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Dec. 19, 2005 - Rush Limbaugh Program
36:25
December 19, 2005, Monday, Hour #3
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Time Text
Hi, how are you?
Great to have you back, folks.
I am Rush Limbaugh, doing what I was born to do, hosting for life.
Going nowhere until every American agrees with me.
We are here at the one and only Limbaugh Institute for Advanced Conservative Studies.
And it's a thrill to have you with us.
Been playing a little game here.
Stump the staff during the break at the top of the hour.
Ask them a little question, a little history question.
I know my history.
And I think not enough people do, particularly in the news media.
I know my history.
And I asked them one simple question.
Who said the Constitution is not a suicide pact?
And they guessed, what did you say, Truman, FDR, Kennedy?
Those are the three guesses.
Nope.
Who said the Constitution is not a suicide pact?
It was Abraham Lincoln.
Telephone number, if you want to be on the program's 800-282-2882, the email address is rush at EIBnet.com.
Let me give you just a little Civil War history.
During the Civil War, there was a group called the Copperheads.
Now, the Copperheads have a modern equivalent today, the peace movement of the Democratic Party, or basically the Democratic Party.
They were called the Copperheads back then.
A former Ohio congressman, a man by the name of Clement Vallandigham, called the prosecution of the Civil War wicked and cruel, and he suggested that Lincoln and the Republican Party were using the Civil War to establish a dictatorship.
Troops of the 115th Ohio Volunteer Infantry seized Clement Vallandingham from his home in Dayton.
A military commission tried him for treasonable utterances and turned him over to the Confederate Army.
Jefferson Davis didn't want Valladingham any more than Lincoln did and eventually shipped him off to Canada from where he managed to slip back into the United States.
Abraham Lincoln lamented, must I shoot a simple-minded soldier boy who deserts while I must not touch a hair of a wily agitator who induces him to desert why this conjures up all kinds of fun things.
Grabbing Dingy Harry, putting him on trial, and expelling him to the remote regions of Pakistan where al-Qaeda is holding up.
That's interesting to contemplate.
Abraham Lincoln did it.
I don't know how he ever got a monument.
The Democrats must have been looking the other way.
The Constitution is not a suicide pact.
Abraham Lincoln, this is exactly how the Democrats would like it to read today.
It is a suicide pact.
We must extend constitutional rights to enemy combatants, according to the left, according to Senator McCain.
We have the Tim Russert soundbite.
Can we play that, please?
Here's Russert.
This is after the president's press conference today.
The reason we go to war is to protect our civil liberties.
There will be constant references, obviously, to President Nixon back in 72, who tried to monitor eavesdrop on American citizens.
And the Supreme Court said, no, you can't do that.
I remember President Nixon having the doctrine of preventive detention, where he would arrest war demonstrators ahead of time.
And here in Washington, put them into RFK stadium.
And the courts threw that out.
Now, Russer, yesterday when he's meet the press show and today can't get off of Nixon, can't get off of Watergate, because that's the mode.
That's the template.
Bush is Nixon.
This is Watergate.
The war is Vietnam, and they're not going to stop until they convince the American people of this.
We don't go to war to protect our civil liberties.
We go to war to save our lives.
Our civil liberties are worthless if we are dead.
If we have all assumed room temperature, folks, our civil liberties don't count diddly squat.
Again, I have to ask these people what civil liberty is being violated here.
I would love for the press to answer this question.
What civil liberties are we losing?
The press can be as disloyal to the country as they've ever been.
Nobody's stopping them from being anti-American or they're reporting being anti-American.
Take it back.
Pat Fitzgerald put a woman in jail, but they wanted that prosecutor.
They wanted that case.
FDR, did he protect civil liberties when he rounded up 110,000 Japanese and moved them from their homes and businesses to internment camps?
And Lincoln suspended habeas corpus?
And Lincoln actually deported somebody he thought was just an agitator?
Somebody he thought was just an agitator.
How about RFK, Robert F. Kennedy, authorizing the wiretapping of Martin Luther King Jr.
And last I looked, Lincoln and FDR are among our greatest presidents ever, among our greatest civil libertarians ever.
