All Episodes
Previous Next
June 2, 2006 - Rush Limbaugh Program
36:35
June 2, 2006, Friday, Hour #1
| Copy link to current segment

Time Text
Welcome to today's edition of the Rush 24-7 podcast.
Thank you.
Thank you, Don, for the email.
Don't trying to sell me on a sauna.
A two-person sauna.
Yeah.
Oh, what a day this is shaping up to be.
Hiya, folks.
Broadcast excellence, all yours.
The next three hours, Rush Limbaugh, EIB Network.
It's Friday.
Let's go.
Live from the Southern Command in Sunny South Florida.
It's open line Friday.
Very simply, ladies and gentlemen.
Here are the rules on open line Friday.
We go to the phones.
The program's all yours.
We uh we get rid of most of our screening restrictions on Friday and uh allow if you want to talk about something that hasn't been discussed.
If you want to talk about something I don't care about, that's okay too.
Monday through Thursday, we don't permit that.
You have to talk about something I care about, or you don't get on the show.
But on Friday we waive the rule.
A great career risk.
Turning over the program when we go to the phones to rank amateurs, but I am up to it.
In fact, I look forward to it.
800-282-2882 and the email address rush at EIB net.com.
All right, kill the music.
Before we get going with the uh rest of the program, ladies and gentlemen, need to inform you of something.
Two days ago we had a caller on this program, the last caller of the day, claiming to be Lieutenant Colonel Luke Fitzpatrick of the 336th Tactical Air Wing based out of Talil Air Force Base in Baghdad.
He had uh called in earlier and dropped off and then called back.
Um Screener did not bother to get his phone number in an effort to uh possibly call him back because he claimed he was calling from Baghdad.
Uh nevertheless, we received a call from a public affairs officer for Seymour Johnson Air Force Base right after the program uh where the 336th Tactical Air Wing was said by the caller to be based.
Uh the public affairs officer for Seymour Johnson Air Force Base said that Lieutenant Colonel Luke Fitzpatrick didn't exist, does not exist, and asked us to uh stop airing or put up uh any information about him because they were getting calls.
This uh this man's call was very powerful, and and uh uh uh they were getting calls about his appearance, and uh people were wanting more information on Lieutenant Colonel Luke Fitzpatrick.
Uh after all this, we got hold of the uh we Pentagon.
We called the press office of the Air Force of the Pentagon, uh, and we we sp we uh spoke to uh Sergeant DeLeon.
Said there was no one with the name Luke Fitzpatrick, though it might be a nickname for him.
However, he said there is no 336th tactical air wing in theater in Iraq.
In fact, the word tactical has been dropped altogether from current vernacular.
The only uh the only one he showed based in Talil Air Force Base now was the 407th Air Expeditionary, uh, per his uh latest information.
So the caller identifying himself as Luke Fitzpatrick, Lieutenant Colonel 336 Tactical Air Wing cannot be identified by anybody in the United States military.
Now there's a number of ways to play this, ladies and gentlemen.
What, Mr. Sturdley?
What?
The way to play it, we could go to Dan Rather route.
We go to Dan Ratherot's.
Well, uh nobody's proved that what he said was wrong, and so we're gonna stand by what he said.
Nobody can nobody can find fault with what the man identifying himself as Luke Fitzpatrick said, so we're gonna stick with it.
Nobody's been able to challenge the veracity of his comments.
They say he didn't exist, but clearly he was somebody.
Um we don't seriously, we don't know if uh he genuinely is a member of the Air Force and was trying to hide his identity and using a fake name and giving some uh incorrect information just to protect it.
We have no clue.
All we can tell you is that the Air Force uh says and the military says he doesn't there's nobody about that name.
Um and that that the 336th tactical air wing based out of Talil uh Is not called tactically.
In fact, they're not even there.
That's the 407th Air Expeditionary for the military.
Then the other option we have is do we believe the military.
The man did have some very pointed things to say.
The man was very uh whatever he means, whoever he is, he had some very, very point like let us go.
Turn us loose, let us out of the cages and do what we came here to do.
Uh so who do we believe here?
Who do we believe?
Do we believe the military?
Do we believe the caller?
And what do we do with the message?
I mean, the message that the caller had was profound.
