Rush Limbaugh Program - November 1, 2006, Wednesday, Hour #1

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Nov. 1, 2006 - Rush Limbaugh Program

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November 1, 2006, Wednesday, Hour #1

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	Welcome to today's edition of the Rush 24-7 podcast.
	Well, this is a lot of fun to watch.
	Everything I predicted yesterday about how the drive-by media would react to the John Kerry.
	Well, they haven't done one thing yet, but everything else I predicted, they did for hours and hours and hours last night, and they continued for more hours this morning, parsing Kerry's words, attempting to explain what he really meant.
	Greetings, my friends, and welcome.
	You are tuned to the most listened-to radio talk show in America.
	This is the Rush Limbaugh program, and it's the Excellence in Broadcasting Network.
	As usual, a thrill and delight to have you with us.
	Welcome to those of you watching on the DittoCam today at rushlimbaugh.com.
	Telephone number, if you'd like to join us, 800-282-2882.
	And if you want to send an email, the address is rush at EIBnet.com.
	Did my interview with President Bush this morning.
	It runs about 21 minutes.
	We did it at 10.45 Eastern Time, and we're going to air it in two parts at 1233, about 25 minutes from now.
	It'll be the second half hour of this hour at the bottom of this hours when we will do that.
	Ladies and gentlemen, I have just a real simple question here.
	We got Harold Ford demanding Kerry apologize.
	We got the guy out in Montana running against Conrad Burns demanding that Kerry apologize.
	All of Kerry's appearances have been canceled today.
	Either he canceled them or the Democrats for whom he was appearing have canceled them.
	My question is this.
	Why are all the liberals running away from John Kerry?
	What he said is what they believe.
	I mean, it's nothing new.
	This is nothing new from Kerry, and it's nothing new from the Democrats.
	So why in the world are they running away from it?
	And where?
	And I do note that they did send Jack Murtha out there today.
	They're doing everything they can to keep this alive.
	Kerry making radio appearances today.
	The Democrats, just shut up.
	Just go away.
	But that's what they believe.
	Why in the world are they running away from John Kerry?
	This is what they say they believe.
	They must not want you to know this is what they believe, which is, I guess, the answer to my question.
	Let's listen to some of the, and it's hilarious.
	I told you yesterday that the media would start circling the wagons and start telling us what he really meant.
	What he really meant to say.
	And that prophecy came true early yesterday afternoon.
	Actually, yeah, it did.
	During the course of this program, it started to come true.
	It got into full speed ahead mode last night.
	The only thing they haven't done is go out there and find a military family that would fit the description of John Kerry's, or fit Kerry's description of them, basically idiots.
	Now, everybody knows where this comes from.
	You know, the liberals have had a disdain for the U.S. military anyway.
	Look at Kerry.
	He epitomizes the modern-day liberal, a wealthy Brahmin-type aristocrat who is comfortable in his home and in his office and his surroundings and doesn't want to upset that.
	You have to ask of liberals, what is it?
	Is there anything?
	What is it that you are willing to fight for to preserve that involves the U.S. military?
	What will you fight for to defend?
	What will you fight for to preserve?
	We know that you will send the U.S. military around the world essentially on meals on wheels missions.
	We know you'll send the military around to pass around foodstuffs and so forth.
	But what will you defend?
	What is important enough for you to defend?
	These people have a view of the U.S. military that was formed in the 60s, as is much of their current thinking today.
	Back in the 60s, as you know, there was a draft.
	And if you could get into college for much of the Vietnam War draft, you could get a college deferment.
	Those that couldn't get into college or didn't get into college were then left for the pool to be drafted.
	And the Democrats assumed that those were the idiots of America.
	If you don't go to college, if you can't get into college, you're a lame brain.
	And that's who ended up in the U.S. military, and that's their view of it today.
	They have no clue.
	They have no understanding.
	They have not modernized at all.
	Their playbook is still as old today as it was 20 years ago and 40 years ago.
	Their worldview is the same.
	Their view of American society and American culture and the American economy is the same.
	It has not modernized at all.
	Their view of voters is the same.
	Arrogant condescension.
	John Kerry was simply telling us what he really thinks yesterday.
	John Kerry the night before.
	John Kerry was actually telling us what Democrats think.
