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Dec. 6, 2005 - Rush Limbaugh Program
33:50
December 6, 2005, Tuesday, Hour #2
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Hi, welcome back, my friends.
You are tuned to the nation's leading radio talk show, a nation, a program that meets and surpasses all audience expectations on a daily basis.
It is the award-winning Thrill-Packed Rush Limbaugh program.
I am America's Anchorman, doing play-by-play and commentary of the news here at the Limbaugh Institute for Advanced Conservative Studies.
The telephone number is 800-282-2882 and the email address, rush at EIBnet.com.
So yesterday after the program, I'm sitting here minding my own business, bothering nobody.
I'm working feverishly on today's program.
Once this program is over, I will start working on tomorrow's.
It's called Show Prep.
And I'm reading some things on the internet, and I notice I've got a flash email from one of my, for lack of a better term, I don't like this term, but call it PR persons.
Dear Rush, a Philadelphia news writer wants to know if you will comment on a recent column, see below, by Jerry Mondesire in the Philadelphia Sun, 27 or 20,000 circulation, largely black audience.
This column is highly critical of Donovan McNabb.
The column accuses McNabb of playing the race card.
This is apparently in reference to McNabb's decision to have mid-season surgery on his sports hernia, saying publicly that fans expect a black quarterback to be able to scramble.
And then the reporter's email address and phone number is left for me.
And I said, what has this got to do with me?
So I read the column.
I read the column, read Jerry Mondesire's piece by J. Wyatt Mondesire in the Philadelphia Sun.
And stand by.
Here it is.
I'll just give you a couple of excerpts.
Hey, McNabb, yo, Donnie, I'm calling you, man.
Hey, soup guy over here.
Donovan E. McNabb, you hear me calling you?
Will you please pay attention?
For a whole lot of years now, we've heard you crying aloud about being taken seriously as a black quarterback who can camp out in the pocket and deliver rifle shots across midfield right into the fingertips of fleeting whiteouts and tight ends, say like Doug Williams, the brilliant gambling star of a generation ago, went on to break a Super Bowl record for touchdown passes in 98.
Well, well, I've seen you, Donovan E. McNabb, in your formative years as well as your mid-career development.
And one thing is certain, Donovan E. McNabb, you are no Doug Williams.
The Grambling Star completed 18 of 29 passes for 340 yards and four touchdowns, capping it off with 35 points in the fourth quarter alone.
He followed that performance with three conference championships in 2000, 2001, and 2002.
Your record, McNabb, is another matter entirely.
In fact, this whole dismal season so far has really been a testament of fallen dreams and lost opportunities, most of which belongs at your feet, or should I say hands, and that of your coach, Andy Reid, who has allowed you to perpetuate a fraud on the field while hiding behind excuses dripping in make-believe racial stereotypes.
Now, let me pause here.
Can I take you back to what started all of this?
What started all of this was an innocent yet true comment made by me on ESPN in which I theorized, and how many, this is, what is this?
It's two years ago now.
Two years, so the 2003 season, and the Eagles were not starting off well.
It was week four, week five of the season, and I said, I think quarterback McNabb's a little overrated.
I even said he's a good quarterback, and the Eagles are lucky to have him.
I think it's a little overrated by a media who has a social conscience and is hoping that a black quarterback does what.
Well, the firestorm that erupted.
Oh, it's still.
Hey, Brian, would you come put my headpiece back on in my exuberance here?
I just knocked it off.
So the firestorm that erupted, the media could not believe it.
I had the audacity to say something of a racial, thank you, sir.
That I would have say something that was racially oriented about this.
I was just telling people what I thought.
Okay, agree with me or disagree, but it caused to this day.
There are stories in the Philadelphia mainstream press about all this that still mention me as one of the great obstacles McNabb had to overcome, along with Terrell Owens and all that.
So now here we've got this story in this column in apparently a large, well, a Philadelphia weekly, or I don't know if it's a weekly, but it's a local paper that has a 20,000 circulation, and I'm told it's a largely black audience, now accusing McNabb of playing the race card, being a fraud on the field while hiding behind excuses, dripping in make-believe racial stereotypes.
