Welcome to today's edition of the Rush 24-7 podcast.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
I know.
I know.
I can't do it in the show's starting.
Why do you?
Three hours to brief me on this.
I'll get it later.
Greetings, my friends, and welcome.
It's the Rush Rush Limbaugh program here on the EIB network.
I, of course, America's anchor man, a national treasure, a living legend, and of course, kingmaker of the Republican Party presidential nomination.
There was a debate last night, Republican presidential debate last night.
We'll have comments on that.
Not a whole lot to say about it.
Uh, in terms of analyzing each of these guys and their answers, it's very early.
We still don't have Fred Thompson in the mix.
We don't have Newton a mix, so when they get in the mix, the fireworks are gonna really start.
It was good last night.
I don't want don't want anybody misunderstand.
Um, but it was uh you know, you can overthink this stuff too soon.
Anyway, here's the phone number if you want to be on the program today.
800 282882.
The email address is rush at EIB net.com.
I see where the scientists have discovered twenty-four new species of wildlife in the South American highlands of Suriname, uh, including a frog with fluorescent purple markings.
Uh conservationists have now warned that these creatures are threatened by illegal gold mines.
Threatened.
We just discovered them.
They seem to be doing fine.
My question is about this frog, is I wonder how it tastes.
You know, fry this thing up, put a little lemon on it.
Uh, you never know.
Purple frog haven't had one of those.
You gotta get this.
Our friends at Power Line uh found this.
They examined a letter that Paul Wolfowitz wrote to the judge in a scooter libby case, trying to influence the judge, scooter's good works and get a reduced sentence.
You have to hear this is an excerpt from the letter that Paul Wolferwitz uh wrote to Judge Reggie Walton.
I also remember how Mr. Libby offered his services pro bono, or at reduced costs.
He was a lawyer, after he had returned to private law practice in order to help former colleagues and friends with legal issues.
In one such case, he helped a public official defend himself against libelous accusations, something that is extremely difficult to do for anyone in public office.
The official in question was Richard Armitage.
I got a chill up my spine when I when I read this today on the Power Line blog.
The official in question was Richard Armitage, who more recently served as Deputy Secretary of State, David Frum actually had this too at National Review Online.
What this means is Armitage is the leaker.
Armitage could have shut this.
This investigation should have been shut down.
It should have never started.
The trial should have never started because Fitz Fong had exactly what he needed before he even started this stuff.
Armitage was the leaker.
Armitage sat by and watched Scooter Libby twist in the wind, sits by now and does nothing to help him.
And yet it was Libby who helped Armitage, either pro bono or at reduced prices, reduced costs.
Uh uh helped uh Armitage defend himself against accusations of libel.
Um, I I I just that that town, folks, uh is a cesspool of me-ism.
Uh and it's it's it's I I got I literally, I uh the the this this it still still burns me.
And by the way, the judge here I'm not inclined to uh let Scooter Libby stay out of jail during the appeal.
Why?
I mean, with the truth stands, we've got a truth means something in my court.
Uh they've given his lawyers until tomorrow to file a brief uh uh making their case for scooter to scooter to remain free on appeal.
I don't know.
I'm still I'm still steaming about it.
I predicted this.
Ladies and gentlemen, I predicted this.
The head of NASA told scientists and engineers he regrets airing his personal views about global warming doing a recent radio interview.
This, according to a video of the meeting obtained by the Associated Press.
Michael Griffin, the NASA administrator, said in a closed door meeting on Monday at the Jet propulsion lab in Pasadena.
Unfortunately, this is an issue which has become far more political than technical, and it would have been well for me to have stayed out of it.
Boy, is he right about it's far more political than technical.
It's totally political.
It's religious.
And I knew this was going to happen.
You know, Bush is doing a, you know, not a 180.
He's trying to do a 90 degree turn here on global warming.
He's keeping it technical, but uh he's going over to this G eight thing, and uh Tony Blair's thing, well, don't worry about President Bush.
I can work on him on this, and I can persuade President Bush about global warming.
You know what this reminds me of?
And I knew this is going to happen.
I predicted to you people on this program that this guy uh would would they're gonna jump on him and have to have to reverse field.
Do any of you people remember the name Copernicus?
Copernicus uh sat out there and told the Catholic Church that it was wrong when it said that the sun and everything out there revolved around the Earth.
