Rush Limbaugh Program - November 29, 2007, Thursday, Hour #1

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Nov. 29, 2007 - Rush Limbaugh Program

36:37

November 29, 2007, Thursday, Hour #1

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	Welcome to today's edition of the Rush 24-7 podcast.
	Well, I don't know how many people didn't watch the debate waiting for me to come tell you about it.
	If you didn't watch it, don't worry.
	I'm going to fill you in on everything that happened.
	It was an absolute disaster for CNN.
	It was just irresponsible, again, what they did last night.
	But there are many other things to say about this.
	And of course, the only unique take on all this that you'll get is from me, Rush Limbaugh here at the Excellence in Broadcasting Network.
	Three hours of broadcast excellence straight ahead.
	It's a sheer delight to have you with us today, folks.
	Telephone number 800-282-2882 and the email address, rush at EIBNet.com.
	I'm running on fumes today.
	I'm going to have to do something about this cat.
	This cat punkin head-butted me for an hour and a half today, starting at 5 a.m.
	This is a test of wills.
	I was not going to get out of bed and feed the cat.
	And so the cat just kept head-butting me.
	And, you know, I know it's because I had all these people here for Thanksgiving, and she stayed upstairs during all this.
	Last year, she came down and mingled.
	I think she's jealous.
	She thinks that she's a person after all these years.
	So anyway, I'm a little, I'm on fumes here today.
	I've got to do something about this, but I am not going to cave to a cat.
	I'm simply not going to do it.
	If I get out of bed, I guarantee you I'm not going to be able to go back to sleep.
	So I sit there and I try to continue with my eyes closed.
	And I mean, sometimes right between the eyes.
	Here comes that.
	No, you don't kick a cat out of the bed.
	I'm not going to be mean to the cat.
	I'm just not going to let the cat dictate what I do.
	Anyway, here's the phone number if you want to join us, 800-282-2882.
	The email address is rush at EIBnet.com.
	Before we get going on this, Henry Hyde passed away.
	I met Henry Hyde a number of times and once socially at the Four Treasons Hotel in Georgetown, down in a private room.
	And a bunch of us down there, Bill Bennett was there and Bill Crystal.
	And it was a dinner in his honor for a couple things.
	The way he had always stood fast on the issue of life and the way he had conducted the House managers during the impeachment of Bill Clinton.
	The way he provided or presided over the impeachment hearings was masterful.
	He was faithful to history.
	He was faithful to the Constitution.
	He didn't allow it to become a sideshow, but he also didn't allow it to become derailed by other people.
	Took his responsibilities very seriously, had a grand, grand sense of humor, just a tremendously gracious guy, loved an adult beverage and a cigar.
	He was also the leading voice of the unborn, not in a shrill way.
	He was articulate.
	He was compassionate and sincere, and he's going to be missed.
	And I hope, you know, if history is faithful to events, he will be remembered as one of the standouts of the House of Representatives.
	I admired him greatly.
	I mean, the first time I met him, I was asked to emcee something in Washington.
	It was in the late 80s, early 90s, and I just started this show maybe within a year or two.
	And there is some Washington hotel, I forget what it was, but I think it was an event to celebrate Ollie North for the way he had taken it to the select committee there on the Iran-Contra thing.
	And I had a grand time that night introducing all of the speakers.
	And I remember saying, so Ollie lied to Congress.
	Yay!
	So what?
	And Richard, I forget the columnist's name, but there was some liberal columnist was in there, right?
	It was not Richard Cohen.
	I'm sorry to insult this guy, but I don't remember his name.
	But he wrote a piece the next day.
	Well, what an event this was.
	The MC was applauding and encouraging everybody to lie to Congress, a bunch of pack rat Democrats who were lying about what had gone on in the first place, who were standing in the way of the advance of U.S. foreign policy and national defense against a beachhead the Soviets were trying to create down in Nicaragua.
	So, anyway, when it was all Henry Hyde was one of the speakers, Pat Robertson was one of the speakers, a lot of people.
	And after it was over, Henry Hyde, and I'd first time I'd met him, he came up to me, you are a good MC.
	And he was just as gracious and nice as he could be.
	And I'm really going to, I'm going to remind me a lot of my paternal grandparents in terms of his dignity and his stature, his sense of humor, his even temperate temper and temperament.
