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April 27, 2007 - Rush Limbaugh Program
36:31
April 27, 2007, Friday, Hour #1
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Welcome to today's edition of the Rush 24-7 podcast.
Yes, yes, yes, I watch a little bit of it.
Well, I didn't watch it live.
I had other things to do, but I watched some replays of that press conference last night with the Democrats, and I'm there.
Sorry, bars are down.
I'm sorry.
They were down.
I hit that button by mistake when I was hitting something.
Anyway, sorry, Ditto cameras.
Didn't need to send you that panic out there.
Anyway, it's Friday, and you know what that means.
Live from the Southern Command in sunny South Florida, it's Open Line Friday.
Yes, Sir Rebob, folks, this is the day of the week that we all look forward to here at the one and only EIB network.
One of the greatest risks taken in all of big media is taken every Friday by me.
And that is when we go to the phones, I turn the content of this program over to you.
Lovable, and I adore you, but you are rank amateurs.
And I am a highly trained broadcast specialist.
Monday through Thursday, this program is exclusively about what I am interested in.
But on Friday, I throw that out.
And if you want to talk about something I don't care about, you will be allowed to.
There is no First Amendment here.
This is a benevolent dictatorship.
But by now, you all know how the rules are.
You know all that.
So the telephone number is 800-282-2882 and the email address, rush at EIBNet.com.
I went to a new restaurant in New York last night, had dinner at a place called a Kobe Club.
And it's one of Jeffrey Chotorow's restaurants, China Grille-owned show.
He did that TV show at Rocco Desperito or Desperado, whatever.
And this is all Kobe and Wagyu beef, but it's a steakhouse, but it's not like any other steakhouse you've been.
You can mix and match all the different cuts and the sauces.
It was just indescribably good.
Great, great time in there.
And I'd been in there about an hour, and this giant entourage of people.
What are you complaining about now, Snerdley?
You're supposed to show start.
No, I went off the diet.
I've been doing that.
I go off a diet for a day, back on it for five or six.
There's a lot of social stuff I got to take care of.
Everything's cool.
In fact, I've lost a couple more pounds.
I don't know how it's working, and it is.
Anyway, I've been in there about an hour, and this giant entourage of people comes in.
And among the entourage is one of the judges of American Idol, Randy Jackson, was in there.
And they got seated.
And then the waitress came over and said, guy in a cowboy hat over there would like to buy you an adult beverage.
And I looked over, who is it?
And she said, Big Rich.
Big Rich?
I don't know any Big Rich.
Well, it turned out it was John Rich of Big and Rich, the Country Crooners.
Turns out it's a big fan.
So I had a just had a good time.
Anyway, got out of New York late.
I probably got home, but rolled into the house at 2 in the morning.
So I'm flying home last night, and I'm watching replays of this press conference that the Democrats call a debate.
And what struck me about it, first, and we got some sound bites.
Frankly, I went through the roster.
There's nothing worth playing.
In fact, the most important soundbite from last night was 10 to 12 seconds of nothing.
When the Bregg girl was asked who is his moral leader, who does he look to for moral guidance, and 10 to 12 seconds went by.
He didn't say anything.
Had to stop and think about that.
Then he finally said, well, his wife is Jesus.
He said, my lord, and then his wife, and then somebody else.
Mrs. Clinton being roundly praised for being the only candidate when asked the question, if a couple cities get nuked by al-Qaeda tonight during the debate, what's your reaction?
We're going to retaliate, she said.
Obama said, well, we've got to get the first responders out there.
He started trashing Bush on Katrina.
We've got to get first responders.
We've got to do it.
The last thing he said he would do was retaliate.
He just used it.
All of them did.
They were running against George W. Bush last night.
And that's one of the things that didn't surprise me, but they're going to have to figure out that Bush is not on the ballot anymore.
And it really doesn't matter.
We have some survey USA results of who the people in South Carolina thought won this press conference.
Did you watch it, Mr. Snertle?
You didn't.
Can't believe that.
Did you, Brian?
Well, no, don't even shouldn't have asked.
And I know Dawn didn't have time.
Well, here are the results.
Survey USA news poll, who won the South Carolina Democrat presidential debate.
