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March 20, 2007 - Rush Limbaugh Program
36:10
March 20, 2007, Tuesday, Hour #2
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Time Text
And greetings, welcome back.
Great to have you.
El Rushbo, the EIB Network, and the Limboy Institute for Advanced Conservative Studies.
Here's the phone number if you want to join us today.
Telephone number 800-282-2882.
And the EIBNet.com, RussiaEIBNet.com is the email address.
Telephone number 800-282-2882.
Again, just looking at something here on the website that should be updating that isn't.
We've just put the link to the audio transcript of what I said about Schwarzenegger calling me irrelevant.
We're working out to get the text of that transcript up now.
This is another thing that we're able to do with a new website design is put things up immediately in a big orange banner to links there impossible to miss.
We've built in a lot of room.
That's an expandable space that we've built into the website.
Remember what I said?
Websites are bottomless.
So you keep scrolling down to make sure you see everything.
All right.
Here's a headline I didn't think I would see.
It's not a new story.
It's a headline I didn't think I would see.
Bush gives Gonzalez support, comma, mounts counterattack.
Now, what the story is, is this.
President Bush offered Attorney General Alberto Gonzalez strong backing, the White House said today, as the administration mounted a counterattack aimed at quelling the controversy over the firing of eight federal prosecutors.
Bush made an early phone call to Gonzalez to express his support.
According to Dana Perino at the White House spokes office, the president reaffirmed his strong backing of the Attorney General, and there's no truth to reports that the administration is looking for a replacement for Gonzalez.
The president urged Gonzalez to fight efforts to force him out, said a Justice Department official who spoke on condition of anonymity.
And what this is about is this story from the Politico.
That was posted late last night.
Well, about 6.30 last night by Mike Allen, White House seeking Gonzalez replacements.
Republican officials operating at the behest of the White House have begun seeking a possible successor to Attorney General Alberto Gonzalez, whose support among GOP lawmakers has collapsed, according to party sources familiar with the discussions.
Among the names floated by administration officials are Michael Cherdoff of Homeland Security and the anti-terrorism coordinator in the White House, Frances Townsend.
She's a babe, but I don't know if she's qualified for this.
Former Deputy Attorney General Larry Thompson is a White House prospect as well.
So is former Solicitor General Ted Olson, but sources were unsure whether he would want the job.
So the White House has mounted this comeback today.
No, no, no, no.
We're not asking anybody to go out and find replacements.
If we wanted to, well, we'd do it ourselves anyway.
Why would we ask Republicans to find replacements out there?
And Bush has now mounted a counterattack on all of this.
Now, Bruce Bartlett has a column, I think it's at Town Hall.
I'm not sure, Human Events.
It's at humanevents.com.
Saying, you know, this is much ado about nothing.
And he cites some of the efforts of Harry Truman and FDR to influence Justice Department activity and so on.
And of course, the Democrats would simply say, well, that's so long ago.
Besides, the drive-by is going to ignore that because it's Democrats.
Democrats are allowed to do that.
Democrat presidents can fire all 93 U.S. attorneys with cause, without cause, in the middle of investigations, in the middle of corruption investigation.
They can do that all day long, and nobody is going to complain.
A drive-by media's big guns will circle the wagons.
The Democrats are not going to criticize themselves.
You go back and you look at, you know, FDR and Harry Truman.
I mean, that's so long ago, to cite the fact Democrats have done it too, which just means that the recitation of the Clinton firings is not sticking out there, apparently.
However, our old buddy Clarice Feldman at American Thinker, one of our favorite blogs, has a piece just posted called Selective Amnesia on Firing U.S. Attorneys.
She writes thus, A common media trick to get editorial opinion into apparent news stories is the use of outside scholars, quote unquote, to argue the writer's point for him.
So I was not astonished to read this about the Gonzales kerfuffle in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, quote, several former U.S. attorneys and legal scholars say the timing of the Bush administration's replacement of federal prosecutors not only atypical, but also a threat to the impartial exercise of justice.
The sanctity of that position in terms of that position being immune from any kind of pressure from the administration or Congress has been the hallmark of the U.S. attorney process.
