessment of Saddam Hussein.
They know the United Nations passed more than a dozen resolutions citing his development and possession of weapons of mass destruction.
And many of these critics supported my opponent during the last election.
Who explain his position to support the resolution in the Congress this way.
When I vote to give the President of the United States the authority to use force, if necessary, to disarm Saddam Hussein, it is because I believe that a deadly arsenal of weapons of mass destruction in his hands is a threat and a grave threat to our security.
That's why more than a hundred Democrats in the House and the Senate who had access to the same intelligence voted to support removing Saddam Hussein from power.
Okay.
Yeah.
Right on, right on.
Right.
It didn't name names, but his former opponent is obviously John Kerry.
He could have gone on on a he could still be talking, quoting Democrats if he wanted to be.
He could still be talking, quoting Democrats.
There are a whole bunch of them in the U.S. Senate that said essentially what John Kerry said.
He could he could quote President Clinton.
He could go back and quote ex-Senator Tom Dashell.
He can quote any number of people.
He didn't.
He simply quoted Kerry.
And in this next bite, he takes a stab one more, and this is the last of the three at saying the stakes are too high and the war is real for all of this BS to be circulating out there.
The stakes in the global war on terror are too high.
And the national interest is too important for politicians to throw out false charges.
Applause.
Applause.
Thank you.
These baseless attacks send the wrong signal to our troops and to an enemy that is questioning America's will.
As our troops fight a ruthless enemy determined to destroy our way of life.
They deserve to know that their elected leaders who voted to send them to war continue to stand behind them.
Thank you.
Our troops deserve to know that this support will remain firm when the going gets tough.
Thank you.
And our troops deserve to know that whatever our differences in Washington, our will is strong.
Our nation is united, and we will settle for nothing less than victory.
Pretty forceful, pretty forceful there in the conclusion.
So that was the uh long-awaited presidential response to his um to his critics today, and as I mentioned immediately after this, the uh media that I had a chance to check out was downplaying this thing.
It just proves that he lied.
President Forster defend himself against these attacks, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
I just want to remind you of this because don't go to the mainstream press to find any validation.
You have to learn to validate yourselves.
If you have an opinion, this is a good thing and you liked it, stick with it because you're not going to find that anywhere else in the media, not the mainstream big media.
Now, along the lines of this, we've been hitting some Republicans here pretty hard today, but there are some that deserve a lot of credit.
The Senate voted yesterday to bar foreign terror suspects at the U.S. prison in Gitmo from filing lawsuits in American courts to challenge their detentions, this despite a Supreme Court ruling last year that granted such access.
In a 49 to 42 vote.
Now, look at the way that's worded, by the way.
Why, how dare they do this in the Senate?
Why, don't they know the Supreme Court's the last word?
This is exactly how you do it.
If the Supreme Court comes up with a ruling that there is no case law to support, in other words, if you have judicial activism and a bunch of activist judges somewhere who are going to say, nope, I don't like you doing that, and so that's going to be the law of the land, then the Senate can't come back.
The Congress come back say, Oh, yeah, we're gonna pass a law saying you can't do it.
We're gonna pass a law saying that these terrorists and these suspects do not get access to the U.S. court system was a 49 to 42 vote.
Senators added this provision, it was amendment by Vice President Lindsey Graham of North Carolina, uh, added this to a sweeping defense policy bill under the provision.
Guantanamo bay detainees will be allowed to appeal their status as an enemy combatant one time to the Circuit Court of Appeals in Washington.
But they would not be able to file petitions known as writs of habeas corpus, which are used to fight unlawful detentions in that court or any other U.S. court.
Lindsey Graham said on the floor of the Senate for 200 years, ladies and gentlemen, that a law of armed conflict, no nation has given an enemy combatant, a terrorist, an Al-Qaeda member, the ability to go into every federal court in this country and sue the people that are fighting the war for us.
Senator Jeff Bingaman, Democrat New Mexico said the provision was a major mistake and deserves scrutiny.
It's contrary to the way the court decisions have come down already.
It's an extraordinary step for this Congress to be taking.
And therein we have a liberal response.
You can't disagree with the court.
Why, this is an extraordinary strep for us to be taking.
Why, who are we?
We're nothing but the elected representatives of the people here in the U.S. Senate.
It's the judges that make the law in this I didn't mean to say it that way.
Uh uh, said Senator Bengman.
What is this hocus pocus that Congress can't bump comeback and disagree with the Supreme Court decision to write a new law that obviates the Supreme Court decision, particularly when the Supreme Court decision was not founded on any previous case law.
This is exactly what they're supposed to do.
So kudos to Senator Lindsey Graham from South Carolina from all of us here at the EIB network.
We are back on Open Line Friday.
El Rushboat talent on loan from God.
The House Intelligence Committee will look into a possible leak of classified information about secret CIA prisons, but will not heed the request of the panel's top Democrat to restart a 2003 inquiry into pre-war intelligence on Iraq.
So there are Republicans showing some spine.
This is uh Pete Hookstra doing this.
The House Intelligence Committee, chaired by Peter Hookstra, already has been investigating leaks of classified information.
Hookstra from Michigan was not immediately available to comment.
They're gonna look into this.
This is this whole black sites leak that ended up in the Washington Post, and this leak might take them to the Senate because we've got Senators, Trent Lott, at least, saying that the leak came from there.
Perhaps a Republican senator or a Republican staffer.
The Senate decided at close ranks, eh?
We need to slow down a little bit on this.
Uh a lot of stuff is getting set up here, and you know, we'd be investigating ourselves all day if if we uh investigated it all.
This is no big deal.
Meanwhile, we bring in the baseball players on steroids.
I mean, we you know what figure if we can get Rafael Palmero on perjury charges over steroids, by the way, they bombed out on that.
