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Aug. 31, 2007 - Rush Limbaugh Program
36:03
August 31, 2007, Friday, Hour #1
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Welcome to today's edition of the Rush 24-7 podcast.
Hey, hello, once again, everybody.
Jason Lewis here in for the vacationing Rush Limbaugh.
What an honor it is to be here once again, high atop the EIB building in Midtown Manhattan behind the golden EIB Mike and the Attila the Hun chair at the Institute for Advanced Conservative Studies.
And guess what?
Even though Rush is gone today, it is still going to be an open line Friday.
Live from the Southern Command in sunny South Florida, it's open line Friday.
That's right.
You get to decide.
You know, I mean, it's not as though you got a Trump rush today.
You got the lowly Jason Lewis in.
You ought to take control of this program.
Well, to a degree.
So anything you want to talk about, you can at 1-800-282-2882.
Speaking of the lowly Jason Lewis, I'm thinking, okay, here's the big New York City talk show host filling in for the great one, El Rushbo.
And I'm going for a walk yesterday.
I'm over by the Plaza Hotel after the show, and it's under construction right now, right on the edge of Central Park there.
And I'm walking through, and it's a beautiful day, not a cloud in the sky.
And all of a sudden, something's wet is on me.
It's not raining.
I'm going, what is going on?
I look up, and there is this impertinent pigeon mocking me.
The pigeon actually did his business on yours truly.
I could not believe it.
I looked at that pigeon.
He looks at me.
He, well, then I shot him.
You know, it's the least you can do.
I mean, concealed carry, we talked about that yesterday.
And speaking of Central Park, I had a great early morning jog in Central Park, as I did the day before, did it today again.
And I cannot believe, by the way, this morning I was out there so early, I woke up most of my relatives, but I could not believe how many dogs are in that park.
Does everybody in Manhattan have a dog?
It's really remarkable.
And the animals were there, too.
No, the dog, the number of dogs in Central Park, my goodness gracious, everybody, and they got dog walkers and all of this.
I haven't seen that many dogs since the last NOW convention.
It was rather shocking.
Did you see that?
What, Michael Vick?
Oh, no.
Michael Vick is the dog walker here in Manhattan.
I'm not certain if you folks know that.
And you got a dog?
You don't have time?
Michael, over here.
Dog comes back with a little different disposition, but who cares?
I mean, get this, gang.
Here in New York, inspectors have found Iraqi chemical gas at the UN.
UN weapons inspectors stumbled upon evidence of Saddam Hussein's elusive weapons of mass destruction, a vial of lethal chemical gas on the banks of the East River in Turtle Bay.
Now, get this, friends.
If you get a drop of this on your skin, it may kill you.
If you're exposed, according to one expert, your lungs would collapse immediately if you inhaled a substance.
This is the chemical gas recovered from Saddam Hussein's chemical weapons facility about a decade ago, the Muthana facility, as they say.
Now, I'm confused here, friends, because I thought Saddam Hussein didn't have any chemical weapons.
Wasn't that the case?
That there was no weapon of mass destruction in all of Iraq.
Well, yeah, but this was 10 years ago.
So he had them in 1996, but he didn't have them in 2003.
He got religion real quick.
As somebody was saying earlier, we're only a couple of years into the war.
We may discover these in a decade.
Who knows?
But the point here is there were always weapons of mass destruction in Iraq.
Ask the Kurds.
So, you know, it's weird how this premise got started.
There were weapons of mass destruction.
They may not have been nuclear, but the fact is there were chemical weapons of mass.
He was in violation of 17 UN resolutions.
That's the UN.
You know, come to think of it.
Saddam Hussein had chemicals and had weapons of mass destruction, so we invaded.
Hmm.
Now the UN has them.
Attack!
Might not be a bad idea.
Rhetorically speaking, of course, I don't want to be inflammatory here on the program.
Also, according to John Fund at the Wall Street Journal, Hillary's pal, Norman Shu, may have fled the country.
The fugitive from justice, who is in the now infamous latex glove scandal, why doesn't that have the same ring to it as the Larry Craig thing?
It just doesn't have the same.
Larry Craig, the senator from Ohio, has a very, very wide stance, apparently, we all know, since he goes to the bathroom with a wide stance.