As Mr. Mondesire writes, normally this column takes very little about sports, talks very little about sports, because the games that grown men play pale in comparison to the great issues of racism, politics, social calamities, health crises, war and peace, etc., which gives us plenty of fertile territory to explore and pontificate about.
However, this week, I felt compelled to offer some personal thoughts about you, McNabb, and your horrific on-field performances this season, because at their core, there is a lie that you have tried to use to hide the fact that in reality, you actually are not that good.
In essence, Donnie, you are mediocre at best.
And trying to disguise that fact behind some concocted reasoning that African-American quarterbacks who can scramble and who can run the ball are somehow lesser field generals than one who can summon up dead-on passes at a whim is more insulting off the field and on.
Your athleticism and unpredictability to sometimes run with the ball earlier in your career not only confused defenses, it also thrilled Eagles fans.
It lasts that many of us.
Now we have a multifaceted offensive threat whose talent threatened talents threatened to not just dominate the NFC East Division, but maybe the whole NFL for several years.
We were elated.
We were in awe.
We celebrated the bosses giving you that huge lifetime salary deal, which meant that we'd have you around until it was time for you to join the other retired stars in the TV broadcast booth.
But then, Donnie, you played the race card and practically all of us fell for your hustle.
You scammed this man, and there's no way any longer to refrain from keeping it real.
We could have remained silent, too, if you had found another way to remain effective in a winner.
But when your mediocre talent becomes so apparent, it's time to call it out.
And then they go on to just ream this poor guy just to shreds and quote and cite examples of true racial barrier breakers in the NFL and in college who endured hardships and mistreatment and even death on the field in order to break down the barriers.
Hey, Donnie, soup guy, pull your head out of your million-dollar Campbell Soup Bowl for a moment and ask which current quarterback, in fact, made a gesture like that for members of his squad.
The name Tom Brady ring a bell.
Isn't he the guy who took home last year's Super Bowl ring while you were standing in the soup line?
And it just, it goes on.
The Philadelphia media, too, and I have to tell you this, this is the local paper.
They're all local papers, a small 20,000 circulation.
After the Cowboys game on a Monday night game in which McNabb threw the interception, it guaranteed an Eagles loss and snatched a loss from the jaws of victory.
And that's when McNabb did the final damage to his sports hernia that ended his season and dictated the surgery.
I made it a point to read the Philadelphia papers the next day.
And these people had done a total 180 on it.
They were talking about his reputation is ruined, that that's the last thing anybody is ever going to remember of McNabb, this interception that turned over a game and that futile attempt at making a tackle.
And I sat here all this time and I'm thinking, this perhaps, to my mind, has been inexplicable.
Here is McNabb playing hurt, putting up with all this abuse from Terrell Owens from Training Camp On.
He's playing hurt, and he's doing his best to keep the Eagles in contention while they're having all of these problems.
He's giving it all.
He's trying as hard as he can, even with this sports hernia injury that has limited his ability to run, scramble out of trouble, even limited his ability to throw.
And yet he's still out there playing, and these people are dumping on him.
And they're dumping on him as though he's worthless.
And they're dumping it, talking about how his reputation's ruined.
And I was stunned because, well, actually, I wasn't stunned because it makes the point that I have tried to make on this program for the longest time.
The sports media takes these people up, takes these people, builds them up, makes them larger than life.
Then these young sports guys believe all this stuff because everybody likes getting favorable press, and when you get it, you want to keep doing what you're doing to get it.
And then after a while, one little season like this, one and an injury plague season, a TO problem, and it's time to take McNabb off the pedestal and start dumping.
Everybody in Philadelphia is dumping on McNabb.
And I actually think that this is one of those seasons where McNabb deserves all kinds of credit for courage and trying to make a go of it despite the TO obstacle and all of that, and despite this sports hernia, if I were McNab, if I were McNabb, I would stop talking to him.
I just, I wouldn't, I wouldn't.
He's gone out of his way to accommodate these people.
He's gone out of his way to be nice.
He's gone out of his way to try to keep the team going and exude the leadership qualities that he has.
