Rush Limbaugh Program - February 9, 2007, Friday, Hour #1

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Feb. 9, 2007 - Rush Limbaugh Program

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February 9, 2007, Friday, Hour #1

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	Welcome to today's edition of the Rush 24-7 podcast.
	You know, I am just the kiss of death.
	The last time I came here to do Russia's program was the day that Gerald Ford died.
	Now Anna Nicole Smith is dead.
	Which, in the overall scheme of things, I'll admit to you, I don't have a lot to say about, but today is, after all, open line priority.
	Live from New York City.
	It's open line Friday.
	Now I'm kind of intrigued by this, given the fact that the callers can call up and talk about just about anything they want.
	What percentage of Russia's callers are going to want to talk about Anna Nicole Smith?
	I honestly don't know.
	On the one hand, I think shows like this are kind of a refuge from all the tabloid stuff that's out there.
	I don't think Russia's show, for example, is the place where you're going to get cutting-edge information on John Monet Ramsey and stories of that nature.
	And on my own show in Milwaukee, I never talk about stuff like that.
	Because it just doesn't interest me.
	The AstroCheck who tried to kill the other astronaut.
	Now that's been somewhat interesting.
	I'll admit that that grabbed me for a day or so.
	But generally speaking, the Anna Nicole Smith kind of stories are the things that you see on CNN and Fox, and they take up the entire day, and then Greta talks about them, and you don't really address them on programs like this because the audience here is deeper and wants more substance, and there's no denying that.
	On the other hand, admit it, you're kind of interested in this.
	Most people won't say that out loud, but you are kind of interested in this.
	Who, when they heard this story or saw it on the internet or saw it in the newspaper this morning, didn't read at least some of it.
	Everybody did.
	Now, nobody's going to admit it, but everybody read at least some of it.
	The problem I have is I'm not the right guy to do the Anna Nicole Smith story.
	I have very little to offer here.
	What I can do is bring you up to date on the latest details.
	I can kind of analyze why.
	Anna Nicole Smith is a news story.
	I can kind of give you a feel for why the American public has shown so much attention to somebody who had no talent whatsoever, and whose only real claim to fame was that she was who she was.
	Now they're conducting an autopsy on her body.
	There are all these rumors that she may have been murdered.
	In fact, I've got the New York Post here in my hand.
	The entire page one of the New York Post is a photo of Anna Nicole Smith with the big headlines, was it murder?
	And then to make it clear to you that you're going to get a lot of Anna Nicole coverage in the New York Smith and New York Post, it says reports, photos, pages two, three, four, and five.
	They may as well make the whole newspaper about it.
	Anyway, they're conducting the autopsy today.
	Kind of think maybe they're gonna find some drugs.
	probably.
	There are investigations surrounding who was with her, what led to her death, and so on.
	There is an emergency hearing going on later today dealing with who the father of her child is, because her child is now standing to be a very, very rich person.
	If court rulings which gave her that big lion's share of the chunk of the estate of her multi-zillionaire ex-husband stand-up, her child would stand to inherit almost all of it, and two different guys are claiming to be the father of the child, so they're duking it out because one of the two of them is likely to be very, very, very rich.
	So you have the opposite, kind of an anti-paternity battle.
	Normally these things are guys trying to get out of being fathers of children and denying it.
	Here you have two guys fighting to be the father.
	This is the latest that I have on Anna Nicole Smith.
	Why we care is Why so many people are captivated?
	The best I can come up with is this.
	It all has to do with Clinton.
	It is Bill Clinton's fault.
	For all those lefties out there who say that everything is Bush's fault, fine, I'm gonna give you the opposite side.
	I blame everything on Clinton, but this is because of Clinton.
	It was Bill Clinton who made us comfortable with the notion that we're a nation of buttheads, that we're all out of the trailer park.
	Look at the look at the rationalizations that people went through to overlook every single one of Bill Clinton's flaws.
	When he lied under oath, well, everyone lies about sex.
	All the flings that he had, well, you know, that's just the way he is.
	He's an amorous, affectionate guy.
	We rationalized his entire life because somehow it made us feel good about ourselves.
	Not only did you feel a little bit morally superior to him, you could relate to the moral challenges he was facing.
