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March 20, 2006 - Rush Limbaugh Program
36:28
March 20, 2006, Monday, Hour #1
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Welcome to today's edition of the Rush 24-7 podcast.
So CBS runs its global warming movie last night.
And we've got snowstorms and we've got winter storm watches all over the place.
In fact, I went to the Drudge site and I've got the wind chill map for the whole country.
Looks like this is the coldest first day of spring on record.
I'm just saying that from my memory.
I'm just as accurate as any scientist is out there predicting weather.
Greetings, folks.
Great to have you with us.
Hope you're revved up and buttoned up for a good time because we all are here at the one and only Excellence in Broadcasting Network.
I am Rush Limbaugh and this is a program that meets and surpasses all audience expectations on a daily basis.
The Ditto Cam's up and running.
Hi to all of you who are eagerly tuning in to watch this program as well as listen to it at RushLimbaugh.com.
You see where Cindy Sheehan is going to have a movie made about her in Hollywood.
And that Susan Sarandon is going to play the...
But this is actually...
I guess it's supposed to revive Hollywood's fortunes.
I don't think...
I don't think some people care about reviving their fortunes out there.
They just care about venting their rage and anger.
If you stop and think about this, though, now, you know, a lot of people get upset about this, but you shouldn't.
You got some interesting movie stats for later on in the program about what movies actually make money and which ones don't.
But in fact, what is that?
I haven't seen it.
This movie, Narnius, Myrna, whatever it is, the C.S. Lewis movie, that movie has grossed more than the five nominated movies combined.
Yeah.
Ask Michael Medved.
He'll tell you those kinds of movies just score big.
And Hollywood, they make them now and then, but that doesn't get you invited to the cocktail parties if you're a producer.
It just gets you mocked.
But the Cindy Sheehan thing, let's start to think about this now.
Cindy Sheehan was totally made up by the left.
I mean, she is a mother, and she did have a son that died in Vietnam, but that's it.
They hired a PR firm.
They went out and created this whole aura of massive support and sympathy for Cindy Sheehan.
So she was a made-up story in the first place.
It's only fitting that Hollywood, which believes and deals in make-believe, would make a movie about her.
And I'm sure they'll think it's an original idea, maybe one of the few that they've had in a long time.
Well, let's get this Iraq stuff started because it's the 30th anniversary.
President's going to be making a speech, one of many.
What did I say?
30th anniversary, 30th.
Well, I don't care.
I was half right.
It had the three in there.
It's the third anniversary.
I'm just, I've got so much I want to say.
My mouth is actually going faster than my brain, and that's always an interesting competition.
My brain moves fast.
But the media just had a field day.
The third anniversary of the Iraq war.
And I guess in case you haven't heard, and I can't imagine how you might have missed it, yesterday did mark the third anniversary of our entry into Iraq.
But interestingly, we just passed the 13-year anniversary of the attack on our homeland, and it got scant mention anywhere.
And that was the first attack on the World Trade Center, February 26th of 1993.
One of the reasons that I'll not forget that, aside from the event itself, is February 26th, my father's birthday.
So I always will remember that.
But that anniversary somehow went unnoticed and unballyhooed and unprotested.
So the media has created a template.
They've got an action line for this, and they played it to the hilt.
Early headlines ran, tens of thousands planned to protest.
Tens of thousands protest.
All the newsies led with that headline right off the AP wire, but they didn't bother to read the text.
200 protested in New York City.
800 people protested in Japan.
1,000 people protested in Toronto.
200 people protested in Oakland.
90 people protested in Point Pleasant, Michigan, and 1,000, probably including Martin Sheen, protested in Hollywood.
Supposedly, somebody said 10,000 allegedly protested in Portland, but they may not have known what they were protesting.
Call a protest and the people in Portland will show up just for the fun of it.
Now, let's put this so-called protest movement into perspective.
At the same time, we had 200 in New York, 800 in Japan, 1,000 in Toronto, 200 in Oakland, 90 in Point Pleasant, Michigan, 1,000 in Hollywood.
