All Episodes
Previous Next
May 8, 2006 - Rush Limbaugh Program
37:51
May 8, 2006, Monday, Hour #1
| Copy link to current segment

Time Text
Welcome to today's edition of the Rush 24-7 podcast.
And greetings to you, thrill seekers, music lovers, conversationalists all across the bountiful fruited plane.
I am Rush Limbaugh.
We are coming to you today, one and only EIB network from Los Angeles.
They're going to be here today and tomorrow.
I got out here actually Friday and have been motoring around playing golf, going to parties, the usual things that you would expect somebody of my stature to do when in Los Angeles.
By the way, where did we get this Ditto cam?
We got a Ditto Cam up here so we could satisfy the increasing demand for all of you at rushlimbaugh.com.
But did we win this thing as the prize in a box of Cracker Jack or what?
I mean, it's tiny as it can be, but it looks good.
And we welcome all of you.
It's a different angle.
And it's, of course, we're in a different studio here, so that's why it looks a little bit different.
Great to be with you, folks.
Hope you had a great weekend.
Telephone number if you want to be on the program is 800-282-2882.
And the email address is rush at EIBnet.com.
Before we get going, since I'm talking about the website, ladies and gentlemen, you might want to get your Club Gitmo gear now because President Bush said yesterday he would like to close it.
I don't know why.
Some of the things this administration is doing today, folks, in the past week, I cannot explain why in the world you would, with all of this focus and all this attention and all this criticism, and you get a CIA guy that announced today, we'll get to that in just a second, why you would say we're going to close Club Gitmo because the Democrats want it closed and because some foreign leaders want it closed.
But he said, yeah, I'd like to close it down, but I'm waiting for a Supreme Court ruling on where suspects held there might be tried.
Now, as you know, human rights groups have accused the U.S. of mistreating Gitmo detainees through cruel interrogation methods.
A charge, of course, denied by the U.S. government.
It just keeps recycling.
And from a, you know, we talk about this a lot, public relations standpoint, it's baffling to me.
Why this kind of response to critics when it's not going to make any difference whatsoever?
It's like this, the announcement of the new CIA director, Mr. Hayden, General Hayden.
I mean, the debate that's going on, the media has had a tizzy today.
All day Friday, when it was rumored that he would be the new guy, and today, when he was made the new guy, everybody's debating whether he should be at the CIA because he's in the military.
That is as stupid as anything gets.
We've had presidents who served in the military.
We've had secretaries of state who served in the military, Colin Powell most recently.
We've had secretaries of defense who served in the military.
It's Rumsfeld.
The issue is not whether somebody served in the military.
The issue is whether the guy's going to shake up the place, not whether he served in the military.
Everybody reports to the president anyway.
That's not the real problem here.
In fact, do you remember the name Stansfield Turner, ladies and gentlemen?
He was Jimmy Carter's director of the CIA.
Not a distinguished one in a lot of people's minds, but I mean, his title was Admiral, Stansfield Turner, military guy.
All of a sudden now, when Bush names a military guy, the Democrat, you can't put a military focusing all this power in the Pentagon.
It's garbage.
There are two things that really need to be pointed out about this.
Number one is we've got this whole new bureaucracy that's headed up by John Negro Ponte, the national intelligence, whatever it is.
And the CIA is now going to have to report to that.
We've just got another layer of bureaucracy.
And we all know what happens when bureaucracies expand and grow.
They become less efficient.
The second thing about this guy, Hayden, or anybody else being appointed is the confirmation hearings.
And there's, you know, there are people on both sides of this.
Some people afraid of these confirmation hearings because it will attract Republicans who also want to raise questions about the NSA foreign surveillance program.
The Democrats call it domestic spying.
But I've thought about this.
I actually am looking forward to these hearings.
If you have, and we've got soundbites of Nancy Pelosi on the Meet the Press yesterday, and the Washington Post had a story.