Everybody was moved by it.
Um in this case, folks, we we we just passing on the information that uh that we're getting it.
One of the things I've always said, uh, when I have callers on the air that I don't trust, uh I think I'm being scammed one way or the other, uh, or even uh if if I do believe somebody, you know, anybody can call the talk show and say anything.
Uh and despite the best screening techniques that exist in modern era broadcasting, and they are here on this program.
Uh number of people uh, if you want, can get through and scam, so you have to be dubious uh of about it in uh just in a normal yeah, well, not dubious, but but you have to be uh constantly on alert.
But I, you know, I wanted to pass this information uh on to you because uh we did get calls from uh the military uh because they were getting calls from a lot of you in this audience.
So uh just to repeat what they said, there is no Lieutenant Colonel Luke Fitzpatrick anywhere in the records of the United States Air Force at the Pentagon, and uh the identifiers he gave do not hold up with deployments that are actually uh taking place uh in uh Iraq and at Talil Air Force base.
Now we move on to the uh uh rest of the program.
It is there's just some amazing, amazingly uh ironic and funny things happening out there.
New York is still in a tizzy, and Peter King, Congressman from Long Island, is threatening.
He's he is going to probe the reports of orgies at the CIA if this money is not restored to New York.
Homeland Security Chairman Peter King lashing out at fellow Republicans in Washington after the Chertoff uh announcement that he was cutting anti-terrorism funding for New York City by 40 percent.
He warned yesterday morning, unless those cuts are restored, he is going to launch an investigation to what he called orgies involving CIA agents at the Watergate Hotel.
Uh the New York Post uh has another uh uh great headline today, going postal, mail blitz versus terror fund fool.
Uh that's Cherdoff.
Uh Hillary and Peter King have come up with a plan.
They're gonna send, they're gonna flood shirt off with postcards, picture postcards of uh tourist attractions, i.e., terrorist targets in New York City, uh, with such catchy phrases as wish you were here, uh well, as an attempt to um uh raise consciousness about this.
Uh others are saying, you know, this is the wrong way to go about this.
If we want to, if we want to restore the funding or at least a part of it, we don't call a guy in charge of it names.
We don't start calling him idiots, and Chernoff's holding his ground.
Church, hey, you know, if I what kind of a director would I be if I caved at every complaint that I got?
We we did this with a dual matrix analysis system.
Dual matrix, what is this?
Bureaucrat ease.
What is a dual matrix?
It got targets or not.
The New York Post has this story headlined, Blessed Omaha, oh my god, and it's by David K. Lee, L.I. is his name.
Post correspondent.
He sent him to Omaha to investigate terrorist targets uh in uh in uh in Omaha.
Here's the lead.
Uh local officials insisted yesterday they need terror money to protect Nebraskans, but Hayseeds on the streets here said they're not the least bit worried about an attack.
Omaha's uh tallest building, or outside Omaha's tallest building, the 45-floor, 634-foot first National Bank building.
Citizens of the Cornhusker State said they don't consider themselves prime terror targets.
First thing I thought was, is this uh Omaha's funding increase really necessary, said Sherry Bollinger, 33 merchant account specialist.
Uh Wouldn't terrorists more likely hit the coast?
It doesn't seem like there'd be much danger here.
Bollinger said the region's booming crystal meth drug trade along the I-80 corridor represents a greater threat to Nebraskans than Al-Qaeda.
hayseeds on the street here.
I just...
There's nothing better than this.
And there's even more.
Listen to this.
Yesterday morning, New York State controller Alan Hevesy uh spoke to over 8,000 students during the Queen's College commencement ceremony, and he was attempting to praise uh fellow Democrat, Senator Chuck Schumer.
We really feel bad for poor Chuck.
United States Senator.
The man who uh how do I phrase this diplomatically?
Well put a bullet between the president's eyes if uh if he could get away with it.
And there was applause.
Well, you know, naturally there was uh there was some controversy over this yesterday afternoon, Alan Hevisy called a news conference to apologize to President Bush and to Senator Schumer.
I made a remarkably stupid um incredibly moronic, totally offensive statement, and I am uh abjectly apologetic for the uh uh level of stupidity uh which that comment reflected and the offense it may have given.