	And they were just desperate to hush this up.
	I knew these kooks couldn't be suppressed all the way through the election.
	You had this clown that tried to disrupt the George Allen appearance yesterday, a kook left-wing blogger whose hero is Michael Moore.
	And then you had this lawyer up in Maine who was the guy who leaked back in 2000 George W. Bush's DUI when he was a kid, dresses up as Osama bin Laden and acts as though he's armed to the gill, starts running around.
	He gets arrested.
	The Democrats have done everything they can to suppress their kooks, including Pelosi, who's a kook, and including Dingy Harry, who's a kook.
	These people have not been seen from in two weeks.
	Kerry has blown this.
	The drive-by media, desperate to move on, to keep this story as short as possible, even going so far, as you will hear in your moments last night, of hoping that they can curtail this story and keep it to 24 hours.
	They will not succeed in this.
	And the reason is the American people are outraged.
	The American people have had it with the double standard.
	Trent Lott, forced to resign after apologizing how many times for making a joke, quote unquote, about Strom Thurmond.
	Here's John Kerry coming along, and the treatment is so obviously different.
	The Democrats can ridicule, they can impugn, they can criticize, they can insult the men and women of the U.S. military all day long, and nothing is said by their own people or the drive-by media.
	Well, if it was good enough for Trent Lott to resign, then it's good enough for John Kerry to resign, not just apologize.
	And he hasn't even done that.
	I'm not apologizing.
	I'm John Kerry and I'm a man.
	He's a buffoon.
	John Kerry is, you know, here's another thing.
	Folks, here he is.
	He's out there talking to Pasadena City College.
	And he is arrogant enough to tell these students at Pasadena City College what it takes to succeed.
	Yeah, you got to go to school out there.
	You got to get a degree.
	You got to go to college.
	You'll be like me.
	No.
	Senator Kerry, everybody knows that to be like you, go out and find as many wealthy wives as you can, widows or what have you, and marry them and make their wealth yours.
	How come you didn't give them your blueprint for success?
	Instead, you impugn them in the United States military.
	Here is what he said.
	This is Monday night at Pasadena City College Democrat rally for the governor candidate, the Democratic gubernatorial candidate out there, Phil Angelitas.
	We're here to talk about education, but I want to say something before that.
	You know, education, if you make the most of it, you study hard and you do your homework and you make an effort to be smart, you can do well.
	If you don't, you get stuck in Iraq.
	Yeah, here's what President Bush said yesterday, actually last night in Georgia at a rally for former Republican Congressman Matt Collins.
	He said, you know, education, if you make the most of it, you study hard, you do your homework, and you make an effort to be smart, you can do well.
	If you don't, you get stuck in Iraq.
	The senator's suggestion that the men and women of our military are somehow uneducated is insulting and it is shameful.
	The members of the United States military are plenty smart and they are plenty brave.
	And the senator from Massachusetts owes them an apology.
	Like one Democratic congressman said, I guess Kerry wasn't content to blow it in 04.
	He wants to blow it in 06 as well.
	Now, somebody, can somebody tell me what the joke was?
	Kerry says he was telling a joke and he left off a couple of words.
	What's funny about this?
	Would somebody tell me what the joke is?
	I don't even know what the joke was supposed to be.
	Yeah.
	Yeah, the next line, like President Bush, but what's the joke?
	Somebody tell me where is the humor.
	What is the joke?
	I mean, I know the guy's a sad sack, but I mean, you know, to me, if it weren't for his varicose veins, he'd be totally colorless.
	Hell, that and the Botox injections.
	I don't see where the humor is.
	One more bite here just to get you a flavor.
	This is a tortured drive-by media montage contorting itself, trying to explain exactly what I predicted, what Kerry really meant.
	He left out two words, getting us stuck in Iraq.
	He meant to say, I think the words were, if you don't, you get us stuck in Iraq.
	I think what he intended to say was that if you don't do your homework, you make bad decisions.
	He was saying that the only people who would be over there are people who don't have an education.
	He meant to say if you don't study, you end up getting us stuck in a war in Iraq.
	You're going to say, yeah, John Kerry meant to make a joke.
	He was thinking he was going to make a clever joke about how if you're not smart enough, you'll get us stuck in Iraq.
