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June 20, 2006 - Rush Limbaugh Program
36:15
June 20, 2006, Tuesday, Hour #1
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Welcome to today's edition of The Rush 24-7 podcast.
Well, you mean in Houston?
Oh, yeah.
Well, there's dispute about that.
There's dispute about the meaning of that Supreme Court ruling.
We'll get into that.
That's sort of way down in the stack today, the Supreme Court ruling on a wetlands.
No, I thought when you said drainage ditches took a hit.
I thought you're talking about the flooding in Houston.
Why would he be asking me about that?
Hi, folks, how are you?
It is the most listened-to radio talk show in America, the Rush Limbaugh program, show prep for the rest of the media that follows, a program that meets and surpasses all audience expectations on a daily basis.
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You know what?
I got an email.
When I when I went when I got home yesterday, I I always fire up the computer when I get there.
Show prep continues.
And I got an email from a guy who said, you need to turn that camera off.
You're you're you're playing to the camera.
You're you're you're you're over.
I guess it's a radio show you're doing, and you're you're you're overplaying it.
You're not a good actor.
You overact.
So I wrote him back.
He was a subscriber website.
I wrote him back.
I said, I don't even know the camera's here.
Half the time I forget to thank people for even using it.
I never played on the camera.
Well, ask Snerdly and see what he thinks.
It is amazing the way people react to things they see and hear and the things I'm I'm always interested in the reactions.
I can't I can't respond to each of them.
I go nuts trying to please every individual.
But um anyway, I just thought that I'd I'd share that with you.
I just want to assure you people I I forget that camera is here uh half the time.
Yeah, this is the radio show.
It's the way it's always been.
In fact, it's probably a little bit tamer now than uh than it has been in uh some years.
At any rate, uh telephone numbers 800-282-2882, and the email address is rush at eIBNet.com.
I got an email here.
Uh Rush, uh now that now that two of our own have been tortured and murdered by the terrorists in Iraq, will the left say that they deserved it?
I am so sick of our cut and run liberals.
Keep up your great work.
Bob C from Roanoke, Virginia, P.S. I love the way you do the program on the Ditto Cam.
I read No, I added that.
He didn't, he didn't put that in there.
You know, it's I I gotta tell you, I I I perused the liberal kook blogs today, and they are happy that these two soldiers got tortured.
They're saying good riddance.
Hope Rumsfeld and whoever sleep well tonight.
I I kid you not, folks.
The people out there, and they're they're, you know, you you say, Rush, we keep talking about these people, they're inconsequential.
They are as individuals.
Democrat Party's listening to these people.
The Democratic Party is is is just concerned.
Went to their convention out there in Las Vegas.
I mean, they're they're real and by the way, I want to say something.
You know, the the New York Times sent six people to that that that blogger convention out there.
The New York Times sent six people, including Maureen Dowd.
You had Democratic presidential candidates out there at this thing.
You had all kinds of media.
This was this was one of the biggest non-events in terms of influence and making things actually happen.
But yet all these powerful bigwigs in the Democratic Party and the drive-by media went out there as though this was the first time something like this has happened.
You know, and and I kept I kept thinking, you know, the the freepers.
The freepers have been around doing this for a decade or more, longer than that, and have never gotten any kind of anything but other than ridicule from the drive-by media.
And these people at this left-wing blog convention are genuine lunatics, genuine kooks, who are being granted the uh the presumption of sanity, substance, and size simply because they're a bunch of libs.
But if you go there and you look today, you will find some posters saying good riddance, well, how quaint, two of our soldiers were tortured before they were done, uh before they were killed.
Isn't that just quaint?
Maybe Cheney and Rumsfeld will sleep easier tonight, as though we deserve this.
Well, that these you have to, in order to do that, you have to be sick, but if to try to make some sort of sensible comparison out of it, you have to assume you have to try to believe that what we're doing in our prison, such as Abu Grab or or Club Gitmo, is the same as what terrorists are doing on the battlefield.
And these people believe that it is.
They are they're just uh uh I I think deranged and delusional at the at the at the same time.
And I'll tell you what I'm looking for, folks.
I'm looking for the people who are always quick to condemn our country and our military for their so-called human rights violations, human rights watch, whatever the names of these groups are.
Have you seen any of these defenders of human rights step up to repudiate these Islamic whack jobs for murdering two American soldiers in their custody?