Damn it, I wanted to speak the truth, and I did speak the truth, but damn it, I didn't get away with it.
Uh but I meant I didn't mean to say it, but I did mean to say it.
How do you not mean to say something like that?
And now and and how do you how how do you preface saying that by saying, how do I be diplomatic?
If that's diplo speak, bring it on.
And so Schumer had to get in on the act as well.
The bottom line is simple.
Controller Hevesy was trying to make a point.
He went way too far.
Really?
What he said was wrong and inappropriate.
Yeah.
He has apologized to me and to President Bush.
Yes.
And I believe that should end this matter.
Yeah, well, you know, if this if this were a Republican who had said something like this about a Democrat, it would only be the beginning of a year-long analysis of other such comments Republicans have made and what to do about this.
Uh uh the the Democrats out there they're at war with each other in California in the uh gubernatorial primary out there.
Arnold Schwarzenegger is looking statesmanlike.
That is how ridiculous it's gotten.
And I predicted all this.
I told you people that the Democrats are going to eat each other up and spit them out.
Uh, and it's happening, uh, Phil Angelitus and some other guy.
I'm even invoking my name, Angelitas is, in some of his uh campaign literature, maybe a speech or two.
Anyway, we uh have all that uh uh oh have that's even better.
Have you heard what might kill the Senate immigration bill?
Have you heard they they put something in the bill that's unconstitutional?
Senator McCain, Senator Kennedy, all these guys, all these wizards, all these guys smarter than nobody else in a room, put something that's so it's sixth grade unconstitutional.
I'll tell you about it when we come back.
I gotta take a break here.
America's real anchor man back on the open line Friday edition of the Rush Limbaugh program here on the EIB network.
We gave New York assistance uh with with uh ideas of what they do best up there, liberals in New York has raised taxes.
Uh and if they're really worried about this shortfall, I think one of the best ideas was just, you know, i institute confiscatory taxes on Rochester and Buffalo and and all those upstate little burgs, uh, because everybody knows they exist only to to to support New York City anyway.
Uh joke about saving Buffalo.
Everybody knows what Buffalo's for.
To have a football team, it's Patsy's for the Jets and the Giants, and to support Manhattan and the rest of the five other five, four boroughs.
Everybody knows this.
Uh I have a question.
If we spent five hundred billion dollars, I'm sorry, five hundred million dollars in New York on uh uh whatever it is they want for this Homeland Security, would it would it would it stop the next terrorist attack?
If we spent five hundred million, if we spent seven hundred million and four hundred million is this money the answer to this.
And I just, it's a it's amazing to me.
Uh actually it's not.
It just it's illustrative of uh of of of how spending is viewed uh by government officials.
It's just the cure all, it's the end all, it's the it's the elixir, the magic elixir that'll erase any problem, and of course that's not true.
And I I want to see if I get this straight.
We have the lowest unemployment number in five years.
4.6% is the unemployment number.
It's the lowest since the summer of 2001.
Here are the headlines today reporting this.
Unemployment dips, but hiring slows.
Job report signals cooling economy, New York Times.
Weak jobs report stokes slowdown fears, CBS News.
Payroll growth stalls, associated press.
You won't find, you can go out there, you can look for it.
You will not find one positive story on the unemployment rate being the lowest it's been in five years.
And I think the reason for this is very simple.
See what happened to the Washington Post yesterday.
170 people took buyouts.
It means they were fired or let go, laid off.
Uh, the economy's roaring, but not at drive-by media institutions.
All right.
This is hilarious.
The long fought Senate immigration bill that opponents say grants amnesty to ten million illegal aliens is unconstitution, uh unconstitutional, appears headed for certain demise Senate Republicans now say.
Here is why.
A key feature of the Senate bill is that it would make illegals pay back taxes before applying for citizenship.
And this is a requirement that people say will raise billions of dollars in the next decade.
There's just one problem with this, folks.
The U.S. Constitution specifically prohibits revenue raising legislation from originating in the Senate.
All revenue raising legislation, taxes, tax cuts, what have you, has to come from the House.
That's why the House Ways and Means Committee, where all these bills originate, is considered to be so important.
It's in Article 1, Section 7.
All bills for raising revenue shall originate in the House of Representatives.
Republicans, including the bill's supporters, say this'll kill the bill.