	Kind of making it up, looking at his notes, and probably screwed up.
	Did he mean that Bush didn't have enough book learning?
	He meant to say Bush is a moron.
	You end up getting us in Iraq by meaning that the president gave no thought to this war.
	What he was supposed to say, getting us into the situation in Iraq.
	He was trying to say something about President Bush awkwardly and clumsily.
	Yeah, he's awkward and clumsy whenever he talks about anything.
	But notice the contortions.
	Notice the twists and turns and the pretzels that they put themselves in here to try to excuse this.
	What you still have at the end of the day is a Dumcoff making jokes about the commander-in-chief in wartime and trying to come across as the smartest guy in the room.
	I don't believe anything.
	I think this is, they're just covering for him.
	I told you this is going to happen.
	They're going to circle the wagons.
	But I just, Bush has a Harvard MBA as well as his degree from Yale.
	You can't buy those Harvard MBAs.
	Influence, all that doesn't work.
	This is, you know, these people running around thinking they're smarter than everybody else.
	It's just classic who liberals are and the kind of people they are.
	And now they've been stung by it.
	And here's the drive-by media just desperate.
	Can you imagine them going out of their way to make sure I was not misunderstood in the Michael J. Fox?
	No, eight days now, nine days now, nine days now.
	They are continuing to spread distortions about me.
	They've chosen sides.
	Everybody knows it.
	They don't get away with it anymore.
	Quick timeout.
	We'll be back again.
	The interview with President Bush at the bottom of this hour coming up shortly.
	Don't go away.
	I was watching a little bit of the Tony Snow press conference, the White House press briefing, and wouldn't you know it?
	My name came up right out of the box, it seems.
	Some reporter wanted to know why Kerry should apologize when I haven't.
	I haven't gotten Tony Snow's answer to this yet.
	And then the reporter started talking about how the Republicans are creating a diversion with this.
	Republicans are creating a diversion.
	If I'm not mistaken, it was Kerry who made the statement at the Pasadena City College, and then it was Kerry who called this big press conference yesterday to be defiant and not apologize.
	And Republicans are using this to diverge the story away from the Democrat agenda.
	Now, the New York Times report on Kerry today, I should be so fortunate to have the New York Times report on me this way.
	The New York Times storyline, action line on the Kerry story is this.
	Bush attacks Kerry.
	It is a break from a bleak campaign, but it proves how pointless the attack is because John Kerry is not running for office.
	Well, neither am I, and neither is George W. Bush.
	But more than that, where is the story in the New York Times today?
	It's on page 18.
	And you know, Senator McCain doesn't even fit the action line of this story.
	He's not even in it.
	This isn't a revisit of Bush-Kerry 2004.
	You might look at it that way.
	It's a 2006 debate between Kerry and McCain, in one sense.
	But the notion here that Bush attacks Kerry on this is mind-boggling.
	It's surreal to read the New York Times or watch the drive-by media and understand the lens through which they see things.
	It boggles the.
	Folks, you can go insane trying to follow it.
	You can go insane out of frustration trying to follow this.
	Give me the example.
	Chris Matthews last night spent four hours parsing what John Kerry really meant.
	Here he is last week discussing me.
	There's an old expression when you're in a hole, stop digging.
	Is Rush Limbaugh in a hole there trying to rationalize what seemed a pretty wise guy response the first time around?
	When he's saying that the guy's off his meds, that's a phrase used in conversation.
	It's kind of a joke.
	Are you off the meds?
	You don't usually say it about somebody who's seriously on meds who has Parkinson's disease below the belt.
	Yes.
	Now, four hours to parse John Kerry last night.
	They're on their ninth day of distorting and misrepresenting what I said in the whole Michael J. Fox flap during a segment called What Carey Meant.
	They actually had a segment on CNN last night called What Carey Meant.
	A CNN reporter slips up, Suzanne Malvo, and admits that the media hopes this story goes away in a day.
	We hope and we think that all of this is going to go away tomorrow, but we'll just have to wait and see.
	Oh, I don't know whether we can count on that or not.
	I mean, I'm not taking this out of context, folks.
	That was Paula Zahn that had the rejoinder.
	I am not taking this out of context.
	Play that again, Mike.