Yes, Democrats have already won.
They're back.
They go back and forth.
They won.
They haven't won.
They're going to win.
But they're back full.
In fact, they're calling her Speaker Pelosi.
And they're already announcing their agenda at what they're going to do, how they're going to investigate Bush, what policies they're going to implement.
Like the first thing they're going to do is raise the minimum wage.
Yip, yip, yip, yip, yahoo.
So anyway, they're back in this mode.
And I think you bring up this decorated general and you start trashing him on because he's a big believer.
He ran the National Security Agency.
He was a huge believer in that whole program, the foreign surveillance program, which the Democrats again call domestic spying.
And if they bring this guy up and if the Democrats want to go on display, once again, attacking an Air Force man, a military man who's making it plain that he views his job, number one, the defense and the security of this country in their already one everything mode, they could shoot themselves in the foot.
And I think they're going to do that anyway.
Folks, you never think you've won something before you've won it.
You never think you have something before you have it.
It affects your attitude.
And this is arrogance on display, along with a little condescension.
And I know that the Republicans are not doing a whole lot to recommend themselves lately, but the Democrats certainly aren't either.
And there's dissension in their ranks among their base.
Yesterday, the Washington Post actually, it is stunning to watch the drive-by media operate.
The Washington Post actually on their Outlook section, the op-ed page on Sunday, had a column by this guy, this fringe kook that runs the Daily Cause.
I don't know how you pronounce it, doesn't matter how it's pronounced.
It's the Bible of the fringe kook left blogosphere.
The guy's got a book out.
Once he sold 5,000 copies of his book, and he's writing an op-ed in the Washington Post attempting to explain what the Democratic Party base thinks.
And it's all about how Hillary is not the answer for them.
And unless she changes and comes around, why they're not going to support her.
And he does point out that, you know, not one Democrat, including De Schlikmeister, has gotten over 50% of the vote since 1976.
And they've not even come close.
You know, 43 is what Clinton got in his first year, and I think 47 in his second go-round.
So anyway, you know, we've got what else we have coming up on the program with all of that.
Oh, and Houston, Houston, Texas, upset.
Their crime rate is skyrocketing out there because of the Katrina evacuees.
They think their crime rate and their murder rate would have actually gone down, but it's up.
And I, ladies and gentlemen, as America's anchorman, will explain all of this to you.
We got a lot to do today, plus your phone call.
So sit tight.
We'll come back in just a second, take a run through with the audio sound bites.
A lot of good ones.
As I say, Nancy Pelosi on Meet the Press yesterday was, well, you just wait and hear if you didn't hear it.
It's the EIB Network and El Rushboat, and we'll be right back after this.
America's anchorman, America's truth detector, the doctor of democracy, Rush Limbaugh, behind the golden EIB microphone from secretly located, very secure bunkers and studios in Los Angeles.
800-282-2882 is the number, if you would like to be on the program people.
What are you doing out there?
Do I have to have a reason, folks?
I went to the email.
So what do you do?
What does it matter?
Do I have to have a reason why I am anywhere?
Now the audience demanding explanation.
Why are you in LA?
If you must know, as you know, I have a cochlear implant, and it was implanted by a superb surgeon at the House Ear Institute.
And they're having their 60th anniversary celebration, dinner, party, blast, whatever, tomorrow night at a private home in a very exclusive section of an unnamed part of this town, okay?
And I was invited to go.
And so I decided to come out here on Friday, play some golf with some friends.
I did that Saturday.
I did that Sunday.
I'm doing that this afternoon.
I'm going to dinner with the 24 guys tonight, had dinner with them last night.
I had about three hours' sleep.
What else can I tell you?
I hope, as I'm looking at, I got to go to Dallas on Thursday.
We get back into Los Angeles from Los Angeles Wednesday morning at 7.
So I hope I can sleep on the plane going back because I'm leaving the House Ear Institute party, going to the airport, getting on a plane flying back.