	Since none of us are perfect, we can accept somebody else who isn't perfect in the White House.
	Well, Anna Nicole Smith is the female Bill Clinton.
	She came out of the exact same kind of background.
	We've paid attention to her for no real reason other than the fact that her life is kind of a train wreck, just like Clinton.
	There was a time that Anna Nicole Smith never would have been a celebrity in this country.
	But that was before Clinton.
	Clinton lowered the bar for what kind of a person you had to be in order to be famous in this country.
	So it is Clinton's fault.
	This is not going to be the sole topic on open line Friday, even if it's the only thing anyone calls in about today.
	The telephone number is 1-800-282-2882.
	The House of Representatives is now going to take the lead of the United States Senate.
	They're proposing a resolution opposing the troop surge.
	Unlike the Senate, they might actually debate and vote on this one.
	The Scooter Libby trial is winding down.
	It's now come down to a matter of he said, he said, who do you believe?
	Tim Russert or Scooter Libby.
	And Scooter Libby's probably not going to win that one.
	Most people are far likier to believe Tim Russert than Scooter Libby.
	Scooter Libby just has bad luck.
	You know, if the journalist that he had said he had learned the identity of Valerie Plame from was Dan Rather, or somebody that we know to be a liar, he'd have a better shake.
	But most people think of Russard as kind of okay.
	Even conservatives think Russert's probably telling the truth, right?
	So he doesn't even have the good fortune to go towards somebody that, you know, if it was Geraldo, Scooter Libby at every oh, well, we know that Geraldo's making it up, but it's Tim Russet, and he's got credibility because he's on Meet the Press and he goes after Republicans and he goes after Democrats.
	So if the jury believes that Tim Russ is telling the truth, Scooter Libby's probably going to be convicted for doing whatever it is that they said that he did.
	I want to talk about Rudy Giuliani, who I think is the most interesting Republican candidate for president of the United States, and face it, he's the guy that most of you think ought to be the nominee, but he's not the guy that many of you want to be the nominee.
	I am so torn on Rudy Giuliani.
	He seems like the right guy at the right time to lead this country.
	When you look at all of the Republicans who are running for president, none of whom stands out at all, none of whom has captivated any Republicans' imagination.
	Rudy just seems to tower over them.
	He looks presidential, he's demonstrated leadership, and on the most important issue of our time, the war against terrorism and the war to save civilization, he's the right guy for that task.
	He's tough on terror, he has strong judgment, he can lead the country.
	But there's this problem.
	He is absolutely on the wrong side of one of the most Important issues for a huge percentage of American conservatives.
	He's pro-abortion.
	So how do you reconcile that?
	Are we just supposed to overlook the fact that Rudy Giuliani's position on abortion is anathema to many of us?
	For me, it's probably the second most important issue in American life.
	The wholesale slaughter of babies because women find it convenient or want to rationalize the decision to do it.
	But on everything else, he's right.
	So how do you evaluate him and what do you do with him?
	Is he the right candidate to run?
	Can we overlook this one particular issue?
	I'm not sure what the answer is.
	And I'd like to use a portion of Open Line Friday to try to dig into what you believe the answer is.
	But we're going to start out on the uh we're one for one so far.
	Baton Rouge, Louisiana.
	Raymond, you're on Russia's program with Mark Belling.
	Yes, sir.
	Good good uh good morning.
	How are you doing?
	I'm great, thanks.
	Yeah, um, I wanted to speak about the uh Anna Nicole Smith.
	One for one, one hundred percent of the callers today on Open Line Friday have called on Anna Nicole Smith.
	Yes, sir.
	This is uh kind of strange that five months ago this this woman, her uh son dies, and this gentleman in the room with her at this time.
	Yes.
	Then we go five months later, and she he's in a room with her when she passed.
	Yeah, if you think I'm the kiss of death, what about this guy?
	Yes, sir.
	Now I watch court TV and things like that, you know, forensics and stuff like that.
	I I'm not accusing this man, but I think that uh the FBI or somebody should look into it.
	Oh, I from what I can tell, and I have all these cable television monitors in front of me, everybody's looking into the death of Anna Nicole Smith.
