All Episodes
Previous Next
Oct. 23, 2006 - Rush Limbaugh Program
36:25
October 23, 2006, Monday, Hour #2
| Copy link to current segment

Time Text
Greetings, my good friends, and welcome back.
Great to have you, Rush Limbaugh Broadcast Excellence, supremely and intensely focused on the matters at hand here on the cutting edge of the EIB network and the Limbaugh Institute for Advanced Conservative Studies.
It's a thrill and a delight to be with you.
As I know, it is a thrill, a delight, and an honor for you to be with us.
Telephone number, if you want to reach out, 800-282-2882, the email address rush at EIBNet.com.
Financial Times misquotes me in a story claiming I am the one who called Barack Obama Obama Osama.
We take you to a nine-second soundbite.
Senator Kennedy, during a luncheon speech, which is pre-happy hour, the National Press Club January 11th, 2005.
There you go.
Why don't we just ask Osama bin Laden?
Osama Obama, Obama, what this is since he won by such a big amount.
So there you have it.
There is the origin of, I mean, it's even worse than I remembered it being.
Osama bin Laden, Osama Obama, Obama mom, what it is since he won by listen to this again and send this off to the Financial Times guy.
Well, we were going.
Why don't we just ask Osama bin Laden?
Osama Obama, Obama, what there is since he won by such a big amount.
Senator Ted Kennedy, credited by this show and himself for the new name for Osama, or see, Barack Obama is Osama bin Laden, Obama, Obama.
As he said, got an email.
Dear Rush, this latest Newsweek poll is a total joke.
First off, it declares victory for the Democrats, which is of no surprise.
It goes to complain about the Newsweek poll.
And I just happen to have here in one of the stacks of stuff an analysis of this poll found at stoptheaclu.com.
And it is amazing.
The internals of this poll are fascinating and give a completely different picture than what Newsweek itself presents.
Newsweek's out with a poll.
Time to read the bones.
That means dig through the internals.
It's very difficult to do that because the data is so limited.
First, there is the partisan breakdown issue of those sampled in this poll.
282 identified themselves as Republican, 349 as Democrat, and 330 as Independents.
And the issue that it is not registered voters are likely voters.
Nobody knows who these people are.
It was conducted on Thursday and Friday nights through phone interviews with 1,000 adults.
We don't know if they're registered or even likely voters.
We do have garbage in, but let's look at the garbage out because some of it may be a treasure.
On the war on terror, likewise, once President Bush's signature issue, while Republicans have not restored their perennial lead over the Democrats, equal numbers of Americans trust each party, 40% for each.
Two weeks ago, the Democrats held a seven-point advantage on immigration.
40% trust the Democrats more, while 34% trust the GOP more.
Two weeks ago, the Democrats held a nine-point lead on that issue.
So in two weeks, Democrats have lost a seven-point advantage on the war on terror and a nine-point advantage on immigration.
The message is getting out.
We're in the final two-week stretch.
This is based on a sample that is not weighted to reflect the most likely turnout either.
We have little detail on where this poll was conducted.
Was it nationwide or in a few urban areas?
There's a terrible stench coming from this poll, and it is found here.
Quote, other parts Of a potential Democratic agenda receive less support, especially calls to impeach Bush.
47% of Democrats say that should be a top priority, but only 28% of all Americans say it should be.
23% say it should be a lower priority, and nearly half, 44%, say it shouldn't be done at all.
5% of Republicans say impeachment should be a top priority.
15% of Republicans say it should be a lower priority, 78% opposed.
Now, according to Newsweek, one out of five Republicans stated that Bush should be impeached.
Now, that's just not possible.
Two weeks before the election, you get Republican voters to say something like that?
Lincoln Chafee wouldn't even support that.
It is one of two things, and I'm not sure which one it is.
Either we have 50 cause Democrats who told the pollster they were Republicans, and/or they were Republicans in a very blue area.
Now, the conclusion of this pollster, or I should say, poster at stoptheaclu.com is this: the sample is even worse than stated above.