You want to test this?
Go tell some Democrat friend of yours that FDR was no friend to civil liberties.
See what you get.
They think he's the greatest guy we've ever had.
And RFK, the greatest president we almost had, is also considered to be a fabulous guy, and he's out there wiretapping Martin Luther King.
Are these the kind of civil liberties these people are talking about?
I need to have this answered.
Because I can round up all kinds of Democrats that violate civil liberties left and right in the prosecution of war because the Constitution is not a death sentence.
Abraham Lincoln.
It's not a suicide pact.
Let's go back to the audio soundbites.
Dingy Harry once again with Fox News Chris Wallace.
Wallace said, are Democrats going to do that in 2006?
Create a plan, go to the public and say that this Congress is the most corrupt Congress in history.
Is that what you're going to do, Senator Reed?
America can do better than what we've done.
The most corrupt Congress in the history of the country.
We have such significant problems with what's going on in this country.
And by the time the elections roll around 2006, the American people will understand better.
They already understand, but they will understand better the difference between Democrats and the corrupt Congress we now have.
Really?
Well, Wallace says, I just have to pick up on this because you've been mentioning corruption several times here.
One of the biggest scandals in Washington right now involves Jack Abramoff, a lobbyist who's under investigation and his clients.
Turns out that you, Senator Reid, received $66,000 in campaign contributions from Abramoff and his clients.
Some of your colleagues...
May I ask a question?
Don't try to say I receive money from Abraham.
I've never met the man, don't know anything.
But you've received money from.
Oh, make sure that all your viewers understand, not a penny from Abraham Law.
Oh, so we're going to split the baby, are we?
He's got donors that gave him Abramoff money, but he never got any money from Abramoff.
Hey, you know, you better make sure your sandbox is clean before you start throwing sand in other people's eyes.
And Wallace says, look, if I may get the question out, Senator, some of your colleagues, both Republicans and Democrats, have given back campaign contributions that had any taint of Abramoff to it.
Are you going to do so?
No, you pete.
Abramoff gave me no money.
His firm gave me no money.
There may have been, he may have worked as a firm where people have given me money.
But I feel totally at ease that I haven't done anything that is even close to being wrong.
So don't want me in with Jack Abraham.
This is a Republican scandal.
Don't try to give any of it to me.
We don't have to try.
You are stained already.
Simply because you're a liberal Democrat participating in a conspiracy to destroy our ability to defeat this enemy, Dingy Harry.
And what do you say here about the time the elections roll around in 2006, the American people will understand better?
Yep, they will.
They're going to understand you better.
They're going to understand Senator Boxer better.
They're going to understand Senator Kennedy better.
Of course, I don't know what more they can ever know about him.
They're going to understand Senator Kerry even better.
They're going to understand Congressperson Pelosi even better.
They're going to understand exactly what you've been trying to do and get away with for years, Dingy Harry.
The jig is up.
Hi, we're back.
El Rushbow having more fun than a human being should be allowed to have.
You want to hear some more, Abraham Lincoln?
You want to hear some more history?
Lincoln suspended the writ of habeas corpus when he had reporters thrown into prison because they wrote against him in the union.
He threw nine members of the Maryland legislature into prison to prevent that state from possibly pulling out of the union.
This is all history.
And when you understand history, it will put even into greater context just how legally and in a restrained fashion Bush is fighting this war.
Lincoln's one of our greatest presidents ever.
Here he deports an agitator to the South.
The South, we don't want the guy.
They recognize a traitor when they see one.
They sent him to Canada.
Can you imagine sending Dingy Harry over to Pakistan or Afghanistan?
Ha ha.
Well, can you imagine putting New York Times reporters in jail?
Except the president didn't do that?
Sorry, a prosecutor they asked for did.
Can you imagine the president doing?
Oh, God, folks.
Folks, I can't tell you what I would do if the president decided to put the press in jail.
We are in the midst of a war.
And when you understand that, everything changes.
If you don't have a historical context for these kinds of things, if you think history began the day you were born, and so nothing that has happened outside your lifetime is irrelevant, you're not going to understand the important things about the country's past and preserving our country's future.