That just doesn't ring true, like, or that rings more true, I guess, to the electronic media than Norman Shu and his latex glove scandal.
Anyway, the fugitive from justice, who funneled over a million dollars to the Hillary Clinton campaign and may have reimbursed other donors, which is clearly illegal, has apparently gone missing, at least according to our old buddy John Fund at the Wall Street Journal.
Now, this is all reminiscent of the 1996 Clinton fundraising scandal when a total of 120 witnesses either fled the country, pled the fifth, or otherwise were unavailable for questioning.
As we told you yesterday, Hillary Clinton is not commenting on this.
She has two fundraisers today at a Buddhist temple.
So she doesn't have time to comment on this sort of thing.
Why is this story not getting the sort of coverage as the other story, the Craig story?
This has potentially much more import on the body politic than Larry Craig, one lowly senator in a bathroom.
New York Times today, Clinton donor under a cloud of, in the fraud case, excuse me, that was yesterday.
Today, they're trying to run cover.
New York Times today, use of bundlers raises new risks for campaign.
Wait a minute, I'm confused.
Believe it or not, and if you don't know if the world is ending, you will now.
When I ran for Congress, all the way back in 1990, it was our responsibility to make certain the FEC reports were filed properly.
How does the New York Times headline make any sense when it says, use of bundlers raises new risks for campaigns?
So they're the victims?
Hillary was a victim because her Hill Raiser was illegally funneling money, so the allegation goes?
No, I don't think so.
I don't think so.
But here we go again.
It's happened so many times.
Here's Larry Craig's defense, the guy, you know, the Idaho senator in trouble.
I got it down.
He needs to do this about 20 more times, and we'll get desensitized to it like we have on the Hillary Clinton fundraising scandals.
And nobody, that's just Hillary.
That's the way they raise money.
It's just the Kennedys.
That's the way those guys are in that family when it comes to wives.
And it's just Larry Craig, that crazy knucklehead.
What will he do next?
This is restroom number 38.
And then people forget about it.
That's what you do.
But when it happens the first time, by the way, I do have something to say about Craig one more time, and I know it's getting boring, but gosh, the cable news channels last night.
You've got potentially foreign money coming into the United States again.
You know why there's a ban on foreign money coming into campaigns?
It's called dual loyalty.
We don't want the government to be swayed by potential adversaries, which may or may not be the Chinese, hard to say.
That's an important story.
If campaigns are being bought off, if there's a potential for blackmail, and yet 24-7, from Larry King on, I don't know what it is, but something disturbs me about Larry King talking about a gay meeting in a restroom.
There's something just odd there.
The stall to stall coverage just nearly puts it.
So anyway, Craig is getting pillowied.
The Republicans are throwing him under the car, as they say, under the bus, under the semi in this particular case.
And the New York Times is having a field day here in New York.
They're saying, well, it just goes to show you how homophobic Republicans are.
You know, look at Vitter down in Louisiana.
Oh, heterosexual scandal, no problem.
But Larry Craig, oh, they're homophobic.
Well, does that mean that the New York Times and the quasi-defenders of Mr. Craig endorse public sex in a restroom?
Does that mean that's okay?
You know, there's a mayor, I think it's down in Fort Lauderdale, who's under fire because he's portraying city park restrooms as popular gay sex spots.
And he opposes a plan to house a gay book collection in a public library.
He insists on using the word homosexual because he says they aren't gay.
They're unhappy.
And he wants to close down the bathhouses.
And he's catching hell for this down in Fort Lauderdale.
Now, I'm confused.
If you're saying that Republicans are treating Larry Craig unfairly because he was involved in a potential gay sting, does that mean you approve then of this sort of anonymity when it comes to public sex?
That they ought to get together in any bathhouse they want, any park?
What is it?
I want to know.
That's what the disapproval is about, whether it's heterosexual or homosexual.
But there's another point to this, and that is the false premise of sainthood.
The liberal left believes that those people who have values and fall short, the moral majoritarians, if you will, are hypocrites.
They're inconsistent.
There's another family values Republican falling short.
You know what they do is they simply say, the Jerry Studs, the Barney Frank crowd, the mainstream media crowd, we're not inconsistent.