It's been the hallmark of the federal system of justice, said W. Charles Grace, a former U.S. attorney for Illinois' Southern District.
Now, the article doesn't say which administration Mr. Grace served in.
It's not surprising.
When using this trick to squeeze opinion in a news story by using an outside expert, the writer rarely discloses the expert's bias.
Her point is, the author, the writer, is already a big lib, but to cover his own liberalism and to get his own opinion in, go out and find an expert who will echo his own sentiments, which is not hard to do.
There are a lot of liberals out there.
And of course, when a writer does not disclose the expert's bias, you can bet that it's usually Democrat or liberal.
So Clarice Feldman Googled the name W. Charles Grace, and she found that he was a U.S. attorney in 1998, which suggests that President Clinton appointed him, and he appointed a lot of them, having fired every single U.S. attorney when he took office, and 30 more subsequently during his eight-year term in office.
Did you know that, folks?
In addition to the 93 bloodletting of 93 U.S. attorneys, he fired 30 more in the course of his two years.
Did you know that?
Yeah, nobody made a big stink about it.
While the number that Clinton replaced was astounding, Jimmy Carter replaced at least one during the middle of his term of office.
As Republicans rubbed their hands in glee, the Carter administration last week found itself trying to explain away a skein of presidential lies.
In a letter to Justice Department investigators looking into the firing two weeks ago of Philadelphia's Republican U.S. Attorney David Marston, Carter last week corrected a misstatement he had made during a nationally televised press conference on January 12th.
Republican congressmen saw an opportunity to duplicate last summer's damaging controversy over Burt Lance's financial peccadillos and to lay siege again to what was once the president's pride, his credibility.
It was Carter's own fault.
During the campaign, he rashly declared all federal judges and prosecutors should be appointed strictly on the basis of merit without any consideration of political aspects or influence.
Carter's problem was he didn't tell the truth several times about his role in removing Marston, and it came out that he had been asked to fire Marston by one of the targets of investigation, Representative Joshua Eilberg of Pennsylvania.
Nevertheless, Carter went ahead and fired Marston.
And it got worse.
Marston had notified a Justice Department official that Eilberg was a target.
So, Jimmy Carter also replaced a U.S. attorney in the middle of his term, not Carter's term, but the U.S. attorney's term.
And one of the things they're saying about Bush, well, you got to let these guys' terms expire.
And the guy in Arkansas, by the way, did, Bud Cummins.
You got to let these terms expire.
So Jimmy Carter did it.
And some hell was raised, but not much.
Of course, Jimmy Carter was a good Democrat.
The drive-by media has always been liberal Democrat.
So we've got much ado about nothing here when you get right down to it.
Maybe, actually, there may be something cooking here, but it would be, once again, renegades in the Department of Justice trying to sabotage the administration, either for their own personal gain, advancement, or what have you, or just general politics.
But Bloomberg News is reporting that Bush called Gonzalez that you hang in there, buddy.
Don't cave into this.
We're going to mount a counterattack, and we're not looking for your replacements.
Quick timeout.
Back right after this.
And we're back, Rushland Boys, serving humanity with half my brain tied behind my back just to make it fair.
A fascinating story in the New York Times today essentially is about Senator McCain reconsidering his views on immigration while in Iowa.
It's a piece by Adam Nagourney: immigration, an issue that has divided Republicans in Washington, that would be Washington for those of you in Riolinda, is reverberating across the party's presidential campaign field, causing particular complications for Senator McCain.
Senator McCain said after a stop in Cedar Falls, Iowa: immigration is probably a more powerful issue here than almost any place I've been.
Senator, do you talk to people from your own home state of Arizona?
When was the last time you were in California?
It took Iowa?
Nothing against you people in Iowa.
I mean, I'm not disputing your creds on this.
The idea that as much traveling as McCain does, that is this trip to Iowa that causes him now to reconsider his views on immigration.
As he left Iowa, Mr. McCain said he was reconsidering his views on how the immigration law might be changed.
He said he was open to legislation that would require people who come to the U.S. illegally to return home before applying for citizenship.
That's a measure proposed by Mike Pence, Republican of Indiana.
McCain has previously favored legislation that would allow most illegal immigrants to become citizens without leaving the country.
