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Aug. 15, 2007 - Rush Limbaugh Program
36:32
August 15, 2007, Wednesday, Hour #2
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Amidst billowing clouds of fragrant aromatic first and secondhand premium cigar smoke.
I am Rush Limbaugh.
This is the excellence in broadcasting network.
And our telephone number is 800 282-2882.
Email address rush at EIBNet.com.
I would like to introduce you all.
Fade the music down there a little bit.
Ed, I'd like to introduce you all to uh to Carl Rove.
Carl, welcome to the EIB Network.
I cannot tell you how great it is finally to have you here with us.
Well, thanks, Rush.
I'm honored you'd ask me and uh delighted to be with you.
You haven't probably heard about this, although it won't surprise you, but I've got to say this is a hilarious story.
The uh editor of the Seattle Times was conducting a staff meeting when they learned of your uh resignation announcement, and everybody stood up and started cheering.
Was my wife there?
Was my wife in that crowd?
And the editor said this is this is what's funny.
Editor said, No politics in the newsroom.
You got to keep this stuff to yourself.
We gotta remember there's a political year coming up.
No politics in the newsroom.
Anyway, uh I people have to have to be curious.
I know they are, Carl.
You've you've been the brunt of all kinds of assaults and attacks, personal and otherwise, along with the president.
How do you guys deal with it?
Uh Russia ignore it.
I mean, uh if if if you have to wake up in the morning to be validated by the editorial page in the New York Times, uh you got a pretty sorry existence.
So the best thing you can do is, you know, and it's and it you d is just ignore it.
I mean, plow on, stay focused.
The president's very good about saying, look, we came here for a reason.
We have an obligation to the country, and uh press on by it.
I'll I'll I'll be hyperventilating about the latest uh attack on him by somebody, and he'll say, Don't worry, history will get it right, and we'll both be dead.
So it's a it's a good healthy attitude about how to take it.
That's uh that's interesting.
Yeah, I know you don't like talking about yourself, but I'm I hate navel gazing.
Rush, I'm not good at it.
Well, I want to ask you to do it because the uh uh the the perception of you uh that's out there, uh courtesy of the drive-by media is one thing.
But I you know uh uh people love listening to somebody who speaks passionately about anything, and you have that ability, you're passionate about a lot of things.
Tell people your perception.
What do you want them to know about your job and how you did it?
Well, look, uh first of all, uh you need to put my job in perspective.
I'm an aide to the president of the United States.
There are a lot of other aides to the president of the United States, so the first and foremost thing to understand is that uh I'm I'm a member of a team.
In fact, you know, I th our day at the White House starts early, um, many times at six thirty or six o'clock with meetings or breakfasts, but every day we have a senior staff meeting that starts at 730.
And for the first four years of the administration, I sat around that table.
There are about nineteen, twenty people in the room who are the senior aides to the president.
And for the first four years, I started my day sitting between Margaret Spellings on the one hand and Condi Rice on the other.
And I mean, I l I look around the table today and I see the people that I've been honored to serve with as colleagues and and uh and aides to the president, and they are a remarkable group of Americans who many of whom have made enormous professional and personal and financial sacrifices to serve their country and this president and and I've I've I've been honored to be one of them.
And uh, you know, I've had a little bit of a of a unique relationship uh with the president that some of them not had, but every one of them, the president has done a magnificent job of making every one of them understand his aspirations and his vision, and um as a result, it they they've they they're a wonderful team.
We can we can disagree mightily about uh issues big and small.
Uh we can argue passionately our our views on an issue.
We can find consensus on a lot of them.
When we can't, we take the issue to the president.
He decides, and everybody at the end of the day salutes smartly and says, you know what, that we that was probably the right decision, even if I was on the other side of it.
And it's uh it's really a remarkable place to work.
What would you like people to know about the president that they don't know?
Well, you know, uh the president is a you know, I've known him thirty-four years, and I thought a long time ago I would cease to be amazed by the guy because I I've I've I've had uh you know, I've had such high regard for him for so long, but I and and particularly after he became governor of Texas, I realized I was capable of being surprised a lot more.
And then when he became president, look, the the the thing the American people need to know about him is he is just as passionate today about doing his job of protecting America and growing the economy and being focused on big reforms that will make America better and safer and stronger in the years ahead, uh th as he was in the day that he came in.
