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Sept. 14, 2006 - Rush Limbaugh Program
36:34
September 14, 2006, Thursday, Hour #2
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Greetings and welcome back, ladies and gentlemen.
What a thrill and a delight I know it is for you to be here listening to me on this program.
It's a thrill and a delight for me to be here talking to you and in some cases with you on this program.
El Rushball, the harmless, lovable little fuzzball, America's anchorman, dominating American broadcast media.
Coming to you today from the EIB Southern Command, 800-282-2882, if you want to be on the program, you see this.
The tumultuous marriage of Whitney Houston, for those of you in New York, Whitney Houston, for the rest of you, and Bobby Brown, which withstood drug addiction, Brown's numerous arrests, the decline of Houston's once sparkling image, and domestic abuse allegations is coming to an end.
The Grammy-winning superstar singer filed papers in Orange County Superior Court on Friday, California, requesting a legal separation from her husband of 14 years.
The reason given was irreconcilable differences.
Well, you know, it's about time.
But there's a great opportunity here.
First place, I hope she comes back from the dead.
I loved Whitney Houston.
I loved her music.
I thought she was one of the most beautiful women I'd ever seen.
And you could understand her lyrics, which you can't in a lot of music today.
It was just, she was just, she owned it for a while, but didn't, there's another service.
If she rehabs and recuperates and comes back in all of her glory, there's another service that she could provide.
Didn't Osama bin Waden once say that he had a crush on her or say something that yeah, he did.
You look, Osama bin Laden, recently it was revealed that bin Laden thought she was hot or something.
And maybe we could use her for bait in the hunt for bin Laden.
The Wall Street Journal, NBC News poll shows that President Bush at 42% approval, up from 38% in June.
54% voters continue to say the U.S. headed in the wrong direction, however, in the poll.
But the reason for the uptick has to do with support for the president regarding the war effort and the Iraq circumstance.
The Rass Musson poll today has President Bush at 47%.
Although I should say that I think Rass Musson has always had the president's approval numbers higher than any of the other national polls.
Regardless, I'm going to make you a prediction, ladies and gentlemen.
As the year continues onward and unfolds before our very eyes and ears, the president's approval numbers will continue to increase as the gasoline price goes down, as the president continues to focus on defending the country, and Democrats continue to make it clear as day they have no interest in that first and foremost, that their interest is in defeating President Bush.
All throughout this year, and this happens.
It's something that I think Republicans and conservatives go through as a normal flow pattern to life.
Get up very happy, things are going well, then you go down in the dumps because you think the Republicans are screwing up.
You get caught up in a media bubble.
You're convinced the Democrats are going to take back all of government.
Republicans don't have a prayer.
And then it always changes.
And the prognostications made by the drive-by media and the Democrats six months, nine months out from an election never seem to pan out.
And everybody always ends up feeling pretty good in the end of things.
I try to maintain an even keel, a straight line on all this.
I try to avoid getting caught up in the media bubble, hard to do.
Anybody can be susceptible to it.
But I just see a trend here.
I see a trend.
The Democrats continue to open the door right into their noses.
I think they're blundering about when you're not following a core set of principles, ladies and gentlemen.
You don't have a prayer.
The only way that you have a prayer when you abandon your core principles is if the other side is just so bad and making so many mistakes that voters decide it's time for change just for change's sake.
And that's what I don't think people where I don't think people are there yet, despite what a bunch of pundits are saying, which is actually nothing more than hopefulness.
For example, get this Associated Press story out of Chicago.
Actually, Chicago Tribune story.
The headline here, Democrats plan to unveil legislation to reduce the number of abortions.
Now, before I read you excerpts and analyze this in expert fashion for you, just take the headline.
Democrats plan to unveil legislation to reduce the number of abortions.
Now, we have been hearing in recent weeks that Democrats are forming groups to have outreach to conservative Christians.
And they want Christians to know that Democrats can be Christians too, even though only one of every four Democrats is.
