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May 4, 2006 - Rush Limbaugh Program
36:24
May 4, 2006, Thursday, Hour #2
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I don't care about that.
Do you think I care whether Zarkowi is in a new video wearing new balance sneakers?
So he, all right, okay, so he's wearing new balance sneakers while shouting deaf to American firing off that AK-47.
You know, he didn't buy them in a mall here.
The most interesting thing about that to me, this video of Bin Laden firing a weapon at nothing.
You know, they just get videotaped really vicious guys to go out there in the middle of the desert, you know, and shoot sand.
Hey, look at how tough we are.
Shoot sand all over the place.
Bin Laden walking through the mountains and rocks of Afghanistan like a freaking shepherd in one video.
Then the next video, he's got this AK-47 firing it up in the sky.
Unfortunately, one of the bullets did not fall down and hit him in the head.
So what?
He's wearing new balance speakers.
Isn't the most important thing about that video that's unedited?
And they're examining it now because it may contain things other than the edited version.
I'll guarantee you, the one thing that we can take from that new Zarkowi video is that it was not made in Iraq, which means he is not there.
He would not show in Iraq like that.
He is in Syria.
I will bet you 10 to 1 he's in Syria or he is in Iran when he made that video.
And if he's out of Iraq, it means it's tough sledding.
It means it's getting too dangerous.
That's what matters to me.
I don't care if he's wearing Nikes, if he's wearing Air Jordans, if he's wearing Birkenstocks.
Greetings, my friends, and welcome back.
This is the award-winning Thrill Packed Ever Exciting, increasingly popular Growing by Leaps and Bounds Rush Limbaugh program.
And we are having more fun than a human being should be allowed to have.
If you're just joining us, too bad you missed the first hour.
But you can access it if you're a member at rushlimbaugh.com.
Podcasts will be made available shortly after the program.
It was up late last night, flew to Missouri for, it was a real treat for me, a real opportunity to meet finally Justice Antonin Scalia.
He made a speech there in my hometown of Cape Girardeau, and my cousin Steve Jr. hosted a dinner for him there.
The governor of Missouri was there.
Matt Blunt, the Lieutenant Governor Peter Kender, a childhood friend of the Limbaugh family, and a number of other dignity.
Leonard Leo from the Federalist Society was there.
Yeah, it was just a great time.
I got back about 4.30.
Well, actually, I think 4.15, they had wheels down, and I went to bed at 5.30 because I just can't go in and go to bed, no matter what time it is.
I just can't.
It's still like I'm short-changing the day if the first thing I do when I get home is go to bed.
I have, by the way, since last hour, remembered what I did because last year I couldn't remember what I did between 4.15 and 5.30 and going to bed this morning, but I now remembered.
It's a good thing I forgot because I can't tell you.
800-282-2882 and the email address, rush at EIBNet.com.
Can I ask you a question?
What is the difference between Timothy McVeigh and Zakarius Mousawi?
What's the difference?
Well, McVeigh was executed.
McVeigh was put to death by the state.
The feds is put to death by the feds.
What did he do?
He blew up a federal building in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma.
During his trial, was the jury swayed by any stories that might have been told about whatever syndromes he experienced as a chow or whatever abuses he may have been subjected to by evil men in his life.
I do recall that he was a military guy and he was some experience in the military really hardened him.
There was no sympathy for McVeigh.
And yet, in the case of Zacharias Musawi, oh, it was an orphan.
Oh, he was beat up by his dad.
Oh, everything you've ever heard on the Oprah Show or from a California jury.
And hello, Shelby Steele.
The difference in Timothy McVeigh and Zacharias Masawi is that McVeigh is the exact thing we feel guilty about, racist, sexist, bigot.
We had to put him to death because he reminds us of how rotten we are or were.
The fact that we've progressed and that we're not a bunch of McVeighs is lost on people because in our hearts, we are McVeigh.
And so we're going to assuage our guilt for being McVeigh by putting him to death.
But Masawi, oh, poor guy, not really instrumental.
He missed the bus on the way to the attack, but he could have told us about it and he didn't.
