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March 21, 2007 - Rush Limbaugh Program
36:29
March 21, 2007, Wednesday, Hour #1
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Welcome to today's edition of the Rush 24-7 podcast.
No, I got home about, what was it, 9.30 last night, and I went and checked the email as always do, and there was a couple frantic notes from H.R., trustee chief of staff, saying that the office of Governor Schwarzenegger, California, had been trying to reach us all afternoon, wanting to come on the program today.
And I knew yesterday this was the case.
They said, hey, look, this wasn't personal.
Just Rush, not a Californian, and it doesn't matter what anybody says.
I'm going to do what I'm going to do.
That's what Arnold meant.
So that's how it happened.
Anyway, Governor Schwarzenegger will appear on the program at exactly one hour.
Greetings.
And he wanted to appear.
And so we said, fine.
Love to have him.
Telephone number 800-282-2882.
If you want to be on the program, the email address is rush at EIBnet.com.
So Governor Schwarzenegger, in an hour, he will be calling in from California.
We'll have him on for the first segment of the program.
Adam Mendelssohn was from his office called and said, well, I can't believe the way the media is treating this.
We want to set the record straight.
So I knew what this was yesterday.
I got all kinds of people asking, well, why did you treat him with such kid glove?
Why didn't you fire back?
I can't believe you sat there with it.
I thought I hit back pretty hard on policy stuff.
I'm not one of these contrived rivalry guys, folks.
I mean, there's all kinds of people in talk radio that pick fights with other people just for the sake of getting noticed, and it's cheap, and it's often phony, and it's just, it's a technique that's been used even before I got, even before I started this program, and I've just never engaged in it.
I just prefer to deal with this stuff in a dignified and classy way, as was the case yesterday.
More on that as the program unfolds.
The president has finally hit back, ladies and gentlemen, on the Democrats' demand for, and by the way, the Democrats have now issued subpoenas.
What, they haven't?
Issued subpoenas.
Well, they're going to, yeah, they've issued subpoenas.
Well, they ought to be ignored.
I mean, this is, we've got a great constitutional fight coming up here.
The Democrats decided this morning, since they're not satisfied with Rove and Harriet Myers coming up and just having a conversation with these senators, Chuck Schumer, you know, the underwear and a wad, decided he's going to issue the subpoenas.
He said, nope, nope, this has got to be in public.
It's got to be under oath.
What are they afraid of?
Blah, We have a lot of audio soundbites in support of this.
I want to start with last night on Anderson Cooper 360, a portion of a report.
We got two bites, actually, from a report by John Roberts.
Conservative blogs have been aflame with complaints that Republicans have rolled over and demanding they grow a spine.
It's not just the president.
Nobody within the administration reacts to this stuff in an instinctive or visceral way.
I have a question.
CNN is the network that really ran with this Arnold irrelevant comment yesterday.
If I'm irrelevant, what are they doing putting me in news reports last night that indicate pressure from me changed the White House's I mean, this is what I mean.
You know, when people lodge a bunch of criticism my way, it's just small fry, and I just let the stuff that's not true bounce off.
I don't even let it in and process it.
But I think this, then they did a couple bang-up reports on their website.
Our old buddy Carol Costello got back in action.
We have that soundbite coming up.
But I just wanted to point out that hours after they ran this report about how I'm now irrelevant, and if they went out and they talked to these meaningless, worthless, irrelevant so-called experts in talk radio to back up the claim that I'm irrelevant, here they are hours later running a piece with a sound bite of me in a story about how people like me pressured the Bush administration to change their minds on how they're going to approach this.
Here's the second John Roberts bite.
These conservative bloggers, we had a soundbite from Rush Lindbaugh a little bit earlier in the program.
They've just been hammering the Republicans, calling them a bunch of wusses, saying you've got to stand up to these guys or they're going to hand you your lunch.
So he's under a lot of pressure from a lot of different angles.
That would be the irrelevant Rush Lindbaugh.
John Roberts, the irrelevant.
I think, you know, the bottom line here is that I said yesterday, the day before, too, I have been befuddled by the White House intransigence on this and the lack of understanding.
It seems, I mean, just on the surface, it seems the White House had trouble understanding that Bush is the target of all this.
Rumsfeld's not the target.
And Libby was not the target.
Rove is not the target.