	Audio soundbite number five.
	Suzanne Malvo and Paula Zahn last night on CNN on a segment called What Kerry Meant.
	We hope and we think that all of this is going to go away tomorrow, but we'll just have to wait and see.
	Oh, I don't know whether we can count on that or not.
	No, Well, this is why hide it anymore.
	I guess they don't even know if there's a slip of should Suzanne Malvo apologize for embarrassing CNN.
	Tim Russert says the Democrats are upset because they've lost two news cycles here that they could have used talking about Iraq.
	This is today with Matt Wauer on the Today Show.
	And Malawi's question, has it done damage to John Kerry personally, or might it have been done to some Democrat candidates running in the midterm elections?
	A little bit of both, Matt.
	The Democrats are very unhappy because it's a distraction.
	It's two news cycles that they think could have been focused more on the president's management of the war rather than discussing the caliber of the troops.
	It may intensify Republican turnout.
	That's the Democratic concern.
	Or there may be a few independents who are still listening and may be swayed one way or the other.
	Basically, Matt, political analysts on both sides tell me they don't think it has a major impact, but it's two news cycles that could have been used talking about the president's management of Iraq and not John Kerry.
	Yeah, and that's why Suzanne Malvo and the others hope that it goes away today.
	Now, Senator Hillary Clinton has weighed in, saying that Kerry's remarks were inappropriate.
	I have to ask the question again: why are the liberals running away from Kerry?
	What he says, not just on his comment at Pasadena City College about the troops being a bunch of idiots.
	He says what they believe.
	He's against the war.
	He thinks Bush is stupid.
	Bush is a hick.
	Bush is a frat boy cowboy.
	Bush is all these rotten things.
	The military is made up of a bunch of idiots.
	Michael Barone had a great phrase.
	He turned a great phrase yesterday on this.
	He said, Democrats look at the military as one of two things, either victims or predators.
	And that is precisely how they have been portrayed by the likes of John Kerry.
	They are murderers.
	They are Jack Murthy.
	They are murderers.
	They are rapists.
	They wantonly kill innocent Iraqis in cold blood.
	They torture in our prisons.
	I mean, everybody and their uncle who's been paying attention to this knows full well that's what the Democratic Party view is of the U.S. military and liberals per se, wherever you find them in this country, whatever party they claim to belong to.
	So my question is, why are they running away from Kerry?
	What is it that Kerry did?
	It's so harmed to cause.
	Kerry defined a party position on this.
	He defined the party position as Dick Durbin has done.
	So why run away from it?
	I mean, I thought this a big winning election.
	I thought anti-war was going to launch Democrats to this massive new majority.
	By the way, have you seen Ned Lament is down like 12 points?
	12 points in Connecticut.
	Ned Lament, the anti-war candidate, down by 12.
	America's real anchor man, doing the job the old mainstream media used to do about 30 or 40 years ago.
	Now, maybe 50.
	Welcome back.
	I spoke to President Bush.
	He was in Washington and spoke to him on the phone a little more than two hours ago for 21 minutes.
	The interview we will replay now for you, and it'll be in two parts.
	It'll take up most of this half hour.
	Here we go with part one.
	Mr. President.
	Hey, Rush, how are you?
	I am never better.
	It's thrilled to have you on the program today, and many thanks for making time for us.
	Thank you, sir, for giving me a chance to visit with you.
	How are you doing?
	I'm doing great.
	I really am.
	You know, when you've been doing this as long as I have, you get to you feed off the crowds and feed off the enthusiasm and you like a contest, and we're in a really important contest.
	And so I'm doing fine.
	It's kind of like it's a reminder of how I got here in the first place, and that is go campaign hard and tell people what's on your mind.
	That's what I'm doing.
	Well, you have maintained optimism throughout.
	Many people, I guess, in the opposition press, the opposition party are incredulous that you are optimistic about the outcome next Tuesday.
	Why is that?
	Why are you optimistic?
	What do you know that they don't?
	Well, first of all, I fully understand that here in Washington, people are trying to proclaim the election over with.
	But I've had that experience before.
	That's what happened in 2004, and it's what happened in 2002.
	And so one reason I'm optimistic is I trust the will of the people and not the national punditry.