But we don't want to make him a martyr and I'm telling you what, the collective guilt of this nation is on full display when you look at the differences in the way we dealt with McVeigh and Zakarius Masawi.
Two more sound bites here.
These are just, these are gems, folks.
These are priceless.
Kristen, I'm sorry, Joe Biden.
We're back to hardball now with Chris Matthews.
Matthews says, what do you make of Zarkowi's, not Zarkow, but Masawi's comment as he left the courtroom?
He yelled out, America, you lost, and clapped his hands.
In prison, I don't want to be that guy in an American prison.
If you want to say how to punish somebody, put Zarkowi into prison with a bunch of red-blooded American criminals, criminals, put him in there for life, and guarantee under no circumstances, no circumstances, could he get out of prison?
I think that boy's about to have, as we Catholics say, an epiphany.
I think he's about to find out that he may not have gotten the better end of the deal.
Do you think he'll survive for long in prison, Senator?
I think it's not going to be an easy road for him.
Did I just hear what I think I heard?
Did I just hear Joe Biden and Matthews yucking it up over the fact that Zarkowi is going to be tortured in jail?
Did I just hear that?
I think I just heard that, folks.
I think we all just heard that together.
Well, he's talking about Zarkowi.
I know he doesn't know who it is.
It doesn't matter.
We all know who he's talking about.
He's talking about Masawa.
Okay, I don't care if he's going to be locked down 23 hours.
don't care about any these guys are are hoping he this this comment uh when when the uh sensitive and caring and and proper and and understanding joe biden liberal democrat uh says he may not have gotten the better end of the deal you can't fool me I know exactly what he's talking about.
It's the old bend over forward and grab the ankles in prison time.
That's what he means by.
And they're yucking it up over this guy being tortured in prison.
I thought torture was bad.
I thought, what's going to happen when Al-Qaeda learns that we're torturing him, Senator?
And you know damn well the ACLU is going to find out about it and the word will get out.
And so all of the good vibes that we are feeling because we think we've shown the world how fair and just our system is, they're going to blow it to Smithereens because this guy is going to go in there and get the wrong end of the deal.
He's going to get tortured.
He may be in lockup 23 hours a day, but he's out for one.
And in that one, if he gets tortured and they're hoping for it, we're going to blow all this goodwill, Senator.
I am stunned.
I couldn't believe I was hearing what I was hearing when I heard it.
But I did hear it.
I heard it, and I was right.
One more from Kristen Breitweiser.
This pretty much sums it up.
Matthews asked her, do you have a comment on what you've just been listening to, Kristen?
I would appreciate someone asking either Senator Biden or former Mayor Giuliani if their standard for death is withholding information from the FBI that could have prevented the 9-11 attacks.
How would you explain George Tenet, who withheld information about two of the 9-11 hijackers for 18 months from the FBI?
Information that certainly would have gone a long way into preventing those attacks.
And I'd like to know where are we drawing the line here?
What is the threshold?
And why are we not holding those types of people in our own government accountable?
Oh, let me tell you who those people are.
You ever heard of the name Jamie Gorellik?
Have you ever heard of Janet Renone?
Have you ever heard of Bill Clinton?
Because the reason George Tennett couldn't pass on what he knew was because of the wall, Kristen, that was built by the Clinton administration in the mid-90s to prevent sharing of this kind of information.
So I guess she's saying here, George Tennett needs to be put to death because he didn't share information that he knew, just like Masawi didn't share information he knew.
How was what?
That was Kristen Breitweiser.
Kristen Breitweighter with the 9-11 widow, what of the 9-11 was, Kristen Breitweiser.
Okay, folks.
And there's even more.
Madeline Albright thinks that Bush is the religious nut, not the terrorists.
We have all kinds of goodies coming up.
Plus, you know, there's another judicial fight coming.
Brett Kavanaugh, the Republicans have caved on the Judiciary Committee.
They were going to try to get a vote out.
It's going to be a 10 to 8 party line vote to send his nomination to the floor because we want Dingy Harry to filibuster, folks.
We want him to do it.
