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March 16, 2006 - Rush Limbaugh Program
36:11
March 16, 2006, Thursday, Hour #2
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Time Text
Okay, folks, we are back here on the cutting edge.
Rush Limbaugh, your guiding light through times of trouble, confusion, murkiness, tumult, chaos, torture, humiliation, war, pestilence, hunger, thirst, starvation, and even the good times.
Our telephone number is 800-282-2882.
If you would like to be on the program, the uh email address is rush at EIB net.com.
All right, you know, we we had a uh we had a we had a caller the other day worried about the fact that uh Amon Al Zawahiri, number two man to Osama bin Laden might have actually lived in Lodi, California back in 1999.
And there was uh the debate still rages on this.
But I think uh the authorities, whoever they are, is saying that the eyewitness was uh was incorrect, that uh Zawahiri did not live there.
And this led to a discussion of what would I do with Lodi if it if it turned out that Lodi actually happens to be a breeding ground for Al Qaeda.
And it led to uh my my memory on the fact that the uh the only place I've ever banned calls in the whole history of this program is Reno Nevada, because when we started the program, the calls from there were just idiots.
I mean, it was it was you know, I mean, it takes a lot for me to say that too.
They they and so we we banned calls, and it was almost like for like twenty-five days, uh, made made big news, made USA Today.
Somebody asked me, well, if if if it does turn out that Lodi is uh one of these locations in the country that's previously a breeding ground, should we just get rid of Lodi?
Don't just ban calls.
It said, Oh no, no, you can't get rid of an American city, a California city.
Now I may have to rethink it.
Here's a story from a Lodi.
When a dump truck backed into Curtis Gokey's car, Curtis Gokey decided to sue the city for damage.
The only thing is he was the one driving the dump truck that backed into his own car.
That minor detail didn't stop Curtis Gokie, a Lodi City employee from filing a thirty-six hundred dollar claim for this December accident, even after admitting that the crash was his fault.
So the city denied that claim because Curtis Gocke was uh in essence suing himself.
Uh he and his wife Ronda decided to file a new claim under her name.
City attorney Steve Schwabauer uh said uh this one also lacks merit because Rhonda Gokie cannot sue her own husband.
You can't sue your spouse for do you can sue your spouse for divorce, but you can't sue your spouse for negligence, Schwabauer said.
They're a married couple under California law.
They're one entity.
It's damage to community property.
But Ronda Gokey insisted she has the right to sue the city because the city's vehicle damaged my private vehicle.
In fact, her claim currently pending at Lodi City Hall is for an even larger amount.
Forty, eight hundred dollars.
He says, I'm not as nice as my husband is.
You gotta love this.
A couple more sound bites of the White House press briefing today, Dan.
David Gregory.
Did you happen to see?
Earlier this week, the Washington Post ran a big puff piece on Gregory.
He's the new Sam Donaldson.
He is uh he's Sam Donaldson uh he's he's he's the Sam Donald Donaldson to George Bush.
You know, Donaldson uh led to his fame was a uh provocateur with Ronald Reagan uh throughout much of Reagan's administration.
So they're having this, they're having this White House press briefing today, and and they're talking about this offensive that's going on in Iraq.
Does the president think that an offensive like this, high profile, is necessary in part to turn public opinion around in this country about the war?
Uh our commanders in the theater have the authorization to make tactical decisions about the operations that they undertake.
And there have been a number of operations that have been undertaken over the course of the last several months to really go after the terrorist and the Saddam Loyalist who want to return to the past of oppression and tyranny.
Okay, now Gregory takes that and asks this question.
Are you saying that the president did not specifically authorize he knows about the uh operation he's been briefed on it?
Uh, but this is a decision that uh is made by commanders who are in the best position to make the tactical decisions.
Well, wait till this gets in legs this afternoon.
So Bush didn't know about the ports deal.
Bush doesn't know.
Bush doesn't know about this initiative.