In this business of going to war to protect civil liberties that Tim Russert's been on the past couple days, Supreme Court has made clear that at a time of war, the president has inherent powers to protect national security.
That's why there's one commander-in-chief and not 535 of them.
The courts made a distinction between the criminal justice system and military actions, including intelligence activities related to national security.
And it's all in the opinions.
Tim, go read the opinions.
They're right there for everybody to read.
You people in the media can read these opinions.
They're worried about judicial review.
Go review some judicial works.
It's all in there.
It's why some of this stuff gets so frustrating.
I watch these people ask the president questions and comment.
And it's clear they don't know any history either.
Can you imagine the argument you get into if you took your average run-of-the-mill White House reporter, sit them down and say, you know what Lincoln did to people like you?
Put you in jail.
He did not.
Yes, he did.
Well, he must have had a reason.
They can't really complain about Lincoln because he ended slavery.
I mean, you know, how can they start criticizing Lincoln, the Libs?
And, and you know what else he did?
He put nine members of the American legislature in jail, too, and he suspended the writ of habeas corpus.
And he deported some former congressman from Ohio who was an agitator.
And you guys think what's going on now poses a threat to the country?
You're the threat.
But you sit an average reporter down and give them just this little bit of history.
And I guarantee you, it'll be all over the world that Limbaugh lies, makes things up just to fit his context.
They won't even bother looking it up.
They'll find it so absurd.
Not possible in this country, they'll say.
Dan in Ocala, Florida, welcome, sir, to the EIB network.
Nice to have you.
Merry Christmas.
Yes.
My comment is this.
I personally think that there's a distinction for me as a U.S. citizen, that I have constitutional rights, and those that are not necessarily U.S. citizens don't.
And I think that's the tech the president should be taking.
I mean, I think it's unfortunate because then he'd make a real enemy of Vicente Fox.
Because once you treat one non-citizen one way, you're going to have to treat them all the same way.
But I personally think it's a question of U.S. citizens have rights and non-citizens don't.
And because of that, I think the president is really choosing the side of immigrants.
What do you think?
The president can't do this because it would put him on the side of a lot of people on illegal immigration.
And since he can't make noise.
I personally think that he's got to say, well, during a time of war, I've instructed the Attorney General to make sure that only U.S. citizens get the constitutional protection their entire life.
Look, look, with all due respect here, you're missing the point here.
We're not talking about illegal Mexican immigrants as terrorists and people that participated in international terrorism and to blow up the World Trade Center or any of that.
We're talking about a specific group of people whose activities are being monitored.
And the fact of the matter is that it is the Democrats in this country who want to confer on those people the same constitutional rights that you and I have.
This is not an immigration issue.
And this is not the right time to try to draw an analogy here because it's going to miss the point, which it did.
Dave in Baltimore, you're next.
Welcome to the program, sir.
Hi, Rush.
Mega Dittos from the land of old-based seasoning and steam crabs.
Yes, sir.
Great to have you on the program.
Don't say steam crabs to somebody with an upset stomach.
I was listening to you talk to one of the previous callers about the ramifications of an attack if the Patriot Act expires.
And it got me to thinking about, you know, about why we haven't been attacked yet again since 9-11.
And I was just thinking that maybe the terrorists at this point, I guess, I mean, I don't think we're going to be attacked here on the mainland anytime soon.
And the reason is because I think Al-Qaeda would, I think they realize that to attack us, a fresh attack, would regalvanize this country against our enemies.
And I also think they see and they view what the left in this country is doing is far better than an attack could ever accomplish.
I think that the left in this country is serving al-Qaeda's purpose far better and far more effectively than they could ever hope for.
And I just wanted to make that comment and see what you thought.
I think you're half right.
I think the latter point you made, I must endorse it.
It's right on the money.
Well, you know damn well that bin Lagner, whoever's running this show, is laughing themselves silly every time McCain starts talking about the U.S. as torturers and barbarians.
And they're sitting there and they're saying, well, what an enemy.
We picked the best enemy we could have.
They're going to make us our friends.
They're going to enable us to get away with practically anything, and we can't be harmed.
