Rush Limbaugh Program - November 29, 2006, Wednesday, Hour #2

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Nov. 29, 2006 - Rush Limbaugh Program

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November 29, 2006, Wednesday, Hour #2

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	Thanks, J.D., Johnny Donovan.
	Pleasure being here with you.
	Rush is back tomorrow.
	He really is experiencing what could be a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity or experience.
	But you have to understand, it's Russia's lifetime, and that means that we probably would never, ever, ever get the chance to do what he's doing.
	But God bless him, and he'll share with us as much as he possibly can when he gets back.
	But the important thing to note is he will be back tomorrow.
	By the way, I think what Michael Evans was asking to the other three, well, I said the dinner tonight with the president, the prime minister, and the king, of course, it's King Abdullah who is throwing this dinner for President Bush and Prime Minister Malachi.
	And it should be a pretty important dinner and a pretty interesting one.
	Paul W. Smith here, fellow student of the Limbaugh Institute for Advanced Conservative Studies, where there is never a final exam, but we are tested every day.
	And I am coming to you today from the Midwest campus of the Limbaugh Institute in Detroit, Michigan.
	The motor city, home of Motown, the growing life sciences corridor, and so many good positive things that we hope you get to know about us.
	Now, still to come, Newt Gingrich will join us before we're through here today with some observations on the news of the day, and there's lots of it.
	We'll keep you on top of that as we try to on this, your favorite radio station, day in and day out, every hour of every day, including these hours of broadcast excellence with El Rushbo back again in the chair tomorrow.
	Ryan Sager is going to join us shortly on his idea that economic and religious conservatives and their disagreements, battles, whatever, resulted in the GOP losing Congress this past election.
	So that'll be interesting to hear.
	China is all over the news.
	I haven't even had a chance to tell you.
	I was just in China.
	And there are some observations I want to share.
	You can't pick up a newspaper here, a newscast or whatever without China being in the news.
	It's there all the time now, and for good reason.
	We'll get into that a little later.
	Earlier, before coming on board, I was able to grab a conversation with Tom Casey, the State Department's deputy spokesman and deputy assistant secretary for public affairs.
	I thought it would be good to speak with somebody from the administration, somebody who isn't on the road and is still at the White House, on the leaked memo.
	Bush Advisor's memo cites doubts about Iraqi leader.
	That's front page of the New York Times.
	The calls for conversations with and help from Iran and Syria, and so much more.
	So let's, if we can, Mike Mamon is running the board, our engineer as always, H.R. Kit Carson, the executive producer.
	And let's just take it away on this conversation from just a little while ago with Deputy State Department spokesman Tom Casey.
	Happy to welcome to the program the State Department's deputy spokesman, deputy assistant secretary for public affairs, Secretary Tom Casey, on the other end of our line right now.
	Secretary Casey, nice to have you here with us.
	There's certainly a lot going on with our president today.
	Well, there certainly is, Paul.
	And I think it's a very important opportunity for the president and Prime Minister Maliki of Iraq to get together, to be able to talk to one another about the situation there and to try and come up with some additional ideas about how we can work together to improve the situation and to speed up the process of having the Iraqis take responsibility for their own security arrangements.
	And I'll tell you, Secretary Casey, it seems more than ever the President is tougher than ever on his expectations, or at least expressing them publicly more than ever, that he wants Maliki to show the strategy, show what he needs to succeed.
	Tell us what you need to govern and to be sustaining yourself.
	He's really kind of laying that on the line for their dinner tonight.
	Well, that's right.
	As he said, he intends to do as much listening as he does talking in this meeting.
	But an important point of what he wants to hear from the Prime Minister is how does he see the way forward?
	What does he think is necessary?
	What is his plan for being able to rein in the militias, to improve security not only in Baghdad, but in other parts of the country as well, and to be able to make what we all want to see happen, which is a gradual transfer of control of the security situation and of the remaining areas where the United States is involved into the hands of the Iraqis.
	It is their country, and we do want them to be a normal sovereign state like any other and be a good ally for us in the war on terror.
	Much is being made today earlier in the New York Times and elsewhere about a so-called classified memo prepared by Stephen Hadley and some of his top advisors weeks ago regarding concerns on whether Maliki can control the sectarian bloodshed rocking the country.
