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June 28, 2006 - Rush Limbaugh Program
34:47
June 28, 2006, Wednesday, Hour #2
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All right, change batteries in it.
Let's see if that helps.
Probably it's a bad battery going out, four or five-year-old battery.
You know how these things happen.
Typical American junk.
Just trying to sound like a liberal greetings, uh, ladies and gentlemen.
Yes, here we are, the one and only excellence in broadcasting network.
I am Rush Limbaugh at the Limbaugh Institute for advanced conservative studies, uh, of course, a highly trained broadcast specialist doing what I was born to do.
Uh, and so are you, incidentally.
Uh, I'm born to host, you were born to listen.
Uh telephone number if you want to be on the program today, 800-282-2882.
The email address is uh rush at eIBNet.com.
All right, this flag burning stuff, I tried to keep this focused in the first hour.
I did my dead level professional best to keep this focused on what's really going on out there.
But it has descended into what it descended to in 1989, and that is, well, it's dissent, so it's speech.
It's dissent, it's practiced, it's a fine art.
That's how you that's how you show dissent against a country.
It's worldwide phenomena, worldwide expression of dissent.
Go out and burn the flag.
Folks, we're missing the point here.
I mean, if you want to argue on it on that basis, you can do so.
And we we have, but it you're missing what this is really all about.
Uh well, I don't mean to make the actual discussion of whether or not burning a flag is okay uh to sound insignificant, but there is there's another aspect of this, and I'm gonna I'm gonna try to make it as plain as day, clear as as possible as we continue to discuss this.
But for those of you who think that that burning the flag is something that's uh recognized around the world is uh fine way of showing uh dissent, blah, blah, blah.
Well, go go go grab go grab a flag of say uh go go for go grab a gay pride flag.
Uh what is it, the rainbow?
And go set that on fire somewhere, see what happens to you.
Uh go out there and and and burn, say the Iranian flag somewhere, or a flag of a uh Islamo-fascist country and see what happens to you uh out there.
Uh if you want to find out how universally understood this is, keep in mind, and this point cannot be overemphasized.
Many of the restrictions on speech in this country, uh political correctness is basically just an assault on free speech, political correctness, a creation of the American left, and it with the root of it is they just don't want to hear certain things, be it the truth uh or something they would consider to be offensive.
And so you can't say certain things around liberals.
You can't say certain things in certain places, certain institutions.
We have all kinds of cockamamy limitations on speech.
But the idea that we're not supposed to be able to say anything and offend somebody is sort of comical to me because the flag being burned offends millions, and they're supposed to just shove it.
They're supposed to just sit there and take it and be offended.
I thought if something was generally offensive.
Oh, wait, wait a minute.
Maybe I'm missing something key here.
Maybe it is that a majority of Americans opposes flag burning, and so they can't be offended.
It's not possible to be offended.
It's sort of like the old feminazi argument.
The feminazis back in the old days said, What do you mean we don't have any power?
We can't be held to the same standards as people that do, because we don't have any power in the first place.
Uh so I guess the majority who oppose flag, you they're supposed to sit there and be offended uh uh be because they're getting away with uh forcing their own views on everybody else when it comes to burning the flags.
I guess if you're a minority in anything, if you if you're in a minority of intellect, if you're in a minority of race, if you're a religious minority, if you are uh gender or sexual minority, well then you know rules apply to you.
You can do whatever you want to do, and people just have to sit there and take it.
But as minorities, if you get offended, why that's not permitted.
All right, so only certain people are allowed to be offended.
Other people cannot be offended will make speech basis regulations based on that.
I mean, if you want to take this to the point of absurdity, which I did very cleverly by agreeing with a caller who said that like fire is speech, and again lighting the flag is dissent against the country.
Okay, fine, go light some cigarettes, as I said, in a public place where it's not permitted, and uh and and and then say that you're just protesting government regulations.
You were you were told you heard on a Rush Limbaugh show, a caller say, and Rush ended up agreeing with him, partially the caller persuaded him that fire is speech.