And they say that about the Democrats, but I don't think that's going to stop them from attacking us.
All that's going to do is make us weak and make us more vulnerable.
They're going to be able to plan all kinds of things and not be able to stop it.
We won't be able to stop it if Democrats get their way.
Your latter point that the Democrats are the best friends the terrorists ever had is a brilliant, brilliant point, but I don't think it'll stop them from hitting us.
And I wouldn't want anybody to think that we're safe from an attack simply because what the Democrats are doing, because that will advance the notion that all we got to do is be friendly with these people and they'll go away, because that's not who they are.
We are showing signs of weakness.
The reason that the terrorists, if they do, are celebrating the Democrats and signing on to the Democrats is because the Democrats signal the kind of weakness the terrorists are seeking to create and then exploit.
So after they have their way with the Democrats, we will be set up.
They want to destroy us.
It's not that they want to have a bunch of people running the country friendly to them, you know, unwitting dupes.
They want us not to be around in whatever fashion they can bring that to be as a reality.
Baton Rouge, Louisiana.
Hello, Kyle.
Glad you called.
Glad you waited.
Welcome to show.
Thanks, Rush.
I just thought it was funny listening to you today that the Democrats are saying they don't want the government to have, they killed the Patriot Act because they don't want the government to have sensitive information or any kind of information about the public, citizens in general, but they're the ones who put socialized medicine since LBJ.
And I can't imagine them having any more sensitive information than complete government access to everybody in the country's medical records.
Oh, no, no.
I can tell you from first-hand experience that your medical records would be totally safe with any government official.
I can tell you, not one of your medical conditions nor any of your prescriptions will ever end up at thesmokinggun.com or anywhere else on the Internet.
This government, particularly when run by Democrats and Palm Beach County, your medical privacy is totally...
I don't think you need to be concerned.
I hope you'd enjoy that.
Okay, can I say one more thing real quick?
Yeah, by all means.
You mentioned earlier, hey, what good is civil liberties?
What good are civil liberties if you're assuming room temperature?
Yes.
Well, I think the Founding Fathers had it right.
Every document they crafted, they crafted very carefully and specifically.
And if you look at the order, they listed the rights endowed by our creator.
They were life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, not the pursuit of happiness, liberty and life.
Not only that, we are all endowed by our creator with certain unalienable rights, civil liberties, the right to get married if you're gay, all these different.
It's not there.
I agree with you can't find it, folks.
It just isn't there.
I just got a little note from F. Lee Levin, who gave me a bit of information about old Clement Vallantingham, and I didn't know.
If you're just joining us, a little pop quiz earlier, who said the Constitution is not a suicide pact?
It was Abraham Lincoln.
And Clement L. Vallandingham, a former Ohio congressman, called the prosecution of the Civil War wicked and cruel, suggested the Republican Party was using it to establish a dictatorship.
So Lincoln sent the 115th Ohio Volunteer Infantry to seize him from his home in Dayton, Ohio.
And they sent him down to the Confederacy in Jefferson Davis.
So we don't want him.
They sent him up to Canada.
He snuck back in eventually.
He was running for governor.
He was running for governor of Ohio when Lincoln seized him and sent him down to the South.
Civil liberties.
By the way, folks, put something else for you in historical context, but all the civil liberties, NSA, so-called secret spying and all this.
If you look back into history, ex-presidents, really, compared to today, had it easy.
You could see when the Japanese or the Germans were amassing ships on the ocean.
More recently, you could see on radar and with other technologies, if a wave of fighter bombers was headed toward one of your installations, you could see this.
But now, it's little vials of stuff, chemical weapons, suitcases maybe, that contained inside a dirty bomb or a nuclear bomb of some kind, which is what the next thing to be invented will be.
And so the stuff is stealth.
You can't see it coming.
Can't see it coming.
Ex-presidents had it a little easier in spotting the threat, wouldn't you say?
Not to take anything away from the ex-presidents.
It was still tough for them, but in comparison.
And then, of course, in some cases, that's enough.
That makes the point.
Here's Rick in North Conway, New Hampshire.
You're next on the EIB network.
