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May 5, 2006 - Rush Limbaugh Program
35:55
May 5, 2006, Friday, Hour #2
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And greetings to you, thrill seekers, music lovers, conversationalists, all across fruited play in the award-winning Rush Limbaugh program on the EIB network.
It's Friday.
Time to rock.
Live from the Southern Command in Sunny, South Florida.
It's open line Friday.
It's goodie goody goodie getting gun rocks.
Ladies and gentlemen, uh rules for open line Friday.
It's really simple.
When we go to the program, I go to the phones.
The program is yours.
Monday through Thursday, that's not the case.
Tightly screened.
You have to be talking about things we're talking about, things I'm interested in on Monday through Thursday, but on Friday you can go wherever you want to go.
800-282-2882.
The email address is Rush at EIBNet.com.
If you're just joining us, I don't want to rehash the whole first hour.
I would encourage you to listen to it, though, at Rush Limbaugh.com later today when it gets posted on our website.
By the way, welcome as always to those of you watching on the Ditto Cam.
It'll be up and running for all three hours.
Just want to summarize the uh uh my take on the Patrick Kennedy uh circumstance and get this over and done with once and for all in this hour.
I'm not excusing his behavior, and I'm not making fun of his behavior.
I'm saying the guy needs help.
He's not getting it.
There is great help out there.
I've been through it.
I'd recommend I'd recommend it for people who don't have an addiction problem.
I guess it's it's one of the most.
My experience, the place called the Meadows was one of the most valuable experiences of my life.
Certainly in the in the top five.
And he's not getting it because there are people on his team more concerned about the electoral fallout of this incident that he's involved in than they are about him.
Uh I am saying that there's a police cover-up going on here, and that Cynthia McKinney is being treated much differently than Patrick Kennedy is.
He should have been required to take a breathalyzer test.
But for the interference by the higher-ups in the police force who came to the scene, he would have been given the breathalyzer test.
There wouldn't be a controversy here over whether he was under the influence of ambien and another drug or whether he'd been consuming adult beverages earlier that night.
The gaps in this story are beginning to show up now, and uh we might get the actual truth of this in time.
I also I don't I don't believe that Patrick Kennedy's medical records should be splashed all over the media, and I don't believe he should be investigated for three years.
And I don't think he should be subjected to leaks about all kinds of crimes that he didn't commit.
What we need is to get to the bottom of this, and uh and that's what I favor.
And I also want to say this because I read some emails during the uh during the break here at the top of the hour.
Uh I wish I did not have to say this, but I I am not, ladies and gentlemen, showing quote unquote compassion for Patrick Kennedy in hopes that I will get compassion back.
I fully I know full well that I will never get that's not why I'm doing this.
You must understand I don't do anything I do to cause people to have a certain reaction.
I'm the guy who's constantly warning Republicans you can't make the left your friends, you can't make the Democrats your friends.
I told the freshman class in the 94 Congress, don't think the media is happy you're here.
They're not.
They'll come bat their eyelashes at you and take you to lunch and dinner, but they resent that you're here and they resent that you're in power.
And don't make you don't fall for the notion that all you gotta do is moderate a little bit or whatever, and it'll end up liking you.
That's not how you do it.
If you wanted to like you, you gotta you gotta turn on your own party.
Uh and you gotta turn on your own president.
If that's if that's if you want to be liked, then go do that.
I don't care about any of that, uh, ladies and gentlemen.
Uh I'm simply reacting to this based on my own life experiences.
Uh the the the the idea that that I would take a position like this in hopes of getting reciprocal treatment is a joke because I uh I'd have a heart attack if I did.
I full will don't expect it, and I don't care anyway.
I know it's not gonna happen, it's not the point.
Now, from the San Francisco Chronicle.
They've done a poll out there, folks.
It's a Zogby poll for the uh Center for Immigration Studies, and it's reported here in the San Francisco Chronicle today, probably in a number of other places.
Likely American voters by a wide margin, likely American voters by a wide margin prefer a plan to get tough on illegal immigrants over one that would put them on a path to citizenship.
