Rush Limbaugh Program - November 1, 2006, Wednesday, Hour #2

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Nov. 1, 2006 - Rush Limbaugh Program

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November 1, 2006, Wednesday, Hour #2

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	Hi, folks, and welcome back.
	Great to have you.
	This is the one and only EIB Network, the nation's most listened to, most envied radio talk show in America.
	Over 600 great radio stations making it possible for me to be heard by you.
	Telephone number, if you want to join us, 800-282-2882.
	And the email address is rush at EIBnet.com.
	We have the final five and a half minutes of my interview this morning with President Bush, and we're going to put the transcript up.
	It may be up now.
	We're timing this with the broadcast of the interview.
	It may be up now at rushlimbaugh.com, as will the audio of this interview.
	We'll put it up on the probably streaming.
	You podcasters will get it automatically when the podcast download this afternoon, shortly after this program takes its 21-hour break.
	And let's see, what else?
	Oh, we finally got the video of the Q ⁇ A with Tony Snow today.
	It was Jessica Yellen at ABC, and you will not believe this.
	Basically, it is, if you're saying carry out to apologize, what about Limbaugh?
	And so here is the final five and a half minutes of the interview with President Bush.
	Decided it was time to ask him about North Korea.
	Yeah, I must ask you about North Korea because I find this fascinating.
	Sure.
	The people, your critics, have been demanding bilateral talks, just the United States and North Koreans.
	And you've been telling them, we did that, and it didn't work.
	And you have been insisting that we have six-party or multilateral talks to deal with the North Korean nuclear problem.
	North Korea sets off their so-called nuclear test.
	And now, all of a sudden, after you maintaining the six-party talks idea as being key to solving the issue, it is North Korea who appears to have blinked.
	And you have been proven correct in your assessment of how to play with this or play this thing.
	It's a stunning development that has been greeted with silence, Mr. President.
	It really has.
	You stared them down.
	The United States did it.
	Let me not make this personal.
	The United States stared them down.
	You stuck to your guns as you do on everything.
	And the way you think it is best to be handled is going to happen.
	I think that, yes, the news that North Korea wanted to come back to the six-party talks is very positive.
	I want your listeners to understand this, that I made the calculation, having watched what happened during the last attempt to have bilateral relations with North Korea, that if it didn't work then, it's not going to work now.
	The second part of my calculation was it's better to have more than one voice saying to the North Koreans there's a better way forward than you attempting to have a nuclear weapon.
	And some of those voices are the voices of the Chinese, for example, or the Japanese.
	And the South Koreans and Russians, obviously.
	And it's that combination of voice saying loud and clear to Kim Jong-il that there's a better way.
	We'll make it more likely we can solve this issue peacefully and diplomatically.
	And now the task is to, when the North Koreans come back to the table, is to make it clear that our intention is to help them move forward so long as they give up their weapons in a verifiable way.
	Our objective is to rid the Korean Peninsula of any nuclear weapons threat.
	And it was good news.
	The announcement of Monday was good news, and we will pursue the opportunities ahead of us.
	But the key is to make sure that the North Koreans, when they sit at the table, look around and see more than just the United States, that they see other parties who can either help them succeed or cause them to become isolated.
	Does this mark any kind of a shift, dramatic or otherwise, in our relationship with China?
	Our relationship with China is a very complex relationship, and it's an important relationship.
	Obviously, we have an economic relationship, and we're trying to put that relationship in a position where our Americans can realize that trade is not only free, but it's fair.
	One great opportunity for China Rush is to encourage China to develop a society in which there are savers.
	In other words, a society in which there's a pension plan and or a, let me rephrase that, a society in which there's consumers, because now there's a society of too many savers.
	And the reason why they're saving so much money is because there's not a pension plan or a legitimate health care system.
	And so therefore, people hoard the money they have in anticipating a bad day.
	If we can encourage China to become a country of consumers, you can imagine what it would mean for U.S. producers and manufacturers to have access to that market.
	You know, an interesting statistic is India, for example, has got 350 million people in their middle class.
	That is a significant opportunity for U.S. firms to sell into those markets, which means better U.S. jobs.
	And so, one, there's an economic relationship.
	Secondly, there is the security relationship.
	How do we work together to make sure the Far East is secure and peaceful?
	And obviously, the issue we're now dealing with is North Korea, and it's in both our interests that the Korean peninsula be nuclear weapons-free.