	He was just a gentleman through and through, and he will be missed, as I say.
	Now, nearly two-thirds of Americans, what is this?
	Is a Harvard University survey.
	Nearly two-thirds of Americans do not trust press coverage of the 2008 presidential campaign, according to a new Harvard University survey, also revealed that four out of five people believe coverage focuses too much on the trivial, and more than 60% believe coverage is politically biased.
	The findings were among those in Harvard Centers for Public Leadership, National Leadership.
	By the way, sorry for interrupting myself here.
	I got three emails after the program yesterday.
	Well, you really sounded down in the dumps, and this is not like you.
	You sounded really depressed.
	Did I sound depressed yesterday?
	I'm what in the world were people hearing?
	I was in a fun, frolic, and frivolity mood.
	That program yesterday had it all, as will this one.
	Anyway, 60%, more than 60%, don't trust campaign coverage.
	And what happened on CNN last night is a clear illustration of why.
	Now, I warned these Republican candidates way back in July, it was July 30th, don't do this.
	These YouTube debates are demeaning the office, and all you're going to do is you're going to go up there and you're going to face YouTube videos selected by CNN, which has an agenda and it also has a perverted, disgusting view of conservatism.
	It doesn't know CNN, none of the people there know what conservatism really is.
	They just think it's something abnormal and obtuse and weird.
	And so they're going to go find who they think are typically weird conservatives.
	And so we got a bunch of questioners.
	I swear, folks, I thought the Unabomber got out of jail and was back in his cabin doing videos to ask these guys questions.
	What kind of questions did we get?
	What would Jesus do about capital punishment?
	Guy held up the Bible.
	Do you believe every word in this book?
	And then there was the obligatory gun control question.
	And then they had some idiot standing in front of the Confederate flag in his basement asking some question about it.
	And then they had some idiot also asking a trilateral commission council on foreign relations conspiracy theory question to Ron Paul.
	Now you can think what you want about Ron Paul, but Ron Paul didn't say a word for 35 minutes, and that was the first question that he got.
	So obviously, CNN thinks he's a kook.
	They think everybody up there was a bunch of kooks.
	Now, I look at, I know that this is part of running for president, and I know that I'm not making excuses for the candidates.
	I'm not saying this was unfair.
	I'm not saying any of that.
	What I'm saying is that CNN is who they are, and our guys should have known this.
	It would have been better not to do this.
	This demeans the audience.
	And a lot of people on our side today are talking, wow, what a great debate.
	Well, we actually had some counterattempts going on between Rudy and Giuliani, Rudy and Romney, going out right out of the book there, right out of the gate on immigration.
	And it did take up the first half hour.
	And it wasn't bad in that sense, but this is supposed to be a Republican date with debate with Republican audience members and so forth.
	And it was just, I don't know, it was painful for me to watch because what the overall impression was left here is that Republicans are a bunch of kooks, that conservatives are a bunch of oddballs simply by virtue of the questions that CNN chose, not by what our guys said.
	Then, of course, the PS The Resistance, you've heard about it by now.
	They had a Hillary steering committee employee ask a question via YouTube, a guy named Keith Kerr, retired brigadier general.
	And he asks his question about gays in the military.
	Would somebody tell me when was the last time gays in the military became a huge issue in this presidential campaign on the Democrat side or the Republicans?
	Somebody tell me this.
	It isn't.
	It isn't.
	You had a gay agenda marching forward last night.
	So this guy asks his question, wants to know what's wrong with soldiers and sailors and so forth serving next to gay men and women because he said he thinks that the U.S. Armed Forces are professional enough to do this.
	It turns out the guy works for Hillary.
	He's on the Hillary Steering Committee, the gay lesbian bisexual task force or whatever.
	And then after his question is answered, then Anderson Cooper goes to the audience and there the guy is.
	He is from California.
	They flew him to Florida.
	He's one of two people in the audience that was handed a microphone and had a chance to debate the candidates himself.
	Cooper said, did you get the answer you were looking for, Brigadier General Kirsten?
	No, I didn't.
	And he starts making a speech.
	And finally, the audience booed the guy into silence.
	Then later in the night, Bill Bennett doing commentary after the debate.
	People are emailing him and saying, this guy works for Hillary.
	And so Bennett makes this announcement.
	Anderson Cooper said, we didn't know this.