I got to go to Dallas on Thursday for a rush to excellence performance.
I'm looking forward to Sunday to get some sleep.
Now, I don't mean to sound irritated about this, folks, but what are you doing in L.A.?
Why aren't you in L.A.?
Is everything okay?
Everything couldn't be better, folks.
In fact, I shouldn't tell you this.
Well, I went to dinner on Saturday night.
And after dinner, the person I had dinner with said, I want to take you for a ride in my car.
It's one of these little two-seat roadster things.
And I said, I don't know.
It's awfully small.
I'm used to riding in cars that weigh at least 6,000 pounds and get eight miles to the gallon.
Person, oh, no, come on and do it.
And got in the car, says, let's go down Wilshire Boulevard.
I want to pretend we're in a video game.
Start zooming in and out of traffic as though we were in a video game.
Top down.
It was cold.
That was about in the 50s or something.
Had the heat seat, the heat seater on.
The seat heater was on.
So no, it's been a tremendous amount of fun out here.
We got out and set up the studio here.
Brian is here.
Dawn's here.
Snurdly is not here because we don't need him.
But the whole gang is here.
We're just having a blast.
Try this, folks, ladies and gentlemen.
Just got this story from Boulder City, Nevada.
One of the biggest, or Nevada, one of the biggest jackpots in Nevada may not be a casino.
Residents of Boulder City could vote on a plan to make every man, woman, and child there a millionaire.
An initiative that could be on the November ballot calls for the city to sell 167 square miles of undeveloped open land in one of the hottest real estate markets in the country.
The properties about 25 miles southeast of Las Vegas.
The ballot measure would require the city to distribute the billions to the 15,000 people that live in Boulder City.
Now, it's too late to move there.
The only people who lived in Boulder City as of March 31st would qualify.
However, residents shouldn't start counting their millions just yet because city officials said they intend to fight the forced land sale initiative in court.
What is this sort of like reverse eminent domain?
Imagine that.
But who would want to be a real estate agent in this town?
I mean, there wouldn't be much reason to buy a house since the March 31st deadline's passed.
And only a fool would be only a fool would sell their house now to move out before this issue is settled, before they might become a millionaire.
I don't know if there's going to be much action of real estate at all if this thing actually happens.
All right, let's go to the audio soundbites.
We'll start on this Hayden business, Mike Hayden, General Mike Hayden, CIA director.
Bush takes it right to his Republican critics in his opening remarks today about this.
Mike knows our intelligence community from the ground up.
He has been both a provider and a consumer of intelligence.
He's overseen the development of both human and technological intelligence.
He has demonstrated an ability to adapt our intelligence services to the new challenges of the war on terror.
He's the right man to lead the CIA at this critical moment in our nation's history.
There are a lot of Republicans out there not happy about this, but it's not because it's military business, not because they've got to have a general over to the CIA.
There's nothing wrong with that, especially when the Democrats do it.
But what people are upset about, I think, on the Republican side is that he's a techno guy.
He doesn't know anything about human intelligence or has not overseen any of that.
Bush said that's not true.
He has.
This statement that Bush made was actually made to Republicans who have spoken out against this nomination.
Here is General Mike Hayden himself, part of his accepting the nomination today.
In the confirmation process, I look forward to meeting with leaders of the Congress, better understanding their concerns, and working with them to move the American intelligence community forward.
This is simply too important not to get absolutely right.
To the men and women of the Central Intelligence Agency, if I'm confirmed, I would be honored to join you and work with so many people.
Stop the tape here a second.
What I wish he would have said, and I know he won't say it, but I wish he would have said, and to the men and women of the Central Intelligence Agency, whichever one of you, however many of you, any of you, all of you who are leaking and trying to destroy the policies of this administration, I'm going to find you and I'm going to leak you out of here.
I hope that's actually what he's going to do.
Resume the tape there, Oldemont.