In my opinion, the sample is 232 Republican, 399 Democrat, 330 Independent.
If the sample was adjusted by party, it would show that Democrats have 47% support, Republicans have 45%.
And with that breakdown, Congress stays controlled by Republicans.
But we don't even know who these people were in terms of registered or likely voters.
Human events, which is basically nailing the drive-by media scheme that I pointed out last week.
A story by Brian Fitzpatrick, tempting target media try to persuade conservatives to stay home.
And it's got numerous details that have been provided to you by me on this program countless times prior in terms of the drive-by media and how they're trying to suppress Republican turnout.
That's what this whole campaign is about.
And the interesting thing is: do you think that suppressing Republican turnout was the original strategy from the get-go?
Do you think it was?
Or are the Democrats, I say, I don't think it was.
I don't think the Democrats are that organized.
I don't think there's any way in the world they're that organized.
I think that what the Democrats do is go by every day keeping their issues quiet, their agenda quiet, so they can be flexible.
Whatever news shows up that day, they can react to it in a way that doesn't tie them to a contradicting position that they have made early or earlier.
In fact, they've even suggested this on a couple of occasions when they have been honest.
Now, the Foley situation, that I think is what prompted them, and they've been holding this for some months, to use it in a way to suppress voter turnout.
But here's the pattern that I see: the Democrats will try to win by any means other than adjusting their own politics, which is basically socialism.
They will not make changes.
They will not change that.
They will not alter it in any way to make themselves more appealable or attractive to voters.
They won't do that because that's all they have.
They are socialists.
They're big government types, but it doesn't work for them if they don't control the government.
You need to control the government for that to work.
And that's their dream.
Birthright to power is what their entitlement is.
Four years ago, it was win one for the dead guy, the Wellstone Memorial.
Two years ago, it was smear Bush with fake but accurate documents about his National Guard service.
This year, it's, hey, Christians, they're a bunch of gays in the GOP and y'all don't like them, right?
So stay home, please.
That's what passes for a Democratic campaign.
Win one for the dead guy.
Here's some forged but accurate documents on Bush.
And pst, the Republicans have a bunch of them in the party, a bunch of gays.
And you Christians don't like gays because you don't like sinners.
And you didn't know because your Republicans are lying to you about who's in their party, but it's infested with gays like Mike Foley.
And so don't vote.
That's it.
That's their strategy.
It has nothing to do with trying to make their policies more amenable to an increasing number of people.
They will not change who they are.
And on that basis, folks, they deserve to lose.
Quick time out.
Back with more in just a sec.
Hi, welcome back.
Nice to have you on the EIB network.
Rush Limbaugh kicking off a brand new week of broadcast excellence from the Limbaugh Institute for Advanced Conservative Studies.
I tell you what, we're going to have to move the sound bites up because they're getting some phone calls on this mic.
Soundbites up.
We'll start with, we'll get 17 and 18, and we'll go back to where we were going to go.
Go to New Berlin, Illinois.
Maybe it's New Berlin.
Not sure.
This is Kara, and I'm glad you called.
Welcome to the program.
Oh, Rush, I'm so excited to talk to you.
Thank you.
Thank you very much.
I could get you over the phone.
I was just calling because people seem to forget how Obama got elected senator.
In the Democratic primary, there was a big scandal with the frontrunner.
Obama was an also run.
He was just another name on the list until this guy opened his divorce records, and it was found out that he actually hit his wife once.
And then he threw all of his support to Obama, and that's how he won.
Well, okay, that's fine, but that's irrelevant now because he's there, and he's being pumped up.
He's being groomed.
He's being set up for something.
But then there's also when he ran against the Republican for the Senate seat, there was another scandal with Jack Ryan, and he dropped out of the race.
And we were in the midst of the George Ryan trial.
And then we had somebody not even from the state of Illinois running for the Republicans for the Senate seat.
And all of the cut-and-run Republicans didn't show up at the polls.
And they made a rock star out of Obama.
I think that was Alan Keyes that moved in there and ran against Obama.