Now, this this poll that was released Wednesday contradicts several other recent surveys.
The poll was taken in the seven second half of April by Zogby, found that sixty-nine percent of Americans favor a bill passed by the House that would fortify the border, that would force businesses to verify that workers are legal and would allow greater cooperation on immigration from local law enforcement.
By contrast, 43% favored a plan being debated in the Senate that would allow uh the estimated 11 to 12 million illegal immigrants who are already here to apply for citizenship.
It will also double the number of future green cards.
Steve Camarata, the research director for the Washington, D.C. Center, uh non thought nonprofit think tank that favors restricting immigration, said when you tell people the numbers and you ask about immigration, they want less of it.
Illegal immigration.
People aren't asking for mass deportations.
They want to enforce the law and make illegals go home over time.
He said Americans want both legal and illegal immigration uh reduced.
The poll also found that respondents were skeptical about the need for immigrant labor in the U.S. economy, saying that if wages were higher, Americans would be attracted to the so-called low-skill jobs currently filled by immigrants.
Now, there was a poll by the LA Times nationwide conducted last week that that uh are a week earlier than this poll, I should say, which found that 54% of American adults, not just voters, it was 54% of adults, support the guest worker program, and 66% favor a path to citizenship.
Well, you can say that the Zogby poll is, of course, shows different results, but the bottom line is it's a whole different sample.
Adults versus likely voters.
What's more relevant here in terms of the of the data?
Zogby used likely voters.
The Times Bloomberg poll was based on all adults nationwide, so you are comparing apples to oranges, especially when it is that politicians only care about voters.
Uh Barbara O'Connor, a professor of communications at Cal State, Sacramento, said uh the issue is like abortion.
It really is a clash of absolutes, getting people to express and by the way, there's a poll on that out.
And uh the uh Roe vs.
Wade gang is losing ground rapidly.
The pro Roe vs.
Wade gang is losing ground rapidly.
Anyway, Barbara O'Connor said, regardless of their opinions on how to resolve the issue, a majority of Americans now consider immigration a high priority, as uh said.
The first politician, left or right, who embraces this, is um is is is gonna win big in whatever election he seeks to run, be it the House, the Senate, or even uh the uh the presidency.
And it's you know, it's the signs are all there, and yet there doesn't seem to be the awareness in Washington yet of public sentiment on this.
Try this story.
Uh Southern Arizona officials stormed out of a meeting with top legislative Republicans Thursday, this in Arizona, after they said that House Speaker Jim Wyers insulted them.
Wires said that the insult was the other way around, calling the officials politically stupid.
The walkout ended pleas by mayors, county supervisors, sheriffs, and county attorneys, and police chiefs to be consulted as GOP leaders write a comprehensive border security measure.
They want lawmakers to drop plans to make it a state crime to be in this country in violation of federal immigrate immigration law.
The abrupt end of the talks, after about ten minutes of what was supposed to be an hour-long meeting, left both sides bitter.
Border area officials walked out of talks uh with the Republicans.
And we have a piece here.
Uh this is I'm gonna save this for after the break.
But it's a view of illegal immigration that the uh uh we shall overcome coverage.
Uh the drive-by media has neglected.
It's a piece by a man named Mark Cromer, a senior fellow at Californians for population stabilization.
And we found this at uh the Pittsburgh Tribune Review today.
What it does is calculate the cost.
Well, one of the one of the uh pro-illegal arguments is look at all the benefits that the pro-illegals are delivering here.
And uh their their the benefits uh vastly, vastly outweigh the uh uh the problems.
And Mr. Cromer has run some numbers and comes to the opposite conclusion.
I will share these numbers with you when we come back.
Who was it that ran it?
CNN saying it, Bush has a uh an announcement at 145 involving personnel, a personnel change, uh shakeup, is that what?
Uh personal or personnel.
Okay, Bush has a personnel announcement coming up at 145 and Snerley says, You don't even know anything about this.
Is it no?
I uh we'll get heads up from these people.