	And CNN says they didn't know.
	All you got to do is Google his name for crying out.
	I don't believe that there's somebody at CNN that didn't know this.
	Now, everybody's trying to cover for Anderson Cooper today for some reason.
	Well, I think somebody at CNN must have known, but Anderson Cooper couldn't have known.
	It's his show.
	Anderson Cooper doesn't come out well either side of this.
	If he didn't know what was going on, then he's not in control of the show and he's not the big-time talent everybody says he is.
	If he did know about it and is acting like he didn't, then that's another thing altogether.
	It turns out that four or five of the YouTube questions were actually plants again from Democrats who are on the John Edwards campaign or Obama campaign or what have you, or supporters of those candidacies campaigns.
	It's just so typical of CNN.
	This is big news today.
	Even other cable networks are laughing at them because they're acting like they had no clue.
	They're a news organization.
	They can't vet whoever it is that's sending in their video.
	I don't believe they didn't know.
	Somebody at CNN had to know because they flew this guy all the way from California to be in the audience and they gave him a microphone.
	So I don't believe these denials that they didn't know what they were doing.
	Of course they knew what they were doing.
	Every one of these questions, the vast majority of them that they chose, were designed to be embarrassing by virtue of the idiots that they chose, the questions the idiots asked, and the pigeonholing of the candidates that resulted.
	But despite all this, there was something that was for the first time.
	Now, I've always known this instinctively, but there was something that for the first time just reached out of that TV screen and grabbed me and became obvious to me, even though I've known it.
	It became as obvious as anything I've seen last night, and that is this.
	Very, very simple.
	That debate last night put on full display the genuine moderate characteristics of all but one of the candidates.
	Be right back after this.
	Stay with us.
	Having more fun than a human being should be allowed to have El Rushbo with half my brain tied behind my back just to make it fair.
	Now, some people, I have to say, some people are saying CNN didn't plan anything.
	They're not that sophisticated.
	They're not that organized.
	Some people have a theory that, you know, it's just a result of group think.
	These people are all libs and they have a view of conservatism.
	And their view of conservatism is that conservatives are kooks and weirdos and oddballs.
	And so when they see a question like this from Keith Kerr and a senior people, they don't think anything about it because they think everybody looks at conservatives the way they do.
	And so they don't vet.
	I don't care what the theory is.
	CNN doesn't win no matter what the explanation.
	If they didn't know that this guy was who he is and some of these other questions that they chose were who they were, what does it say of it?
	They're a news organization.
	They're supposed to know things before anybody else does.
	They're not supposed to be informed by one of their commentators during an after-show that one of their appearance, guest appearances was a plant or a Hillary and act surprised about it.
	If they did know all of this and still went ahead with it, it means their elitism and arrogance is such that they don't care.
	I have to believe they're a little upset about this today, though, because this is, you know, it goes right to their image as a news organization.
	Forget unbiased, because that's gone out the window a long time ago.
	Now, there was also a question, get this, so typical.
	Do you think a woman who has an abortion should be put in jail?
	And of course, here are guys talking, oh, no, I forget who it was.
	And no, the doctor ought to go to jail.
	It might have been Ron Paul.
	I don't know who said it.
	But it was fascinating to me, as I said, to watch this because it hit me upside the head, even though I say as I instinctively knew this, that all of the top-tier candidates, because of these questions, see, there's always a silver lining in everything.
	There's always an upside.
	Some of you may not think of this as an upside or a silver lining, but the genuine moderate, as opposed to conservative, aspects of three of the top-tier, four of the top-tier candidates were on full-fledged display.
	Last night there was one candidate who did not display any moderateness or liberalism or have any of his past forays into those areas displayed, and that candidate was Fred Thompson.
	Now, this is not an endorsement.
	You know, I don't endorse during primaries.
	I'm just pointing out these are things I notice.
	And I've told you during the course of this whole campaign year that one of the things that's bothering me, I'm a Reagan conservative, and I believe conservatism, it's in my soul and it's in my heart.
	And I know it is the best way for us to manage our affairs to ensure most prosperity for the most, to continue our freedom, to protect our country.
	Conservatism sees people and sees potential.
	Liberalism looks at people and sees victims.
	Liberalism looks at people and sees incompetence, and we've got to help them out and keep them forever dependent so we'll always have power.