They used 1,250 South Carolina adults interviewed by Survey USA immediately following last night's presidential press conference.
Among those eight candidates, 403 said they had listened to the debate and were included in the survey.
Out of 1,250, 403 watched it.
The margin of sampling error for the 403 debate watchers, plus or minus 5%.
That's pretty big.
So anyway, of their sample, did you watch?
32% said yes, 67% said no.
Asked of those who said yes, who won the debate?
Obama at 31%.
Next, Mrs. Bill Clinton at 24%.
After that, it looks like it's the Brett girl at 14, then not sure at 13.
Let's see, where are we here?
Biden at 6, Gravelle and Dodd at 2%.
Oh, I'm going to let that Kucinich at 3% in there.
And Bill Richardson at 4%.
So Barack Obama came off as the winner of the press conference last night.
Oh, he's a former senator from Alaska or something.
He's a kook.
We got some Gravelle comments.
He's a kook.
They're not turning anybody down on one show because the whole point of these debates right now is to not screw up.
Just don't say anything.
It's better to not even get noticed this early on than to commit some huge gaffe.
And so you got Gravelle up there.
You've got an immediate graph committer or gaffe committer.
I mean, he committed a gaffe every time he opened his mouth, and there's no way anybody could look bad with him on the stage.
Kucinich tried.
Kucinich tried to be as kooky as Gravelle.
And it's a close toss-up.
But it's comic religion.
You hear about the Saudis, the Saudis have arrested over 170 suspected terrorists, including foreign-trained pilots, to end a plot against their oil fields.
The terrorists allegedly planned to use commercial airliners to smash into the oil facilities and disrupt the entire global economy.
172 Islamic militants arrested by the Saudis, some of whom had trained abroad as pilots so they could fly their aircraft into those oil fields over there.
Spokesman said that all remained in the plot was to set the zero hour.
They were ready to go.
The only thing they hadn't decided on was the time.
Now, ladies and gentlemen, there are some serious questions that we need to ask about this, about how the Saudis did this.
First off, was there a legal seizure and search involved here in capturing these people?
These are questions I would love, wish this had happened yesterday so the Democrat candidates at the press conference last night could have been asked these questions.
Were any of the civil rights of the Islamo fascists violated?
And was torture used?
We have to know these things.
We have to know whether or not the Saudis are violating the Geneva Conventions in thwarting this attack on their oil fields.
How did they get to these guys?
What did they do?
Did they break into their homes?
Did they violate the Fourth Amendment?
Did they violate the UN Charter?
Did they violate the Geneva Conventions?
And of course, you know, if they use torture on them, folks, I don't know.
We may have to let these people go.
These are just people that are trying to be heard.
And we don't know.
All we can tell is what the Saudis are saying.
We don't know if the Saudis are telling you.
The Saudis could arrest anybody and say, yep, they planned to do this.
They were down to everything but the zero hour.
All they had to do was determine the time.
And everybody's going, yay, yay.
But we don't know if any of this is really true.
Yeah, Saudi royal family's got some problems over there.
They might have staged this whole thing just to shore up support among a wavering population.
You never know.
But I mean, torture, do they have their own version of Club Gitmo over there?
Now, what's going to happen to these prisoners now?
Will they be given proper legal defense counsel?
Will they get lawyers?
Oh, you think they'll be beheaded?
You think they'll be beheaded?
Well, that's uncivilized.
That violates the UN.
That violates the U.S. Constitution.
It violates the Geneva Convention.
You can't behead them.
They're just, you know, the next thing you're going to tell me, you're going to have them stand on their heads on underwear.
You know, the world has got to start paying attention to this kind of thing.
These guys, we don't know for sure they're going to blow up the oil wells.
It's just what the Saudis are telling us.
I've learned, folks.
I've learned from watching the civil rights activists and the liberals in this country.
I'm just telling you, we know how to run a resort for these jihadists who get caught and need a break from it all.
So I hope these guys, wherever they are, if they still have their heads, I hope they get good lawyers.
I hope they each get a clean cell, a new Koran, a prayer rug, unlimited contact with Amnesty International and any other lawyer if they want to go over there.
Hope they're allowed to face Mecca and pray five times a day.