Uh I I would assume that uh Cheney's going to resign and Carl Rove will be named to replace him as vice president.
Welcome back.
Uh, ladies and gentlemen, we're here on Open Line Friday, a costly illegals immigration by Mark Cromer, senior writing fellow for Californians for Population Stabilization.
He begins this way it is said that in war, truth is the first casualty.
Perhaps that's why the hard facts of what's happening in America today as a result of unrelenting mass waves of illegal immigration are being killed in nightly news cycles and buried amid the glib eulogies from pundits who smirk at Americans who don't have nannies and who mow their own lawns.
For the last several weeks, Americans have witnessed a frenzied campaign waged by proponents of a guest worker plan that was downplayed, minimized, and papered over the staggering effects of illegal immigration on working and middle class Americans.
Not the least of these effects are the massive budgetary costs carried by American taxpayers who watch as the social service system designed for citizens is swamped by nationals overwhelmingly from Mexico, fearing that Americans have finally reached the breaking point.
Wall Street and country club Republicans, no-border Democrats, and Mexican nationalists have unleashed a barrage of specious figures in support of their dubious claim that illegal immigrants contribute more to America or contribute more to America than they cost.
They start by cutting in half the actual number of illegal immigrants in the nation, which serious studies by firms like Bear Stearns now place at more than twenty million men, women, and children.
School enrollments, medical treatment, remittances to home countries, and border crossings all point to a vast yet insular population whose true size advocates are loath to acknowledge.
Advocates furiously downplay the cost of this nation within a nation.
They pedal instead sugary platitudes that hold illegal immigrants or simply hardworking people who pay taxes and fuel the American economy.
Well, here are the facts.
Plainly visible to working Americans, and they tell a different story.
The estimated 1.1 million illegal immigrants currently in the nation's public school system cost taxpayers 9.6 billion every year in an attempt to educate them, despite the illegal immigrant community's epidemic scale dropout rates.
The 2.2 million children of illegal immigrants in America, often referred to as anchor babies to ensure the parents can stay, add an additional 20 billion to that tab.
In California, the 2004-2005 state budget spent 9,008 per pupil in the classroom, an estimated 425,000 illegal immigrants in the state's classrooms during that period cost taxpayers more than 4 billion, a figure that does not include the anchor baby population in the classroom.
More than 40,000 illegal immigrants jammed California's prison system in 2004, costing taxpayers one and a half billion dollars in tax dollars not reimbursed by the federal government.
In one of the cruelest jokes played on the American taxpayers, illegal immigrants are allowed to claim children living back in Mexico and qualify for the earned income tax credit, which traditionally has helped the American poor.
These numbers are just a tip of a fiscal iceberg that government officials have slammed the American ship of state into, and now they're striking up the band and rearranging the deck chairs.
Americans hear the mantra every day that without illegal immigrants working in jobs That citizens are too lazy to do, everything from a clean hotel room to a head of lettuce would skyrocket in price.
A day without a Mexican, the refrain now goes, would literally lead to the collapse of the American economy.
To the contrary, a year without the crushing weight of millions of illegal immigrants on communities and their budgets just may save the American working and middle class.
Yet there is a precious little discussion of how a family of six Mexicans living in Pomona, California, who soak up nearly $40,000 annually in taxpayer dollars just to educate their four kids, is contributing more back into the economy.
Consider even if the primary wage earner in this family gross $35,000 annually.
That's a fortune back in Mexico.
Most of that income likely to be off the books and undertaxed.
But education's only one part of the social services system meant for at-risk and in-need Americans that illegal immigrants have drilled into.
Health care costs subsidized housing are just two other areas where the crushing cost of illegal immigration is destroying the system.
No matter how much sugar the supporters of illegal immigrants use to frost the issue, Americans know what a bitter pill they have been forced to swallow.
And the closing line is this if Congress passes an amnesty this time around, it may well be they who have taken the cyanide.
And there's this interesting piece in in Time magazine, not about immigration.
It's by Massimo Calabrese.
The gas price fix that Congress won't touch.
Analysis.