Now, Specter, chairman of the Judiciary Committee, caved, and they're going to give Kavanaugh another hearing on Tuesday.
He's already been through this anal exam once.
They're going to put him through it again just for the purposes of having it be televised and they get their licks in.
Schumer and these guys are out for blood.
They claim he's an ideological warrior or some such thing.
But nevertheless, the vote will be a week from today if it goes on schedule.
And apparently, Schumer, Specter has been given assurances.
And when I read this today, I couldn't believe I was reading it.
Arlen Spector, chairman, Judiciary Committee, has been given assurances by a gang of 14 that there won't be a filibuster.
The reason it boggles the mind is that there is a gang of 14 and that there's a gang of 14 that's running the Senate when it comes to all this.
We want the Democrats to filibuster, folks, in the midst of an election year with the president's numbers where they are.
By the way, Fox News, opinion dynamics poll, his approval number is up five points.
I don't know what it is, but it's up five.
It won't matter.
They're not going to report it as a significant trend.
They'll talk about it just being barely outside the margin of error on the other networks if they mention it at all.
All right.
Hubba hubba dooba-duba.
Back we are.
We go to the phones to Philadelphia.
Al, I'm glad you called.
Welcome to the Rush Lindbaugh Program.
Thank you, Rush.
Rush, why did the president, President Bush, give us all these problems by handing over Zakawi to the federal courts when, as the commander-in-chief, he had constitutional authority to retain this man under his office and give him to the and have the military court take care of the fighter?
Yeah, that's it's a good question because the left is doing everything it can to undercut the military tribunals.
There are cases.
I think there's one that's going to be decided with the Supreme Court, hopefully, by June, over whether or not the president has the constitutional right to determine these battlefield combatants.
These guys are not criminals.
These guys are not criminals.
They are soldiers.
We refuse to look at them as soldiers.
Poor people, right?
No, they're not.
They're just soldiers.
And we don't put enemy soldiers on trial.
The enemy combatant thing is Bush got his hands tied because there are liberal judges who've ruled them unconstitutional, and they had to appeal that.
The Supreme Court has it now.
So no guarantee what that decision is going to be.
A decision from the Supreme Court that abridged the First Amendment's free speech clause with campaign finance reform, we can't trust any of his courts going to do.
May I ask, does the president's authority as commander-in-chief depend on the Supreme Court truly?
Well, you got a political component here.
It seems to me you've got lawyers' opinions bouncing back and forth, and the president takes too often the side of the ACLU thinking.
No, I, look, I hear your frustration, but I don't, he, the president, the president takes two, he's not taking the side of the ACLU.
They're thinking, he seems to stand on it.
He seems to rest on their thinking.
Not that he agrees with it, but he doesn't fight it.
He doesn't resist it.
I don't think that's true.
I think he is fighting it.
He is resisting it.
And that's why this is going to be decided at the Supreme Court.
It might be fun to watch if the president said, you know what, I'm watching this trial.
This is a joke.
Get him out of there.
Send him to Fort Whatever.
And we're going to blindfold him, put him on trial there.
Can you imagine?
I think this guy's been in the legal system before 9-11 happened.
He was in jail on 9-11, I think.
Anyway, I appreciate the call.
Al Michael in Richmond, Virginia.
Welcome to the EIB Network.
Rush, hi.
West Point 91 Dittos.
I disagree with you on the life sentence.
I think he is going to get what he deserves, and he will not last a year in prison.
He'll get the death sentence when he goes to jail.
I don't care.
I mean, I don't go one way or the other.
That was not my point.
My point is that we have a couple of libs who are trying to destroy Bush for torture at Club Gitmo and Abu Grab yucking it up over the torture they hope Masawi is going to get.
Yeah, but the Gitmo guys aren't even combatants, really.
They're terrorists, so they're not even held to the Geneva Convention.
I know, they're soldiers.
That's my point.
You've got these guys trying to undermine success against this enemy with these roadblocks like these mass accusations of torture.
They can't prove torture's gone on.
They're trusting the words of the inmates down there.
And now, but to me, the irony of loving the fact that Zacawi is going to get it in the wrong end and going to be brutalized and tortured.