At the same time, 50,000 people mourned the death of Slobo in Serbia.
And at the same time, 25,000 Spanish students went on a drinking binge across Spain.
Tens of thousands of young people gathered in cities around Spain on Friday night in an attempt to hold the biggest street drinking session ever in the southern city of Granada.
Police said 25,000 people congregated.
Well, the media wanted its pound of protests, so they played the anti-war template to the hilt until reality set in.
And then the story changed to, and I'm going to quote this: quiet disapproval of Bush, Mark's third anniversary.
So leading up to this weekend, oh, we're going to have thousands in the streets.
It was going to be like Vietnam redone.
It was going to be all over again.
And we were going to be so happy because look at what we've been able to create in the mainstream media.
The drive-by media.
We have been able to create all this anti-war protest and sentiment out there.
We have the power, and we're going to send people in droves into the streets.
And they're going to tell this government, they're going to tell this president how they hate him and how they hate the war and they want the troops home.
And then we have these dribbling little numbers show up in these various places.
So the headline, quiet disapproval of Bush, Mark's third anniversary.
We talk about polls on this program a lot, and we talk about an alternative reality on this program a lot.
And I'm sure that if you have been privy and if you have allowed yourself to soak up what the negative news and this endless stream of polls on the president, his approval rating and the war in Iraq is, then you probably were under the impression that literally thousands of people would show up because you thought the polls were, you feared or you considered the possibility polls were an accurate portrayal of sentiment.
Well, ask yourself if they really are.
When the polls were like this in Vietnam, you had people in the streets to match.
You had the kind of expressed outrage.
And I know, my friends, because I was alive then paying attention.
You had, I mean, it was a constant ongoing thing, protests against the Vietnam War.
And that's something media is trying to relive its glory days.
They're combining the Vietnam War and Watergate here in the same story, trying to create the same sequence of events here.
And they have been since 2005.
Have you noticed, we've mentioned this a number of times, actually, it's been intense the last five years since 2001, Bush was inaugurated.
Actually, go back to 1995 when the House Republicans actually were seated, sworn in, and assumed the majority.
Have you noticed how the foundation and the context of virtually every story about politics is when and how are the Democrats going to win their power back?
And as I say, it's intensified the last five years, and these polls are designed to advance that storyline, that action line.
This is going to take the Dems back.
This is going to bring them back to power.
Bush, they don't even need to have a plan.
The Democrats are so confident that the public so hates Bush, as much as they do, by virtue of the polls.
You got to ask yourself, what are they really thinking now when such piddling little numbers of people show up?
And I'll bet you that the people that showed up were the usual suspects that show up anytime there's a protest for anything.
And many of them were probably over 50 and just trying to relive their youthful glory days from the 60s.
But how many, it's spring break.
Did any spring breakers say, you know what?
We're going to forego the partying and we're going to go protest.
Hell's bells, folks.
There's no way the spring breakers are out there partying to hell with the anti-war protesters.
They're not, they're not, despite all that you've seen in the news and all the attempts by usage of polls and so forth, they have not ginned up their numbers.
They have not, they can't put enough people on the streets in an anti-war protest to fulfill the image created by their polling data.
They just can't.
So, but back to the media celebration.
Tim Russert, you know, I like the guy.
He had a bad day, though.
Hey, half the hour to General Casey, who was in charge of the Iraq operation, and he gave half to General Murtha.
And you could say they got equal time, but General Casey got the hardballs and Murthy got the softballs or hanging softballs.
I mean, they were just, I mean, slow, right over the middle of the plate, knock them out of the park.
And you know Murthy, you know Mirtha was playing pure politics from his opening statement.
Something like, let's get this straight.
This is not America's war.
This is George Bush's war.
I have a hunch, by the way.
Murthy's military contacts, I'm thinking, have tipped him off to the final strategy, which is semi-withdrawal, because he made a prediction yesterday on Meet the Press that there's going to be an October surprise.
The Democrats are backed the October surprise.
They're already planning for it.
They are in fear of it.