	Conservatives don't want to use the government to empower themselves.
	They want to get government out of the way to empower other people.
	So, to me, it matters.
	And we've got a campaign now where most of the candidates are not genuine conservatives.
	They may be saying they are, but in their past, they have done some things that are not conservative in any way, shape, manner, or form.
	And I think a lot of those things are being overlooked, even by friends of mine in the conservative media, because the obsession's Hillary.
	Well, we've got to have somebody who can beat Hillary.
	And we can't have the perfect candidate.
	And so we've got to make a choice here based on who is best equipped to win and beat Hillary.
	I understand that.
	And whoever the nominee is, I'm going to support them.
	So don't misunderstand here.
	But I don't like seeing conservatism being watered down as the way it's defined.
	I don't want people who are not conservatives being said to be representatives of the new conservatism.
	There is no new conservatism.
	There is conservatism.
	And you either are or you aren't.
	You can be 80%, but it depends on what the other 20% are.
	And I'm just telling you that last night, it was Huckabee and Rudy and Mitt Romney because of these questions, were all faced with the reality, and everybody watching saw it, that they've got some governance in their pasts that is not conservative.
	And this is something that it just hit me.
	Well, everybody's talking about Fred Thompson.
	Well, he's too lazy.
	He's too lackadaisical.
	He doesn't seem to have a whole lot of energy.
	Fine and dandy.
	I'm not going to argue with people and your perceptions about attitudes and so forth.
	I will say this.
	I don't think anybody would get into this mess running for the president to the media angel and all of these things.
	I mean, you can't imagine what these people go through.
	You wouldn't want to go through it.
	And I can't imagine somebody would put themselves through it if they really don't want it.
	And one of the arguments about Fred Thompson is, well, I can't see the fire in his belly.
	He's got a different personality than the others.
	We'll just have to see how all this shakes out.
	But those are the high points that I took.
	Now, some of the other questions, we've got audio soundbites of all this coming up after the next break.
	The abortion questioner, the YouTube question last night, was a declared Edwards supporter and also a slobbering Anderson Cooper fan.
	The log cabin Republican questioner, there was two questions on homosexuality last night.
	And the log cabin Republican questioner is a declared supporter of Obama.
	We even had a question about the lead content of choice, toys coming from the ChiComs.
	None of these questions would have ever been asked the Democrats, but the toy questioner is a prominent union activist for the Edwards endorsing United Steelworkers.
	It was a series of plants.
	Whether CNN knew it or not, it's what it was.
	All right, I want to grab a couple phone calls here before we start with the audio soundbites from the debate last night.
	And we'll start in Springfield, Illinois with John.
	I'm glad you called, sir.
	Welcome to the EIB network.
	Rush, I agree with everything you say.
	I love you.
	But on this particular case, I think the Republicans look great.
	I didn't mind that there were biased YouTube questions.
	You knew they were getting them.
	I didn't mind that Anderson Cooper was going to be a little bit biased.
	You knew that was going to happen.
	What I was impressed with is every Republican candidate handled all these questions calmly.
	They answered truthfully.
	They told us what they believed, and now you know who these candidates are.
	Also, when they argued with each other, they handled it calmly, and they acted like true statesmen.
	Can you imagine Obama asking Edwards if he got all of his money from malpractice suits?
	Edwards would get all upset about it.
	But these guys didn't get upset.
	Well, look, you know, there's a different playing field for Republicans and Democrats in these things.
	There's no question.
	I didn't say it was bad.
	My disgust here is with CNN and a little bit for doing this.
	I do think that this format demeans the office.
	I think to take questions like this from YouTube is the pop culture low common denominator.
	And it demeans the office to do this.
	And you're right.
	They're going to CNN and they're doing YouTube, and they've got to know what to expect.
	And it looks like they were somewhat prepared.
	They rose above it.
	They showed their true character.
	They showed that I got the feeling last night that every one of these men wants to be president.
	And they think they deserve it.
	All right.
	Look, I don't want to argue with you about this.
	I mean, there's not really no way to argue.
	When are some Democrats going to show that they want to be president?
	When are they going to ask Hillary the tough question?
	I mean, there was more toughness.
	I think you're misunderstanding me.
	It's not your fault.
	I am a professional communicator, a highly trained specialist, and I must not be conveying my attitudes about this well.