	And the Chinese understand it's in their interest.
	And so we found common interest here to be able to work together.
	And the more we're able to work together, the more likely it is a future president will be able to maintain the peace.
	One really important issue in the Far East is for your leaders, listeners to understand how important it is for there to be a United States presence in the Far East.
	We serve as a way to make sure that there's stability.
	And stability in the Far East obviously is essential for the United States in the long term.
	And therefore, that's why we'll have a presence there and should have a presence there for the long term.
	Mr. President, we've got to let you go, but before I do so, I have to share something with you.
	When I announced yesterday, when the schedule was firmed up that I'd be talking to you today, I got tremendous, I would say inundated with emails from people asking me to tell you that they're praying for you.
	So I wanted to pass that on.
	My answer to those who say they're praying for me is one, thank you.
	Two, I'm grateful.
	And three, it matters a lot.
	And it's a remarkable country where people from all walks of life and all faiths pray for me and Laura, and it's made a significant difference in my life, and I'm grateful.
	Mr. President, thank you for your time, and all the best.
	Look forward to the next time we speak.
	Yes, sir.
	Thank you.
	President Bush, ladies and gentlemen, this morning pre-taped the interview at 10.45 Eastern Time.
	And it is up on the website now.
	The transcript is up at www.rushlimbaugh.com.
	And I'm toying with the idea of playing it again or tomorrow, today, later this afternoon or tomorrow, because he's really on a roll here.
	He was revved up, fired up, and on fire, and had some interesting things to say.
	Before we go to the break here, I mentioned to you at the top of the program when the White House Daily Press briefing began that one of Tony Snow's first questions was from an InfoBabe, a reporter at, Bringing up this whole John Kerry snafu asking, well, if Kerry should apologize, why shouldn't Rush Limbaugh apologize?
	Well, we have that soundbite here.
	It was Jessica Yellen of ABC News.
	And here's the exchange they had.
	We haven't heard Rush Limbaugh apologize directly to Michael J. Fox, but the president has accepted his apology.
	Why is that acceptable?
	Rush Limbaugh is not the head of a political party, nor was he a former presidential nominee.
	The second thing he said is, if I got it wrong, I apologize.
	That's what he said.
	I botched the joke, which is I got it wrong.
	If you're a troop in Iraq, if you're somebody serving in Iraq, and you've heard this, do you really think, oh, he botched the joke?
	Why don't you just say, I'm sorry?
	I'm sorry, guys.
	I'm sorry.
	The president sat for an interview with Rush Limbaugh today.
	Why hasn't he called on Rush Limbaugh to make that same kind of apology?
	Because, again, Rush Limbaugh has made his comments.
	I love the diversion, but there is a difference between the apology game.
	Rush has said, if I got it wrong, I apologize.
	Seeing if he got the statement of the facts wrong, he apologizes.
	My question is, why hasn't Senator Kerry just said, I'm sorry?
	Folks, I have to tell you, this is just surreal to sit here and listen to this.
	The Drive-By Media has spent nine days distorting.
	I mean, for the last I saw, I had apologized.
	They're out there reporting I have apologized, and they got it wrong, by the way, but they said I had apologized for something I didn't apologize for in a way to make me look like I was admitting guilt.
	But I didn't apologize for it.
	I apologized after Mr. Fox said that he over-medicated that day he shot the ads.
	I said it looked like he was either acting or under-medicated because he had admitted to under-medicating in his own book, which they still refuse to mention.
	But when he himself said he was over-medicated, that's when I made the point.
	It was last Thursday to apologize.
	But here I am.
	I'm a little offended being equated with the lurch.
	I'm smarter than he is.
	I'm better looking than he is.
	And I've accomplished more than he has.
	But Snow's right.
	I'm not a candidate.
	I'm not a former presidential candidate.
	I'm not an elected to anything.
	It's just surreal.
	And by the way, Tony appeared.
	I guess this was pre-taped.
	He appeared with Nora O'Donnell, about whom I used to say her bathwater can't possibly stink.
	I have revised that now.
	But Tony appeared with her on PMS NBC, and she went through the same riff.
	She went through the same riff.
	It was worse.
	Snurdley saw it.
	The official program observer saw it.
	I didn't.
	Well, it was up, but I wasn't listening, nor was I reading the closed captioning.
	Well, Cookie probably has the audio of that.
	We'll hear that too.
	A quick timeout in the meantime, we'll be back.