Rove's not who they were.
Well, they'd love to get Rove's scalp, what's left of it.
But Bush is the target here, and he has to know this.
And they can't get to him, so they're trying to get everybody around him.
Well, the president finally held a press conference late yesterday afternoon and said this.
We will not go along with a partisan phishing expedition aimed at honorable public servants.
The initial response by Democrats unfortunately shows some appear more interested in scoring political points than in learning the facts.
It will be regrettable if they choose to head down the partisan road of issuing subpoenas and demanding show trials when I have agreed to make key White House officials and documents available.
I have proposed a reasonable way to avoid an impasse.
I hope they don't choose confrontation.
I will oppose any attempts to subpoena White House officials.
Now, that has meaning.
This business using the term show trials, the fact that he's offered a reasonable compromise, he is finally not putting up with this.
So you have to ask, has the tipping point finally been reached?
Has he finally gotten tired of trying to deal with these people openly and fairly?
Because he had to know.
He had to know they were going to reject this.
They're on the warpath.
They're trying to keep the country in total tumult and chaos.
Not just over the Iraq war.
They don't want the people of this country feeling comfortable.
They don't want the people, the Democrats, no, they don't want the country feeling at ease.
They don't want any contentment or even happiness out there.
And they've got their buddies in the drive-by media ratcheting up all this tension and angst that everybody is feeling, and that's their objective.
The president finally here reacting in a way that says he's going to fight them.
Here's another part of what he said.
It was natural and appropriate for members of the White House staff to consider and to discuss with the Justice Department whether to replace all 93 U.S. attorneys at the beginning of my second term.
It is common for me, members of my staff, and the Justice Department to receive complaints from members of Congress and both parties and from other citizens.
And we did hear complaints and concerns about U.S. attorneys.
Some complained about the lack of vigorous prosecution of election fraud cases, while others had concerns about immigration cases not being prosecuted.
These concerns are often shared between the White House and the Justice Department, and that is completely appropriate.
Spelling it out in black and white that there was nothing wrong here and that everything happened that happened was totally appropriate, making the case for the actions taken by his DOJ and by himself and his entire crew, finally standing up and fighting back.
This did not sit well with Chuck Schumer, who made a B-line for the Senate floor.
Mr. President, what is the objection to having a transcript?
If there's nothing to hide, nothing wrong with the transcript.
What is the objection to an oath?
If there's nothing to hide and everyone's telling the truth, there should be no objection to oath.
And what is the objection to having this discussion in public?
Because if we want to restore the integrity of the U.S. Attorney's offices in the Justice Department, that can't be done by someone whispering to someone else in a back and darkened room.
It must be done in public.
Dark.
Chuck Schumer is full of pablum here, as is his buddy Dick Durbin.
We read the letter that Schumer wrote to James Comey, who was assistant, or the acting attorney general when Ashcroft was out of there about the claim investigation, demanding every bit of information there was about it and encouraging it to go forward, clearly inserting himself into a function of the Justice Department.
And we've also discovered a similar letter by Dick Durbin, one of Schumer's partners in this crime, who attempted to influence another piece of action by the Department of Justice and a U.S. attorney.
And I'll share that with you as the program unfolds today.
The very thing that Schumer and Durbin and Democrats from time immemorial have done, they now accuse of happening in the Bush administration as though it's for the first time.
They know full well what they're doing because they're going to get cover from their buddies in the drive-by media on this.
Now, I was asked yesterday, or last night, somebody asked me if I thought that there's a chance that the Democrats could overplay their hand in all this, all these investigations and all of these demands for documents and issuing the subpoenas.
Is the country going to get tired of this?
I was asked, like, the country got tired of all of the never-ending investigations of Bill Clinton and rallied around him with these 60% approval numbers all during the impeachment imbroglio.
And it's a good question.
You know, the Democrats are doing a good job of keeping the country in total chaos and tumult and angst, along with their buds in the drive-by media.
But the answer to the question is this.
It depends totally on the congressional GOP and the way they react to this.
Don't expect the American people on their own to get fed up with this.
I mean, they might to a certain degree, but if the congressional Republicans also start acting like this is way over the top, you're going way too far.
We've got other things to do.
See, the Democrats know they can't legislate anything.
They don't have the votes in the Senate to get anything done that comes out of the House.