	And one of the quotes in there says that Malachi is either ignorant of what's going on, misrepresenting his intentions, or that his capabilities are not yet sufficient to turn his good intentions into action.
	⁇ End of quote.
	Leaked memo on an awkward moment in their meeting today or a fortuitous moment because it kind of sets the stage for Malachi before the president even speaks with him.
	What are your thoughts?
	Well, look, in terms of any documents that people claim to have gotten hold of, I'll let the White House speak to that.
	But I think the main point that's been made by the President, that's been made by the Secretary, has been made by others, is that we do have confidence in this Prime Minister.
	He's the person that the Iraqi people have chosen to lead them, and we want to help him achieve his objectives.
	We certainly, though, are insistent with our Iraqi allies and friends as we are with other countries in the region that we all need to work together, have a clear plan, and have some clear ideas on how to move forward.
	And so that's what I think we're looking to hear from the Prime Minister today.
	This is certainly a friendly meeting.
	It's certainly one that's a continuation of a lot of conversations that the President and other people have had.
	But we want to hear his ideas because we do all agree that the situation is difficult and we need to take actions now to be able to make things better and to be able to get us on that track towards a peaceful, stable Iraq.
	And by the way, the memo doesn't say anything about replacing Malachi, so that should be pointed out as well.
	What about your thoughts, State Department Deputy Spokesman Tom Casey, with us, regarding the study group and others who are, I guess, pushing for these talks, direct talks with Iran and Syria, their involvement in this whole situation?
	Well, you know, I think one of the things that some of the people who are advocating talks right now have to answer is talks to what end and to what purpose.
	Talking is not of and by itself a policy.
	You've got to think you're going to be able to achieve something with that.
	And the problem that we've seen continuously with Iran and Syria, not only in Iraq, but in Lebanon in terms of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict and elsewhere, is that they say perfectly wonderful nice things about their desire to be helpful and their desire to see the situation improve.
	But the actions they take are funding of terrorism, funding of militia groups, direct support for those people that oppose the things in practice that they rhetorically say they're in favor of.
	So I think we've got a lot of questions about whether some kind of conversation or dialogue with these countries is really appropriate given their unwillingness to take even the most basic actions to stop doing some of the negative things that they've been doing in Iraq.
	Final thought here, Secretary Casey, and we appreciate your time.
	The President has said, and this is not an exact quote, obviously, there's various things like we can't win if we cut and run, things like that.
	But most recently, it is that this whole idea of whether it's a civil war or not a civil war.
	But he says that we aren't going to pull the U.S. troops out, quote, until the mission is complete, end of quote.
	Can you give us the White House definition of or when we'll know when the mission, quote unquote, is complete?
	Well, sure.
	And I think it's been pretty clear and it's been consistent over time.
	What we want to do is be able to ensure that the Iraqis themselves, their security forces, their political system, is strong enough to be able to have full responsibility for handling the security situation and managing the affairs of the country in a way that's going to make that country a success.
	And I think that's a pretty clear line to draw.
	The political process has worked well.
	It has moved forward.
	You've had elections in which millions of Iraqi people have come out and voted for a government.
	You have political leaders who are working as hard as we are to try and resolve some of the problems there.
	What we all know to be the case, though, is that we haven't had that kind of progress on the security side.
	And that's why it's imperative that we continue to work with the Iraqis to make sure that they've got the kind of forces in place that can manage the security situation on the ground effectively so that we wind up with a stable, functioning state, democratic state in the Middle East, and again, one that's going to be an ally with us in the war on terror.
	Secretary Casey, thank you so much.
	Welcome, Paul.
	Pleasure to be with you.
	My conversation earlier with Tom Casey, State Department's deputy spokesman, Deputy Assistant Secretary for Public Affairs, on the White House view, the official view on the news of the day, and there's lots of it.
	And as far as the Civil War goes or not civil war, it's kind of an oxymoron.
	War is inherently uncivil, as many have said before I just did.
	But the fact of the matter is, it doesn't matter if you're a soldier there and you're getting shot at.
	It doesn't matter if it's because it's the crossfire between Sunnis and Shiites or whatever it might be.
	If you go by the dictionary of a civil war, quote, a war between opposing groups of citizens of the same country, that certainly describes Iraq.
	But be that as it may, it doesn't much matter at this point.