We fall short too, but we have no values.
So therefore, it's a little bit like somebody denying the reality of sin.
We're all sinners.
We're all going to fall short.
We all make mistakes.
That doesn't mean that sin doesn't exist.
That doesn't mean you can deny the reality of sin.
I know what their little game is.
Their little game is to set these guys up for a fall.
The little game is the false premise of sainthood.
Why, if you're a preacher or if you're a family values person, or dare we say, if you're opposed to gay marriage, you'd better be a saint or else.
Well, that's a setup.
Nobody's a saint.
They're going to fall short.
That doesn't mean what they're preaching isn't true.
Just means they fell short.
What they say is, we don't think they're sin at all.
We can do anything we want.
There's no sin in our secular world.
Therefore, when we do the very things that Larry Craig is accused of doing, we can be called hypocrites, so that makes it all right.
I think we call this punting, don't we?
1-800-282-2882, I'm Jason Lewis.
In for the great one, Rush Limbaugh.
Your call's coming right up on Open Line Friday.
1-800-282-2882, Open Line Friday on the Rush Limbaugh program.
Great to be here on EIB.
I'm Jason Lewis from Minnesota and out in Los Angeles.
Let's go to Vermont first before we get to L.A.
And Sean, you're first up today on Open Line Friday.
Hi.
Hi, how are you today?
I'm wonderful, sir.
How are you?
Good.
I was listening to you, and I am a progressive or a liberal, whatever you'd like to say.
And I think that both progressives and conservatives have values.
And when you say they have no values, I think it's wrong to say that.
Well, then why is it that Jerry Studs, as we talked about yesterday, gets a standing ovation after his little fling with a male page from the Democrats in the House?
Why is it Barney Frank, after his roommate, was running a brothel out of their townhome?
Why is it that he's the chairman of a powerful committee in the House of Representatives?
Why is it that if you're open about these things, it's just fine.
But if Larry Craig would rather not have this made public, assuming the worst in all of these allegations, or if you've got a preacher involved in a sex scandal, you know, if you are the randiest lout in Hollywood, your sexual proclivities are hailed.
Why?
It's just wonderful.
But if you are a preacher, why, and you fall short, why, the media has 24-7 coverage on Jimmy Swagger or anybody else, which doesn't say, it doesn't mean I approve of that.
What I say is it's a false premise.
What they're saying is, well, we're going to be harder on those who claim the mantle of values.
Why?
Because they sin.
Everybody sins.
Why aren't they harder on the Hollywood lout?
Well, because he's not claiming that it's a sin.
So it's okay if you deny the reality of sin, but if you say there is sin and I fall short, somehow that's bad.
That's a lack of values.
Are you done?
Well, they do pay me for this, you know.
I do know, and you're doing fine.
I think that the point is, and I can speak as one, I feel very badly for this man.
I feel very badly for his family.
I think that, yes, he set a very high bar, and seemingly he fell short of that bar, but I feel bad for his family.
And I think that, you know, listening to the news reports, and most of the people I talk to share my political persuasion, they're not taking any joy or satisfaction in this.
I think I feel very bad.
There is an inordinate amount of coverage on this vis-a-vis foreign money coming into the Clinton campaign again, for heaven's sakes.
What do you want to talk about?
What do you think is more important to the country?
I don't think, I think, I don't think, I think basically that the conservative media has made the Clinton issue a very, do you want to talk or do you want me to talk?
Well, I'd want you to tell the truth.
The conservative media, what would that be, by the way?
The L.A. Times?
I think, no, but I think you're, but what I'm saying is I think that it's made a big issue.
And I think in some respects that listening to talk radio, they've made it a very big issue because it kind of overshadows this other thing.
I think both of these are not good issues.
You know, the question is, is that you're challenging, I guess, on the Clinton issue on the money is was there some surreptitious strategy or deceitful strategy?
And there's nothing that I've seen, nor apparently that anyone has seen.
Really?
Oh, so the family of a male carrier in Daly City, California, earning a modest income, surprise, surprise, donates $200,000 to the Clinton machine and the Democratic machine out of the blue, and they have this relationship with Norman Shu.