But the media from the get-go has been unfair in their expectations.
They touted McNabb as the great savior even after he was booed during draft day.
And despite what they say, they constantly view him as a black athlete.
They constantly view him as a black quarterback.
They constantly look at him.
And this little column yesterday that ran in Philadelphia and apparently has the black audience is an indication he's looked at as a black quarterback.
And the media can deny that all they want, but he is looked at as a black quarterback.
And it's gotten to the point now that those expectations that they piled on him, he's now playing their game.
He's now out there saying, well, I had to have the surgery now because, you know, the fans want to see a black quarterback be able to scramble, thereby fulfilling the stereo.
Now they're going to do a 180 and turn on him and all that.
And I think all he's trying to do is fulfill the expectations that they have ladled onto him.
The degree of criticism that McNabb is getting in Philadelphia this year, talk about unjust, talk about mean-spirited, talk about just absolutely pointless.
This is a classic example of it.
And I probably am not doing him any favors today by supporting him because it's only going to make the media even angrier at him.
Sorry, Donovan, but I got to be honest about it.
I think you're getting a short end of the stick on this one big time.
Back after this.
Stay with us.
Do you need any more evidence, folks, that I was right?
And I knew what I was talking about two years ago on ESPN about this.
I never once criticized McNabb for being black.
I never once said he couldn't play the game because he's black.
I simply said he was not as good as everybody thought he was because Philadelphia media had this racial hope invested in him because they're a bunch of liberals.
HR just said to me, that town Philadelphia, race is big in this.
It's not Philadelphia.
It's liberalism.
Liberals are the ones that can't get race off their minds.
And everybody thinks racism is in the red states.
Hell, folks, it's alive and well in the blue states.
It's alive and well in the great Northeast.
So, and I just, I think the thing that's, again, I have to say this, the thing that strikes me, here's McNabb with all these obstacles, and he's still out there.
It'd be the easiest thing in the world for McNabb to have called it off early in the season, had the surgery.
Instead, he put it on the line.
He went out there and played, and he knew once he made that decision, he wasn't going to get any sympathy, and he didn't offer any.
He didn't talk to, didn't use that as an excuse.
He went out there and tried anyway because everybody had such high expectations, including members of that team.
And finally, he heard it so bad he couldn't continue.
And after that, after a valiant effort of trying to make a go of it, then they dump on him even more.
I think it just illustrates the point.
They build these people up, then they tear them down.
And in poor McNabb's case, they put this racial component and attach that to him.
And after a while, they have all these expectations.
I think had no, he had no choice but then try to fulfill them.
At any rate, Tim in Trenton, New Jersey, welcome to the program, sir.
It's great to have you with us.
Thanks, Russ.
I'm a Packer fan, first of all.
I have to let you know, but I've lived in South Jersey for 30-plus years.
And what I think it comes down to is besides the media, the fans in this area, they're not true fans.
I mean, I would support McNabb is a great leader.
He's just a great leader.
And so he may not be the best athlete, but he's still a pretty good athlete.
Oh, now, wait a minute.
I don't know about that.
If I read the Philadelphia media, he's not a great leader.
He would have held his team together.
He even got beat up in the press.
I don't know if you remember the details of this story, but at one point during the T.O. fiasco, Andy Reid said, you go apologize.
You go apologize to your teammates.
And he apologized to everybody but McNabb.
He apologized to the organization.
But what really precipitated T.O. being sent down to football purgatory was Hugh Douglas, the ambassador of the Eagles, walked in the locker room one day in the trainer's room, and T.O. was in there and said, I know for a fact there are people in here faking injuries.
And that was directly at T.O. T.O. was faking injury, trying to just be a distraction so he could get traded and get more money.
Well, that caught, you know, T.O. said, you can't say that about it.
And he walked around and started challenging people to fights.
And he looked at McNabb.
Anybody want a piece of me?
He and Douglas duked it out.
And then McNabb or Owen said, anybody else want a piece of this?
And McNabb didn't do anything.
Philadelphia Media said, that proved that McNabb was not willing to stand up.
He was not willing to stand up for the team.