Copernicus said, You are wrong.
The Earth revolves around the sun.
The Catholic Church didn't like it.
Along came Galileo, Galileo got involved with you know the uh magnifying glass of telescope, he eventually proved it.
And they banished him.
He was a heretic.
They told Galileo, screw you, you're out of here, pal.
Copernicus didn't fare much better.
I mean, that's the short version of the story.
So, I mean, it now that the you know the church of global warming today has banished the NASA chief.
All he said was, all he said was, well, who are we to say that the climate right now is ideal?
Who are we to say that the climate on this planet right now is the norm?
What he was saying is there is no norm because it's always changing.
But if this is the best climate for all the people on the earth, how how do we how can we possibly know this?
And he got swept down.
He's a heretic.
In the Church of Global Warming, he has been banished, ladies and gentlemen.
He has been told to change his mind.
And so, as a dutiful soldier in the Bush administration, that is what he did.
It is indeed more political than technical, because there is no technical proof that global warming exists, at least none that is anywhere near what the scientific method says is required to prove it.
He told the JPL workers Michael Griffin did that he tried to separate his opinions during the NPR interview, but that it got lost in the shuffle.
He said doing media interviews is an art.
Their goal is usually to generate controversy because it sells interviews and papers.
My goal is usually to avoid controversy.
I'm sure he thought he was avoiding controversy with a simple, truthful statement.
How do we know that the climate today is normal?
Can you imagine?
For that, he's a heretic.
He has been banished by the Church of Global Warming.
Led by the all-powerful priest, Al Gore, who is also out trying to suppress all other forms of disagreement to his point of view.
Right on cue, you know, we have the death of um the Senator Craig Thomas in Wyoming, the Republican Senator Craig Thomas.
Today's roll call has a quote from a Democrat operative in Wyoming on Monday's passing of Senator Craig Thomas.
Quote, the party, of course, sees this as a big opportunity, but it's too early to know how it's going to play out.
Uh, these people on the Democrat side have lost all their humanity.
The guy passes away.
This is a huge opportunity.
It's really not new.
I mean, the uh stock market was plummeting back in the dot com burst, and Gehart was easily counting up the number of seats per 100-point drop in the market that the Democrats would uh would pick up.
Remember when Tim Johnson passed away?
Remember all the compassion from our side?
Remember, oh gosh, we hope it was the drive-by's that began worrying about the Democrat majority when Tim Johnson had his uh what cerebral hemorrhage or stroke.
It was a drive-by.
Oh no, my goodness is a razor thin margin.
What if what if Lieberman changes his party to oh no, oh no?
They began to look at it politically without any compassion whatsoever for Tim Johnson.
We, of course, here at the EIB network offered plenty.
This next story, I just absolutely love.
I just love this story.
It's uh from the Boston Globe.
Shortly before landing, Bob Hayden and a flight attendant had agreed on a signal.
When she waved the plastic handcuffs, he would discreetly leave his seat and restrain an unruly passenger who had frightened some of the 150 people on board a Minneapolis to Boston flight Saturday night with erratic behavior.
Hayden, a 65-year-old former police commander, had enlisted a gray-haired gentleman sitting next to him to assist.
The man turned out to be a former U.S. Marine.
Yeah, I had I'd looked around the plane for help, and all the younger guys had averted their eyes.
When I asked the guy next to P if he was up to it, all he said was, retired captain, United States Marine Corps.
And I said, You'll do.
So basically a couple of grandfathers took care of the situation.
The incident on Northwest Airlines Flight 720 ended peacefully, but not before Hayden, a former Boston police deputy superintendent and former Lawrence Police Chief and the retired Marine had handcuffed one man and stood guard over another till the plane touched down safely at Logan around 7.50 p.m.
State police troopers, the Stateys escorted two men off the flight.
Trooper Thomas Murphy, uh State spokesman, so one of the men was transported to Massachusetts General Hospital for an unspecified medical issue.
Now here's the best part of the story.
Hayden's wife of 42 years Katie, who was also on the flight, was less impressed.
Even as her husband struggled with the agitated passenger, she barely looked up from the book she was reading, The Richest Man in Babylon.
The woman sitting in front of us was very upset and asked me how I could just sit there reading.
Well, my husband was doing all this, said Katie Hayden.