	I suspect that's all going to be investigated.
	Let me ask you a question, Raymond.
	Yes, sir.
	How closely did you follow our life?
	How closely did I follow her life?
	Well, basically, her life was like like just like uh this other lady that out there, Brittany Spear hang out with they forced these people on us through the media, through entertainment.
	I mean, I didn't know anything more about this woman than we well, you're right.
	They do jam the Britney Spears is down your throat.
	They do the same thing with Anna Nicole Smith.
	But the fact of the matter is is that we do pay attention to them.
	Yes, sir.
	We doesn't know who she is.
	We are part of the you know the United States and the culture that was presented to us on TV and things like this.
	But um, you know, I feel sorry for her right now for what her and her family are going through, and her, you know, listening to her.
	Well, I mean, it just seems like the biggest problem in her life was she had this absolute desire to be in the public eye.
	She didn't know how to manage it.
	It's the reason she was famous, which is all she seemed to care about, and that became the reason that she died and lived this terrible life.
	I mean, her entire life was this contradiction.
	But the fact of the matter is is that she was put out there, and the American people responded to it and paid attention to her, even though she had absolutely nothing to offer other than being somewhat attractive, depending on where she was in her weight loss regimen.
	Thank you for the call, Raymond.
	Appreciate it.
	This is Open Line Friday on the Rush Limbaugh program, and my name is Mark Belling.
	I'm Mark Belling sitting in for Rush Limbaugh 1800-282-2882 is the telephone number.
	I spoke in the first segment about Rudy Giuliani, and I'm getting some feedback rather vicious from the staff here about where I seem to be going with it.
	This really is hard for a lot of us who care about the abortion issue, but also care about the direction of our country.
	I don't want Hillary Clinton to be the president of the United States.
	I don't want Barack Obama to be the president of the United States, and I really don't want John Edwards to be the president of the United States.
	I look at the Republican field out there and I keep waiting for somebody to excite me.
	I was prone to support Mitt Romney because he said I'm the only major conservative running.
	So I've listened to Mitt Romney, I've read about Mitt Romney, and it's not doing anything for me.
	McCain, well, if that's he's the last resort guy.
	If we've got to take McCain, I suppose we'll take McCain.
	Sam Brown back, I kind of like, but what chance does he have of winning?
	And there he is running around against the troop surge resolution.
	I don't know what his commitments are.
	Newt Gingrich doesn't seem to know if he even wants to run.
	But then you look at the one guy who seems presidential and it's Rudy Giuliani.
	And he's right on just about every issue.
	But there's this abortion problem.
	The problem is he's wrong about it.
	And for many of us, that's a disqualifier.
	I don't know what to do with him in my own mind.
	Buckeye, Arizona Brett, you're on Russia's program with Mark Belling.
	Good morning, sir.
	Little uh, you know, you're right about the abortion issue.
	It is very tough for a lot of us, but also he's mentioned he would appoint judges such as Kalee and such that are conservative in nature.
	Uh is this him saying, okay, yeah, I know I'm wrong, but I want to get elected.
	This is my compromise to you people.
	I think that is what he's saying, plus it's probably what he believes in.
	He has said, and I suspect the way he's going to take this, is that I'm going to nominate to the judiciary strict strict constructionists who are not going to rewrite the Constitution and pretend that the Constitution says things that it doesn't say.
	I I'm guessing that's what his point is going to be.
	He may even come out and say, Look, well, I personally am pro-choice.
	I disagree with the Roe vs.
	Wade ruling.
	I believe that this is something that ought to be left to the states that the people ought to decide about.
	You know where I'm coming from on it, but this is not something that ought to be jammed on the nation's throats by a bunch of judges who say that we have no right to object and the public has no right to offer up a policy other than allowing abortion on demand in the country.
	He can do that, and I think it would put people somewhat at ease.
	I'm not sure if it would bring me around.
	What about you?
	Well, did he not also mention that this is something that should be cited by the people?
	Yeah, that and that's the direction that he's moving on on this.
	So are you are you now okay with it?
	Uh I'm never at ease with it, but I do like the fact that he is saying, you know, I know maybe I'm not this is how I feel, but it's not the popular.