And he and he he walks into that office and lights up that building with a you know it sounds corny, but it's inspiring to work around him.
He's got a wonderful spirit, he's got a great sense of humor.
He treats people with the greatest respect and dignity, and that goes from the guy swab you know, swabbing out the you know, swabbing out the uh the the floors on the first floor of the White House to, you know, some foreign head of state.
He, you know, he he treats everybody with respect and dignity, and he sets such a wonderful tone and serves as what a wonderful model for people who work around him.
It's I I think one of the reasons why this White House staff is so uh you know, consists of so many wonderful people is because they they're around him and and realize what a great experience it is to be around him.
Frustrate you, um uh I know you said earlier just ignore the criticism, it frustrate you with all the uh attacks on him as uh as brain dead or a frat boy that you're the brain and this sort of thing, or do you you again shelve that and just to go about your J. Well, I I shelved that, but I have to admit I'm amused by it because you know this this this is one of the best read people I've ever met.
This is a Harvard uh MBA.
This is a Yale undergraduate whose whose major was history and whose passion is is history.
And uh the people many times the people that I see criticizing him are, you know, sort of the lead effete snobs who you know uh can't hold a candle to this guy.
He is he's he is what they don't like about him is that he has common sense, that he is middle America.
He outsmarts him.
Yeah, and and look, i in a way that you know they m he he he they misunderestimate him and he likes that.
And uh in fact I think to some degree he cultivates that 'cause you know, it doesn't matter to him if if you know somebody on the you know upper east side is r you know putting their nose in the air about him.
Uh you know, he he he is who he is and he's comfortable in his own skin and he's not gonna change just to you know win popularity with you know with the with the uh the elites.
You said that he's a voracious reader.
Tell P you you and he have a reading contest.
Uh we do.
Uh we do.
Um it it happened by accident.
Uh we we generally gossip on on Sundays, and the Sunday before New Year's of last year, 2006, uh we were gossiping and he and I could hear Laura in the background and the president said to me, Yeah, you know, do you have any good New Year's resolutions?
I've got to figure out a good New Year's resolution.
And I said, Yeah, I'm a big reader.
I when I moved to Washington, we brought 158 cartons of books, and I, you know, I uh uh I love to read.
It's a great way to relax and a great way to learn.
But uh I uh I said, Well, yeah, my my object in two thousand and six is to read a book a week.
My object is to do fifty-two books in the year.
And he said, Great, you know, sort of dismissed it and went on.
Well, about the second or third of January, we're in the Oval Office waiting for the Vice President and a couple of others to straggle into a meeting, and he looked at me and said, I'm on my second, where are you?
And so we s we went off to the races on a book contest, and uh we kept track of books, and uh I leaped to an early lead, and he began to he began a refrain, which he's used a lot, which is that he was he was in second place because he was the leader of the free world and had a real job to do, which I, you know, sorts I mean look, I I I'm that's competitive, but I mean, come on, please.
But uh no, we've had a great it's been a great uh experience the last year and a half.
We've been trading book suggestions back and forth.
How many books have you guys read?
Uh I beat him last year, a hundred and ten to ninety-four.
And I'm ahead this year.
I won't give you the total because it would it would crush you, but I mean it's uh and again he keeps saying, look, I'm the leader of the free world.
But I you know, I I won the first year.
In fact, it got so com it was it was almost it was very funny.
He's not reading little pamphlets.
No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no.
In fact, you know, he's reading it we've both agreed upon m uh a a mutually assured destruction.
When we got too competitive last year, we we both started reading John D. McDonald Mysteries, which are really delicious, a wonderful writer, a floridian, uh one writes a wonderful uh set of mysteries, Travis McGee Mysteries, and we and we we we both decided that we would you know, we we loved him, we were reading them quickly, the enjoying them a lot, and then we realized this was being far too competitive.
So we limited the number of uh of of uh John mean John D. McDonald Mysteries we were both reading so we'd get back to the serious stuff.
We have to take a commercial break.
Can I steal you for a couple more minutes and then you'll have to do that?
The excellence and broadcasting network, Rush Limbaugh.
We're back with Carl Rove.
Russ, I gotta ask you, did the is that a real ad spatula city?
Because I mean, I'm in need of a good spatula.
Is that located over next to toothpick towel?
Yeah, they're in Walmart.
They got their section inside Walmart.
There we go.