Well, here's the thing.
I mean, let me ask you, are you suggesting that Obama's victories are Pyrrhic and in a legitimate race without a candidate who is scarred by scandal, Obama really doesn't have that much power behind him?
Well, I think now that they've made such a star out of him, he probably has a little more power, but he has no record.
The Democrats in Illinois didn't recognize that actually as far as the Democrats are concerned, it actually helps.
You can pin on him if there's no record.
So his personality becomes the attractive thing.
We have a couple of Obama's soundbites.
He was with Tim Russert yesterday, the official coming out party for Barack Obama.
We have two bites.
Russert says, when we talked back in November of 2004, after your election, I said, there's been enormous speculation about your political future.
Will you serve your full six-year term as a United States Senator from Illinois?
And you said, absolutely.
I will serve out my full six-year term.
You know, Tim, if you get asked enough, sooner or later you get weary and you start looking for new ways of saying things.
But my thinking has not changed.
So you will not run for president or vice president in 2008?
I will not.
Oh, come on.
What the hell is going on out there?
This is happening without his knowledge?
This is happening without his having any role in the effort?
Hell, this is all about getting you ready for something in 08, either the first or second stop on the ticket.
Here's the next bite.
Russert says, you will not run for president.
Well, that is how I was thinking at that time.
And I don't want to be coy about this.
Given the responses that I've been getting over the last several months, I have thought about the possibility, but I have not thought about it with the seriousness and depth that I think is required.
But it's fair to say you're thinking about running for president in 2008.
It's fair.
Yes.
And so when you said to me in January, I will not, that statement is no longer operative.
I would say that I am still at the point where I have not made a decision to pursue higher office, but it is true that I have thought about it over the last several months.
So it sounds as if the door has opened a bit.
A bit.
Really, that's some tough questioning there.
Sounds as though the door has opened a bit.
Barack Obama is one of these Bill Clinton, Tony Blair types at this stage, ladies and gentlemen.
One of the things that I think the drive-by media is going gaga over is he's one of these third-way guys.
When talking about the Bush administration and a war on terror and the war in Iraq, oh, I think they tried to do the right thing.
Tim, I think the intentions were just right on the money.
Nobody I know thinks that we set out to have a screwed-up policy, but that's what we've got.
We've got a screwed-up policy and I, but I think they gave it their best shot.
But we can find a way to do it better.
This third way is a way of establishing yourself as nonpartisan, which I just, I've always gotten the biggest chuckles out of because the drive-by media, the Democrats are the most partisan among us, which is fine, except they won't admit it.
I'm a partisan too, but I will admit it.
And I will admit who I am.
They try to hide their partisanship, and they come up with this third way business where they, the Clinton way, where you try to be above the fray.
I'm better than those ideologues on the left and the right.
I mean, I'm more open-minded.
I'm not locked into there's only one way to answer every question that politics dredges up.
And so people glom onto that and, oh, we can work together.
We can get along.
And all it is is a mask.
Barack Obama has learned, or thinks he has anyway, that he's not going anywhere if he gets into a contest with a bunch of other lib socialists.
He can't outdo Hillary in that regard.
He can't outdo the Brett girl.
He can't outdo John Kerry.
And he can't outdo Al Gore.
Why get in that mix and try to out-liberal those guys?
So what he's going to try to do is set himself up as smarter and above the fray.
And I don't want to get my hands dirty with all of this demeaning stuff.
Tim, I mean, we can find ways in this country to solve these problems.
And oh, when I think about being president, I haven't given it the serious weight that that decision must have, that question.
And there are decisions one must make as president that are profound.
And I just can't sit here and in a scatological way tick off answers to you.
I'm still in the process of assessing all this is the most solemn job.
And all of this is designed to make hearts swoon.
People like Oprah and the people in the feelings crowd and in the emotion crowd.
Oh, oh, what we've all been looking for.
Because there are, you know, people don't like conflict and they think partisanship is a roadblock, doesn't get anything done.