Conservation is one of the few things that would actually help drive down prices at the pump.
Too bad most politicians are scared to utter the word.
It's analysis piece, not news piece.
So this guy's um columnist.
He says, in fact, there's one obvious thing Congress and the president could do, but around Capitol Hill, only a few lonely voices are willing to talk about it.
Most of them not for attribution.
You have to encourage people to conserve, says one Republican stapper.
Gasp?
Tell Americans to drive less.
You know the last time this happened.
Yeah, it's uh well, it happened before that.
It happened before but well, Jimmy Carter's probably the most recent example.
Jimmy Carter, in the midst of a contrived and phony oil shortage, told Americans to turn down the thermostats, and there became were there not federal regulations for public buildings.
Thermostats had to be lowered to sixty-eight in the daytime and uh at night much, much lower than that.
You know, that that's not what you say to Americans.
You can say as part of what we're doing to help sustain our growing economy conserve when you can, but that's not the only answer.
And these environmentalists and these leftists who have a minimalist view and an certainly a view of America as not being exceptional at all, do not contemplate whatsoever.
The idea and the necessity that this is a growing economy, and that we have to continue to do things that sustain that growth.
And conservation is not that.
You go out and you tell the American people that the solution to this problem is drive-less, especially when they're not, despite these price rises.
If some Republican gets on that bandwagon, it is going to be if especially if it's a Republican.
I can understand the Democrat doing it.
But if a Republican gets on his bandwagon responds to this kind of pressure, in Time Magazine saying, Jay, America, stop, stop complaining.
Stop, stop, you know, stop griping at us, just drive lit.
That's not going to fly.
Ladies and Bill in St. Louis as we go to the phones.
Welcome to the EIB network and open line Friday.
Hi.
Hi, Rush.
Um, yeah, you led right into what I was going to say to you.
The drive-by media should be doing stories right now that um when judges were running in Washington and had to basically get out of it because they had illegal names, um, people working for them that weren't illegal legal citizens, they should be put on a pedestal and run right through the Senate and be passed to be a judge.
Oh, it's not, it's not just judges.
And we have uh we have mentioned this.
People like Zoe Baird, where she was a forerunner.
Zoe Baird, a Clinton nominee, I think, for attorney general.
She had a nanny that she hadn't paid Social Security taxes for.
They lopped her head off.
They threw her through under the bus.
Somebody else.
Linda Schaff has ran that problem.
Um But Kimba Wood, the judge in New York, same problem.
And look at these people actually were on the cutting edge.
They were sustaining the U.S. economy.
They were causing massive economic growth with the.
Now, they they I guess they weren't paying taxes.
That could have been easily fixed, but the fact they had hired illegals was also part of the uh uh uh problem that they face.
I wonder how they feel today, given the way the uh the the debate uh as shaped by the left uh has uh taken form.
A quick timeout, folks, back and continue after this.
Well, the truth, if that's what you want, you're at the right place, Rush Limbaugh, your host for life.
With half my brain tied behind my back.
Just to make it fair, support for Congressman William Jefferson, Democrat Louisiana, began to waver within his own party yesterday as the top two House Democrats called on the Ethics Committee to launch an investigation into bribery allegations that exploded again this week in a federal court.
House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi of California, the Democratic whip Steady Hoyer of Maryland, distanced themselves from Congressman William Jefferson, Democrat Louisiana, the day after a Kentucky Biddnessman pleaded guilty in federal court to paying more than 450,000 to a company controlled by the family of Congressman William Jefferson, Democrat Louisiana, in exchange for official favors.
Congressman William Jefferson, Democrat Louisiana, has not been charged, and he has denied wrongdoing.
uh Pelosi said uh in a news conference as she stood in front of a banner that said honest leadership, open government.
In the case of Congressman William Jefferson, Democrat Louisiana, I think the Ethics Committee should investigate him.
It's his private matter, and he should be investigated because of the stories that have been in the press and the guilty plea yesterday.
I'm wondering if there had been no reporting on it.
Uh would uh she be demanding an investigation of Congressman William Jefferson, Democrat Louisiana.