They captured them and they were in their custody.
We are being held up as violators of human rights in Afghanistan, in Iraq, club gitmo, wherever.
And I never, just like I seldom, if ever I can't remember a story in the drive-by media praising any heroism on the part of U.S. soldiers outside of the first story about Jessica Lynch, which was sort of manufactured for a TV movie, I think.
But nevertheless, we don't hear any human rights uh organizations condemning the Islamo fascists.
These soldiers were in captivity.
They were tortured and then killed.
And by the way, the drive-by media is all excited about this because they think this is payback.
This is payback for killing Zerkawi, and this proves this war is going nowhere.
This proves that Bush didn't accomplish anything.
In fact, this may be killing Zarkawi may have been a setback.
That's how they're looking.
Let's let you listen to the audio sound bites on MSNBC today, female Info Babe Bancharette, talking to the uh Wall Street Journal's John Harwood.
Question.
The president has been writing a lot of good news over the last week and a half or so out of Iraq.
But what does the announcement and the news of the death of these two soldiers do to the administration and that progress?
The president got only a modest bounce in public opinion polls after the death of Zarkawi.
Stop the tape.
It is not about a bounce in the opinion polls, Mr. Harwood.
We are fighting a war.
We took out the general on the ground, the commander.
He didn't get taken out, so the polls would go one way or the other.
And we can talk about these pol.
There's a lot that goes into these presidential approval polls, but make no mistake, folks, the president is not in as bad a position as these polls would indicate, nor is the Republican Party.
It's irrelevant anyway because it does all this is going to be uh uh not a non factor, but other things are gonna happen between now and the election that will will shape it and so forth.
This incident is not gonna be a major factor, uh even though the drive-by media is going to try to continue to make it one.
And the uh surprise trip you made to Baghdad, this is precisely the reason why that happened.
The American people understand Oh, ho, ho!
Ho, ho, whoa, whoa, whoa.
The two soldiers were killed and tortured, captured, tortured, and killed because we got Zerkawi, and because Bush made a famous night ride to back.
Is that what he's saying?
That's why this it happened because we are at war, and Mr. Harwood, the Islamo fascist insurgency, has been doing this the entire time.
Capturing American troops and torturing them and killing them and beheading them.
Where have you been?
It's part of the war.
This is nothing new, and it's not because Bush captured Daikawi and killed him and flew there to meet with the troops to get the poll numbers up.
This is this is this is it's deranged.
That the toll of this war, more than three years long, twenty, five hundred U.S. troops killed so far, has been uh growing, continues to grow.
This is a certainly a setback uh uh for the administration, and perhaps in public relations terms, a worse setback than the step forward he took with Zarkawi.
See, so it's everything's looked at here through the political prism.
How does it hurt Bush?
How does it help Bush?
It hurts Bush when these two soldiers are killed after being tortured after being captured.
Yes, his poll numbers didn't get much of a bounce, and now they're gonna go down.
Certainly a setback for the administration in public relations term.
What about the soldiers and their families, Mr. Harwood.
People volunteering to defend and protect the United States.
And then to say this is a worse setback than the step forward he took with Zarkawi.
You don't measure it that my gosh, talk to anybody wearing a uniform.
If they're a liberal Democrat general, you do not measure the progress of a war.
Death by death.
Capture by capture.
Just like you don't measure the progress of a football game play by play.
Yeah, you know that touchdown and uh touchdown of the first quarter.
Well, that that field goal, that field goal hadn't kind of mitigated the uh fans' mood and the PR, the head coach got when they scored a touchdown.
This is embarrassing.
These guys are supposed to be the guardians.
They have First Amendment protection.
This is embarrassing how limited their scope is.
Well, and we know what that is.
Destroy Bush.
Destroy the war effort.
Let's now go to this morning from Baghdad.
Major General Bill Caldwell, the spokesman for the U.S. military held a press conference with reporters.
Press has ignored this in order to obsess over the two soldiers.
We took out another very senior member of the Al Qaeda network.
Sheikh Monsur was killed by coalition forces in the very vicinity where we have been searching for our two missing service members.
This picture here is Sheikh Mansur, probably identified as being in the probably top five of the Al Qaeda organization.
Coalition forces initially targeted vehicle upon which he and two other people were inside.
They attempted to flee.
Coalition forces pursued them, and during that time period engaged the vehicle and destroyed it.