People need to know what they actually hope for in this case.
The fact if he doesn't last a year, you know, fine.
But they also, they need to consider this because these guys, I mean, Giuliani said it, although he was against, he thought the verdict was wrong.
Pataki said it last night.
They were all talking.
Oh, this is wonderful.
It shows West of the world.
Sister justice and our system is fair play and blah, blah, blah.
Well, find and dandy.
If you want to feel good vibes about that, go right ahead.
But the minute this guy gets knocked off in prison, savaged, raped, tortured, brutalized, there goes all the goodwill that we supposedly have achieved with this fair trial and this display of the American judicial system.
It's a war.
This is not something that's going to be solved on the battlefield.
Janice in Staten Island, you're next on the EIB network.
Hi.
Noon Rush.
Hi.
Well, you read that piece in your first hour, and that was basically my point also was that they're looking at the face of al-Qaeda sitting there.
I do believe a lot of those jurors went in with biased right from the beginning for the administration because one of the jurists said she was upset that the CIA was withholding information.
And to me, that seems pretty crazy, you know, that she was upset with the administration.
She didn't, with all those visuals, with all those pictures of people dying and all the well during the trial.
Of course, it's a left-wing talking point to protect and cover up and deflect from focusing on the incompetence of the Clinton administration who set the policy that required all of that.
Yeah, he was Al-Qaeda.
And he may have been an inept terrorist, but he still was part of.
I mean, it was confirmed on all counts that he was part of al-Qaeda.
And it was just her point.
It was all about the CIA.
There's no question.
I mean, we know who he was.
He openly admitted it.
It was confirmed.
But yeah, I'm glad you agree with the point because it was not just Masawi that was on trial in there.
It was the whole ideology of this al-Qaeda jihad that we're facing.
And that was not on trial.
And that's what's sad here.
If we're going to do this in court, folks, and I think it's preposterous, but if we're going to do this in court, in court, let's at least put the right thing on trial.
The right thing on trial would have been the wacko jihadists, the al-Qaeda members that recruited this guy, poisoned his mind, turned him into what it is.
But oh, no, no, no, no, we didn't come to that conclusion.
Came to the conclusion he was orphaned and he lived in a stink hole in where?
Morocco?
I don't know where, whatever, it doesn't matter.
And he was, of course, brutalized by his father.
And, of course, the men, brutes in this feminized culture that we live in.
So we did project all of our syndromes and traumas that we've invented to make ourselves think we have tough life.
And we projected them onto Masawi.
And what was, you know, what was responsible for 9-11 was not on trial in a courtroom.
If we're going to have a trial, let's put on trial what was responsible for it.
We're treating this as it was a single act of vandalism, and it wasn't.
It was an act of war.
And you listen to some of the comments from the 9-11 families that have chosen to go political on this now.
It's clear they're just out there spewing talking points.
Kristen Breitweiser spewing a talking point about what did George Dennett know?
Why didn't he tell anybody?
You heard that on the trial.
It's ending up in newspapers and so forth.
And this is how it all becomes part of the conventional wisdom when it's nothing but a pack of BS.
Amen, bro.
That's exactly what happens here on the EIB network, real life.
You know, I'm watching Fox here, and they've got this actress babe, Courtney Cox Arquette, and they're showing video of people out there on the beach.
And the graphic says, actress Courtney Cox Arquette is helping to prevent skin cancer.
Well, she's in a TV studio.
How in the world is she doing that?
What's she going to do to tell everybody what we already know?
This is banal.
Television is a vast wasteland in the day.
It's banal.
You know, yesterday there was A series like this, how can we prevent swimming pool deaths?
Don't go in them.
Here's one thing you could do.
It reminds me, last night, you know, it was a late night, and I got giddy long before I got home.
And I'm having some of the family down for Thanksgiving.
And my brother David and his lovely wife, Lisa, my sister-in-law, bringing their five kids.
And they're still quite young.
They range in the age of 14 to like one and a half.
So Lisa said, You have a fence around your pool.
And I said, Nope.
You're going to build one?