It takes fire to light the cigarette, and once the cigarette's burning, it's fire in there.
I mean, it's uh it's embers, but it's fire in there.
Cigars, the same thing, pipe, whatever.
We got fire, we're protesting government regulations.
And we take that burning cigarette, we touch it to our tax form, and that thing sets on fire, and we're protesting the tax code, and we're dissenting against the government.
Sounds perfectly legal to me, given the logic that I have heard expressed on my own program today.
Well, why stop there, folks?
How about we burn business licenses?
I mean, I got a couple on the wall here.
I'd love to burn.
Occupational uh uh uh occupancy licenses and that kind of thing, property tax bills.
You don't have any clue.
Burn the property tax bill, income tax forms, all other forms of big government control over our lives.
Just light a cigarette and set those forms on fire.
It's fire, it's speech, folks.
We are dissenting against an oppressive government.
Who are we kidding here?
Folks, the the Supreme Court's all over the map.
Flags can be burned, crosses cannot.
If you're a Nazi, you can parade in a Jewish neighborhood in Skokie, Illinois.
But if you oppose abortion, your ability to protest in an abortion clinic is limited.
None of this makes any sense, other than as I expertly dissected it.
Some are majorities and some are minorities.
And the minorities get all kinds of leeway and freedom because they are minorities, and it's a it's it's it I'm offending and the minority.
In fact, Mr. Limbaugh, my whole life I spent being a fender because I'm in a minority.
That's probably because you're a kook and an oddball.
But here's the point that everybody's missing.
We're talking here in this business that went on in the Senate.
We're talking about amending the Constitution to allow states to outlaw flag burning.
So whatever you think the first amendment means, this is a process that framers put in place to fix court decisions or change the Constitution.
The court has had its say, 1989.
The amendment process allows the people to have their say.
That's what was going on in the Senate.
An attempt to amend the Constitution, and it was denigrated as a waste of time.
I know exactly why it was denigrated as a waste of time.
There is a bias that is now firmly entrenched in our cultural thinking, that we, the people, are not capable of making these decisions, such as through an amendment process.
The pointy-headed elites in the Senate can't dare for the amendment process take place.
Why, why these idiots, these American people, I don't know what they're doing.
Unsophisticated, they listen to limbaugh.
I got how much worse could it get?
And so the elites rise up and they condemn not flag burning, just flag burning, or condemn those who want to outlaw it.
They condemn the Constitution.
They condemn the amendment process.
Everything that was happening in the Senate was entirely constitutional.
It is spelled out in the Constitution as the way you go about amending things.
So the court comes along 1989 and tells every state in the country that has a law that says flag burning is illegal, you can't have that law.
What are the states to do?
Well, there is a constitutional remedy.
It's called a constitutional amendment.
Ergo, we debated it in the floor of the Senate this week.
Had at a vote, came one vote short.
Fine and dandy.
The whole process was denigrated by the left and the Democrats.
The whole concept was denigrated, and they steered everybody off and got us talking about the various definitions of speech and flag burning definitions and how it's dissent and how it's wonderful and how it's God given and how it ancient tradition and so forth and so on.
The court reversed history and precedent.
The Supreme Court in 89 just told the states to go to hell, practically, and we are said to be wasting time as we try to trigger the legitimate Process of returning to what was the status quo where states were free to make these laws themselves on their own, independently of the federal government or of other states.
And so we lost it by one vote, but uh nevertheless the whole thing was denigrated, the whole process was denigrated.
Not not just the debate on the flag and whether burning it is offensive or free speech or whatever, but the whole process of amending the Constitution with the people of this country standing up and asserting themselves and their desires, the whole thing was denigrated by the American left and the Democratic Party.
By the way, um I think I think we ought to be able to build windmills off Cape Cod as a form of speech.
Those windmills are it's free speech out there.
I believe that these windmills ought to be built exactly where Ted Kennedy and Walter Crownkite don't want them built.
Because I think that's fair and I think that's right.
What where are we going to stop with these silly notions of what free speech is and what free speech isn't?