Uh his friends are starting to abandon him.
His story is from the uh New Orleans Times uh picking you.
And yes, Mr. Snerdley.
Um, I don't think she's calling for any other investigation.
Well, they had to get rid of that what was it, Molhan?
Uh West Virginia, the ethics uh the chairman of Democrat, outranking Democrat on the Ethics Committee.
Yeah, had the uh that's right, the whole culture corruption thing is has just fallen apart right between their eyes.
In fact, it's a noose uh around their neck.
And that's why they have the primary concern about the Patrick Kennedy episode uh that they have.
By the way, the latest on that, CBS News reporting that the owner of the Hawk and Dove, Stuart Long, told them, I have one night manager who thinks he might have served uh Patrick Kennedy, but it's not like, hey, uh, that's Patrick Kennedy.
It was nothing like that.
But he could have been here.
Mentioned this earlier.
This is from the Wall Street Journal on the line.
U.S. support for Roe v.
Wade is at its lowest level in decades, according to a new Harris poll.
For 33 years, Harris Interactive had been measuring attitudes toward Roe versus Wade.
Uh, and and the latest telephone survey of uh 1,016 adults indicates that Roe vs.
Wade is supported by a flim 49 to 47 plurality, compared with 52% who favored the decision in 2005.
Now, I have I have told you people this is the case on this issue.
It's a 50-50 issue, and it has been a 50-50 issue for a long time.
The uh the pro abort crowd want you to think it's 8020 and has been for a long time, and uh and it's not.
So the uh it's cultural things continue to work against the uh the issues that the that the Democrats uh are uh central foundational building blocks of their coalition.
So they're they're gonna be troubled by all that.
They can sit out there and they can talk about how everybody hates Bush, and everybody hates Rums.
Oh, and by the way, I want to wait to see after what this um what this personnel announcement the president's gonna make here is scheduled in eight minutes.
But uh, you know, Rumsfell was down in Atlanta yesterday, got heckled by a guy named or get well heckled, he was asked questions by a guy named Ray McGovern.
And just as just as always happened, this guy's been turned into a media star, a media hero for speaking truth to power.
Well, we did a little research, and this McGovern guy is a left-wing fringe, nut kook.
I he's a former CIA analyst, and that that uh gives me pause as to who the hell else is still in there in the CIA.
But um, we've got we got if if i depending on what happens to this personnel announcement, we'll get to that.
Speaking of uh of uh of this, let's go to audio sound by number one and uh the uh.
Yeah, just number one here.
You remember when uh SHICOM dictator Who uh was heckled?
The media had a cow that he had lost face.
This cannot be allowed to happen in this country.
And the very day that it happened, I predicted the media would not track her down, an interviewer and pointed out that whenever a Republican is heckled, the media finds the person that celebrates them.
Here is what I actually said from April 20th.
A president of the United States or any Republican get heckled left and right, and the media will go make stars of the heckler.
And they'll track the heckler down at a town hall meeting, somebody asks a question the drive-by media loves, and that person becomes a hero.
Now, here's a woman who's had family members killed by the WHO regime.
The Chinese government.
They murder, they kill 8,000 political prisoners a year in China.
Now, how come the media is not interested in finding out everything she said?
Why don't they want to go out and find out just exactly what's happened to her and her family or her fellow worshippers?
If it were Cindy Sheehan, she would be celebrated today for showing up and having done this.
If it were Cindy Sheehan, she would be adopted, she would be embraced by the very same media that is today jumping all over this woman's case for disrupting this important visit.
Upset the feelings of President Who, the ChICOM leader.
I have an update on this now, and that is this the Fulon Gong protester whose shrill outcries disrupted President Bush's White House reception for uh Chinese leader who said yesterday that she was told not to discuss the SHICOM's gruesome practice of organ harvesting during a recent TV interview on CNN because it would disturb viewers during the dinner hour.
I didn't see any media really cover the story about why I cried out to interrupt the ceremony, said Dr. Wen Yi Wang, a journalist for the Epic Times.