And I hope maybe some of them will get a shot on Larry King Life.
We've got to be fair about it.
Yeah, I have to admit, some of you people hurt my feelings yesterday.
Toward the end of the show, I started looking at some of the email I got in the subscriber mailbox, and there must have been 10 of these, and they were worded differently, so I don't suspect a campaign.
And they said, you know what?
You've been saying you've been losing all this weight.
Frankly, I haven't believed you because I look at you and the ditto camera, you don't look that different.
But now that you're in New York, something's really happened because now you do look like you've lost a lot of weight.
You might want to change cameras down at the Southern Command.
So now I'm wondering if those of you who sent me those notes yesterday are watching today and think I've put the weight back on.
Well, you did go off the diet.
Look, you're not going to gain 50 pounds in one meal.
I don't care who you are.
It can't be.
Anyway, we've got the answer.
The soundbite here with John Edwards that I referenced here a moment ago from the press conference last night.
Here is Edwards.
I'm telling you, this is his response to a question about who his moral leader is.
I don't think I could identify one person that I consider to be my moral leader.
My Lord is important to me.
I go to him in prayer every day and ask for both forgiveness and counsel.
My wife, who I think is the finest human being I've ever known, is a source of great conscience for me.
My father, who raised me to believe that every human being on the planet, no matter who they are or where they live or what the color of their skin or what family they were born into, has exactly the same value.
Well, you had to stop or think about this for 10 to 12 seconds.
And most people ask you, if you were asked that question, would it take you that long to come up with an answer?
Yeah, you've either got one or you don't.
I mean, you've got somebody who's inspired you morally or you don't.
You've got something that has taught you right from wrong.
You've got some senses.
You have to think about it.
I was just totally stunned and swamped by the question.
But at any rate, moving on, Mr. Snurdley wanted to know who Mike Gravelle is.
Well, here, well, listen to a little soundbite.
He got a question from Brian Williams.
Senator Gravelle at a forum earlier this year, where it says soundbite two here, Mike.
And I want to get this right.
You said it doesn't matter whether you are elected president or not.
So why are you here tonight?
Shouldn't debates be for candidates who are in the race to win it?
You're right.
I made that statement.
But that's before I had a chance to stand with them a couple, three times.
It's like going into the Senate.
You know, the first time you get there, you're all excited, my God, how did I ever get here?
Then about six months later, you say, how the hell did the rest of them get here?
And I got to tell you, after standing up with them, some of these people frighten me.
They frighten me.
When you have mainline candidates that turn around and say that there's nothing off the table with respect they're on, that's code for using nukes, nuclear devices.
I got to tell you, I'm President of the United States.
There will be no preemptive wars with nuclear devices.
To my mind, it's immoral.
Let's listen to another one.
Senator Gravelle, that's a weighty charge.
Who at this stage exactly worries you so much?
Well, I would say the top-tier ones, top-tier ones, they've made statements.
Oh, Joe, I'll include you too.
You have a certain arrogance.
You want to tell the Iraqis how to run their country.
I've got to tell you, we should just play get out.
Just play get out.
It's their country.
They're asking us to leave, and we insist on staying there.
And why not get out?
What harm is it going to do?
Oh, you hear the statement, well, my God, the soldiers will have died in vain.
The entire deaths of Vietnam died in vain.
And they're dying in vain right this very second.
You know what's worse than a soldier dying in vain?
It's more soldiers dying in vain.
That's what's worse.
There's Gordon Gravelle, the man who admits he has no prayer of becoming president, but he was nevertheless allowed to attend the press conference last night for the reasons that I said you get him up there, and it's impossible for you to make a gaffe if you are one of the other seven.
Let me grab a quick phone call since it's open line Friday.
Where are we going?
You start in Detroit?
Oh, Sacramento, California, my adopted hometown.
Doug, welcome to the EIB Network.
Hello.
Thank you very much for taking my call.
I really appreciate it.
Nice to have you, sir.
It's an honor to talk to you.
Hey, sometimes you refer to Cookie as a male, and sometimes you refer to Cookie as a female.
So I'm wondering, is Cookie transgender or what's the transition?
I do not refer to Cookie as a male.