	But here, let's put people that are gonna pass issues that we agree with and let them handle it.
	You know, he seems like he's washing his hands of it.
	This is not something a president should be involved in, let them deal with it, is what it seems to me.
	Well, and he I I think he would make a grave mistake if he tried to flip-flop on it.
	I mean Mitt Romney, who says he's the major conservative candidate running, used to be pro-abortion and seemed to be as recently as 2002.
	Now he says that he's not.
	That seems incredibly insincere.
	At least with Giuliani, we know that he's got that stand.
	We also know that he is very liberal on issues pertaining to gay relationships and benefits for gay couples.
	He's got liberal issues out there that are just anathema to a lot of social conservatives.
	I think it would be a mistake for him to turn his back on them, because then he isn't the Rudy Giuliani that we've all come to know and love who is committed and passionate.
	He's just another politician trying to change his views and say what people want to hear at any given time.
	Well, we've got enough of that.
	That's what Hillary is doing.
	That's what the Democrats are doing.
	It's what Bill Clinton did.
	We want somebody who's going to be committed to positions.
	Are we willing to accept someone who many of us think is just dead wrong on one of the most important issues of our time, and for a lot of people the most important.
	Thanks, Brett.
	He sounds as torn as I am on this.
	Kirk in Riverside, California, you're on Russia's program with Mark Belling.
	Hi there, how are you today?
	I'm great.
	Um I'm involved very actively in the pro-life issue, and I tell you what, voting for Rudy will be one of the hardest things if I'm able to do it that I'll ever do.
	Because I think if he can't take a stand, if he thinks it's life, and apparently he does, no, I don't think he will take a neutral position.
	I don't think he does I don't think he does believe it's life.
	Well, I mean, you can show an ultrasound of a baby that's twenty days.
	Wait, I mean Rudy Giuliani's position, as long as he's been in public life is that he believes that a woman has a right to choose to have an abortion.
	That's his stand.
	Yep.
	But he's gonna be I mean, he's he gives things like partial birth abortion.
	In other words, he thinks that should only be for the life of the mother.
	Yet medically, there is even C Evert Coop said that he can't think of any situation.
	Right, I know.
	So so what's so where do you stand on Rudy Giuliani?
	Do you want him to be the Republican nominee for president?
	Um I I don't like him, but I you know it's one of those things where he will be better than any other Democratic option.
	Well, and what about any other what about any other Republican option?
	No, I would love to see Newt Gingrich run.
	Well, maybe he will run once he makes up his mind, but he's been so wish he's been so wishy-washy with regard to it.
	Plus, I don't think Newt Gingrich has much chance of winning a general election.
	The one thing you can say about Rudy Giuliani is that he'd have a very good chance of winning the presidency.
	Two thousand eight may be as difficult for the Republicans as 2006 was.
	He does have that to offer.
	I think for a lot of us, it's going to come down to deciding whether or not we are willing to accept something about him that bothers us a lot.
	My name is Mark Belling, and I'm sitting in for Rush on Open Line Friday.
	There's a term I use on my program in Milwaukee a lot, rhino, republican in name only.
	The Republican Party is just afflicted with people like that, and they are a big part of the reason for the 2006 election debacle.
	The war was the biggest reason.
	But the fact of the matter is that there are a lot of Republicans who simply don't believe in Republican principles.
	This is why the last two years of Bush's presidency was such a waste.
	We got nowhere on Social Security reform.
	We didn't make the income tax cuts permanent.
	We didn't really do much of anything.
	Even though you had a Republican Senate and a Republican House because these wishy-washy Republicans, Republicans in name only, rhinos, were there refusing to vote for anything that Bush wanted to do.
	They had an historic grab of power.
	You had the presidency, the Senate, and the House, and they have very little to show for it, not because the majority of Republicans didn't want to act, but because this minority of fake Republicans, semi-democrats, the Susan Collinses and Olympia Snows of the world, were never there for you.
	That's not what Rudy Giuliani is.
	He's right on almost everything.
	I am very comfortable calling him a conservative.
	But he's wrong on abortion.
	Do you allow that issue, important as it is, to disqualify a guy who otherwise is probably the absolute perfect choice.