Sheikh Monsur was a key leader in Al Qaeda and Iraq, including having relationships with both Zarkawi and with Al Masri.
His death will significantly continue to impact on the ability of this organization to regenerate and reorganize itself.
Yeah, but wanted to play that for you, because I don't think the drive by media.
Do you know about this, John?
Do you heard about that?
I know you're a new advantage.
You're not paying attention to news anyway, but you are now when you watch this show, but nobody's been told about it.
Uh and their drive-by is not going ape over it, no big deal.
In fact, there's even a story, I didn't even bother to print it out, that there's there's a story, the drive-by media that this new replacement of Zarkawi is being credited for the deaths and the torture of our two soldiers.
Oh, what a leader.
The drive-by media can't wait.
This guy's already on the field way.
He's been in there less than a week, and he's already got two kills.
It's it's obscene, folks, that this continue to watch this.
But have no fear, because just as it affects me the way it does and you, so does it affect many others.
We'll be back because the vast majority of the people in this country do not want American soldiers to die, and they don't want it celebrated, and they don't want it talked about in terms of does it help Bush?
Does it hurt Bush?
Two more soldiers died, torture.
Gotta hurt Bush.
Yeah.
People are offended by that.
Good going in there, Altamont.
We got a uh we have a substitute broadcast engineer today, folks.
You never know what happens in those circumstances, though Altamont has uh generally proved out to be pretty good.
Uh Dick Cheney yesterday showed up at the National Press Club, really stuck it to the left.
And I have some sound bites.
I think it's a good time to play them.
Uh as as uh, you know, uh in transition uh from the uh sound bites we just heard in the news about the uh the soldiers in Iraq.
Uh here's first is a portion of you know, there's a story, and I was looking for it here, even while communicating with you.
Somebody talking about Cheney and how he's oh, it's a story on frontline, PBS frontline, uh got a got a got a story on how Cheney and Rumsfeld took over their own defense structure and and and intelligence structure because they didn't trust the CIA.
And it's just day coup and he couldn't sit around and wait for that anymore because CIA blotched everything, and so Cheney and Rumsfeld basically created their own intelligence network in the Pentagon.
And uh, it refers to Cheney in this uh in this, I guess it's being broadcast tonight.
Uh they refer to Cheney as being on the dark side of the administration, the dark side.
Darth Vader, the uh evil emperor without the pock marks.
Here's a portion of Cheney's remarks at a national press club yesterday.
It's been nearly five years now, and we haven't been hit again.
Now nobody can promise that we won't be hit.
But the fact of the matter is we've been safe and secure here at home.
And that's not an accident.
It didn't happen just uh because uh we got lucky.
Several reasons I think why we have been successful up till now is that we've gotten extremely aggressive at taking the battle to the enemy overseas.
But secondly, also because we've taken some measures here at home that have been instrumental in collecting the intelligence we need to be able to disrupt attacks against the United States and to protect the lives of Americans.
And there I would point to such things as the Patriot Act and uh the terrorist surveillance program.
Uh moderator here, and and this is you know, this drives the drive-by media into a full-fledged tizzy.
Uh he in this next bite sticks to his assertion that the insurgency in Iraq is in its last throws, while the uh the kook bloggers on the left and their slaves of the Democratic Party are secretly uh well, the bloggers are not secretly there, uh they're openly all right.
How quaint Cheney and Rumsell to see how they sleep tonight that after this torture.
It was it's absurd.
Uh, don't know how far the Democrats are going following them.
Uh but you know, we have such a short attention span here.
We have we have no sense of the scope of history.
Uh but here's here's the question.
The moderator says, about a year ago you said the insurgency in Iraq was in its final throes.
You still believe that.
I do.
I think the key turning point when we get back ten years from now, say and look back on this period of time and with respect to the campaign in Iraq will be that series of events when when the Iraqis uh increasingly took over responsibility for their own affairs.
And there I point to the election in January of 05 when we set up the interim government, the drafting of the Constitution in the summer of 05, the national referendum in the fall of 05, when the Iraqis uh overwhelmingly approved that Constitution, and then the vote last December, so when some twelve million Iraqis in defiance of the car bombers and the terrorists went to the polls and uh voted in overwhelming numbers to set up a uh new government under that constitution.