That doesn't surprise you at all.
And now apparently the guy's gone missing.
There's no history of this.
Can you say no controlling legal authority?
Buddhist fundraisers?
Can you say hard money and soft money?
I mean, there's a history of this, and it presents a much greater danger than Larry Craig's wide stance in a restroom stall.
And the point I'm making, Sean, is not to, I said yesterday that Craig should resign.
I said he should have resigned years ago.
But what I'm saying is last night on all of the cable stations, 24-7, it was what?
Larry Craig.
Now, why the inordinate amount of coverage?
Oh, I think it's titillating.
I listened to Larry King last night, and his one attorney said it's a titillating thing.
What are all the talk shows going to bring?
They're going to bring a thing that it's much easier to talk about sex than it is to talk about money.
Sean, nice try, but that does not explain the editorial glee in the Times this morning across the country calling the Republicans homophobic because the family values guy bites the dust and they're going to throw him under the bus because it was a homosexual scandal.
It's the sign of the Republican problem because they're homophobic.
So if you're not homophobic, apparently, if you're pro-gay rights in a very radical sense, then you can do anything you want in public.
But if you're not, well, then there's a different standard for you.
That's my point.
Thanks for checking in in Tampa, Florida.
You're Mark, I should say.
You're on the Rush Limbaugh program.
Hi.
Hey, how are you this afternoon?
I'm fine, sir.
I just had a little question in reference to the Larry Craig case.
Since when is it illegal to pick up somebody, gay or straight, in a restroom or anywhere else, for that matter?
Snurdley put you up to this, didn't he?
Now I know why we went to Mark near Tampa right off the bat.
There is a fine line.
I'll be the first to admit.
I mean, the law is very subjective.
We convict people beyond a reasonable doubt.
What's reasonable?
People have to decide that.
And what's reasonable about coming up to a young woman and saying, hey, I like your dress.
Or something.
Well, you can't even do that anymore, I guess.
Of course, it could be a man, so you've got to watch that as well.
Nevertheless, the point is, there isn't this bright line there.
But once you start in a public restroom to play FTSE with the guy in the next stall, you're lucky to get out of there without a broken nose, let alone getting busted by the cops.
Well, that goes beyond hitting on somebody.
Is there a law against that?
Like, I don't understand.
There's no law that says you can't play footsie.
Just when is that illegal?
Well, there's a law against solicitation.
And solicitation has various permutations.
And rubbing your foot against mine while I'm trying to do my business is probably one of them.
Was there an exchange of money or the mention of an exchange of money for this?
Well, it wasn't a matter of prostitution.
It was a matter of sex in a public place.
And even the First Amendment doesn't cover that yet.
Somebody that have sex, they don't have to agree.
It's not against what happens.
Yes, it is against the law.
I mean, I know obscenity when I see it, to quote a Supreme Court justice.
And when you're having sex in a public display, as long as it's not funded by the NEA, it's illegal.
So FTSE is gay sex then.
Well, this restroom is a haven for this sort of thing, we are told.
And that, along with the hand signs, apparently is the signal.
So they were getting ready to, according to the cop, according to the police report.
So if I wave at a lady and say, hey, you look good.
Well, let me just, no, wait, wait, wait, wait.
Mark, let me ask you.
No, I didn't say wave at a lady.
Let me ask you.
You're going to the bathroom with your abnormally wide stance, and somebody, somebody starts to rub your foot.
What are you going to do?
I'd say, look, I ain't gay.
Stop rubbing my foot.
Move on.
And he'd say, are you sure you're not latent?
All right, Mark, thanks.
Appreciate the call.
In L.A., where I spent one Belushi-filled year out in Canoga Park, here's Jim.
You're on the Rush Limbaugh program with me, Jason Lewis.
Hi.
Thanks, Jason.
I appreciate taking my time.
My pleasure.
Taking your time.
I look at this as a very, I don't want to say very good thing, but I think it's another defining moment for the Republicans and the Democrats, too.
This thing with the double standard, it really isn't a double standard.
The Republicans have set the bar, and our bar is we're honest and we're upfront and we don't live double lifestyles and cheat on our wives.
And the Democrats are the opposite of that, but those things they don't care about.