	Not only in terms of electability, but to lead the country.
	Look what he did.
	Look what he inherited.
	Was there a bigger mess in the world than New York City in the early nineties?
	There wasn't a mayor prior to him.
	The job was held by Denkins, whose role it was to, you know, go cut ribbons and show up at ceremonies and talk about peace and love.
	He didn't do anything.
	New York was falling apart before Rudy Giuliani got there.
	It was considered to be an unsolvable problem.
	New York's the greatest city in the world now.
	Look what he did.
	He turned around the impossible.
	He came in with a bunch of principles and said this is the way it's going to be.
	He re-established law and order.
	He encouraged business development.
	He was great on fiscal issues.
	He wanted New York City not to be the city that you couldn't afford to live in.
	He did all of those things.
	And he took a lot of grief for doing it.
	He stood by the New York police department when it was under fire a lot of times because he knew those were the people that were on the front line.
	And he certainly demonstrated during 9-11 that he's the guy that you want if there's a problem.
	He's all of those things.
	But for a lot of people, including myself, abortion is the greatest moral depravity of our time.
	How far does a person take that commitment when evaluating someone who otherwise is the right person to lead your country?
	It is a very difficult question.
	The National Review online today has an editorial on the very subject I'm talking about.
	They write, many conservatives understandably don't want to shut the door on Rudy Giuliani.
	He is very effective at fighting for and implementing those conservative causes with which he agrees.
	Indeed, he represents one of the best examples of executive ability over the last fifteen years.
	But for four decades, pro-lifers have resisted intense pressure from journalistic political and legal elites to declare the abortion question closed.
	Those elites would surely treat the Republican Party's nomination of a pro-choicer as their final victory.
	Having blocked that bipartisan ratification of abortion on demand for so long, pro-lifers will be especially disinclined to accept it now, after several years in which they have gained ground.
	Many pro-lifers and many conservatives may eventually decide that for all his obvious strengths, they cannot support Giuliani for president.
	For now, however, there is a certain symmetry of interest between conservatives and Giuliani.
	Conservatives should want Giuliani to agree with them on as many issues as possible.
	And Giuliani should want to win the nomination without triggering any rush to the party's exits.
	We hope he campaigns like it.
	Hi there, thanks for taking my call.
	Thank you.
	I am uh very adamant too that life and especially innocent unborn life is one of the most important issues in this country.
	Um and I feel that the majority of the population now is becoming aware after they're seeing things on websites and like the gentleman said before, ultrasounds of babies that are, you know, even in the first trimester, completely formed human beings that are being torn apart in this atrocity that we've accepted for the last thirty plus years.
	And uh, you know, I would be in favor of having a pro-life person like Senator Brownbeck start right now to say, look at what Hillary and Obama and the people that are pro-death of these unborn babies, you know, call them on it and and say things like um, you know, we all need to come together on this issue.
	You're not going to change anybody's opinion on abortion in a president in a president in a presidential not in a presidential race.
	I mean, the people who have been pro abortion have generally been Democrats, and the pro-lifers have generally been Republicans, and I don't know that that's going to change.
	The larger question to me is who do you want to be the candidate for president of the United States?
	And I think that on everything, Rudy Giuliani is the guy that I want, except this.
	And this is a real big this.
	But I I mean I you I think you can make the case that the president doesn't have much to do with the issue of abortion other than the very important decision on who you're going to appoint to the Federal Judiciary.
	You can therefore work your way through it not mattering.
	But that's almost like saying we're not going to say that slavery matters in the eighteen hundreds or a lot of other issues in which some people believe that there's a moral imperative.
	At some point you've got to draw the line, and in my case, I want to decide right now who I support.
	For one thing, the Republicans always choose their nominee the year before.
	The guy that's leading a year before the Iowa caucuses always goes on to win the nomination, and I want to support someone for president.
	I see this list of people out there waiting to be inspired by any of them, and not one of them is even coming close.
	The only person who when I hear him speak inspires me is Giuliani.
	But this problem is there, and I don't know what to do with it, and I bring it up because I think a lot of people in this audience are in the same category.
	I've listened to Rush talk about Giuliani.
	He clearly likes him.
	He clearly admires him.