This is again why he thinks that the insurgency over there is in its last throes, and of course, drive-by media reporting on these two soldiers' deaths and their torture is being ramped up to show we're losing.
Bush taking a PR hit, insurgency coming back strong after the Zarkawi death.
And they're excited about it, and they're judging it play by play, death by death, act by act.
Another question, the moderator.
You you've said Mr. Vice President, you talked about reclaiming the powers of the presidency that was lost following Watergate.
Should there be any limits?
And if so, what?
I clearly do believe and have uh spoken directly about the um importance of a strong presidency.
Uh and that I think there have been times in the past, oftentimes in response to uh events such as Watergate or the War in Vietnam, where Congress has begun to encroach upon the powers uh and responsibilities of the President, that it was important to go back and uh try to restore that balance.
So makes no mistakes, makes no bones about it, makes no excuses.
Here's what we've done, this is why it's working, here's what we're going to continue to do, this is why it will continue to work.
Um you may disagree with it.
Um, and I I some of you might, uh particularly the assessment in Iraq.
I don't, but some of you might.
But even so, contrast this to the cut-and-run crowd on the Democratic Party.
You wouldn't believe a number of stories I have in the stacks of stuff today about how the Democrats still can't figure out what they want to do.
Kerry has now said, you know what?
I've only got six votes for my resolution.
I'm gonna change that date.
I said it was to be July of 07.
What did I say it should be?
Anyway, I'm moving it back six months.
Carl Levin signing on to it, and you've got fine gold, and you got I mean, they don't they don't have this it's it's reminds me of the 1984 Democrat presidential primary.
You had well, you had uh the uh Reverend Zach in that primary, but I'm not gonna include him in this story.
You had Gary Hart and you had Walter F. Mondel.
And listen to these guys debate in their TV commercials was just hilarious.
Well, it'll get us out of Angola.
Well, oh, get us out of South Africa, well, oh, get us out of the uh the subcontinent, well, oh, get us out of the Philippines.
Well, they were in a race to please their party to see Who could be the one that would tell the Democratic voters which of them would get us, the United States, out of these dangerous hot spots the fastest and the soonest.
This is nothing new, this cut and run philosophy.
The Democrats uh have it as a an article of faith.
It's almost genetic.
You make a commitment to something and then you don't follow through.
You make a commitment and then you back out.
You make it when the when the going gets tough, or when your rabble rousing voters start making some noise about it, uh hell with your principle and the hell was supporting the policy that you demanded a debate on.
War resolution in Iraq.
And then you start claiming you were lied to and all this and pulling it.
You just compare, you contrast Cheney with uh the way and Bush with the way they're remaining steadfast with this, with any Democrat, particularly in the Senate, uh, talking about what we ought to do about this, and you tell me which of those two parties' groups, points of view uh is best suited to protect and defend the country during times of attack and challenge.
We'll be right back.
Stay with us.
Our buddies Z top getting us back in the content portion of the uh program.
Yes, here's a story from uh Al AP, the bodies of two U.S. soldiers reported captured last week have been recovered, and an Iraqi defense ministry official said Tuesday the men were killed in a barbaric way.
They were tortured.
Uh where where are the Geneva convention crowd, people?
That our uh soldiers and our our gatekeepers, our prison tendons, uh violating a Geneva Convention, that the terrorists that we capture should have access to the Geneva Convention.
What about our guys?
Why do we never, why do we never hear a human rights group decry the enemy?
Why?
Because to the human rights groups, brace yourselves, folks, Al Qaeda and these terrorists, these insurgents in Iraq are not the enemy.
To human rights groups, the United States is the enemy, particularly when run by a president of the Republican Party.
Doug in Columbus, Ohio.
I want to grab a couple phone calls here before we move on to uh uh North Korea.
Doug, welcome.
Great to have you with us.
Uh dido, Rush.
Uh, been listening since 88 out in California when you're out there.
First, I'd like to say God bless all the soldiers that are over there, and God bless to the parents of those who who've had to go through and live through what's happening right now.
Uh they they certainly deserve uh uh our support and our thanks.
And and more than then I I don't think I could ever express it enough.
But my point simply is this I'm not a person in the spotlight.
I'm just over here and fly over America and Ohio.
And um uh but when our national leaders who are on the spotlight and at the snap of a finger can get cameras in front of them to start talking about dark prisons in Turkey and black prisons and potential torture and uh you know things happening to you know soldiers in git mode, they're not being fed well enough.