They think Bush and Rove and Cheney are planning a dramatic October surprise.
And Mirtha's guess, quote unquote, as to what the October surprise is going to be will be an announcement right before the election of a massive withdrawal of troops from Iraq, bring them home, a redeployment or what have you, in an attempt to change the plummeting fortunes.
Now, my hunch is Mirtha's big in the defense industry.
And Mirtha's got some contacts, and not everybody at the Pentagon's on Bush's side.
And with as frequent as leaks have been coming out of both the State Department and the Pentagon, wouldn't be surprised if somebody in the Pentagon has told Murtha this is what he's heard they're planning on doing, is this massive withdrawal in October, the October surprise.
So Mirtha's going on television and laying claim to this.
That would give him bragging rights for a Defense Department plan.
I put nothing past these politicians.
Interesting take too, UK Times.
Well, let me get to this after the break, but this guy is written by Tim Hames.
And the headline, I'll just use that to tease you.
And it's really a good take, I think.
The tragedy of the Iraq invasion is that there won't be another.
Quick timeout, folks.
Be right back.
Stay with us.
Just for the record, Mike, broadcast engineer, I am really tired of this song and the bumper rotation.
You do something about that.
Thanks.
Welcome back, folks.
Rushland Ball America's Anchorman.
Talent.
So much.
Talent.
On loan from God.
All right, folks.
What is happening?
My elbow's bleeding.
What did I do?
Paper cut or something?
I got a bloodstain here on the desk.
I'm bleeding.
This could go get the first aid kit.
I mean, it's not bad.
I'll live, but how did I do this?
I give it all for this program, folks.
I tell you, it's something that a lot of people don't know, but I do.
Before I get to this Iraqi piece on the fact that the tragedy of the Iraq invasion is that there won't be another.
The media ghouls are out there playing a numbers game here as they celebrate the third anniversary of their best opportunity, they think, to ruin and destroy George W. Bush.
So here's just some numbers I picked up in reading over the weekend.
Iraqi civilians killed, 32,600.
Police, 1,900.
U.S. soldiers killed, more than 2,300.
Remember that number.
Other armed forces killed, 205, 103 of whom are British.
U.S. forces now in Iraq, 138,7,800 from the U.K. Iraqi forces, 235,000.
Oil production, 2 billion barrels a day.
Pre-war, it was 2.5 billion barrels a day.
Iraq funding needed for 2007, $55 billion, pledged so far, $38 billion.
The cost of war to each U.S. taxpayer, $200, or not to the U.S. taxpayer, $248 billion.
And the source of all these is mentioned here, but let's just accept the numbers.
And so we got 205 armed forces other than U.S. killed.
We have 2,300 U.S. killed.
The story that is not told, and I guess they don't want to tell it, is the brilliant success that is reducing our deaths.
Less than 800 a year for three years of ground combat.
Folks, that is unprecedented success in military history.
But we can't say that.
We can't say that because we live in a one death is one death too many mindset.
800 military deaths a year in ground combat.
It's stunning.
And remember the story we had, it was, I guess, a little over a year ago, that battlefield fatality rates are reduced at an all-time low.
It was a Reuters story.
Some U.N. groups upset about it.
Because lives that should not be saved are being saved by doctors at the front lines.
Well, they're coming home maimed, coming home without eyes, arms, and legs.
Why, it's a tragedy.
These doctors shouldn't be at the front lines saving these.
I'm not kidding you.
And of course, that was great news.
We all struggled for a while to figure out why is this great news being treated negatively?
We figured it out.
Story did not help the attempt to gin up anti-war support.
USA Today had a story today, too.
The press is making the third anniversary of the liberation of Iraq appear to be a civil war.
That's another thing.
There is no civil war.
They are reporting that a civil war is underway.
Chuck Hagel's out there, limited civil war.
Others are calling it a full-fledged civil war.
There is no civil war.
This is a classic example of the media reporting the news they hope to report or they want to be rather than what is.
But remember, it was just a few short weeks ago that reporters were measuring success, or in their case, failure, in Iraq by a completely different standard, the number of U.S. troops killed in combat operations.
