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March 27, 2007 - Rush Limbaugh Program
36:24
March 27, 2007, Tuesday, Hour #3
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Okay, we are back.
Great to have you with us.
We've got another hour of exciting, unpredictable broadcast excellence straight ahead here on the one and only Rush Limbaugh program.
Great to have you with us.
Folks, the telephone number, if you would like to join us, is 800-282-2882.
The email address rush at EIBnet.com.
We've had this guy on hold since the start of the program, and I didn't have time to get to him right before the previous hour ended.
So we'll get him now, Port Huron, Michigan.
Ron.
Ron, thank you very much for waiting, and great to have you here.
Thank you, sir.
You're a great American.
It's an honor to speak with you.
Thank you very much.
Well, my issue is I needed a little bit of advice.
I'm a college student.
I've been going to school about two years in the criminal justice program.
How old are you?
I am 21.
Okay, criminal, you're in a criminal justice program.
Okay.
And I've had to deal with quite a bit.
I've held a tolerance for all the liberal instructors, and I'm kind of a minority in my school.
And this previous week, I've about had it up to here.
A professor proclaimed that he would have our president hung and killed, hunted down and killed, if he was the president.
And for about a half hour he spent of our class time that I paid for to profess his political beliefs on us.
That's not a political belief.
It's a criminal belief.
That's what I was thinking.
And you're in a criminal justice program, and your professor is advocating murder of the president of the United States.
Yes, sir.
Well, if you want to have real fun, you call a Secret Service.
In fact, Secret Service, they're listening to this.
Oh.
We've gotten calls after.
I kid you not.
After stories like this, you're not the first.
After stories like this, we've actually had a Secret Service call and want to know who was it that said that?
Now, you're at Port Huron, Michigan.
You're on the level here.
You have a professor who advocating hang, if he was president, he would hang Bush.
Yes, sir.
And witnesses.
The whole class witnessed it.
And this is on Monday.
So, you know, it's backed up by facts.
So it Monday?
It was Monday?
Yes, sir.
It was yesterday for those of you in the previous Monday.
So, oh, two Mondays ago.
Yes, sir.
What was the reaction in the classroom?
Well, due to fear of getting a bad grade, there isn't too much.
I got a little sick to my stomach, but I did not want to profess against the whole class to him in fear of getting a bad grade.
I've written reports on Bush praising our president.
I took extra care, turned it into a liberal teacher, and received a C when someone who wrote about Clinton has received an A.
And it infuriates me.
It should.
I get calls like this frequently.
And people ask me much as you've gotten close to ask, what should I do?
And, you know, I always say this.
The grade's important.
I mean, you're in school and a grade is the standard of measurement there, but there's also your integrity.
I never sacrificed my integrity.
Well, then, because that's, you know, you're going through a life lesson here.
I must ask also, I ask callers such as you this question.
Is it possible that your professor is merely trying to be provocative and inspire thought and controversy within the classroom in order to get an exchange of ideas going to light a fire under you people in the class?
Or does he actually, in your opinion, did he mean this?
Does he say it with anger?
Is normal behavior and the things that he says in class regularly back up the fact that he says this and you think he means it?
Yes, sir.
It was not a normal, in a normal debating situation, a teacher might say something to provoke the class to interact.
This professor paused, took great thought in what he was going to say after about 20 minutes of previous conversation slamming the president about various political issues, obviously, with no facts to back it up.
And then he states this very angrily and wholeheartedly.
And that's what gets me.
You know, I would love to, just first and foremost, love to ask this guy what in the world he thinks he's doing teaching in the criminal justice system, advocating.
Let me correct you.
I am in the criminal justice system.
This is a computer class that goes into the program.
This is a computer class?
Yes, sir.
Oh, I misunderstood.
I thought it was an actual criminal justice score.
It doesn't matter.
I just.
Yeah, that's the program.
We're crying out.
Well, you know, he's not alone.
I mean, there have been movies made about the assassination of Bush.
There was a book published in the summer of 2004, a fictional account of how to assassinate Bush in Washington.
And, of course, the drive-bys all told us that we need to consider these as works of art and so forth.