You just know what they're gonna do with this or what they're gonna try to do with it.
And that is portray Bush as a wandering uh aimless fool in the White House bubble with a staff that can't stay awake, a staff that can't read a tea leaves, a staff that's tone deaf.
My don't they know that this is the last time.
This is the worst time to launch an offensive like this.
Hadn't they seen the polls?
The American people want us out of there.
We played soundbites all in the first hour in case you missed it.
Uh various members of the media saying this is unbelievable.
The polls say uh American people don't want us in Iraq.
I don't trust it.
I want to get out of there.
Well, the president is he's now saying we're gonna have more preemptive strikes.
He's rattling his saber against Iran, and now he's got this major offensive in Iraq.
That's as crazy.
Is he not listening to the polls?
And so we get from these people that that they are insistent that leaders governed by polls, because it's their poll.
You see, they consider themselves the fourth branch of government.
They're they've they they're trying to influence policy here.
And they think they've succeeded with their constant negative barrage of news over the last number of years about Iraq, that they've convinced the American people that Iraq is bad mistake, shouldn't go, shouldn't have gone, and ought to get out.
And uh they pretty much admit this, and they're very happy about it.
They've been trying to prove for the last ten years that they still have that old monopoly power that used to exist before that damn new media came along.
Well, the new media has come along and busted up their monopoly, so they've been working hard for five years to create an anti-war majority in this country, and now that they've done it, they can't believe the president's ignoring it.
They just can't believe it.
It doesn't, it doesn't compute with them.
Well, let me explain it to you as I did right as the previous hour ended.
One of the reasons, and I think it's the main reason that the left, the media, the Democrats, want Bush to be driven by polls, is that they, the left and the media, the Democrats are not manly.
And I know that they're not manly.
They've been feminized.
They live inside the beltway.
They've been feminized by the radical feminist movement for who knows how many years now.
They are not manly.
And that makes them uncomfortable with Bush's manliness.
They're threatened by it.
Because manly men lead.
They may not ask for directions all the time, but they lead.
They're gonna go someplace, even if they don't bother to ask where they're gonna go.
They are confident in their own beliefs, they take risks to assert those beliefs.
If I may throw myself in this category, like I courageously and bravely against amazing opposition and odds, stuck to my position on the ports deal.
See, unmanly men, wimps, men that have been cowed, men that have been feminized, wait for the safety of consensus.
And that's what a poll is, because a poll that shows a majority of something a consensus gives you an escape hatch.
Well, I was only I was only doing what the poll, but I was only doing what American people wanted.
I mean, I I uh, you know, when all things I give you an example.
Jack Bauer doesn't give uh a hoot in the world about polls, but this new wimp president on 24 is totally driven by them.
Now, who's manly and who's not?
This new president on 24 is this he's totally cowed, and he's cracking up now, and it isn't gonna be long before the vice president and the Secretary of Homeland Defense actually conduct a coup to take over the government and CTU.
But it's a great, it's a great example.
Jack Bauer wouldn't lead by polls.
Jack, hell, Jack Bauer didn't even follow the rules.
He just leads.
And that's what Bush is doing.
He's just leaving, and it threatens them.
It threatens them.
They want him to be more like them, consensus builders, consensus followers, because when it all blows up and you got an excuse.
Well, I was only doing what the American people wanted me to do.
That's why.
Uh in in in private, so you find Aside from you know whatever policy differences people have, Bush is he's envied, I think, and I think he's greatly admired in that uh at least in that one characteristic and probably many more.
Be right back.
Don't go away.
Okay, let's go back to the phones here on the uh Rush Limbaugh program.
Talent on loan from God, Virginia Beach.
This is Tim.
Glad you called, sir.
Thank you.
Come on.
You're on.
It's your big showbiz break.
It is an honor and a blessing to talk to you for Silinball.
Um thank you.
I was talking uh I was talking to the the the screener.