Hello.
Good afternoon, Mr. Lindbaugh.
Thanks for taking the call.
You bet, sir.
I wanted to, if you would, just for a moment, harken back in time to a really brief but wonderful period.
And that is early 1995, when the Republicans had become majority in both the House and the Senate.
Yes.
And you were very much, I think, a very, very significant midwife to give birth to that child.
And now I've got to tell you with some disappointment that your child has grown up and become a really ugly adolescent.
I know.
That's why I don't have my own kids because I knew I'd be a lousy parent.
I knew it.
It's hanging out at the mall, sir.
It's smoking cigarettes.
It's wearing those sorts of shirts that look slutty and show the midrift.
And it's just terrible.
And I think the best manifestation we've seen of this lately is the issue of Anwar.
And Mr. Lindbaugh, as much as we talk about Democrats and you land-based Democrats.
Wait, did you say animal?
Did you say animal art?
No, no.
As much as you land-based Democrats on your show and talking about oil drilling.
Anwar.
Oil drilling.
Yes.
You do land-based Democrats on your show all the time, and I think appropriately so.
Thank you.
But they are who they are.
Yes.
Nothing I, and I've been a Washington lobbyist in the energy industry for 20 years.
Not in oil and gas, though.
Nuclear and electricity.
Nothing you say, nothing I say, will ever change those people.
But where we have to look at is cleaning out our own house.
And it's the liberal Republicans, the Chris Shayses, the Nations, all of the New Englanders, the New Yorkers, the New Jersey people.
It is because of they that we haven't been able to drill in Anwar.
I understand that, and a lot of other things as well.
You know, spend maybe a snitch of time per week looking at the people who pretend to be Republicans, the rhinos of the world.
I appreciate what you're saying.
We do that.
I land-based these republics.
And not just the rhinos, but the ones that have gone up there and forgot who elected them and why.
It's a frequent subject on this.
Why just today we gave you the names of the Republican senators that voted essentially to kill the Patriot Act reauthorization.
But, you know, one of the things, you say we're never going to change the Democrats.
No matter what we do, we'll never change those people.
I disagree with that.
We can change enough of them.
Not all of them.
I want to leave some around anyway so we never forget who they are and were.
But we can change some of them.
But beyond that, even beyond changing them, we have to beat them.
When I look at the contest that's out there, I see the rhinos and the moderate Republicans, and they're no different to me than the left.
Liberalism must be defeated.
Liberalism must be, even if the alternative at the moment is less than desirable or perfect, even if it's a watered-down republicanism or conservatism, liberalism must be defeated, which is why I focus on those clowns and I'm not going to stop.
And they keep writing the script for me to do so daily.
But to me, it's liberalism, and I don't care what label they attach to themselves, whether they're Republicans or moderates or Democrats or whatever.
Liberalism is the bane of this country, socialism, communism, the bane of the world.
And it is an ongoing mission to illustrate this to people and educate them so that this happens at the ballot box.
Because that's where it has meaning.
That's where it has real power.
Not just in people's minds, but after their minds are educated and informed, then there's action.
And in the way we govern ourselves, that action is called elections.
So I totally understand what you're saying.
But I get that we go in cycles of it.
Rooster, you're not hitting Republicans, hardly.
It's not about Republican versus Democrat.
It's about liberalism versus anything else.
And as far as I'm concerned, liberalism and all of its derivatives, socialism, communism, tyranny, dictatorship, whatever else there is is preferable to that.
If it's not perfect, if it's not ideal.
See, some people, if it's not perfect, they're not going to support it.
And they'll sit out the election.
Bad, bad move.
Bad move.
Evil, errors, mistakes, all the, whatever, they have to be dealt with, corrected, and fixed.
Or reduced such that they are not dominant and powerful.
Jeff in Staten Island in New York.
Hello, sir.
Nice to have you on a program with us.
Hey, Rush, Merry Christmas.
Thank you, sir.
Basically, I feel we got our Christmas gift early with, I saw the speech last night and some of this morning.
I thought it was great.
I'm so pumped.
I mean, we finally got the leader our party needs and the leader our country needs.