	I don't mind tough questions.
	I think all that's good.
	I just, I just, every one of these questions was clichéd, and it fulfilled for people who are out there making up their minds or what have you, whatever these misconceptions of conservatives are.
	We don't get these kinds of questions of liberals.
	You say rose above it.
	They may have risen above the questions, but they're a whole bunch of stuff that didn't get this.
	Can you believe national security and the war at Iraq didn't come up till the second hour?
	Why not?
	Because it's going well.
	I mean, there are a lot of things far more important to gaze in the military and whether somebody has read every word of the Bible and what would Jesus do?
	These are all questions that are born of a liberal mindset.
	And I'm just saying it could have been so much more.
	There's so much more those guys stand for than the stuff that they were addressing last night.
	You know, I asked you a question yesterday.
	When's the last time you heard a Democrat in the presidential field mention the word freedom?
	I didn't hear our guys mention it last night.
	This is an election about the future of the country.
	And I didn't hear enough about what this country is going to be if a Democrat wins.
	The only reference I heard to a Democrat was when Huckabee said he hopes if we go to Mars that Hillary's on the first spaceship out.
	But there's a lot of stuff that was left on the table last night because of the bias of CNN, because of the choosing of the questions.
	And no matter how you're looking at this in the context of the questions that were asked, and you're thinking, wow, our guys did good.
	That's a defensive posture because you're saying, well, we've got to answer these questions, the rules are the rules and so forth and so on.
	I'm going to tell you this, John.
	After that opening with this idiot who sang a song, did you guys see this?
	Oh, you didn't watch.
	The opening YouTube video was a guy playing the guitar, singing lyrics with his opinions of all the candidates.
	And of course, the camera is cut to each of the candidates while this guy's song is playing.
	And of course, they have to smile and so forth.
	If I had been on that stage and if I had been a serious contender for president after that, I would have said, Mr. Cooper, we are running for the presidency of the United States, and this is very serious, and you are making a joke out of this, and I'm going to go somewhere where I can discuss this seriously, and I'd walk off the stage.
	And I today would be leading the pack.
	We sat there last night, and I think there's a defensiveness.
	Well, we've got to answer these questions.
	We've got to look good.
	We've got to do this.
	I didn't see a whole lot of aggressiveness other than when Mitt went after Rudy and vice versa and so forth.
	And McCain took some pretty good shots at Ron Paul on the war once they got to that subject.
	But this was a joke.
	I mean, it's not hard to rise above a joke.
	Jim in Hartford, Connecticut, welcome to the EIB network, sir.
	Hello.
	Hey, Rush.
	How are you?
	Good.
	Good.
	About the debate last night, granted, the questions were cockamaming.
	I agree with that 100%.
	And you're right.
	There should have been a lot more stuff put out on the table.
	But I think what struck me and why I thought the debate was so good is if you compare it to the Democratic debates, they talked and they answered the questions directly.
	They didn't subvert the question by saying, well, my Republican rival would have, and bash Bush, bash Bush.
	They actually talked and answered the questions directly.
	At one point, one of the candidates said, yes, I would.
	And I thought that that was great.
	For the first time, somebody answered the question directly without having to bash the other side.
	They talked about what they thought.
	Yes, the questions were cockamammy, and they could have done, but I agree with you.
	It was technique.
	And technique, I think, last night showed through that the Republicans have technique and they can stand up and they have candor in what they do and they talk directly, as opposed to Democrats who subvert the questions and just don't answer the question.
	And I don't think that they ever can.
	I'm not disputing any of that.
	I'm just saying all that took place within the narrow confines.
	Absolutely.
	Took place within narrow confines and a narrow focus, and it was all clichés about conservatives.
	Give me a break, gays in the military.
	When has that been an issue of any prominence recently?
	And there was another question about, homosexual, I forget, oh, the log cabin Republican guy.
	And some of these, with a Confederate flag.
	You know, that's long ago.
	I just, those things are all clichéd.
	So you're looking at this, okay, you like the way our candidates answered the question about the Confederate flag.
	What I saw was CNN trying to make our guys out to be a bunch of racist bigots who are in favor of slavery, and they were being tricked up into trying to admit it.
	And so they get gold stars for not falling into the trap.
	Well, fine and dandy within that narrow context.
	But I'm just saying this presidential campaign is not about the Confederate flag.