And all that does is fuel the fire, make the enemy treat our soldiers the way they did these two fine gentlemen, and it just breaks my heart that these um uh that these leaders of our country cannot stand uh that they have to get before the camera and preach their own political gospel rather than trying to do what's best for the world.
I just cannot in my heart fathom the left side of this country when things like this happen to our good soldiers.
Amen.
Couldn't couldn't agree with you more, although I want to I want to expand on this a little bit because um see I I think these terrorists are who they are.
Tigers, a tiger, a lion, a lion, a bear who eats oatmeal in somebody's house is a bear who eats oatmeal in somebody's house.
It actually happened.
We got a story, Goldilocks in reverse, baby bear showed up after waking up from hibernation and just went into a cupboard, got some oatmeal family, sat there and watched it and let the bear leave.
Rather than know what else to do.
Uh and it left.
But a terrorist is a terrorist, folks, and they are going to do what they're going to do regardless what we say or do.
The idea that this was retribution for what we did to Zarkawi, or the idea that it's a retribution for what we have done at our prisons creates, especially that latter one creates something that's so outrageous because we have not killed anybody in captivity.
We do not torture them in the sense that these two uh American soldiers were tortured.
And he's right for American Democrat liberal politicians to go out there and decry our treatment to give them lawyers so that they can have access to the U.S. Constitution as though they are American citizens.
All that does is it uh doesn't change terrorist behavior.
It just gives them comfort.
It lets them know that uh that that morale in this country is down, that half the country in a political party is on a in a in a sort of a a war path to uh impugn and affect the effectiveness of our agents to fight the war.
That's why I have said, in my opinion, that there is an active ongoing effort to sabotage victory over this enemy.
Because this this moral equivalence with Ted Kennedy uh in the past, having said under Abu Ghraib, it's just the same as when Saddam ran it, it's just under U.S. management now.
Well, that's not going to make a terrorist any more of a terrorist, but it's going to make him sit back and laugh and smile.
And going to me, what a bunch of idiots these people are.
Their morale may be lifted by this.
Uh but but the idea that that uh these two soldiers were murdered after having been tortured, uh that's gonna happen regardless.
Now, what would compound this is if the Democrats that Doug was talking about, if the Democrats like Senator Kennedy and whoever else have been on the war path about our so-called torture, if they come out and try to equate this, if they come out and say, Well, it's obvious that what happened to our soldiers, very unfortunate.
But what do you expect when we hold them and their prisoners and uh Abu Grab and Club Gitbowens?
What do you expect?
If they establish a moral equivalence, and I won't be surprised if they do, uh, between us and the terrorists.
I mean, that's that is uh probably almost treasonous to me.
I I'm I'm as frustrated as Doug in uh in Columbus, Ohio was over this.
Uh but I do think you have to keep terrorists or terrorists and they're gonna do what they do regardless what it's just that when they are given motivation and a morale boost after having done it.
Uh that is inexcusable.
Danny in Bridgewater, Virginia, I'm glad you called, sir.
Welcome to the EIB network.
Uh thank you very much, Mr. Limbaugh.
It's an honor to speak to you.
You bet.
Um I was also going to speak about the uh two soldiers that were uh just recently uh tortured and killed.
Yes.
Uh I'm a combat veteran from Vietnam, and I I it's it's a sad day when any soldier has to die.
But I I I as much as it is a derogative thing that's happened to uh those two individuals, I actually think it might embolden our forces over there and cause them to be a little more self-protective in their tactical ops.
Hey, wait, wait, that is an excellent point.
I want you to stop right there and don't lose your train of thought because this needs to be pounded home with a couple exclamation points.
When you look at this incident and in how it's being treated in the drive-by media like we had John Harwood, but it doesn't matter where you go, the drive-by media.
Oh no, oh no, they're strengthened, they're coming back.
They're getting even for Zarkawi.
It's it's it's over for Bush now, this is a bad PR move.
Oh, we shouldn't have killed Zerkawi, when in fact that's typical of a bunch of people that have no clue what war is all about or how you win one, either in the Democratic Party or drive by media, but you've got combat experience and you're right.
This is gonna steal the resolve of people who knew these guys and the whole uniform contingent over there.
Yes, sir, and I also believe that uh the next time something like this has a potential to occur, I don't think our troops are gonna surrender.