	What does matter is that we show the troops that are there some support.
	And I came upon this.
	I don't know very much at all about this organization, but did something with them on my Detroit show where it's an opportunity with the Christmas Spirit Foundation and Federal Express, FedEx, in cooperation with the National Christmas Tree Association, have organized a nationwide effort to boost the Christmas spirit for U.S. military men and women.
	This for the second year now, Christmas tree growers and retailers are going to be donating real Christmas trees to be distributed at military bases in the U.S. and overseas.
	So far, more than 11,000 trees committed from 27 states, sent to, they're going to be sent to 25 military bases in the U.S. and overseas.
	The spirit of Christmas to even more military families by getting involved.
	You can read about it and find out and get involved at ChristmasSpiritFoundation.org.
	ChristmasSpiritFoundation.org.
	It's about time to go to Ryan Sager, which we'll do in just a moment.
	More talk as to why the Republicans lost Congress.
	He has an interesting view.
	He'll share it here on the Rush Limbaugh program.
	I'm Paul W. Smith.
	Being a former disc jockey, I'm waiting for him to start this song.
	But they never do.
	They never get to the lyrics here, do they?
	The power of Mike Maymon's editing here.
	But Lou Rawls was so good on this song, Michael.
	I know for the Christmas season, Rush does get some nice music out there for you, and he will continue to do that.
	He will be in tomorrow.
	The only thing I can figure is this.
	The fact that Rush is not on the air today, because now we have this dateline, Amon Jordan, the Associated Press.
	The White House says that President Bush's talks with Iraqi Prime Minister Maliki have been put off until Thursday.
	So here's this whole build-up we're all a part of.
	And it's not going to happen today or tonight as originally planned.
	And there are only two things.
	It's either that they figured out Rush wasn't on the air today, but will be tomorrow when he can really weigh in on this whole thing, or the Tater Tots didn't come in in the special order.
	So I don't know, which it is at King Abdullah's dinner party, but it's been canceled, or at least the talks have been canceled until tomorrow.
	All right.
	Back online with our guests, Newt Gingrich, coming up in a bit.
	Arthur Brooks will be here talking about the differences in charitable giving between conservatives and liberals.
	And coincidentally, and I spoke with John Stossel earlier today, he has a special on tonight called Cheap in America.
	John Stossel reports on charity, who gives, who doesn't, and why we all should be more generous.
	A special edition of 2020 tonight on ABC that John is doing.
	And in fact, he speaks with Arthur Brooks in that special.
	We'll have Arthur on in just a bit talking about how charitable we really are.
	And who is more charitable?
	Liberals or conservatives?
	He has an answer for us.
	Now, Ryan Sager is a New York Post columnist.
	He has written a book called Elephant in the Room, the new book that explains how the Republican Party is self-destructing.
	And we're very happy to welcome him to the Rush Limbaugh program.
	Ryan Sager, I'm Paul W. Smith in for Rush, and welcome.
	Thanks for having me on, Paul.
	They did kind of self-destruct, but this was going on for a long time.
	I used to say that the Republicans had been spending our money like drunken Democrats.
	And it caught up with them, didn't it?
	Well, I think absolutely.
	I mean, it started, it's accelerated under George W. Bush and this unified government of having a Republican Congress and a Republican president.
	But it really started back in the late 90s, around 98.
	The Republicans who went through the government shutdowns with Gingrich, they were just traumatized.
	The people who were there in Congress at that time are shell-shocked.
	These are damaged individuals, and they've decided they can't fight for small government anymore.
	And they started rolling over on budgetary matters in around 98 when they gave up their fiscal discipline.
	And it's really only snowballed since then.
	Well, as you explain in your book, The Elephant in the Room, Evangelicals, Libertarians, and the Battle to Control the Republican Party, and how this what's being called as the Bush brand of big government, big religion conservatism and the GOP's corruption by power is tearing the Republican Party in two.
	How did they get along before now?
	What happened here?
	Well, they used to, you know, the Republican Party used to be held together by the idea that libertarians and social conservatives could be in this conservative coalition together because both wanted essentially the same thing, small government.
	And now plenty of social conservatives do want small government still, and they're valuable allies.
	And obviously libertarians are too small a number to get anything much done by themselves.
	But I think between first of all, there's a third party on Congress, as the old saw goes, the appropriators.