	Your phone calls and other exciting stuff in the stacks of stuff coming right up.
	And we are back.
	El Rushball with talent on loan from God.
	And half my brain tied behind my back, just to make it fair.
	A couple more audio sound bites.
	We'll grab some of your phone calls because I know that you have been patiently waiting.
	This is our old buddy Ron Fournier from the Associated Press.
	He appeared on PMS NBC last night.
	They've got a week-long telethon going at PMSNBC, a telethon to cure the country of the ravages of the Republican majority.
	And Chris Matthews said to Ron Fournier, I've got so many press releases, it's like an all-points bulletin coming out jumping on Kerry for a statement that could be used against him.
	This is what you do.
	You catch your opponent saying something they didn't mean to say, and you drive hard.
	Even if you look at it, even if Kerry meant to say exactly what he said, again, there's a kernel of truth.
	Are some soldiers who do go into the service because it is their best economic and even educational opportunity.
	See, I told you I even knew it was going to happen, but why impugn them?
	He impugned their intelligence, and here's Ron Fournier saying, even if he meant it, even if he meant this, he's right, because there are some people in the military who have no other hope.
	Why this country's economy is so rotten and future is so dim for so many people.
	The only hope they've got is to go risk their lives.
	Thank God for them, Mr. Fournier.
	And God bless them.
	Even if that's true, as you say, playing your game here, what's worthy about impugning them in it all?
	What is the point?
	Why insult them?
	What I also don't understand, how in the world can, in the middle of a campaign, which is largely about the war in Iraq, and John Kerry gets up and makes a statement about it, how in the world can Republicans be accused of a diversion?
	It is President Bush's leading with the war in Iraq on the campaign trail, that and the economy.
	And John Kerry's put his foot in it again.
	He's inserted himself someplace the Democrats really wish he hadn't gone.
	How in the world can this be a diversion?
	Moving on, we have a montage here of Jake Tapper last night on ABC's Wordled News Tonight.
	Now, this, if I hear this right, well, let's listen.
	I think this is a total distortion of the timeline, but let's listen and see if I'm right about this.
	Kerry says he was referring to the president, not the troops, but that didn't stop the Republican PR machine from moving into high gear.
	Early this morning, after those remarks appeared in local newspapers and the video popped up on YouTube, conservative blogs and talk radio had a field day.
	It tells us what John Kerry himself and the Democratic Party think about the troops and think about the U.S. military.
	As did the White House.
	This is an absolute insult.
	Shortly before noon, Kerry, in a paper statement, insisted he had not belittled the intelligence of soldiers serving in Iraq, but rather that of the president who got us stuck there.
	He lashed out at White House spokesman Tony Snow, whom he called a stuffed suit mouthpiece, and Doey Rush Limbaugh.
	But by then, the Republicans were piling on.
	Now, this is one of the things we remarked about yesterday.
	He issues his statement, and I haven't even gone on the air yet.
	This program hadn't even begun, and he's issuing a statement accusing me of criticizing him.
	I think his statement said, and no doubt Rush Limbaugh will take a day off from criticizing Michael J. Fox's Parkinson's disease in order to pile on him.
	And these guys, I'm sitting here minding my own business like I do most of the time, bothering nobody, trying to get in nobody's way, just, you know, being me.
	And here comes this statement from Lurch before I've even said a word.
	I was tempted when I saw the statement to praise the guy, just for the hell of it, because of his statement.
	But of course, I, with my intellectual honesty, could not do that.
	All right, Bruce in Fort Wayne, Indiana.
	Thanks so much for your patience as we go back to the phones.
	You are up.
	Welcome, sir.
	Mega Ditto, Frush.
	Thank you.
	Kerry's non-rebuttal rebuttal is childish and shows complete lack of leadership.
	The original comment Kerry made candidly and honestly, his rebuttal addresses my paraphrase: they shuck responsibility for slandering others.
	Well, what do you call his use of the Republican fin machine and US the Doey Rush Limbaugh on the radio types?
	I mean, it is a complete disconnect.
	And I just, I mean, to all those cut-run conservatives out there, this is not a policy policy.
	He's overrunning it all the time in a reed and closely run Congress.
	If you want that, stay home.
	But, I mean, these tantrums are going to happen all the time.
	I mean, in northeastern Indiana, we have Tom Hayhert running against Mark Sauter.