Where do you get that?
I heard that one time about three, four weeks ago.
You said he by mistake, I guess.
Yeah, Cookie's.
We don't have any transgenders that I know of.
I mean, could be some people on the staff that have been through that, but they haven't told me.
Okay.
No, Cookie is straight down the line female.
Okay, well, if I misheard, I apologize, but I'm pretty sure one time you did refer to Cookie as he.
No, I didn't.
Okay.
I'm not going to tell you.
I'm just going to tell you, I've never referred to Cookie as a.
Why would I do that?
You'd have to ask him.
You know what?
You might be confusing Cookie with Coco.
Oh, you might be right.
Coco, Coco is married to Cookie.
Coco runs the website.
Oh, I was thinking Coco was the gorilla.
Coco is the gorilla.
Coco is the gorilla.
The TV show now runs the website.
He's the webmaster.
Okay, you're probably right about it.
There you go.
My bad.
What a great Open Line Friday call.
That's the kind of stuff we're looking for here.
Open Line Friday.
By the way, it's a great day for the Democrats in the drive-by media.
Here's the headline: Economic growth has worst performance in four years at 1.3% in the first three months of 2007.
Experts blame housing slump.
Oh, right after the Dow hits 13,000 and unemployment numbers were at a two-month low yesterday.
It was down on the dumps time for the drive-bys of the Democrats.
But now, ladies and gentlemen, they can celebrate the economy.
Economic growth can be reported as in the tank.
And I will note, ladies and gentlemen, as no one else will, that this is the first time we've had a Democrat Congress in four years.
This is just a little sample of what you can expect if these guys take power and keep it.
More economic slumps, more economic, well, tax increases that will lead to slumps, by the way.
Democrats left last night.
They kept talking at their press conference where the American people spoke in 2006.
But what did they speak about?
The Democrats ran on a slogan, a culture of corruption.
Let's be honest: Democrats won the Senate with one word, macaqua.
They won the House with one dirty trick, the Foley scandal.
And I'm here to tell you that macaque and Foley are not an Iraq message or a tax increase message or a universal health care message.
They're getting away with all of the reestablishing of these mandates that they supposedly are claiming from the election results.
And it was on parade last night.
For example, you know, when Iraq came up, all these candidates sincerely wanted to follow the will of the American people.
When partial birth abortion came up, they sincerely didn't want to follow the will of the American people.
They selectively follow the will of the American people.
They sometimes even make up the will of the American people as they're doing, result of the November elections.
Now, the moral of this whole thing last night was that once you can fake sincerity, you've got it made.
So all the pundits and all the debate graders, all the measuring, they're just measuring one thing.
Which candidate best fakes sincerity?
Which one came off as the most sincere?
And according to South Carolina debate watchers, Barack Obama won the thing hands down last night.
Having more fun than a human being should be allowed to have.
It's Open Line Friday.
By the way, ladies and gentlemen, the views expressed on this program by me, Rush Limboy, your host, are not necessarily those of the staff management nor sponsors of this station and definitely are not the views of the staff management nor sponsors of WJR in Detroit.
Our telephone number is 800-282-2882.
And Keith in Redmond, California, you're next.
Welcome, sir.
Hello, Rush.
Yes, sir.
Yeah, Michael Ware is a CNN reporter who's been living in Iraq and reports.
Of course, I am very familiar with his work.
Yes, and he's consistent anti-Americans' effort in Iraq, so no one can accuse him of being a pro-war conservative.
But yesterday on CNN, Michael Ware told Kira Phillips that if U.S. troops leave Iraq, then Iran and al-Qaeda will take over and own Iraq.
And he said, you know, whether you were for the war in Iraq or against it, basically the United States has broken Iraq now, and the United States is responsible for fixing it.
And he thinks that the Democrats' plan to just leave Iraq is absolutely delusional.
And maybe you can find that soundbite if you get a chance.
But, you know, he said this twice.
This is the second time he said this.
You know what I find, what's interesting about this to me is that there are a lot of people saying what he said.
General Petraeus is saying it.
President Bush has said it.
Joe Lieberman has said it.
Any number of esteemed Americans have said exactly what Michael Ware said.