They're having their own troubles in the House getting anything passed.
Look at the minimum wage bill.
Nothing is happening.
They can't accomplish a thing legislatively.
They can't move one bill forward, and they don't have veto-proof majorities in either House.
So they can't move any legislation.
The only thing they can do is these constant never-ending investigations, harassments, which they told us they were going to do.
So whether or not this reaches the American people and fatigues them and burns them out and makes them throw up their arms in frustration totally depends on the congressional Republicans.
To what extent the country is tired of the president is a factor in this as well.
We'll just have to see.
It's going to be interesting, though.
Now, about these subpoenas being issued.
Here's what I think I, the irrelevant Rush Limbaugh, this is what I think the White House ought to do here.
I think the White House ought to be prepared to do a slow bleed litigation strategy.
Take it right to the end of his presidency.
You know how slow courts can move.
He needs to go out and get some bulldog lawyers and fight this, just paper these people to death, motion after motion after motion, appeal after appeal after appeal.
Just bleed this thing out, ignore these subpoenas during this whole process, bleed them out, and take this all the way to the end of his presidency if it's possible.
The courts are naturally slow.
There's an opportunity to use that slowness to his advantage in the process, rallying his base, rallying his supporters by finally fighting back, get some support on the wing from the Congressional Republicans, Senate Republicans as well, if that's possible.
And this could be fun to watch.
This could be, if all this happens, if it's done right, could be a turning point.
Brief timeout, folks.
Sit tight.
The EIB network and El Rushbow.
Right back after this.
All right, former Vice President Al Gore pulling shenanigans before a House committee today looking into global warming.
This is John Dingell's committee.
A number of rules that Gore asked to be relaxed in his case.
Normally, the witnesses have to submit their written opening statement 48 hours in advance.
Gore asked for a dispensation for 24 hours.
He was granted that by the Democrats who run the committee.
He still didn't get it in on time, got it in late last night, early this morning.
And then Al Gore refused to show up at the hearing during the Republican side's opening statement.
He refused to show up.
And John Dingell made excuses for that as well.
There was nothing the Republicans do about it.
They are powerless in the House of Representatives.
Gore, this is not being televised.
It's not on C-SPAN one or two.
There's some streaming audio and video of it.
The cable nets are cutting into it now, but not very much.
Gore also asked for a 30-minute opening statement, by the way, which is also seldom allowed.
The Democrats granted him a 30-minute opening statement.
You normally get a maximum of 15.
And one of the things that he said, he was testing this, the House Energy and Commerce Committee.
He said that climate change presented America with its thermopylae moment.
You can't, I mean, you can't.
He's trying to make a play here on the movie 300.
And he said those 300 in that movie were great and they did the right thing.
And he called the House of Representatives today's 535.
So our battle of thermopyla.
He talked about we're witnessing the end of civilization unless something's done about it.
Vaslav Klaus, the Czech president, has also testified, and he repeated under oath what he has said earlier that we quoted, and that is that the whole environmental movement has replaced communism as the primary threat to freedom in the United States today.
The Republicans of this committee are loaded for bear.
I haven't been able to follow it closely.
Don't know just how the questioning of Al Gore has begun, but it is underway.
I want to get a little bit of this Arnold Schwarzenegger stuff here before we go to the break, because he is going to be on the program shortly after one o'clock.
Now, here's what's happening.
You know, he commutes.
He flies into Sacramento most days.
Stay there overnight.
And his plane is due to arrive at the airport at 10.
And when he gets off the plane, they're going to hustle him into a landline in the nearest building, the nearest FBO, where he comes in.
And depending on delays on the runway, you know how air traffic control is, if he has to sit out, he may be a little late, but he will be here within the first segment of the next hour.
Yesterday, this appearance on the Today Show, he's once again asked about me.
He says, they're all irrelevant.
Rush Limbaugh is irrelevant, but it doesn't matter to me what anybody outside California is saying because it doesn't, I'm going to do what I'm going to do, blah, blah, blah.
Everybody thought that he was saying I was a has-been.
I know Arnold Schwarzenegger.
That's not what he was saying.
And he, as I say, his office called late yesterday afternoon, a couple times, emailed actually, and I asked to appear on the program today to set the record straight.
So they were mortified by the way they'd seen this treated in the media.