	And he's having these campaigns right now, which Because Sauter knows Bennett's Hasford Mark Pauli in the past that he's somehow compromised.
	I mean, my God, Mr. Hayhurst.
	Congressman knows I'm a Congressman.
	Senator's no other senator.
	All right.
	All right.
	I understand your frustration.
	I just hope the heck that a whole lot of conservatives are like you in this country today and all the way through next Tuesday because you are right to be insulted.
	You are right to be angry.
	These are the people that demand everybody quit.
	Rumsfeld stinks he should go.
	Rice stinks she should go.
	Cheney stinks he should go.
	Rove is a devil.
	He should be indicted.
	Bush should be impeached.
	There isn't anybody in this administration they haven't thought should be dispatched and thrown away.
	They can't beat us at the ballot box, folks.
	They haven't been able to do that.
	This is the only way they can do it.
	Trent Lott, he had to resign over, it was just a joke about Strom Thurman.
	After he apologized five times, he still had to resign.
	Kerry hasn't even apologized.
	And I thought, so what?
	You know, this apology business, that's a straw dog in it.
	He said what he said.
	My question is: why aren't the Democrats running away from him?
	He only articulated what they've been saying for the last two years, as I have been paying attention.
	They've been impugning the troops every chance they get.
	They've been impugning interrogators at Club Gitmo and at Abu Ghraib.
	They have been accusing our military of being rapists and murderers and thugs, innocent civilians in Iraq.
	What the hell?
	Stand by it.
	Be men, Democrats.
	This is your guy.
	This is what you believe in.
	This is the reason why you have Ned Lament in.
	Oh, speaking of that, folks, this is just too good.
	Ned Lament is 12 points down.
	The net roots, the nut roots, those Kooks fringes bloggers here on the left, he's their guy.
	They got him nominated on one basis, anti-war.
	L two bases, anti-war, and he hates Bush.
	So he's down 12 points in the polls.
	He was way up.
	He's down 12 points in the polls.
	Would you like to hear the AP headline?
	Lament narrows Lieberman's lead in poll.
	Democrat Ned Lament has narrowed his deficit with Senator Joe Lieberman, but the three-term incumbent still holds a 12-point lead as their race heads into the final stretch of poll-released Wednesday shows.
	Not Lieberman up by 12.
	Lament shrinks lead.
	Let me tell you about John Kerry because I know these people like every square inch of my glorious naked body.
	I'm going to tell you right now what I think.
	When he went to the microphones in Seattle yesterday, he was taking my advice.
	And I'm serious.
	Before he had that press conference, I said yesterday on this program, Mr. Kerry, stand up for yourself.
	Be a man.
	Don't back down.
	You said it.
	You intended to say it.
	Be who you are.
	He went out there and he tried to do it.
	He just can't pull it off.
	And I also think that he was in his mind was, I'm not going to be swift-boarded again by these doorboys in these stuffsuits.
	I'm John Kerry, and that didn't happen to me twice.
	He's out there trying to prove his manhood yesterday.
	He doesn't need an athletic supporter today.
	Having more fun than a human being should be allowed to have Rush Limbaugh your host for life.
	Not retiring until every American agrees with me.
	I know that'll rip him up.
	800-282-2882, if you want to be on the program, here we go.
	Nora O'Donnell, MSNBC, interviewing the White House press secretary, Tony Snow, this afternoon.
	I think I had to pre-tape this because Snow was in the White House at 12:30 or noon.
	But anyway, it happened today.
	Here it is.
	You're asking for Senator Kerry to apologize for his remarks.
	Why don't you ask for Rush Limbaugh to apologize for the way he mocked Michael J. Fox?
	Because he already did apologize.
	He said, I'll apologize if it's true.
	Yeah, so let's go back to the Kerry thing because it's interesting as a study of rhetoric.
	Senator Kerry, I think, feels like he got hit hard in the 2004 campaign.
	But if you listen to what he did, it was a string of insults that were intended to serve as an argument.
	I mean, whether it's Rush Limbaugh or me or the White House calling us liars.
	Look, all I said yesterday was I was surprised that he hadn't apologized.
	It came across as being an insult.
	And it's pretty clear.
	I mean, you've had two Democratic candidates today say that they don't want him campaigning with them because they read it the same way.
	This is getting blown out of proportion, and not by me, and not by Rush Limbaugh, but by Senator Kerry.