	Secondly, I know that we're right on the issues.
	And the issues, two main issues are low taxes and winning the war on terror and protecting the American people.
	And so I believe if our candidates continue to talk about the strong economy based upon low taxes and an administration and a Congress that was willing to give professionals the tools necessary to protect them, we'll win this election.
	When you go out on the campaign trail or when you're in your private moments, do you think of the consequences of governing with a Democrat majority in either the House or the Senate when it comes to things like tax cuts and the war on terror?
	No, I really don't think about the idea of having a Democrat-led House in the Senate because I don't think it's going to happen.
	I do believe, though, that there is a big difference of opinion between the two parties.
	Well, every tax cut we passed, which has helped this economy grow, was opposed by the Democrat leadership.
	The people that would assume power are the very ones who oppose letting people keep more of their own money.
	And then when it came time to fight in this war on terror, we had votes on whether or not we should be able to listen to al-Qaeda or an Al-Qaeda Philippine making a phone call in the United States, and the overwhelming majority of House Democrats voted against that bill.
	Or when it came time to questioning detainees that we picked up on the battlefield, the overwhelming majority of House and Senate Democrats voted against that bill.
	So there's just a different mindset rush.
	There's a different attitude about how to protect the American people.
	My attitude is give the tools, the professionals the tools and to stay on the offense and fight the enemy wherever we find them and defeat them overseas so we don't have to face them here.
	Well, yeah, but you've got, as you just said, you've got a sizable majority of people, not a majority, but a sizable number of Democrats who are trying to stop you from even finding these people.
	Let me go through a list of things.
	The New York Times, some other national newspapers have published classified secrets of the United States during wartime.
	Everything from blowing up the financial tracking program that you had to trying to destroy the Patriot Act to trying to destroy your Foreign Surveillance Act.
	The leakers haven't been identified.
	They haven't been punished.
	The American people are outraged about this, Mr. President, because they consider this, they remember 9-11, and they know that this is not just a mere episodic event in their lives, and they want to know when these people, media and leakers, are going to be held accountable for this action that to them is an attempt to sabotage and undermine victory over this enemy.
	Yeah.
	Well, I share the concerns of the people who wonder why there are leaks which tell the enemy how we're conducting the war against them.
	Obviously, as the commander-in-chief of Rush, I am deeply concerned about our secrets being made known.
	And there's a Justice Department task force or a Justice Department group that are in the process of gathering the information necessary to find whether or not they can find the leaguers.
	But you talk about the fact that some people don't want to give us the tools necessary to fight the war.
	All that means is we've got to win on November 7th.
	Now, I recognize some people don't think we're in a war.
	I know we're in a war, and I know there's an enemy that still wants to strike us.
	As a matter of fact, I spend a lot of time thinking about how best to protect the American people.
	And the idea that some in Congress don't agree with me, I accept, but they should not deny the tools necessary to this government to do our most important job.
	And that's the fundamental issue in this campaign.
	And so when I say that to the people, that's why I'm optimistic, because when I spell it out to the people I'm in front of, they fully understand.
	People come up to me all the time and say, thank you for protecting us.
	And my answer in this campaign is, I'm going to continue to protect you, but I need a Congress that understands the stakes.
	You riled the press court one of your press conferences at the White House when you intimated that their work in Iraq has sometimes advanced the cause of the enemy.
	And there's a recent example of this.
	CNN recently aired video that they got from terrorists.
	They reached out to these terrorists, and according to accounts, the way they got the tape from terrorists was to promise the terrorists a fair shake.
	This video showed terrorists taking pot shots, assassinating U.S. soldiers in cold blood.
	What are your thoughts as the commander-in-chief when you see this and when you hear about this?
	My thoughts are that we face an enemy that will kill innocent people.
	They murder to achieve their objectives, and they use propaganda in order to do two things.
	One, proclaim their might, and secondly, to discourage us.
	And I am, you know, obviously, the idea of their propaganda being displayed is something that bothers me in the sense that I don't want the American people to become discouraged.
	One, I want them to understand the stakes in this war, and two, that we're going to win this war, and not to be discouraged about the violence and the propaganda they see.
	Now, listen, there's obviously some of the violence is not propaganda.
	But these tapes that they put out are all aimed at shaking our confidence.