Especially when the Supreme Court has so muddied the waters.
You can burn a flag, can't burn a cross.
Nazis can march in skoky, anti-abortion people can't protest uh in um uh certain six situations at abortion clinics.
Oh, and didn't the FCC just pass some massive new wave of regulations with increased penalties for certain kinds of offensive speech on the airway.
Very recently, big time fines for uh uh uh indecent speech on the uh radio.
Well, so we regulate this stuff all the time, folks.
And uh when that's the wardrobe malfunction.
That was the Super Bowl when uh Janet Jackson uh Justin Timberlake had that ward wardrobe malfunction, uh huh.
And uh wonder how many times they rehearse the wall wardrobe malfunction.
At any rate.
Now there are huge fines out there for this.
Um But that's the public airway.
Oh, give me a break.
Public airwaves my rear end.
That's just a construct.
Public airwaves.
That just is We don't regulate cable, we don't regulate satellites.
Well, it's not public airwaves.
Ah, it's just acin.
It's just government control, folks.
It's pure and simple is all it is.
At any rate, we have to take a break, a little long in this segment, back with your phone calls and other exciting items in the news.
Yes, we have some things to say about the New York Times.
Uh people want to call and talk about that as well.
Other things out there.
Have you heard the sad story about these pelicans getting drunk out there?
In uh some form of algae and uh this is California brown pelicans, not the pelicans here in Florida, they're sober.
They have to be.
Uh but but out in California, the brown pelican, what my my all-time favorite bird is the pelican.
I would love to have a pet pelican.
I'd love to have one living in the house, waddling around playing with my cat.
Never happened, but you know, we we can all dream.
But I'm fascinated by these birds.
I l I I go I'll watch them in the morning fly along in formation, skimming the surface of the ocean, barely a sixteenth of an inch off the surface, never touching it.
You ever seen these things dive for fish from I mean, it's feel like you're World War II in birdland.
Uh and they're huge.
They're huge birds, and there are places here in Florida.
They they'll fly into uh oh power lines and clip a wing or something, and they've got a they've got a little hospital for them somewhere here in Florida.
I saw the website, I don't know where it is, never heard of the place.
I've been so tempted to drive up there, but I can't do it with anonymity, so I haven't gone.
Um maybe I should call and say, can I come at midnight?
Will you close it just for me?
And that way every news media organization will be advised that I'm there.
Um I just I love these birds.
There are four of them drunk out there.
There's there's something in the in the ocean when they start eating algae, and one of them dive-bombed to windshield of a car.
Uh the others are walking around on the ground looking like they had no idea where they were going, staggering along, couldn't walk straight lines.
So it makes you say just feel bad for the things.
Anyway, uh haven't seen it happen here in Florida, but you never know.
Global warming, it's gonna cause all kinds of drunk pelicans and other birds.
Quick timeout, folks, back after this.
All right, back to the phones 800-282-288-2, if you'd like to be on the program today, Santa Barbara, California, and less.
Great to have you with us.
Uh, welcome to you, sir.
It's wonderful to speak with you.
Thank you.
I'd like to know why burning the flag isn't considered hate speech.
Well, uh, good point.
That's just, I mean.
I mean, I honor the flag.
If someone is burning it under the guise of free speech, That speech is hateful to me.
That's right, and it offends you.
But see, you're in the majority, so you can't be offended.
You have all the power.
So you people are entitled to hate you, and people are entitled to offend you because you offend them and hurt them by being bigger and more powerful than they are.
And that sadly is the exact answer to your question.
Why is burning the American flag not hate speech?
Because it's perfectly fine to hate the government.
So big, it's perfectly fine to hate hate all these people that love the flag because uh they're so big.
There's such a majority, and and and the the minority has very limited ways it can speak out and be heard.
And so to get the attention of everybody, it has to offend, it has to be outrageous, it has to burn the flag.
And it's not hate speech, it's love.
They love being minority members and they're just seeking power.
They're so disadvantaged and so unfortunate.
And that, sir, is the answer.