Dr. Wang said she contacted several media organizations to get the word out.
She was booked for an interview on CNN.
She told talk show host Barry Farber, however, that before the show, one producer actually told me there will be no discussion about the organs.
And Farber wanted to know why.
And Dr. Wang said, well, they said it was inappropriate for the news because it was dinner time.
That's interesting.
It doesn't stop the blood and guts presentation of whatever other news that might upset people at dinner time.
I didn't want to upset Chicom President Woo.
Trumbull, Connecticut, Trisha, your next on Open Line Friday.
Hello.
Hi, Rush.
Um, I agree with uh you and all the conservative uh hosts and and most Americans on we've got to get the borders and the illegal immigration under control.
But as far as I believe you said in the recent poll, it said most Americans want to reduce legal immigration as well.
Yes, it said that.
Well, uh, I guess they're not aware of the the American birth rate is declining and uh with people retiring earlier, and if we don't have some at least moderate increase in legal immigration, people who are paying into the taxes and social security, then there will be not nearly enough to to pay the benefits, social security and medicare to those who do retire.
Well, you know, uh you are the second person that's looked that called it has looked at immigration legal or illegal as uh a mechanism for providing social security and Medicare benits for you uh benefits for you and others when uh when you when you get older.
And I I I'm I must tell you, Tricia, uh that that it sort of sends a chill up and down my spine because what it indicates is uh uh the entitlement mentality is alive and well, and then and it and it you you think that uh you need other people paying social security and so forth to uh to uh make sure your retirement's okay and the retirement of others.
Now, I understand the thinking.
I I I really do, and I know when I say this, people are gonna say easy for you to say.
But given this is to me, it's just common sense.
Given the already existing fear that there won't be enough social security or Medicare for you uh provided by the government, it's just amazing that the first thing people don't think about is I better do it for myself.
Um, no, it's not amazing, it's disappointing.
It's disappointing that that's not the first reaction people have.
Well, I know they want their money, but people want to get their money back, money that they've put into it.
I and I totally totally understand that.
But at the same time, there's the reality of retirement.
I think people are gonna be working longer anyway.
I I think retirement age, whether they officially change it or not, uh uh life is not nearly as tough on us as we think it is, and we're gonna be able to work longer and be productive longer than um than our parents and grandparents and great-great grandparents and great great great great-great grandparents were.
Uh at the same time, I think you all you need to realize that those who are saying that we have too much immigration, period.
I think it really boils down to a fear that that uh too much immigration is gonna lead to a watering down of the distinctive American culture.
I think they fear that uh mass immigration is gonna lead to balkanization.
Uh and that that's that's how I read it.
The we already have incredible limits on legal immigration.
I have given you the details of this countless times.
Uh we only allow sixty-five thousand highly educated, highly trained medical and technical immigrants in this country.
Sixty-five thousand a year, and we monitor it, we monitor it so close, and we take care that that number is not exceeded, and if it is, it's not allowed to happen.
When it comes to illegal immigration, we put up our hands, we can't stop it.
There's nothing we can do.
But we do limit immigration all the time.
65,000 on on its assert, I forget the name of the visa.
Uh, but it's specifically related to highly educated, highly trained, technical and medical professionals, because we're trying to protect that segment of our homegrown uh homegrown population.
Brief timeout, we'll be back.
Stay with us.
All right, here's a big personnel announcement.
Porter Goss is resigning as the director of the CIA.
I don't know if the president's gonna actually appear and make the announcement or if Goss is gonna speak, but that's uh that's what the announcement is.
One more thing on this Roe vs.
Wade survey that the Zogby people have out, 4947 uh adults for the procedure way, way, way, way.
I don't think this issue has been 8020 since the Supreme Court voted on it.
At any rate, uh this is an interesting story from the Associated Press.
When Tom Cruise announced that he had bought an ultrasound machine so that he could see images of his unborn child, a California lawmaker thought that the mission impossible three star had gone too far.
Democrat Assemblyman, California Democrat assemblyman Ted Lew said he feared copycat fans might run out and start buying ultrasound machines for home use, which doctors say could harm a fetus.