Well, Bob's been shot at, he's been stabbed, he's taken knives away, he knows how to handle these situations.
I figured he'd go up there, step on somebody's neck, and that'd be the end of it.
I knew how that situation would end.
I didn't know how the book would end.
It's just fabulous.
Wife knew how it was gonna end, didn't care, kept on reading the book.
Guy says to the Marine, you'll do.
I saw this guy interviewed on Fox this morning.
But you know, there's there's a point here.
He says, yeah, all the younger guys had averted their eyes.
Uh this guy's 65 years old, Hayden is 65 years, he comes from a generation where they weren't taught conflict resolution in school, and and uh and the schools weren't raising a bunch of sissies uh in little boys and young men uh as a result of the chickification of the uh culture.
Great, great, great love, love this story.
Back in just a second.
Okay, you people, let's talk about the debate last night a little bit.
Uh um I it it's it's fascinating for me to watch this because I don't know if you people noticed it last night.
That was not a debate.
That was a modified inquisition.
And I know you deal with uh the media as you as you have to when you're running for president, and that's fine.
I'm not complaining, I'm observing.
Uh those questions last night, whether they came from the so-called public participants, the voters in the audience, or whether they came from the local television people, or whether they came from Wolf Blitzer, those questions were all agenda-driven.
Those questions uh were driven, and they derived from liberal fears and biases.
Uh, and to show you the produced nature, did you watch it, Snerdly?
You know, though the the second, the second that Wolf Blitzer changed topics, there it showed up graphically on the screen.
It's okay, here's where we're going, and this is where we're gonna do.
We're gonna go to this topic, and then when this time comes, we're gonna move to this topic, and bam, it went off like clay work, clockwork.
The thing was entirely produced.
And the the the point about the questions deriving from the liberal agenda, they are clueless, uh, ladies and gentlemen, about people in this country, particularly Republicans, and what is interesting to them.
Uh, for example, last night, I think what was it?
Uh well, this is this like the the third straight debate that Giuliani had to state his position on abortion.
Uh, and Mitt Romney last night had to twice explain his flip-flop on so-called immigration.
In the first hour, Blitzer asked him the question, and in a second hour they went to the voters, chose it at random, of course, ladies and gentlemen, uh, and they even got the question again.
Uh which means that CNN wanted Romney to have to answer that question two different times.
So it's fine.
I'm just, you know, I watched these things uh through a different prism than most people.
I also noticed that uh uh when the subject was illegal immigration, that audience moved up forward in their chairs a little bit.
Uh that's when they really got interested, summed on the war too.
But some of this other stuff like evolution and creationism, I mean, it never asks a Democrats these questions.
So you sit there as a bunch of liberal producers at CNN, and you got this debate that you have to cover with a with a whole bunch of freaks in their in their mind from another planet, uh, and you realize that you want an audience, and you realize the freaks that are on the stage have other freaks like us that love them, and so, okay, what are these freaks think?
What are these freaks care about?
So I hear abortion uh and uh evolution and uh creationism and and all of this.
Uh you never get those questions asked of Democrats.
In fact, the one of my one of my favorite questions, and I made mention of this to several people that I was watching, um name the biggest mistake that you think President Bush has made.
I was trying to think back.
Did Wolf Blitzer ask the Democrats name the biggest mistake Hillary Clinton made as first lady?
Or the biggest mistake Hillary Clinton has made as United States Senator.
But see, the uh the the template or the action line as far as the drive-by media is concerned, is that Bush has made a total mess of everything and needs to apologize.
They've been begging and demanding Bush apologize uh for um uh any number of things.
And of course, Bush won't do it.
So that question actually was what should President Bush apologize for.
So uh, you know, you get Rudy's Rudy said what he said about abortion, uh, and and that's it.
And and Mitt Romney has said what he said about both abortion and immigration.
Now you might say, well, rush, but rush.
Only two million people watch this debate.
That's uh less than half of your audience at any 15-minute sweep.
They have to keep repeating these questions so that people learn this stuff.
Uh yet be very charitable.
And if somebody at CNN said that's why they were doing it, fine, but you're not going to persuade me that it's not because the fears and the biases that liberals have find their way into the questions.
The Democrat debate uh the night before Sunday night was entirely different in terms of the question.
I'll tell you what, too.
Last night's was far more interesting.
Something else I noticed.