	And, you know, I guarantee you, every Democrat in town is picking up the phone or wanting to pick up the phone and saying, Senator, please calm down.
	Understand that we all say things that maybe we didn't intend.
	They come off the wrong way.
	And the way you handle it is say, I'm sorry if I gave offense, rather than sitting around and taking wild swings at the president or Tony Snow or Rush Limbaugh.
	The people, they just keep elevating me here while they think they are destroying me.
	I'm not an elected official.
	I'm not asking anybody for a vote, but they clearly look at me as an obstacle to their victory, even though I'm not on anybody's ballot.
	But I'm going to say this.
	I'm going to say this one more time.
	It isn't going to matter, but I'm going to say it one more time.
	I did not mock Michael J. Fox.
	I want to go through this in a sequential way.
	I'm looking at the Drudge Report.
	Right now, you've got to go to the Drudge Report, by the way, if I change subject briefly here.
	Some troops in Iraq have stood in line holding a big sign that they made full of misspellings.
	Help us, John Kerry.
	We are stuck here in Iraq.
	Every word's misspelled or every other word is misspelled.
	It's tremendous, and it's up at thedrudgreport.com.
	I don't know what the source of the picture is, but it's there.
	It's a hoot.
	You need to see it.
	I'm in the middle of the program.
	I'm reading the Drudge Report during a commercial break, and I see his link to controversial video on Michael J. Fox.
	So I watched it, and I was stunned because I know Michael J. Fox has Parkinson's disease, but I have never, ever seen him that way in public.
	Now, I have this camera here.
	I've got an audience that watches this program.
	But one of the things I think people out there don't take into account, we in radio, especially a program like mine where there are no guests, it's just me.
	I mean, I'm constantly gesticulating and doing, like I'm doing now for emphasis and so forth.
	It's nothing unusual.
	I was describing verbally what I had seen and started attempting to illustrate what I had seen, not in a mocking way, but in an informative way, trying to inform people.
	I'm assuming that most other people had never seen him in that condition in public before.
	But there was no effort to mock.
	But now we're into our ninth day here where they continue to loop that video, sometimes without sound when they speed it up.
	Because if they played sound, speed it up to exaggerate it, then my lips would not sync up with my speech.
	So now they've started slowing it down and playing it with sounds with my audio to make it look like I'm even lying about that.
	So now the carry flap hits.
	And, well, if Kerry should apologize, why shouldn't Rush Limbaugh apologize?
	And I thought I had.
	I listened to Drive-By Media.
	I thought I had apologized last Thursday.
	And I said, when did I apologize?
	I didn't apologize.
	Well, before last Thursday, I didn't apologize.
	They said I apologized as a means of trying to make me look like I was admitting guilt and so forth when I hadn't.
	When I did apologize, and I did say, I'll hugely, bigly apologize if I'm wrong about this.
	Well, on Thursday of last week, Mr. Fox himself admitted it was not that he was undermedicated or acting.
	He was over-medicated.
	I only said under-medicated because his own book says he did that on several occasions before testifying before Congress, which I also said at the time I understood.
	So the effort to distort what, and at no time has that been mentioned, at no time has the substance of the issue of his ad and my analysis of it being wrong and cruel and misleading, that has never been discussed because as I've told you folks, the libs cannot defeat us in the arena of ideas.
	They can only try to ruin their opponents or destroy their credibility or what have you.
	Now, they've been trying to do this to me and a number of people for really the last five years in an intense way.
	But throughout my career, you know, occasional attempts they've made, you think by now it doesn't work.
	I'm going to tell you, I've told you people in this audience, when you have sent me emails and asked me, does this bother you?
	How do you put up with this?
	How do you stand these people lying about you?
	You know that there's some Americans who don't listen to your show who now think that you are SOB number one in America, the most hated man in America.
	How do you apologize?
	How do you deal with this?
	And as I told you last week, the way I deal with it is very simple.
	It's you.
	It's enough, more than enough, for me to know that you know the truth.
	It's more than enough that I know the truth.
	I know a lie when I see it.
	And I don't let lies bother me when I know that they are lies and when I know what the truth is.
	You and me in this audience have almost a familial bond, and we have had for 18 years.
	The thing that I know, ladies and gentlemen, and maybe some of you disagree with this or maybe not understand it, but they didn't make me.
	I'm not the product of spin, PR campaigns.
	The media did not elevate me to a certain status.
	The media did not discover me from the middle of nowhere and tell people that I was something hot and worth listening to.