Now anybody catch what's interesting about that.
Do you, Mr. Snerdley?
What's interesting?
What is it?
Tell me.
Tell me.
No, I'm just telling you here that if even Democrats in liberal California are worried about harm coming to fetuses, then a woman's right to choose might in fact be in peril.
If they're gonna try to stop ultrasound machines and being stopped uh purchased or if they're they're they're against it because of harm to the fee, when's the last time you're a Democrat be concerned about that?
Here's Jay of Seattle.
Welcome to the Good morning, I think.
Fine, Jay.
Thank you.
I've got uh I I had to call you today because I'm a student of the Limbaugh Institute, and I keep coming up against the wall here.
And I've asked this question of Joe Begging to make me president.
Uh for those of you in real Linda, that's Joe Biden.
And I've asked it of uh Diane Far Ofenstein, Mary Pulyer uh Nancy Pulliernosy and Madeline Notso Bright, and I have still to this day not got an answer.
So I'm calling you Rush because the way I see it, it is the President of the United States, and I want Joe Biden to answer this question.
It is the President of the United States that pr that uh appoints the director of NSA CIA, but it is the Senate Intelligence Committee that is responsible for oversight.
Now, in the 1993 World Trade Center bombing, bad intel, they did nothing.
The FC bombings, bad intel, they did nothing.
Rwanda, they did nothing.
The Cobalt Towers, they did nothing.
Somalia, they did nothing.
The USS coal bombing, they did nothing.
75,000 trained killers being trained by Osama bin Laden in Afghanistan on their watch, and they did nothing.
Yet the American people, and including 9-11 also, they did nothing.
And these same senators that run that intelligence committee that are responsible for the oversight of these intelligence agencies, keep coming on and laying this responsibility back on the president.
And I don't care whether we're talking about Clinton or Bush.
My issue is why do the American voters, when they know that they're responsible for the oversight of these intelligence committees in 2002, 2004, and 2006, and now we're coming up on 2008.
Keep re-electing these guys.
They are the ones that are responsible for all this loss of life.
They are the ones that are responsible for bad intelligence getting to the president, because it's the president that has to take those intelligence issues and make decisions based on that, whether it's bad, good, indifferent or otherwise.
And I called you today, Rush, to explain this to me.
Well, I'll do my best.
Let me start backwards with you.
The reason these people get elected is because their elections are local.
They're either local or they're statewide.
Delaware is going to re-elect Biden and they're not and and if if he doesn't have an opponent that runs against him on the basis that he's not doing his job as a member of X committee, uh performing oversight, then nobody's gonna make the case.
Uh and and besides, you also said it, the president appoints these people, uh, and the president is considered to be the one responsible for them being in the positions that they're in.
As to the Senate and all of these committee members, I couldn't agree with you more.
Uh and it's but it's not just this the security and the intelligence, it's Katrina.
It's everything.
The it's the war in Iraq.
The people in Congress write the laws that authorize the expenditures for all these things, be it levies, be it FEMA, be it troop levels, and how much we're gonna pay for, all of these things.
They they appropriate the budgets for the security of this country for the CIA, the National Security Agency, they do it.
And yet, whenever something goes awry, they act like spectators.
They act like they didn't know.
They act like they're totally in the dark.
And the things they authorized, the things they debated, the things they voted on, they then start discussing as though who the hell did this?
Well, we're better get to the bottom of this, and given that it's an election season, they're gonna throw it all back on George W. Bush, and they're gonna blame him and exonerate themselves.
They become nothing more than spectators.
They do it when it comes to the judiciary, they do it when it comes to any number of things.
But particularly things that authorize spending.
Uh and the intelligence committees in both the House and the Senate are privy to news on does Iraq have weapons of mass destruction?
They got the same intel that Bush got.
He shares it with them, the agencies share it with them.
They act like they were lied to by Bush.
They act like they didn't know.
And sadly, they get away with this because uh a lot of people in the country assume that the president is indeed uh all powerful.
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