Um basically I I was I'm only nineteen years old, and uh I was a Democrat.
Uh I mean, even before I could register, I mean I called myself a Democrat and a liberal and uh Was that because you grew up in a in a Democrat home?
I think it was actually quite the opposite.
I was kind of being a little rebellious.
My my parents are very conservative.
Um my father's a he listens to you every day, so I listen right now.
So uh that makes total sense.
I understand.
I was I didn't rebel in that way, but I understand that.
But uh I so I went to college, I went to a small private school in North Carolina, and uh I went and and I joined like Kataba for Carrie, and I'm very sad to say that I voted for Carrie in 04.
And uh after that, I mean very shortly, um I'm talking like even a month after that, I started to study somebody said Ronald Reagan was just the crappiest president ever.
So I actually studied and looked at some of his numbers and the things that he said, and it's exactly like you're talking about.
I mean, it's emasculating how the Democratic Party is, just because if you I mean Reagan and Bush, they have that in common.
If they see something and they know it's right, they're gonna do it no matter what, and that's what a man does.
And the Democratic Party, I mean, that's the reason I left.
Just because uh Tim, this is fascinating.
You're a very interesting guy.
I want to know that how this how this process happened.
Because the way you tell the story, you're here here you are, this lifelong Democrat.
You're even part of this group Catawba for Carrie, and you're out there rallying, and then and then you said a month after you voted for Kerry, you felt emasculated.
You started studying Reagan, who everybody told you was a crappy president.
I mean, this is one of the quickest transition.
It ha something had to happen.
You had to have this in the back of your mind.
You had to have a little guilt about being a Democrat for a long time.
What triggered this reversal?
Honestly, it was my roommate.
He's a libertarian, and uh he was very conservative, and he said, Man, just stop talking about it and stop, you know, getting be putting up a wall and being defensive and just read.
And so when I actually studied, went out for my on my own and stopped listening to what everyone else was telling me, and the media was telling me and polls were telling me.
When I actually read for myself and gained a little bit of wisdom, I realized that decide that I was wrong was not right in any way whatsoever.
And so I mean, it's just i it was.
It was a huge transition and a very quick one.
And a lot of my friends, you know, turned their back on me, a lot of them wouldn't talk to me.
And I'm sure they're telling you you've been brainwashed and how did it happen.
Well, what you what what was it that made you feel emasculated?
Well, I was going to uh a lot of different groups and like support things and rallies and things like that for like you know, women's rights, which first of all I had that guilt in the back of my head because I'm going, I'm not a woman, why am I here?
And then, you know, that's just a big thing.
Well, why were you there?
Why were you going to women's rights rallies?
I think uh honestly because everyone else was.
It was just something that that we already was the thing to do to show that you were sensitive and and open-minded and understanding, right?
Right.
And it it's okay to be sensitive.
I have a girlfriend, I'm very sensitive to her, but if she does something wrong, no longer will I say, Oh, well, she's a woman, I have to respect that.
Nah, if it's wrong, you tell her it's wrong.
If it's uh if somebody, anybody on earth is doing something wrong, you have to be a good one.
Hold on.
Was she going to the women's rights rallies too?
No, no.
That's now I can understand if you're going to go to the women's rights rallies just to be with her.
I mean, I've done stuff like that.
But you went, you went without her.
Right, yeah.
Was she uh liberal democrat or conservative?
She was actually apolitical until she started listening to your show with me.
Uh-huh.
So well, this is fascinating.
You felt emasculated after voting for Carrie because you had to go to these women's rights rallies.
Uh at uh and you go ahead, didn't mean to interrupt you.
Oh, no, no, no.
I was just saying it's just wimpy.
I just felt extremely wimpy.
I mean, you know, I don't know, terrorists attack your country.
Oh, let's hug 'em.
I mean, it's just it's no common sense behind it.
So there was no.
You're right.
It was just nothing but a bunch of raw emotion.