	So, I mean, first of all, there's just incumbentitis, as Newt Gingrich called it in the book.
	And then there's a certain extent to which some social conservatives have gotten too comfortable trying to get something out of the government, whether it be faith-based initiatives or abstinence education or whatever they're looking for, when really the idea should be that the government is dangerous.
	Any power that you don't want Hillary Clinton to wield come 2009, God forbid, you don't want to give to the Republicans now because you don't get to control who uses the power that you give government.
	Is it because there's been a blurring of the very, in the past, clear lines, pro-life, anti-gay marriage, things like that?
	Well, there's been a blur of what the purpose of being in politics is for religious and social conservatives.
	I think just keeping the government off their backs and allowing them to have space to do things like homeschooling and to not have the government interfere with family life and religious life is probably enough of a big enough task to hold them over.
	And instead, we're trying to get more things out of the government.
	But again, it's not, I wouldn't say the social conservatives are to blame for any of the government growth really under Bush.
	It's much more a factor of that when both parties, when one party holds both branches of government, or all three branches of government, if you want to cut the Supreme Court, you have nobody saying no.
	I mean, Dick Armey said it best again in another interview in the book that when he said no to Bill Clinton back in the 90s, everyone applauded him, all the people he loved.
	When he started saying no to George W. Bush in the first two years after he got into office on spending issues, everyone he loved was at his throat.
	And I think that has a lot to do with why we don't have that great defender of small government in Congress anymore.
	And you look at the future and you look at the people who would like to run for the Republicans next time around, and you have to wonder, is it going to be somebody who's going to come back and say, you know, we've moved so far away from true conservatism that they're going to be the true conservative, and all of a sudden we'll regroup and go back that way.
	Do you think that's possible?
	Well, I hope so.
	I mean, there's a big regional problem that the GOP is getting into also, which I think is probably the biggest thing we should be concerned about.
	You know, Red and Blue ended this election, and we ended up instead with this four-region country where the Republicans are largely confined to the South.
	That's where they're solid.
	They can hardly lose a seat.
	The Democrats can't lose a seat in the Northeast.
	And then the Midwest is somewhat populist, and it's turned a little bit Democratic in this election.
	But it's the West.
	It's the West that's up for grabs.
	It used to be a very solid Republican region, but we are seeing a huge swing towards this interior West that used to be very solid Republican territory becoming contested battleground states, especially Arizona and Colorado.
	Let's let our listeners join in in the conversation at 1-800-282-2882.
	1-800-282-2882.
	Why do you think the Republican Party is self-destructing?
	If you do agree or not, we'll hear from you next.
	Thanks, Johnny Donovan.
	I hope you're having a great day.
	Middle of the week here and staying on top of everything that's happening here in your favorite radio station.
	It's so great to be here with you.
	And even better to be able to tell you that Rush Rush is back from his excellent experience, his really once-in-a-lifetime experience.
	He'll share as much of it with you as he can, I'm sure, tomorrow, right here on the EIB network.
	A nice call out from my boss, Mike Feasi, with his lovely wife Susie, driving in Florida on a mystery trip.
	Mike is taking his wife on a mystery date, and nice that he can listen in on this radio station for this program.
	And it's nice to be here.
	Mike, of course, running for many, many years this station in Detroit, WJR, where I do the morning show, and happily come here from time to time and from here in the Golden Tower of the Fisher Building to talk with you and to meet interesting people like Ryan Saker, who is a New York Post columnist, author of Elephant in the Room, and talking about the Republican Party self-destructing.
	You have a thought or two on that, I'm sure.
	You can go to rushlimbaugh.com or call us at 1-800-282-2882.
	1-800-282-2882.
	And to your calls in just a moment.
	Ryan, the Christian Coalition's new director president recently stepped down because he was opposed to taking the coalition into environmentalism, reducing poverty.
	If he'd been successful, would that have meant the coalition would have embraced what had always been thought of as more liberal positions, in your opinion?
	Well, there's certainly this idea of trying to get evangelicals into the environmental movement, and the press likes to make quite a bit out of this.
	I think it's because that's a certain amount of wishful thinking.
	They want to see the religious right take a turn towards issues that they favor.
	I just don't think those issues have the same power with the base as most of the traditional issues from abortion to gay marriage, et cetera.