	Osama bin Laden himself has said that it's just a matter of time before the United States loses its will and retreats.
	Let me give me a second here, Rush, because I want to share something with you.
	I am deeply concerned about a country, the United States, leaving the Middle East.
	I am worried that rival forms of extremists will battle for power, obviously creating incredible damage as they do so, that they will topple moderate governments, that they will be in a position to use oil as a tool to blackmail the West.
	People say, what do you mean by that?
	I say if they control oil resources, they say they pull oil off the market in order to run the price up, and they will do so unless we abandon Israel, for example, or unless we abandon allies.
	And you couple that with a country that doesn't like us with a nuclear weapon, and people will look back at this moment and say, what happened to those people in 2006?
	And those are the stakes in this war we face.
	On the one hand, we've got a plan to make sure we protect you from immediate attack.
	And on the other hand, we've got a long-term strategy to deal with these threats.
	And part of that strategy is to stay on the offense.
	Part of the strategy is to help young democracies like Lebanon and Iraq be able to survive against the terrorists and the extremists who are trying to crush their hopes.
	And part of the democracy is the Fur Freedom Movement, which will help create the conditions so that the extremists become marginalized and unable to recruit.
	Well, that is extremely visionary.
	And one of the things, if I may make this personal, one of the many things I've admired about you is that you see down the road 20 or 30 years.
	You just illustrated that with your comment, what if down the road 20 years we look back to this time and 2020 hindsight realize we blew it.
	You're not, as far as sounds to me, you're not going to let that happen.
	You're going to do whatever it takes to secure victory.
	I am, and I fully understand the nature of this enemy.
	One, they're great propagandists.
	Two, they truly believe they can cause us to retreat by inflicting enough damage.
	Three, they are lethal.
	But I also understand they have no vision.
	They have no ideology.
	They have an ideology.
	They just can't convince people that their ideology makes sense.
	And I also understand that we're inflicting damage on them, that we're on the hunt, that we're bringing them to justice.
	That if you're al-Qaeda, you know the United States of America is breathing down your neck, and we will continue to do so so long as I am the president.
	And Iraq is a tough fight.
	The interesting debate on Iraq here, Rush, is that some say Iraq is a distraction from the war on terror.
	My answer to them is, listen to Osama bin Laden, who says our objective is to defeat America, which will disgrace America, which will embolden the terrorists, which will then enable them being al-Qaeda and extremists to have safe haven, just like they had in Afghanistan.
	And we're not going to let them do it.
	No matter how tough it gets, the United States of America must remain firm and resolved to protect a generation of young Americans.
	And that's precisely what I'm going to do as your president.
	And that's precisely what I'm telling the people on the campaign trail.
	Mr. President, we hear a lot of things from troops in Iraq, both troops that are there and troops who have returned to a man and woman.
	They are shocked, they say, when they get back here, turn on the news and look at the reporting of how things are going.
	They think there are tremendous successes that have taken place in Iraq, not just governmentally over there, but military successes that aren't being reported.
	And it frustrates them, and I think they're a large voting bloc.
	They and their families, as they come back and watch, I think they're going to be active in this election as well.
	Let me say something about our troops, Rush.
	I am, I guess, amazed is the proper word at how courageous our troops are.
	And I am amazed at the fact that they are so capable and that they volunteer in the midst of this war to defend us.
	And these troops deserve all the support of the United States of America.
	And they understand as well as anybody that we are making progress in Iraq.
	And they know when their comrades are out there fighting that they're bringing enemies to justice.
	They see that firsthand.
	The enemy has got an advantage in that by killing innocent people, it looks like they're winning because this gets on our TV screens.
	We have taken a measured approach to talking about casualties.
	But I can assure your listeners, our troops are on the offense and they're after an enemy.
	And when they find the enemy and the enemy confronts, we win.
	They can't beat us on the battlefield.
	way we can lose this is if we leave.
	And our troops are, the other thing people say, well, you know, it's a long slug and therefore it's going to be hard to maintain morale in the military.
	One, it is going to be a tough fight.
	But I will tell you something, our military, the morale in our military is high because these young men and women understand the stakes.