The dirty little secret is that Barack Obama is every bit as liberal as Bill Clinton is, or John Kerry, or Governor Cuomo, or Al Gore, or the Breck Girl.
It doesn't matter.
He's just as liberal as all the rest of them, if not more so.
It just isn't going to say it.
It just isn't going to happen.
He's not going to let it be heard from his lips.
Now, I want to go back to the audio soundbites.
You really need to see this commercial audio we're going to play for.
You need to see this.
It's a spot running in St. Louis during World Series games, bought and paid for and approved by the Democrat Senate candidate, Claire McCaskill.
Now, I want you to listen to this.
This is Michael J. Fox, aired during a World Series game, and I will describe for you what he's doing in this commercial after you've heard it.
As you might know, I care deeply about stem cell research.
In Missouri, you can elect Claire McCaskill, who shares my hope for cures.
Unfortunately, Senator Jim Talent opposes expanding stem cell research.
Senator Talent even wanted to criminalize the science.
It gives us a chance for hope.
They say all politics is local, but it's not always the case.
What you do in Missouri matters to millions of Americans.
Americans like me.
I'm Claire McCaskill, and I approve this message.
Now, this is Michael J. Fox.
He's got Parkinson's disease.
And in this commercial, he is exaggerating the effects of the disease.
He is moving all around and shaking, and it's purely an act.
This is the only time I have ever seen Michael J. Fox portray any of the symptoms of the disease he has.
I know he's got it, and he's raising money for it.
But when I've seen him in public, I've never seen him portray any of the symptoms.
But this commercial, he's just all over, but he can barely control himself.
He can control himself enough to stay in the frame of the picture, and he can control himself enough to keep his eyes right on the lens, the teleprompter.
But his head and shoulders are moving all over the place, and he is acting like his disease is deteriorating because Jim Talent opposes research that would help him, Michael J. Fox, get cured.
Jim Talent does not oppose stem cell research.
He opposes fetal stem cell research, but not adult.
But this is reminiscent, and I don't have time.
Yes, I do.
Here, listen to John Edwards, the break girl on the campaign trail, October 11th, 2004.
If we do the work that we can do in this country, the work that we will do when John Kerry is president, people like Christopher Reeve are going to walk, get up out of that wheelchair and walk if you had.
And I think, didn't he even say they said it at a debate?
Don't know if he said it at the convention.
So this is really shameless, folks.
This is really shameless of Michael J. Fox.
Either he didn't take his medication or he's acting one of the two.
You can see it.
There's a link to the video of this at thedrudgereport.com.
It's a YouTube link that you can see Michael J. Fox deliver the message that you heard here on the program.
We'll be right back.
And we are back.
El Rushbo executing assigned host duties flawlessly.
Zero mistakes here on the EIB network.
All right.
Now, people are telling me that they have seen Michael J. Fox in interviews, and he does appear the same way in the interviews as he does in this commercial for Claire McCaskill.
All right, then I stand corrected.
I have never seen, I've seen him on Boston Legal.
I've seen him on a number of stand-up appearance.
I've never seen the evidence that he's got.
I know he's got it.
It's pitiable that he has a disease.
It's a debilitating disease, and I understand that fully.
Just stick with me on this.
All I'm saying is I have never seen him the way he appears in this commercial for Claire McCaskill.
So I will bigly, hugely admit that I was wrong, and I will apologize to Michael J. Fox if I am wrong in characterizing his behavior on this commercial as an act, especially since people are telling me they have seen him this way on other interviews and in other television appearances.
But let me just say this about it.
And the reason I went and grabbed the audio from John Edwards, where he said in 2004 on the campaign trail, quote, if we can do the work that we can do in this country, the work we will do when John Kerry is president, people like Christopher Reeve are going to walk, get up out of that wheelchair and walk again.
That was about stem cells.
And that was a misleading statement.
And it didn't work for the Brett girl, implying that if it weren't for George W. Bush and his stubbornness on stem cells, that we've got a cure for spinal deterioration and injury.
And we don't.