Your guy is not alone here.
I think, you know, it doesn't sound like you're surprised.
This is a lib, and these people are more and more and more off the reservation.
But, my gosh, in a computer class, how are you graded in a computer class?
What in the world is your average test?
What is it about?
I've never been in a computer class.
It's based off the substance of, let's say, Word, Excel, PowerPoint, your presentations on those computer programs.
He's asking you to do political presentations?
No, no, not political presentations.
Just compute basic.
You're graded on basically putting in the information to show you can comprehend the material and produce homework.
So it's learning the programs.
This issue was totally unrelated to class time.
How often does he start pontificating on these things that have nothing to do with the subject matter?
This has occurred multiple times, but never speaking of assassinating our president if he had the authority to.
I think that's criminal.
I think he should be prosecuted in the court of law, especially in a government institution preaching this to children, or not children, I should say, young adults who pay, and also some of them, their parents pay.
I personally put myself through college, you know.
And I called my grandfather on this situation.
He's a strong supporter of my life.
And you were the one that he said to call because you're a number one guy in our book.
I appreciate that.
I'm inspired here to ask you a question.
How are you putting your way through school?
I've been working interior remodeling.
And I just, you know, as much side jobs as I can get.
And it's in right when I got out of college, I moved up to Michigan from Texas, and I started working and saving my money and putting it through.
And, you know, there's been a few times I've had to get some help from my grandparents, and they've been a strong influence in my life and keep me right on the good track.
And I really am interested in getting into government after policing so I can do something about these issues that I'm seeing right now.
I'm really proud of you, sir.
The number of people like you don't often get enough credit for doing what it takes to put yourself through school.
I mean, you're doing the bulk of it.
You're getting assistance when you need it.
We're really proud of you here for that.
You don't need this professor.
Have you confronted him on any of this?
Not yet, sir.
I have the class twice a week, and one class has surpassed, and I've just been in awe on what to do.
I thought about an anonymous letter to the dean, but then I said, you know, that'll alter my integrity.
I should present my name.
I'm not worried about the grade now.
I'm too upset about it.
I'll take the fall or whatever may come being blamed for me, but I'm not going to stand for it.
You know, if you want to do this, if you're going to send a letter to the dean, you should also confront the teacher.
Okay.
Don't jump.
I mean, don't jump.
Do them both.
I mean, send the letter to both of them.
The professor knows what you're doing.
But if you're going to do this, you've got to make a point.
You tell the dean exactly what you told me.
You are putting yourself through school.
You are working additional jobs to pay for this.
You are in a criminal justice curriculum, and you have a computer professor who is taking time out from teaching you what you want to learn about these computer software programs to tell you that he would assassinate the president if he could.
Okay.
And you question the value of your tuition dollars on this, particularly since it's a criminal justice program.
Exactly.
And not to mention the taxpayers, you know, when it's a government-funded institution.
You know, I can tell you from my grandfather, assisted me, he is infuriated whenever he heard that.
But logically, he said that, you know, think about it rationally and to speak with someone to create the right steps.
And so do you think that's the best way to go?
Well, I'm not entirely sure.
The most important thing for you in a situation like this is to not subordinate your instincts and your integrity to the grade.
That will serve you far more the rest of your life, not caving and not compromising your beliefs, than whatever grade you don't get will damage you.
Just believe me on this.
We're talking about your future here as a human being, as an American, and as a man.
Your word is gold to me, so I really appreciate that.
Look, I totally understand your anger.
George Will had a column this weekend on the new rage that's in politics.
And one of the theories, I'm going to have to paraphrase this, one of the theories was that anger is an identifying characteristic for people who want to be in that group.
That anger is something that makes up for something else they don't have, that they lack in their lives.
And the anger is a way they connect with other people because they feel powerless.
They have their own views and they see their views not triumphing and not winning.
And they just feel powerless over it.
But that it doesn't bode well for the culture or for the society or for these people.
It's abnormal to walk around and spend your day totally enraged all the time and to have it manifest itself when you're a professor by advocating that or suggesting that if you had the power, you would kill the president of the United States.