	Re-enlistment rates are very high, and recruitment rates are strong, which all says to me we got an amazing country when we got people who put on the uniform and say, put me in, I want to go fight for this country.
	Yeah, and then they turn around and get insulted routinely.
	John Kerry's not the first.
	He's just the latest, Mr. President.
	We don't really have to focus on him.
	You've spoken about Senator Kerry.
	He's now trying to laugh this off by saying he was talking about you.
	But clearly, he has a Vietnam-era mindset back when we had a draft that if you didn't have a college deferment, you got drafted.
	And that's his thinking on who comprises military members, that they're basically uneducated rubes.
	But it's not just Senator Kerry.
	We've had Senator Durbin who has impugned interrogators at Guantanamo Bay.
	Throughout this war effort, the Democrats, some Democrats, have done their best to impugn the people who are volunteering, offering their lives in sacrifice to defend this country.
	They have questioned their motives.
	They have questioned their backgrounds and so forth.
	And frankly, Mr. President, the American people are outraged by this because John Kerry is just the latest.
	This is not the first.
	Anybody who's in a position to serve this country ought to understand the consequences of words.
	And our troops deserve the full support of people in government.
	People here may not agree with my decision.
	I understand that.
	But what I don't understand is any diminution of their sacrifice.
	We've got incredible people in our military, and they deserve full praise and full support of this government.
	Secondly, what they deserve is a plan for victory.
	And we have a plan for victory.
	Our victory, as you know, is really to help the Iraqis win, to help the 12 million people, to help Iraq realize the dreams of 12 million people who voted to help the political process and help the security process and help the economic process.
	And we're doing just that.
	It's not easy work because there's an enemy that still tries to derail the process.
	They're trying to foment sectarian violence.
	On the other hand, it's necessary work.
	And my problem with many of the Democrat voices in Washington is they have no plan for victory.
	This is an essential part of the war on terror.
	And I believe responsible leaders must come up with a plan for victory in order to achieve peace.
	And yet, the only plan I hear is one: let's get out of Iraq before the job is done, which would be a disaster for a future generation of Americans.
	Getting out of Iraq rush, all that would do is embolden an enemy and dash the hopes of millions who count on the United States to help them secure freedom.
	And getting out of Iraq would make the country less secure.
	One of the interesting things about this war that is different from previous wars is in previous wars, you could leave the battlefield and the enemy would stay close to the battlefield.
	In this war, if you leave the battle, the enemy follows us home to America.
	And that's one of the lessons of September the 11th.
	And that's one of the reasons why we will win in Iraq.
	I repeat, the only reason we could lose in Iraq is if we leave.
	And therefore, we've got kids sacrificing in Iraq.
	And when they hear politicians say, get out before the job is done, that's discouraging to them.
	And it's discouraging to the Iraqis.
	And it's encouraging to the enemy.
	That's why my voice is so loud in saying to our troops, what you're doing is noble and important, and you're going to win.
	And history will look back and thank you for your sacrifices.
	Now, we went longer than usual in this format, the segment of the format, the programming format, so as not to interrupt the train of thought there.
	We have a little bit more of the interview to go.
	We've got to take a commercial break right now.
	We'll be back and continue right after this.
	Stay with us.
	And welcome back, ladies and gentlemen.
	This is the award-winning Thrill Pact, ever-exciting, increasingly popular Rush Limbaugh program.
	Ladies and gentlemen, we pre-taped the interview with President Bush at 10.45 this morning, a little over a couple hours ago, and had no idea where it was going to go and what the flow was going to be.
	And we got 21 minutes total.
	We made the decision to cut it up into two segments of 15 and a half minutes and 5.5 minutes because the 15 and a half minutes had a flow to it, didn't want to interrupt it.
	This has caused us, me, since I run this show, to truly, totally botch the programming format, but it had to be done.
	It was an editorial decision.
	So these segments here are very short.
	When we come back, the top of the hour, we will finish with the interview.
	The transcript will be posted at rushlimbaugh.com, as will the audio.
	We're going to put it on the free side so that the drive-by media can misquote from it precisely.
	Back in just a second.
	All right, part two of the interview with President Bush coming up when we come back.
	Again, I'm sorry for these short segments, ladies and gentlemen.
	The only way we could have worked it out this way, given the way the interview with the president flowed.

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