So when we do it, you bet they jump on us because they're pointing out the fact that our bait, our line, the sand, is right here.
And when we cross it, they jump all over for it.
Well, that's true.
There is that double standard, but they don't necessarily have a double standard or lead secret lives.
Barney Frank's out in the open.
It's just a different view.
Since you don't claim to be a saint, you don't claim to have quote-unquote family values.
Therefore, apparently that gives you carte blanche to do anything you want.
I think this is a cultural defining moment back after this.
Hey, gang, don't fear.
Rush will be back on Tuesday.
Best of Rush on Monday.
You don't want to miss that.
I am Jason Lewis.
Great honor to be On the Rush Limbaugh program, talking about, well, the scandal everybody is talking about.
No, it's not the Clintons.
Surprise, surprise.
Is somebody covering up for.
It's really, all right.
Let me just put it to you this way.
If you don't think this is about the underlying values, then how do you people, I mean, the liberal left is defending Larry Craig.
Now, I'm assuming, probably unfair to Mr. Craig, but I'm assuming some of the allegations are true.
The cop didn't know who he was when he got busted.
So what would be his reason for going after a guy he didn't know was a senator if he was trying to rise up the ranks.
So the liberal left is defending Mr. Craig.
So I'm assuming, I guess, that they think that public sex is okay, that they would be opposed to what the mayor of Fort Lauderdale is trying to do when he's trying to crack down on what's going on in their public parks, the park restrooms, and everything else.
This guy's under assault down in Fort Lauderdale.
He proposed public bathrooms whose doors automatically unlock after a short time, a feature he said would discourage the sex acts.
So is that what we're to believe then?
All right, if you're saying that Larry Craig is being thrown under the bus because of homophobia, are you then in favor of this?
Now, Mark from Tampa makes some fairly good points on, okay, where do you draw the line?
When does it become actual solicitation?
But above and beyond that, when it is actual fornication, you're either going to be for it or against it.
And I guess I'm left to believe that some people are for it, and therefore, if they get caught doing it, why it's okay?
Because I was never against it at all.
That sort of premise, what we call a false premise, uses or abuses the term consistency.
Is it better to acknowledge sin and fall short, or is it better to deny that sin exists and do anything you want?
That's the cultural debate here.
That's why it's a cultural defining moment.
By the way, down in Des Moines, Pole County, Iowa, a state judge yesterday struck down Iowa's law banning same-sex marriage or ordered the county recorder to permit the gay and lesbian couples there in Iowa, both of them, to marry.
How many gay and lesbian couples are at the Iowa State Fair this year?
Come on.
Nevertheless, this is what happened.
This is why some people want to amend their state constitutions.
It's not to protect them against a federal judge striking down the Defense of Marriage Act or DOMA so that someone could import it through the full faith and credit clause.
I mean, that was the fear.
I don't know if you're aware, after Massachusetts, everybody was afraid people would go to Massachusetts, then they'd come back to their state.
You'd have to recognize the marriage there because of something called the Full Faith and Credit Clause.
Now, granted, Congress invoked a public policy exception to that clause.
If my driver's license is good here, it's good in Alabama.
It's good in California.
That's the full faith and credit clause.
But there is a public policy exception right in the Constitution that says Congress may, by general laws, prescribe the manner in which such acts, records, or proceedings shall be proved and the effect thereof.
So Congress denied the full faith and credit application on this particular issue on people getting married in one state, gay marriage, and being imported in another state when they passed DOMA that Bill Clinton signed.
A federal judge might strike down DOMA, and then somebody could go to another state, get married, and your state would have to honor it.
But that doesn't do anything about state judges who miraculously find in the due process clause and the equal protection clause the right for gay marriage in Iowa.
The only thing that could stop that would be restoring sanity to the bench and/or a state constitutional amendment.
What's fascinating about this is what these judges are doing are neutering the police power of the states.
They are neutering the police power of the states.
Remember, what the police power is, the Constitution was written to protect us from the central government.
It was written to protect the states and the individuals from the central government.
It wasn't written to tell the states which laws they should pass, which laws they could impose on behavior.