And so they were questioned his leadership characteristics as well, simply because of that.
I kid you not.
I thought McNabb was nothing but class all the way through this whole T.O. thing.
Nothing but class.
And he goes out, and now they're reaming his reputation.
They're reaming his leadership capabilities.
Look, Tim, I know the fans, this, the fans, the Philadelphia fans are no different than anybody else's fans.
They just have a great reputation.
But no fan tolerates losing.
I heard Frank DeFord once had the greatest line, and I've told him this a couple times.
He was talking about how they say Chicago is a great sports town because the fans show up and support the Cubs every year, knowing the Cubs are never going to win Diddley Squad.
And he said, this is the strangest definition for being a great sports town.
And you've got a bunch of idiot fans that'll show up and support the team even though they lose.
They'll pay all his money to watch a bunch of losers.
And DeFord said, is that what makes you got a good, if you're a good, if you're a good dry cleaning town?
Let's say your dry cleaners in your town do a lousy job dry cleaning your clothes.
They come back with holes or they don't come back at all.
But yet you still keep going back to the dry cleaner.
Does that mean Chicago is a great dry cleaner town?
It's the same thing here.
No fans want to sit there and lose, especially not at today's prices.
The fans are not dictating what the media is writing, believe me.
Not at all.
Fans have their own agenda when it comes to this sort of stuff.
But fans everywhere want the team to win, and they get mad when the team doesn't, especially when you got expectations.
Paul, Cold Spring, New York, welcome to the program.
Nice to have you with us.
Good afternoon, Rush.
I'd like to make a few comments on the Donovan situation.
First of all, I think that if this guy parallels anybody, it's John Elway.
He's got a great supporting defense, awful supporting offensive cast.
He gets to the big game, but he doesn't win the biggest game necessarily.
It took L.A. forever to do it, and he needed a guy named Terrell Davis.
And when Donovan finally got his guy, Terrell Owens, first the guy gets hurt in the big game, and he was great in the Super Bowl, but he couldn't be the full weapon that he was.
And then this year, the guy's a total mental case that broke up the whole team.
And how can you expect Donovan to be a weaker?
Well, but let's get that wait a second because this Philadelphia paper talks about that.
You know, Terrell Owens came out at the Super Bowl and said, hey, I'm not the guy that got tired in a fourth quarter in the Super Bowl implementing McNabb.
He had a couple other players on the Eagles saying McNabb was throwing up in the huddle in the fourth quarter because he was so nervous, hyperventilating, wasn't in shape, and so forth.
I mean, that's really where this started after the Super Bowl last year.
And, you know, Elway, the first three or four times in the Super Bowl lost, they got skunked.
There was no chance for a fourth quarter comeback or making it a game.
Broncos just got blown away.
In this circumstance, people just started dumping on McNabb left and right.
To me, the whole thing was impossible to follow because one minute McNabb was a savior, was the greatest guy on earth, and the next day he was the whole reason this team was rotting into the core, didn't have a chance, and so forth.
And it's just, it's been a roller coaster.
My whole point all along was that the media had all these expectations, and some of it was based on race.
And they look past, they look beyond some apparent deficiencies and so forth, and still portrayed this guy to be the greatest thing since sliced bread.
And now you've got all these people coming around saying he's never been that good.
He's never been that good.
And I'm sitting here saying, told you.
Condoleezza Rice is not backing down.
She was in Berlin yesterday, and she forcefully defended the handling of terror suspects in U.S. custody around the world, saying they had provided intelligence that has saved both European and American lives.
As she began a four-dation trip to Europe, Condoleezza Rice addressed for the first time reports that Washington maintains secret CIA prisons in Europe and uses the territory of countries there to transfer detainees to places where they can be tortured.
She said the United States does not transport and has not transported detainees from one country to another for the purpose of interrogation using torture.
She said this in a five-page statement, which she read at Andrews Air Force Base before flying off to Berlin.
Now, there's a couple interesting little sidebars to this.
Note here that she says we don't transport and we have not transported detainees from one country to another for the purpose of interrogation using torture.
Okay, if it's true that we had all these secret prisons, it must be we're rounding up al-Qaeda suspects on their home turf.