So we went back to the archives because one of the things I opined yesterday was they probably just getting fed up with having my name thrown at him every time he's on this show and other shows like it.
Let's go back to August 8th of 2003.
It was on Good Morning America.
Diane Sawyer and Arnold had this exchange on August 8th, 2003.
As we heard, Rush Limbaugh coming in from the right, the Republican side, has said, you're not really a California Republican, you're a liberal.
Well, I don't want to get into that right now.
And then January 14th of this year, he was on with Stephanopoulos.
Recue that.
January 14th of this year, ABC is this week with George Stephanopoulos, and they have this exchange.
Rush Limbaugh does not like your new agenda at all.
Well, at least we still like to smoke stogis together.
So at least we have something in common.
But does it bother you that conservatives like Rush Limbaugh think you're betraying them?
No.
I don't try to please the conservatives.
I don't like to try to please the liberals.
I like to please the people.
And February 26th of this year, CBS Slay the Nation with Bob Schieffer.
Somebody like Rush Limbaugh might say, what you really did, you just went liberal on us.
What do you say in response to that?
And you're right.
I always say that you don't have to give up your principles.
All you have to do is just serve the people.
And of course, then there was yesterday with Campbell Brown on the Today Show.
Rush Limbaugh is saying that you're not really a Republican.
You're a Democrat pretending to be a Republican.
Rush Limbaugh is irrelevant.
I'm not his servant.
I'm the people's servant of California.
What they call me if it's a Democrat or Republican or an Ascender or a changed, this or that.
That's not my bottom line.
This is for them to talk about.
So I think that, you know, I've just followed my instincts here.
That's what I've done my whole life and my whole career.
And I think he just, I won't say snapped, but I think every time he goes on one of these shows in Washington and throw my name at him, and this is the first time he was not quote-unquote diplomatic in his answer, got a little testy, and now wants to come on the program today to talk about it.
We have time for one more, a montage, CNN, wall-to-wall, with the feud between Schwarzenegger and me.
There's a growing war of words between Arnold Schwarzenegger and Rush Limbaugh.
California's Republican governor calling Rush Limbaugh, and I'm quoting now, irrelevant.
Find out how Rush Limbaugh is responding.
The war of words between Arnold Schwarzenegger and Rush Limbaugh.
We'll have a report.
The Terminator versus the guy who calls himself the most dangerous man in America.
Arnold Schwarzenegger taking on Rush Limbaugh.
Is Arnold Schwarzenegger a closet liberal?
Is Rush Limbaugh irrelevant?
Why are these Republican heavyweights caught up in a grudge match?
Rush Limbaugh firing back after Arnold Schwarzenegger calls him irrelevant.
It's the latest volley in a heated war of words.
We're going to show you how Rush Limbaugh is responding.
Up ahead, Rush Limbaugh says Arnold Schwarzenegger sold out.
That's what CNN.
That's how they promoted the upcoming peace with Carol Costello, which we'll have for you after the break, or after the break, all afternoon.
It was the most promoted story on CNN.
Be right back after this, folks.
Am I irrelevant?
In the spirit of global warming, this program's sizzling today, ladies and gentlemen, raising average global temperatures a measurable amount.
Also, in honor of Al Gore's appearance before a meaningless and worthless House committee, greetings and welcome back.
Now, we just heard 46 seconds of unrepeated promos on CNN about this grudge match, this feud.
There is no feud.
There is no grudge match.
They're manufacturing it.
It's like the WWF.
But nevertheless, 46 seconds of unrepeated promos from Wolf Blitzer leading up to this report by our old buddy, Carol Costello.
Rush Limbaugh is a master at coining a loaded term, breck girl for Democrat John Edwards, feminazi for feminists, and Queen Bean Nancy for Democratic Speaker Nancy Pelosi.
But why pick on Republican Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger?
Rush Limbaugh calls himself the most dangerous man in America because critics have long worried his powerful radio show shaped the political landscape.
And then came Arnold, who told the Today Show.
Rush Limbaugh is irrelevant.
It was a shot aimed at Limbaugh's loaded terms where Schwarzenegger, closet liberal.
I don't know what happened to Arnold.
He obviously didn't have the leadership skills to articulate conservative principles and win over the public as Reagan did.