I said, Nope.
I'll just assign somebody to watch it, or I'll have an ambulance and a paramedic on call on property 24-7.
She looked at me like it was just a fun night.
I want to go back.
Well, that's the way I do it.
If you're worried about drowning, I'll have somebody there with scuba gear.
Somebody falls in, we'll save you.
But I'm not going to gunk up the property with a stupid fence around the pool that I'll just take out after four days.
Okay, here we go.
We had Al from Philadelphia wanted to know why Bush didn't just take over this trial and make it a military tribunal.
Mr. Snerdley, ever on the spot, did some research and found a story in the New York Times on December 12th, 2001.
This is September, October.
It's three months after 9-11.
The decision to try Zakarius Masawi in civilian court followed an often contentious debate among senior government officials about whether to bring him before a military tribunal, which was ultimately settled on Monday at the White House.
Against a backdrop of criticism over the use of tribunals, the Bush administration reached a compromise that would permit the trial of the terror suspect, Masawi, to be held in an open criminal court, but in a jurisdiction with a strong record of imposing the death penalty.
Well, so much for that.
Senior Pentagon officials and other administration officials had lobbied vigorously last month, that would be December, or November rather, 2001, to make Masawi the first suspect in the September 11th attacks to be tried by an overseas tribunal, which President Bush established by executive order.
He established, and yet it's still being litigated now because you've got these judges that are refusing to go along with it.
It's at the Supreme Court.
Senior Justice Department officials argued that the more appropriate place to try Masawi was the American civilian court system, where prosecutors won several important victories against terrorists in the 1990s.
In the end, one of those was Patrick Fitzgerald.
The other was Andy McCarthy, who now writes for National Review Online and doing other varied intellectual pursuits.
In the end, the Attorney General John Ashcroft accepted the recommendation of his department to bring Masawi before a federal criminal court in Alexandria, Virginia, met with President Bush, who concurred with his decision, according to administration officials.
So that's how it happened, Al.
You ask, and we find out.
Charles in Nixon, Missouri.
Welcome to the program.
Charles, testing 123.
Yes.
Are you there, sir?
Yes, sir.
Great.
You're on the air.
Your big show biz break.
All right.
Do I talk?
Yeah, that's what the, yeah.
Oh, okay.
Well, what I'd like to say is I spent 26 years with the Federal Bureau of Prisons and dealing with several, you know, top-name celebrity types.
This Masawi guy is going to have a good time in jail.
He'll be in a little cell.
He'll be confined in a separate area.
He won't be in contact with any other inmates.
He'll be in 23 hours a day.
He'll get out one hour a day for recreation.
You say there's no chance of torture then?
Well, they might torture him just because he won't be able to talk to anybody.
Nobody will talk to him.
You know, I mean, the guards probably won't talk to him.
Guards won't torture him.
Because you've got to understand, Joe Biden is hoping for this.
The only reason I care, Democrat Senator Joe Biden is hoping that he gets tortured.
Well, Joe Biden probably never been in a jail.
He's probably never even taken a tour of one.
They spend more money on these guys than they spend on school students, you know?
Well, I know.
That's why some people are hoping that he doesn't last a year in there.
Actually, Masawi is going to be sent to this brand new, super secret, super secure federal prison somewhere in the mountains of Colorado that not even a spy satellite could find.
Some brand new, super secure place.
So all that's neither here nor there.
I'm just telling you that the Democrat Senator Joe Biden is hoping he gets tortured in there.
He's going to be disappointed.
All right.
A couple things more here on the Brett Kavanaugh situation.
Because this is, to me, it's frustrating.
Kavanaugh has been languishing here to be nominated to the appellate bench by George W. Bush.
He's a good guy, folks.
He's in the John Roberts Salito mold.
He's one of these great nominees, and the Democrats hate him because he's conservative.
They're trying to say that he has a conflict of interest that he ruled in a case where he had a financial interest.
And they're also saying that until they find out, until they find out whether when he worked at the White House, if he had anything to do with writing the policy on torture, then they can't confirm him.
And so his floor vote has been delayed and withheld.