They are all over the world, folks.
You don't have to transport them from where you catch them because you can catch them pretty much in any country in the world.
If you wanted to, you could probably catch a couple here.
But about the CIA business, how do we even know about these secret prisons?
We know about this from a Washington Post story.
Where did the reporter at, Dana Priest, get the information?
Had to come from the CIA.
There's a CIA leak that we need an independent counsel for.
There's a real leak.
There's something that's really damaging.
How did that happen?
Why is the CIA leaking this information?
Is there any wonder why?
There must be people in the CIA who are trying to undermine their own president.
There are people in the CIA probably trying to do a good job.
There are others in the CIA that are trying to stifle it, that are trying to impair it, that are trying to sabotage it for the purposes of embarrassing this administration.
Now there's a new CIA leak that since this news got out about these black site prisons in Eastern Europe, that we've now moved all of those suspects to a single prison somewhere in Central America.
How did that news get out?
That news also had to come from the CIA.
Somebody in the CIA is doing a lot of talking.
Somebody's leaking to the Washington Post and the New York Times.
And it isn't new.
It's been going on for the longest time.
And the administration doesn't say a word about it, at least publicly.
I don't know what they're doing behind the scene, but nobody gets fired over there.
They've sent Porter Goss over there to try to straighten things out.
And you know what?
This is a good, I think it's a good illustration.
The Libs say what?
The Libs say that we created terrorism.
And if we'd have just stayed out of Iraq, and if we hadn't taken the war on terror to Iraq, that we wouldn't have created all these terrorists.
And now the Democrats, John Murthy, are actually saying that we're not going to defeat al-Qaeda until we get out of Iraq.
We can't defeat them while they're because our army's ragtag is worn out, run down, and living hand to mouth.
No, only the Iraqi security forces and military can defeat al-Qaeda.
We're not going to be able to do it.
We have to get out of there.
So our presence is provocative.
We provoke these people.
We provoke them and we make them angrier.
It's the same old liberal argument about how we used to deal with the Soviet Union.
All right, take that and look at what Bush has tried to do with the CIA.
Sent Porter Goss over there.
One of the reasons sent Porter Goss to the CIA was to clean it up.
As a result, the CIA is leaking like a sieve.
The CIA is sabotaging and attempting to undermine administration policy.
These leaks may or may not be true.
With Condoleezza Rice denying all this, we don't know if all these leaks are true or not.
They're being reported as fact, although we don't know really where the prisons are because that would compromise security.
So nobody's ever really seen one of these prisons.
One of these black site prisons, but everybody assumes they're there.
Condoleezza Rice says, oh, we don't transport.
We have not transported detainees from one country to another for the purpose of interrogating them using torture.
That's not saying the prisons don't exist.
Just saying we're not transporting them.
So you send Goss in there and all hell breaks loose.
Send Condoleezza Rice to the State Department.
All hell breaks loose.
We got this Wilkerson guy out on the lecture circuit writing columns talking about how the Bush administration tried to hijack foreign policy.
They're the elected officials of the country.
And this guy Wilkerson, former chief of staff to Colin Powell, says, they're hijacking our foreign policy.
Well, obviously what we've got, we've got a rat's nest.
We've got a State Department, a CIA, full of liberals, full of politically correct liberals.
We've got a CIA.
I'm told that somebody went in and had an interview with the CIA, some station chief around the world, and this guy somewhere around the world, and this station chief was more proud of the diversity in his office than the intelligence he was gathering.
He was proud to point out all the racial and sexual gender differences among his employees.
So we got a bunch of libs.
And what's happened, the libs think they own these institutions, and so we've sent a couple of people to sweep the place out, and this is what we're getting.
We're getting leaks from the CIA about their secret operations.
We're getting leaks in the CIA about their secret air charter operation.
We're getting leaks from the State Department and now outright speeches from the State Department about various things.
To me, the way I look at this is it is a sign that something good is being done, and this is the fallout from it.
These places are being straightened out and they're being cleaned out.
And the people that are being cleaned out aren't going quietly.
And they're fed up with it.