All those guys up there uh were engaging, they were upbeat, they were funny, they were friendly, they were positive.
And you contrast that to the people on stage in a Democrat debate, you get sour, you get dour, you get angry, you get enraged, you get ticked off.
Uh that's such such a contrast.
And it's also highly illustrative of the fact that there are far more policy debates and diverse opinions, if you will, on the Republican side than you'll find in a lockstep bunch on the on the Democrat side.
And you know, I uh uh in previous Republican debates, I must be honest with you, I have received very little email feedback from people, nor from my friends.
Uh haven't talked much about last night's was different.
I started getting email from people and uh with 24-7 uh uh email account, uh, website members, and uh even from friends who started commenting on gee, isn't it great how all of our guys looked last night?
And there was even this moment of levity when Giuliani was answering his abortion question again, and uh lightning was apparently striking the hall where they were, and it was causing audio glitches and little buzzes that could be heard.
Uh and that was handled with great uh applum and uh and and casualness too.
So everybody was laughing and smiling.
McCain, you know, something about McCain, he was the only guy doing this.
My friends, I am friends like my friends when I say when somebody uses my friends like that.
Uh yet, you know, they're they're generally that's a it's a stump speech cliché, and you're cognizant that you are speaking to a group.
If you ever hear McCain say, my friend, you know he's about to explode because he's uh talking to uh to one person.
But uh I I think I think McCain uh has fallen to fourth place in a couple of polls because of his stance on immigration.
He even said last night, this is not the bill I would have written.
Well, if anybody's got a better idea, and everybody did.
Enforce the current law.
It's real simple.
Uh when we come back from the break, though, I w I think uh one of the highlights for me of the debate, and you will, of course, disagree.
One of the things that I think caused people, both in the viewing audience and in the hall last night to perk up was a question that had not been asked in previous debates.
And uh Rudy Giuliani was the star, the only one who stood out answering this question.
I'll have that audio for you when we come back.
Ha, welcome back, L. Rushboth, serving humanity, a program that comes in everywhere.
There is no excuse, uh no excuse whatsoever for you to write and say you cannot pick up this program, that you cannot receive it.
This program blankets the United States.
And if you f if you're in if you're in some um some area where uh the hilly terrain prevents it, you can always turn on your computer.
There is no excuse.
Ladies and gentlemen, we come in everywhere.
All right, to me, this is what stood out to me.
And everybody's gonna disagree uh about this.
Some people think McCain's a rock answer was uh the home run.
Um others think that Mike Huckabee was a star.
In fact, it's fascinating because when you when you, as I have done, I've gone to all the elite media websites for analysis.
And of course, the elites think that Giuliani just cleaned everybody's clock last.
He didn't look presidential.
He didn't make one mistake, handled the lightning during his abortion answer with a plum.
It was yet you go to Frank Lunz, who had his little focus group out there with their meters.
They think Romney cleaned the clock.
The viewers out there think Romney showed up in Huckabee.
Romney and Huckabee.
And Huckabee is very engaging, very funny, personable guy.
Uh so you know, the the disconnect, and there is a disconnect between the professionals in the media uh who watch these things and make judgments based on their insider attachment to it.
Then you have the uh the the average voter, the vo the viewer, uh comes up with an entirely different take.
So my my highlight of the debate, it's hard to pick one, uh uh would probably differ from yours or might.
The question was to uh Rudy Giuliani came from Wolf Blitzer.
I just want to do a quick yes or no.
Would you pardon Scooter Libby, former mayor Giuliani said.
I think the sentence was way out of line.
I mean, the sentence was grossly excessive in a situation in which, at the beginning, the prosecutor knew who the leak was.
So yes or no, would you pass?
And he knew a crime wasn't committed.
I I recommended over a thousand pardons to President Reagan when I was associate attorney general.
I would see if it fit the criteria for pardon.
I'd wait for the appeal.
I think what the judge did today argues more in favor of a party because this is excessive punishment.
All right, for when you can say when you consider I've prosecuted 5,000 cases.
Trying to get a yes or here.
Well, this is a very important issue.
This is a very, very important man's life is at stake.
And the reality is this is this is an incomprehensible situation.
They knew who the leak was, and ultimately there was no underlying crime involved.
Now, the well, I tell you what's momentous about this is because Giuliani is friends with Fitzgerald.