So why the shift in focus?
Why the shift now that it's a civil war?
We're losing control.
Why have they given up the daily body count?
Well, it turns out that while the so-called Iraqi civil war has been raging, the number of U.S. casualties has plummeted to less than half of what they were over the previous five months.
In fact, if the trend continues, March will be the second least deadly month for American GIs since the war began.
That's not good.
That doesn't advance the action line.
So we can't report that.
We have to focus on the tumult and the chaos in the civil war.
According to the website Lunaville.com, which keeps the most comprehensive and up-to-date stats on U.S. casualties, about one soldier a day has died in Iraq during the first three weeks in March.
It's a vast improvement over February's numbers when U.S. troops are dying at the rate of about two per day.
In every month since November 2005, the U.S. death rates topped two per day.
In October, it was over three.
And yet, if you amortize this over the three years, 2,200, 2,400, it's fewer than 800 deaths a year.
And that's got to be an all-time success story in the history of ground combat.
We can't report because we live in this one death is one death too many mindset out there.
Okay, during these three years, the last three years of the Iraq War, when we have lost 2,300 soldiers, America lost 120,000 of its citizens in automobile deaths, an average of 40,000 a year.
These deaths included women and children and minorities who were, of course, hardest hit by these auto accidents.
120,000.
So we've lost 120,000 citizens in car crashes in the last three years versus 2,300 in a ground war in Iraq.
45,000 Americans died when they fell.
This happens frequently.
Americans fall down.
Sometimes they fall down and injure themselves, and sometimes when they injure themselves, the injuries result in death.
Again, women and minorities hardest hit.
27,000 people in these past three years died from poisons.
27,000.
12,000 Americans over the last three years drowned.
So water and the wheel have killed more Americans than insurgent armor and fire in Iraq.
We lost 2,400 in the war.
We've lost 12,000 by drowning.
It seems to me that on the third anniversary of the Iraq invasion, we might want to take a moment to congratulate all of the generals and the battle planners for one hell of an effective land battle when it comes to American casualties.
This never seems to be put into perspective.
We had the eager countup, the eager run-up to 1,000 deaths of the media salivating.
Couldn't wait to report that.
Then it was 1,500.
Then it was 2,000.
And then the rate began to slow.
And so now we have to focus on another action line, which is civil war.
Civil war has broken out.
We've lost control.
The Iraqis can't handle it.
This war is an utter disaster.
And it's not in so many ways.
Plus, we can't leave anyway, and we're not going to leave.
So those of you who are any war can just stick it where the sun doesn't shine.
I'll get to this piece after the break here.
Three years on, the tragedy of the Iraq invasion is that there won't be another.
Thank you.
Thanks very much.
I'm thinking of filing a workman's comp complaint against myself so I can scam the system like many Americans do, the healthcare system, and take advantage of employment circumstances.
Anyway, welcome back, folks.
Yeah, stick it to myself.
Stick it to the boss.
Stick it to me.
Just so I can relate.
800-282-2882, the email address, rush at EIVnet.com.
This is a fascinating piece, my friends, by Tim Hames, Times Online from the UK.
Three years on, the tragedy of the Iraq invasion is that there won't be another one.
The first tragedy of Iraq is that this is the third and not the seventh anniversary of its liberation.
I'm not one of those who thinks that it would have been possible for the U.S. to have pressed on to Baghdad in 1991 after expelling Saddam's conscripts from Kuwait.
The older President Bush opted to take the U.N. route and was thus shackled by its limited mandate.
The second tragedy lies in the miscalculations made about weapons of mass destruction.
It should be acknowledged that these mistakes did not rest with the CIA or MI6 alone.
Every leading intelligence agency believed that Saddam had or was close to securing biological, chemical, or nuclear capacity and that he was inclined to deploy it.
We now know that the senior ranks of Iraq's armed forces assumed that there was an advanced weapons of mass destruction program, and they were astonished to discover on the eve of war that they didn't even have any nerve gas to use.