I don't think anybody's gonna lay down their arms.
I think uh I mean if it was me and I knew this was gonna happen to me, or the likelihood was ninety percent that it would.
Uh I'm gonna pull a grenade out and I'm gonna take whoever I got to take with me.
I mean, that's you know, end of story.
I mean, I know that sounds a little gruesome, but uh Well, you're saying that that w uh d what what do you know about this incident?
Did they uh did they give up their arms and allow themselves to be taken?
From what I understood, uh the driver was shot, they were swarmed on, and uh they just they were I believe in a Humvee, and uh they were swarmed on by like seven or eight guys, and uh basically they just they they lay down and you know didn't didn't offer uh uh resistance at that point.
Now you're a Vietnam vet and rules have obviously changed, but what in your circumstance during your time in Vietnam, what were the regulations on something like that?
Were you supposed to lay down or were you supposed to...
uh, you know, I guess it's up to me to try and look out for the best option for my troops' lives.
However, in the circumstances in Iraq, I don't think I'd even consider surrendering.
I think I'm I'm going to continue to resist until I'm gone.
I mean, uh because I'm the way I would look at it is I'm going anyway.
These people are they're gonna take me prisoner and they're gonna do what they're gonna do.
They're gonna torture me.
Not one United States soldier after the war that has been taken by the insurgency has survived.
Not one.
Nobody has come back.
That is uh that is my point uh in asking where the human rights groups, where are all these people that try to demand we uh uphold the Geneva Convention, where are they demanding that of the other side?
And they don't because they have no expectation of it, but they also don't condemn it.
You know, and it's an unevil pl uneven playing field, particularly in the so-called PR battle.
Well, look, I'm glad you called.
That's um interesting take.
Do you think next time that the um if similar circumstance by the way what uh will there be a next time in similar circumstances, or will that also will this also be um uh a lesson from which they can learn in the way they structure movements.
I would say this as a squad leader, and it was a three man convoy, I mean a three vehicle convoy.
Two vehicles left in pursuit of what they thought were hostiles.
The other guy, the the the commander, I don't know who he was, left three guys in a Humvee in a hot area by themselves.
I think that was kind of you know uh a foolish thing to do.
I mean, I don't know what kind of action they're gonna take against him.
I I would look into it myself.
But in the future, I I don't think you're gonna see people splitting forces.
I think they'll be calling an air cover if you have to leave somebody somewhere for a particular side.
I think it's gonna basically make them operate in a more protective fashion.
So that uh I mean, I it's not that they don't currently.
I mean, I think it was just a bad judgment called probably in charge of that convoy.
Well, the bottom line is that uh what what what you uh pointed out, not one soldier uh taken captive has ever gotten out alive.
Um pretty sobering reality to face in in just in informing and educating people as to who we're dealing with.
All right, thank you very much, Danny.
I appreciate it.
We have a brief obscene EIB profit break we must take.
But it'll happen in an El JIFO, a little Spanish lingo there, and we will be right back.
And we are back, America's real anchor man, El Rushball and the excellence in broadcasting network.
Grab audio sunbite number one there, uh Aldermont.
We've got uh an immigration discussion as we as we seem to each and every day coming up on this program.
And I just want to I want to let you hear what happened on the uh round table, the Brit Hume panel last night on uh the Fox News channel.
Fred Barnes was talking during the uh the the Fox All-Stars, they call them.
Uh, and Barnes says, you know, the polls are misleading as they can often be.
The polls show that the American people favor a path to citizenship.
But uh all the intensity is uh all on the border enforcement only, and that's what the conservative intellectuals have backed.
That's what most conservatives in the House of Representatives, most Republicans in the House back, and uh and then Mort Kondracki steps in.
Intellectuals are supposed to think more deeply than than these passionate hot dogs on the radio.
In a year when the conservative base is demoralized and disheartened, here is an issue that gets them fired up and possibly to the polls.
And that's what these House Republicans are looking at.
But the White House is convinced it's gonna hurt their party in the end.
For the record, I don't think those people on the radio are passionate hot dogs at all.
There you go.
So it's uh it's kind of funny, but uh but Kondracki uh uh yeah, these intellectuals are supposed to think more deeply than those passionate hot dogs on the radio, but they're not.
What he's upset is that the intellectuals all of a sudden have done a 180.