It's why uh burning say if you went out and burned a gay flag, or if you if you burned uh a cross or what that's hate speech.
You know, Russia.
Attacking minorities.
The thing about it about it is the minority isn't the minority that usually burns these things, either crosses or other things.
It's it's it's the it's the majority that basically has the tolerance to watch all these things happen, even though it does offend us.
Well, yeah, you'd have to define uh, I guess be specific in defining a minority.
In this case, I'm defining as a minority the number of people who hate the country.
That's true.
Uh and so since the minority of people hate the country, they they have to have a right to express themselves because the majority, by definition, oppress them.
That's true.
I mean, you have to understand how these I mean the I I don't pretend to understand the wiring circuitry in the average liberal brain, but I'm convinced it's different than mine, uh, for example.
Because there's nothing intellectually to support it.
And nothing educationally that can genuinely intellectually support liberalism.
There has to be some wires crossed, has to be a different genetic code.
Hank in uh Chattanooga, Tennessee, glad you called, sir.
Welcome to the EIB network.
Thank you, Russ.
It's an honor to speak with you.
Thank you.
Um I wanted to offer you a dissenting opinion from another flag loving America, if I might.
You want uh a dissenting opinion on another fl okay.
Well, uh You are dissenting against the power of my majority as host on the program, is that right?
Uh yes, sir.
Yes, okay.
You have you have the right to decide.
Remember, I'm a benevolent dictator.
I only take so much.
That's what I've heard.
Yeah.
Um, my flag has ridden with me on my chest on Triant submarine patrols protecting this country.
My flag was ripped to shreds by German artillery, Japanese artillery, and it's still there stronger than ever.
And now I'm hearing that some young punk, skull full of musk, college kid with a box of matches, has the power to hurt my flag worse than what it's already been through.
And they don't.
I don't think it needs protection from people like that.
I don't think we should give them that much power.
Um that's just my view of it.
I I don't believe that that these people have the power to hurt my flag or what it stands for.
Well, that's you see.
Some would argue with you, maybe not not when it comes to the flag as a as an object.
Uh but one of the things that we all face culturally in this country is a decay uh and and uh uh ongoing battle to redefine what kind of country we actually are.
There there are serious, serious arguments about it, and people are doing their best to undermine the institutions and traditions of the country, and so it becomes difficult to just say our country is bigger than they are, it can withstand any assault and any attack, we sit back and let it happen.
These people are very patient, you know, socialists and uh and the and the far left have been undermining the American education system for fifty years, uh if not longer.
They uh find they've gotten hold of the entertainment industry in Hollywood.
They've uh uh and and by the way, if you want to know, uh if if there is any truth, by the way, uh just hypothetically speaking, to this notion that the American image abroad suffers.
Blame the entertainment industry as much as anything else, uh uh in it, particularly in certain cultures and countries.
But so you you ask yourself, all right, flag burning to that object uh symbol very strong, they can't destroy my flag and they can't destroy my country by burning the flag.
Uh If they're if if they're allowed to proceed unchecked with these incessant attacks on the on the fundamental building blocks that make this country what it is, over time, uh maybe not in our lifetimes,
uh, Mark, but over time, who knows how many people they'll persuade and end up being able to vote these changes in under the democratic process, which is what I mean, that's that's fine, but do we want to sit back and run the chance that's just gonna happen by suggesting that I can understand it when you talk about the flag, but the flag is just a symbol, and the flag burning is just symbolic of what their long-term desires are.
They're not burning the flag free Well, I'm out of time.
I'll finish this after the break.
Talent on loan from God.
Rush Limbaugh, the EIB network of the Limbaugh Institute for advanced conservative studies.
All right.
What was the last guy's name?
Mark uh from Chattanooga.
Um, I I understand the sentiment.
Uh flag can't be destroyed by a bunch of twerps.
And the certainly country can't be destroyed by a bunch of twerps out there, why are we granting these people so much power by even worrying about what they're doing?
Well, as I say, understand the sentiment, but at some point down somewhere you got to draw the line.
And where do you draw the line?