If that's the case, if only Marriage between heterosexuals is discriminatory, then I guess the Equal Protection Clause would ban laws against marijuana, laws against prostitution.
They clearly discriminate on the basis of behavior.
And the Equal Protection Clause, in its distorted view, says you've got to treat everything equal.
Of course, that's not what the Equal Protection Clause meant.
The Equal Protection Clause came out of the 14th Amendment, the Civil War amendments, that essentially said for at least the next 100 years, that states can make all sorts of laws under their police powers option, but they've got to apply them equally, black and white.
It doesn't tell the states which laws to make.
And so we've distorted the Equal Protection Clause.
We've told schools they've got to spend more money on that nonsense.
Now state judges are doing it.
And this is just the diminution, if you will, or the destruction of that old relic we used to call the Constitution.
1-800-282-2882.
I'm Jason Lewis in for Rush Limbaugh up in Guilford, Maine.
Here is Chris.
You're next up on Open Line Friday.
Hi.
Hey, Jason.
I would say more the double standard thing in answer to your question about why they're covering it 24-7.
I mean, like I said to the call screener, you know, you don't have Republicans out there burning top secret documents that they stole out of the National Archives, right?
But they didn't even, that didn't get even as much time already as this Larry Craig thing.
It's amazing.
It's amazing that, you know, Clinton pardoned terrorists who actually blew things up and killed cops in New York, but Bush commutes a sentence to a guy that just forgot how he said something.
You know, I mean, remembering whether or not you had your tie on.
Don't get me going on the scooter Libby.
I mean, talk about a renegade prosecutor and Mr. Fitzgerald.
I mean, here you have no underlying crime.
Why didn't Patrick Fitzgerald?
I'm sorry I digress here, but I got to get my two cents in.
Why didn't Fitzgerald charge anybody else, Mr. Armitage or anybody else, with an underlying crime?
I don't understand.
It's a total double standard.
Well, now, let me finish my point.
How then can Scooter Libby be accused of perjury over something that wasn't a crime?
That's called a perjury trap.
I know.
That's what I don't understand.
The double standard that exists right now in the media for the Democrats and Republicans.
I mean, all the people that he pardoned at the end of his sentence, I mean, at the end of his administration that Clinton pardoned, I mean, these guys, they're talking about Enron.
I mean, these guys were Enron plus.
I mean, these huge, you know, rich people.
Mark Richard.
Well, you remember, his wife is getting ready to run for the Senate in New York.
I mean, you've got to take a proactive stance here.
Come on.
Yeah, you're right.
It's horrible.
I mean, the greatest double standard recently here is the U.S. attorney scandal, which finally brought down Gonzalez.
He fired all of them.
I wasn't a big fan of Gonzalez, but you're right.
Bill Clinton walks in there to get rid of the guy in Little Rock investigating Whitewater and maybe the guy investigating Rostenkowski in Chicago.
Two, they clean house on all 93 sitting U.S. attorneys in 1993.
And, you know, we like to see Bill Clinton projecting power, the power of the executive.
Like Hamilton said, energy in the executive.
Bush, six years into his term or into his presidency, gets rid of what?
Six?
Eight, I thought.
Six or eight.
They're thinking about six or eight, apparently.
Same thing as the travel office.
I mean, they fired everybody in the travel office, right?
I mean, these guys are the worst people to have in there.
I can't even believe that they would even have a chance of getting back into the White House.
It's so unbelievable.
I mean, even stealing the stuff out of the White House, everything they did was low life.
And now, now they're absolutely apoplectic about the wireless tapping that's going on over terrorism.
We're going to spy on terrorists, and they're going nuts over that.
Well, tell me again about those 1,100 FBI files that somehow found their way to the White House.
Talk about a warrantless search.
It could go on and on on this stuff, but you're right.
The double standard is deafening.
Bill and Fort Lauderdale, you're next up on EIB.
I'm Jason Lewis in for Rush Limbaugh today.
Hi.
Hi, I'd like to invite Larry Craig to come down here and run for mayor.
I knew that was coming.
I knew that.
Well, don't forget your latex gloves.
They'll elect them.
I would, you know, I'm on the other side of the fence, of course, but hey, they'd elect him hands down.
What do you mean you're on the other side of the fence?