And you're right to be irritated by it.
It's more than anger.
I'm hurt.
Honestly, I'm really, you know, if I was a more sensitive person, I would have broke down in tears to believe that our society nowadays can condemn a person and leadership.
I don't care if it was Clinton.
He's not my favorite guy.
But I would never, never think about saying or even wishing death on him.
No, and I guarantee if anybody had, they would be in jail.
Oh, I guarantee you.
If anybody had, they would be drummed out of work by the professoriate and the administrations at these universities.
That wouldn't have been tolerated.
You know, you've heard of The controversial lecturer at the University of Colorado, Ward Churchill, who basically said that the people that died at 9-11 were idiots or whatever.
They were guilty.
They deserved to die for some reason.
They've been Americans, and they, in effect, inspired this action by the Islamofascists.
And of course, he was defended his free speech.
And your professor, probably, by the way, will be defended by the administration on the rights of free speech, professorial and academic latitude and freedom.
And so the point is, and you shouldn't put this in your letter.
You shouldn't suggest you're trying to get rid of the guy.
You just want the administration to know what's going on in the classroom for the good of the university.
And you're making about your own personal feelings, too.
It's nothing wrong with that.
But enlarge it to include you're proud of the school.
You like going to it.
You chose it.
It doesn't reflect well on the school.
The class seems intimidated and discombobulated by all this kind of talk.
It's a computer class, and you just want the administration to be aware of it.
Well, I brought that up in the class today, and surprisingly, in a majority liberal class, it was a speech class, as a matter of fact, a public speaking class.
The majority of the class, even the liberals, agreed that that was not right.
And so I, therefore, I have peers that agree with me on both sides of the church.
Well, you may have peers in that situation, but understand this.
When you send the letter, you're going it alone.
A lot of people will peel themselves away to avoid the controversy.
I'm willing to take whatever consequences are rendered because I don't want to, I value my life on my podcast.
I'll tell you what, that's a great attitude to have because you're bigger than that university.
You don't need it.
It needs you.
There are countless other places that have criminal justice programs you could go to if you had to.
And you've already demonstrated that you're willing to do what it takes to get into one of these places by working these extra jobs to pay your tuition.
So, you know, you don't need that place if it comes to this.
And if you have to leave, and I don't think it's going to come to this at all, but there are plenty of other places you could go that'd be as affordable and just as valuable.
After this call, you may never know.
You might have people offering you slots out.
This is outrageous.
And we hear this all the time about liberal professors and the things they say, but advocating personal assassination of the president, that is somewhat unique.
Are there legal ramifications that you think is there a law that prevents that?
I mean, I'm in law, but I don't know who would enforce it.
Well, yeah, you cannot publicly threaten to assassinate the president.
Secret Service hears about you doing that, and you will hear from them.
Does the word if compromise that law or change anything?
Since he said if I was the president, I would have him hunted down and hung, pretty much murdered.
I'm not expert enough on the niceties of that if I were president.
The implication is that this guy thinks presidents can have anybody lopped off the head at the first desire they have.
That's BS.
I don't think that the Secret Service or people concerned with protecting the president are going to be that nuanced about it.
Here's a guy saying he would do it.
He probably never would.
I mean, this is just some blowhard that's going off for whatever reason.
But your course of action here is well taken.
Just do it, you know, not only in the guise of your personal feelings and reaction to it, but for the good of the university.
Put it in your letter, you're proud of the place, you chose it, and it just seems unbecoming of the place for students to have to hear this.
And don't put this in the letter, but just so you know, John Wilkes Booth was a blowhard.
And he actually pulled a trigger on Abe Lincoln.
I got to run here on way long, folks.
We'll be back.
Stay with us.
Ha!
We're back.
All right, I know you're all intrigued about this headline, worms live longer on fortified steak and chicken.
This is from live science.com.
Experiments with worms suggest that humans might one day be able to eat themselves to a longer and healthier life.
The new approach differs from previous studies, which extended life in non-human animals by keeping food consumption to a bare minimum.
This is called caloric restriction, a standard diet.
It said, eat less, you'll live longer.