On Saturday morning in Des Moines, Sam Brownback stood for 30 minutes at a breakfast with Republicans as question after question without exception was directed at an immigration system that Iowans denounced as failing.
These people are stealing from us, said Larry Smith, a factory owner from Truro and a member of the Central Committee of the State Republican Party.
Finally, Brownbach, with a slight mile, said, Any other topics that people want to talk about here?
Every question.
McCain, for example, appeared to distance himself from Senator Kennedy, the Massachusetts Democrat with whom he formed an alliance last year on an immigration bill that stalled in Congress.
McCain said, Look, what I tried to point out is that we couldn't pass legislation.
See?
So we have to change the legislation so we can pass.
Simple.
He said he's been working with Senator Kennedy, but also been working with additional senators, additional House members.
McCain focused instead on the proposal by Mike Pence.
He said, Pence has this touchback proposal.
I said, hey, let's consider that if that's a way we can get some stuff.
Well, hell's bells here, folks.
God love you people in Iowa is what I have to say about it.
But I'm still stunned at the whole notion that McCain had to go to Iowa to figure this out.
Robert in Newark, Delaware.
Glad you waited, sir.
Welcome to the EIB network.
Hello, Rush.
But sure to talk to you.
I'm glad to be back in the fold after some time away.
Where did you go?
Well, I don't know.
The day I heard you carrying Bush's water about stealing the education issue from the Democrats was the day I said, no, no more.
What?
When was that?
Oh, it was a while ago when the Kennedy bill passed, I guess, for the education bill a long while ago in his first term.
Oh, I said that?
Yes, you did.
And you said it was ingenious, an ingenious political move.
And I said, uh-uh, that's not conservative.
Are you sure?
I think I mean, the only thing I remember is ripping the president for letting McCain or letting Kennedy write the education bill.
Uh-uh.
Go back and listen to your program.
I remember it vividly because it was so shocking.
But that's not why I called.
The reason I called is because I think we're overestimating as conservatives the general popularity of the movement.
Senator Santorum ran as a very articulate, true blue conservative against a candidate in Pennsylvania who took essentially no position and got hammered this year.
It's not true that when people run as true conservatives, they win hands down.
Not even close.
So we have to address that.
Whoa, Let's talk about Santorum first.
Santorum ran primarily on the war, and it was unpopular.
Santorum ran on the notion that we face a severe challenge and threat by Islamofascists.
He also ran on his traditional family values.
Bob Casey is the most conservative Democrat in the state of Pennsylvania and was echoing everything Santorum was saying except the war, echoing practically everything.
Same thing happened to J.D. Hayworth out in Arizona.
He had a Democrat echoing everything he was saying about immigration, which is a big issue out there.
And then you're right.
Casey in other times was taking no position on anything.
But Pennsylvania is a Democrat state.
It does have a core, though, of conservatives that can easily be reached.
And Reagan did that.
Yes.
Gingrich proved that.
Santorum proved that.
The second point is that I should have clarified my remarks to say this.
Conservatives win presidential elections.
Republicans who try to be liberal do not.
Okay, presidential, I agree with you.
National elections.
This is a conservative country.
And that's how conservative Democrats are brought into the Republican Party fold is when you have a genuine conservative Republican running for office or somebody who at least sings half the song to make people think that there's hope for a conservative Republican to be president.
But yeah, you can find pockets of liberalism.
But in Pennsylvania, you know, your big problem in Pennsylvania is Philadelphia.
And that's Santorum.
Santorum's not going to win anything in Philadelphia.
And then you go to Pittsburgh, which is where he's from, and that's a big union town, big Democrats, too.
There are pockets of conservatism there as well.
But he won there before, right?
So it can't be that biased against him.
And he ran away from.
But the way, look at, he ran.
He won in 1998.
These are six-year terms, or he ran in 2000 rather.
These are six-year terms.
And the war interceded, and this Democrat, big anti-war state, and Santorum was not backing, and he was backing Bush.
Well, national defense is a conservative issue.
If articulated properly, it should be a winner as well.
Well, he articulated it properly.
There were a number of extraneous problems there that I don't think said as much about conservatism as they said about as other things were factors.