Your achievements are frequently underappreciated and hidden from the public eye.
Yeah.
But you know what you do to protect the Republic.
And you know what you're not doing to.
There's a lot, a lot not said here.
You know what you're not doing to protect the Republic.
This guy is going to go in there, folks.
He's going to have horns painted on his head.
He's not going to be popular over there.
Apparently, he's got the potential to be even tougher than Porter Goss was in trying to clean the place out.
Let's move on to audio soundbite number four.
This is Joe Biden with Chris Wallace on Fox News Sunday yesterday.
Wyden is asked this question.
Biden's asked this question.
Senator, I'd like to get your reaction to the resignation of Porter Goss, the apparent nomination of General Mike Hayden.
I was surprised by Porter's resignation.
It's not surprising that there is a lot of turmoil at CIA.
He was not the most popular figure there.
I'll not comment on whether or not it was justified or not, but I was surprised.
And I think the chairman of the House Committee made a pretty strong statement about the concerns of the agency and whether or not they're about to be, quite frankly, just gobbled up by the Defense Department and whether Hayden would, in fact, be that agent or not remains to be seen.
But the fact is, that's with the concern.
Yeah, the CIA is going to be gobbled up by the Defense Department.
Go back to Cut Three.
This is David Ensor.
A little montage of his comments on CNN about the nomination of Mike Hayden.
I have to tell you that of all the generals in Washington, this is probably Donald Rumsfeld's least favorite general.
This is not Donald Rumsfeld's favorite general.
So if the Pentagon is going to be taking over intelligence here, it's hard to see how this is going to happen because it'll be a turf band.
It's absurd anyway.
Democrats just trying to stoke all these fears of the military running everything.
And it's, you know, whether somebody's good at doing their job is all that should matter here.
And note that it has nothing to do with that.
The Democrats criticizing this guy have nothing to say about whether he'll be any good or not.
It's, is this a takeover of intelligence by the military?
Apparently, if a takeover of intelligence by John Negro Ponty, if you want to know the truth.
Now, let's go to Miss America.
We cannot, ladies and gentlemen, go through this without listening to a woman who would be the Speaker of the House, and they're already calling her that.
If the Democrats do win the midterms in 08, she's on with Tim Russert, or 06.
Tim Russert says, you think Porter Goss left voluntarily?
No.
He's been on his way out for at least one month because of the struggle between him and Mr. Negro Ponty.
But I think that this dismissal was triggered by what's been happening on the scandal front for the Republicans with the third in command who was hired by Mr. Goss to be involved in these card games and whatever else it was.
But you have no evidence of that.
I have no thought that Mr. Goss is caught up in any of this, no.
Well, then why did you say he has quit because of it?
A woman is an embarrassment.
They have to know this.
But they don't.
If they do, they're not doing.
Actually, folks, I do have in today's stack of stuff, I do have somewhere one of these stacks that there is stories about it's an American spectator blurb today, where the Democrats are really, some of them get it, the problem that they have with Pelosi.
Now, what she's talking about here, she has to push this scandal business because she can't get off of the fact that they wanted to make a deal out of the so-called culture of corruption.
She said, I think this dismissal was triggered by what's been happening on the scandal front for the Republicans with the third in command who was hired by Mr. Goss to be involved in these card games and whatever else it was.
This stuff hit over the weekend.
The number three guy was actually playing.
It's all related to Duke Cunningham.
There were poker games and expensive cigars being smoked in a Watergate apartment or something.
And apparently, there are prostitutes involved in this.
They were sent over there, and it's all part of this defense contractor that's tied up with Cunningham.
So Pelosi is alluding to that.
And Goss was said in one of these stories to have been playing poker and smoking expensive cigars like mine as though it's some kind of crime.
And she ties him into this.
And you have no evidence of that, Russ.
Oh, no, no.
I have no thought that Mr. Goss is caught up in any of it.
Well, you just said that he was, and that's why he resigned.