If we get out of there, it's a central theme of the debate now.
I mean, the Democrats own defeat.
They want to give up.
They want to wave the white flag of surrender.
And people say, if we get out of there now, it is going to be hell-breaking.
The Democrats say, oh, no, no, no, it's not going to get any worse.
It can't get any worse than we've made it.
But the point is this.
With all due respect to Michael Ware, why is it that when a journalist says it, everybody stops.
Whoa, whoa, wait a minute.
And why is it when a journalist who happens to be a liberal at CNN says it, does everybody stop and all of a sudden start listening to this when people have been saying this for months, ever since this pullout and withdrawal debate began?
Nothing against Mr. Ware here.
What interests me more is what it is that gets people's attention.
I'm not even talking about you, Keith, because I noticed it too.
But it doesn't get played beyond seeing.
And of course, other networks are not going to air the commentary of a competing reporter.
There's no question that it may have with some people a little bit more credibility because the guy's well-known anti-war and is not a big fan of the United States.
And so, well, maybe you ought to listen.
But isn't that a little troubling?
In that the military generals and experts are automatically discounted because they're just Bush lapdogs.
I mean, they're just propagandists.
So we can't believe General Petraeus.
He's been trying to tell the media this for the past two days.
He's been trying to tell the Democrats in Congress it's the past two days.
They won't even go talk to him.
Nancy Pelosi won't even listen to Petraeus.
The media is talking to him and reporting what he said.
But it just, there's no sense that anybody believes what he's saying.
Nobody believes it when Bush says it.
And nobody believes it when Lieberman or any other elected official says it.
So this is in the sense, okay, who has to say what in order for people to believe it or be interested in it?
No matter what, if whatever is said is correct and right, why is it that only a few people have any kind of credit?
And why is it this one guy has more credibility and gets more attention, stating the obvious?
And you can take this same bit of thinking to the global warming argument.
You know, a lot of people understand the hoax that is global warming.
And yet it takes a certain two or three people who might speak up to convince anybody of this.
And yet the doomsayers and the hoaxers, I was talking about this last night at dinner.
How come people tend to buy into all this apocalyptic doom and gloom?
And I went through the riff and said, well, people are natural pessimists.
Pessimism and doom and gloom are the natural state of the human condition.
Optimism takes work.
Being upbeat and happy, content.
Most people think those are things that just happened to them, and they're lucky when they happen, and the normal state of things is misery, drudgery, unhappiness, angst, tumult, chaos, insecurity, or what have you.
The positive human emotions are not things that seem to happen to a lot of people frequently.
And so they don't think they have any control over them.
No power to be happy, no power to be optimistic.
And that's only because people are waiting to be affected by things rather than living their lives in a way to make things happen.
And that's not a criticism.
It's just the way things are.
So when somebody comes along and says the earth is going to end in 100 years and it's our fault, people, I don't want that to happen.
What can I do to save them?
That makes them feel happy if they go out and buy a hybrid or change light bulbs.
They actually think they matter.
People think that they're making a difference and so forth.
And how they feel, how people feel about themselves is going to trump most everything else when everybody's trying to be content and achieve some sort of happiness.
But this statement about what's going to happen in Iraq if we pull out, it's obvious to virtually anybody.
And I'll tell you who else it's obvious to.
It's obvious to the Democrats when they say that it won't get any worse.
They know it will.
They just don't care.
Victor Davis Hansen has a piece.
I think it's National Review Online.
It may be in his own blog.
I don't recall where.
But he's getting the sense that the American people finally really are tiring of the whole thing, the war in Iraq.
And his theory is that if it's true that we've reached now the point of no return where more people are just uninterested, have no passion left for it, it's because, in his opinion, he doesn't think the American people think the Iraqis are worth sacrificing for.
Doesn't think the Iraqis and their country are worth losing American lives for.
And if that's true, that means we've got a big communication problem because this is not about the stability of Iraq.
And it never has been about the stability of Iraq.
It is about creating a beachhead of freedom and democracy there in that region.
This is a long-term view.
I was telling the person I had dinner with last night, you think Bush is going to go down in history as the worst president ever?
Nope.