You know, the anti-war movement is not based on national defense.
The anti-war movement is based on no national defense.
There is the anti-war movement's based on surrender.
That's right.
Anyway, I'm glad you called and gave me the chance to clarify that.
I'm carrying Bush's what?
That means you left in 2002.
Since you left in 2002, you've been gone for five years.
What brought you back?
I had heard through some of my friends that you were sort of, you gave this big speech one day, probably this past year, about how you were sick of carrying people's water, especially the Republicans in Congress, and how they defected away from conservatism.
And you had had it.
You weren't going to carry it.
And I said, well, maybe he's changed a bit, and I should check him out again.
So I have.
That was after the election in 2006.
All right.
Well, Robert, I appreciate your holding on for as long as you did.
He was on hold for a full hour.
I appreciate that.
We paid for it.
It's no big deal.
But we appreciate your patience and your time.
Jason in Springfield, Missouri.
Nice to have you with us, sir.
Hello.
Hello, Rush.
Greetings from the entire Macy family, especially my little brother Chris Macy, who's sergeant in the Army when you went to Afghanistan.
Well, we have imminent respect for all of you and your families, as you well know.
Thank you, sir.
I wanted to go back to your comments about the functioning illiterate.
You know, from the liberals' perspective, the functioning illiterate is somebody who is illiterate based upon their inability to read a map or navigate through a bus schedule.
But how do they determine the positive side, the functioning part?
Oh, I should have thrown that.
A functional illiterate is somebody who still knows how to go to the welfare office and get a check.
Okay.
I was curious how they were determining that.
Yeah, a functional illiterate is somebody who knows how to use every government program to its max.
Oh, well, thank you, sir.
It's a serious question.
Sort of like what's a functional alcoholic?
You know, a lot of alcoholics go to work every day.
Right.
A functional illiterate can get around, can get a driver's license, can drive a car, can cross the street.
A functional illiterate can probably speak.
But when it comes time to put the signature on something, well, even functional illiterates get away with an X if they can find a cosigner, say, yes, X is functional illiterate.
Whatever.
Bobby Jogen, back in just a sec.
Stay with us.
Well, big news from the future nuclear capital of the Mideast, the Islamic Republic of the peaceful peoples of Iran.
Russian President Vladimir Putin has informed Iran that it will withhold nuclear fuel for Iran's newly computed or completed power plant unless Iran suspends its uranium enrichment as demanded by the UN Security Council, as well as European American and Iranians.
That's who's speaking.
Who wrote this?
This is the worst written sentence I have ever seen.
It's the New York Times.
Basically here, European, American, and Iranian officials are saying that Putin is withholding nuclear fuel because Iran hasn't suspended its uranium enrichment as demanded by the UN Security Council.
The ultimatum delivered in Moscow last week by Igor Ivanov, the secretary of the Russian National Security Council.
Moscow and Tehran have been engaged in a public argument about whether Iran has paid its bills, which may explain Russia's apparent shift.
The ultimate may also reflect an increasing displeasure and frustration on Moscow's part with Iran over its refusal to stop enriching uranium at its vast facility at Natanz.
A senior Bush administration official said, We're not sure what mix of commercial and political motives are at play here, but clearly the Russians and the Iranians are getting on each other's nerves, and that's not all bad.
Well, that may not be all bad, and that may be all well and good, but there's an unanswered question here, and that is, what will the Chinese do?
Chinese could step in here and fill a void if they chose to.
You know, the Chinese would love for there to be as much instability regarding the United States foreign policy as possible.
And Vlad needs the money.
I mean, Russia is not floating in currency over there.
And if the Iranians aren't paying up, that could be the primary reasoning.
It's interesting that Putin is saying, hey, you guys won't stop your uranium enrichment program.
I've never heard the Russians be that concerned about that.
By the way, in the San Francisco Chronicle today, they're obsessing out there over who put this anti-Hillary ad on YouTube, the one that has the remake of the 84 Apple computer ad and the 84 Super Bowl.
It has a woman throw a sledgehammer hammer at a big TV screen of Hillary Clinton mouthing her clichés.