No, no common sense.
Common sense is what destroys it.
Application of common sense will destroy liberalism like a nuclear weapon.
Did to knock us off.
Say that again.
I said common sense will do to liberalism what a nuclear bomb will do to Nagasaki.
Absolutely.
Absolutely.
But it it lacks it.
It definitely is lacking it.
There is no common sense there.
That's the other thing that got it was the the emasculation and the common sense lack thereof, anyways.
So I'm I'm assuming now that you feel happier and you feel uh much better about yourself.
Oh, yeah.
Because you're being who you are.
You're not doing what you think other people expect you to do in order to have them think of you in certain ways.
You're just being who you are.
You're being a man now.
Absolutely.
All right.
The only thing I would advise you, the only thing I would advise you further is if you don't know where you're going and a woman is in the car, ask directions.
You will save yourself a lifetime of grief.
Thank you, sir.
All right, Tim, I'm glad you call happy to have you in the audience out there.
Jason in San Antonio, welcome to the program.
Hey Rash.
Greetings from San Antonio, Texas.
Thank you very much.
Great to have you with us.
Fifteenth year of the show.
That call you just had from the gentleman in North Carolina is why the Democrats are going to get their heads handed to them again in November.
He said it.
He had a girlfriend who didn't care about politics.
But the media and Democrats didn't convert her into an apathetic voter or a Democrat voter.
They're converting her into a Republican.
And I wanted to ask you, if the Democrats get creamed again in November, and I believe they will, w where do they go from there?
They've got nothing to point at.
They can't say that it was the president's popularity.
They can't say it was the proximity of September eleventh.
And do you think that'll change the fundamental leadership of the Democratic Party?
And I do mean the media when I say the Democratic Party leadership.
Oh no, it won't change the media.
I I uh fact I've already addressed this.
I addressed this in 2002 and I addressed it in 2004, and I'll be happy to address it now because it's it's a great question.
In 2002, when the Democrats thought they were going to take back the House with the Wellstone Memorial.
I said that when they lose, the last thing they're gonna do is examine what they are doing wrong.
They are gonna get mad and they're gonna think they didn't get their message out, and they're gonna start sounding even more outrageous and extreme.
And by gosh, they're doing it.
After 2004, I said the same thing.
If they folks, these are not the people going to admit their own mistakes.
They're gonna say it was stolen from them again, or they were cheated out of it.
They're not going to examine themselves and they're gonna get even more bellicose.
They're gonna get even more outrageous, and they're gonna think they didn't get their message out.
Now they did do lip service or two or three days on gee, we gotta get a message here on values.
They got caught up in this red state blue state thing, but it lasted two or three days.
Now what are they doing?
I said the other day that emotional satisfaction has become a substitute for victory to these people.
You can take a look at these far left wing blogs, these cook like moveon.org.
Move on.org has just sent out a mailing to their uh they claim to have three million people on their mailing list.
And they are ecstatic.
You know why they're ecstatic?
Because they claim that they've got two hundred thousand signatures on a censure petition based on what Russ Feingold did.
They've got three million members, they've got two hundred thousand signatures.
They are ecstatic.
This is going nowhere, but they're ecstatic.
They're finally happy they are showing how much they hate Bush.
Not gonna get them anything, they're not winning anything.
The people that run move on.org may collect some more money in this, uh do some more fundraising, but they're gonna win anything.
So let's move forward to 06.
Let's just hypothetically say that your blowout scenario actually comes to pass.
Let's say they are blown out.
Let's say not only do they not pick up any seats, they lose some.
Because the conventional wisdom right now is they may pick up as many as eight in the house.
And they got an outside chance of winning the Senate.
And they got an outside chance of taking back the House.
All right, let's say they lose.
Let's say they lose seats.
My prediction is that Pelosi and well, Pelosi and Reed might be a trouble.
But as as far as the kook base is concerned, it depends on how the campaign was run.