They are from the same cloth.
They are United States attorneys.
That's a club.
They hang together.
All the other candidates, yes, some said, yeah, I might pardon him.
Others didn't want to get anywhere near it.
Some said no, I wouldn't pardon him because they didn't want to appear to be critical of the judiciary or a single judge.
Giuliani let fire, and you know, blitzer.
It's a yes or no.
Could you j Giuliani just steamrolled over him?
It's an important answer.
A man's life is at stake here, and there was no crime.
I love this answer precisely because it was something new.
I've heard Rudy's answer on abortion.
I don't need to hear that anymore.
I've heard his answers on immigration.
I don't need to hear it anymore.
I've I've heard Romney, they they get peppered with the same stuff, but this was new.
And uh and it was I I thought just powerful and right on the And I think people watching the debate last night stood up, took notice of this too, precisely for the same reasons that I did.
Let's go to the phones now, find out what's lurking.
Yes, we got the immigration stack coming.
Let me tease you with something from the Immigration Stack.
When I saw this, it all starts to come clear and make sense now.
I was one scratching my head.
Because this bill is an abomination.
It makes no practical good sense for this country at all.
And then I read who is funding the movement and who's really for it, and it all makes sense because they're trying to destroy the country in their own way.
The Ford Foundation, the Carnegie Corporation, and Democrat activist George Soros have donated millions of dollars to pro-immigration groups as the Senate continues its debate on a contentious bill that would overhaul the nation's immigration policy.
Three of the nation's biggest and most influential pro immigration groups, the National Immigration Forum, the Mexican American Legal Defense and Education Fund, or MALDEF, and the National Council of La Rosa collectively received more than 3.25 million from Ford Foundation since 2005.
Soros has uh has given uh 825,000 between 02 and 04 to the National Immigration Forum and uh and other amounts of money.
Uh when I saw this, uh I look it.
It didn't need to become that much more clear because I was pretty clear in understanding this, but this just cemented the fact for me that my instincts uh write on the money.
Dingy Harry uh today trying to limit debate, uh just take this thing to the floor for a vote, and that's you know, people this is gonna kill a bill.
This is gonna kill the bill.
Why would Dingy Harry want to kill the bill?
Why would I tell you why he wants to kill the bill, or why if that's what he wants to do, uh I'll I'll tell you why in just a second.
But let's let's go to the phones.
Here's uh here's Kurt in Rockford, Illinois.
Nice to have you.
You're up first today, sir, on the EIB network.
Ditto's Rush.
It's an honor to speak to you from Flyover Country.
Thank you.
Hey, on the first story that you had about the uh folks that wouldn't help uh the the two grandfathers subdue a passenger.
Yeah.
I I know why they nobody helped, and it's because of all the litigious society we live in.
Get rid of the lawyers and people will help.
Uh so the theory is that the the younger guys on the flight wouldn't help because they're afraid of the victim would sue them for manhandling them.
Absolutely.
Uh, I can't deny that we're a litigious society.
And I can't deny that uh that that people uh you know might have somewhat of a reluctance to get involved in something like that.
But I don't think that's the first thought that crosses their mind.
That's me.
Most people are of the I'm not gonna get involved type.
But when somebody starts disrupting an airplane with the experiences that we've had in this country with that happening, uh uh that's it's time for action.
Uh well.
If I was on that airplane, I would have helped those grandparents.
So it turns out they didn't need it.
Well.
Uh turns out that but but the guy the the guy made a point, uh Bob Hayden of looking around and said that the uh the the punks on the plane uh verted their eyes and weren't interested.
Thanks, Kurt.
This is Scott in Sheboygan, Wisconsin.
You're next on the EIB network.
Hi, and uh it's a pleasure to talk to you, Russia.
First time I've ever tried a call.
I gotta take issue with that uh younger person comment, though.
I'm I'm under thirty.
And uh I know a lot of guys just like me.
If they would have been on the plane, those two guys would have been taken apart.
That's not it has nothing to do with AIDS, it's all about your mindset.
Uh well, I look I I did I did paint with too broad a brush.
I realize that there are some young people out there like you that would take matters into their own hands.
My only point is is that uh we are not even some, there's a lot.
You know, we get we get painted into this, you know demographic like a woof.
I don't know.
Now look at I don't know if there's a lot.