Woman is a glittering jewel of colossal ignorance.
She's just insofar over her head, and I don't think she even knows.
We have one more Pelosi bite, and then a Republican and Arlen Speck, two Republicans, Peter Hookstra and Arlen Specht.
We'll get to all that after this brief timeout EIB obscene profit break.
Half my brain tied behind my back, folks, just to make it fair.
800-282-2882 is the phone number.
We'll be getting your phone calls here in just a second.
Back to the audio soundbites, Nancy Pelosi.
And this is not the good Pelosi stuff.
I'm going by topic here today, not person.
So we'll get to Pelosi and the Democrats plan to take over and what they're all going to do in just a second here.
But first, Russert says, Ms. Pelosi, you've expressed concerns about the eavesdropping program, but you wouldn't end the program, would you?
I believe that, again, our Congress and our president must have the best possible intelligence.
And it's possible to do that under the law.
You would end the existing program.
No, I wouldn't end the existing program.
Well, then be quiet.
If you wouldn't end the existing program and no Democrat has called for the existing program to end, and yet you watch when the hearings for Mike Hayden start, that's what they're going to focus on.
And it could go either way.
It depends on what the Republicans do.
But I think there is a political upside to this.
If the nation and the Democrat, the cameras will be on this.
They can't wait, folks.
They're going to try to uncover as much of what they think this president's done in secret as they can in these hearings.
And Mike Hayden's dissent looks to me, sounds to me like a guy that is up to it, can handle it.
And if the Democrats want to go on display, and I think they're entirely capable of it, they're arrogance such they think they've already won the elections in November.
And by definition, the White House in 08, if they want to put their passion for exposing this nation to further terrorist attack by weakening programs that would help us learn when and if future attacks are slated.
If they want to do that, if they want to just put this military man who will be there in his uniform, who's going to be talking about protecting the country and national security, and if they want to try to make this guy look like the enemy, then I think let them go.
I can't imagine that they'll be stupid enough.
Yes, they will.
I can totally imagine it.
This NSA program is a classic example.
Pelosi wouldn't end it.
No Democrat would, but they want to impeach Bush over it.
Now, the two Republicans, this from Fox News Sunday, Congressman Peter Hookstra, chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, and a question.
The big question today, of course, is who's going to be the new CIA chief?
You think you'll get the job?
Of course, he did.
Two, is Mike Hayden the right guy?
I've got a lot of respect for Mike Hayden.
I think he's done a very good job in the positions that he's had.
He's got a distinguished career.
Bottom line, I do believe he's the wrong person, the wrong place, at the wrong time.
We should not have a military person leading a civilian agency at this time.
Why not?
What am I not getting here?
It's okay when the Democrats nominate Stansfield Turner.
He was an admiral.
It's okay when Democrats nominate military people to serve in these.
I don't understand the Republicans on this and a lot of things.
Now it's Specter's turn.
Chris Wallace says, what's your reaction to the apparent nomination of General Hayden?
I believe that his nomination will give us an opportunity to try to find out about what the program is.
Chris, Congress has relatively limited leverage on the White House on exercising our constitutional authority for oversight.
Now, with General Hayden up for confirmation, this will give us an opportunity to try to find out.
If the Senate has a mind to assert its constitutional prerogatives here, then we could use this for leverage to find out.
Goody, goody.
I sit here with a lot of hope, and I sit here with a lot of experience.
And I just have a feeling that the president is not afraid of these hearings on this NSA thing.
In fact, I think he might be looking forward to it.
And I think that may be one of the reasons that Mike Hayden has been nominated because he ran the NSA, that the agency's spying on Americans, quote unquote.
I have always thought, I've always thought that the president would look forward to any hearings into this NSA program because I think that they in the White House think it's a slam-dunk win.
And if you look at the polling data, and everybody in Washington, especially in a year like this, does, the polling data clearly has the American people understanding the need for the program and supporting it.