Researchers led by Mikhail Shepanoff, formerly of Oxford University, fed nematode worms in a word I can't pronounce here, elegance.
They fed these worms bits of steak and chicken reinforced with various forms of atoms, variations of certain atoms called isotopes.
They had elements like hydrogen, carbon, nitrogen, and oxygen.
Isotopes have the same number of protons as their natural counterparts, but different numbers of neutrons.
Carbon, for example, usually has six protons and six neurons.
An isotope of carbon called CI3 or C13, C13 has six protons, seven neutrons.
Worms on the specialized diet lived about 10% longer on average.
Assuming people will one day routinely live to 100, a similar approach in humans could add an extra 10 years to a person's life.
The researchers think that eating isotope-reinforced foods reduces molecular damage incurred by rouge molecules that roam, I think it's rogue, they meant, molecules that roam the body called free radicals, which have highly reactive, unpaired electrons.
Many scientists think that free radical damage is one of the reasons why organisms change.
Now, according to Shepanoff, replacing atoms and chemical bonds susceptible to attack with their natural isotopes strengthens those bonds.
Because these bonds are so much more stable, it should be possible to slow the process of oxidation and aging.
Researchers suggest adding isotopes to animal feed so that humans can benefit directly or indirectly when eating animal products like steaks and chicken fillets.
Isotopes could also be used in foods of pets or of soldiers to provide added protection against radiation.
So unlike the first conclusion that put worms in there to eat what you eat and they so forth, the worms have been telling worms live longer eating these fortified steaks and chicken fillets have these isotopes in there.
They're working on doing this in humans.
But I think the worm idea in there, if they could control the worms to eat what you eat, that'd be a hell of a diet.
And we'll get them off your phone, calls it a jiffy.
We also asked a question yesterday, what the hell is Chuck Hagel up to?
What in the world is he doing?
Out there running for president, he calls an announcement to announce he's not announcing anything.
The whole drive-by media goes out there to Omaha and he doesn't announce anything.
And he said, I never said I was going to announce it.
Well, why call a press conference?
you're not going to do something.
I mean, it's not as though you're an incumbent not seeking reelection or you're...
Anyway, we've got the answer.
We have the answer.
We'll play the answer for you here in just a moment.
First, German scientists have for the first time used adult bone marrow stem cells to regenerate healthy human liver tissue.
Heinrich Heyen University researchers in Dusseldorf used the stem cells, again, these are adult bone marrow stem cells, to help quickly regenerate liver tissue in cancer patients unable to undergo surgery because removing the cancerous tissue would leave too little liver to support the body.
Our study suggests that liver stem cells harvested from the patient's own bone marrow can further augment and accelerate the liver's natural capacity to regenerate itself.
Well, hubba, hubba.
More success here with adult stem cells.
And let's see, Democrat lawmakers are going to reintroduce the ERA.
Liberal Democrats in the Senate and House plan to resume the fight for women's equality today when they reintroduce the Women's Equality Amendment.
Senator Kennedy, Senator Boxer, Representatives Carol Maloney and Gerald Nadler, both of New York, plan to join Eleanor Squeal, president of the feminist majority, in making the Tuesday afternoon announcement.
I haven't seen anything on this yet.
So if they've announced it, nobody cares.
I doubt that, which means they probably haven't announced it yet.
This time around, supporters say they hope women will finally achieve official equality in America, but a conservative group said that women's rights activists are fighting old battles.
All of liberalism is.
All of liberalism is just fighting the same old battle, left and right, destroy capitalism, just come up with various techniques in order to get this done.
I remember the first ERA, 1970s.
It was in Kansas City.
And I actually was doing a little talk show then.
I wouldn't.
It was a talk show on a music station.
And it was at night.
And the ERA was a subject.
I remember when the original period of time for ratification perspired, here came all these feminists.
It's not very, it's not very, it's not fair.
We need to expand.
Don't think it's the time for the state to ratify.
And I had one of them on the phone.
Don't you think this is a little bit unfair?
I mean, you've got X number of years.
You didn't get it done.
You're not even close.
It's not a question of fairness, Mr. Limbaugh.
It's a question of what's right.