The tragedy of what went wrong in Iraq, therefore, is that the failure to locate weapons of mass destruction has made action against Iran or North Korea far harder to advance in Western public opinion.
This would have been true even if Iraq post-invasion was now a land of peace and plenty.
The final tragedy is that while many will prosper within Iraq over the next three years, the price of inept peacetime policies between 2003 and 2005 is that there will be no more Iraqs in the foreseeable future.
To that extent, the Stop the War Coalition, assisted ironically by the Pentagon, will be satisfied.
And what does this mean in practice?
Well, it means no more sadistic totalitarian dictators will be removed from office.
It means no more free and fair elections for those who have never had them.
It means no more openings for civic and religious liberty.
It means no more chances of a cultural reawakening.
Democracy might well progress in parts of the Middle East, but alas, mostly in the states that were most benign to begin with.
There is little reason to suppose that the ruling elites in Damascus, Tehran, or Tripoli have the cause for fear that they must have briefly felt three years ago, nor have the people under their yoke any reason for optimism that they might yet escape servitude.
The reason for this is that the aftermath of the invasion in Iraq has been spun as such a disaster.
It has been portrayed as such a disaster by the media and by the Democratic Party that there simply won't be the guts and the courage to try it again, at least anytime soon, even in Iran.
And you know, folks, when people talk about that, and I know it comes up on this program a lot, probably comes up when you're having conversations with friends, because I'm sure it's been noted and observed with all the talk about Iran and its attempt to convert its nuclear arsenal into weapons, its nuclear program into weapons.
You've probably had people say to you, you know, this sounds just like all that stuff that turned out to be garbage going into Iraq.
And there haven't been any improvements in the CIA.
There haven't been any improvements in the intelligence agencies.
How do we know they're not lying to us now?
I'm sure you've heard that.
This guy's point is it's going to be practically impossible without the passage of a lot of time to get rid of other tyrants when they are legitimately ginning up nuclear weapons programs simply because the effort in Iraq has been proclaimed so unnecessary,
so lied about, so worthless, so bungled, when it's the exact opposite of this, that it's going to make it hard for any leader, no matter how popular or charismatic, to get the public support necessary for similar operations down the road.
I think that is an excellent take.
And we'll just, especially if leaders are going to be cowed by polls, if leaders are going to be cowed by election year politics, and what being cowed by polls at election year politics generally means, how the way it manifests itself is nobody does anything courageous.
Nobody does anything on principle.
They all just gather around, stick them moistened fingers in the air to try to figure out which way the wind's blowing and get in the way of it.
So with the lack of courage, a lack of fortitude, and the combined elements of an ongoing three to five year effort here to portray Iraq and the war on terror as totally unnecessary and botched, just going to make it harder to go after enemies in the future because it will be deemed as unnecessary, be deemed as lied about, an exaggerated threat.
What does Bush want?
Iran's oil?
No, Halliburton wants a foot in the door.
The same stuff will start up all over again.
To the phones, Robert and Fairlaw, New Jersey.
I'm glad you waited, sir.
Welcome to the program.
How are you doing, Rush?
I'm fine.
Thank you.
Okay, yeah, I don't think you can compare the public's rage with this war, the Vietnam War, as far as demonstration goes, because we don't have a draft like there was back in the day.
People don't have skin in the game.
So people just sit back, look at the news.
Well, back in those days, everybody was concerned either you want to get drafted.
Well, I'm glad to hear you say this.
You are cutting edge.
I'm really happy to hear you say you're admitting that the rage is not nearly what we're being told that it is.
I don't care why, but it's just not there.
Exactly.
Right.
There's not that much rage.
The polls are not really reflecting rage.
I think the polls are reflecting the true feelings of the country, but the country is not flipped out as it was.
Well, but you're cutting edge in another way, too.
And that is, you know, the liberal Democrats are out there trying to make this exactly like Vietnam, and they want people in the streets in the same numbers that we had in the 60s and early 70s.
And they're just not there because this isn't Vietnam.