Um something I've always wanted to ask you, and I j I just never have.
Could could you tell us what it was like in the first months of the administration uh following the aftermath in Florida?
Uh you you had made the strategic decision to adopt a new tone.
You wanted to try to to build bridges back to Democrats after divisive nineties.
The President had done it in Texas with Democrats, uh and you and you consulted them on legislation.
Um do you have any regrets about about that approach?
No, uh look, it uh with when we were able to find willing allies uh who are willing to work across party lines, it was the right thing to do.
The problem was there are uh some Democrats who have never gotten over the two thousand election, who view the president as somehow illegitimate, never accepted the outcome, and hate him.
And there are some Democrats who made a calculated decision, led, I think at the time by uh Senate Majority Leader Tom Dashell uh after the Democrats took back control of the Senate, that the way back out of the political wilderness for them was to simply obstruct everything that the President was trying to do.
And they uh you know, their basic attitude was uh, you know, if okay, we may agree with it, we may think some of us may think it's a reasonable and responsible thing to do, but but let's not give Bush, quote, a political victory, unquote.
And and that's not helpful for the country.
But it it was ab look i you know, the should the president be saying the ugly things about the Democrats that the Democrats routinely say about him.
I mean Harry Reid who goes out jumping out there calling the president a liar and you know deliberately misleading the country and so forth.
I mean uh uh no, he's not gonna do that.
That's not who he is.
He'll he'll have a respectful degree disagreement.
He's he'll he'll hit tough on issues, he'll find ways to advocate his cause, but he's not gonna engage in the kind of personal name calling that that makes Washington you look, there there's there ought to be politics and politics.
But after the elections are over, people ought to be able to put things aside and look at things with the best interest of the country at heart.
And if they don't agree, they don't agree, but if they ought to agree and should agree, they ought to try and move something forward.
And that's happened on many things.
Energy legislation, education, tax cuts, judges.
Look, we we couldn't have gotten Robertson Alito on the Supreme Court without having some thoughtful Democrats say these are people worthy of serving on the Supreme Court.
Couldn't pass the tax cuts without having some Democrats say, you know what, we really ought to give people back some of their own money.
We will we will uh you know, I was interested this year on the budget resolution, which is normally a straight party vote.
You know, some very thoughtful Democrats had some qualms about voting for the Democrat budget resolution, and at least one significant blue dog voted for the president's budget resolution.
Yeah, well, uh it it's interesting.
Uh you you said that the president in all of this will not respond in kind, and and this this has been frustrating for his supporters.
Right.
Because um, you know, people want leadership, uh they crave it.
Uh they love the president, a lot of respect for him, and uh and they just they they hate seeing this stuff go unresponded to.
I think yesterday when you know Mrs. Clinton ran this ad saying the White House uh uh sees uh some people who are doesn't see people invisible to the government, and you and the White House responded yesterday.
Yeah, well, look what's interesting too about that is it's it's really amazing that she would say that.
It's i you know, sort of it's sort of disappointing.
This is uh after all, Senator Clinton voted against the prescription drug benefit for seniors.
Senator Clinton voted against allowing people to save tax-free for their out-of-pocket medical expenses.
Senator Clinton opposes, giving every American a standard health deduction, uh, so that they can deduct from the cost of their income taxes, their insurance premiums.
You know, when we started as a country to say, you know what, you can deduct your mortgage interest off of your income taxes, there was an explosion of home ownership in the country, which was a good thing.
When we started saying to people you can save tax-free for your kids' college expenses or save tax free for your retirement expenses, we saw an Explosion of five twenty nine plans for college education of four oh one Ks and IRAs for people's retirement.
That was a good thing.
And yet Senator Clinton, who deems to lecture this president on health care, opposed allowing people to do either save tax free for their out of pocket medical expenses, or she put she also opposed uh she also opposes allowing there to be a tax deduction for people to to uh take off their income tax at the cost of their insurance premiums.
She's against having a level playing field so that the guy who has to pay for health care for his family or her family out of their own pocket gets the same tax break that big corporations get for providing health insurance to their employees.
She's against allowing people to buy health insurance across state lines like we routinely buy auto insurance today so you can shop for the cheapest price and the best product for your family's needs.
I was a little surprised that she jumped out there and made such an accusation when she's got a record that's so spotty and poor on health care issues.
If she really believed that uh that people ought to have more health care, she should have been she should be standing with us and making some different votes.