And we go out and bring the big oil execs in there.
We're going to actresses that star in movies to bring them in as experts on legislation.
We'll delay the confirmation hearings of the Supreme Court nominee.
And we know we're not going to investigate ourselves right now.
We need to put this off, need to collect a little more data, but the House.
Earlier this week, Bill Frist and the Speaker of the House, Denny Hastard, call for a bicameral investigation into the disclosure of the CIA secret prisons leak in the Washington Post.
Uh and the Senate is eh, we're not crazy about this, but the House is going ahead with it.
Now, California Representative Jane Harmon, who is the ranking Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, last Tuesday urged the committee to return to its work on the pre-war intelligence on Iraq, a request that mirrored the efforts of Democratic senators to draw attention to the administration's mistakes on the war.
They want to keep their propaganda machine rolling.
They want to keep their propaganda effort uh moving.
And so Jane Harmon says, screw this CIA business.
That's not a big deal.
We need to find out if the president lied about pre-war intelligence when everybody knows he didn't.
Everybody knows he didn't.
The people that are the liars about this are the people trying to deny what they said themselves.
The people liars about this, trying to deny their own votes.
The liars in this are people like Joel Wilson and his cadre of supporters who want to try to put forth the notion that Joe Wilson alone proves that we went to Iraq under false pretense because of the lie that there was no uranium being sought by Iraq from Niger.
That's not true.
It was the British to this day stand by their intel on that.
So there's massive propaganda going on, massive history revisionism.
Jane Harmon says we don't need to investigate.
See, yeah, we already done that.
Valerie Playmore, remember her, we need to investigate this pre-war intelligence business.
And Pete Hookstra shut her down.
They're going to go ahead and look at it.
Now, a lot of people said, Boy, I bet this is going to be Democrats saying people won't want to appear with uh president in 06.
These candidates uh running for re-election, they won't want the president anywhere nearby.
That's going to be good for us.
Apparently, though, that's not true.
The phones are ringing off the hook at the White House uh political affairs office.
Republican candidates calling to ask President Bush to appear at fundraisers and campaign events.
Despite a consensus among political pundits and Democrats, that Mr. Bush was chiefly responsible for the Virginia gubernatorial loss on Tuesday.
The White House said yesterday that candidates from across the country continue to seek presidential appearances.
Mr. Bush will travel to Maryland later this month to help Lieutenant Governor Michael Steele raise money for his Senate race next year.
Also in the pipeline, campaign events for Senator John Kyle of Arizona, Representative Mark Kennedy of Minnesota.
And I continue to be amazed at some of our own pundits, if you will, taking a look at the Virginia and New Jersey governors' races and trying to pass these things off as harbingers of doom for the Republican Party next year.
And I don't well, I do understand it.
That's what makes me even madder.
We got pundits on our side who want to be taken in and accepted as visionary and part of the click and part of the group by the left wing pundits in Washington.
Even political scientists.
Oh, yeah, this is doom.
This isn't.
It's no different than whatever happens in these states.
Democrats win the governorship when Republicans in their White House, particularly Virginia.
The idea that we're going to have a Republican governor in New Jersey.
Come on, folks.
The idea there's some kind of big upset that Bush was responsible for.
What the hell are people on our side doing saying it?
Ticks me off.
Here's Mike in Minneapolis.
Your next sir.
Welcome to the program.
Hey Rush, happy Veterans Day from a Naval Academy graduate, former longtime naval officer.
Congratulations, sir.
Thank you.
Um my question to you is I have no problem with the president's uh leadership and his the method he's pursuing the war on terror.
My problem is is that my wife and I agree that in 1994, our party was swept in, biggest transition, I think, in government ever, uh, because they had a plan, contract with America.
Uh it was measurable, it was goal-oriented.
Um, it's our perception that the party has kind of lost the plan.
Um it it people, I think in America are suckers for a plan, and and we seem to have lost the bubble in and not realize the fact that it was you know, we it that's what swept us in.
So I guess my question to you is you feel it's time again for another contract with America.
Well, you can call it what you want.
I'll tell you what the contract of America was simply a statement of conservatism as it related to issues of the day at that time.
And it's a good conservatism, it was conservatism that was that was uh uh identified in the contract with America to that extent.
Yeah.
I'm all for an agenda.
The contract with America was just an agenda.
Yes, we also covered they it was measurable goals.
They said that they would bring those ten issues to the table within a hundred days.
It covered crime, it covered everything as far as domestic policy goes, and people could see the progress.
Well, yeah, they could, but some of that stuff still hasn't happened, and that's one of the problems.
Uh one of the one of the big ones that hadn't happened is term limits.
Remember that one?
That was that was that was a big element.
But I agree with your point.
Also want to remind you, uh, Mike, that the Democrats are trying to put together their own version of it.
Now that I can't wait to see, because I know I will laugh when I see it, but they're still trying to come up with the concept of a plan.
In fact, their whole propaganda plan since 2001 has been to do what they think Newt and the Republicans did to hound Clinton all through the nineties.
They and they think just oppose everything, criticize every syllable, criticize every word.
Uh they think that's what happened to Clinton.
They don't think that's Clinton's issues ran stale with the American people.
They thought he was brought down brought down by by you know propaganda, so they're just trying to replicate it.
And as part of that, trying to come up with their own contract with America.
I don't know what they're gonna call it, but uh they've got to figure out what they want to tell us they try to believe first, and that's what they're meeting behind closed doors to do.
Back in just a second.
Fast as three hours in media.
Of course, the president was the first 40 minutes of the first hour, but we're still zipping by here, folks.
One hour to go on open line Friday, and we'll get to as much of what I want to get to in these stacks as we can, plus audio sound bites.
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