25%, according to the latest poll I saw.
So they want to reach out and say, yeah, hey, we Democrats, we can be Christians too.
So now the latest attempt here is this plan to unveil legislation to reduce the number of abortions.
Now, what about their own pro-choice, pro-abortion constituency?
And what about their statements all along that abortion?
Why?
That's a majority position for pro-choice people.
The vast majority of American women, the vast majority of American people are clearly pro-choice.
If that's the case, then where the hell is the core belief in abortion?
My gosh, that's the one issue.
If you think it's not problematic for Democrats, this is the one issue they would never compromise on.
I mean, yeah, Hillary would go out there and test the waters on trying to sound like she was moderating on the issue, but she caught hell for it and gave up on it after one attempt.
I mean, these people, this is the one thing that they would never compromise.
I think the fact that they're trying to think they're compromised on it, and they probably really won't, but this is just a game.
They probably would never do it.
They just want you to think they might.
It's got to say a number of things.
Number one, they know they're in a minority in this position.
Number two, they are no longer intimidated and frightened by the militant feminist coalition that's in their party.
Otherwise, they wouldn't even be thinking of doing this.
This does not indicate a position of strength whatsoever in terms of their core beliefs.
They're the ones who are willing to give a little away now.
Here are some of the details in the story.
Reaching out to more moderate church-going voters with misgivings about abortion.
House Democrats plan to unveil legislation today that sets a public policy goal of reducing abortions in America.
The proposal to be announced at a news conference attended by Ram Emmanuel, the Democrats' national campaign chairman, would not restrict access to abortion.
Instead, it promotes such preventative measures as funding for contraceptives, expanded sex education geared toward avoiding pregnancy, as well as support for adoption and services to new mothers, according to people familiar with the legislation.
Well, the first part of this is just more liberalism, more funding, funding for contraceptives.
Yes, funding for pills and condoms.
And expanded sex education is half the reason we're in the problem we are in now culturally.
I mean, look at we got 24, 25-year-old teachers having sex with 14-year-old students.
Sex education is alive and well, even outside of sex education class.
And that's where some of these problems are rooted.
So they want to expand that.
But this business of support for adoption, now that is different, and that's something they have never done.
They have tried to stop adoption, where abortion is the alternative.
Because it used to be that for the militant feminists, every abortion possible was necessary to advance the politics of the cause.
And it was a way they distinguished themselves and set them apart, set themselves apart, and maintained their power base and so forth.
But here's the bottom line.
Again, don't get it.
Democrats plan to unveil legislation to reduce the number of abortions in an attempt to reach Christians.
Let me be the first to tell you, Rahm, and the rest of you who are proposing this: trying to reach Christians by reducing the number of abortions is sort of stupid.
Because the problem for you, Democrats, is that Christians don't believe in some abortions now and then.
Period.
They don't believe in abortion.
You're not going to get anywhere with them by legislation that reduces.
And of course, how is your legislation going to reduce an abortion?
It isn't.
The only provision here that might is support for adoption services, but you're going to be countering all that with improved, increased sex education and more condoms.
All you're going to do is come up with a plan that increases the activity which produces all these problems.
Be it sexually transmitted disease, be it unwanted pregnancy.
You're going to go out there and make sure that more and more young people can engage in the risky behavior and the risky activity and say that you are reducing abortions.
Your condescension toward Christians is widely on display here.
It's obvious you think that they are stupid and that they will be satisfied by your words that you intend to have legislation to reduce the number.
Until you start talking about really, really eliminating it through massive education, hearts and minds changes and so forth, Roe versus Wade and all that, you can forget this.
In the meantime, you're going to have your own problem with people like Jane Fonda, the new talk radio network, and all these other feminists out there to whom this issue is still number one and only.
Back in just a second, stay with us.
Well, the Pope has angered the Muslims out there.
Welcome back, Rush Limbaugh.