It was all part of the gang of 14 debate to move some forward.
His was not moved forward.
Republicans have decided we want to move him forward with a couple of other people.
There was a plan to have the committee vote, the Judiciary Committee vote today.
He would have been along partisan lines, party lines.
He would have come out of there with a 10 to 8 vote in favor, which would have gone to the full floor of the Senate for debate and then vote.
And what happened was that Chuck Schumer got hold of Senator Specter and said, you know what, I might be open to changing my vote if we can have another hearing.
And so Specter's, well, I must be fair and I must run the committee in my way.
If a senator tells me that he's considering changing his vote with more information, why then let's go get more information.
So essentially, the Republicans have caved to get his committee vote out today because, folks, there is no way that any Democrat on this committee is going to change his or her vote.
It was a snooker, and it was another snooker that these guys on the, well, Spectre, Senator Specter, fell for.
As Catherine Jean Lopez writes today in National Review Online, their bench memos blog, said, we're supposed to buy that Democrats haven't all decided how they're voting on Kavanaugh, and so there's going to be a second hearing.
That's going to be a second hearing next Tuesday to help them make up their minds.
I hear that committee member Senate Schumer just called Kavanaugh a partisan warrior.
So she Googled the term partisan warrior.
And you know what popped up?
Talking points from people for the American way.
So the idea these guys are going to change their minds on the Democrat side is crazy.
Ed Whalen, also writing at National Review Online's bench memos, said Chairman Specter's stated reason for agreeing to a second hearing is get this, that Senator Schumer said that a hearing could be useful in persuading him to vote for Kavanaugh.
No sooner had Specter said this than Schumer proceeded to label Kavanaugh a partisan warrior and attack his fitness to be a judge.
So when Specter caves, Schumer then starts right into the attack.
Nobody should have believed that Schumer was going to change his vote.
Now, Whelan said, look, it's tempting to blame Specter for the delay.
A committee staffer tells me, though, that Senators Graham, that would be Lindsey Graham and Mike DeWine, members of the gang of 14, worked hard to persuade Specter that another hearing would ensure that Democrat members of the Gang of 14 wouldn't support a filibuster.
Well, that's just dumb politics, too, because we want the Democrats filibustering.
We want them to make an absolute mess of themselves in an election year.
They should have done what they could to ensure that there would be a filibuster.
I'll tell you why.
Not just for that, but we need to nuke this thing once and for all.
We need to get rid of this gang of 14.
We need to trigger the constitutional option and get rid of this whole concept of filibustering judicial nominees once and for all.
It's going to have to happen sometime, folks.
We're going to have to do it at some point.
And they just put it off.
That's all this Gang of 14 deal did, was delay it and put it off so they wouldn't have to deal with it during a highly partisan and pressure-packed period of time.
A quick timeout.
We'll be back and continue in just a second.
Oh, no, you've got to be kidding.
I've seen too many that don't have it.
I'm not taking the fall for this one.
Greetings, folks.
Welcome back, Rush Limbaugh and the EIB network.
All right, back to the audio soundbites, EIB network.
Madeleine Albright.
She was on CNN's American Morning today with Miles O'Brien.
And what she's commenting on, he asks her question about Bush's rhetoric not being helpful.
The rhetoric that they're talking about is Bush threatening to spread freedom and democracy around the world.
Listen to Madeline Albright's reaction.
I think that to promise the kinds of things or threaten the kinds of things that the president says is not a way to make policy.
I think that we have to understand what the role of the United States really is.
And I happen to believe in the importance of America, but you have to figure out what is doable and what is not doable.
And some of the statements he makes are over the top in terms of their promises that they reach.
And we don't have the tools to accomplish what he's talking about.
This is insane.
And it is striking that somebody of this limited intellectual capacity was actually in charge of the U.S. state.
No, on second thought, it makes total sense somebody like that would be.
What do you mean she happens to believe in the importance of them?
What about the exceptionalism of America?
She doesn't think that we have the tools to accomplish what he's talking about, spreading freedom and democracy.
Can I take you back to history?