	Uh I don't want to misquote him.
	Tell me if I misquote Rush.
	I do not want to misquote Rush on Russia's own program.
	Talk about an irony.
	But he said he's not sure if Rudy can deal with the abortion issue.
	He would have to deal address it in the fashion that he started to by saying he's going to appoint strict constructionists to the court.
	Uh and and so what?
	But you do run the risk if you nominate a Republican candidate for president who is not pro-life of having a walkout at the convention, a third party candidate running saying the Republican Party has sold us out on this issue, and ten to fifteen percent of the Republicans voting for a third party candidate next year, which would be a disaster.
	It'd be a nightmare if that happened.
	Hello.
	Thank you for having me on.
	Um I would vote for Mr. Juni Giuliani and I do not believe in abortion myself.
	The reason being there are more important issues in the world right now that we have to deal with and he, to me, is the man to deal with them.
	If I bring my kids up and have the moral belief in pro-life, they're not going to have abortions regardless of what the law is.
	There's more important issues out there if I am so pro-life.
	I would not have said that prior to 9-11.
	9-11 really change the world.
	Exactly.
	In my own mind, you know, as somebody who's been speaking out for a long time on my own show, abortion was to me always the biggest issue out there because I find it to be such an absolute moral betrayal and such an abrogation of a responsibility to fellow human beings.
	And personally I agree with you.
	But 9-11 did happen.
	Yes.
	We are facing a threat right now to all of civilized civilization.
	You have an enormous terror movement bent on killing all of us.
	This is and you have one political party out there that's response to it response to it is apparently to crawl into a hole and say well we oppose Iraq and we're not going to tell you what we're going to do about terrorism.
	They say they support the war on terror but every single plank of the Patriot Act that criticize they never come forward and support anything that Bush has ever wanted to do on terror.
	This is what I'm left to when I look at Giuliani and I say he is the absolute right person for this fight at this time.
	He will protect our country he will take the fight to the terrorists and he will lead the nation and probably far better than President Bush he will get the country to be willing to follow his lead.
	He is competent he is strong but there's still that issue out there.
	But we are in a post-91 world and whether or not pro-lifers should compromise their own values on that issue to get someone who is right on everything else is a very very large dilemma.
	Thank you Connie.
	My name is Mark Belling it's open line Friday 1 800 28282 is the telephone number and this is EIB.
	Mark Belling sitting in for Rush I don't know if it was four years or eight years ago when the Democrats had that pathetic field of candidates it might have been eight maybe maybe eight years ago they were calling him the seven dwarfs.
	I don't want to be too harsh here but isn't that what the Republican field seems like right now.
	I've listened to all of them the former governor of my own state Tommy Thompson of Wisconsin is running.
	He's apparently doing well in Iowa.
	I know him quite well, but he doesn't strike me as the president of the United States.
	I like Mike Huckabee, the governor, ex-governor of Arkansas.
	He's one of the few that's really a compelling public speaker.
	Seems like a leader although he was willing to raise taxes in Arkansas plus Mike Huckabee president doesn't it seem like there's supposed to be an interim step there.
	It just keeps coming back to Giuliani.
	He seems so right but he's just so wrong on this one issue.
	The Roman Catholic Church still teaches in many dioceses that it's a sin to vote for someone who has his viewpoint.
	There are a lot of Republican voters out there that take that stuff seriously.
	They can't just sweep it under the rug.
	But what do you want to be left with?
	Do you want McCain to be your guy?
	I'll tell you right now it would be a lot easier for me to support Rudy Giuliani for president than John McCain.
	Giuliani's been there with me on just about everything as long as he's been around McCain you never know where he's going to be Roanoke Virginia David you're on Russia's program with Mark Belling.
	Hey thanks for having me I was I just want to say that you would you would have to be stupid not to vote for Giuliani just for that reason.
	Because uh really that's what that's what's wrong with the Republican Party these days is they're trying to force religious views on on into politics.
	No they're not no they're not I think well, I think I think the Republican Party should really be about less government and lower taxes and national security.
	Well, you can make the party about whatever you want it to be, but I don't think the Republicans have tried to force this issue on anyone.