Well, since we're talking about Mrs. Clinton, uh uh how about your assessment of the Democrat presidential field and where they're headed?
Uh well, I'm I I'm I don't want to become a prognosticator, so I'll simply repeat what I've said publicly on the record.
I think she's likely to be the nominee, and I think she's fatally flawed.
I think that uh it's gonna be a tough general election.
It always is at the end of an eight year run.
It's very hard if you look back in history for a party to win a you know, a third term for that party.
It happened in 1988 when 41 succeeded Ronald Reagan.
It happened in in uh nineteen forty uh forty-eight, if you will, when Harry Truman had succeeded to the job won reelection.
But but the last time, you know, between nineteen eighty eight you have to go back to literally nineteen oh eight for to find a real example uh of somebody succeeding at the end of two terms, and even then TR had inherited the office uh uh on the death of McKinley, but but you know, it's rare, but it but it c it can and I think will be done, but it's gonna be a tough race, but it'll be and it'll be against her.
What are her fatal flaws?
Well, you know, I uh uh you you're you're trying to make me into prognosticator, and I want to say on this high tone here on the high road, but I I th but look, she she she is who she is.
I've never there is no front runner who has entered the gener who's entered the primary season with negatives as high as she has in the history of modern polling.
She's going into the general election with depending on what poll you look at in the high forties on the negative side and just below that on the positive side.
And there's nobody who's ever won the presidency who started out in that kind of position.
Um, one of the things about uh your previous comments about her regarding the uh her her reaction or her ad saying that the half of the country is invisible to this administration.
I I'm gonna play the soundbite a moment from now when uh in the next half hour when her portrait uh was unveiled in the White House.
The president was as gracious uh as anybody could be to both Bill and Hillary Clinton and all of their friends who were who were in the room, and yet she comes out and does something like this.
What's politically what's amazing to me is is he's not going to be on the ballot.
Uh and they're all running against him still.
Well, I I think it shows a lack of vision.
I mean, if you if i if if you really if you don't i i the the fallback position in politics is if you don't know what you want to be about, and if you don't know what your vision is, uh you know, go at something, go with somebody else.
And I I I think that the American people uh when they approach a presidential election are are always interested in the future.
And particularly at the end of an eight-year presidency, they want to know what the next person is going to d be doing.
And so uh, you know, to my mind, it it it and look, it it was so over the top that that frankly, you know, uh people uh ordinary cat listening to that on the street is gonna say, Well, wait a minute.
I that's not true.
I thought it was also egregious that that she in the same ad talked about the President of the United States uh treating our troops in Afghanistan as uh as uh uh invisible.
I mean, uh how did she vote on the surge?
How does she you know, this is a woman who has been less than supportive of the policies that uh that those men and women who are in the front lines of the World Global War on Terror fighting.
I mean, this is a woman who has opposed uh the Patriot Act.
This is a woman who uh that that allowed that gave our us the tools to defend the homeland.
This is a woman who opposes the terror surveillance program that allowed us to listen in on the conversations of bad people who are calling into the United States.
She opposed the FISA reforms that would allow us to listen and into the communications, see the communications of of uh ter international terrorists who are communicating with other international terrorists, uh even outside the country whose messages simply happen to flow through US telecom networks.
I mean i i you know, i again, I'm I'm a little bit surprised that somebody with a record so weak on these things would somehow deign to lecture this president who is very popular among the military and military families because they see him as a strong commander-in-chief who supports them, loves them, and gives them everything they need and want.
Carl, I didn't want to stop you during that.
I've only got about ten seconds here to say goodbye, but um uh thanks so much for your time here.
Uh, a bunch of emails from people uh when I said you were gonna be on who wanted me to pass on uh to you that they love you.
Oh, thank you.
We all do.
Thank you very much.
Talk to you soon.
Thanks much.
Glad to, ladies and gentlemen, L. Rushball making the complex understandable.
So you just heard the real Carl Rove.
Not the caricature that he is uh portrayed as in the drive-by media and among the Democrats.
He truly is uh a brilliant historical uh tactician uh and an overall general optimistic having great time in his life guy.
And we uh again happy that he uh had a half hour for us here.
Since Mrs. Clinton's on the table, let's uh let's stick with this.
Uh we had this uh uh stick with her for a minute.