And Bill Frist says he's offered a simple solution.
He wants to attach the immigration bill to a tax bill that's already passed the House.
So this immigration bill would become a giant amendment to a tax bill that's already passed the House of Representatives.
It would then proceed, as planned to a conference committee, where negotiators would try to work out their differences.
But what's fascinating about this is that Dingy Harry, Harry Reed, the Senate's minority leader, says he's not going to go along with that fix.
He said uh yesterday that concerns raised by Frist and House Republicans are technical in nature and can be ignored.
Yes.
Unconstitutionality is just a technicality.
This is from an idiot who couldn't understand the ethics rules and took complimentary boxing tickets.
What next, folks?
John McCain's going to be turned to for constitutional advice.
Allah the first amendment.
What a great irony.
Senator McCain found out that the bill.
You and um the Senator Kennedy uh wrote uh is unconstitutional.
What?
It's not.
It's not an expert.
It's not.
Wouldn't it put it in there if it was.
It is.
Yes.
Ah, well, fix it.
We'll fix it.
It's simple.
Uh this.
I say don't fix it.
Challenged in court and thrown out.
Well, folks, this is sixth grade elementary understandable.
Especially for these wizards.
These guys are all smarter than the rest of us.
Uh does this give you confidence that these senators know which end is up as they remake our society?
Any idiot, folks, knows that tax bills and spending bills have to be initiated in the uh i in the House.
Some people are speculating now, ladies and gentlemen, uh, that uh Harry Reed's intransigence on this is purposeful, that Reed doesn't want to fix The bill, that Reed doesn't want a bill at all.
There are theories abounding that the purpose for his intransigence is so that the bill gets killed because he's part of the conventional wisdom that believes if there's no bill, why that's the end of the Republican Party.
It's the end of President Bush because it'll show that Bush can't govern.
He can't lead his own party in Congress, and that the Republicans leading Congress can't govern, can't get anything done.
See, the whole theory rests on the notion that unless they pass legislation for legislation's sake, even if it's the worst piece of legislation in the last number of years.
If they don't pass it, why?
Why?
Why it's horrible?
Why we're not doing our jobs.
I'm telling you, if this bill fades away into obscurity, it will be one of the best things to have happened to the country and its future in a long, long time.
So I don't know what's going to happen with this, but I couldn't resist passing this on to you because it's just primo.
We'll be back and continue in mere moments.
Yes.
We know.
And welcome back.
Talent on loan from God.
All right, here's Peter King.
This is from Hardball Less now.
You gotta hear this.
Chris Matthews says, Well, what's this uh Duke Cunningham and Prostitutes and Poker Game thing all about at uh Homeland Security?
What's that all about?
Oh, that is about is that you had the the orgies going at the Watergate Hotel with prostitutes, pimps, booze, card games, Duke Cunningham lobbyists, CIA.
People were driven and the prostitutes were driven to the Watergate Hotel in Limousines, owned by a company which was run by a crook, uh, which lost two of its previous contracts, but was given a $21 million contract by the Department of Homeland Security to drive the top executives of the department around Washington.
Now, how they got this $21 million contract is the subject of a real investigation by my committee, and there's gonna be a lot coming out on that.
All right, so I guess he's threatening to even ramp it up more if he doesn't get his money reinstated for New York.
What a line.
Prostitutes, pimps, boo is card games, Duke Cunningham lobbyist CIA.
Pretty much sums up the whole town.
That's not just going on at the Watergate.
It's going on everywhere, the whole place.
All right.
Remember, uh, ladies and gentlemen, we uh we brought to you the heartbreaking news not long ago that the even the poor in New York were facing tax increases because of budget shortfalls, people living in projects and so forth, uh, who had uh washing machines uh were going to be taxed uh five bucks a month for them if they had a refrigerator and a freezer, it'd be even more.
And uh and uh parking spaces are gonna be charged uh seventy-five bucks uh a year uh for their parking space, which was up for what, five bucks a month?
Uh to seven uh five five a year, seventy-five.
And and you know, it was it was incredible.
Even even raising taxes on the poor.
Well, uh the New York Housing Authority has has begun.
Uh yesterday was the first day of this uh this this new plan.