	There is certainly more room for pro-choice or pro-abortion Republicans than the Democrats have ever allowed pro-life Democrats.
	I don't know that the issue has been forced.
	It's merely something that people feel very strongly about.
	If they believe if if Republican voters believe that babies are being killed, there's nothing wrong with their using the power of the vote to try to stop it.
	And as for this forcing, if you haven't noticed, we haven't stopped it anywhere.
	Abortion's legal in all fifty states.
	Abortions go on all the time.
	What is happening, I think, is more and more Americans are beginning to question whether or not it's morally wrong, and we may be moving in the direction of a nation in which abortion is legal but more people reject it as being immoral.
	But to say that we're forcing it on people, I don't I don't agree with that.
	This is merely a question of who you're going to vote for for president and what priority you give to this issue.
	Now you obviously are somebody who doesn't care about this issue and don't think that it's important, but don't take away the prerogative of those who believe that it is important to not care about this.
	Well, no, sir, I I think you have me wrong.
	Uh I I myself would not have an abortion, and I owe that to my parents.
	They brought me up to believe in religious values.
	However, I have a lot of friends who aren't Christians, but I don't go around, you know, thumping the Bible at them, telling them how they should live their lives.
	This doesn't have anything to do with the Bible.
	It has to do with whether or not you believe it to be wrong.
	If I were an atheist and I'm not, I could still reach the conclusion that abortion is wrong.
	It's not, I don't believe it's a matter of religion.
	It's a matter of people determining what is right and what is wrong.
	On the other hand, it's not the only thing that you have to consider.
	If faced with the choice of Hillary Clinton, who is pro-abortion, and Rudy Giuliani, who is pro-abortion, that becomes very, very simple.
	Of course the answer is Giuliani.
	But the question right now for Republicans is Giuliani as opposed to all of these other Republicans that are running.
	And that's the hard part.
	And if Giuliani would somehow win the nomination, are pro-life Republicans going to sit there and say, okay, I'm going to vote for him because the only alternative is Hillary Clinton or Barack Obama or John Edwards or whomever the Democrats pick.
	Or can I be true to my convictions, vote for the third party candidate that would inevitably come up if Giuliani gets the nomination and say I'm true to myself, vote for the third party person knowing you're handing the election to the Democrats.
	Well, that's something Republicans better think about now, because you don't want to nominate someone who's going to be abandoned by twenty percent of the Republican base, which could happen with Giuliani.
	I think it's going to be up to him to comfort pro-lifers to say it is okay for you to vote for me, and somehow he's going to have to address that without flip-flopping, because if he flip-flops, then he just is John McCain.
	He's somebody who will reinvent himself to whatever works at that point in his life.
	Then he's Clinton, who changed his position on everything.
	Well, the Republican Party voters don't want that.
	They want someone who's a leader, and that means you can't change your position.
	On the other hand, you have to put that position in a way that people are comfortable with, and he hasn't done it yet.
	My name is Mark Felling sitting in for Rush.
	Open Line Friday on Russia's program so far, Rudy Giuliani is Trumping out of Nicole Smith, which I think is reassuring.
	Peoria Illinois West, you're on Russia's show.
	Thanks, Mark.
	Uh, try to be quick.
	Uh we cannot make the same mistake on a national level that this to what happened here in Illinois in the last election.
	Uh what ended up happening is our for now former trader Tudy Bar to Pink and jumped in the race late, won the primary, then got Trump in the general election, uh, in large part because she was socially uh more liberal and the conservatives did not turn out for her, and if they did go to the polls and vote, they voted for the Green Party, and as a result, we now have an official Green Party representation.
	Well, yeah, the state of Illinois has become a disaster for the Republican Party.
	So is your point, Wes that Giuliani should be the nominee and social conservatives should just be should be okay with it, or that they shouldn't choose him in the first place.
	We should stand behind somebody that we feel is conservative enough and is the right candidate.
	However, if Liani is our nominee, we have to get behind him, otherwise, we'll be stuck with the Democrat for four years.
	Yeah, and I and I don't know if that's possible.
	I know a lot of people that are so committed on this issue that they could never vote for President of the United States, some of that they they didn't perceive as being pro-life, and that's the big challenge for Giuliani.

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