I mean, you take the passengers on that plane.
There wasn't one young person that stood up.
I mean, you can take the passion, you may you try to extrapolate the anecdotal, but you can extrapolate that to the national population.
The point is that I was trying to make was and maybe I obscured my point with the uh invective and the inflamed rhetoric, but uh we are raising a bunch of sissies.
I don't know.
I think we are.
Yes, we are right.
The new Castrati.
You can't deny that they're out there.
They're out there, but they're not everywhere.
And those are the I I spend uh I'm I'm a retired uh military army.
I was in Iraq and got blown up and uh Well, obviously so many, there's so many people, like hundreds, and maybe even thousands of guys that I've met you know throughout the course of career uh being at Walter Reef for two years.
They would have ended that so quick.
It's not even funny.
I feel like Wolf Blitzer trying to talk to Rudy Giuliani.
Oh, sorry.
No, it's okay, it's good.
Um yeah, you gotta give me some credit for sense.
You know I'm not including you military people in this.
Oh, okay.
Wiz you sounded really general.
I mean, I I wasn't trying to, you know.
Even if I was general, I mean, I'm uh you know me on the military, and you you know that I'm familiar with uh uh how tough you people are.
I know I mean you have to just be able to assume some things here.
But I think I'll make it clear was not talking about any military people or or uh uh anybody in law enforcement either.
Okay.
Right.
But still, there are a lot of you know, I'm I'm I'm young for whatever.
There's still a lot of a lot of people who uh who would uh I don't I don't think it's even a majority, the the realm of the may not be, but it's a growing number, and it's worse than it used to be.
We never used to raise little men to be sissies.
We can't play dodgeball in school.
We can't play tag, we can't play kickball.
What was the thing I saw the other day about uh oh, you can't raise your hand in class now because that intimidates somebody else who doesn't know the answer.
We're raising a bunch of sissies.
Back in just a second.
Everybody knows I'm right about this.
It's the Rush Limbaugh program illustrating absurdity, oftentimes by being absurd.
Well practiced broadcast technique here, a program that features two things not found anywhere else.
Serious discussion of the issues combined with irreverent humor, credibility on both sides.
Bruce and Charlotte, North Carolina.
Hi and welcome.
Alan Rushbow, you were born to host and I was born to speak with you today.
It certainly is an honor.
Thank you and welcome.
My lovely wife and I are in our late twenties.
I'm a Republican, and she's always voted Democrat until now.
I'm telling you what, Rush, she is energized by Arkansas government governor Mike Huckabee, and I'm absolutely convinced that CNN shut Huckabee out last night during the debate because they know he's a candidate to get the base moving.
The drive-by media wants one of the top three because they know they will not energize our Republican base.
What are your thoughts?
Well, I I don't think that's the case because if the uh if I mean they might have shut out Huckabee, but but not because they're afraid of Huckabee is going to ignite the base.
Um, no, no, that's not that's not a comment on Huckabee.
Huh in fact Huckabee's getting rave reviews today from people that watch the debate.
He might have been shut it.
Uh in the first half hour of the second hour, Romney was shut up.
I was trying to find Romney in the first half hour of the second hour.
He wasn't, he didn't show up anywhere.
Well, and Huckabee was uh cut off several times in the first hour and definitely done in the second hour.
And uh my wife, again, a Democrat, you know, she thinks Huckabee's young, energetic, and knows how to connect with people.
He's for the fair tax, will be aggressive on the war on Terra and is an ordained minister not arguing.
I'm not arguing about any of that.
But look at if if Huckabee got cut off, it's Huckabee's fault.
Giuliani wouldn't let himself get cut off.
Look at I have explained earlier in this program.
This thing was a pre-produced, it's it's like a modified inquisition.
In and I don't know that it even have it on purpose.
It's these liberals that put these shows together, look at people, all those guys, not just Huckabee, as freaks.
Let's ask Romney that twice, and let's and then it just it is what it is.
And then the graphics went up there immediately.
I mean, the second that Wolf Blitzer changed subject, even when they went to their voters in the audience and the voter in the audience, the topic of the voters' question before the question had even been asked was flashed up there uh as a graphic subhead.
So they knew what was coming and exactly when, and they were they were in charge of steering this thing, which there it was a show.
It wasn't a debate.
Now it's up to candidates to understand this.