I mean, we've got Joe Clark with the bat over his head saying, you want a piece of me?
I'll take you on.
Come on.
I mean, he even gave a quick smack to the media by saying that they were being part of the debate when they're not supposed to be.
You know, in your first clip?
Yeah.
I mean, it's wonderful.
I mean, it's great.
I just, I wish this was contagious to the other Republicans.
I mean, get a spine, guys.
Well, don't look for the president to do that.
Now, what are you getting me out there, Winterbull?
All these people want to trash Republicans today.
Don't fall for this.
Republicans today are not the sole problem.
I'm not going to sit around here and be swerved off of the focus.
We've mentioned the Republicans that are doing things that we don't understand and we disagree with in the Senate.
Patriot Act.
McCain, come on, folks.
He's Republican.
Do you think McCain gets favorable treatment on this program?
And it's one thing.
If I weren't doing this, I can understand you're complaining about it.
But here we are in the midst of doing it and I get complaints about I'm not doing it.
Now, what are you laughing at?
Did I miss his point or something?
What am I for crying out loud?
Well, okay, but the well, but he told me to get on the Republicans.
He wants the president to get on the Republicans, wants me to get on the Republicans.
I'm sorry.
I have a knee-jerk reaction to that.
Here we are in the midst of one of the finest presentations of broadcast excellence has ever been, and I got the last two calls that bitched at me that I'm not doing this or not doing that.
Griped at me, sorry.
Some of you are also griping at my language lately.
And I get fired up.
I get passionate.
As far as the president is concerned, he is not going to call out Republicans.
He barely will call out Democrats.
This was the first day in a long time he's done that.
Take what you can get and be happy.
It's Christmas time for crying out loud.
Hi, folks.
Welcome back.
Nice to have you.
El Rushbo, your highly trained broadcast specialist.
Zero mistakes today.
By the way, we've been dumping on the Senate, but the House Republicans deserve some kudos.
House lawmakers opened the way for oil drilling and war as one of their last acts of an all-night session early today, bringing their legislative year to a close.
The House also narrowly passed a plan to cut deficits by almost $40 billion over five years.
I know that sounds easy.
No, it's $40 billion.
Cutting a deficit, $40 billion, like you saying you're going to save a dime next year and thinking you've done something really, really big.
I know it to start.
I know it.
But you people want me to be mad at Republicans?
Fine.
I'll be mad at it.
Cutting $40 billion off the deficit.
Yip, yep, yip, yip, yahoo.
It's about worth a dime.
How?
Are you happy?
What's the matter, Snerdley?
It's not a big deal.
In the real world, $40 billion out of a $2.6 trillion budget is not, you can't even see it.
$40 billion is a drop in Lake Okeechobee.
If Lake Okeechobee is the budget, go find me a drop.
Spot one drop when you're flying over it.
Spot one drop.
You can't.
It's an amoeba inside the human body.
I know there was a war just to get this, but what's going to happen is we can't get any more.
Look how hard it was to get this.
I'm not ripping the Republic.
This goes back to the Democrats again.
It was still a tough thing, but I'm just saying trimming $40 billion from a $2.6 trillion.
Let me put it to you this way.
$40 billion of deficit reduction.
Okay, the deficit's going to be, let's take a $350 billion deficit, make it $310.
Do you think when you start balancing this, I understand it's going in the right direction.
Big deal is and war.
That's where they stuck their necks out.
House is doing great.
And I know that Mike Pence and his boys in the house are behind this, and I'm not trying to, I'm just, I'm not criticizing their work.
I just don't want anybody to get all jazzed up that $40 billion out of a $2.6 trillion budget is deficit reduction.
It's not.
The whole idea of deficit reduction anyway is silly.
The whole focus ought to be on wasteful spending.
Look, I got a couple of sound bites here that I want to get to, ladies and gentlemen.
See, I was coming out of the break.
I was going to be in a good mood.
And then Snerdley starts dissecting two calls and then Snerdley, right in a row, after a great show, I have two callers and then Snerdley who want to start nitpicking with me and my analysis of things.
I ought to get up and leave.