If the campaigns are run and a bunch of people were really out there trashing Bush and saying he's Hitler and he's the worst guy out there, and if they come close in these races, what the kook fringe base will say, we're making progress.
Yeah, we might all it's like they w when when this guy hackett lost, they called it a victory.
They called it a victory because hackett showed him.
Hackett showed them.
Haggett said the right things about Bush.
He was out there telling the truth.
He came within four or five points in a heavy Republican district.
This is a victory.
And they were all celebrating, and they had lost.
So if they can convince themselves that whatever happens in their loss is accompanied by enough hate-filled, rage-filled rhetoric, they'll feel good.
And they'll think they just gotta keep working at it.
Just keep plugging away.
And they'll be on to 2008 to take over the White House and they'll get the house then.
But do not expect them to admit that you know what we got trouble.
We had better really examine ourselves.
They won't do it because they're elitists, arrogance, uh arrogant, and they condescend, and nothing that could be going wrong is is their fault.
They're entitled to power.
It's their birthright.
And somebody's denying them, and those people will pay.
Having more fun than a human being should be allowed to have everything I say is interesting.
It is never uninteresting.
800 282-2882.
Well, somebody just sent me a note.
Say something interesting.
I'm listening now.
I'm a s what am I, a circus act?
Okay, I've got the radio on.
Say something interesting.
Everything I say is interesting.
Have you seen this headline from uh what is it?
It's a Harold Son.
Herald Sun Somewhere News.
The headline is just it's it's it's hilarious.
Ground zero building talks collapse.
No, but put the word collapse in the headline.
The World Trade Center's collapse, they put it in the headline.
Talks between the World Trade Center developer Larry Silverstein and uh New York State officials over who'll build what and when at ground zero falling apart.
They collapse, they fall.
I'm sorry, I shouldn't laugh.
The negotiations broke off acrimoniously shortly after midnight, as both sides failed to meet a deadline set by Governor Pataki to uh settle their differences.
Yeah, well, see, we're supposed to have Iraq totally rebuilt with a functioning democracy with no more bloodshed, no killing, nothing but peace and love and flowers and peace marches and everything in two or three years in Iraq, and here we are five years, almost four and a half years after 9-11, and there's still nothing there but a big hole in the ground.
Here's Jennifer uh in Fort Hood, Texas.
Hi, Jennifer, I'm glad you called.
Jennifer in uh Fort Hood, Texas.
Hello, glad you called.
Hello, Jennifer in Fort Jennifer's gone.
Well, don't erase that.
Because what uh what Jennifer said she wanted to talk about, did she hang up after I went to because I thought I heard a and then the line went dead.
Oh, she was on a cell phone, I see.
They might have lost the signal.
If you notice that never happens to Jack Bauer.
Uh she was gonna say that she voted she voted for Bush twice, but these uh constant rotations and deployments are getting tiring.
Her husband is in Iraq, and she wants him back.
She wants him home, she wants the troops home, and she says that there's a poll in Army Times that uh seventy-two percent want the troops home within a year.
Now, did when you talk to I haven't seen that poll.
Is that a poll of troops that say they want to be home in a year, or is it a poll to somebody else?
It's a poll of troops.
Well, that is the plan.
It has been the plan all along.
In fact, I would, you know, we played a soundbite of Tim Russell the other day, media going bonkers here.
Media media just just beside themselves that Bush isn't listening to the polls.
He said, What how can he start rattling the sabers here on Iraq or in Iran?
He starts talking about the uh new strategy to deal with Iran, but I mean, we're supposed to bring the troops home from Iraq in about a year or whatever.
You know, it it it could well be that you you you bring the troops home from Iraq because the mission will be finished according to the objective, so that uh fresh deployments are ready then to go to Iran if necessary, although I don't think that would be a an initial ground movement if that if that ever happens.
Uh Mario in Detroit, your next.
Welcome to the program.