You've got twice the chance of a date on Saturday night?
Is that what you're trying to say?
I'm a conservative.
Oh, okay.
I'm not going to side with these people trying to politicize this issue.
It's a mayor that they differ with ideologically.
What is the popular view of Mayor Jim Noggle down there in Fort Lauderdale trying to rein in the public sex acts?
Well, I mean, I can't speak for the general public, but I mean, just speaking as an individual, what he's saying is right.
You know, public sex in restrooms or anywhere is against the law, whether it be homosexual or heterosexual, and it should be spoken out against.
It should be the laws against it.
Are you sure it isn't symbolic speech?
You know, we have a wide latitude when it comes to First Amendment jurisprudence.
We need to be open.
We need to encourage this sort of thing, and we need to fund it with an NEA grant.
Maybe they can build a few restrooms down there.
According to police reports, 92 arrests in two and a half years in Fort Lauderdale.
That's about three a month for lewd and lascivious acts.
You know, this is a good example of how the bias in the media is palpable.
The fact of the matter is, it can cover the Larry Craig story, but after a while, is there another news angle?
Yeah, the other news angle is, gosh, what is the deal with this website that apparently shows 9,000 places where these things go on?
It's not a very well-kept secret on the internet.
That would be a good news angle.
Well, look, okay, Larry Craig, we beat that to death.
Pardon the pun.
Let's go on to this other issue and talk about, gee, is public sex really a problem?
Well, according to the mayor in Fort Lauderdale and many other places, it sure is.
Why isn't anybody talking about that?
I'm Jason Lewis in for Rush Limbaugh.
Open Line Friday continues when we return.
1-800-282-2882, the contact line for the Rush Limbaugh program.
Even when he's taking a well-deserved break, I am Jason Lewis filling in for Rush today.
He'll be back on Tuesday.
Best of Rush on Monday.
You don't want to miss that.
Back to the phones we go in Wichita, Kansas.
Debbie, you're on the Rush Limbaugh program.
Hi.
Hello, Mr. Lewis.
How are you?
Pretty good.
I'm sorry I've got a bad cell connection, but I just thought you should know that these sexual acts go on in the schools.
The kids do it.
I just tuned into your program and heard what you're talking about.
And I've heard of incidences where my kids, there's group kids will group around and shelter the kids that are doing sexual acts behind the staircase was one.
And when I chaperoned the dance, we had to keep breaking up circles because the kids will circle around and hide kids that are doing sexual acts in the middle.
Is this what they call hooking up?
I have no idea.
No idea.
I just know I chaperoned that one dance.
I'm generally fairly sheltered from it.
So for me to have actually been exposed to it is kind of surprising.
Well, you know, those liberal parents in the suburbs of Wichita, they'll probably say, oh, those knucklehead kids, those crazy kirks, what will they do next?
That was not Wichita.
That was not Wichita.
That was not my.
Sorry, my, they're military, and that was a different school system in Texas.
Don't want to degrade Wichita, do we?
Sorry.
No, it wasn't their fault.
You know, it's funny.
With all of the, you know, I want to get into this a little later in the program.
John Edwards is now suggesting a federal ban on smoking.
I'm not making this up with all the emphasis on smoking.
Let me ask you a blunt question.
I've done this before to people.
If you've got a 13 or 14 or even a 15-year-old, and they're either going to, A, try a cigarette, or B, try a little sex.
What would you have your young man or young woman try?
Well, I mean, this is kind of, you know, the lesser of two evils, obviously.
But if you had to choose as a parent, what would it be?
I'd say the long-term consequences of smoking are probably less.
Yeah, duh, you think?
You know, you take a drug?
I really do.
And yet, where is the outrage over this?
We are such a sex-filled culture.
I mean, where is the outrage?
You know, look, I'm not going to sit here on my holier-than-thou pedestal.
When I was in college, they thought I was majoring in agriculture.
I was sowing so many oats.
But the point here is that you look at all of the ramifications of this premature sex.
I mean, STDs are up.
Illegitimacy is still up, even despite the success of welfare reform.
What is more detrimental to the youth?
And yet, you would think some kid behind the barn smoking a drag for the first time at 15 is the end-all, is the end of the world as we know it.