It's one of the curious things about why the Democrats have taken their position since they are so attuned to polling as well.
More on this Porter Goss business.
Dusty Fogo is the executive director of the CIA, the number three in command that Nancy Pelosi referred to.
And he is the executive director to link to a bribery investigation.
It's expected that he will resign soon, according to CIA officials and his associates.
The outgoing director, Porter Goss, had refused to remove Dusty Fogo from his powerful post after Fogo.
Sounds like he's a hobbit.
Dusty Fogo.
Anyway, came under investigation by the FBI, the CIA Inspector General.
So he's soon to be history.
Here's a night in New Orleans.
I'm glad you called.
You're up first today on the EIB network.
Nice to have you with us.
Oh, thanks, Rush.
This is great.
Get an opportunity to talk to you about the crime rate in New Orleans going down and the crime rate in Houston going up.
No, no, Crime rate in Houston was supposed to.
Wait a minute.
Did you mean to say that the crime rate in New Orleans is going down?
Yes, the crime rate in New Orleans is going down.
The crime rate in Houston has gone up.
That's right.
That's right.
Okay, I'm sorry.
I thought you misunderstood my first story.
You were talking about Houston.
No, I apologize.
Go ahead and make your point.
Okay, well, in fact, the people in New Orleans are so happy that our crime rate is going down that we have bumper stickers on our cars that say thanks, Houston.
Houston is not happy, Knight.
Houston's not happy, but we've learned something about.
Once again, we've learned something.
Is there something else you wanted to add before I get on to this story about Houston?
Okay, go ahead.
Yeah, if I could.
The cops in New Orleans and in Houston know that it's just a handful of hardened career criminals that are doing most of the murders and robberies and the violent crime.
In fact, one of them from New Orleans goes by the street name of Be Stupid.
And the crime rate in Houston shot up over one weekend, and the crime rate in New Orleans dropped.
And he was seen in Houston and linked to about a dozen murders.
Well, then suddenly he was seen in New Orleans again, and our crime rate went up, but he was caught by the police here in New Orleans.
But Be Stupid didn't do too well.
But bottom line is we thank Houston for taking our criminal element, and we feel sorry for him, but New Orleans is better off.
I hear the sympathy in your voice.
You say you feel sorry for him, but I really hear a smile on your face.
Let's look at this from Houston's perspective.
This is a story today from actually was a couple days ago from the Houston Chronicle.
Violence among Hurricane Katrina evacuees, much of it coming in southwest Houston neighborhoods, targeted at a new anti-crime campaign, accounted for nearly a quarter of homicides.
That'd be 25% for those of you in Rio Linda, so far in the city this year.
Since January 1st, police have investigated 124 homicides, 29 of which involved evacuees as victims or attackers.
There were 103 homicides over the same period last year without the evacuee-related deaths this year.
The city says that they would have experienced a 7.8% decrease, not just in crime.
We're talking homicides here.
In the last four months of 2005, evacuees were victims or suspects in 18 homicides, accounting for 13% of such crimes during that period.
There were a total of 336 killings investigated last year, representing a 22% increase over 2004.
The police captain, Dale Brown, who is of the Houston Police Department, said, yeah, as it relates to murders, there's a definite Katrina effect, and it's most noticeable since December.
All right, now, let me put this in perspective for you.
You had Texans, Houstonians, extend the hand of friendship and charity to literally thousands of Katrina refugees, and now they're getting hammered. by the people that fled New Orleans.
The city is now lamenting the murder rate would have actually declined had it not been for the refugees running it up.
Now, here's what we're seeing, folks.
One of the things, and I know this is going to irritate some of you in New Orleans, and I'm sorry, but it's the truth.
After Hurricane Katrina, and there was such misery and there was such suffering, we were all stunned because New Orleans has been run by Democrats.
Louisiana has been run by Democrats for decades.