Some political observers say Schwarzenegger's SmackDown is a sign Limbaugh's not the dominant force he once was.
Back in the day, his was the only conservative voice on the airways.
Now he's one of many.
Still, conservatives credit Limbaugh for the Republican takeover of Congress in 94.
They're good guys, they're Republicans, but they're not conservative.
I happen to be a conservative, and I happen to be oriented toward conservative triumph.
And conservatism won't triumph if we water it down and dilute it and say that people are 60% conservative or whatever happened to be the definition of new conservative.
Still, none of this means you'll hear any Republican running for president disrespecting Limbaugh.
They're still in the business of not offending anyone.
Schwarzenegger, who can't run for president, is free to shoot from the hip.
As for how Limbaugh responds to being irrelevant, well, on his show today, he said, I don't know how it is I can be irrelevant when every time Schwarzenegger shows up on the Today Show, they ask him about me.
And, you know, Wolfie does have the number one talk show in America still.
He certainly does.
And this additional note, the fight is continuing online.
The number one story on rushlimbaugh.com right now is this Schwarzenegger sold out.
You know, Wolfie still has the number one show in the country.
Damn it.
All this, all this time devoted to has been.
All right.
By the way, we have a John Edwards update coming up later today.
Claims that he doesn't use much energy in the mansion of his.
And we're going to dedicate it to Carol Costello.
We sometimes do dedications on this program.
Isn't it not?
By the way, I want to go back to this global warming thing.
Václav Klaus, Czech Republic president, shows up and says, hey, you people better wake up because global warming has replaced communism as the single greatest threat to freedom in the world.
Where are our leaders?
Where are Republic, anybody in this country saying this?
We need to hear it from the Czech Republic president.
Now, that's fine because this man grew up under communism and has credibility.
But where are people in this country, elected officials on the Republican side, willing to say it?
Jim Inhoff is one.
He's a senator from Oklahoma, and he's one who will say it.
Aside from him, it's not too many.
It's a stark realization that hit me after I read the report of what Vaslov Klaus had to say today before Dingell's committee in the House.
Santa Clarita, California, Rich, as we start with you on the phones today, nice to have you with us.
Hey, irrelevant one.
How are you doing?
Hey, hey, never better.
Thanks for being good.
Hey, you were talking about being friends with Arnold, and I just don't want you throwing any softball that the guy voted for him twice.
And, you know, when he went in calling our legislator, the legislators, the girly man, he has turned into a girly man himself.
And I'm kind of sick of his spineless rhino way of dealing with things.
He says he's for the people, but you know what?
It's Republicans that put him in office.
And, you know, I want to make sure you hit him hard with some questions.
Especially this global warming stuff.
He just signed into legislation.
I mean, give me a break.
I know, I know.
I've got all this stuff written down, ready to go.
I find this amazing.
You are an example of a slew of emails I received ever since we announced on my website last night that Arnold would be appearing today.
You better not go soft.
You better not be a wuss.
You better not be all chummy.
I don't want to hear about you guys.
Good times you've had smoking cigars.
You better not be like other people who just want to get along and be buddies with you.
You better hit hard because if you don't, I'm never listening again.
That kind of thing.
I'll still listen to you, but I just want to hold you in check.
Well, I understand that.
I understand that.
I know exactly where this sentiment comes from.
You people out there are, and I understand, and I'm one of you, you are desperate for a fight here because you're getting everybody, you see a bunch of timidity in people in your own party.
Now, I just want to tell you, we have five to seven minutes with Governor Schwarzenegger is what his office just told us in an email about 20 minutes ago.
And the way these things work is if he's enjoying himself, it'll go a little bit longer.
But remember, he asked to appear on the program today.
Yes, and also, I bet they're listening now, and hopefully they're hearing from a California.
You know, he should be giving you longer than minus seven minutes, no matter how uncomfortable he is.
They know.
I mean, they're not in a vacuum.
They know how some of you feel out there.
That's why I say he gets asked about it every time he's on television.
And that's why they're clearly aware of this.
Look, there are ways of doing this.
I'm going to follow my instincts here.
And there's no, I don't have any set plan here.
There's no battle plan or any of that sort of thing here.
We'll just roll with it and see where it goes.
But I understand where you're coming from.
And don't worry.
It's just not going to be, you know, nobody's going to be talking about gay marriage after this interview.