By the time you and I are dead and the historians start writing the history of this period, George W. Bush, in the area of foreign policy, is going to be recognized as one of the top five presidents for actually taking a squalid and status quo American foreign policy and American view of itself in the world and transforming it in meaningful ways, as James Monroe did and a couple of other presidents.
Now, this is not going to happen in our lifetime because the people who write immediate history are the people who hate Bush.
But when we're all gone, folks, the history of what has been attempted here in Iraq and what will work, by the way, eventually down the line is he's going to be credited with sticking to it with a great vision.
This is also about U.S. national security.
This is about doing what we can to make sure we keep these people aiming at us on the ropes.
And they are.
They're aiming at Saudi Arabia now.
They're aiming at Great Britain.
And I'm sure they're aiming at us and they hope to hit us again.
They haven't.
And you might say it's coincidence, but I don't believe in coincidence.
I think so little that people think is coincidence is actually coincidence.
I don't think that the fact that we haven't been hit since 9-11 is coincidence.
There are reasons that we haven't been hit, and the reasons are a way we've taken it to the people that were responsible for hitting us on 9-11.
And that Rudy Giuliani is right.
Democrats want to retreat, go back on defense, wait for the next attack.
We've got the Obama bite.
You got the Obama sound bite of Mike.
What is it?
Cut 12?
Cut 13.
Let me play this for you.
Let's see if I've got the...
I don't have the actual question.
I'm going to have to paraphrase it.
But Brian Williams says, God forbid, a million times, if tonight we're sitting here and two U.S. cities are obliterated by al-Qaeda attacks, what would you do?
And this, Hillary Clinton says, well, retaliate.
First, find out who did it and go after him.
Here's Barack Obama.
First thing we'd have to do is make sure that we've got an effective emergency response, something that this administration failed to do when we had a hurricane in New Orleans.
And I think that we have to review how we operate in the event of not only a natural disaster, but also a terrorist attack.
The second thing is to make sure that we've got good intelligence, A, to find out that we don't have other threats and attacks potentially out there.
And B, to find out do we have any intelligence on who might have carried it out so that we can take potentially some action to dismantle that network.
But what we can't do is then alienate the world community based on faulty intelligence, based on bluster and bombast.
Instead, the next thing we would have to do, in addition to talking to the American people, is making sure that we are talking to the international community because it's already been stated.
We're not going to defeat terrorists on our own.
We've got to strengthen our intelligence relationship with them, and they've got to feel a stake in our security by recognizing that we have mutual security interests at stake.
Now, do you realize how profoundly inadequate this answer is?
And do you realize how perfectly illustrative it is of the entire Democrat Party position on this?
This was a mixture of, he was in an improv, and he was combining his improv with campaign speech rhetoric, campaign speech talking points.
His answer, well, we got to make sure we don't have another Katrina denoter.
First thing we have to do is make sure we've got an effective emergency response.
What did Rudy Giuliani say?
He said, well, they want to take us back to where we're totally on defense.
They're not interested in stopping the next attack.
They want to take it back to the next defense.
And as I pointed out yesterday, where are their proposals for any of this?
They can sit there.
They're the majority now, folks.
They can do anything they want.
They can propose anything they want.
They've got the votes to pass things in the Congress.
President may not sign them, but they're not doing that.
They're just sitting there continuing to act as they're the minority party with no power other than to complain and moan.
But to sit here and say the first thing we'd have to do is make sure we got an effective emergency response.
The question, by the way, was, if you're gathered here tonight, we learned that two American cities have been hit simultaneously by terrorists, and we further learned beyond the shadow of a doubt it had been the work of al-Qaeda, how would you change the U.S. military stance overseas as a result?
So the question contained, in fact, it was Al-Qaeda.
And yet Obama is going on and on about, well, we got to get the intelligence up and around.
We got to call the international community.
We can't use faulty intelligence.
It was a bash Bush answer that had absolutely no comfort or substance to it in terms of the details of the question.
We can't alienate the world community based on faulty intelligence.
The question didn't say that the intelligence was questionable.
The question said, Mr. Obama, it's definite.
We know beyond a shadow of a doubt it's Al-Qaeda that did it.
And the last thing he says is retaliate.