And this is right.
And we need all the time we can.
Of course, boundaries, rules, and so forth didn't matter.
It'd be interesting to see if they actually do this and what comes of it.
This is just, it's another technique to keep the culture roiled.
They just want us continually boiling over in anger and effervescence out there.
It's silly.
Hell, half the women that would have supported it have now gone back home and are raising kids out of choice.
You know what's happening?
These women that bought in this career stuff and bought into, you know, don't make your life about the home.
I mean, that's not fulfilling, and you're letting down the sisterhood.
So they said, find the dannies.
They, you know, dressed like men, got jobs like men, started climbing the corporate ladder like men, started getting heart disease like men.
And then they eventually found some dupe to marry.
And they got pregnant, had a little baby.
And of course, the intention was to either force the job offer, the company, to put a daycare center in there, or to go out and get a nanny and continue to live the enlightened life.
Something happened out there.
Something happened.
Not all of them.
It's happening more and more, greater frequency.
The arrival of that little unviable tissue mass, the arrival of the little baby, and many of these women just had a magic, magical, transformational effect.
And they decided they wanted to stay home.
It really irritated the feminist leadership out there.
This was not supposed to happen.
And it was, you know, feminism, militant feminism, has been nothing more than a sustained attack on basic human nature, in large part because it was so unkind to some of them.
So it was about getting even.
It was about reciprocity.
And you can do it for a while.
I mean, you can alter.
I mean, you know, people.
Feminist guy, feminist gal that had a little girl painted a bedroom blue and gave a little G.I. Joe to play with, had a little girl painted, had a little boy that painted a bedroom pink and gave him Barbie and so forth.
They really did this because they bought the notion that it's all conditioning that makes women like they are and men like they are.
Found out that they gave their little boys in the pink bedroom these Barbie dolls and they started playing with them like they were G.I. Joe's.
Started having fights with each other and killing one of the other and playing war.
Parents were aghast.
Parents were stunned.
And then the little girl with a G.I. Joe doll started dressing them up as Barbie and nurturing them, building little doll houses, having tea parties there with these little miniature sets.
Their G.I. Joe all decked out for war having tea.
Just to get this combobula.
I think the universe of women that would support the ERA this time around is much less than would be intrigued by this in the early 70s when it first started.
I'm sure they've still got their radicals, you know, these babes up in the babes, I use the term loosely, these women that lives up there in the Pacific Northwest.
You see them in airports with their two German shepherds to make sure you don't attack them and you wouldn't anyway.
Some of them, half of them shave their legs, half of them don't.
I mean, they're still out there.
They'll probably still vote for it or support it and so forth.
But we got the universe here of people that's going to be really behind this is shriveled out there, so to speak.
They're just living in the past.
It's fundraising, too, by the way.
Giant, giant fundraising tool on the part of the militant feminist group.
So let's go to this Hagel business.
Here is a soundbite from yesterday's program, Me Speaking.
Snerder and I just talking about this.
Can't figure it out here.
Can't figure out what the political upside for Chuck Hagel is and all this rap that he has gotten into.
Now talking about the president might be impeached or could be impeachable.
I just can't figure it out unless he's running for the Democrat nomination.
I don't know what Chuck Hagel's up to.
I literally one of the brainiest political analysts out there.
And this is senseless.
I cannot detect an intelligent motive for this.
Well, I didn't think of one thing here, and that is that Chuck Hagel studied at Maverick University, taught by lead professor John McCain.
And when you listen to our montage here of various drive-by media types, you'll understand what Hagel was up to.
What Republican Senator Chuck Hagel said involving the impeachment of George W. Bush.
It's one thing for some on the fringes to be talking about impeachment.
It's another thing for a senior Republican senator from Nebraska to even mention the I word.
Chuck Hagel did drop the I word.
Keep in mind, he is a Republican.
Republican Senator Chuck Hagel warned Mr. Bush.
He said, before this is over, you might see calls for impeachment.
Senator Chuck Hagel saying impeachment time.
What does it mean if Republican Senator Chuck Hagel is using the word impeachment?