Just who is Park Ridge 47, the mystery figure who introduced an internet political ad that has stirred the press and political junkies tuned into the early presidential campaign.
And what does the video maker have against Hillary Rodham Clinton?
Story here is by Carla Maranucci.
The political question of the week is the identity of the anonymous person who reworked that classic 84 ad introducing the Apple Macintosh computers to the world into a biting attack piece against Clinton and posted it on YouTube.
Analysts have said the video is representative of the multiplying power and democracy of the internet is a harbinger of a brave new era of unauthorized viral political ads made by individuals working independently of campaigns and consultancy.
Yes, I will bet you they are concerned.
You know how proprietary these people are.
I mean, media was this way when we came along.
Who do these interlopers think they are?
Who is this new media talk radio and then the blogs?
Who do these people think they are?
The campaign people are going to be out there saying, who do these people on YouTube think they are?
People make their own commercials like we've got to track these people down and find out who they are and put them out of business.
This is not going to sit well.
And it isn't sitting well.
The ad was first placed on the YouTube site way back on March the 5th by an anonymous poster signed ParkRidge47 at a signature that appears to be a clever jab at Clinton, a Mrs. Bill Clinton, who was born in Chicago in 1947 and raised in nearby Park Ridge.
After the ad received more than 100,000 hits in two days.
By the way, I looked at the counter on this ad.
Before the show yesterday, it was at 120,000 hits.
At showtime yesterday, it was at 420 or 450,000 hits.
After the show, it was back down in 100,000.
Now, how can that be?
Who's turning down the odometer on the hits on this piece on YouTube?
How does it go from 450,000 to 120,000?
Three hours.
That's the timeframe.
I checked it.
Now, the piece goes on here to suggest that this is actually Republicans doing this.
Chris Finney, Santa Cruz-based Democrat operative, said the widespread coverage given to the mashup, this ad in GOP circles suggests the ad could have come from a Republican operative and smacks of swift boat tactics.
Boy, these people never get over it.
They just never, never get over it.
As I said yesterday, what leads me to believe is a Democrat ad is that they don't really go after Hillary on substance.
They just go after her clichés and so forth.
But it's clearly somebody doesn't like Mrs. Clinton and somebody has not drunk the Kool-Aid or drank the Kool-Aid that the Clinton Inc. is offering.
This is somebody out there who's clearly, and by the way, if it's a Republican pushing Obama, that would be strange.
Meanwhile, Clinton and Obama are sparring on the war.
That's the Washington Post headline, but that's a misleading headline.
What's happening here is that the Clinton team is attacking.
Mrs. Bill Clinton's camp is attacking.
Yet the Washington Post refers to this as the Clinton-Obama camp's spar on war.
Mark Penn and Obama strategist David Axelrod engage in a pointed and occasionally heated exchange during a public forum at Harvard over the issue that's become the central point of dispute between the two, and that's the wall.
Penn, responding to a question about Clinton's vote for the resolution, used force resolution, used the opportunity to attack Obama, arguing he had said in 2004 he was not sure whether he would have voted against the resolution had he been in the Senate.
Obama said he didn't know exactly how he would have voted in Congress because he didn't have the full intelligence.
So maybe basically here the Hillary camps out there attacking.
The Washington Post says that both camps are sparring.
Rick Klein in the Boston Globe says Obama's record shows caution and nuance on Iraq.
Let me summarize this for you.
Obama said that he wouldn't re-up funding for the war, and then he did re-up funding for the war.
That's nuance.
So if Kerry, it's a flip-flop.
For Obama, it is a nuance.
And by the way, we're talking here about the magic Negro.
Barack Obama, the magic Negro, so proclaimed yesterday by David Ehrenstein in the Los Angeles Times.
So the Hillary camps out there pressing Obama for clarity on the war, which is rich.
Mark Penn, actually, last week was the New York Post, quoted Bill Clinton questioning Obama's position on Iraq.
Mark Penn, the Clinton pollster, criticized Obama for not detailing his position on the war and voting for Iraq appropriations.
So, you know, they're going out of their way out there at both camps to portray each other as nuanced and all over the place on the war in Iraq.
All of this is going to be rendered moot when the surge works and Baghdad is rendered peaceful.