Uh they've begun billing many residents five dollars and seventy-five cents every month for washing machines, even if they don't have them now.
Uh this, according to City Councilman Eric Goya, the Democrat from Queens, he says it's a very serious problem.
Every housing resident across the city should should double and triple check their charges.
A variety of uh new and increased fees took effect yesterday, and Carol Wilkins, president of Ravenswood houses in Queens, said scores of residents were erroneously slapped with the uh charges.
Uh housing authority spokesman Howard Martyr said, Yeah, we said we screwed up.
We sent out uh thousands of letters, and uh there there may be some mistakes.
By the way, there's a story today in the New York Sun.
Let me see if I can find it very quickly.
I'm not gonna destroy the momentum.
Anyway, it's sorry about how New York has already taken my advice.
They're the leading tax state in the country, city, state.
You add it all up, and uh it just it's it's through the roof.
Uh, all right, the fund doesn't stop.
This is from the Phoenix Business Journal.
Former President Bill Clinton keynoted a Phoenix Democratic fundraiser last night, saying that the Republican Party is dominated by right wing white Southerners.
Right wing white Southerners.
Clinton also hit the GOP for favoring the rich and practicing crony capitalism.
Clinton headlined a fundraiser for Democratic U.S. Senate candidate Jim Peterson at the Arizona Biltmore Resort and Spa, which, my friends, is upper crust out there.
The attempt was a uh event attended by 500 people, raised approximately half a million dollars for Peterson, who is challenging uh John Kyle.
Uh what a half a million five hundred people uh that's a thousand bucks ahead.
Well, that sounds like some corporate cronyism to me.
Uh you know, d you know the New York Times really screwed up when they reported the verdicts of Ken Lay and Jeffrey Skilling.
They referred to the corruption of the nineties in their story, reporting that.
And I well, how did I get past an editor at the New York corruption in the nineties?
What the nineties might have.
That was uh that was Bill Clinton.
You take a look at all the corporate corruption, all the corporate cronyism.
Uh it took place in the nineties.
It's taking uh it's it's being brought to justice here in the 2000s under the uh the Bush Justice Department.
So more BS uh from Bill Clinton, uh meaningless and worthless, but it gets even better.
From from the uh Philadelphia Inquirer, folks.
This a red letter day.
Democratic State Senator Stephen Sweeney, a major union leader from Gloucester County, shocked New Jersey state employee unions yesterday by calling on their members to take a 15% cut in salaries and benefits.
Sweeney's proposal threw a bomb into talks over a $30.9 billion dollar New Jersey budget full of unpopular taxes, but championed by the unions because it would spare them any of the cuts.
New Jersey has a government that we can't afford any longer, said Sweeney, a powerful iron workers business agent, who held a State House news conference with a fellow Gloucester County Democrat, Assemblyman Paul Moriarty, and a Union County Democrat, Assemblyman Jerry Green.
Sweeney said he was angered by a union flyer.
Get this one.
He was angered by a union flyer that asked legislators to support a proposed increase in the sales tax from six percent to seven percent so that state workers don't have to experience the pain that every other taxpayer in the state of New Jersey is going to experience.
They actually put it in a flyer and they sent it out all over the state, advocating a one-set increase in sales tax to cause new revenue so that state workers who are unionized wouldn't have to experience the pain via tax uh uh increases that uh every taxpayer in the state is going to experience.
Uh Bob Master, uh, who is the regional legislative political director for the communications workers of America, which is the largest union in the state of New Jersey, 35,000 state employees.
What are the state employees doing in the communications workers of America union?
I guess it doesn't matter.
Anyway, he said whipping up public sediment against people who are working hard.
State workers, working up public sentiment against them.
This is frankly the kind of rhetoric we would expect from a right-wing Republican, said uh Bob Master, who added that state employees had accepted two years of wage wage freezes and health care concessions in the contract that will end in the summer of 2007.
Sweeney, Moriarty, and Green displayed charts comparing the state's government world with the real world.
They said that most state government employees had a 35-hour work week, were among the highest paid state employees in the country had a generous health and workers' compensation plan and were allowed to accumulate and cash in on unused sick time.
The average state salary is about 50 grand.
Trenton is one of the few places where if you leave work at 5 p.m., you've already missed the rush hour.