We do not have anywhere near a cure.
We can't regenerate nerves yet, folks.
And that's what has to happen to cure paralysis in the spine.
And stem cells do not promise any such thing, nor do they for Parkinson's disease.
So the reason that I went and got the Brett girl to compare it to Michael J. Fox is because I think the intent here is the same thing.
I think, if I may be blatantly honest, brazenly so, I think this is much more offensive than Hillary's Senate opponent implying that she's ugly.
Michael J. Fox is allowing his illness to be exploited and in the process is shilling for a Democrat politician.
And in the process of doing that, creating an impression like John Edwards tried to do that is not reality.
Michael J. Fox is using his illness as a way to mislead voters into thinking that their vote for a single United States senator has a direct impact on stem cell research in Missouri.
It doesn't, and it won't.
So Mr. Fox is using his illness as another tactic to try to secure the election of a Democrat senator by implying that with her election, that we'll be on the road to stem cell research her opponent opposes and people who suffer from Parkinson's disease as he does will have a cure.
I just, you know, it's a negative ad and negative ads work and people criticize them all the time as I am doing to this one.
But when you see it, there's something wrong about it in the get-go.
It's the exploitation of someone's illness.
I wonder if this were to become a trend and all kinds of illnesses were being exploited, how people would end up reacting to it and feeling about it.
So if this was not an act, then I apologize.
I've not seen this type of appearance by Michael J. Fox before, and that's why it struck me the way it did.
But despite all that, I mean, it's pitiable, and it's very sad anybody has this disease because it is debilitating in ways that people who don't have it don't even understand.
To exploit it like this in misrepresenting the political agenda of a particular candidate, there's nothing admirable about that.
Rose in Chicago, welcome to the EIB Network.
Hello.
Hi, Rush.
How are you?
Fine, thank you.
Rush, I have to say Obama is the biggest packaging and marketing event by the media that I've seen in a long time.
I live in Chicago.
They don't have the Chicago Sun-Times anymore.
It's the PR campaign for Obama.
You can't open up the paper without having his picture, half page, full page today.
It's the whole page.
Last week we had it four times in one paper.
I'm telling you.
It's not just your paper or your PR sheet.
It's everywhere.
It's been Time magazine.
I agree with you.
Like you said, this is marketing, packaging, and brainwashing by the media.
They don't give you any substance.
They don't tell you his record.
They don't want you to know he's a liberal.
But, I mean, what a waste of space.
We have a full-time reporter, Lynn, does nothing but follow him around.
He woke up today.
He poured coffee for his wife.
He's going to write a book.
He wrote a book.
We're at the book signing.
This is a waste of my money to buy a newspaper.
I am tired of it.
We got the point.
The media loves him.
They want him to be president, vice president.
I want news.
I don't want propaganda and I don't want to be brainwashed.
Well, get used to it.
It's only going to get worse.
These next two weeks are going to be worse than you've ever seen it, Rose.
And then once the official kickoff to the this is not even a presidential race.
This is midterm congressional elections we're talking about in two weeks.
The intensity for these elections is more than I've ever seen for a midterm.
2002 would be close, but 1998 with nothing like this.
Not even 94 was this intense.
Because nobody thought that what was going to happen in 94 was going to happen.
This is one of the most intense, media-focused midterm elections I can remember in my lifetime.
And if you think this is that you wait till we get to the presidential race, because all this talk about Democrats getting their power back and Democrats getting the House back, that is key.
You run Washington if you run the House because that's where all spending originates.
That's where all the horse trading goes on.
But without the White House, the reach of the House of Representatives somewhat diminished.
And if you think that this is intense now, you wait till the libs start tasting the sweat and the victory of getting the White House back in 08.
I mean, the premature orgasms these people are going to have over the possibility of Hillary or Barack Obama or a combination of the two.
It's going to be insufferable out there, folks, as you access the drive-by media.
Miramar, Florida, Alex, you're next.
I'm glad you waited.
Welcome to the EIB Network.