And most people who are just sitting around thinking about this know that.
The effort, therefore, to make this equivalent to Vietnam in the eyes of the American people doesn't seem to be working.
So I, you know, as far as polls, I know you got a lot invested in the polls out there because they tell you what you hope is true.
But I always rely on facts, not projected results from a sample of a thousand people supposedly scientifically culled to represent the American people at large or likely voters at large or whatever.
I would rather believe that there is less rage than we're being told by looking at the few number of protesters out there.
That to me is hard evidence on the ground or lack of it that there's a whole lot of rage.
Same thing is, you know, the generic ballot for the congressional races this year, which means they go out and do a poll and they ask respondents, you incline to vote Republican or Democrat for Congress this year.
And right now, I think the Democrats are leading in the generic ballot in anywhere from 10 to 14 percent.
Okay, so people, okay, Democrats have won the House back, and they take the Senate back.
Well, hubba, hubba, that's why we don't need a plan.
The Democrats think their plan or their strategy or their aura has already been perceived by the American people.
If you go back to 2004 and you look at the generic ballots in these polls, generic polls, you will find that those polls back then had the Democrats supposedly winning by 7%.
And we're going to take back the House in 2004.
Now, I admit 10 to 14% is a little bit larger than 7%, but in 2002, the same thing, because the media's total focus, what are the Democrats going to do?
Win their power back.
Wow.
How are they going to do it?
What's their strategy?
It's amazing.
It's a foundational building block of media reporting today, particularly inside the Beltway.
And yet, in 2002, they didn't get the House.
In 2004, they didn't get the House.
They didn't get the Senate in either election.
So I'm more inclined to believe actual elections rather than polls.
The polls had John Kerry being elected president.
Most of them did.
The polls say that there is building, building rage and anger over the lack of progress in Iraq and that the people want the troops out.
So the anti-war machine gins up all kinds of promotion and publicity and media excitement about the third year anniversary war protests.
And you barely have enough to, you know, sew together a quilt blanket of protest in New York City and elsewhere around the country.
Hardly anybody showed up.
I would rather believe that, not rather, I do believe that as providing more evidence of the true sentiment, the anti-war mentality in this country, which is different than, I don't like the way this is going on, Inquisition Get Out, but an anti-war mentality is typified by millions and hundreds of thousands in the streets demanding that they be listened to and that we get out.
And that's just not there.
And so my point is, while the media and all the libs may be thinking that they have succeeded in creating all this anti-war sentiment, the evidence on the street yesterday throughout cities in this country is a scant.
Well, the evidence just isn't there.
The polls have not accurately reflected anti-war sentiment.
And whether it's because there's a draft or not a draft, I would also say the country is very prosperous right now.
I would say that, in fact, I just printed out a story.
Let me get it.
Best job market in five years for grads.
U.S. college graduates are facing the best job market since 2001 with business, computer, engineering, education, and healthcare graduates in highest demand.
This is a report by the employment consulting firm called Challenger Gray and Christmas.
John Challenger, who's a CEO of that bunch, said we are approaching full employment.
Some employers already dreaming up perks to attract the best talent.
In its annual outlook of entry-level jobs, Challenger Gray and Christmas said that strong job growth and falling unemployment makes this spring the hottest job market for America's 1.4 million college graduates since the dot-com collapse in 2001.
All of this while we're fighting the war in Iraq, all of this while we're rebuilding from Hurricane Katrina and 2001 and Hurricane Wilma and all the other natural disasters.
All of this while the Democratic Party and the American media attempts to make you think that you are one paycheck away from a soup line.
They say, I thought all the jobs are going overseas into foreign lands.
I keep hearing people, even on my side of the aisle, talk we're losing manufacturing or losing jobs.
America's going to hell in a handbasket.
We're creating jobs at a record pace.
How can this be the best job market in five years for college graduates if all the great jobs are going overseas into foreign countries?
And we also hear that jobs are being taken by all these illegal immigrants and so forth.
You know, I read a story the other day.
France, if France were a state in our country, it would be the fifth poorest.