I want to show you how much Democratic Party has changed, because I have here, my formerly nicotine-stained fingers, an excerpt from a book by President John Kennedy, 1959, A Political Profile.
In this book, Professor James McGregor Burns included this response by Senator Kennedy.
Actually, Kennedy didn't write the book, McGregor Burns did, and he included this response by Senator Kennedy to a question about the free world maintaining a durable power balance against the communists.
He asked the very same question.
How do you do this?
How do you maintain a durable power balance?
Does the free world do this?
Here's Kennedy's answer.
And Madeline Albright, I doubt that it's happening, but I hope you're listening.
Kennedy said, I believe if we can hold out for the long run, there will be a sufficient evolutionary change or changes in the communistic system in Russia as well as in China to give us some hope of success.
The magic power, the magic power on our side is the desire of every person to be free, of every nation to be independent.
That is the really strong force on our side.
That's the weapon and the elementary principle for the destruction of the communist empire in Eastern Europe.
It is because I believe our system is more in keeping with the fundamentals of human nature that I believe we are ultimately going to be successful provided we have sufficient self-discipline and perseverance to maintain our own strength through a long testing period.
Now, here is JFK actually now being echoed by two Republican presidents.
Bush pretty much says what Kennedy said in this question in the 1959 book.
And of course, Ronald Reagan and his tax cuts were very similar to tax cuts proposed by President Kennedy in 1962 or 1963.
Now, this response by JFK is an artful explanation of what is at the core of Bush's freedom agenda.
And his answer is a reminder.
I'll tell you, folks, JFK would not recognize the Democratic Party today.
I don't think intellectually, if he were honest, he could be a member of it if he were still alive.
Because this, you listen to what Albright said, we don't have the tools.
I believe in the importance of America.
JFK says the magic power is the tool.
And the magic power is the desire of every person in the world to be free.
It's the natural spirit.
It's the yearning of the Americans, of the human spirit, folks, to be free.
We're created with it.
We don't need special tools for it.
This is absurd.
Every time I hear this woman speak, all I can think of is the fact that she can leg press 400 pounds.
You know, if she'd have been born in East Germany, she and Hillary both could have been on the Olympic team.
But really, this, the illustration here of just how far the Democratic Party has veered left.
I mean, they once embraced the foreign policy idealism of JFK and of Roosevelt and Truman.
And now they are as strangers to that as they are strangers to victory in war in Iraq and the war on terror.
All right, let's keep rolling here with Madam Albright.
We'll get to our phone calls in the next hour, folks.
I appreciate your patience.
A question from Miles O'Brien.
You're right, Madam Albright.
The difficulty, of course, is not that the Bush administration has sought to exercise leadership on moral grounds.
The problem is that its rhetoric has come close to justifying U.S. policy on explicitly religious terms.
And that's like waving a red flag in front of a bull.
What do you mean by that, madam?
Because the presidents historically from Washington on have invoked God one way or another in the course of their duties.
I actually thought that George Bush was a complete anomaly.
He's not.
As you point out, all American presidents have in some way invoked God.
The difference is that President Bush is so certain about what God is telling him and also making it clear that God is on America's side so that if you pick a fight with us, you're picking a fight with God.
After 9-11, I think he really was great in terms of unifying the country and the world was with us.
But when you begin to say that in order to be with us, you have to be for what we did in Iraq, or you have to agree with the way we're using American power, then we make the number of supporters much narrower and picking a fight with God.
So that's what troubles me.
Now, again, did I actually hear what I just heard?
Did she actually indicate that the notion that God might be on her side is repulsive and as dangerous?
That God's on our side, okay.
And then she's upset.
We want to be concerned with how people are aware of the way we're using our power.
I hope a lot of people are concerned because we're doing it in a minimalist fashion, Madam Albright.
I know I'm killing myself with these soundbites.
I'm killing myself with them.
All presidents have in some way invoked God, but the difference is that Bush is so certain what God is telling him.
I don't think it's the other way around, Madam Albright.
I think George Bush is certain of his faith in God and is certain that what he's doing is the right thing to do in the eyes of God.
I don't think he's saying that God is talking.
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