We had we had this uh uh picture the other day in this story, Mrs. Clinton spent a whole day with a nurse.
And we talked about it yesterday, but I didn't I didn't make an observation that uh because it occurred to me until afterwards.
Uh it's it's we were supposed to watch this with a straight face.
What was her purpose?
She was going out there to f to see what nurses do, right?
I mean, that she was trying to show solidarity with the nurses, but the the the public pronouncements from here herself and her campaign were out there learning what nurses do.
She's following a nurse around to, in her own words, see what a nurse does.
Now, why is she not laughed off the stage?
Why why why why why are people uh not just cackling uncontrollably at that statement?
I'm Hillary Clinton, I'm here running for president, I'm here to see what a nurse does.
Well, who is she?
She's the first lady of health care.
She knew and knows everything about health care.
She had this comprehensive health care reform bill.
It was a disaster.
But she set herself up as the expert in every aspect of health care.
Except, I guess, about nurses and what nurses do.
And what makes this even harder to read with a straight face, you know, Hillary's mother-in-law, you're Bill's mother, was a nurse.
Hillary's mother-in-law is a nurse, and she's following a nurse.
So it was pure pure theater, pure show.
Uh, but the the idea that she can learn anything from a nurse is highly, highly contradictory.
Then, of course, we've got the story with her papers in the in the uh Clinton library and massage parlor.
Two million documents, two million pieces of paper from her days as first lady that will not be released.
And by the way, it's legal to do this, it's a presidential document axe.
It's fine.
But that's that's that's not the point.
Um, she's she's put her past in a lockbox at the Clinton Library and Massage Parlor.
And it's this sort of trick that explains why people are so polarized about her.
She's running for president on the basis of her experience, her perceived experience, most notably her stint as co-president, but now she's refusing to release relevant records that would enable scrutiny of those years.
Uh and it's it's this way with the Clintons.
They expect the world to let them have things both ways.
Uh in the in the sense of entitlement and royalty, that is the essence of the Clintons' entire life.
The desire on the part of Democrats that they be Camelot too.
Um it's it's it's similar to when she runs around as a feminist, but makes bill tag along to everything.
Because she can't pull it off without him there.
Or during the White House years, when sometimes she was hailed as the smartest woman policy expert, when things got tough, she had to hide behind the apron of first lady in the traditional sense.
And they let her get away with both these contradictions.
Uh she's uh she's a shapeshifter, if you will, and it's scary because there's no there there.
There's no substance.
We don't know what it is.
And this leads to her uh well, her negatives that are 49 percent that Carl Rove referred to, and that's based on her on a likability factor that's not uh very high.
Now, here's the ad that I asked Carl wrote about.
This is the uh the uh audio to the ad, Mrs. Clinton's first ad running in uh uh Iowa.
As I travel around America, I heard from so many people who feel like they're just invisible to their government.
Hillary Clinton has spent her life standing up for people others don't see.
You know, if you're a family that is struggling and you don't have health care, well, you are invisible to this president.
If you're a single mom trying to find affordable child care so you can go to work, well, you're invisible too.
And I never thought I would see that our soldiers who serve in Iraq and Afghanistan would be treated as though they were invisible as well.
Americans from all walks of life across our country may be invisible to this president, but they're not invisible to me.
And they won't be invisible to the next president of the United States.
Okay, the White House called the ad outrageous and absurd, and uh uh Carl Rove uh reacted to the ad uh uh well, I would say strenuously uh about 20 minutes ago.
By the way, the transcript and audio of the interview with Carl Rove will be posted as soon as we can get it up on the Rushlimbaugh.com so that drive buys can uh look at it and take it out of context.
Uh we'll have it up there and for you to be able to see it and listen to it too.
So if you missed it, if you're just joining us, you you you must you must hear this, because he he I asked him what's fatally flawed about Hillary Clinton, and while saying he didn't want to answer, he did.
Uh and this ad specifically he responded to in an amount of detail that I would describe as a full frontal.
Uh so they asked Mrs. Clinton about this.
Mrs. Clinton, uh the White House uh says that um uh uh dear dear you this is uh you're you're you're just being outrageous and you're absurd with this ad of yours in which you say that so many Americans are invisible to them.
The White House just attacked me a few minutes ago, saying how dare I say that Americans weren't invisible to the president.
Well, not only have I said it, and am saying it now, I will keep saying it because I happen to believe it.