Or if you do, I mean, maybe some people don't want to draw the line, just let it all happen, but uh if if if you're going to say any expression at all is protected, uh if you're going to say certain expressions are protected, then which expressions are protected, which aren't.
Uh if if the country can't protect the flag, then what symbols, if any, can it protect?
And why do we arbitrarily decide that the flag is not worthy of such protection?
Uh you know, it it's it's easy to speak in platitudes, but but but there's real real line drawing here that has to be done for the exact reasons uh that I gave.
And and the issue is who gets to decide.
This is I I keep uh without frustration.
I keep trying to go back to what this is really all about.
Back but prior to 1989, certain states didn't care where you could burn the flag didn't matter.
Certain other states made it illegal.
And the Supreme Court said those states can't make such a law, it's unconstitutional, violates the First Amendment.
Bam, okay, so since 1989, we've lived under this notion that the Supreme Court, again, nine people in black robes can determine what is and what isn't constitutional and take whenever they feel like it, power away from states to decide this.
Now, if if the court says that speech is not without limits, then why draw a line that allows flag burning and impose it on the entire country?
All of this is just so contradictory.
But the bottom line, the process to amend the Constitution is honorable, it's right in the document itself, and the whole thing was denigrated.
That's stupid, it's a waste of time, the Democrats said.
And if you just sit back and watch all of this consecration go on and don't do anything to stop it, wherever it takes place, either the way things are taught at uh colleges and universities or wherever, at some point they're gonna take they're they're gonna become the majority.
If you if you don't draw the line somewhere and say, I oppose this, my views are different, and then that's that that's the battle that we're in now.
And I frankly don't see the value in just standing aside uh on the theory that those people can't hurt my country.
Can't take over the country, uh, can't destroy what this country's built on.
You have to understand it's not just them trying to do it.
There are all kinds of countries and people around the world who are trying to do it.
Some point you have to ask yourself what's worth fighting for.
And when you've got people joining the U.S. military volunteering to go to hot spots around the world to defend all of this, you have to say they've drawn the line.
Uh and and you have to say that they have made the decision as to what's worth fighting for, and at some point we all do.
And not everybody will.
Some people just want to go around and live a hedonistic happy-go-lucky life and fine and dandy, country permits that, but those that take these things seriously have to, at some point, stand up for what you believe.
Otherwise, you run the risk of having it mowed down.
Alan in Texarkana, Texas.
Uh, you've been very patient out there.
Thank you for waiting, and welcome to the EIB network.
Well, Mr. Lemot, thank you for all you keep doing for the conservative ideology.
Thank you, sir.
Um I where I draw the line on this is where I would refer your audience to.
Uh U.S. Code, Title 18, Part 1, Chapter 37, Section 798, and then under that subsection three and four.
Yes, I'm familiar with it.
That specifically outlines to the port uh point of being redundant that what the New York Times did is a violation of federal law, especially in a time of war.
And FDR has thrown people in jail during World War II for doing less than what the Times did.
I'm glad you pointed that out.
That's something I wanted to address after you made if you finished your point in the call.
Go ahead and continue.
Well, I I just I don't understand how the Attorney General, especially as livid, and that's putting it mildly, that President Bush was yesterday.
How does the Attorney General and the Justice Department have the option of not prosecuting the New York Times?
Isn't it an obligation under the Constitution?
All prosecutors have the option of ignoring things or not ignoring them.
Uh and the Attorney General's just the nation's number one prosecutor, and he's got prosecutors under his wing.
And if he doesn't want to go after it, they're not going to go after it.
They can they can this is uh I I know you might think that it's an obligation, but but they can they can blow it off.
I'd be surprised if they do pursue it.
Uh uh some of some people are suggesting this is the wrong way to go about it anyway, because once you go to trial on something like this, you're giving yourself something very difficult to prove.
Uh, and then you allow the defendant in this case, the uh drive-by media to totally change the subject uh on the witness stand and in in filings, court motions and and uh and this sort of thing.
So it's sort of it's sort of interesting.