Liberal Democrats to boot, New Orleans should have been a utopia.
There should not have been any racism because liberals don't believe in it.
Should not have been any unemployment because liberals don't like that.
Everybody should have been earning lots of money because liberals support paying people more than the minimum wage.
There shouldn't have been any discrimination because liberals are not racists.
There shouldn't have been any poverty because liberals won't tolerate it.
They have a war on power.
And yet, what did we find?
We found it was the exact opposite.
We had a microcosm, a model of exactly what unchecked liberalism does.
It creates destitution.
It creates hopelessness.
It creates a mess.
Such a mess they couldn't even save some of the people who were there and get them out of town, even though they had the mechanism and the advance warning to do it.
So this is what happens when you take a government-dependent, crime-ridden neighborhood and relocate it to another city.
Shalzam, you get the same thing.
You can take people out of the city, but you can't take the city out of the people and the way they've been raised, the way that they have been coddled by government and so forth.
So now Houston has a problem here.
And if something like this happens in the future, will any other city be as eager to offer assistance if the likelihood is that a similar group of people are going to be your new inhabitants?
Lisa in New Orleans, welcome to the EIB Network.
Great to have you with us.
Hey, Rush.
Well, you couldn't be more right.
I'm not used to that.
Yeah, thank you.
But what I wanted to also add that really I haven't heard much reporting on, we've lost so many of our best and best Houston.
We've lost the heads of our companies, medium, small.
We just, there's been a brain drain that has gone over there as well.
So New Orleans is still very broken, and we need a lot of workers, but a lot of our very best are there.
Yeah, I know.
It's coming back slowly.
It's coming, in fact, coming slower than I thought it would.
I thought the rebuilding process, this is not be critical of anybody.
I just, I thought the rebuilding process had been going along a little faster than it is.
I want to invite you to come visit us.
We still have great food, and I think if you would come here, that would give us a huge, not only a monetary boost, but an emotional boost.
And so I'd love to invite you to come visit anytime.
What are we going to do?
I'll take you to the best restaurants in New Orleans.
You'll have so much fun.
I mean, it's wonderful.
My husband and I would love to host you.
Would you?
Well, that's awfully sweet of you.
And I'm flattered that you think trips into New Orleans by people like me could provide a boost or actually help in whatever way.
That's nice of you to say.
I don't even think it.
I know it.
I know.
You would just be, you can feel, you could feel it in the air if you would come.
Well, yeah, I can understand that.
I mean, I have that kind of aura, that kind of charisma and electricity.
I understand that.
But in terms of having it spur on the recovery, that's what I'm having trouble visualizing.
But it's worth putting it to the test.
You never know.
Well, you come and we'll test it out, and I guarantee you will get good results.
Well, you're the second or third person that's mentioned this to me, and I will seriously consider this.
Thank you very much.
I want to warn you, though, Lisa, I have tried this in two other depressed areas, both out in Sacramento.
West Sacramento was having trouble in Rio Linda, of course.
And I offered when I lived out there to move to both places if they would name the town Limbaugh, California.
And they, as I said, property values are skyrocketing.
You have all kinds of people want to move in.
We'll get the cars off the concrete blocks in the front yard.
We'll get the garbage picked up.
And all I was just name it Limbaugh, California.
They wouldn't do it.
So I didn't go.
And West Sac's doing okay, but Riolinda is still Rio Linda, and it's always going to be Riolinda, despite the efforts to help.
So it's not automatic.
Jonathan of Wayne, New Jersey, welcome to the EIB Network.
You're next.
Hello.
Hey, Rush.
Mega Dittos from New Jersey and from a former F-15 pilot.
Ah, thank you, sir, very much.
Great to have you with us.
I love history of all kinds, particularly military history.
And what's just galling me is that the head of the OSS, the predecessor of the CIA, was started with an Army Reserve Colonel, Bill Donovan, but he was a Democratic activist, and there was no accusation that the military was trying to take over the CIA.