Uh to the campaign rally, and she was in uh in Dubuque, Iowa.
So she runs an attack ad.
The White House responds to it, and she goes, they're attacking me.
They're attacking me.
Well, I'm gonna keep saying it, and I'm gonna keep saying it.
Uh it's uh uh I don't know, that that ad is is is sophistry because it is so flawed and untrue.
Uh the one with this roiling economy going great guns, uh can consumer confidence what it is, people's lives reported to be 94% satisfactory or better, according to the latest Harris poll.
I want to take you back.
I told uh I told Carl I was gonna play these two sound bites.
Actually, it's just one.
June 14th, we we played audio of President Bush's kind remarks about uh President Clinton and Hillary at the unveiling of their official portraits in the White House, and I I issued this command to Cookie.
Cookie, we're gonna keep these sound bites handy.
And every time Hillary or Bill or somebody in their direct orb rips into Bush, we're gonna play what Bush said about them at the unveiling of their portrait.
And we'll just let the side-by-side AB juxtaposition speak for itself.
So, Ed, here's what I want you to do.
I want you to go back and want you to play the audio of Hillary's ad, cut one, and right back to back play cut four.
Are you ready?
This is what we're gonna do.
That we're gonna play for you this ad again, and this is and then the immediately following will be what the president said about both of them.
Well, about Hillary at the unveiling of their portrait in the White House.
As I travel around America, I heard from so many people who feel like they're just invisible to their government.
Hillary Clinton has spent her life standing up for people others don't see.
Now, if you're a family that is struggling and you don't have health care, well, you are invisible to this president.
If you're a single mom trying to find affordable child care so you can go to work, well, you're invisible too.
And I never thought I would see that our soldiers who serve in Iraq and Afghanistan would be treated as though they were invisible as well.
Americans from all walks of life across our country may be invisible to this president, but they're not invisible to me.
And they won't be invisible to the next president of the United States.
From the earliest days of her youth in Park Ridge, Illinois, Hillary Rodham impressed her family and friends as a person of great ability and serious purpose.
At Maine Township High School South, at Wellesley College and at Yale Law School.
Classmates saw her not just as an achiever, but as a role model and as a leader.
She inspires respect and loyalty from those who know her.
And it was a good day in both their lives when they met at the library at Yale Law School.
Hillary's commitment to public service continued when she left this house.
Listen, New York politics is serious business.
Takes an extraordinary person to campaign and win the United States Senate.
She has proven herself more equal to the challenge.
She is the only sitting senator whose portrait hangs in the White House.
I ask you, of those two, who exhibits the more class?
Who exhibits the more general sense of kindness and manners?
Just listening to those two things back to back.
And we're going to keep these bites, we're going to keep these, and every time they get personal like this in the Clinton campaign, with Hillary in the ad.
We're going to run the juxtaposition.
A quick timeout, we'll get to your phone calls right after this, folks.
Stay with us.
By the way, folks, as a personal aside to Mrs. Clinton, I would rather be invisible to the government, quite frankly.
Not pursuing me all over the place and telling me where I can and can't smoke and what I can and can't eat.
I would love to be invisible from people like you, or two people like you.
Uh and in Dayton, Ohio.
Welcome to the EIB network, sir.
Great to have you with us.
I'm glad you waited.
Thank you for taking my call, Rush.
Yeah.
Hey, point I wanted to make.
And I've been thinking about this for quite some time.
By Bush and the others of his administration not responding every time the Democrats have called him just about every name under the sun.
What piece of audio or video tape are they going to play as they get into this campaign?
When they start talking about, you know, the evil administration that has divided America.
Well, it's not only that, you know, the the uh uh I I I can tell you, I've I've asked the president about it.
I'll tell you one of the things that he told me.
Um, and and I think I think uh Carl Rove referred to it in the interview.
He this is really true.
I don't think there's a political calculation to this, although uh there might be well goes without saying there is.
His reverence for the office is such that he's not going to to do anything in public, uh, adopt a public demeanor, or shrink, slink down to the level of gutter partisanship because he thinks it will denigrate the office, and he's not gonna do that.
He has such reverence for it, and that that, by the way, has a tie to history.
Uh, you heard what Rove said in the first half of the uh first half of the interview last half hour.
He said the president says to Row of Rolfe gets all hyperventilated about the latest Washington Post or New York Times editorial, and the president says, Don't worry about it, Carl, history get it right.