	It's not about gays in the military.
	It's not about whether somebody's read every word in the Bible.
	It's not about what would Jesus say.
	This is none of the things that were asked last year.
	Very few of immigration.
	The first thing out of the box, immigration, I hope if you did watch this, I hope you noticed just how dominant that issue is and how important that issue is, the audience reaction to it.
	That was for me probably the highlight of this.
	But one thing that never came up last night was taxes.
	And they didn't bring up taxes.
	And I'm telling you, based on what's happening around the country and these referenda that took place in October or earlier this month, rather, taxes, tax increases are as big an issue as immigration is if the Republicans can make it so in an effective way.
	Judy in Cedars City, Utah, you're next on the EIB network.
	Hello.
	Oh, Rush.
	It's been a long time.
	Make a ditto.
	Thank you.
	Wanted to get true to you.
	My husband and I were watching it last night and laughed about this group of undecided quote-unquote Republicans.
	Oh, they're not undecided.
	They're all committed supporters of Democrats.
	Oh, we totally agree.
	That said, she was now after watching this, she said she was voting for Edwards.
	I couldn't have believed that.
	Why would you go to Edwards?
	Is this ridiculous?
	What?
	What am I missing here?
	She said this lady was sitting there and they asked her the group.
	You mean, wait a second.
	You remember the debate, the YouTube question?
	No, no, no.
	You know that group they had that were sitting aside and they were undecided Republicans?
	Oh, you mean what happened after the debate?
	Yeah, but.
	Oh, no, no, I didn't watch any of that because my ears were going nuts.
	Two hours of television audio just drives me nuts.
	I get a headache.
	So I turned that off.
	I wanted to save my projector bulbs on my TV.
	I didn't want to waste them.
	So would they have a focus group back there?
	Yeah, exactly.
	Oh, okay.
	So they had a focus group back there with these meters that register how people felt versus with each and every answer.
	Yes.
	And one of the people in the Undecided Republicans was an Edwards supporter and said so?
	Exactly.
	Well, hell's bells, folks.
	I mean, this is absurd.
	It's commercial time.
	Audio soundbites coming next.
	Well, we found another CNN plant, ladies and gentlemen.
	There was a kid last night, Ted Futuros from Manhattan Beach, California, and he asked a question about farm subsidies.
	He basically wanted to know which of the candidates will endorse the elimination of farm subsidies.
	He said, nothing says delicious like cheap corn subsidized by the American taxpayer.
	For a lot of Americans, however, a bitter taste is left in their mouth when they learn about how the U.S. taxpayer bankrolls billions of dollars in farm subsidies that mostly go to large agro-business interests.
	I'm curious which candidates who label themselves fiscally responsible will endorse the elimination of...
	This guy's an intern for California Congresswoman Jane Harman.
	CNN is an outright joke.
	They are an outright joke.
	Every one of these questions, it seems like, has a connection to a Democrat candidate or a Democrat elected official.
	And yet they claim that they just didn't know.
	Anyway, the farm subsidy question was actually answered pretty well by Mitt Romney.
	So what do you say?
	What's the deal with farm subsidies?
	You know, the farm bill is something.
	Why would CNN pick a question about farm subsidies?
	Would the Democrats be asked any of these questions last night?
	No, no, let's go to the audio sound bites in case for those of you that have not heard or didn't see any of the debate.
	Here is YouTube questioner retired Brigadier General Keith Kerr.
	My name is Keith Kerr of Santa Rosa, California.
	I'm a retired Brigadier General with 43 years of service, and I'm a graduate of the Special Forces Officer course, the Command and General Staff course, and the Army War College.
	And I'm an openly gay man.
	I want to know why you think that American men and women in uniform are not professional enough to serve with gays and lesbians.
	Right.
	So, frankly, you know, I've been paying attention to this campaign.
	I didn't know that this was such a breakout front page issue.
	Did you?
	Have the Republicans been talking about gays in the military?
	Has it been a front-page issue?
	Have I missing something?
	All right, so all the candidates took their turn at answering this.
	And then Cooper says, by the way, he's here tonight.
	He's in our audience.
	And he turns to Keith Kerr, who's got a microphone, a wireless mic in his hand.
	And Cooper says, did you feel you got an answer to your question?
	With all due respect, I did not get an answer from the candidates.