Nice to have you with us.
Yeah, Rosh, thank you for having me.
Uh calling the Tiger.
It's great to have you here on the show.
Hey, listen, I want to first of all tell you thank you for making me a very wealthy man and uh and have a good clear head.
And also uh you there.
Hello.
Yeah, yeah, I mean I'm here.
I'm I'm wondering how did I make you a very wealthy man?
Uh well, I went broke when I was uh forty-one years old, and uh I stumbled across your radio uh program, and uh you gave me the determination to go out and bust my agates and I've done it and I'm sixty-seven years old, and I'm proud as hell of doing it.
Well, I owe a lot to you.
Well, uh thank you very much.
I appreciate that.
I I think you're it's a testament.
It's you you are a testament to the opportunity that exists in this country.
Russ, you hear what I said?
I said I only have an eighth grade education.
Uh and it's well, that's about what mine is because I didn't pay much attention in high school and I didn't go to college, so you and I are in the same boat.
Yeah, you know, you know something.
I hear these people moaning and groaning about uh uh too much pressure working and all that kind of yada yada stuff, that's bull crap.
You know, I leave the house in the morning at four o'clock, and I'm lucky if I get home at six.
And and you know, you gotta work.
What are these people moaning and groaning about?
Well, but let me oh no no, let me let me explain this to you.
Uh you you're talking about the White House staff, right?
And and and uh Okay, uh this is a good question because the uh the the actually the people that are leading this are actually Republicans.
And the reason they're doing it is they think that the the White House has lost its bearings in terms of being able to uh empathize with the American public, and they use the uh I don't know, people are tired of hearing about this, the ports deal as an example.
They can't believe that the White House got sandbagged by this.
They they they they they think there should have been somebody in there to tell Bush, don't do this.
Don't let this get out, and this is the wrong time to do this.
Stop this, whatever you do.
You can't win this politically, which I said at the outset, by the way, too.
You can't win this at so just but nobody nobody apparently had the uh the sensitivity, the understanding that this is gonna blow up out there.
And I think a lot of that is because a lot of people in the w I think a lot of people in Washington don't have a clear understanding of the genuine anger there is over illegal immigration in this country.
I think the two are inexorably linked.
So the people who have been how this White House was a smooth, well-oiled and well-run machine the first four years, what's happened to this is the kind of stuff would never happen.
So now we get stories on how on how it's it's a 24-7 job, and it is, Mario, and I'm not trying to make excuses for him, and I'm not trying to diminish what you said about your own work schedule because I understand totally.
You you you think you're where you are because you've worked.
Well, the the being in the White House uh in the in the uh in the executive branch in the pr the office of the president, it is stressful.
But they knew it going in.
But they haven't they haven't really rotated any people out of there.
It's the same bunch that went in in 2001 when Bush was inaugurated.
It's 24-7, 365 days a year.
Now, if they get married, they get a couple of days to go get married, have one-day honeymoon, but then they're back.
Uh and I'm sure that while they're away, they're really not away.
And when the president travels, many of them do too.
And so what we're talking about here is not people who are work adverse, they're just burnt out.
The theory is that they're just burnt out, that that the the human being just can't go 24-7, 365 for five years on the same stuff and not burn out.
Now that and they're not talking about people like Rove and and uh Andy Card.
Uh they're they're talking about people we don't names we don't know.
Um, there are there are a lot of people in the White House and the staff press office, the political office, uh policy places, east wing, west wing that are that are you you'd never know they're there, and it is their job here to um uh you know stay fresh and and so forth.
So that's what the that's what the claim is.
And their their fear is that they won't quit because they're not gonna run out on the president, and the president won't won't ask him to leave or replace them because he's so loyal.
And there's also the fear that Bush doesn't even know he's got a problem.
Bush doesn't even not know he may think he doesn't have he doesn't even think he has a problem, and that's probably more it than uh than anything else.