It would be the fifth, because in France, they decided to hell with work.
We want leisure.
We want a welfare state.
So they've got it, and they've got an economy that reflects it.
And now they're, you talk about protests.
Did you see the protests in France over the weekend?
You know whatever, protesting?
Work.
They were protesting having to go get work.
They were protesting.
There was a proposal made by Dominique de Villapen, who is the, oh, the American left loves this guy, former foreign minister now running a whole show over there while Chirock's out drinking Bordeaux.
And he's come up with this new plan that employers can fire new hires in two years.
And they took to the streets by the thousands in France to protest that A, they might have to go to work and B, if they did, they could get fired.
Now, there's real protest.
It's anti-work, anti-job, anti-prosperity on the march in France.
They'd be the fifth poorest in our country, and yet we're told we must look to our European allies for guidance on how to be advancing into the 21st century with the proper understanding of the human condition and blah, I just get so sick and tired of this country being run down every damn day by one political party and its allies in the mainstream press.
It's a Reuters story.
We will just see.
We will just keep a sharp eye today and tonight tomorrow to see how widely reported this story is on the greatest job market for college graduates in five years.
Sit tight, folks.
Be right back.
Okay, back to the phones here on the Excellence in Broadcasting Network.
Jim in Birch Bay, Washington.
Nice to have you with us, sir.
Thanks, Rush.
Megadoto Squared from the ultra-liberal state of Washington.
Thank you, sir.
Rush, I'm just sitting here smoking my morning cigar, drinking my coffee, and listening to you intently as I always do.
And, you know, I've got a question for you.
I listened to Charles Krauthammer, Bill Crystal, Fred Barnes, and these guys are all indicating, based on the way the war is going, that they think the Democrats have a real shot at taking back the House this coming November.
22 seats available that they say are competitive and that they do have a real shot at taking back the house.
Can you tell us or at least alleviate my fears that these ultra-conservatives, as they are, you know, are wrong?
Wait a minute.
Conservatism, as I've always said, is not monolithic.
There are many different types of conservatives within the conservative movement.
And Beltway conservatives are under the most pressure each and every day to fit in with the dominant culture there, which is liberalism.
Krauthammer, I think, has done one of the best jobs at remaining independent and resisting the pressure.
But look, I mean, there's no denying that the public's perception is that things have gone to hell in a handbasket.
There's no denying that.
And I think that they don't want to appear to be pollyannish and simply reject the notion that the Democrats could win the House back.
I mean, we don't know what's going to happen between now and Election Day.
Anything could happen to shake up the conventional wisdom.
I think there are a lot of conservatives who are genuinely concerned about not so much just the war in Iraq, all that's at the top, but I'm concerned about this too.
What are our guys doing?
I can't, for example, I can't believe that the Republicans are acting as docile as they are acting.
You know, it's being written now, and I've forget which paper I have it here.
The Republicans don't have a plan either for this election cycle beyond a couple of domestic things.
Where are the principal conservatives demanding that we hit these insurgents harder in Iraq?
Where are the people on our side demanding if we're going to be serious about this, go get it done and take care of it?
We're the United States of America.
There's a timidity all over the place.
And I think they're just reacting to that.
Now, I don't feel the timidity because I'm not in Washington.
I don't subject myself to this barrage each and every day.
And I have not had my opinion of Democrats change any.
I don't think they have done anything in the last four years to recommend themselves to anybody.
If they do win the House back, it's not because people are going to be voting for them.
It's because the Republicans will have not given them a reason to continue to vote for Republicans.
I didn't hear Krauthammer or Bill Kristol say what they said.
If they're basing it all around the war, I can understand getting caught up in that sentiment.
I am not, frankly, but I can understand people that do as to whether the Democrats can win it back.
Don't get caught up in the media's desire to make you think it's possible.
That's their whole news angle for the last four years.
I'm long on time.
Be back.
Okay, first hours in the can, folks.
We'll be back in a jiffy and keep rolling.
Lots to do yet today as we kick off a full week of broadcast excellence.
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