	What do you feel you got?
	American men and women in the military are professional enough to serve with gays and lesbians.
	For 42 years, I wore the Army uniform on active duty in the reserve and also for the state of California.
	I revealed I was a gay man after I retired.
	Today, don't ask, don't tell is destructive to our military policy.
	Well, then go ask the woman you are supporting, Hillary Clinton's husband, who instituted the damn policy, sir.
	These Republicans had nothing to do with don't ask, don't tell.
	It was a Bill Clinton issue.
	You never apparently revealed you were gay while you were serving.
	You revealed it afterwards?
	Not clear on this.
	But go ask the Clintons about this.
	This was one of two people who was given a microphone in the audience to ask, or it was asked by Anderson Cooper, did you get the answer you wanted?
	I forget what the other guy's question was, but he didn't make a speech.
	When Anderson Cooper said, did you get the answer you wanted?
	The guy just said no.
	Bill Bennett, this is from the roundtable discussion, the panel after the debate was concluded.
	Bill Bennett and Anderson Cooper here.
	I'm getting a ton of emails saying that this guy who asked the question is part of Hillary Clinton's gay steering committee.
	That's interesting.
	I had not heard the possibility that he is on some sort of steering committee for a Democratic campaign.
	It's something we should follow up on because certainly I had not heard that and had no knowledge of, nor do I think anyone here.
	And if so, that should have been certainly disclosed, and we would have disclosed that.
	I do know that he is an activist of some sort, but I had not heard he's actually working for Camania.
	If so, that would certainly be an issue that should be addressed immediately.
	Yeah, well, it's being addressed today, I guess.
	Anderson Cooper in the past has said, look, campaign activists are people too.
	They're real people.
	That's not what CNN means when they're going to get undecided real people on these YouTube videos.
	They also threw a question from Grover Norquist, who is not a real person.
	Grover is a conservative activist in Washington, Americans for Tax Reform.
	And he did ask a question, will you take the tax pledge not to raise taxes?
	And it was interesting.
	All these candidates, I'll make that pledge to the American people, but not Grover Norquist.
	So I think CNN, somebody thought they were balancing all this up by throwing a Republican activist in there with his YouTube question.
	I don't know Grover that well, but I hard for me to believe that Grover would just sit down and do a video and send it in and hope it get picked.
	Wouldn't be surprised if somebody at CNN called and said, hey, Grover, would you do one of these things?
	Because we, well, for whatever reason.
	I'm just speculating about that, and I probably shouldn't.
	Oh, I know.
	They ought to be, people ought to be livid about this.
	That's why I wanted to wait until after we got some phone calls from people who I knew were going to.
	The Republicans did look good last night, but in the context of this, they look good within a narrow sphere.
	But you should have seen it.
	You can't tell me that a brigadier general living in Santa Rosa, California, flown to Florida and given a microphone to assess the answer to his YouTube question is not a plant.
	Quick timeout.
	Don't go away.
	We'll be right back.
	I'm going to tell you, for CNN, there's a pattern here of this kind of plants, and then they act like they didn't know it.
	This is worse than when NBC blew up a truck on dateline to make it look like if you buy one, you're going to die.
	Made it look like it was a spontaneous explosion when they blew it up.
	Here's more of Anderson Cooper following Bill Bennett's revelation.
	Bill Bennett earlier mentioned that he was getting some reports from friends of his on the internet that Brigadier General Keith Kerr, who asked a question about gays in the military during this debate, was on a steering committee for Senator Hillary Clinton.
	That was certainly something unknown to us.
	We have just looked at it.
	Apparently, there was a press release from some six months ago, Hillary Clinton office saying that he had been named to some steering committee.
	We don't know if he's still on it.
	We're trying to find out that information.
	But certainly, had we had that information, we would have acknowledged that in using his question if we had used it at all.
	I, doing a lot of investigating last night, I ran into a couple people who told me, and I have not been able to confirm this, that this Keith Kerr guy was a guest on CNN some years ago.
	About, I don't even, I don't know about what, but it just stinks, folks.
	It just, this is an organization that claims it's a journalistic, fair, and objective.
	We know it's not.
	It's a fraud.
	And I'm telling you that this, this is, this is, they've, even their arrogance and elitism aside, they have got to be disturbed by this today.
	But there's a pattern.

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