Half my brain tied behind my back.
Just to make it fair, by the way, that phrase on the new Jane-funded talk radio network will be half my tubes tied, just to make it fair.
If you want to go to the email route, rush at EIBnet.com, Dawn Realay rolling her eyes on the other side of the glass.
Muslim religious leaders have accused Pope Benedict XVI of quoting anti-Islamic remarks during a speech at a German university this week, questioning the concept of the Holy War.
He quoted a 14th century Christian emperor who said that Muhammad had brought the world only evil and inhuman feelings.
A senior Pakistani Islamic scholar, Javed Ahmed Ghamdi, said that jihad was not about spreading Islam with the sword.
Turkey's top religious official asked for an apology for the hostile words.
An Indian-administered, in Indian-administered Kashmir, police seized copies of newspapers which reported a Pope's comments to prevent any tension.
A Vatican spokesman said he didn't believe the Pope's comments were meant as a harsh criticism of Islam.
Here's what he said in his speech at Regensburg University as he explored the historical and philosophical differences between Islam and Christianity and the relationship between violence and faith.
Stressing that they were not his words, the Pope quoted Emperor Manuel II Pediogos of Byzantine, the Orthodox Christian Empire, which had its capital in what is now the Turkish city of Istanbul.
The emperor's words were these: Show me just what Muhammad bought that was new and new, and there you will find things only evil and human.
Try this again.
Got a bad fact copy.
Show me just what Muhammad brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he breached.
Benedict said, I quote, twice to stress the words were not his, and added that violence was incompatible with the nature of God and the nature of the soul.
Nevertheless, Muslims outraged over the accusation that jihad from Muhammad means spreading the religion by virtue of violence and death in Chicago.
You know, we'd been following the living wage argument and the big box resolution trying to keep Walmart stores out of the city.
The so-called living wage ordinance that would have required mega retailers in Chicago to pay their workers higher wages was successfully turned back yesterday as supporters on a city council couldn't muster enough votes to override the veto of the mayor, Richard Daly.
Daly vetoed the ordinance this week, saying it would cost the city jobs, that it would hurt people who need those jobs the most.
He was able to convince enough aldermen who voted in favor of the ordinance in July to change their votes.
Vote was 31 to 18 in favor of overriding the veto, which was three short of the necessary votes to do so.
Here is Brian in Chicago.
Welcome, sir.
It's great to have you on the EIB network.
Rush, it is an honor.
I am thrilled.
This is going to be my talk of the week with everybody.
Yeah, coming from the land where Feu Gras and Walmart are illegal, I got two things I want to tell you really quick.
One, my thinking on Walmart, why Democrats don't like it, is because Walmart has managed to fill a lot of the promises the Democratic Party has not been able to fulfill, and they did it solely based off of the rules of capitalism.
And I think one of the things that angers them very much at Walmart for doing what they do.
And for doing what they've done.
Oh, there's no question.
We touched on this a little earlier in the program.
I think it's even more detailed than that.
There's no question that they resent middle-class success.
But here, you have to understand a liberal attitude.
Liberals are arrogantly condescending.
The last thing liberals want is to be thought of as part of the middle class.
They're above all that.
These people are elitists.
And the people that are enjoying life at Walmart, working there and shopping there, don't need liberals.
It's an affront.
It's an offense to liberalism that something like this, like Walmart, could become so big and so successful in the middle class because liberals look at themselves as the providers for the middle class.
And it just offends them.
And so they have this arrogance toward these people.
They have an arrogance toward most everybody, can't do what's right in life, can't make the right decisions, not smart enough.
There is a contempt and an arrogance for these people.
And when these people have this product in this place and the people that work there are happy and the people that shop there enjoy the benefits they get from shopping there, it just makes them mad.
Say, how come they don't appreciate us?
And these people become enemies.
And so the shop, the whole company, must be attacked and shut down so that liberals will once again control those people's lives and fortunes.