And this is your chance.
You got two million people watching.
If you want to let Wolf Britzer run your campaign, then he tells you to shut up, you shut up.
If you don't, if you want to get your message out, you keep talking and make them shut you up.
Especially if you're getting short changed on time.
Now, if you're if you're being a windbag, that's a different thing, and you have to have uh instincts to know whether you're being a windbag or not.
But I think to answer your question about whether they were sandbagging Huckabee, uh CNN is is is into two things.
Uh action lines, templates, that's two things, and then ratings.
Yes, they are.
They are oh, you think they're not burned up by Fog.
They don't know how to change it.
They don't know how to get ratings, but they would love to.
And when they don't get them, they go further left, and they get all like liberals do.
They get their backs up and say, if you're not watching us, screw you, you're too stupid.
Here's more what you don't like until you do like it.
But to them, the front runners, the top tier are Mitt, McCain, and Giuliani.
And so that's who they're going to focus on.
Because in their world, the other guys don't matter.
The other guys don't have a chance.
The other guys just up there hogging camera time, taking up space, maybe good for a question or two from the inconsequential local anchors.
Did you notice that?
Wolf got the questions to all the big guns when he turned it over to the local uh uh New Hampshire TV people.
Oh, Governor Gilmore, I have a question for you.
I guarantee you nobody had a question for Governor Gilmore until they were told that they had a question for Governor Gilmore.
Nothing against Governor Gilmore.
Um Governor Thompson.
I mean, it's it's uh you got ten guys up there.
The front runners are the big three, and so CNN says that's where our ratings are.
Plus, one of these guys might, oh my God, be our next president.
We got to destroy him.
There's no reason to destroy Huckabee because he's not that big a factor.
There's no reason to go out and destroy Governor Gilmore's not a factor.
No reason to destroy Ron Paul or any of these other guys, but you got to destroy one of these three, McCain, Giuliani, or Romney.
Uh, and by the way, they tried to destroy Romney last night by ignoring him.
The start of the second hour, the first half hour of the second hour, couldn't find Mitt Romney.
I made mention of this to several people.
Here's uh here's Todd in Weymouth, Illinois.
Am I pronouncing that right?
That's Hayworth.
Thank you.
I knew it.
Uh good afternoon, Rush.
Uh mega naturalized citizen, U.S. Navy veteran and nuclear power did a see another male in America who's not a sissy calling this program.
Great to have you with us.
Thanks for having me.
I just wanted to comment.
I I felt that um all the the you know, Wolf and the other uh people are asking questions.
We're asking the Republicans questions, they should have been asked of the Democrats, and vice versa.
You know, I I think it'd be very interesting if somebody asked a Democrat about partial birth uh uh abortion, maybe going into specifically what happened and why they didn't think it's okay to do that.
There's no disagreement.
Wolf Blitzer and the CNN people don't disagree with Democrats on immigration.
I mean abortion.
There's no reason to ask them about that.
Yeah.
Well, there is because everybody else is a very good thing.
No, no, no, no.
Everybody wants to know.
Right, but you're assuming that these guys are objective and are actually actually trying to help us learn who these people are.
You're missing the point.
CNN I totally understand an objective, and that's unfortunate.
That's why I appreciate what you do, and you help us keep our eyes on the ball.
Thank you.
Well, it's like the question last night that these guys were asked.
And and where's the headline?
Where's the headline?
The question was what is President Bush's biggest mistake.
Would they ever ask the Democrats, what was Hillary Clinton's biggest mistake as first lady or as U.S. Senator?
Now, that question had a purpose.
That was to create a news story today, and it has.
In the AP.
President Bush drew a sporadic, startling criticism Tuesday night from Republican White House hopefuls, unhappy with his handling of the war.
His diplomatic style, his approach to immigration.
He did not draw sporadic, startling criticism.
They were asked a question about it.
They answered a question.
This story makes it look like these guys marched into the hall, couldn't wait to start criticizing President Bush.
That's what I mean, folks, about this whole thing being a preproduced agenda-driven question and answer session just to create that story.
We'll be back in just a second.
Now, this is getting funny.
And I got some Marines writing in saying don't, don't, uh, don't don't speak too soon here about those army guys, Rush.
There's some sissies in the Army.
Now they let's stop this.
Now they got intra-service humorous rivalries going on.