You need not worry about it.
Well, thanks, Rush.
I appreciate it.
I listen to you since 1990 after I got out of the Army, and you were someone saying the things that I was believing.
See, another piece of evidence validated what you believed.
Did not create a mind-numbed robot out of you, right?
Exactly.
Exactly right.
Where were you in the Army?
I was actually a combat medical specialist, and I was at Fort Knox, Kentucky, most of the time.
Oh, God bless you.
Thank you.
Thanks for the call.
We appreciate it.
Up next, Richard in Richmond, Virginia.
What are the odds of this?
First call's Rich.
Next call's Richard from Richmond, Virginia.
Rich, three times in two calls.
Richard, welcome to the program.
Hello.
Hey.
I'm a former president of a college Republican organization back in the 1980s.
And at that point, in my mind at least, there were really three branches of conservatism or three aspects to conservatism.
One was that I believed the Soviet Union was an evil empire that needed to be eliminated.
A second was that the economy was in an absolute shambles, or at least the government's relationship to the economy, and that there was reform needed to open up an entrepreneurial impulse and initiative.
And then there was a third agenda, which I never was agreed with, which was, or at least a significant portion of it, which was, for lack of a better term, the social conservative agenda or Christian right agenda.
And it seems that now the Soviet Union question is now essentially irrelevant.
No, it's not.
Okay.
At least this is what's in my mind right now.
Well, the Soviet Union was not a conservative issue.
The Soviet Union embodied the threat to world freedom, to freedom of the individual, which is the foundational building block of conservatism.
Right now, it has been replaced.
There will always be a threat to human freedom.
Most of the world's people are not.
That's why it's vigilant for us to maintain ours and do what we can to spread it to as many people around the world because it's a natural yearning of the human spirit to be free.
Today, it's Islamo-fascism.
But that threat is not viewed nearly as seriously as the Soviet threat was because it's a different threat.
They don't have nukes aimed at us, and they don't have guys like Brezhnev with the giant eyebrows out there and Khrushchev banging his chair at the UN foot shoe, whatever, to UN.
It's a much more subtle threat, but it's there.
And conservatism is what it is.
And your complaint about the so-called social conservatives or the Christian right or the social wing, conservatism, if you want to describe conservatism as a stool that had three legs, you do have what you call the Soviet Union leg, and then you do have what would be, I'd call the economic leg, and then you have the social leg.
But that sort of complicates the issue.
I must tell you also, Richard, that you see, you've been a conservative all these years, but when you say that you have this distrust, you never thought it should have been part of the conservative movement, the social aspects, and then you mentioned the Christian right.
It sounds like to me you're a little bit more of a moderate Republican than you are a conservative if you think the social conservative aspect is not valid or should not be part of it.
But let me try to give you a brief, because everybody's asked, well, what is a Reagan conservative?
What is it?
Why is it conservative?
Why is some Republican, not a conservative?
In your mind, others are more conservative.
That's a long discussion for which I don't have time before the break here.
But let me just explain to you, in a nutshell, as best I can, in a broad sense, the difference in the two.
And let's accept some givens that all people in this, and I'm going to be very charitable here, because in some cases what I'm going to say is actually not applicable to some liberals.
But just for the general discussion here, we all want economic prosperity.
We all want opportunity.
We all want a chance at the American dream.
We all want to be left alone.
We don't want to be hassled.
We don't want to have obstacles placed in our way by government in order or in the pursuit of our dreams.
The question and the argument that we have in this country is how best to provide it.
And that's where the line of debarcation is broad.
Because on the left, liberals do not believe that a majority of people have the ability to realize the American dream on their own.
Liberals have general contempt for the average American and the average human being.
Liberals have a condescending contempt for the abilities, the intelligence, the ambition, and desire of average human beings.
They must hold that view in order to be liberal.
Because liberalism is assuming people are helpless and hopeless and then growing government and all kinds of state power structures to assist people in their incompetence.
And in the process, you actually make your philosophy a self-fulfilling prediction.
You disable the competitive nature.
You disable the entrepreneurial spirit.
Disable the American dream and you force people to focus on government and whatever benefits they can get as a means of getting by.
Conservatives have the ultimate faith in the individual.
Conservatives believe that the individual, rugged individualism, is what defines excellence in its pursuit, is what made this country what it is.