Yes, and this is tied to the second thing I want to bring up.
When you were talking about women, I got to tell you, Rush, my girlfriend, greatest girl in the world.
When I found her, she was 19.
It was about four or five years ago.
And her and her family, they were all liberal.
They're all Democrat.
They all, you know, the parents were divorced, and her and her brothers and sisters, all they were taught was just, you know, wait till the check comes in from dad.
The money was just spent on garbage.
They were just, you know, wait for welfare to come in.
Wait for the grandparents to take care of things.
The grandparents will pay for the house.
Everything was taken care of.
And they were never taught to think for themselves.
And they were never taught to go out and work for themselves, to always depend on other people.
And my girlfriend, I found her.
She's working at a comic book shop.
And I love her so much.
I started instilling these conservative values, you know, to think for yourself, to keep your compassion, but to not depend on others.
And I'm telling you, you know, to this day, she's 23 years old.
She owns her own house.
She has a degree.
She's working downtown, doing what she likes to do.
She wants to be an accountant.
So she's doing what she wants to do downtown in the building next to the Spheres Tower.
She's thrilled.
She signed the deal for her own house at 23 years old.
She's going towards her master's degree.
She's going towards her CPA.
She's already got ideas of being her own boss in five, 10 years, having her own.
Let me ask you a question.
And then a follow-up.
Is she white?
Yes.
All right.
Well, there's no need for a follow-up question.
I'm just going to tell you that not personally, but a woman like your girlfriend is an enemy to liberals.
And to explain her success, they can't reward her.
They can't say she's got ambition.
She's willing to work hard because that's not possible in America anymore.
Bush has so ruined the economy that the only way this could be happening is with some sort of favoritism or other people with less advantages, fewer advantages are not being treated fairly, and she's being treated in a way that discriminates against others.
They cannot credit individual success.
They simply can't.
They want to punish it with high taxes.
They want to make it tough for people who succeed to continue to succeed because they resent it.
They look down upon it and they will excuse it.
And the last thing they will do is credit people like your girlfriend for their own success, saying there had to be, it's just like when they lose elections, it can't be because people aren't voting for them.
It has to be because people are cheating and monkeying with the Chads, the ballots, the voting machines.
Same token.
Exactly.
Your girlfriend.
Go ahead.
Sorry.
Go ahead.
You got 10 seconds, though.
Time is dwindling here on the network.
She worked a serving job, you know, back when she was still making money to pay for college.
And back then, everybody, you know, they loved her.
They all got along.
And as soon as she was kind of writing out that, they kind of turned against her for that same reason.
Well, I can tell you're proud as you can be of her, and that's fabulous.
I love hearing calls like this.
You should continue to be.
We'll take a brief time out.
We'll be back after this and continue.
Stay where you are.
Your hosts for life.
Not going anywhere until every American agrees with me.
Now, look, we got a lot of people on hold who want to talk about one of our first topics today, McCain and Warner and Colin Powell opposing President Bush on the military tribunals.
I appreciate your people's patience out there.
Stay there.
We'll get to you in just mere moments.
But I want to wrap up this Walmart discussion.
Quoted the George Will column today, referenced it.
I want to give you some excerpts of it because some excellent research done here.
This column is datelined Evergreen Park, Illinois.
Remember, we've told you, Walmart has been refused permission to build stores inside the Chicago city limits.
And so, what they've done, they built stores ringing the city limits just a block outside.
So, people from the city are going there to work and going there to shop, but the city of Chicago is gaining nothing from it.
And it's liberals shooting themselves in the foot over this arrogant condescension and elitism that they have, which is really disguised by the ostensible purpose here for hitting Walmart, and that is they're unfair to people and their employees because they're not unionized.
That's the smokescreen.
Liberals don't have any problem ideologically opposing Walmart.
Now, George Will says this suburb, Evergreen Park, Illinois, contiguous with Chicago's western edge, is 88% white.