Chuck Hagel, the Vietnam vet, the combat vet, a conservative on almost every issue, is now talking impeachment of the president.
Oh, he got what he wanted.
That's what he wanted.
Fawning media attention for his claim, for his suggestion.
And that's right out of the Maverick University.
Here's Ken in Orlando.
Ken, thank you for waiting.
Welcome to the EIB network.
Hi, Rush.
Boy, it's really great to talk to you.
Maybe.
Thank you, sir, very much.
I just don't want you to let that one senator, the real space cadet from Arkansas, I believe it was, that you mentioned early, early in the middle of the year.
That would be Mark Pryor.
You're talking about a guy that wants a secret date and legislation to get out of Iraq that nobody but the White House, the Congress, and the military would know.
Oh, well, see, now, the military, that's new.
That's what I wanted to talk about because I didn't think it was the military.
I thought he just said the White House and the Congress.
And immediately, what was coming to my mind is, you know, there's tens of thousands of troops that have to pack their bags really quietly so not to disturb the insurgents as they sneak out of Iraq.
I couldn't picture it.
The whole thing just seems so ludicrous to me.
I wanted to make sure that you set up something along the lines of your club getmo or something like that.
You know what?
You know what?
You're right.
Here are the three institutions he wants to know the secret pull-out date.
He doesn't want anybody outside the White House, outside Congress, or the Iraqi government to know what it is.
The military would be in the dark as to the date.
You would kind of think the troops would need to know about that and maybe talk to their families, you know, just to pick them up at the airport when they get home and stuff.
I just, you know, again, the whole thing just seems so ludicrous to me.
Somebody really needs to hold this guy's feet to the fire and not let him get away with it.
Yeah, a lot of people are going to think it's not worth their time other than to, you know, sort of make fun of it like you're doing.
Yeah, well, at least, you know, to take this one shot at him, I'm glad I got a chance with that.
I'm glad you did it.
It is absurd.
Here are the details again.
Mark Pryor, Democrat from Arkansas, key holdout on his party's proposal to approve the $124 billion for Iraq and Afghanistan, which sets a goal of March 31st, 2008, to get out of Iraq.
Unlike the plan's Republican opponents, Mark Pryor wants a withdrawal decline of some kind.
He just doesn't want anybody outside the White House, Congress, the Iraqi government to know what it is.
Now, the first thing to say is that if one member of Congress knows it, it's going to get leaked.
Yeah.
There's no way of keeping a date like this secret.
It's just absurd.
But he went further and said, my strong preference would be to have a classified plan and a classified timetable that would be shared with Congress.
A public decline would tip off the enemy.
It might just bide their time and wait for us to leave.
But they don't know when we're leaving, but if we know when we're leaving, then that would make it better.
He said a classified plan would be provided by the president, shepherded by Senate committees, and ultimately shared with Congress and the Iraqi leaders.
He's confident the plan would remain secret because Congress is entrusted with secrets all the time.
That's all.
Doesn't the New York Times make their living these days, busting secrets wide open and giving away information on everything?
Well, how long would you think it would take?
This is legislation.
I mean, you classify it after a while, but we're currently in Congress today debating the secret withdrawal date for the American troops to leave Iraq.
It's just so laughable.
Again, I'm glad that at least to get a chance for you to remind people of just how dumb some of these Democrat suggestions are.
Well, he was asked a question.
He said, what if the president's withdrawal plan didn't include a deadline?
Or what if it leaked through leaders in Iraq to the insurgents?
And Pryor said, well, that's all worth considering, but in the meantime, at least you'd have a plan.
We've got a plan.
We have a better plan than that, thanks.
No, we've got a plan now.
The Democrats wrote it in the House last week.
We got a plan.
He just doesn't want to support it because the date's public.
Right.
These people are falling all over themselves to sound intelligent.
The exact opposite is happening.
Quick, obscene profit timeout.
Thank you out there, Ken.
Back with more in a jiffy.
I mentioned this in the beginning of the program.
I want to squeeze this in before we have to get out of here.
Jan Crawford Greenberg is a legal reporter for ABC News.
She's excellent.
She's rare.