We believe that people can be better than they even know themselves or think themselves capable of being.
And we want to do everything we can to educate and inspire and motivate people along those lines.
We want a great country.
We want people who are individually able to raise families, to support them, to inspire them, because they themselves are that way.
We want optimistic people of good cheer who have a hope that is realistic, that they can triumph over the obstacles that all of life throws at us.
Liberals think those obstacles are insurmountable because they must.
Now, that's the basic difference.
So, okay, how come some people are not conservative somewhat?
Well, you have to get to specific issues like abortion and gay marriage and this sort of thing, and that would be one way of doing it.
But any Republican who is oriented toward the growth of government, the growth of the state, and the idea that people need an infinite amount of help because they're incapable of doing things on their own, doesn't qualify as a conservative to me.
And there are plenty of those.
There are liberal Republicans all over the place.
It's not hard to make these distinctions or to draw up these definitions.
And by the same token, the liberals in pursuit, and this is one of the big problems we face, the liberals in their pursuit of this agenda use government.
They train their youth.
They train their college students.
They get them into nonprofits.
They get them into Harvard and Yale for the express purpose of going to government, being a bureaucrat forever, growing government, and controlling it and taking over.
Republican conservatives look at government as something that ought to be sort of out of the way and invisible most of the time.
So we don't target our people to go there because when you go there, you want to use it to enact your philosophy.
Conservatism does not use government to enact what it believes.
It uses individual.
It empowers individuals.
Conservatism wants to limit government.
And often going to government to limit it is not an attractive option for young people, but it is for the left.
So it's a challenge.
I got to take a break.
I'm long here, folks.
So the next segment's going to be short.
Warning you now.
There we go.
Welcome back, Rush Limbaugh, serving humanity, executing assigned host duties flawlessly.
Zero mistakes so far.
And there won't be any.
Al Gore said today before the Dingle Committee in the House of Representatives that we can cure global warming without any harm whatsoever to our economy.
Now, I'm just, I'm wondering here, do you think Al Gore has a consensus of economists to support that assertion?
The whole point of global warming is to do damage to the economy.
How can it otherwise be?
It's going to cause tax increases, rollbacks in lifestyle.
It's absurd.
Let's see if we can get a consensus of economists who will agree with Al Gore on this.
His statement, by the way, is the first sign I've seen that Al Gore is getting sensitive to criticism about this and is trying to address one of the major bones of contention that people have with this whole hoax.
Here's Lou in Tampa, Florida.
Lou, I'm glad you waited.
Welcome to the Rush Limbaugh program.
Hi, Rush.
Welcome from a fellow Floridian.
Great to have you on the program, sir.
Rush, I wanted to thank you for doing what you're doing.
I know you've been given some grief recently for not doing enough.
And I got to tell you, you're doing exactly what you need to do.
You are a voice for us in what you're doing now with the president, getting a message to him that he needs to fight for himself and fight for what he believes.
There's no better message that could be sent to our troops who over there dying, whose families are suffering because they're doing what they believe is the right thing, and they're willing to do it.
What better message could the president send to those troops and their families but to show that he is willing to fight for himself, and in doing so, he fights for them?
That is an excellent point that you're making about morale boost for the troops here with the commander-in-chief engaged in his own battles.
And by the way, for those of you just joining us and are wondering how in the world Lou from Tampa can call here and give me credit for influencing the White House reaction that the President had in his press conference yesterday or his statement in which he said he's going to fight these subpoenas.
He's going to offer Rove up for, you know, Harriet Myers.
You can go off there, have a conversation with me.
I don't let them go under oath.
Lou is not saying it.
CNN ran a report last night claiming that it was me and others in the blogosphere that had forced the president to see the light out there.
So that's, if you missed that, we had those audio soundbites coming up early.
Lou, I appreciate it.
Very nice to have you on the program today.
All right, got to take a break here.
Governor Schwarzenegger again, a reminder in the first segment of the next hour coming right up.
All right, program note, we've moved Governor Schwarzenegger to the bottom of the hour, 1:32 Eastern Time, 133, still in the air, not down yet on his way into Sacramento.
He's got an ETA of 123, 1023 on the left coast.
So bottom of the hour now for Governor Schwarzenegger.
We'll be right back.
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