	I earned that by virtue of getting on radio stations and connecting with you.
	As such, the media didn't make me.
	They can't break me.
	They can't destroy me.
	They can try, and they have, and they continue to.
	But I'm the only one who can do that.
	I'm the only one who can destroy the bond of loyalty here that we have that goes both ways.
	But nevertheless, as I watch all this, it does become surreal.
	At the end of the day, I do view myself as a radio guy, not a political guy.
	I'm a radio guy first and foremost.
	And to hear the drive-by media equating me and this Michael J. Fox thing with John Kerry is, I don't know if any other word to describe it.
	It's just surreal.
	And it's surreal because they obviously look at me as a huge obstacle to what they want to accomplish.
	And they're right, ladies and gentlemen, hugely so.
	That is one thing they are right about.
	As to Michael J. Fox, you know, this apology business where everybody's on this, he ought to apologize.
	He should apologize.
	Well, he hadn't apologized.
	What are these?
	Why should people apologize for what they meant to say?
	I mean, Kerry meant to say what he said.
	Why should he be forced to apologize?
	Maybe he should resign if we're going to try to play tit for tat out there and be fair and equal.
	But how about these people that run these ads that are full of lies?
	Should they not be made to account and apologize for misleading people who are sick?
	The Democrat Party, Claire McCaskill and Ben Cardin and others, are running commercials which are lying to sick people.
	They are telling them that there are promising cures for their diseases, some of them fatal, which are not there.
	And they are furthermore saying they will only get these cures if you vote Democrat because those Republicans, Jim Talent and Michael Steele and others, why, they don't care about curing your disease.
	They are evil, mean Republicans.
	Well, now, if somebody ought to be apologizing for something, it ought to be that.
	Claire McCaskill and Michael Steele or Ben Cardin ought to be asked to apologize for running these terribly cruel, misleading commercials, which promise things that don't exist.
	And then people ought to be apologizing for the misleading way Amendment 2 is written and put on the ballot in the state of Missouri.
	And we can play this apology game all day long.
	I frankly think it's for children, just like I think the word if is for children, if this, if that, you know, kids can do that.
	But we're grounded here in reality.
	The way to handle this, rather than run around, you shouldn't apologize.
	Why that tower?
	How dare you say that?
	Why censorship?
	Why shut people up, especially when they're telling you what they believe?
	Just go out, inform as many people as you can in the arena of ideas, create an informed electorate, have them sweep to victory, and you've got a mandate.
	Instead of trying to apologize, that's just a therapy.
	That's just kids.
	It's just a bunch of kids drive by media, liberal Democrats, spoiled, rotten little brats.
	You can't say that.
	They offend me.
	You shut up.
	I'm going to politically correct you.
	Or whatever they try to do.
	And the worst thing people can do is be intimidated by that and act frightened of it.
	I've often found when you say things that bother people, keep saying them.
	And we are back, still deciding whether I should replay the President Bush interview in the next hour or do it tomorrow.
	I think the momentum is for today.
	But yeah, I think we'll do it.
	The only thing I got to do here is figure out where we're going to sandwich it.
	In fact, tell what we'll do.
	We'll play the first 15 minutes right out of the open at the top of the next hour.
	And then we'll play the last five and a half, six minutes of it at the bottom of next hour.
	And we'll squeeze some phone calls in between the two segments.
	Stephen, Windsor, Canada, you're next.
	Welcome to the EIB Network.
	Hello.
	Hey, is this Rush?
	Yes.
	Hey, how are you doing, my friend?
	Fine, thank you.
	Okay, so I just wanted to talk about the media and the focus on the Kerry comment, and they're talking about it as a diversion.
	You know, what I like to know is exactly what is it a diversion from?
	You know, that's what I want to know.
	What is a diversion from their talking about a broken Republican government like Lynn Cheney had mentioned or a failed war or an imminent Democrat takeover?
	You know, it's not a diversion.
	This is exactly what the elections are about.
	You know, this is politicians talking about what they think about the military and what they think about.
	Here's the diversion.
	You have to be able to read the stitches on a fastball like I can when analyzing the drive-by media.
	They're upset.
	It's a diversion from their all-out assault on Bush.
	It's a diversion from their all-out assault on the Republicans and their reelection chances.
	You're looking at it in a purely logical way.
	Wait a minute.
	The president's leading the campaign with one of the big issues being the war in Iraq.