Moriarty said.
This was a gutsy move.
Uh, because this Sweeney guy is a major union leader himself.
But I think the the there's so much truth coming out.
You know, folks, the point of all this is is beyond the the obvious and and the humor here.
There is not unity in the Democratic Party.
They these people do not, they can't come up with a message.
They don't have a coherent one, they can't figure out what to do.
They are scared, they are frightened, they are not assertive of the of themselves.
In fact, Newsweek has a guy, I don't know what I don't know who he is as an analyst writing a piece about the psychological problems of Democrats.
I will get to that as the program unfolds today.
And the story about the the gubernatorial primary out in California between Phil Angelitas and his uh and his opponent.
I mean, they're they're tearing each other apart out there.
Now, this is this is uh I uh don't misunderstand why I'm saying this.
I'm I'm pointing this out not for any reason other than you don't hear this in the drive-by media.
You do not hear or see stories.
All you if you if you watch the drive-by media, you think the Democrats are aligned, they're unified, and they've already won the election in November.
Uh it's it's just a matter of time.
Uh such is not the case.
This is not saying Republicans are doing right things either.
Don't misunderstand.
I'm just trying to give you the perspective here that the Democrats are not in a position to be sweeping or mopping anything up right now.
They're in no better position than Republicans are.
It's kind of an amazing thing to see.
Brendan in Buffalo, welcome, sir, to the uh EIB network and open line Friday.
Hi.
Good afternoon, Rush.
Yes.
Rush, uh, you know, Alan Hevisy wasn't the only politician to ever make from New York to ever make a veiled threat to a president's life.
Remember back during the Lewinsky scandal.
There was another New York, now New York politician who made uh threatened uh President Clinton's life.
That was Senator Clinton saying she was going to ring his neck.
Uh oh, she was gonna ring Bill Clinton's neck.
She was gonna ring President Clinton's neck like it would like a twelve-year-old.
Well, uh that's that's that's quite not quite the same thing as singing to put a bullet between his eyes.
Well, and that that's what Chuck Schumer wants to.
Plus, she's a wife.
You know, I mean, that's that's what's odd about a wife thinking that.
Well, well, Rush, the other odd thing though is the Clintons are here in town in Buffalo.
I think there's a spousal privilege on this as far as Secret Service is concerned.
It would have to be a spousal privilege on it.
How many spouses threaten to kill each other in the course of a year anyway?
You know, whether one of them's president or not, back in just a second.
Still laughing at the New York Post with a reporter in Omaha talking to ACDs on the street there.
Anyway, welcome back.
Great to have you.
Open line Friday with L. Rushbaugh.
I thought uh Valerie Play Wilson had her book deal all signs deal delivered, but apparently not.
The two and a half million dollar deal at Valerie Plame Wilson, uh former CIA agent, blah, blah, blah, who had negotiated negotiated with Crown Publishing Group last month, has fallen through.
Uh Ms. Wilson, who could not agree on terms with Crown.
They couldn't agree on terms.
Where the hell do we get this two and a half million dollar book deal announcement?
They couldn't agree on terms.
Anyway, uh, she's now in exclusive negotiations with Steinman und Schuster, which uh originally had lost an auction for the book to Crown.
Although no contract has been signed with Simon and Schuster, David Rosenthal, the publisher said we are optimistic about uh about these talks.
This is not the first time that Crown has lost a deal with a former member of the CIA and originally agreed to publish George Tennet's book.
That deal too fell apart, and now Mr. Tennant's book will be published by Harper Collins in February 2007.
I can't, I can't imagine what Valerie Plaine's gonna write about.
We know everything there is to know because her husband's been blabbing it all over the place for the last two or three years.
And not just in this country, been blabbing it all over the world.
We know what we uh there's no more we want to know about either of these people.
We know enough.
Just amazing.
Ray Nagan, we mentioned this yesterday, was inaugurated yesterday, but in another uh another government stepping up and telling its citizens.
You're on your own.
I love it.
Ray Nagan told citizens of the big easy, stand up and take destiny in their own hands as hurricane season.
Oh, by the way, it's the second day of hurricane season.
We've been scouting all of the hurricane websites, maps, satellite photos.
We can report to you, ladies and gentlemen.