When Truman canceled the OSS and restarted the CIA, it was with a Navy admiral at the head, Admiral Hillencrofter.
Oh, yes, Admiral Hillencrofter.
When he failed to predict the communist invasion, he was replaced by an Army general, General Beatles Smith, who was Eisenhower's chief of staff.
Right.
So military people at the head of the CIA, and as you also mentioned, the admiral appointed by President Carter, there's no trouble.
It's only when a Republican appoints a military man that all of a sudden the military's trying to take over the CIA.
Or the military is trying to take over everything.
Remember, it fits a pattern that they've established.
The one thing that's been great about these last five or six years, in one sense, is that Democrats have told everybody who they are.
They have, in the past, they used to try to disguise their disgust for the military.
They tried to disguise their disgust for a number of institutions and traditions in America, but they've made no bones about it now.
They've let it be known.
They don't trust, and they don't even like the military.
They consider it a problem.
Got to get rid of Rumsfeld.
Got to get rid of Rice.
Got to get rid of anybody that they think has anything to do with any of the war on terror or the war in Iraq.
Everybody lied, phony intelligence and so forth.
And so when a military man like Mike Hayden is named the potential CIA director, they've already established a pattern.
They have no choice but to go in and keep sounding the clarion warning bells about how dangerous it is to have the military in charge of anything.
I'm sorry, Rush, they're afraid of him because he's actually done something with the foreign intercept program.
They loved the appointee Stansfield Turner because after the church commission, when they emasculated the CIA, he did nothing.
Yeah, went along with it, in fact.
So if it's a Democrat appointee, they love it.
If it's a Republican appointee, especially with someone with a track record of getting something done to protect our country, they hate him.
The military's taking it over.
That is true.
In fact, I think that point needs to be made over and over again.
The reason that they're all up in arms about Hayden and the reason they're all up in arms about Rumsfeld, these people are good.
They're effective.
They achieve what they set out to achieve, which is not the things that the Democrats want to achieve themselves.
I mean, the Democrats believe in this notion that it's dangerous for us to be a superpower.
And folks, it's a precarious time.
They're willing to wreck any institution or tradition in this country in order to get their power back.
And this NSA program, the foreign intelligence and foreign surveillance program, is crucial.
The fact that they want to tear this, well, they don't want to stop it.
They don't want to tear it down, but they're trying to make everybody think that Bush is the guy spying on everybody in America just because he gets his jollies doing it.
They've never advanced one theory as to what in the world Bush would be spying on people about.
It's just, it's silly, but it's an excellent point.
It's because Hayden will probably be effective.
But I have to tell you, I've done a lot of reading on this this morning, and there's some people on our side of the aisle who don't think he's going to be effective, who don't think he's the right man at the right time for the right job because of the military business.
And one of the things that if you look at Ohio, if I may make a point here, we look at the Republican Party in Washington, and we see it floundering.
We see it not able to make up its mind on the right thing to do on immigration or any number of issues.
We see Republicans doing everything they can to distance themselves from the president, except when it's time to fundraise.
And last week, I mean, if the Republicans actually want to help themselves, there's two things they can do.
They can start talking about and then governing when they win conservatism again.
Now, the president does not lead a conservative movement.
He is conservative in some things, but he's more a politician.
Reagan led a conservative movement.
Every speech Ronald Reagan made, there was an effort to define the conservative movement and to expand it and to inspire people to join it.
And that's all.
I didn't.
Oh, my friends, I have just been informed I committed an egregious error, and I have to fix that error right now.
Folks, the egregious error was I forgot our 42 commercial break 42 minutes after the first hour.
And so we just played that one 10 minutes late.
So we got to do the next one now.
I'm terribly sorry.
We've not added commercials.
It just sounds like it.
Relax.
Okay, folks, that's it.
We'll be back and continue right after this top of the hour break.
▲
Export Selection