This is talk about a perverse sense of priorities.
Where are all the nanny-state liberals when it comes to that?
Oh, I agree.
I just, I think, I think it just comes down to just stripping our kids of their innocence.
It's just sad.
Yeah, it really.
It really is.
They have no innocence anymore.
Let's call it primetime TV.
Yeah, you couldn't be more correct.
Debbie, thanks for checking in today.
Down to beautiful Bryant, Texas.
And Scott, you're on the Rush Limbaugh program.
Hey, Scott.
Hello, Jason.
Great show.
Great example, by the way, keeping things in perspective.
I'd like to change subject a little bit here, and I'd just like to say that President Bush continues to justify this Iraq war under the auspices of protecting or creating a democracy and protecting freedom and all that sort of business.
A much easier way of doing so, it seems to me, would have been to side with Taiwan instead of communist China in their bid for membership in the U.N.
Well, now, look, you've got to understand, nobody was talking about invading Iraq before a little incident just a few miles south of where I am called 9-11.
Is there a connection there?
Actually, there wasn't a direct connection, but there is a regional connection.
And that is, the theory was, and I'm not saying he was definitely right or wrong.
I'm certainly not one of those, though, that will arbitrarily say, I know all the answers and it's definitely wrong.
Things don't work out that cleanly.
What I'm saying is the theory was sound, and that was if we could establish a pro-Western Arab democracy in that part of the world, then perhaps we could give alternatives to the Muslim community other than radicalism.
Now, do you think, those of you out there that are dead set against the Iraq conflict, what would you have done?
I mean, we did go into Afghanistan, routed the Taliban as much as we could.
But if Osama bin Laden is hiding in the border between Pakistan and Afghanistan, and Musharraf says no foreign troops in our country, what would you have done?
Would you have gone into Pakistan?
No, the fact is you wouldn't have done anything.
And that's not much of an alternative, is it?
Well, I think that Saddam was actually very pro-Western, and until we more or less set him up with the Kuwait invasion, you can look up April Gillaspi on that.
Oh, yeah, and Scott, don't forget Scott Ritter.
Right.
I mean, look.
He was very much a useful person.
He wasn't a Boy Scout.
So he was invading Kuwait was just fine.
Well, actually, according to our representative, April, who said that we would not be involved in Arab affairs, when he was afraid of the United States.
You're begging the question.
Invading Kuwait was just fine.
Well, he was accusing them of slant drilling into his oil fields, and he came to us.
So you don't think he had – look, there has been – and I've got to let you go, Scott – but there has been this view of pan-Arabism long before 1947 in the state of Israel, long before we got involved in the Middle East.
And there's always been this competition among Arab leaders who would control the entire region.
And you're right, there's been this Sunni-Shiite balancing act.
But if somebody gets the upper hand, then you've got a real problem.
And whether it was Nasser or Nasser or anybody else, there's been this view of pan-Arab that one ruler should control the entire region.
And if you allow that to happen, I don't think that's probably healthy for the West.
I'm Jason Lewis.
Got a break.
You're on the Rush Limbaugh program.
Don't go away.
You know, pursuant to a Scott from Texas, we'll have a different view next hour when Pete Hegseth of Vets for Freedom.
You hear a lot about these military guys or a few generals that come out against the war, they get all the media attention.
What about the vast majority of military men and women that support the effort in Iraq?
Well, Vets for Freedom represents them, and Pete Hegseth, who's also an Iraqi vet, will join us next hour to give their view.
Speaking of the nanny state, I got to get this in before the hour's up.
And that is back in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, is there a race going on in Iowa?
Is there a caucus or something?
Oh, yes.
Back in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, last Monday, John Edwards told a candidates forum that he would favor a nationwide federal ban on smoking in public places.
Now, remember, smoking in public places now means private property.
A number of places have smoking bans in public places that now, by the way, include it could be your car, it could be a restaurant, it could be your bar.
It could be that's a private property.
You're paying the mortgage on that, not the government.
But by the way, just where in the Constitution, once again, Mr. Edwards, does it allow the federal government to ban smoking between two citizens of the same state?
Show me where that is in enumerated power.
Interstate Commerce Clause.
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