A large majority of the customers of the Walmart that sits here, less than a block outside Chicago, are from the city.
And more than 90% of the store's customers are African American.
88% of Evergreen Park, Illinois, white.
90% of this store's customers are African American.
One of whom, a woman pushing a shopping cart with a three-year-old along for the ride, has a chip on her shoulder about the size of the store, 141,000 square feet.
She applied for a job when the store opened in January, was turned down because she said the person doing the hiring had an attitude.
So why is the woman shopping here anyway?
She looks at the questioner as though he is dim-witted and directs his attention to the low prices of the DVDs on the rack next to her.
Sensibly, she compartmentalizes her moods and her money.
Besides, she shouldn't brood.
She had lots of company in not being hired.
More than 25,000 people applied for the 325 openings, which vexes liberals like John Kerry.
In 2004, Kerry tested what's become one of the Democrats' 2006 themes.
Walmart is, he said, disgraceful and symbolic of what's wrong with America.
By now, Democrats have succeeded to their embarrassment, if they're susceptible to that, in making the basic numbers familiar.
The median household income of Walmart shoppers is under $40,000 a year.
Walmart, the most prodigious job creator in the history of the private sector in this galaxy, has almost as many employees, 1.3 million, as the U.S. military has uniformed personnel.
A McKinsey Company study concluded that Walmart accounted for 13% of the nation's productivity gains in the second half of the 1990s, which probably made Walmart about as important as the Federal Reserve in holding down inflation.
By lowering consumer prices, Walmart costs about 50 retail jobs among competitors for every 100 jobs Walmart creates.
Walmart and his effects save shoppers more than $200 billion a year, dwarfing such government programs as food stamps, $28.6 billion, and the earned income tax credit, $34.6 billion.
Can I run those, numbers kind of run together here, but that is a stunning statistic.
Walmart and its effects save shoppers more than $200 billion a year, as opposed to food stamps, which save shoppers $28.6 billion a year.
And the earned income tax credit, $34.6 billion.
Do you see where this is headed in terms of why liberals hate this place?
It's the free market.
It is capitalism succeeding for Democrat constituents where liberalism has failed.
Liberalism cannot tolerate open failure.
Liberalism is failure, but it must be masked.
It must be camouflaged.
This is an open failure.
They can't stand it.
They can't stand it when tax cuts work.
They can't stand it when tax cuts create more revenue than anybody dreamed would be flowing into the treasury.
The federal deficit's going to be down by 14%.
Surprise, surprise, surprise.
Because tax revenues continue to roll in after Bush's tax cuts.
Now, if they were really interested in creating more money for the government, they would sign on.
But they don't, do they?
No, because it's not about what they say it's about.
It's not about money.
It's about control.
It's about power.
It's about control over people's lives.
It's about making people dependent.
When the free market comes along, free market capitalism, and outperforms liberal, compassionate social programs, why, that's a problem.
And that outfit must be destroyed.
Liberalism is nothing more than a giant smear tactic.
It smears its enemies.
And just take a look at who are its enemies.
Individuals, corporations.
They never debate these people.
They never engage in any kind of debate over philosophy of capitalism versus their way.
They simply try to smear.
Walmart is just the latest in a long line of companies and institutions that liberals are attempting to smear.
People who buy groceries at Walmart, it has one-fifth of the nation's grocery business.
People who buy their groceries at Walmart save at least 17%.
But because unions are strong in many grocery stores trying to compete with Walmart, unions are yanking on the Democrats' leash, demanding laws to force Walmart to pay wages and benefits higher than those that already are high enough to attract 77 times more applicants than there were jobs at this store.
Let me translate that for you.
Unions are out there saying Walmart doesn't pay people.
It's not fair.
It's not right.
No benefits.
And yet, for a store opening that had 325 jobs, 25,000 people applied.
Once again, the market displays the truth.
The market shows the reality.