Uh Dick Morris had a column this week.
Uh I sort of touched on what I was mentioning yesterday, but uh we had a call here about uh making tax cuts permanent.
And I said there's one guy that can do that, and that's Bush.
He's got to get out and start selling it.
He's got to be out there, you know, a bunch of times more than more than once a week, uh, on the things that matter.
He's still got two and a half years in his administration, and you know, he can't just you know blow those off.
Uh and it's the s it's the same thing here, but the the i I don't think that's in his interest, or in it, I don't think he has a desire to do it.
I don't he's he's he's um he his job is his job and he's gonna go about doing it his way.
He's not going to let these outsiders in the media and even in his own party tell him how to do it.
His dad was that way in uh uh uh in in a similar respect.
But don't it it's it's not don't don't don't don't uh make the mistake of thinking that there are people in the White House who don't want to work anymore.
There is a concept of overwork.
Uh in fact, I myself uh have been fought uh by many too have been overworked the first four years of this program.
Four f uh had they forced me to take vacations because I wouldn't.
Uh I so the first four years uh uh radio show wrote two books and started a television show.
And uh and and my my partners uh were deathly afraid I'm gonna burn out.
I was gonna get tired of it.
And I was the golden goose.
And so they made me take a vacation one February down here in Florida.
That's how I uh got familiar with and and and came to came to like living down here.
It was February, it's eighty five degrees, it's twelve inches of snow in New York, and I'm on a twenty-fourth floor of a condo building with my cigars reading books all over.
I just I f I fell asleep every after Saturday and Sunday.
It was just two-day thing, just a weekend.
And I I I genuinely decompressed.
I had I don't remember decompressing like that even since.
Uh but the sound of the surf pounding, uh, it was just gorgeous.
The uh view faced east.
So uh it happened to be a full moon uh one of those nights.
I just, oh, this this is cool.
But I I was eager to get back, but no, the the concept of of uh being burnt out is different than growing tired of the job and not working and not applying themselves.
I think when you get burnt out, even when you work, you're not accomplishing much, and that's what people are afraid is happening inside the White House.
I appreciate the call, Mario.
Thank you so much for your for your kind words.
We'll continue here in just a moment.
Stay with us.
Talent on loan from God.
Rush Limbaugh, America's anchor man, America's truth detector, the doctor of democracy, and play-by-play men of the news, all combined here in one harmless, lovable little fuzzball.
Sarah in Florence, Kentucky.
I'm glad you called.
Welcome.
Hi, Rush.
Thanks.
Um, you know, if the White House folks are tired, they need to start reaching out to us grassroots folks.
Since n since 2004, we've been sitting waiting for somebody to hand us the baton.
Um and and there's just no outreach.
And I think that would be a good vehicle for them to push the agenda.
We are white.
Wait, wait, wait, wait.
That's not what they need.
See, they've already got you.
Yeah, but what what what what they need.
I thought when I when I first came across this uh this I don't know where I read this, it was yesterday or last night.
But when I when I when I read that the uh the it was Terry Holt who said it, who's a Republican strategist, he's on TV now and then.
And he was he was uh lamenting the fact that there was nobody in the White House that could have told him what the public reaction is gonna be to the port deal.
And I said to myself, you know, they need me in there.
If there's anybody in touch with the base in this country, it's me.
But then I said, I can't go.
There'd be a conflict of interest.
Well, I think I was willing to serve.
I was willing to serve.
They could call me on the phone.
Rush, we got this port deal coming up.
How's it gonna play?
I could have told them.
Uh and and you know, what what now when you say reach out, what he what do you mean?
Well, I think one of the most frustrating parts about the port deal is uh No, no, no.
Please whisper it when you when you say when those those two words please do this again for me and whisper it because it irritates people.
Okay.
Rush, one of the most irritating things about the park deal.
Good is the the pattern of a knee-jerk reaction.
You know, as conservatives, we should be proactive, not reactive.