Elaine in Pittsburgh, I'm glad you called a welcome to the EIB network.
Oh, thank you, Rush.
I love talking to you.
I love listening to you.
What I wanted to know was in the Senate, the testimony that Valerie Plain gave, where she said someone just walked by and just recommended her husband.
But if she was there, is that not nepotism?
I mean, if she's there.
Well, yes, it is.
But there's something more incredulous about this than just that.
By the way, the members of the Senate Intelligence Committee who were listening to her testimony said she never said that.
She never told us that when she testified under oath.
We never knew there was call from the vice president's office to one of her underlings near her desk.
And we didn't hear about this mystery guy walking by.
You have to believe, in order to believe Valerie Plame, you have to believe the scenario.
She's sitting at her desk, minding her own business, doing her cute little covert duties.
Then, out of the blue, the phone rings at one of her assistants' desks.
This person hangs up the phone and storms over to Ms. Plame breathlessly and angrily and says, I don't believe this.
The office of the vice president just called her.
I want to know what the hell is going on with this uranium business in Niger.
What are they doing calling here?
As though the vice president has no right to call the CIA to seek answers to questions that are showing up in the newspaper.
So at about that time, when the underling was expressing outrage and shock that the office of the vice president would call, Mystery Man goes traipsing by, overhears the conversation as Ms. Plame is being reported to by the underling.
And in the midst of the conversation, the mystery guy says, wait a minute, Valerie, your husband, he's been an ambassador.
Why wouldn't we send him over there to figure?
Do we really believe that's how this happened?
That's what she said under oath.
No, you can't.
I can't believe this.
Now, as to your question, yes, it'd be nepotism.
She's tried to hide behind the rock that said she didn't have authority to send him, but she certainly had the authority to suggest it because Mystery Man sent her home that night and asked her to mention it to her wonderful husband, Ambassador Joseph Wilson IV.
Well, and just one more quick question, Rush.
Her husband out there himself by him writing the op-ed piece in the New York Times.
And where is the CIA saying that you can't do that kind of stuff?
If he went to Niger, actually, they should interview the people who talked to him.
Look at this whole thing's a mess.
I mean, there should never have been an investigation once it was known who leaked her name, which was Richard Armitage, or who was Richard Armitage.
Should it ever have been an investigation?
That's why this whole thing smacks of a conspiracy to destroy the Iraq war policy of the Bush administration and maybe more.
All right.
Well, thank you, Rush.
I listen every day.
This is a paraphrase of a quote from Joseph Wilson IV, renowned ambassador and all that rotgut.
But he actually said, and as it's a paraphrase, that this administration has been taken over by a bunch of neocons, and I have made it my personal duty to destroy them.
Now, this is, somebody sent me this, and it's going to my home email, actually.
So I don't know where he said it, but the point is that she's up there saying, we need to get politics out of the intelligence services.
And there's her husband, who is obviously a 60s commie-lib.
He's out there doing what he can to advance those values.
But yeah, your questions are all valid.
Frankly, I'm surprised, too.
I'm going to tell you one thing.
I expected the end of her testimony that there would be gaga goo-goo and all over the place, but you know what the drive-by accounts was?
The drive-by accounts were mostly, eh, not much there except a little screen test.
Not much there about this blonde-looking super spy coming up, but we didn't learn much.
There really was not the excitement that I thought there would be over the substance of what she said.
Be right back.
Can I go to line one?
Are you saying, you're saying, wait?
This is, oh, Susan in Alamo, California, calling back to again apologize, are you?
No, I'm just calling back because I'm a little disappointed in you, Rush, for just sitting back, taking Arnold's insult that you're irrelevant.
You are the father of conservatism.
How can you sit back and let him say you're irrelevant when it was you that helped Arnold get elected governor?
He's the one that's irrelevant, Rush, because his term's going to expire, and you're just going to keep going on and on with your radio show forever.
I did not, you can't say I got him elected.
You cannot say that.
You can't take Arnold out of the look at you.
I was arguing with you about Arnold.
You wouldn't listen to me back then.
How do you say I got him elected?
Well, your call screener said to be short to the point that you remember me, and I guess you did, but I didn't want to take all the blame for it.