The unions can cry and moan and whine about how unfair Walmart people are treated, and yet 25,000 applied for 325 jobs.
Once again, the unions are lying.
The unions trying to protect their dwindling turf and the Democrat Party and the liberals as well doing the same thing.
The big-hearted progressives on Chicago City Council, evidently unconcerned that the city gets zero sales tax revenues from half a billion dollars that Chicago residents spend in the 42 suburban Walmarts, have passed a bill that by dictating wages and benefits would keep Walmarts from locating in the city.
Richard Daly, a bread-and-butter Democrat, used his first veto in 17 years to swat it away.
The veto was upheld, as I just told you.
Liberals think that their campaign against Walmart is a way of introducing the subject of class into America's political argument, which is an old page in their playbook.
Class envy.
They can't move beyond it.
And Walmart's their latest attempt to do so.
Their campaign is liberalism as condescension.
It is a philosophic repugnance toward markets because consumer sovereignty results in the masses making messes, according to liberals.
Liberals, aghast, see the choices Americans make with their dollars in their ballots and announce, yes, announce, that Americans are sorely in need of more supervision by liberals.
When they lose elections, you people are idiots.
You don't even know when your vote isn't being counted.
Everything's being cheated.
And liberals have to go out there and have more supervision and more regulation and more control over you because you keep screwing up.
You Doomkoffs.
And that's the arrogance and the condescension.
Before they went on their bender of indignation about Walmart, and by the way, there are 127 million customers in Walmart every week.
Now stop and think of the political ramifications of that.
127 million customers at Walmart per week, and the Democrats have targeted this as their number one domestic issue, Walmart as an enemy.
These 127 million people are not being forced into Walmart like liberalism forces people into various things.
And the liberals just can't stand it.
They can't stand being rejected.
Why they're so good, they're so compassionate, they're so tolerant, so understanding, so loving, so caring.
And here they are being rejected by a bunch of hayseeds from Arkansas who started this little hick store outfit.
And it hicks store outfits making monkeys out of liberals and out of liberalism.
Before they went on their bender of indignation about Walmart, liberals had drummed McDonald's out of a civilized society because it's making us fat.
By the way, there are 175 million customers per week at McDonald's.
So what's next?
Which preferences of ordinary Americans will liberals in their role as national scolds next disapprove of?
Baseball, hot dogs, apple pie, Chevrolet?
No.
The current issue of the American Prospect, an impeccably progressive liberal magazine, carries a full-page advertisement denouncing something responsible for lies, deception, immorality, corruption, and widespread labor, human rights, and environmental issues, and of bringing great hardship and despair to people and communities throughout the world.
What's the focus of evil?
What is this focus of evil in the modern world?
North Korea?
The Bush administration?
Fox News channel?
Nope.
Coca-Cola.
Number of servings to Americans of the company's products each week, 2.5 billion.
And here goes, the liberals after Coca-Cola.
When liberals' presidential nominees consistently fail to carry Kansas, liberals do not rush to read a book titled What's the Matter with Liberals and Their Nominees?
No, the book they turned into a bestseller is titled What's the Matter with Kansas?
Note a pattern.
In other words, when liberal presidential nominees continue to lose, they ask what's wrong with the voters.
As I've always told you, they never ask what's wrong with themselves.
The analogy would be if I happen to lose 30% of this audience on my radio show.
If I were a liberal Democrat, I'd start blaming the rating services.
I'd start accusing them of cheating me, and then I'd insult you as a bunch of idiots who don't realize how good you have it.
And that isn't what I would do.
I would ask myself, okay, what's not happening on this show that used to be that people liked?
And I would try to fix it.
These are the reasons why I am so optimistic about the future demise of these people.
And as they get more dissociated from the mainstream of American life, they get crazier and louder, and they exacerbate the problem even fuller.
Walmart is an enemy.
McDonald's is an enemy, Coca-Cola.
Meanwhile, they couldn't care less about what's happening in Iraq.