And even though our leaders were getting calls from their constituents, it was their duty, in my opinion, to educate themselves so that they could educate us.
And then we could in turn educate each other with our own within our own individual circles of influence.
That's what grassroots is about.
I agree with you, Sarah, but when you're in election year and you're talking about people like Peter King and others in Congress are being too idealistic.
They're not concerned with educating you.
They're concerned with getting re-elected and making so all they care about is what you think in a situation or the or the or their constituents think.
Their constituents don't understand it but think X, they'll still go with what their constituents think.
Well, you know, a lot of constituents think that leaders should lead by example and do what's right, not what's politically.
Maybe so, but I'll tell you what, Sarah, in all honesty, there are a lot of people who think that elected officials should do everything that their constituents want and nothing else.
And that's why we do not have a direct democracy.
Because that's not possible.
It's why we have a representative republic.
And we trust that the people we elect are gonna know more than we do, because they have access to more information and more knowledge.
But when they don't use that access that they have to gain that knowledge and impart it, that's when I have a problem with them.
But I understood this.
This was a tsunami of panic and hysteria, and there was no way that this deal was going to go through.
And I say, even while supporting the deal, I said this all throughout it.
Uh and the the you know, there are people in you know, with hindsight looking back, yeah.
I wish the White House wouldn't have even let this thing get out.
Just kill it with but it's too late for that now.
But uh I I think Bush probably will reach out more to the base by virtue of going out and talking to the base more and more, especially if this notion I don't know where this comes from Paul Weyrich in the uh New York Times story today is a conservative base is demoralized and the vote turnout may be uh uh far less than what it's been.
And he's a brilliant man and he's got his finger on the pulse, but that's the first time I've heard this.
Uh I haven't gotten that sense sitting here in my uh anchor man's chair behind the golden EIB microphone that there's any less energy on me.
I know there's anger uh, but we'll see.
Bush is not on a ballot uh in 06, not directly.
I gotta run because of the uh constraints of time.
We'll get one more call in when we come back.
Stay with us.
Okay, Matt in San Francisco, I'm glad you waited, sir.
You're next on the program.
I keep hearing about this uh seventy-one percent of the armed forces who want to go home within a year.
Yeah.
If I were out camping in the middle of a desert at 130 degrees with windstorms, and somebody came up to me and said, Would you like to go home in a year?
I'd probably say yes also.
Yeah, so you if if somebody came to my family and said, Would you like to go to Disneyland in a year?
The answer would be yes.
Okay, so I guess what you're saying is unless they all go A-Wall and leave, it doesn't mean anything because despite what they want to do, they're staying and doing their duty.
That's right.
That's their job.
They know it.
But if somebody came to them and said, Would you like to go home?
I'm sure they'd say, Yeah.
Well, here's how it was framed.
I went after after I heard Jennifer was on a phone.
Was it Jennifer?
Was that her name?
Yeah, and I guess we lost our cell connection.
I went and I dug up the story.
I found found a version of it here on the Christian Science Monitor.
A large majority of U.S. troops think that the U.S. should withdraw completely from Iraq within a year.
Stars and stripes reports that a poll of 944 U.S. troops in Iraq conducted by Zogby found that only uh twenty-three percent of service members felt the U.S. should stay as long as needed.
Although the poll conducted in January and February was carried out without Pentagon approval, Zagby said they did have the approval of commanders in Iraq.
Of the 72%, 22% said troops should leave within the next six months, twenty-nine percent said they should withdraw immediately, twenty-one percent said the U.S. military presence should end within a year, and five percent said we don't know.
The poll was funded by Lemoyne College's Center for Peace and Global Studies.
And when I any time an organization has the word peace in it, uh throw it out.
It's just a bunch of long-haired maggot-infested dope smoking FM peace types that have uh have an agenda.
But what about Zogby, Rush?
What about Zogby?
I'm just telling what I think.
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