But after we get the world's permission and after we make sure the intelligence has not been fudged and after all this, this is, I don't know what people think the magic is here in this guy.
This answer is pathetic in terms of demonstrating presidential stature.
Just not ready yet.
Quick time out.
We'll be back after this.
Stay with us.
I have a good friend.
He's a curmudgeon.
He's always upset about something, always complaining, whining, and moaning.
I call him a cynic American.
And he's got this theory.
His theory that the only reason the Democrats are really bashing Iraq is because that's the only thing they can bash.
And if it were the economy, they would be bashing the economy.
They'd be bashing Bush on the economy all day long, and they'd leave Iraq alone.
I don't believe that in total because the left-wing base out there would be directing the Democrats.
But when they thought they had a bad economy, and it wasn't that long ago, you remember Pelosi's out there talking jobs, jobs, jobs.
We're going to create jobs.
We're going to get this economy back where it's roaring for everybody and so forth.
But now they're starting to trickle out.
I'm looking at some of the news headlines.
There's some bad economic news.
Ford says auto sales in April are among the worst ever.
It's really slowing down.
The economic growth 1.3%.
These are happy days are here again.
The drive-bys and the Democrats.
And now there's somebody else in the Euro is its highest against the dollar.
If you're going to go to Europe this summer on vacation, it's going to cost you a little bit more because you have to spend more dollars to equal Euros.
You're going to have somebody's just put out a story of worldwide housing bubble.
Oh, folks, we could be on the verge of a primary genuine, can't keep the glee out of their faces issue for the coming presidential campaign if all they need is some news that says this is going to happen.
They don't even need the bad economic news.
Anyway, speaking of the news, it's happened again here.
It's happened again.
This time in the UK Times, not in the Los Angeles Times, not in the Chicago Tribune.
This time it's in the UK Times and the headline here, and it's from today, the great black and white hope.
Who do you think this is about?
It's about Barack Obama.
Here's the subhead: Barack Obama, young, gifted, and mixed race, but can he really break the mold of racial politics?
By a guy named Tom Baldwin.
To understand all the fuss that surrounds Barack Obama, go back to the 2004 Democrat convention where wooden John Kerry with his gray hair and stiff salute was reporting for duty.
They had picked what is known as a resume candidate whose record in Vietnam and the Senate would, they thought, give him a chance of beating President Bush.
Then along came the skinny figure of Obama with his jazz-cool looks, his exotic name, and his caramel skin.
Though virtually unknown, not yet even selected to the Senate, his speech was, by all accounts, one of the best anyone had heard in years.
As good as Bill Clinton, they said, but fresher.
These days, Obama adopts a calmer, more discursive tone in most of his speeches.
And though the applause at the end is warm, it is sometimes shorter than it was when he entered the hall.
So why does this electrifying speaker feel the need to insulate his audience from the full force of his power?
Obama said recently that while I can gin up folks pretty well, it's not his objective right now.
Abe later told the Times, the UK Times, that everybody knows he can do a great speech, before adding with a knowing look, so could Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpt.
And the implication is that these black candidates for president never made it to the White House because they were seen as over-emotional politicians who played into America's deeply embedded stereotypes.
Obama, by contrast, appeals to whites because he's exciting, not excitable.
The U.S. is nonetheless still a country obsessed by race.
I don't think that's true.
I think elements of our country are obsessed by race, such as the media.
And this guy in the U.K. in their media is obsessed by race, but I don't think the country is.
The evidence just isn't there.
Though polls suggest that Obama's doing well among African Americans, some still suggest he's not black enough because his ancestors don't include those who experienced the pain of slavery and segregation.
In other words, he's not down for the struggle.
He doesn't have roots to that which defines a genuine civil rights activist and African American in this country.
Now, he's not authentic.
This is the fourth time I keep being hit over the head for being a racist, talking about Obama, when all I'm doing is regurgitating to you people what is appearing about him in white media.
The LA Times and the UK Times, this is the fourth piece now on is Obama down for the struggle?
He's not authentic.
Is he black enough?
I have never asked the question other than to repeat it from the mouths of those who are.
Here's a Reuters story here that say the French outpace us in bashing themselves.
And I can't blame them.
I'll give you the details coming up.
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