Of course, I remember you because you've also called not long ago to apologize to me for not believing me when I told you that Arnold was not a conservative.
And I agree, and I'm so mad at him, but I'm disappointed in you.
Do you really want that peace prize?
Is that why you're just sitting back taking it?
Come on, sit back and take it.
I hammered the guy.
Where were you?
He did not.
You called him a sellout.
I told everybody he said, I said he's a nice guy.
I said I've smoked cigars with him, but I'm not going to sit here.
I'm not going to get friendly with these people because you can't ever criticize your friends.
But I said he's classic.
This is Gerald Ford versus Ronald Reagan.
And we conservatives cannot sit back and let quasi-conservatives be conservative.
What in what sit back and take it?
You know what you're mad about?
You're mad because I was a nice guy and said, perhaps, because I gave him the benefit of the doubt.
Maybe he's saying I'm irrelevant in terms of what he's going to do in California.
I don't think he's saying I'm as irrelevant as a media guy.
How can he?
Because every time he's on that show, my name comes up.
He knows I'm not irrelevant.
Well, Rush, I think the reason I've got a theory here, two theories why he's turned left.
And one of them you already mentioned, he's probably, you know, after he's governor, he's going to go back and make more movies and he has to get in the good graces of the Hollywood left.
The other thing is, I think maybe, perhaps, since he can't run as president, that he's got some deal cooking up with one of the Democrat candidates for president to be on their cabinet.
That's the only reason I can think why he's turned left.
Do you have any other reasons?
Well, there's a multitude of possibilities.
We could speculate on this all day and night, but we're never going to know the answer.
There's the wife.
There's the Kennedy family.
There's any number thing.
Your example about Hollywood.
There's sex.
Well.
Do you think he has a deal going, though, with one of the presidential candidates like Hillary?
Because he had said, oh, we shouldn't criticize Hillary.
Do you think he knows something we don't, that she's going to become president and he'll get on her cabinet?
Anything's possible, but to speculate on what we don't know is kind of meaningless.
We'll find out in due course.
Well, Rush, how are we in the situation?
What does it matter why?
The fact is, he no longer is even pretending to be a conservative.
He's trying to say he's a centrist when he's a liberal.
What else matters?
Well, it matters because we can learn a lesson from Arnold.
And my problem, my dilemma is...
You didn't learn the lesson because I tried to tell you.
No, I didn't.
The fact that you ended up surprised that he turned out this way proves that you were not willing to learn the lesson.
Now, you call me.
I was hoping he'd be the next Ronald Reagan, but my dilemma is, Rush, this coming presidential election, do we go with our heart like Newt Gingrich, or do we go with somebody electable again like Rudy Giuliani?
And how do we hold our feet to the fire once they've won?
I don't know yet.
This is what.
Jeez.
You're the greatest mind I know.
So I'm asking y'all to get to the point.
This is what I said.
If you're going to call here and raise hell with me, at least listen to what I said before you do it, Susan.
Okay.
I'm not your husband.
Oh, okay.
Oh, isn't it a shame?
No, look.
I said the problem with this in talking about Arnold, the problem with this is you mentioned a Giuliani and you mentioned, throw Romney or anybody else in there.
Newt.
Newt?
Well, Newt's not in.
Let's leave Newt out.
Yeah, Newt's not, he's not in.
Let's just, let's leave Newt out of this for a second.
Okay.
The thing that I worry about is that these people who are not quote-unquote Reagan conservatives are going to say they are.
And everybody's going to go, oh, okay, we're going to redefine conservatism.
And that's not going to happen on this show.
Conservatism is not going to redefine.
One of these guys may win the nomination, they may get elected, but they're not going to be called conservatives by me.
Conservatism is what I am, not a Republican.
Rush, I never called Arnold a conservative.
I never called Giuliani one, but I'm saying who do we go with?
Electable, which is not a conservative?
I don't know.
Are somebody that can win?
I don't know yet.
I haven't the slightest clue.
It's too soon.
Give me a break here.
Hit this.
Hit this thing.
All right, it's break time, folks.
And as soon as we take the break, we'll be back from the break.
And we'll start the third hour of broadcast excellence.
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