So it's a momentary roadblock in policy, and it presents a bad picture.
But the bottom of the line is, I think we're straightening these places out.
The hornets are flying around trying to sting people now.
It's a wasp's nest in there.
I don't mean white Anglo-Saxon Protestant.
I'm talking about the little animal that runs around, stings the hell out of you, then dies.
That's what they're doing.
They're running around stinging people, and they're dying off.
We're cleaning the place out.
Got rid of Valerie Plame somehow.
But in the meantime, you've got these people in there that are actually doing what they can to sabotage the efforts of the country.
And there's Condoleezza Rice running around.
Cheney made a speech today.
And finally, the administration's fighting back on some of this stuff.
But these people have all joined forces with the Democrats and out there trying to characterize our military personnel as the barbarians, as the terrorists, as those who torture.
Saddam, at his trial today, where he said this is an unjust trial.
Where does that word come from?
Do you think Saddam Hussein even has the word unjust in his vocabulary?
You think Saddam Hussein even knows the way in his native tongue, is there such a word in his vocabulary as unjust?
I will guarantee you there's not.
Unjust is a favorite liberal word, and they usually use it to describe any war in which the United States is involved, including one in which we're attacked.
I can't tell you the number of liberals I've run into since 2001 and since the Iraq war started.
Well, there are some people in this country who think this is an unjust war.
And lo and behold, I hear the butcher of Baghdad talk about his trial today as an unjust trial.
I'd say, thank you, Ramsey Clark.
Way to put words in your client's mouth.
Then Saddam said that this trial is terrorism.
Do you think Saddam talks about terrorism?
He does it.
He doesn't talk about it.
I'll guarantee you Ramsey Clark put the words in there.
I want you to go out there and say this trial is nothing more than terrorism and it's unjust.
Because those are code words.
The American left, the American media, hmm, unjust, unjust terrorism.
Yeah, yeah, Saddam's got a point.
It's all about eliciting sympathy for the guy.
Let's go to the audio tape.
Let's go to Howard Dean.
He was in San Antonio yesterday on our affiliate station, W-O-I-A.
He has W-O-A-I.
San Antonio's first news.
Well, I think this is radio.
Maybe it was TV.
I'm not sure.
Nevertheless, Howard Dean's being interviewed by telephone.
Stan Kelly, one of the hosts, says, Governor Dean, the key to, I guess, eventually getting the U.S. forces out of Iraq is going to have the Iraqis do a better job of defending themselves, taking a greater role.
Are we on the right track to achieve that goal?
Let's not forget this was ultimately what America had to do in Vietnam.
Ultimately, they said, well, they're going to turn this over to the Vietnamese.
And of course, the South Vietnamese couldn't manage to take care of their own country.
I wish the president had paid more attention to the history of Iraq before we'd gotten in there.
The idea that we're going to win this war is an idea that unfortunately is just plain wrong.
Thank you.
I've seen this before in my life.
And it cost us 25,000 brave American soldiers in Vietnam.
I don't want to go down that road again.
Get out of there and take the targets off our troops back.
Get the targets off our troops back.
You know, it's as though they're in a sandbox, you know, playing war games and the terrorists are firing at them.
Yes, we must be concerned with the safety of the troops.
Governor Dean, troops are in a danger business.
They're volunteering to go there.
They are there.
You don't even know them.
You don't know the kind of people they are.
You don't even know what these kind of comments do to them.
We can't win.
The idea we're going to win this war is an idea that, unfortunately, just plain wrong.
Howard Dean speaking for America's Democrats.
Now, not all, some Democrats are trying to run away from this because in their hearts they know this is not good for them and their party, and some of them don't want to be tied to it.
But on balance, the majority of the Democratic Party falls in right behind this.
This Vietnam comparison, once again, is absurd.
Let's not forget this is ultimately what America had to do in Vietnam.
Ultimately, they said we're either going to turn this over to the Vietnamese, and of course the South Vietnamese couldn't manage to take care of their own country.
Wish the president had paid more attention to the history of Iraq before we'd gotten there.
Total denial.
Total denial that there's a war on terror out there.