The conservative intellectuals he's talking about now understand the need for border security first, and they also are understanding uh this is about the letter that these guys sent to Bush, Bill Bennett on there and then Robert Bork, uh I forget some of the others, but some of these people used to be open borders people, used to be part of the open borders crowd would agree with whatever the uh the premise of the Senate immigration bill was.
But uh some of them have access now to the actual American people rather than as intellectuals in their little cubby holes, uh, you know, in this subterranean bunkers where they're thinking and they're writing and they're delving deeply uh into things.
And some of them have finally gotten out of those little bunkers, and they understand what the American people are saying and thinking based on what's happening to the American people.
So there's been a 180.
And this is sort of this is the doesn't make some of these other intellectuals happy.
How can these conservative intellectuals do a 180?
Why is conservative intellectuals simply bucking to the pressure of these unsophisticated hot dogs on talk radio?
And so I play this primarily once again to illustrate to you that there is a whole cadre of elitist and intellectuals in Washington.
I don't care whether they're conservatives or liberals, but in both cases, in some cases, they look down on you.
It's very condescending and arrogant.
You're unsophisticated, you're not smart.
You're just reactionaries, you know.
You just mind them robots out there.
It's the same old thing.
Pat in Queens, you're next on the EIB network.
Hello, sir.
Hey, Rush.
Pleasure.
Thank you.
You bet.
Um I've been a fan of yours for years, and I've always appreciated uh your show, and I appreciate it even more now.
My son is a lieutenant in the Marine Corps, and he'll be deployed to Iraq in a few months.
And uh it just it just may infuriates me when I see this constant barrage of liberal negative press, where they say they're supporting the troops, but then they describe their mission as useless and the things they do as terrorist acts.
And you know, I can't connect those dots.
I don't think anybody can.
And I'm glad that you know, guys like you are out there, and you know, you're under personal attack too, but you know, you show a certain courage that I wish we would see more of, not only in the press, but uh in government as well, and I want to thank you for that, Rush.
Well, uh thank you.
I I I appreciate that.
The um, you know, the the you you said people that support uh say they support the troops.
I I know that there are liberal Democrats elected saying they support the troops.
They want it both ways.
They say they support the troops, they don't support the mission.
I frankly am not aware too many people in the drive-by media saying they support the troops.
In fact, the popular refrain in the media today, and it has been since um uh probably got it start in Vietnam, but really intensified in the first Gulf War is hey, we can't take sides.
Why, that would be judgmental.
That would compromise our objectivity as uh the principles of journalism that we follow.
We we we can't choose sides here.
Um but of course they have uh chosen sides because they come from a guilt-ridden self-loathing that makes them question the uh goodness of their own country for a whole host of reasons.
And they see insurgents or any of our enemies as hapless, poor, uh outmanned, outmatched, overmatched, don't have a chance.
And so any time these people score a victory, it's sort of like, hey, you know, that's uh these guys are putting up a really good fight.
It is as though they have a guilt pat about our size, our ability, our prosperity, uh, our decisions to wage war, where and any time we get a comeuppance.
You know, sort of makes them feel good.
And that's that that really's been their stand, I think, for the last uh fourteen or fifteen years.
Well, Rush, you'll never be surrounded by a better group of people than when you're surrounded by men and women in our armed forces.
Tell me about it.
I know that from first hand experience on numerous occasions.
Now, just one thing, Rush, I do have to correct you.
I know you're 99.99% accurate.
No, 90 98.5, almost always right, 98.5.
Yeah.
Well, you keep talking about this liberal playbook, and I submit it's at best an index card, which if you subtract out all of the things that are built on misinformation and deceit, you'll have a blank index card.
All right, touche.
Whatever the liberal playbook's an index card, it's a blank index.
Whatever it is, they keep recycling it.
Uh there's uh there's nothing new on it, and probably you're right.
There is nothing at all on it now, particularly when it comes to um uh national security, uh, foreign policy, uh, the war on terror and its uh theater in Iraq.
Thanks again, Pat, very much.
Uh, country, as you well know, is uh heartily appreciative and in awe of uh what your son and people like him do uh voluntarily, as we all are.
Thank you very much.
Be right back.
Bill Gertz, Washington Times broke the story.
The United States has moved its ground-based interceptor missile defense system uh uh to operational to deal with the North Korea missile test threat.
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