We'll both be dead anyway, won't matter.
So he's got a historical perspective, uh as all presidents do.
Uh, and he's not gonna be writing a legacy when he lives, leaves the office because it's being written now, and he's content to let historians write.
That was very Reagan-esque, by the way.
Uh, that was uh Reagan's attitude about things, and it's rooted in optimism.
It's uh it's rooted in in uh good cheer.
Uh and the and the president has it too.
So there's a historical aspect to also not getting down in the dirt, as well as the political thing you mentioned about not giving uh, you know, the opponents in a political race uh sound bites for TV ads.
Jim in um in Roseburg, Oregon.
Uh, welcome, sir, and welcome to the EIB network as well.
Rush.
17-year ex-tobacco rep conservative peacher dittoes.
Now, thank you, sir.
I uh I I owe you an apology.
I had uh a knee-jerk liberal reaction to the smoking.
Uh your smoking comments with parents smoking in the car.
And uh I clearly fell off the wagon.
Well, what was your reaction?
Well, uh I uh I am a smoker, and uh I smoked to control my MF pain, and uh I I'm back on the 12-step rush recovery program.
Well, but you mean you were mad at what I think?
No, no, no, no.
I wasn't mad, but I uh I do have to admit that when I do see a parent uh pulled over at a at a convenience store, dumping their uh ashtray out for somebody else to pick up.
Um smoking with the windows up, it it does tick me off.
Um but I realized, you know.
You know, I have that fleeting liberal thought, and I'm back on the program.
Okay, so you you did you got a little bit irritated with it because to refresh people's memories and to inform those who weren't here, uh a New York City councilman is gonna pass a resolution or present a resolution for passage that will not allow parents to smoke in their cars if the kids are in the car.
And I thought, you know, the political correct crowd's gonna love this, everything for the children.
And I said to this audience loud and clear, I said, you better be careful of this for two reasons.
A, you let them into your private property, your car, and tell you what you can and can't do there.
It isn't gonna stop with smoking.
You aren't gonna be able to listen to the radio down the road.
You're not gonna be able to use your well, you can't use your cell phone hands-free in a lot of states uh uh with it within your hand in a lot of states now.
You let them into your car, then you're gonna let them into your house.
And if you have kids in the house, you can't smoke in there.
And then once they get into your house, folks, and they can start telling you anything they want about your house.
They don't like the paint that you're using, they don't like the light bulbs that you're using, they don't like the hardwood floor or the upholstery that you're using, maybe not flammable retardant enough.
Who knows?
Uh the the idea that the the they run around and see some parent smoking in a car with a windows up or crackle with kids in there, too bad.
You know, if if if this product is so bad, ban it.
But instead, what are they doing?
And this is a second thing I want to tell them that they better figure out real quick.
If they are going to fund health care insurance programs for the children with a with with tobacco products, they better make sure the products can be used.
Otherwise, people aren't going to buy them.
And when they don't buy the products, there's no tax revenue.
And then the health care program for the widowed children runs short of money.
And guess who's gonna come?
You're next in line for taxes, you.
They're not gonna shut the program down.
They're gonna come to you.
Now you can't sit here and start condemning this product as deadly, secondhand smoke is deadly, which it isn't, maybe uncomfortable, you may not like it.
Some people may be allergic, but it doesn't kill anybody.
There are no studies that say it does.
And those who purport to say it are as a big a hoax as global warming is.com.
But that's not the point.
The point is, if they're gonna raise all this hell about how horrible and deadly this product is, at the same time tax the sale to fund their precious little government operations.
They better make sure people can use the product.
You see the conundrum here, or the dilemma.
If they really believed all this, they would ban it.
This stuff is so deadly.
Why?
They would ban it, but they don't dare because their government operations depend too s too much on the revenue from this stuff, and they're gonna kill that goose By eliminating places where these products can be used, they're gonna make you can't have it both ways on this, and it's gonna come to a head at some point sooner rather than later.
Indiana State Fair is gonna ban trans fats.
You know what's gonna happen?
You know what's gonna happen.
Years from now, it won't be many, some years from now, they're gonna discover trans fats are actually good for us, and that we're dying because we're not eating trans fats.
That's the way it happens with all of this junk.
Banning trans fats at the fair for crying out loud, you go to the fair to eat that stuff.
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