	And why were the Republicans so afraid to make those big and important issues in the midterm elections?
	Well, I think that I'm not sure they have been afraid to hit the issue of gay marriage.
	They certainly tried to use the state initiatives again to try and boost turnout in key races.
	Unfortunately for the Republican Party, I think that doesn't work very well.
	You saw in Virginia the marriage amendment to the state constitution passed overwhelmingly, but it wasn't enough to pull George Allen out of an extremely close race where a recount was even possible at the end there.
	So I think people, those issues don't necessarily do enough to stem the tide of an election like this here.
	All right, let's go.
	For the life of me, I still don't understand why, Ryan, the Republicans were not able to make hay, no pun intended, with the great economy, the way it was going.
	Not so great here in Michigan, but elsewhere.
	The economy was on fire, and usually that works, but they didn't really have an opportunity to push that very much.
	And they got pushed into the war, and that was a losing proposition either way for them, unfortunately.
	But let's get to some of our callers at 1-800-282-2882.
	1-800-282-2882 and see what's on your mind.
	Mike is right here in Detroit on the Rush Limbaugh program.
	Mike, I'm Paul W. Smith.
	Nice to have you on board.
	I listen to you every day.
	I'm lucky to have you in our town.
	And my comment for Ryan, he said that he felt the Supreme Court was in control of the Republicans or conservatives.
	I would say we're at least one vote away from that truly being the case.
	And I thought that that was one of the important issues that the Republicans didn't capitalize on publicizing the importance of holding on to the Senate as far as being able to be the ones driving those types of nominations.
	Also, I feel the Republicans didn't, President Bush did not take serious illegal immigration issues, which are affecting many, many states beyond the borders.
	We know that even in Michigan where you are, Paul W. As well as allowing the mainstream dinosaur media to have the perception that we're losing in Iraq, whether that's true or not, but many successes in allowing our men and women to fight the battles to win, to be victorious, not handcuff them by political correctness when you're a lawyer.
	I think those are some of the issues that drove this Reagan Democrat away from Republicans this year.
	Ryan?
	Well, I definitely think you're right.
	We could use another real conservative on the court, especially to overturn some of the atrocities we've seen during this administration, like campaign finance reform, which we really need to get overturned in the next couple of years.
	As for illegal immigration, I think that that's an area where there was this idea out there this election that illegal immigration could be a great motivating issue in a lot of races, and it just backfired tremendously.
	And not because of the president, but because of the more conservative position.
	We lost, the Republicans lost 14 points, one of the biggest losses in any group in the exit polls among Latinos.
	And this is what everyone's opinion on the issue of getting control of the border.
	And I think we do need to get firm control over the border.
	And I think you'll hear all of the Republican candidates talking about that in 2008.
	But the political calculus here is that this is going to damage us tremendously in the West.
	This issue did not pull out races in Arizona where J.D. Hayworth went down despite his positions on his strong position on illegal immigration.
	And Randy Graff thought he could pull it out just based on an anti-illegal immigration campaign and lost by a tremendous landslide there.
	So, you know, the West, again, is tilting.
	You lose 70,000 votes in three states in 2004, Colorado, New Mexico, and Nevada, and the presidency is in John Kerry's hands.
	And with the growing Hispanic population out there, we can't just throw that vote away.
	We have to find a way to court it, even while gaining control of the border.
	Were you just for a moment, were you a bit surprised in terms of the President Bush has already shown that he's not a conservative.
	It's been disappointing to many of us, but that he truly wasn't embracing conservatism when he had the opportunity to make Justice Scalia Chief Justice and didn't.
	What did you think about that, Ryan?
	Did you have any reaction to that?
	Well, I definitely was in the Scalia for Chief Camp.
	I'm a big fan, as conservatives are.
	I think that he wanted to have a chief who was solely kind of a creature of Bush.
	Not to impugn the independence of John Roberts, but somebody that he put on the court.
	And especially, I think that he wanted somebody with more of a deference to executive power when it came to the war on terror, where I think Scalia probably shows a little more independence on that issue as far as being sympathetic to certain civil rights arguments.
	Let's go to Robert in Vandalia, Illinois on the Rush Limbaugh program.
	Paul W. Smith in for Rush.
	And our guest, Ryan Sager, is ready to take your question or comment, Robert.