I'm not going to say too much because I'll ruin her career.
It's happened too many times.
I've praised various journalists, networks, and they get in trouble.
So, Jan Crawford-Greenberg, a story here, exclusive Department of Justice official ignored White House guidance.
Testimony contradicted Gonzalez in U.S. matters, sparked controversy.
The firestorm over the fired U.S. attorneys was sparked last month when a top Justice Department official ignored guidance from the White House and rejected advice from senior administration lawyers over his testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee.
That official, Deputy Attorney General Paul McNulty, ignored White House counsel Harriet Myers and senior lawyers in the Justice Department when he told the committee last month of specific reasons why the administration fired seven U.S. attorneys and appeared to acknowledge for the first time that politics was behind one dismissal.
McNulty's testimony directly conflicted with the approach Myers advised, according to an unreleased internal White House email described to ABC News.
According to that email, Myers said the administration should take the firm position it wouldn't comment on personnel issues.
Until McNulty's testimony, administration officials had consistently refused to publicly say why specific attorneys were dismissed and insisted the White House had complete authority to replace them, which is true.
That was Gonzalez' approach when he testified before the committee in January.
But McNulty, who worked on Capitol Hill 12 years, believed he had little choice but to more fully discuss the circumstances of the attorney's firings, according to a Justice Department official that's familiar with all this.
McNulty believed that senators would demand additional information, and he was confident.
He was confident.
Listen to me, Snerdley.
He was confident he could draw on a long relationship with New York Senator Chuck Schumer in explaining in more detail.
So he thought if he would just open up to Schumer, that would quell all of this.
In doing so, McNulty went well beyond the scope of what the White House cleared him to say when it approved his written testimony the week before the hearing.
Senators are now focusing on the part of McNulty's testimony that appeared to directly contradict the earlier testimony by Gonzalez.
Source close to the McNulty said that he had believed he was not contradicting Gonzalez's testimony, was in fact conveying the same message as his boss.
The story goes on, say that McNulty stressed that the other U.S. attorneys were fired for what he described as performance-related reasons, suggesting the prosecutors had not been up to par, but that appeared to conflict with assurances that Gonzalez and other Justice Department officials had made about the U.S. attorneys to senators from their respective states, including Senator Kyle from Arizona.
Gonzalez had told Kyle privately the administration was dismissing Paul Charlton, the U.S. attorney in Arizona, whom the senator had personally recommended because of disagreements over policy.
Charlton had crossed paths with the Justice Department officials over his reluctance to seek the death penalty in some cases, as well as his insistence the FBI should record confessions.
At one point, one of the lawyers asked about Cummins' dismissal, this guy in Arkansas, and how McNulty could explain that using the performance-related phrase, the source said McNulty said he would just explain the White House had a candidate for the job, and that opened up the entire thing.
The phrase performance-related is where all this goes wrong.
Instead of accepting those explanations, however, Schumer aggressively challenged McNulty during the hearing over perceived inconsistencies in his testimony and that of Gonzalez.
This is the first we've ever heard of this, Schumer said incredulously, moments after McNulty revealed that Cummins was fired so Griffin could step in.
Anyway, there have been a lot of people suggesting that McNulty is ambitious, wants to be attorney general, might be behind this in a sense that he's purposely going beyond what the administration had authorized me said, And then confiding in Schumer thinking he'd quell the whole thing.
So the plot thickens in all this.
So you have the first Hispanic American Attorney General, a minority, under fire by white liberal racists in the Senate.
I guarantee you that, and he's not the first, by the way, we'll never forget what happened to Miguel Estrada.
I mean, that was just, his wife ended up committing suicide over what they did to him.
It's horrible.
Quick timeout here.
Back with more after this.
All right, folks, you got to get out of here.
Heading out to the golf course to see if my fixes on Sunday, which worked magically, will still work today.
I'm a rank amateur duffer.
The odds are they won't.
But we'll find out in mere moments.
Hope you have a great rest of the day.
We'll be working feverishly tonight, prepping tomorrow's broadcast as we will in the morning prior to its commencement.
And we will see you then.
Looking forward to it.
Have a great rest of the day.
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