Thanks for taking my call, Rush.
You bet, sir.
I'll tell you what scares me about Barack Osama is that he's not yours.
No, no, It's Barack Obama.
Obama.
See, besides the name.
Right.
Is that he's not your typical Democrat out there?
I saw him yesterday, and he comes across so polished and so good.
And so, like you said, above the fray.
He's not shrill like Hillary.
You know where Hillary is.
You know where Dingy Airy is.
You know where Nancy Pelosi is.
He comes across, and what scares me is that he's going to lull the moderates, the moderates, the moderate Republicans into saying, I think I could get along with this guy.
Yeah, exactly.
I like this guy.
He looks like a guy I could have a beer with or sit down and have an intelligent conversation with.
And what scares me is he doesn't think any different than those other ones do.
He's just presenting himself so much better.
It reminds me of the Democrats of the 60s and 70s where there was actually some respect between the aisles, between the sides.
And you don't seem to see that anymore, except now he's kind of bringing that back.
But I just think it's a wolf in a sheep's clothing.
Well, without a Hillary attached to him, meaning without a wife that's also in politics and wants to equally share the power, he's Bill Clinton.
That was Clinton.
Clinton was one of these guys that, see, he was able to go out.
He had to get the vote, so he had to do the third way.
He had to be the moderate.
He had to be the guy that didn't appear to be the ideologue.
The rest of his administration handled that for him.
From Jamie Korellik to Janet Reno to the State Department, wherever, to Hillary and her healthcare system.
But Clinton got to play above the fray.
And that's what Barack Obama is doing.
But you're right.
They're all liberals.
Liberals are liberals.
A liberal is a liberal, and nothing changes here.
They have to hide it.
And Obama, I'm sure his packagers and maybe himself, too, they're looking at all this in this Democratic campaign, and they see it the way we do.
This is an absolute joke.
These people are embarrassing the party when you get right down to it.
Otherwise, he'd be in on the game with them.
He'd be trying to outdo them at their own game.
He's looking at it and say, this does not have any long-term future in terms of electability or even governing.
And so I'm going to be above the fray, and I'm going to go get the moderates.
That remains, you know, in the elite circles of politics, the great middle, the independents, the moderates, they do remain the most prized group of people to get because the conventional wisdom is that the conservatives are going to vote Republican and the liberals are going to vote Democrat, but that's not everybody.
And neither party can win with just their base supporting them.
This is where, by the way, the Republicans screw up because they can and they have.
In fact, it's the only time they do win is when the conservatives are in full-fledged support for them.
If it were left up to the country club blue-blood Republicans to elect Republicans, they would never win another election for as long as they exist as a party.
That's not true of the Democrats.
Well, maybe it is more so never because there are actually fewer of these mad, insane lunatic liberals.
There are plenty of them out there, but they're probably not enough to get these people because we've seen this in recent elections.
Clinton gets 43%, gets elected.
49% gets elected.
They're not winning with majorities, and they haven't for a long, long time.
Meanwhile, the drive-by media keeps telling us that they are the vast majority of the people yet of this country.
Yet everybody focuses on the middle.
And the reason for it is that it is considered by the elites that all this partisanship is driving people away from both parties.
And the average ordinary American doesn't want any part of the daily conflict and the battle and the war for primacy and supremacy.
And so the numbers of independents grow and the numbers of independents, moderates grow.
And you are exactly right.
The definition of a moderate, the definition of an independent is somebody who will not take a position on anything until they figure out where the majority position is and then they'll go with it to be part of the crowd.
But they don't want to take a position that's in the minority and be heckled, laughed at, made fun of, or even challenged.
So when you have somebody who comes up with this third way business, it does strike a comforting chord among moderates and independents because it makes them easy, makes them feel very easy to attach themselves to somebody who they think is just like them, who really doesn't have any specific ideological tendencies.
He only wants to do what's right and what's best.
And it's a game.
In fact, I've got to take a break here.
But there's a quote from Barack from yesterday on this third way business.
It pretty much sums this up.