	Ergo, the Democratic presidential nominee in 2004, comes up and makes a comment about it.
	The president responds.
	He also insults Tony Snow, as Kerry does and me.
	We respond.
	The media says, this is a diversion.
	This is the Republican spend machine, and this is a diversion.
	Kerry is the diversion from the Democrat and drive-by media agenda.
	But you're exactly right.
	There is no diversion.
	Kerry has entered the campaign fray on an issue that the president's leading with.
	And he's biting the bullet big time.
	He's canceled all of his appearances today.
	They hope he'll be able to get out there later in the week.
	But I'll tell you, with pictures like we're seeing out of Iraq, soldiers making fun of Kerry and what he said about them, this is not going to go away anytime soon, no matter how much the drive-bys would like for it to happen.
	Yeah, you know, exactly.
	They're inadvertently, I think, letting it slip that, you know, what they prefer to hear in the media.
	You know, if they would prefer to talk about this Democratic takeover that's coming.
	Well, hell yes.
	I mean, let's go back.
	Let me go back to the audio soundbites.
	I want to find Suzanne.
	The soundbite five, Mike.
	I don't know if you were listening earlier in the program, Steve, but listen to this.
	This is a segment on CNN last night called What Carrie Meant.
	They did a segment.
	And we have two CNN info babes here.
	One of them, Suzanne Malvo, and the other is Paula Zahn.
	And just, we didn't take this out of context.
	I just want you to listen to Suzanne Malvo talking about the Kerry story.
	We hope, Ben, 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.
	Drive-by media, CNN, admitting, we hope, and we think this is going to go away tomorrow.
	So there's, I don't know, nobody had any doubts about this.
	It's just, it's just, they're calling this a slip of the tongue.
	Maybe she should apologize.
	Who knows?
	Joe, I mean, isn't it interesting that your Fox comment was insulting and inexcusable, but Kerry's was just nothing more than a botch joke.
	Just a botch joke.
	Yeah, he can make fun of the troops all day long.
	See, there are approved targets for liberals.
	You can make fun of conservatives.
	You can make fun of Christians.
	You can make fun of Catholics.
	You can make fun of Southerners.
	You can make fun of evangelicals.
	You can make fun of the military.
	But the libs won't let you make fun of them at all in any way, shape, manner, or form.
	You're not even allowed to be genuinely critical of them without it being an attack.
	An insidious personal attack.
	They can't take it.
	Don't know how to deal with it in a substantive way.
	Steve, thanks much.
	Powell, Ohio, next.
	Karen, glad you waited.
	Welcome to the EIB Network.
	How are you, Rush?
	I'm honored to be on your show.
	I have an interesting tidbit for you today.
	First of all, to kind of backtrack a little bit, I just put my husband, Ryan Nickerson, God love him, on a plane two days ago to go over with the 1st Cavalry Division to Iraq for his second tour.
	Mind you, he is in the Army on his free choice not to get an education.
	He actually signed up after September 11th to protect his country, to protect his family, and to protect his loved ones to make sure that a 9-11 never happened again.
	Karen, let me ask you a quick question.
	Out of the way.
	Is he an idiot?
	Oh, no.
	How can you say?
	He must be an idiot if he's an E5 in about 70 years.
	No, I was just making a joke, Senator Kerry's comment.
	Oh, absolutely.
	Stupid idiot.
	What is he doing this?
	Why didn't he go to college?
	Exactly.
	Well, the point of my phone call today is that what really upset me, and I figured I could use your show as a stage to talk to some of these Democrats out there.
	I moved back to my hometown of Powell, Ohio, and for the year while my husband's over on his second tour, and I got this very odd robotic voice recording that I couldn't even respond to because it was a recording.
	Who is it?
	What do they say?
	Time is dwindling.
	Who is it?
	What do they say?
	They basically said that it was a mother whose husband whose son had gone off to war and was killed.
	And we need to change the voting out there and vote Democratic and do not vote Republican to get George Bush out of the office so that no other people are sent over to Iraq to die against their will.
	Yep.
	Well, good.
	Perfect timing.
	People like you answer a phone call like that and get outraged and enraged.
	And a lot of other people do at the same time.
	Don't forget, these are the same people who try to disqualify absentee military votes in the Florida recount in 2000.
	Back in just a second.
	Okay, we'll be back with the repeat of the first part of the interview today with President Bush.

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