I don't pretend to be an expert in uh uh the strategy when it comes to is this worth pursuing or does this have a chance to uh to backfire?
But I do let I do want to add some things to this.
Uh we we talked about this at length uh yesterday, and uh just just a two or three, maybe ten or twelve, could be thirty points here that uh that I want to make.
Uh it's interesting to watch the media wrap themselves up in the First Amendment.
Uh both uh the free speech clause and the free freedom of the press clause.
Uh i they don't read the const the rest of the constitution nearly the way they read the provisions in it that apply to them.
Apparently, the free speech clause and the free press clauses in the First Amendment uh are the only parts of the Constitution they believe to be written in stone.
We can't change those.
We can't assault those, can't attack those.
Your freedom of speech can be attacked.
Uh your ability to wage uh uh war in a political campaign, money or whatever.
We can make laws abridging that all over the place.
We can't make a law abridging the freedom of the press, nor can we touch the press's freedom of speech.
Uh so when it comes to those two clauses of the First Amendment, they are originalists, folks.
They love Scalia and they love Clarence Thomas, and they because they they just can't we're not gonna change, we're not gonna change a comma.
We're not gonna change anything.
You can't touch that.
That's what we do.
Yet every other part of the Constitution may also be ripped up and thrown away if they set their mind to it.
We can find things in the Constitution that aren't there, i.e.
abortion, and we can pretend the things that are there, the second amendment shouldn't be there, and we can start an attack on it.
But boy, let there be some attempt to uh to hold their feet to the fire, and they seek refuge in those two clauses of the First Amendment, and they will not allow one bit of change at all.
And I think it's an important point to note.
As it applies to them, it ain't changing.
It's not even discussable.
You can't even bring it up.
If it doesn't apply to them, then the whole Constitution is uh is up for grabs.
But this is this whole New York Times case.
Um, you know, I I think the media, you'd have to say the media loves the judicial branch.
The media Loves the judiciary, especially when it's populated by and with a majority of liberals because people in the judicial branch are not elected.
They are the least representative of the public.
Much like the media themselves, we do not elect our anchors.
We do not elect our reporters.
They're just hired.
They're appointed.
Same thing with judges.
And this is because the reason they like that is because you're stupid, folks.
collectively, we are all a bunch of unsophisticated boobs, and if left to us, why, this country would become as embarrassing as all of Mississippi is.
I mean, this whole country would become Tennessee, and we can't have that.
Maybe a combination of Tennessee and Alabama and Mississippi.
We can't have that.
So they love these elitists and pointy heads in these positions where they can't be tossed out.
They can't be elected just like themselves.
And that makes them, however, the least representative of the public.
Now, the judiciary has said that editors and reporters.
Well, the judiciary hasn't, the media, editors and so forth.
The media has said that editors and reporters are essentially free to betray their country.
Uh and the courts have said, well, you may be free to betray your country, but you're not immune from the consequences of your behavior.
And that is what Bill Keller is demanding.
Bill Keller not only wants the power to betray the country, he wants immunity from any consequences from his actions.
Keller is it essentially what Bill Keller, the New York Times, is demanding is not just the right to publish secrets.
He is demanding the right to be legally protected from the laws that apply to all the rest of us.
And that's what's offensive to me.
Who the hell are they to demand and suggest that they are above all of these constitutional laws?
The legal position of Bill Keller at the New York Times is really is no more tenable than that of Congressman William Jefferson Democrat Louisiana.
He claimed that, remember when they raided his office, he claimed that the doctrine of separation of powers and the Constitution's speech or debate clause prohibited an investigation that reached into his office.
We had members of Congress telling us, you can't investigate us, FBI.
You can't investigate us, Mr. Pray.
You can't come in here.
We have separation of powers.
Well, people say, Well, you want to be able to hide a dead body in there and nobody can come find it?
It's how they sounded.
This is what the media is asking.
The media is asking for for unlimited freedom to betray the country, to destroy traditions, and then be immune from any consequences of their actions.
Now, if you listen carefully, some of the soundbites that we played yesterday.