	Well, he had made the comment earlier that the Midwest is more of a populist type voter going on with stuff like that.
	My question is, how can he say something like that whenever I know for a fact that most of the people that I live around and work with, and I visit a lot of southern Illinois because of being a truck driver, we tend to swing towards the Republican side of the vote, but because we are so outnumbered by people north of I-80 in Chicago, we always seem to lose.
	I mean, our governor now won't even visit Springfield most of the time because he's too busy being in Chicago.
	He tried to shut down two-thirds of our town by closing the prison.
	And when we went to go kind of protest that, well, along with many, many others over the financial initiatives he was trying to take to supposedly save our state, he couldn't even be bothered to leave Chicago to come visit us.
	A lot of us wish it would be that way, but we are outnumbered by people who live off the government hill and are the poorer side of Chicago or the ones that he counts out to the richer side of that area.
	Right.
	Well, I'd say that you're definitely right that he ⁇ I'm sorry, was the caller finished with the question?
	Yeah, he was.
	You're right that these states are in control of people who are pretty comfortable with government programs and want more government programs.
	And that's what I mean by populist, economically statist and liberal and socially conservative.
	And so I contrast that with the Interior West, which is very much a libertarian region, which is very socially liberal but fiscally conservative.
	And so there is a balancing act that goes on where you appeal to one, you might risk losing votes in the other.
	And so it is a balancing act.
	But the Republican Party has always existed on this South versus West axis.
	And it's tilted so far south that we lost California in the 90s, and now we're losing some of these Interior West states.
	And we just can't afford to become a regional party of the South.
	Ryan Sager is with us.
	The book is The Elephant in the Room, Evangelicals, Libertarians, and the Battle to Control the Republican Party.
	The question I have, and you may have questions too, and we want your questions at 1-800-282-2882 or rushlimbaugh.com is what it would take to bring them all back together again in time for 2008 if it's an issue or issues or a strong leader.
	We'll find out at least Ryan Sager's take and yours on that when we return on the Rush Limbaugh program.
	I'm Paul W. Smith.
	Paul W. Smith in for Rush Limbaugh.
	Rush Limbaugh in for Rush Limbaugh tomorrow.
	1-800-282-2882.
	And if a gentleman's been holding forever, and we're going to get to him in a moment, he's still upset about that leaked memo front page of the New York Times.
	And I do want him to have the opportunity to be heard.
	If we're ever going to make any inroads against the institutional media, then we are going to, we, the people, are going to have to do that.
	But let's finish up with our guest, Ryan Sager, whose book is out there now called The Elephant in the Room, Evangelicals, Libertarians, and the Battle to Control the Republican Party.
	Is it the next big issue, or is it going to be the next big, strong conservative leader?
	And can it be done for 2008, in your opinion, Ryan?
	Well, I've been out there making the case, maybe I'm biased, being a New York Post columnist, New Yorker, Rudy Giuliani.
	I think this is the man who can, in many ways, reunite this party.
	He's got a record of cutting government in New York City, of getting crime under control, cutting welfare, cutting taxes.
	And combined with his strength on national security, I think that this is somebody who could appeal to a very broad spectrum of the American public.
	And I think a lot of conservatives are finding.
	Well, but religious conservatives might have a little problem, a little there isn't anyone out there that's perfect.
	There isn't anyone out there with a record that can stand up completely.
	But Rudy's got some issues out there.
	No, absolutely.
	But what I've found is he's actually the most warmly loved figure among evangelicals, according to well, they did another version of it yesterday, I think, the Quinnipiac thermometer poll, where they look at they rate the warmth of how people feel about different political figures.
	And we've also seen polls being done where they test, you know, people say, oh, just people don't know about Rudy's social views.
	That's why he tests so high in so many polls.
	But they've done polls where they put front and center his views on social issues, and he really doesn't particularly lose support.
	And I saw it.
	I went down to South Carolina when he did a visit there.
	And I've just seen it all over the country.
	People are, and even social conservatives, Christian conservatives, have said they're willing to consider him despite and to support him strongly despite his differences on social issues.
	And I think you'll see a primary campaign where he's going to make clear he's not going to be pushing some social left agenda, even if he's not entirely in concert with the religious right.
	With that thought in mind, Ryan, then where does Newt Gingrich fit in on that as a potential candidate in 2008?