The idea that the North Vietnamese were terrorizing the world and had agents all over the world and were conducting terrorist activities and using North Vietnam as a base.
There's nothing about that.
There's no comparison whatsoever.
Iraq is slated to become the next Afghanistan if we pull out and let it happen, which is exactly what the Democrats want to do.
Cut and run.
Invested in defeat.
We have produced a song to describe the Democrats' philosophy on this.
Paul Shanklin sings the tune, folks.
Listen to it and learn and laugh.
Try this headline in the Chicago Tribune today.
Iraq will likely be divisive issue for Democrats in 06, Obama says.
Barack Obama, what was his first, I don't know what his first clue was, but it depends on whoever told him.
But Iraq will be likely be a divisive issue for Democrats in 06.
And then in New York News Day today, their grand gesture to Hillary.
The fighting grannies now have Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton in their anti-war sites.
Starting today, we're going to start bird-dogging her wherever she goes, said Joan Weill, 77-year-old who in 2003 founded Grandmothers Against the War.
We're very angry with her for straddling the Iraq war fence.
She said last week over breakfast on the Upper West Side, we plan to hound her and get her to have some spunk and some ethics and say what most New Yorkers say, which is, let's get out of Iraq and soon.
You won't hear any of this in the mainstream press.
Not in the Washington, D.C. Press Corps.
Nope, not a bit.
Here's Leo in Sacramento.
Leo, my adopted hometown.
Great to have you on the program, sir.
Hello.
Yeah, it's nice to talk to you again, Rush.
Thank you.
It's Lido.
Leto.
I'm sorry.
No problem.
It comes down to the issue, again, Rush, of government agencies like the CIA, the State Department, agencies like that.
You break it down into liberal and conservative a lot.
And I remember when the 9-11 Commission first came up with the report when Democrats were blasting the CIA and blasting the president on how he gave a tenant the Medal of Freedom and, you know, blasting Colin Powell.
And the thing is, you even protected, I think, a little bit of Colin Powell.
And you're used to, you know, usually you're blasting them yourself.
But when you do it, though, when you criticize the CIA and the State Department and so forth and saying the liberals who run it and they're trying to weed out the liberals, it's not a liberal conservative issue, Rush.
It's money and power.
And those who have it don't want to lose it.
You know, Lido, I believe that you mean that.
I think that that is the way that you look at it.
But I think, let me draw the distinction for you.
I think it's about motivation.
When I praise the CIA, it's because they're doing things in the interest of this country.
They're trying to apprehend intelligence or get intelligence so we can apprehend bad guys.
They're trying to keep bad guys from doing bad things to this country.
When I criticize the CIA, I am criticizing renegade leakers who are attempting to undermine that mission of the CIA.
When I praise the State Department, which isn't very often because I don't have a whole lot of praise for it, when I praise the State Department, it's because they're on the right side of this country's interests.
Same thing CIA.
When I criticize them, it is because members of the CIA or the State Department are acting in what I consider to be against the interests of this country.
It's just the opposite with liberals.
When the CIA and the State Department are acting against the policies of this current administration, that's when the CIA and the State Department get praised.
It is a liberal conservative thing.
Money and power is everywhere you go in government.
Money and power is everywhere you go in successful America.
And by the way, as a capitalist, I made no apology for money or power.
I know that there are people trying to acquire both.
It takes a certain kind of person that acquires power to use it judiciously, honestly, and responsibly.
And not all people do.
I understand that.
I mean, look at the guy that ran L'Oreal's space for Bill Clinton, giving away our military secrets to the Chinese.
I mean, that's an abuse of power as far as, and so was Clinton's abuse of power in restructuring business between the State Department and the Commerce Department to allow that to happen.
But it is ideological here.
Liberalism pretty much aligns itself against the interests of U.S. foreign policy.
When it talks about victory, conservatives do just the opposite.
I'm glad you called, giving me the opportunity to make this distinction, Leto.
Have a good day.
We'll be back.
Interesting testimony from a Katrina survivor being carried for a while on CNN and MSNBC, but they bumped out when she got to the real good parts.
I wonder why.
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