Bill Keller and a bunch of other pointy headed elites in the drive-by media said that there are no checks on the authority exercised by the president.
Never forget that in his soundbite yesterday.
And of course, in in saying that there are no checks on the authority of the executive, then we find what Bill Keller and the New York Times real motivation is, and that is to weaken the executive.
To weaken George W. Bush, to weaken the commander-in-chief.
I got to continue this, but we must take a brief time out for an EIB obscene profit break.
We'll do that and be right back, folks.
I want you to listen to uh uh Bill Keller.
We played this bite twice yesterday, but it'll help.
I give you the context of my uh little diatribe here.
This is from Wolf Blitzer's show on uh Monday night.
Uh the question was to Bill Keller of the New York Times.
Uh the fact that that your editors believe themselves to be qualified to assess how terrorists are moving the money betrays a breathtaking arrogance and a deep misunderstanding of this program and how it works.
Those are strong and biting words, and they came from Treasury Secretary uh John Snow.
What do you think of that, uh, Mr. Keller?
Arrogant.
With all due respect, I think it would be arrogant for us to preempt the work of Congress and the courts by deciding on our own that these programs are perfectly legal and abuse-proof.
Stop the tape.
Stop the tape.
That is it in a nutshell.
What Bill Keller and his boys and the New York Times are saying is that there are no checks on the authority exercised by the president.
We so we have to do it.
Nobody can stop this guy.
He's out of control.
He's destroying our civil liberties, he's spying on us, he's watching our financial transactions.
It's horrible.
And nobody's talking.
We at the New York Times are going to stop him.
And that's the true motivation.
He seeks to weaken this president.
He seeks to weaken this executive with his with his newspaper, the uh the New York Times.
And you but you won't have to know.
There has been a relentless propaganda campaign describing Bush as Joe McCarthy.
He just is spying on everybody.
He has torn up everybody's constitutional rights.
Nobody has any civil liberties and so forth.
The fact of the matter is that President Bush has exercised his power with far more restraint when you compare to earlier presidents during wartime, including Lincoln, as we mentioned yesterday.
Franklin Delano Roosevelt.
Bush is not suspended habeas corpus.
He's not thrown reporters and political opponents in prison.
Lincoln did that.
Lincoln, by reputation, one of our greatest presidents ever.
He is not in turn tens of thousands of American citizens like FDR did.
He has not ordered the attorney general to ensure the execution of unlawful enemy combatants as FDR did.
He has not abused the military commission system.
The list goes on.
I mean, Bush's Bush's presidency is not imperial in any way.
But if you listen to the ACLU, uh and and Bill Keller obviously does, then you think this is this is the absolute worst uh thing that's ever happened in this country.
Of course, what's funny about this and what's amazing about it is that the check on the president's powers hasn't changed.
Bill Keller's just upset that Congress isn't doing it, but Congress decides whether we go to war, as it did in this war with two joint resolutions.
They decide whether to fund the war.
And by the way, Congress continues to fund the war.
If Congress, and I mean the whole legislative body, not just a couple senators and not just a couple Congress, the whole legislative body.
If they believe that the president's NSA intercept program or the data mining program or the financial tracking system violate the public interest, they have the constitutionalist or authority to stop funding them.
But they haven't.
They haven't stopped the spying program.
Key members of Congress were informed about each of these programs, have done nothing to stop them.
So Bill Keller steps in, decided he's gonna do it with the New York Times.
Meanwhile, for the most part, the Democratic Party sides with Keller, proving once again why they are weak on national security.
But uh he just taken it upon himself.
Congress is a stopping this guy, this guy's out of control.
I'm gonna do it.
I'm gonna leak all the stuff he's doing, and I'm gonna blow it up.
And by the way, I have First Amendment protection, I am immune from any consequences.
That's what's offensive.
That's the arrogance, and that's what he's demanding.
We'll be back here in just a second.
Stay with us.
I was not slamming Mississippi or Tennessee or Alabama.
I was describing them as the left thinks of them, and the left is afraid the whole country may become like you.
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