If I were typical, I'd get mad.
I'd get offended.
I'd say, okay, you do it.
You do it.
I got Christmas shopping to do.
Of course, Snerd.
He won't give up.
Is it rush, rush?
$40 billion is a lot of money.
Yeah, when you have it.
When you have 40, but in the context, do you know, how long would it take you if you started counting now to get to 1 trillion at $1 per second?
It would take you, what is this?
32,000 years, 32 years, 32,000 years.
You can count to $40 billion before you open your Christmas presents.
Really, this is cool.
I'm glad you people don't have access to the IFB because now the New York staff say, well, okay, tell us, what's 40 billion like?
You're such the expert.
Nowhere else in modern media can a staff be so smart, Alecky, and still get bonuses and raises.
All right, let's go to the audio sound.
Anybody want to interrupt me as I go back to the audio soundbite?
Dawn, you have anything you want to rag on me about?
Brian, you?
What?
Oh, that's right.
Now, Brian's right.
I've been blaming Winterbull for these last two calls, but he's out sick today.
And I understand he's not sick.
He's out Christmas shopping, too.
But we, you know, we in management, we know this.
I mean, we in management were always calling in sick when we weren't.
We know when other people do it, it's not true.
But you let it go.
That's why you put sick days in the budget.
All right, now to the audio soundbite.
Carl Levin, Carl Levin did the official response to the president after his press conference today.
They respond now to press conferences.
And this is just a portion of what Carl Levin had to say.
He cites the law which authorized the use of force in Iraq as the legal basis for his wiretapping and surveillance program.
What he does not do is tell us where in that resolution authorizing force in Iraq does he see that authority?
We can't find any.
Where in the Constitution, which not only has an Article II creating an executive branch, but has a Bill of Rights protecting the privacy of Americans, where does he find in the Constitution the authority to tap the wire and the phones of American citizens without any court oversight?
I don't have time to dissect this.
This is just, this is beyond ignorant.
Senator Carl Levin from Michigan with that comment.
I want to go back to what he's talking about.
The president's opening remarks in his press conference this morning.
Bush names the resolution that Congress granted him after 9-11.
This was this massive resolution after 9-11.
It wasn't specific to Iraq, but Carl Levin thinks it is.
Here's what the president said.
After September the 11th, the United States Congress also granted me additional authority to use military force against Al-Qaeda.
Stop the tape.
Stop the tape.
Does anybody hear Iraq there?
I heard Al-Qaeda.
Anybody hear Iraq?
Nope.
Levin's a doofus.
Here's the rest of it.
On the 11th, one question my administration had to answer was how, using the authorities I have, how do we effectively detect enemies hiding in our midst and prevent them from striking us again?
We know that a two-minute phone conversation between somebody linked to al-Qaeda here and an operative overseas could lead directly to the loss of thousands of lives.
To save American lives, we must be able to act fast and to detect these conversations so we can prevent new attacks.
So consistent with U.S. law and the Constitution, I authorize the interception of international communications of people with known links to al-Qaeda and related terrorist organizations.
What more do we need?
And yet there is Senator Levin talking about Iraq, and he doesn't see anywhere in this resolution, and he's talking about a different resolution than the president's talking about.
And I'm sure on purpose, knowing and hoping the president will pick that or the press will pick that up.
Now, as for Carl Levin, folks, just so you know, he has been accusing Republicans of constitutional violations and crimes since he came to the Senate 30 years ago.
He went after Reagan.
He went after his cabinet.
That's all the Democrats can do since Watergate is go out and try to manufacture and then accuse Republicans of creating some kind of participating in some kind of scandal because they can't win at the ballot box.
Well, the fun's not totally over, folks, because when this program unfortunately ends, I get to do my morning update, which we will be sending down to all of you podcasters in both audio and video.
Yes, we are video podcasting now.
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To those who are currently subscribers at rushlimbaugh.com.
The audio podcast and video podcast come together.
You can easily import both into your iTunes, Mac, or Windows, and then play it back on your video MP3 player if you are fortunate enough to have been able to find one before we sold them out.
In the meantime, we will see you tomorrow and look forward to that too.
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