	Well, I'm a big fan of Newt, and he had many illuminating things to say and many critical things to say about the president.
	And kind of the conclusion, the last interview I did for the book, and I used it as my conclusion.
	He is a candidate who's going to liven up our primaries.
	He's going to get people talking about serious ideas and serious topics.
	I just think that his image is too battered from the 90s to really be somebody that we can expect to make it to a general election.
	I think there's three top-tier candidates ahead of him between McCain, Giuliani, and Mitt Romney coming up strong on the outside.
	I just don't see it happening.
	Interesting.
	All right, very good.
	I appreciate that.
	Good luck with the book, The Elephant in the Room, Evangelicals, Libertarians, and the Battle to Control the Republican Party.
	Thanks, Ryan.
	Thanks so much for having me on.
	Ryan Sager here, New York Post columnist, by the way, and author.
	Coming up, how are we doing as being, well, whether you're liberal or conservative, and I have a pretty good feeling that I know what you are listening in here, unless you're taking notes.
	How do we hold up in terms of our charitable giving?
	How do the rich hold up next to the, say, middle class and the middle class next to the poor in charitable giving?
	Interesting study done by Arthur Brooks ties in nicely with what John Stossel's doing tonight, Cheap in America.
	John Stossel reporting on charity, who gives, who doesn't.
	And he interviews some very rich, filthy rich people.
	And his feeling is that the richest of the rich, some of them, the filthy rich, don't give as much money in terms of a percentage of their salary, a percentage of their income.
	The working poor, in fact, he says, give away a higher percentage of their salary to charity than the rich.
	But the point that I feel, and we'll see what you feel about this and what Arthur Brooks feels about this, okay, so if you're rich and you give a billion dollars and you're worth $100 billion or whatever, it's still a billion dollars.
	And even though somebody says, well, yeah, but they had $100 billion, they only gave $1 billion.
	Well, they still gave, and you don't have to.
	Nobody has to.
	So it's another one of these, it could very well be another one of these bashing the haves up against the have-nots.
	And it's to show maybe that people who don't have nearly as much give much more, and we'll see.
	We'll see how it plays out.
	And we'll do that with Arthur Brooks coming up here shortly.
	But I do want this gentleman who's been standing by forever, Joe in Maryville, Tennessee, who joins us now on the Rush Limbaugh program.
	Back to something we talked about, I think, in the first hour.
	Are you there, Joe?
	Paul W., still off the bench.
	Welcome aboard.
	Thanks very much.
	Appreciate it, Joe.
	Paul, you had Secretary Tom Casey on earlier that was discussing the State Department's official view.
	And, of course, official views come out of memos, charts, great thinkers thinking behind the scenes, if you will.
	But then all of a sudden, we have Steve Hadley's leaked classified memo hit the papers.
	And it discusses the Prime Minister's ignorance, misrepresenting, or incompetence.
	Now we've got Bush over there with Malachi and the King of Jordan.
	And you just mentioned also that Bush is putting off the talks until Thursday.
	Now, it's my guess, it's only my guess, that the reason those talks are being put off to Thursday is because they have to fly in a nonverbal interpreter to see whether or not Malachi has Hadley's memo in his brain housing group while he's talking to Bush.
	This is called leaking classified information that is against the law, Paul.
	And yet it apparently isn't against the law as long as it finds its way to the front page of the New York Times.
	I'm not familiar with the law that gives them that opportunity, that ability, that right, but you're right.
	It is a classified memorandum by the President of the United States National Security Advisor.
	And the whole doggone thing is printed, I believe the whole thing is printed in today's New York Times.
	Besides the fact that the news has it, where it points out that the document says the continuing violence suggests the Iraqi prime minister is, quote, either ignorant of what's going on, as you said, misrepresenting his intentions, or that his capabilities are not yet sufficient to turn his good intentions into action, end of quote.
	So there you are, Joe.
	I'm glad you were able to get that off your chest.
	And much more as we continue here on the Rush Limbaugh program.
	I'm Paul W. Smith.
	So much I have to get in here, and I can't.
	Don't let me forget telling you about my trip to China most recently, the study that women talk three times as much as men, and a firm in Illinois that offers alibis.
	And this is, you want to know what's wrong with America, that a company could do business, the Alibi Network.
	We've got Newt Gabrish coming up, and so much more.

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