They couldn't care less about the war on terror.
In fact, they're trying to sabotage that.
And now, with the help of three Republicans, they're trying to sabotage the effort to try at Club Guitmo via military tribunal 14 terrorists, one of which was the mastermind of 9-11.
Just take a look, as I've always said, at their enemies list, and their enemies list consists of American people and American corporations and American institutions.
We'll be back in just a second.
Stay with us.
Okay, now back to the Fallen's.
Doing a fourth hour today.
We've got plenty of stuff for the fourth hour.
Audio soundbites coming up as well.
But Bob and Staten Island, I appreciate your patience.
Thanks for holding on and welcome.
How are you doing, Rush?
Good, sir.
Thank you.
By the way, this show does exercise the brain.
That's why I listen so much.
Thank you.
I appreciate that.
You said earlier you could understand why John McCain and Lindsey Graham and Mr. Warner were doing the things they're doing.
I really don't think you believe that.
I think you know kind of exactly what's going on.
You know, from my point of view, I just think it's a master stroke by McCain.
I really do.
I think you're looking at his cabinet.
I think you're looking at his vice president and his secretary of state with these two men.
I think they're positioning themselves so they can't be attacked by the Democrats as rubber stamping Bush policy.
That's kind of how I feel about it.
I just think, you know, if you look at some of the things McCain's done, you know, with, you know, with Kennedy, with education, you know, you know, he's got the high ground on torture.
This whole gang of 14 thing, you know, with the filibuster, you know, he appears bipartisan.
I mean, I'm not a McCain fan in the least, but it appears to me the man is setting himself up.
You know, he's got, you know, Lindsey Graham is a southerner, you know, Christian.
And I mean, I think it's a master stroke by the man.
All right.
Well, let's discuss this.
I know what you're saying.
You're thinking it's a brilliant positioning move by McCain.
Plus, he needs to be consistent.
He authored the anti-torture bill in the Senate, which was just highly offensive to me and a lot of other people.
Now, positioning himself with who?
There's this thing called a Republican nomination he's got to get first.
And this is not the way you do it to go against your party, to go against your president, to join the Democrats in providing and building an obstacle to the president who's trying to defend and protect the country as it appears alone.
Now, I know that I can understand Powell.
Powell, you know, folks, this is really tough.
Colin Powell's an inside Beltway guy.
I remember back in the 90s when there was all this talk about Powell for president.
And he had approval numbers at 65 to 70%.
And everybody was going gag on.
He was out making speeches, motivational speeches.
Oh, this man is.
But he wouldn't tell anybody what party he was a member of.
And I thought that is kind of important here.
If you're going to run for office, at some point, you got to tell us whether you're Republican or Democrat.
He didn't want that approval number coming down.
And then he wouldn't tackle any issues.
He'd be asked about abortion.
I don't want to get into that right now because he didn't want the number coming down.
Throughout the Bush administration, the first term, look at there are people in Washington who care about their reputation and status inside the Beltway.
General Powell is one of those people.
He cultivates it with the drive-by media, and I am not surprised at all that he would send McCain this letter opposing what Bush is doing.
I don't doubt for a moment that there is an attempt here to try to muddy the waters over the controversy involving Richard Armitage, one of his best friends and his deputy of the State Department when he was Secretary of State.
It's for McCain and Graham.
Graham comes from the JAG Corps.
He's a military lawyer.
He wants a McCain acolyte and lapdog in a sense.
McCain, obviously, playing to the media here and trying to set himself up so that he can't be caught in the Democrats' crossfire on pro-torture, making mistakes in the war, and so forth and so on.
But I don't know where this gets him with mainstream Republicans who vote in the primaries to determine the nominee.
Quick timeout.
Back in just a second.
Yes, these poor terrorists, these poor, poor terrorists being so mistreated by George W. Bush and John McCain and John Warner and Lindsey Graham have to ride to the rescue of the terrorists.
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