Quick time out.
We'll be back after this.
Stay with us.
Okay, a couple of quotes from Barack Obama from his, this is yesterday from Meet the Press.
And this is on the third way.
He says, I think the categories we've been using were forged in the 60s.
You know, I think the arguments about big government versus small government, the arguments about sexual revolution, military versus non-military solutions to problems, I think in each and every instance, a lot of what we think about is shaped by the 60s.
Partly, you know, the baby boomers, big demographic.
I write about that fact.
Whether it's the market for Viagra or how many cup holders are going to be in a car, a lot of it's determined by what the baby boomers want.
Our politics isn't that different.
My suggestion is take the example of big government versus small government.
My instinct is that the current generation is more interested in smart government.
Let's have enough government to get the job done.
If we're looking at problems, if the market solutions work, let's go with a market solution.
If a solution requires government intervention, let's do that.
But let's look at what are the practical outcomes.
And I think that kind of politics is what the country is hungry for right now.
And depending on who was watching the show, there were some orgasms over this kind of a statement.
Let's use the amount of government we need.
And then if the market works, let's look at the market.
Okay, Barack Obama is president.
I'm giving you a hypothetical.
Barack Obama is president or vice president or something.
Walmart can be demonstrated, market company, to be doing far more for far more middle-class people than government programs do.
Do you think Barack Obama, as a Democrat, will suggest that we get rid of some government programs since Walmart is getting the job done?
And you think if he did that, that the unions would support him the next time he was up for election?
Nope.
Do you think a liberal Democrat is ever going to side with the market?
A liberal Democrat is interested in holding on to power and maintaining his hold on that power.
And that means big government.
A liberal is a liberal.
This is going to get very interesting as this guy gets more and more coverage, shall we say.
And it's hard to see how it can be increased given what he's had in the last week or so.
Here's another quote from the program.
Russert says, you talk and write a lot about bipartisanship.
And I was quite taken by this comment about federal judges.
Let me share it with you.
Quote, because federal judges receive lifetime appointments and often serve through the terms of multiple presidents, it behooves the president, benefits our democracy, to find moderate nominees who can garner some measure of bipartisan support.
John Roberts, Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, confirmed 78-22.
That is some measure of bipartisan support.
Really?
That's by 78-22 is bipartisan support.
Russert, and yet you voted against him, Senator Obama.
Yeah, but I did not support a filibuster in that situation.
So I mean, there's a situation where I thought Roberts was a highly legitimate nominee.
I anguished over that vote.
I worked harder on that than anything I ever had in my life, Tim.
I thought he was highly qualified for the job.
I thought he'd do a good job.
I thought he'd really work hard at it, Tim.
I had some concerns about his record on the margins.
But, you know, I was a little bit worried about some of the things I've read that he wrote when he was younger.
I chose to vote against him, but I would not have supported a filibuster in that instance because I think that he was a good nominee on the part of the Bush administration.
Look, Tim, Republicans won the election.
They get to nominate whoever they want.
I couldn't find enough to say no and support filibuster of this guy.
And when I learned he was going to win, I had to support what my party wanted me to do.
And I knew my vote wasn't going to affect it.
He's a good justice, but I still got to maintain my loyalty to my party.
So my point I'm making there, in the context of judicial nominations, it's important. to distinguish between somebody you may not vote for because you're not sure their views in the Constitution comport with yours.
That doesn't mean you take extraordinary measures to block their appointment.
And that is a good example of, I could have filibustered a guy, but I knew the public wasn't in favor of these filibusters.
And I didn't want to incur the wrath of the American people.
And I knew he's going to win anyway.
So I had to go for party loyalty to him and do the right thing.
And I can sit here and tell you that my decision-making was far more lofty in my thinking.
But in fact, I was just being a good liberal.
And if I could have scoped this guy's rear end in the vote, I would have.
One big broadcast hour to go, ladies and gentlemen.
It'll be all yours after this brief top of the hour timeout.
Don't vanish.
Don't go on the lamb.
▲
Export Selection