We know you're all braced out there as we reported yesterday.
It's all quiet on day two.
All quiet on day two of hurricane season.
Negan uh began the day in high spirits, typical of Jazz City.
But he told people, You're gonna get off your duffs.
Control your own destiny.
This isn't an inaugural speech, folks.
Get off your duffs.
Uh we can do this.
Control your own destiny.
And uh members of the audience shouted back, Yes.
Yes.
So another government has told its citizens.
Don't come calling when disaster strikes.
Get your duff out of here.
All right, here's this uh well the story out of California.
Democrats tear each other apart in California, Republican Governor Schwarzenegger wounded and vulnerable, and yet the two Democrats vying to unseat him or tearing each other apart in a very nightmare scenario party leaders had feared, and in which I predicted.
State treasurer Philangelitas and controller Steve Westley are spending millions on attack ads heading into Tuesday's primary, trading accusations of being corrupt, indulging in dirty politics, and wanting to raise taxes.
This script couldn't have been written any better by the Schwarzenegger campaigns and Republican consultant Kevin Spillane.
Whichever Democrat wins is going to be a dirty campaigner and a tax increaser, and is gonna have to carry that into the campaign.
This Westley guy is a former eBay exec who's poured nearly $35 million of his own money.
See, Democrats never get lumped in with his.
There's no such thing as the rich Democrat template.
It's just rich Republicans and so forth.
But these Democrats uh flex their financial muscles against Republicans any day, especially in the U.S. Senate.
At uh at any rate, he's poured $35 million of his own money into the campaign.
He went negative first despite a promise to run a positive campaign.
He delved into Angelini's past as a developer, accusing him of paving over wetlands, building on floodplains, and contributing to urban sprawl.
It's a Democrats saying this about another Democrat.
Angelidis, also a millionaire, but on a lesser scale, attacked the controller for contributions he took from a Chicago businessman who was later indicted and accused Wesley of steering state business to that man's company.
So Mervyn Field, a veteran California polster, said whoever emerges on top of this primary is going to be as wounded as a candidate could be.
Schwarzenegger has come off statesmanlike in comparison.
A reversal from last year when the movie stars pugnacious borrowed from Hollywood language, frequently got him in trouble.
What trouble?
Got him in trouble with the media.
Who else?
Fear of failing.
Webb exclusive commentary from Newsweek Michael Hirsch.
How can the Democrats win if the party is scared of its own shadow?
A good therapist we know can sometimes help a person who's lost his confidence or mental balance.
But what do you do when an entire party needs therapy?
You'd think the Republicans would be the ones in need of professional help.
But at least the GOP is engaged in a war over real policy choices.
It's an emotional debate, often a hysterical and ill-informed one.
But it's a fight among adults who know what they believe in and who have the guts to battle for it.
By contrast, the Democrats, ostensibly the party poised to exploit this GOP civil war, don't seem to remember what it's like to behave as adults.
It's because they've never been adults.
They're the party of privilege, and everybody knows it.
They uh resemble nothing so much as ill-adjusted adolescents afraid of their own shadows, much less the presidency.
What are they afraid of?
They're themselves, essentially, their past, their own left, the populist rhetoric of their leaders, Nancy Pelosi, Howard Dean, Harry Reed, Al Gore, the left-wing loony stigma represented by Fahrenheit 9-11 filmmaker Michael Moore.
Above all, they fear seeming and looking soft.
They are all afflicted with varying degrees of megalophobia, which is a fear of assuming power.
Even Dr. Melfi of the Sopranos wouldn't take this case.
Isn't it amazing?
Do you see the Democrats this way?
When you do you admit it, folks, when you when you watch the Democrats as portrayed by the drive-by media, uh, how many of you have the idea that they're still well coordinated?
Uh that they are they've got their talking points and they get them hammered home and they're very consistent with it and they've been very confident they've already got the election won.
Here's a guy analyzing them from their side of the aisle, and it just is petrified.
Sees them as a bunch of adolescent psychos who need mass therapy.
Quick timeout, we'll be back.
The uh first hour is in the can.
The more I read of this uh Newsweek website piece on the psychotherapy of the Democrats, uh the more amused I become.
Uh this guy must not be watching the Democrats I'm watching.
▲
Export Selection